The 100% illusion: It’s OK to be good enough and not great

Good enough is perfect. Don’t chase illusion at the expense of your life. It’s not worth it. 100 percent perfection is a moving target in life, work, relationship or almost every area of your life.

Good enough delivers results. And it’s better than making excuses and making no progress. A good enough mindset can help you approach life from an incremental progress perspective.

It’s an anchor that keeps delivering without aiming for a perfect illusion. Your life or work is a work in progress — don’t hold yourself to unrealistic standards.

A perfect outcome is a trap

People with perfect ambitions stress themselves in almost all situations. They aim for a target that keeps moving and become miserable in the process.

The perfect approach to life and work is tiring. It’s an investment of time, energy and emotions with almost no tangible results.

It’s psychologically draining. When your expectations are high, but you keep moving the target, you will never meet them. “Perfectionism is the inability to let your expectations go”, writes Lawrence Yeo of More to That.

By all means, strive to do your best work every day. Do your best for your creative pursuits, health, relationships, or finances and know when it’s good enough to let go of your 100% illusions.

The high bar is an illusion

Done will always be better than perfect. “A good plan today is better than a perfect one tomorrow.” General George Patton said.

Good enough is knowing when your work, effort and commitment is worthy enough to let go or move on. It’s the rare ability to recognise that aiming for a perfect outcome is a waste of time.

The burning desire to get a perfect score in everything you do can take a toll on your mental health. When you feel like what you do is not good enough, you waste a lot of brain energy on tiny details that rarely move the needle.

Brad Stulberg of Outside says, “…sustainable progress, in everything from diet to fitness to creativity, isn’t about being consistently great; it’s about being great at being consistent. It’s about being good enough over and over again.”

If you are in it for the long haul, an unrealistic or unreasonable goal will stress you. A commitment to a moving target can lead to a life of frustration, disappointments and suffering.

A commitment to a good enough outcome you can sustain can ensure your best work without sacrificing quality. “In many ways, being good enough is better than trying to be extraordinary,” argues André Spicer of The Guardian.

Good enough doesn’t just apply to how we work, create, design or build things. It also applies to building better habits and improving ourselves.

A system that delivers results every day or a routine that allows you to make real progress every day is far better than a single outstanding sprint that causes stress, frustration and burnout.

Good-enough creative habit allows you to do more of what makes you come alive without sacrificing quality. It prevents procrastination.

The most important day of your creative journey is the day you decide to focus on building, launching and shipping without obsessing over perfection.

Good enough is the new “perfect”

“In many situations, we don’t need to make a perfect choice but just a good-enough choice,” says Gretchen Rubin, the author of “Better Than Before”.

Every time you feel like you are not good enough or don’t measure up, remind yourself that you are not in the perfect business.

And that the real world rewards those who get things done — not those who stall or aim for a perfect outcome.

Your job is to get things done, make real progress and do more of what makes you come alive. The only practical way forward is consistent progress. That’s how you overcome the fear of imperfection.

In all your pursuits, remember what Robert H. Schuler once said, “Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing flawlessly.”