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The Impossible Goal of Perfection
Every week I have calls with people who are caught up with the impossible goal of perfection. Many have waited for years to start their online businesses because they wanted everything to be done right, with no mistakes or flaws before they shared it with the world. “Right” is code for “perfect” and it doesn’t exist in our world.
As a classroom teacher I had children of all ages who were frozen in the quest for perfection. When their work could not live up to this impossible standard they’d break into tears or act out or shut down. I had to calmly and gently explain to them why perfection was not our goal, but excellence was a worthy one.
I called it the beauty of imperfection. Years later John Legend would call it “perfect imperfections” in his popular song “All of Me.”
One of my little dogs, Kali has one eye slightly larger than the other. She must have been born that way but no one noticed until she was a couple of years old. When anyone points this out to me I say she’s this way so I can tell her apart from all the other dogs in the world. She is perfectly imperfect to me.
I’m so glad Bill Gates didn’t wait until DOS was perfect to create and sell the first personal computers. If he has been holding his breath he would have turned blue long before he began selling it the way it was. It was good enough…
