The Strong Within Affirmation Podcast
Education:Self-Improvement
420 I Choose Efficiency Over Perfection | February 2018 Saturday Week 4
Synergistic Saturdays-#420 February 24th The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast
I Choose Efficiency Over Perfection
“Some people mistake grit for sheer persistence - charging up the same hill again and again. But that's not quite what I mean by the word 'grit.' You want to minimize friction and find the most effective, most efficient way forward. You might actually have more grit if you treat your energy as a precious commodity.”
~Reid Hoffman
I work to teach people to be more efficient than to be better. It’s not that good is bad, or that you shouldn’t work to achieve something better in your life. But it’s those terms that are subjective to whoever’s saying them. One person’s good is another person’s bad; and sometimes when we are consistently looking to become better, we burn ourselves out from never being satisfied. We are always trying to achieve just a little more and never stopping to celebrate our small wins. We can mistake being better as beating our head against a wall harder. And it can be a slippery slope to get caught in the idea that whatever we do will never be good enough…and that’s a tiring way to live.
So instead of only being good, or working to be better what if you were to look at being more efficient. When you’re working towards a goal, what if you were to ask yourself how can I be more efficient in reaching this goal? While that can seem like a subjective term, being more efficient helps us to be awakened to be more deliberate in what effectiveness looks like. Whereas good or better don’t really have measuring sticks, it’s just about trying to do something more and hopefully being successful. Efficiency makes us be more deliberate, as we are asked to be awakened in our lives.
Perfection is a plague, and it affects all of us some of the time, some people more than others. And the idea of perfection cripples us when we are trying to obtain it because it’s unobtainable. This point makes me think about a comic strip I used to read called Mother Goose and Grimm. The best part of this Sunday comic strip was the dog, Grimm. Grimm loved to chase cars, and in one drawing I remember he was all bandaged up head to toe chasing a car in a wheelchair…and the lady in the passenger seat of the car looks back and says “Boy that dog never quits.”
I always remember him chasing cars and smashing his nose in when realizes it’s parked. Which I found hilarious, and still do…as you can tell I’m easily amused. But we are like that dog, endlessly chasing one parked car after another. We run into that parked car trying to catch something unobtainable and when we see that the car isn’t perfect and it didn’t have what we were looking for we chase another parked car, and another. We endless pursue the goal hoping we can reach it, but no matter what’s in that car we’ll never be satisfied because the goal is always changing…and it will never be good enough.
And I believe one great way to fix our obsession with chasing the unobtainable (besides imagining ourselves chasing parked cars) is to forgive ourselves.
You aren’t going to know everything, you aren’t going to be Superman or Superwoman 100% of the time to everyone, and you aren’t God all knowing and all powerful. We all have limitations, and when we forgive ourselves for having limitations, we begin being more efficient in our lives. We become efficient in making ourselves and the world around us healthier.
And to be healthy within our mind and bodies is to know what’s important to us. I’m a people pleaser. I want to do anything for anyone because I love helping people, but also it was a self-esteem thing for me too. Because if you are saying yes to everyone, then they can’t be mad at you right? But you can’t be everything to everyone, and if you’re chasing perfection and always saying yes, you’ll be failing more times than you’re helping. Because everything you say yes to is something else you will have to say no to. And most times you will be saying no to yourself and be getting burned out and resentful from not being able to set clear boundaries for yourself.
It’s ok to say no, it’s ok to not be everything to everyone. Because really what we want to do in life is do whatever we do…well. But if we’re trying to do it all, we began doing it ALL… poorly.
You are going to fail, I am going to fail, so wouldn’t you rather fail at things you choose to pursue? Wouldn’t you rather get better by learning from those mistakes in pursuing what’s important to you? And don’t you want to have more energy for yourself and the people around you so you can actually achieve goals instead of always fizzling out from burn out?
You can do anything you want in this world, but most of us are trying to do it all at once. So when you forgive yourself and understand while you might be Superman or Superwoman… you can’t be that for everyone all of the time. So find what matters to you, find ways to fail and learn from your mistakes, find more ways to say no to the things you don’t want to do so you can say yes to the things you do want to do, and love yourself by knowing that you really never wanted to be perfect…you just wanted to be efficient at whatever you put your effort into. And when you focus more on efficiency than perfection, you can stop hurting yourself from chasing parked cars.
Today’s Personal Commitment:
What are you endlessly pursuing that’s wearing you out? What are the things that are stealing your energy, what people are wearing you down, and what habits would you like to leave behind?
Change seems hard because we want to do it all at once. We go on a diet and we want to lose all that weight as fast as possible. Or we want to win the lottery rather than save and invest efficiently. It’s rare where I hear someone say “I want to do it slow and the right way. I want to be challenged.”
And maybe those statements might sound silly to some people, but when you have to work for something…when you have to toil and be deliberate about slow change…you create lasting change.
So write down all your energy stealers from habits, to people, and to pursuits…and ask yourself if you can either leave some of them behind or if there’s a way you could be more efficient in your pursuit? It really all comes down to choice—what matters to you most, and what you’re willing to let go of to get closer to your worthwhile goals. Doing something well but falling many times is better than doing something right and never reaching perfection. When you prioritize efficiency over perfection…you will always come out ahead.
In fact, I had a long and hard day today. I’m worn out, and I felt this was a crappy podcast and I need to re-do it or spend more time fixing it…but I was like “you know what…good enough is good enough.”
I am my hardest critic. I know I have some great podcasts, and I know some will fall short of that…so I am leaving behind perfection right now and working on being efficient to go and enjoy my Friday night. Thank you guys for reminding me…you guys are teaching me something every day. Thank you.
I Choose Efficiency Over Perfection
Thanks for listening. I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together,
Personal Development Life Coach-
Chris O'Hearn
Contact info- email: chris@strongwithin.com phone:865-219-3247
Music by:
- Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
- I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
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