“A mediocre plan that you stick to always outperforms a perfect plan that you never stick with.”
This has been a difficult one for me to accept. Being a perfectionist for most of my life, I had a hard time doing something unless I could be perfect.
The major problem with this is that, in an effort to be perfect I missed out on so many things around me, and I wasn’t able to get as many things done.
The interesting thing to think about is that being “perfect” is an arbitrary metric that either you, or someone you look up to has made up. In other words, it really doesn’t matter.
Getting stuck trying to be perfect does little more than create high levels of performance anxiety, often times freezing you out of doing anything at all.
Let’s also not forget that there’s no such thing as being perfect, unless you’re some sort of God. Would you place God-like expectations on someone else? Probably not. So why do we place those kind of unrealistic expectations on ourselves?
Rather than trying to be perfect, you’re better off focusing on being consistent.
Don’t have time to deep clean the house? See how much you can tidy up in 20 minutes.
Don’t have 5 hours/week to workout? Make the time for 2 hours/week.
Don’t have time to read a whole chapter? Read for 10 minutes a day.
20 minutes/day of cleaning adds up to 2 hours and 20 minutes per week.
2 hours/week working out adds up to 104 hours per year
10 minutes a day of reading adds up to 300 minutes per month.
This is the power of focusing on being consistent rather than being perfect.
Choosing the plan isn’t hard, doing the plan isn’t hard, sticking to the plan is hard.
Why?
It’s hard because you get used to it. It starts to become less and less exciting. Your emotions get the best of you, and you give into not doing something simply because you don’t feel like it.
The difference between people who hit their goals and people who don’t? The ones who do hit their goals stick with it and stay consistent when conditions aren’t perfect.
Make it a great week!
