Sometimes good is good enough
Well-being 🌿 | Letting go 🍃 | #Goode enough #Perfectionism #Realistic
TL;DR
Striving for perfection can lead to stress and burnout.
Accepting that 'good is good enough' can lead to contentment and balance.
Setting realistic goals, focusing on progress, and enjoying the journey are crucial for well-being.
Seed
Life can be demanding, and we can all feel the pressure to achieve perfection in everything we do. But striving for perfection can be exhausting and overwhelming, leading to stress, anxiety, and burnout.
Sometimes, it's essential to remind ourselves that good is good enough. You don't always need to achieve perfection to be successful, happy, or content. Instead, focus on doing your best and accepting that sometimes, that's enough.
People may feel the need to be perfect because of different reasons, such as what society expects, their own values, or things that happened to them in the past. However, it's important to ask yourself if these expectations are really realistic and necessary.
By re-evaluating your expectations, you may find that it's okay to let go of the need for perfection in certain areas of your life. This does not mean giving up on your goals or settling for mediocrity. Instead, it's about finding a healthy balance between striving for excellence and accepting that good is sometimes enough.
Good is not perfect, good is not excellent.
Good is not mediocre, good is not passable.
Good is valuable and good can be good enough.
A critical aspect of this is learning to set realistic goals and expectations for yourself. Instead of striving for perfection, aim for progress and improvement. Celebrate your successes, no matter how small, and use them as motivation to continue working towards your goals.
Remember, life is a journey, and it's essential to enjoy the process, not just the destination. Perfection is an ideal that's often unattainable. But happiness and contentment can be achieved by learning to accept that sometimes, good is good enough.
Finally, keep in mind that the idea here is that not everything needs to be great, excellent or perfect. There are many things that can be good enough. The important is to focus your efforts where they matter most.
So, the next time you feel the pressure to achieve perfection, take a step back and ask yourself:
What is the worst that could happen if I don't reach perfection?
What would be the incremental benefit of reaching perfection at this stage?
Isn't this already good enough?
Example
This Seed allows me to write one article a week for this blog. I’m not a professional writer/blogger, English is not my native language, and there’s a lot that could be improved in my writing. But I believe these articles are good enough to be shared and add value to my readers. So instead of trying to make them perfect for months, I accept publishing them when they’re good enough.
Bonus
Who doesn’t love a good motivational speech? Just be careful how these can lead you to thrive for excellence in areas where you don’t necessarily need to reach perfection.
If you’re a perfectionist, it turns out that accepting good instead of perfection might be the key to helping you feel great about your life.
And finally, I think that’s the best Seed to promote this Substack:
Good Enough | Whitney Goodman, LMFT | Substack