5 Ways Trying To Be Perfect Is Ruining Your Success

Nobody is perfect, we spend a lifetime telling people that perfect just doesn’t exist, it’s boring and it’s not realistic. However, striving to be the best is perfectly normal, naturally we want to succeed and we often won’t rest until we have done just that. It’s far more important to remember that whilst it’s okay to want to be the best version of yourself that doesn’t mean you have to be perfect.

People make mistakes and that’s okay, it’s what makes us human. Here are a few reasons why striving for perfection isn’t always for the best.

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1) Perfect doesn’t exist.

Unless of course you are Barbie but even she has her minor faults. We may strive for perfection but you have to ask yourself what that really means, everyone’s view of perfect is probably very different to your own therefore its very hard to pinpoint what perfection even is, meaning striving for it is a very relentless process. It’s often easy to use ‘perfection’ as a guiding point, you look at what other people are doing and think their lives are perfect compared to yours, you envy other people’s businesses, but perfection is just one small square in an altogether bigger picture, so don’t worry about people who seem perfect compared to you – they aren’t!

2) Searching for perfection often leads to failure.

By setting yourself the impossible task of reaching a goal that most probably cannot actually be reached you are setting yourself up for a huge fall. This ultimately means a knock in confidence, a feeling of failure and a whole lot of unnecessary upset. Instead, you should aim to make small improvements and set yourself realistic day by day goals, this way you will visibly be able to see your progress and will feel more much confident in your abilities.

3) Focus on the journey, not the destination.

Striving for perfection is a long term goal and often you will never actually reach that end goal which can lead to you feeling defeated and disheartened. It’s far more important to focus day by day on the progress you are making instead of thinking too far in advance. Small setbacks happen, that is just a way of life, just remember to learn from them and use them as motivation to move forward.

4) Imperfections are beautiful.

In a world obsessed with image, it’s easy to be very self-critical and put way too much pressure on yourself. The image that you often see portrayed in the media could be deemed as perfect, but that image is only created through an image enhancing photo editor. The image is not real and neither is the image that we see as perfection. Everyone is different and everyone is beautiful, the parts of you that you see as being imperfect are actually the parts of you that people will find most beautiful. Once you realise this, your self-confidence will skyrocket which has a direct impact on how successful you feel!

5) Perfection won’t make you happy!

It’s so easy to think that once you’ve achieved the goal, once you and your life are perfect and you’re the envy of others, you’ll be happy. That’s just not true! There’s always more you will strive for, and you cannot gloss over life’s tough moments with false perfection. The real perfect moments happen in amongst mess, in chaos and when you’re caught off-guard! Remember that.