The Perfectionist Letdown

At the beginning of each year, I usually write a post about goal setting, but not this year. Why? Because I want to remind us of something important: none of us are capable of reaching perfection. This isn’t meant to offer a defeated or a ‘woe is me’ tone, nor is it a ‘get out of jail free’ card, but it is supposed to serve as a much-needed dose of reality. (I like to think of myself as an optimistic realist.)

Yes, you are more than capable of reaching your wildest dreams, but we all have bad days along the way. There are days we won’t wake up on time, or go to the gym, or eat the right foods, or say the right things, but imperfection is one of the beautiful things that make us human. We can have all the rules, laws, and commandments in the world, and still know that relying on one’s self for all of life’s answers is a losing battle. Thus, the point cannot be to lead ourselves back to our own selves, because we will always fall short.

None of us will ever be perfect, and that in itself is the perfectionist letdown. But the good news is that this isn’t the end of it all. We still must keep forging ahead, because we are all called to much more than where we currently are.