There Can Be Joy in Inperfection

Good Morning,

 

Having Goals and Goal Setting, forming strategies and action plans have been a mainstay of our culture for some time. Goals are good, although there are times when our goals can cause us a lot of grief and disappointment.

 

Goals too easily achieved can cause a sense of invincibility or even boredom. Solution, make harder goals.

 

Goals too hard to achieve can cause a sense of inadequacy or even depression. Solution, make easier goals.

 

In making easier goals, we have to understand that we are not going to be perfect in everything we do. That not hitting our goals does not mean that we are bad or inadequate.

 

A runner, in their first week of running, who eyes the breaking the 4 minute mile will have a hard time achieving that goal. Facing those challenges, someone could assume that they will never be able to hit the mark and give up.

 

A better approach is to look at not achieving goals in a different light, such as an organization looking to improve itself by setting goals not to compete with local competitors, but with world class organizations.  While they may never get as good as the best, they will certainly get better than the local competition. In this case, not achieving the goal is a good thing as achieving the goal itself was never the goal, rather the improvements gained along the way.

 

Understanding that we are imperfect people (pause for effect), we can find greatness right where we are in our own imperfection.

 

That, though, does not mean that we stand still, rather we look to improve ourselves by working toward goals, even it if it only by reading a few pages a day, listening to a few minutes of a podcast or chatting with a mentor in passing.

 

When we learn and grow daily, we improve ourselves, and when we don’t place unobtainable goals in front of ourselves, we reduce our stress of attempting to achieve the impossible while we find joy in our imperfections.

 

We may never be the best in anything we do, and that is okay. Focus on what we can do, and take the next step up.  Then tomorrow, do it again.  

 

Enjoy!

 

Sanford Berenberg

Sanford@berenberg.net
http://www.learnandgrowdaily.com

http://sanfordberenberg.blogspot.com/

 

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