The Illusion Called PERFECT.

It keeps you looking into the future for a time, event, outcome or status that your mind would agree describes the definition of "perfect". A term the dictionary (definition from Oxford Languages) defines as "having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be."

I would love to meet the person who has all the REQUIRED or DESIRABLE (especially this one) elements, qualities or characteristics at a given time in their journey through life, where the desire to aspire goes numb for a bit, and they enjoy their perfect state.

Perfect is an illusion.

David D. Burns has it right when he said,

"Perfection' is man's ultimate illusion. It simply doesn't exist in the universe... If you are a perfectionist, you are guaranteed to be a loser in whatever you do."

That sounds harsh, especially the "guaranteed to be a loser" part; I wouldn't go that far because, as a recovering perfectionist, I know wins are possible when I am more intentional about curbing my urges for perfectionism.

I haven't done a great job of curbing my urges to find perfection in recent times. When confronted with facts and hard data about my life, I see how these urges have blocked me from going for the "good," the "better," or the "best."

By waiting for perfection, I all but stopped taking the actions that would take me from my current state to a good, better, or best state. As time passes, finding the way out of the rut caused by the inaction caused by a quest for perfection becomes more complex and very challenging.

The quest for perfection has prevented me from writing the follow-up to my May article on The Power in Starting; as with many other things, I have pushed for a later time because I hoped to get all the desirable elements, qualities, and characteristics I needed to take action.

I am using this piece to remind myself about the illusion called "perfect" and how it is a blocker to making small, measurable, actionable, repeatable, and timely progress that moves me closer to good, better or best in any quest.

So, in my quest to consistently write on LinkedIn and improve my presence here, I choose to post one article daily for the next 30 days. I don't have topics I want to write about right now, so I will not focus on pre-planning topics because I want to avoid getting into the rabbit hole of finding the perfect topic.

Just like today, I'll hit 'Write article' on LinkedIn and dive in with the thought that's top of mind.

Join me on this journey to fighting the urge for perfection, one small action at a time.