The Concept of Perfection

​Misinterpreted and misunderstood and often misinterpreted state of personal and professional performance that many of us strive for

Many of us, if not most of us, strive for perfection in one way or the other, at everything that we do, every single day. However, what is perfection? Is there such a thing? Is it even realistic? I believe that perfection is the term that many people are hiding behind when things do not go according to plan. For example, we set out to do something big, create a plan, tell everyone proudly about it, and go after it (ex. Reaching a level of perfection in time management and organization). Then, once we feel that we have everything under control, life happens, and new variables are added to our daily routine. Perhaps, your boss at work decides that he or she wants to now receive a daily report first thing in the morning, as soon as workday begins, as supposed to receiving it at noon each day. You had a system, everything was planned out and scheduled, you knew that information that you need to put such report together would be delivered to you before noon, and you would work on putting everything together during carefully scheduled time blocks between your morning meetings. Now, you must quickly change your plans, your schedule, and reset expectations with other groups in order to obtain information that you need to receive on a specific cadence, which also impacts daily routine and processes of those individuals, often resulting in missed deadlines or less than expected quality of final product delivered, when you know that neither of earlier mentioned outcomes is acceptable. So, would you say that your process of time management and organization is still at the same ‘expert’ level that it was before the change, especially from the outside view perspective? I don’t think so. Would you say that your approach to time management and organization would remain unchanged, regardless of changes that may be introduced? I wouldn’t think so. Why? Because, in order to continue to deliver top quality results while adjusting to new requirements, we must change our approach as well, and how we go about accomplishing goals and objectives set without compromising quality and without missing any deadlines. Our approach would need to change and be optimized, our process of creating and gathering information that we require would also need to change for that to happen. So, would we ever reach a level of perfection with variables that are constantly changing and business environment and requirements changing around us every day? My response would be ‘No.’

If our goal is to grow and develop personally and professionally each day, instead of pursuing perfection, we would focus and strive to be best we can be, and do the best job we can, regardless of what is happening around us. If we strive to do our best every day and learn from our mistakes, improving our approach and ways of doing things, then we should never be disappointed if something falls through or does not go as planned, because, we can say with 100% confidence that we did our best, and move on with life. As Booker T. Washington once said: “Any man’s life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his best each day.”

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