Imperfect Posts from a Recovering Perfectionist

Years ago I had a professor tell me: Your “best” means doing all you can in the amount of time you have with the knowledge you have and the resources before you. {Or something like that, just stated more eloquently}

Translation: stop striving after perfect.

If I memorize the quote and say it a lot, does that mean I can check it off the list?

Oops, there I go, back to the need for a formula so I don’t make a mistake. Errrrr, I mean, so I can get things “right.” Oh wait, is that the same thing as striving after perfection?! Shucks. See? I do it all the time?

 I hope I’m not standing alone in this corner. Can anyone else relate?

What my professor was trying to teach me so long ago is that your “best” right now might not be your “best” one year from now or your “best” under different circumstances.

As a college student, numerous other classes, campus responsibilities, church commitments, and other obligations limited the amount of attention I could give to the project I was working on. I had to do my best with the time I had available.

In this season of “littles” and working in ministry and homeschooling and homemaking, I have many reasons to not write. I have a lot of  ideas scribbled in journals and even more floating around in my head and my heart. Half-written blog posts fill my drafts folder and all kinds of other writing ideas run through my mind throughout the day. But all of those ideas have remained just that: ideas, and those ideas have stayed buried, locked away, until someday, maybe I can develop them.

Translation: I’ve let a lot of excuses keep me from writing. They might be perfectly valid excuses, but they are excuses.

If there is one thing I know about excuses, it is what my grandpa has always reminded me, “Excuses only satisfy the people who make them.”

My husband describes excuses differently. In a way that is slightly less refined, my guy reminds me, “Excuses are like butts. Everyone has them, and they all stink.” (Go ahead and tweet that. You know you want to.)

If my sole excuse for not writing was because I was focusing on those other incredible opportunities and responsibilities that God has given me, I’d be content. But it’s not.

One of the biggest excuses preventing me from writing more often than I do, is the burdensome label of perfectionism.

In fact, I almost didn’t post today’s post because I don’t feel like it’s “just right.”

But while reading {or in this case, listening}, I came to chapter 3 of Jon Accuf’s book Quitter. Seriously, Friends, that chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

He reminded me that:

“90% perfect and shared with the world always changes more lives than 100% perfect and stuck in your head” (John Acuff).

And then he punched me in the stomach with this:

That’s the lie of perfectionism…Perfect always glows from right around the corner. We just need a little more work, a little more time and then we can share our work with the world. … the land of perfect is a myth. We might feel we are skirting its borders with our dream, but the reality is, that those borders don’t exist because perfect doesn’t. Your definition of perfect will not fit mine, which will not fit hers or his. You can’t catch perfect. But you can catch published. You can catch finished and shared.

I know! Good, isn’t it? But then he kept going, and when he wrote this? He described me:

The solution of doing something lackadaisically is not difficult: just do it better. The solution to perfectionism is tricky because, at first, it doesn’t feel like something that needs to be solved. At first you get lauded for your attention to detail or commitment to excellence, but what a lot of people don’t see are the extra hours you’re putting in to make sure something is perfect. Perfectionism seems like a character trait sometimes, not a flaw.  People don’t normally see it as the poison it is until someone burns out or has a breakdown.

Friends, I’m working hard at turning over a new leaf, and it’s starting here on the blog.

With this blog, I realized that subconsciously I’ve been pursuing perfection, not excellence. There’s a difference.

I so desire to honor God in this space and write in obedience to Him.

I so pray that He uses these words here, in some way, in your lives and mine, and I pray above all that He is glorified.

In giving up perfect, I’m not promising mediocre. Done isn’t the destination I’m trying to hit.

I’m shooting for somewhere between done and perfect, and I’m hoping that I land at great, maybe even excellent.

I would rather write imperfect posts than have a perfect post I never write.

So, here’s to a lot more imperfect posts. I’m trusting you for grace. :)

Question for You:

So how about you? Any of you struggle with perfectionism? Where do you need to let go of perfect and aim for great?

Tweetables:

“Excuses only satisfy the people who make them.” Click to Tweet.

“There’s a difference between perfection and excellence. Which are you pursuing?” Click to Tweet.

“I would rather write imperfect posts than have a perfect post I never write.” Click to Tweet.