It used to really bother me that nothing was ever unique or original.   Ideas weren’t unique – I’d heard them all before.  People weren’t unique – they just followed the same patterns I’d seen in others.  History wasn’t unique – it just repeated itself.  Products weren’t unique – they just built on previous technologies (word loosely defined). It actuality, it was pretty depressing.  What was there to be excited for?  What hope was there for a new and fresh future?

That was until I realized that as an individual, my life story (and yours) is the only unique entity in the entirety of the world – due to the unique combination of my nature with my environment.  This meant that everything I did was unique and original and that my future would always be new and fresh.  Now that made the outlook quite exciting. Yeah, baby!

When I misspelled perfectionist, I wondered should I add an extra f or extra t – and was about to change from f to t, when I realized that I was just being a perfectionist, which was just to ironic for this post.

Don’t get me wrong, doing a good job is super important.  However, the energy exerted in being a perfectionist, hurts you for too many reasons.  I was a perfectionist for many years – and probably am still in many ways – so let me share with you why I feel this is a bad habit and encourage you to stop.

First of all, there is no such thing as a perfectionist.  You are just fooling yourself.  Show me something you think is perfect, and I’ll shoot holes all over it.  So you can try all you want to be perfect, but you won’t be, so why bother even trying.

When you are in perfectionist mode, you are allowing other people to define who you are, instead of allowing yourself to define yourself.  Meaning that you are projecting how other people are viewing you and saying, if I change this people will see me as that.  However, our goal for self acceptance is to not care what people think about us, and one great way to do that is not to enter perfectionist mode.

So how do you stop?  First of all, stop taking yourself so seriously.  Make some mistakes and watch how no one really cares, or stop paying attention to what people think of you all the time.  Let the real you shine through, and start appreciating how people really love the real you.

I think you will quickly find that it won’t take long for you to see that people appreciate you for who you are, and that the failure for not being perfect isn’t a big deal at all.  In fact you might even find that no one saw you as perfect anyways, it just was something you did that caused you angst, so why even bother trying?!

(Side note: Your resume and your interview/date suit should be 100% perfect.  No exceptions.)

If you read my past two days posts, you found them to be contradictory messages, and in fact, if you think about it, many of life’s truths have contradictory messages.

So how do we determine what message to take when?  It depends on your situation.

My definition of a wise person is someone person who knows which truth to apply to a given situation.  First you have to be able to discern what situation you are actually participating in, which isn’t easy at all!  Then once you figure that out, you need to figure out which truth is the right one to apply.

Interestingly, the first assessment, which I will call situational awareness, is based on what I will call street smarts and requires external emotional maturity whereas the second assessment requires introspection and self awareness.  So to be truly wise, you need to be able to have both types of wisdom (external and internal) and merge them together, to create a synergistic super-wisdom to guide you, which is why reaching this goal is so hard for people.  However, once complete, they can navigate the contradictory messages with ease that fly towards them each day, and place them in their appropriate places and make their path through life.

How many times have you sat down to watch a movie, only to find that half way through it you are bored to tears.  You keep watching, thinking that pretty soon it will get interesting, but pretty soon comes and goes, and still you sit there bored.  So you have a choice, finish the movie, or find something else to do.

I can bet that most everyone finishes the movie.

But why?  The movie is painful.  Sleep would be a better alternative!

I think the reason we keep watching is because, we have a natural tendency to finish what we started.  (Ironic, after yesterdays post, huh?)

The only real message here is to be aware of this pull, and next time it grabs you, realize that you have a choice, and take a moment to think and determine, should you continue just because you have been going down that path, or should you stop, and leave things incomplete, and take another direction altogether.

But the main point is not to finish something, just for the sake of finishing it!

It’s always been amazing to me how hard the final 10% of a project is, and how many people quit so close to completion.

One part of me says that people are scared to fail, so they figure that if they quit before they complete the project, well, at least they didn’t try and fail! (Ironic, huh.)

Another part of me, says that they just give up, because they don’t realize how close to the end they are.  All they know is all the hard work they put in to that point, and they think they are so far off from the end game, and just want to quit – since in their mind the end is far.

Then there is just the lack of motivation that creeps in the longer you are away from the start of a project.

Or perhaps its a little bit of all of the above, with some other reasons thrown in for good measure.

No matter.  Keep in mind that the finishing a task is often the hardest part, and perhaps it will inspire you to finish the next project you are thinking about stopping in the middle of!