Monthly Archives: April 2016

The Battle of Consistency vs. Perfection

consistency
 
Okay, so I’m not the most consistent blogger in the world.

In my dreams, I aspire to do meaningful things with my life. One of them is to write a post each week. What am I saying. I would be happy if I posted once a month.

And I was doing amazingly well until I became…inconsistent. Which to me is totally irresponsible. I mean, how hard can it really be? Unless you’re a perfectionist like me and then we’ve got a whole other problem to overcome.

Consistency is not the same as Perfection.

Yet, it is necessary in order to make progress, whether at work, within the family circle, in dealing with others, or achieving some level of success in our life.

It is the act of repetition that is more important than our perfection.

But try telling this to someone who is a perfectionist!

There is power in the knowing that consistency will help us to succeed, but once we realize this, it can become easy to obsess over becoming perfectly consistent.

Habit Formation and Continued Improvement.

It’s all about balance and setting priorities.

And that’s hard to do when we’re dealing with life. Too much happens during each day, each week that can play havoc with being consistent. Which only serves to escalate within the realm of our perfection.

Or should I say imperfection.

And that’s the point.

James Clear, a Human Behaviorist, recommends that in order to be consistent, we need to plan for failure.

Yes, consistency is essential if we are to succeed in any area of our life. But if we want to keep our sanity and increase the odds of our success, we need to “plan for failure as well as focus on the consistency.”

Rebound from Failures and Setbacks.

This doesn’t mean we won’t deal with moments of frustration. Every one of us has our own personal journey with many detours and distractions that happen along the way. However, if we choose not to allow our failures to have undue impact on our personal success, then we’re able to continue forward on our journey to achieving consistency.

Remember, any negative feelings and thoughts are temporary and subjective. We are always going to fight the should’ve, could’ve, and would’ve, since we’re constantly in our own heads, alone with our thoughts, which can be dangerous in itself.

Constancy is not the same as Perfection.

Let’s not let temporary illusions of stress, anxiety, worry and insecurity derail us from our journey to success. Let’s make a plan geared towards staying consistent and motivated.

And embrace our imperfection.

For me, this means not giving up. It means making a goal to achieve Consistency and letting go of Perfection, accepting failure as a normal part of being successful.

It’s a constant battle, but by taking this one step at a time, I think its one that you and I can achieve!

So what do you think? Has life gotten in your way of attaining your goals? Are you a perfectionist? Do you find it difficult to be consistent? Is it hard for you to accept your own failures? What do you do in order to achieve your goals?

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