Pursuing Perfection

One of the first points to consider is does perfection exist? Who is it that decides when something cannot be improved? Presumably 'perfect' is a subjective decision that two people could see in a totally different way and if we always aimed to make everything just so would we ever finish anything?

We also need to consider why people pursue it? Is it a tactic to avoid doing other difficult tasks on the grounds that they are too busy or that what they are doing is more important? Is it fear of failure, so they put off finishing something and therefore they avoid the risk of any criticism or of being judged? Maybe this happens when people are more concerned with the opinions of others rather than their own.

Thanks to league tables schools can get trapped in this cycle of chasing perfection whereby pupils are asked to re-do homework so that any imperfections can be ironed out. Work for adults can also become a problem if they feel they cannot finish anything to the 'right' standard and anyone working on their own needs to be aware of this trap as you will have no-one to compare yourself to or to assure you that all is well.

People starting their own business will struggle if they spend too much time on every little job. They need to decide which are the most productive tasks concentrate on those and just make sure that other matters are fit for purpose. Otherwise they can be left with a sense of never being able to finish anything and of being surrounded by things that still need to be done. This can be overwhelming and could lead to someone giving up on their dream of running their own business. The answer to this is partly to be organised and to be able to decide what really matters.

We all have times when we strive to get things just right but if you spend hours on every task and have a constant sense that nothing is good enough then you risk having an 'unfinished' life.

There are obviously situations where things have to be right; we do not expect someone piloting a plane to take a laissez-faire attitude to the task in hand but right is not the same as perfect. If the pilot made endless attempts at a 'just so' landing each time he would probably have a mutiny on his hands long before he ran out of fuel.

Reaching for perfection is like watching a ship moving towards the horizon; it will never arrive at that destination and if we become perfectionists in all things neither will we.