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Episode 36: Good Not Perfect

Jan 12

6 min read



[00:00:00] What in life deserves our time and attention and what things don't? I hope that as we consider that question, along with other topics on this show, that we can all learn to live our lives just a little more intentionally. This is Seth Roberts. Thanks for joining me on skipping stones.


We will never be perfect, but we can easily be good. You can [00:00:30] waste your days chasing perfection, only to see it always out of reach, or you can shoot for good. My ex wife used to say something that I actually liked. Sh


e would say, it only needs to be a 90 percent job. I like that, because getting to 90 percent is pretty darn good, and it's really the last 10 percent There's something I heard on another podcast.


I think it was Alex Hormozi's, but regardless of where I heard it, it was [00:01:00] insightful. Somebody apparently asked a group of people that were new to pottery to take all the time they needed to make the best possible piece of pottery that they could. Probably a cup or something simple like that. They then asked another group of newcomers not to worry about how nice to make them, but to make a hundred of them.


And, by the way, I could be telling this story wrong, as it's a vague memory, but the point here is that the people asked to pump out [00:01:30] a hundred so so pieces of pottery had incredibly superior pieces to the other group once they got to a hundred. The expectation that we should be able to do something perfect is one of our greatest flaws.


Not only that, but expecting that we ourselves can be some version of perfect is an even greater flaw. Going down that road. is a path to a kind of hell, which I think is ironic because presumably we're [00:02:00] pursuing that perfection in an effort to be good. So maybe it's God's way of giving us a consequence for having so much pride that we think we can be perfect without him.


I don't know. I'm not sure perfection even exists for a simple mortals. It's so easy to look at another person and to see how they're doing things wrong. Even the worst criminal on death row would probably have an easy time pointing out Mother Teresa's flaws if he got to know her. Professional sports is one of the best [00:02:30] examples.


The worst player on that field could likely outpace the most athletic of us in the stands. Yet, most of us could tell you who we think is terrible. The pressure that we place on each other drives us to this kind of perfection. Sometimes we take for granted that something that has become simple for us may be something another person just doesn't know yet.


So we foolishly expect perfection from them, because we can do it [00:03:00] that way. I'm sure just about every person that's ever been a child, has experienced a parent's frustration when they couldn't do a task that their parent thought should be simple. It makes us feel bad and often makes us give up on things a little too early.


We become afraid to try things unless we think we can do it perfectly the first time. And it isn't even the parent's fault half the time because we put this pressure on ourselves just as much as anyone else. [00:03:30] One of my children tends to panic really easily if something doesn't go right, or they mess something up.


Since he could talk, he's been this way. When I first started playing catch with him, he'd get so upset when he couldn't catch the ball. He was probably only three at that point. What I ended up telling him that seemed to work was, It's okay, because you're learning. It's part of the game. It was pretty cute [00:04:00] because for like a year or so after that, every time that he missed that catch, he'd run after the ball and he'd say, it's okay, it's part of the game.


Growing up, my family liked to go skiing every year after Christmas. And to give some context, my father has always been particularly good at skiing as he actually spent a few years living at a ski resort when he was in high school and he was an avid skier through his college years. And to put [00:04:30] things mildly, I was regularly challenged to improve.


I can't say I enjoyed the process, but there is one line that my dad would use to encourage myself and my siblings that had some real wisdom to it. He would kind of praise us if we crashed in the process of taking a risk. And his line was always, if you aren't falling down, then you're not learning. Life can be a lot better if we expect to make a few mistakes.[00:05:00] 


It's easier to forgive yourself when you know that those mistakes are part of the process of living. One of the most difficult and unhappy periods of my life was a time when I was holding myself up to a standard of perfection. Every mistake I made along the way made me carry far more guilt than what was appropriate for those mistakes.


Learning also becomes so much better when we plan on being terrible at the beginning. There's an idea that I think we like to carry [00:05:30] around that some people are just talented at a thing and others are not. Now, talent is a real thing, but a person's initial talent at something doesn't necessarily reflect that same person's highest potential.


Half the time natural talent is more so a reflection of natural interest in a given thing. If you like sports generally, you will probably be pretty good at any sport you try for the first time. And [00:06:00] you will get better at that sport without trying very hard because you're doing it because it's fun for you, regardless of whether or not you're already good at it.


If going into it. You're interest in it is based on whether or not you're already good at the game, then you're missing the point. I thought about joining the football team when I was in high school because the glory of being a star athlete appealed to me. I'm glad I didn't do it though, because I wouldn't have been doing it because I liked [00:06:30] it.


I would have languished in mediocrity or worse, because I just didn't enjoy it enough for its own sake. We keep ourselves from a lot of joy in life because we aren't willing to be bad at anything. Or we cannot fathom the idea of failure. Success in any endeavor usually goes to the people that have fallen down the most.


Learning and growing seems less a process of comprehending a thing and more process of screwing up enough to learn how to stop screwing up. [00:07:00] I believe the most miserable people in the world are often, if not always, the ones that are the biggest perfectionists. Sometimes, it's okay for something to be good enough, and to let yourself stop thinking on it.


Overthinking things is a crutch we use. It can help us make decisions that might be ten percent better than if we just followed our first instinct. But more often it just keeps us from action at all. Whereas if we just go for it, we can fail a few times and become 100 percent [00:07:30] better in short order. 90 percent is good enough.


Even 80 percent is probably good enough. And being honest here, even a 50 percent job will at least get the ball rolling on whatever you're trying to do. Trying to be perfect reminds me of that Greek myth of Icarus, whose father made him wings to fly and warned him not to go too high to avoid the sun melting the wax that held those wings together.


Of course, Icarus ignored his father, and he flew too [00:08:00] close to the sun, and his wings fell apart, and he fell into the sea and drowned. I don't think there's a better metaphor for perfectionism than drowning. Because, that is what perfectionism feels like. You can never be good enough, and the more you struggle, the more you wear yourself down until you finally breathe in that water and are ultimately defeated as you slowly sink down to the bottom.


If you're not falling down in life, then you are [00:08:30] not learning. Maybe it's time to focus on being good not perfect. This is Skipping Stones. You can find this podcast anywhere you choose to listen to podcasts. For more information about me, feel free to visit skippingstonessr. com. And if you enjoyed the show, please like or subscribe.


If there is a topic you would like me to speak on, please feel free to email me at info at skippingstonessr. com. [00:09:00] New episodes will be released weekly, every Monday.

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Skipping Stones podcast with Seth Roberts explores diverse topics to uncover principles and stories that aim to help you improve your life with perspective and purpose. If you find any perspectives helpful, you can thank the countless individuals who have passed on ideas that matter for generations. Influences include Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, Jesus, Robinson Crusoe, Thomas Jefferson, and countless other books, historical figures, and thinkers.

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