Tag: Development

In Search of Perfection

What’s something you used to worry about but don’t anymore?

Wanting to be perfect is not a bad thing. It helps us to always strive for improvement. But we still need to remember that we’re not perfect. We are going to get it wrong at times.

I used to worry about this. I wanted everything I did to be perfect, mainly because nothing I did ever seemed to please others. This was coupled with the common fallacy, “Good enough, isn’t (good enough).”

Then I came across two concepts that made me think.

The first was a building drawing for the carpenters. Having gone to great lengths to specify proper dimensions the architect’s drawing pointed to one piece of timber with the dimension, “Fit on site.” The exact dimension was to be adjusted by the carpenter, depending on what had been done previously, because building with bricks and mortar isn’t an exact, or perfect, science.

The second concept was the Pareto principle. 80% of the results come from 20% of the work. It means that we could be spending most of our time achieving very little.

And then it struck me. Just because we like consistency, it isn’t always necessary. Otherwise we would all look and act and speak the same. We would be robots. But what’s attractive about humans is the differences between us. We love those differences. We love not being perfect replicas of each other.

And suddenly, perfection didn’t matter so much any more. As someone pointed out to me, decades ago, a shirt that’s a perfect fit for one person will not fit someone bigger or smaller. Perfection is relative.

And now, I don’t worry about it any more. Yes, my perfectionist tendencies still make me feel bad, sometimes, especially in the face of negative criticism. But I’ve learned to take a step back and challenge my perfectionism. And it doesn’t worry me so much anymore.

Failure or Success

Successful people sometimes fail despite how hard they tried.

Unsuccessful people fail because they didn’t try at all.

No Good Crying Over Spilt Milk

What’s a lesson you’ve learned recently that shifted your perspective?

We spend all our time trying to control every aspect of our lives. But the reality is that we have very little real control.

A lot of our lives are controlled by others, or by our circumstances. Employees are controlled by their managers, managers by their directors, directors by the business owners, business owners by the market demand. Children are controlled by the needs of their children, and children by the needs of their parents.

And even when we have free time, our freedom is controlled by the circumstances around us.

Take yesterday, as an example. My plan was to work around the house. Then my son called to tell me that he was available to help me with a different task. So, I drove to his house to collect him.

Leaving his home, we were greeted by a number of neighbours asking if it was my car. Yes, it was. Because a bus has just hit it, and the driver took his bus and left the scene before exchanging insurance details.

And that meant that after caring for the heavy lifting with which my son had come to help, and taking him home, I spent the day making reports to the police and insurance company. And now I’ll have to go through the trials of getting the car repaired. And because the bus driver is unknown, I’ll have to pay the excess on my insurance.

What have I learned? That we’re not as “in control” as we’d like to think we are.

How does it change my perspective? It’s a car. No one died. No one even got injured. It’s just a car.

Was I able to do what I wanted to, yesterday? No. I’ll have to do that today. But there’s no point worrying about it. As the saying goes, there’s no good crying over spilt milk. It’s gone. Like the time I’d set aside yesterday, it’s gone. No point worrying about it. I’ll never get that time back. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

So why worry? Why get angry? Will it help get my car fixed? No. Will it make me feel better? No. Will it get the bus driver punished? No. All it will achieve is cause me stress, and shorten my life. So why worry? Why get angry?

Instead, channel that energy into positive acts that get things done.

The positive side of yesterday was that I had less time available, so I carried out a different, shorter task. And strangely, that made a bigger difference than everything I’d planned but couldn’t do!

Read Widely

What’s one habit that has improved your life the most?

I’m a firm believer in keeping your mind active. People ask me what I do to relax and I say, “I study.” I read widely and keep learning. But there’s a warning attached.

Reading widely means we learn a little about a lot of subjects. We must never think we know it all. We must recognise the limits of our knowledge. We know enough to discuss matters intelligently. But that doesn’t make us experts. What it makes us is interested in others, empathetic.

So, read a wide range of subjects, but don’t boast about what you know. Use the little that you learn as a prompt to learn more. Ask questions of those who do know.

As it’s been said, the true knowledge is knowing how little we know.

What has it done for me? It’s allowed me to speak with a wide range of people without embarrassment. As Kipling put it, it’s allowed me to “walk with kings nor lose the common touch.”

What Counts is How Often You Get Up

What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years” — and what got you through it?

It’s easy to think about hard times. And it’s easy to give in to them.

But the reality is that it’s not the hard times that we have to worry about. It’s what we do about them.

Because it’s a true today as it’s always been. It doesn’t matter how many times you fall. What counts is how often you get up again. And only you can do that.