"Imperfection is okay, and often its acceptance is the key to having fun, to innovation, and to recognizing your worth and success."I can honestly admit to being accused of being a perfectionist. In fact, Lee Saxby looked right at me during the VIVOBAREFOOT Coaching Program when he said, "For all you perfectionists in the class, the best you can hope to achieve with this level of training is to help 80% of the people out there." He's a strong proponent of the 80/20 rule and for very good reasons (which we learned all about during the course).
Melanie Jones faced the challenge of reaching perfection and wrote about it in How to be Better Than Perfect, which I highly recommend reading. This post was also the inspiration behind the latest Sweat Collective Workout, which is:
How have you reacted when you have ventured off the path to perfection? How do you handle the effort to try again? How has this affected you in your training, creativity, in your life?My struggle with perfection (at the moment) has to do with my running form. For my natural running form clinics, I've videoed myself running on a treadmill several times now. I analyze my form the same way that I analyze my clients' form. It is definitely NOT perfect. I would like it to be perfect. I want to be able to demonstrate what perfect form is to my clients. Sadly, this cannot be the case. It's hard for me to admit that after two months of running with the new form, it's still not where I want it to be. I just have to work at it harder.
This assignment, though, made me realize that it's okay that I'm not perfect (no matter how badly I may want to be). I have something to work towards. I think if I didn't have details to work on, running might be kind of boring. I currently have the excitement and anticipation of seeing my running form evolve through future videos. Despite the irksome deficient details of my running form, it is FAR superior to what it used to be (thanks Lee!). All I can strive for is to do the best that I can do every time I run out the door. It seems, what is true of running, is also true of life. :)
Thanks Melanie for the eye opener!
By the way, if you are in the Calgary or Cochrane areas, ENDURE is coming to town. For show dates, times and to buy tickets, check out: http://www.runwomanshow.com/dates/. I've already bought my tickets and I can't wait! #ENDURE
