Why "Good Enough" Should Be Your New "Perfect"

Somewhere between waiting until everything is perfect, and saying "yes" to all of the new shiny objects, is the sweet spot that I call "good enough." This episode discusses how to overcome perfectionist tendencies by taking action when things are "good enough."

Shondra Rhimes had her "Year of Yes"; I'm exploring my "Year of Good Enough."

LINKS AND MENTIONS:

📒 The BEST LIFE Daily Planner + Habit Tracker

📚The Year of Yes by Shondra Rhimes

📚The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy

📚Essentialism by Greg McKeown

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Transcript

0:00

Well, Hey there friends. Welcome back to another episode of the school of mid-life podcast. If you listen to last week's episode, you know that I have been battling some of the winter cold and crud. And I feel like I've mostly kicked it, but I also feel like I'm in this one step forward, two steps back where I will feel great. And then. Go to a workout like I did this morning. And then all I want to do for the rest of the day is sleep. So I'm kind of in that. I'm mostly done with it, but definitely not completely done with it. And when it came time to record an episode for the podcast today. I just kept putting it off, putting it off, putting it off, putting it off. And then I kind of got into this idea that, you know what, I'm just going to skip it today. And then what I thought I would do. Is. Posts the replay of. One of the first, maybe even the very first episode that was. Launched almost a year ago. Gosh. So this episode. That you're listening to today is episode 50. And the first, the very first episode was we're coming up on a year, which is incredible. And I haven't missed too many episodes, but suffice it to say, this is going to be a replay episode today. And. the one that I chose to. Share with you again today was originally called my year of good enough and talks a lot about. When I chose the phrase. Good enough. for My word of the quarter and that actually segued into it kind of has become a standard. That I have started to live by in almost every aspect of my life, which is fantastic because as a recovering. Perfectionist and people pleaser. When your standard is good enough. Then you get into action a little quicker. When your standard is good enough, then it allows you to adopt a beginner's mindset. Which is you can start something new, you can try something new and not fully expect to be. Awesome at it to not win at it, to not be perfect at it because. What you're really striving for is, is it good enough? And I. I've really been leaning into that energy. Lately, actually for the past year, as it turns out, Especially as I'm embarking on trying some new things Doing things a little differently. It's also exactly why we start. With. Paint and sip At the best life retreats that I host in Sun Valley, It's a paint by numbers. And we, we actually paint and. Women. they're a little uncomfortable because you know, they're not professional painters but there's something. about opening yourself up to trying something new. Meeting some other people while you're doing it, just kind of having some random chitchat so that you can get to know the other women that are there. With the expectation. That it doesn't have to be perfect. That if, if you bring your good enough to the painting and you get comfortable with that. Then when it comes time to share your thoughts, your concerns. Your. Responses to whatever the questions are or the exercises or the book club discussion. It doesn't have to be perfect. It can be good enough and that my friends. is so freeing. As someone who has spent decades of her life, trying to get it right, right out of the gate. There's something freeing about. Just doing the thing without it, having to be. The best. Or perfect. Or better than what everyone else is doing. when I went back and I listened to this episode, because again, it was one of the first ones that I recorded. There, there were opportunities that I found that I could have. Gone about the episode in a different way. And it's, it's a perfect reminder that. We're all just learning, right. That we're, we're trying to be better today than we were yesterday. And. Adopting a feeling of, is it good enough? Has served me really well this year. And I hope. The message resonates with you as well. I Promise. I will be back with a new episode next week. Because I know that I'm going to kick whatever lingering in my chest. But until then please enjoy this. Replay episode. Of my year of good enough. And when you listen. Just remember that. The message is strong. The delivery. From a beginner. So. be kind. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. this is the podcast for the woman who has everything. She always thought she ever wanted career family, home cars, designer handbags, but now it's midlife and she can't quite shake the feeling that something is missing in her perfect life, that she was made for something more. She's wide awake at 2:00 AM asking herself big questions like: what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work? Each week we're answering these questions and more. Let's make midlife your best life. Hey there. Welcome back to the school of midlife today. We are talking about my year of good enough. I don't know if you are one of those people who chooses a word of the year. for probably the last 5, 5, 6, 7 years. I choose a word of the year. Previous words of the year have been action. Leap, inspire, trust. A lot of times it seems like that they are verb words to encourage some sort of action in my life. But for the last couple of years, instead of choosing a word for the year, I've started choosing a word for the quarter. And that's because it seems like life is changing just at a very rapid pace. And what might be important today? Might not be so important to me in a couple of months from now. And I was also finding that I was almost getting a little too precious about picking the word. Like it was taking me too long to settle on a word because I was looking for the perfect word to describe what it was I was after for the year. And that's exactly why the BEST LIFE Daily Planner Habit Tracker, the planner that I created. It's exactly why that planner is a quarterly planner. Because if you look at planning for the whole year, You, it just gets a little overwhelming. And it's an undated planner, because that way you can start when you're ready, you don't have a bunch of pages that say you decide to start at the time. This episode is recorded. It's March. Say your getting ready to start a new planner and it's March. Why do you want to pay for January dates and February dates and half of March dates when you're not going to use those? And the planner is also spiral bound instead of book bound. Because I found that when I was getting ready to start a new planner, There was something about a bound book. And making sure that I had the perfect pens, my favorite pens that just glided over the page as I was writing whatever I was writing in my journal. I had to make sure that my name and contact info in the front of the journal was in the most perfect penmanship. and the fact that there is something very precious about a book that is book bound versus one that spiral bound. Spiral bound to me for some reason, like the old spiral notebooks that we used to have in school, you can just rip a page out if you want. But you can't do that with a book. I was always very intentional about making sure that I had the right pen and the right penmanship before I started writing in my planner. And what I found was all of that perfection led to delay, I was waiting for the right time or the right place or the right people in my life, to take the right action. That is something that we will pretty much wait a lifetime for, all of the stars are not going to align so that there's this perfect time for the next perfect action. So a lot of times that planner would sit on my shelf. And I wouldn't do anything with it. Cause it was just too precious to break open. and start using, which is silly because obviously if you're not using a planner, then it's not going to do any good for you. back to the word of the year. I was noticing that when I was choosing my word of the year, much, like with the planner, I was putting on too much of a pedestal. I was, it was like, I was almost using kid gloves with it because it was so precious. I had to get the exact right word. instead of doing a word for the year, then I was going to a word of the quarter and that was better. My word of the quarter right now is good enough, which I know isn't a word, it's a phrase, but let's call it a word. My phrase of the quarter is good enough. And I'm using that as an antidote to this struggle with perfectionism that I have had for most of my life. Just to level set here, the verb to perfect means to bring to final form to improve or to refine. So if we are going to improve something or refine it, That necessarily means we have to have a first version. You can't improve something if you don't have a starting place. similarly, you can't refine something if you don't have. a first draft. You can't start and your first product is refined, improved, perfected. Does that make sense? if that's the case we need to get comfortable with the first version being something other than perfect. And when we do that. It allows us a little more freedom so that what we start with doesn't have to be the end product out of the gate. Like my speaking coach, Heather says you need a shitty rough draft. You have to have a starting point. You literally have to have something to improve or perfect. You need something to start with. Think of it as ready, aim, fire with the idea that you prepare for something, you hone in on your target, and then you fire. For much of my life, it feels like it was like Ready, Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim, fire. I maybe never got to the fire because I was spending so much time on the aim part. I was so worried about getting it right, right out of the gate. At the time, this episode is recording. We are squarely in the midst of March madness. I love college basketball season. If sports analogies, aren't your thing., I apologize but go with me here. A lot of the perimeter shooters, they're the ones that maybe aren't the tallest on the basketball court. They typically have very good ball handling skills, but they shoot three pointers there behind the arc. Even a perfect shot. So let's say it's at the perfect spot on the floor. They maybe dribble once or twice to get in their rhythm. They wait until they're undefended. They have a perfect vision to the basket. they know where they are in the 40-second shot clock and they're not rushed, but they're just, the timing is perfect and they come back and they shoot the hoop. And even when the conditions are perfect they're only making 40 to 50% of the perfect shots. So even when all of the stars are aligned, They're still missing half the time. It's still, despite that ready aim, fire, there are still some of that unknown that they can't control. But do, even though they can only be successful. only 40 to 50% of the time do you think that they stop shooting threes? No. They keep shooting threes. In order to make the basket, you have to keep shooting. Even if you miss, you got to keep throwing up the threes because eventually they'll start going in and you'll start making the points. Same thing with this idea of perfectionism. If you wait until everything is perfect, you're at the perfect spot on the floor. You're right in your rhythm. You're undefended. You have a perfect vision to the basket. And then you shoot. Ready aim fire. You're still only going to be perfect half of the time. an unattainable goal. Which is why I've just been loving this year of good enough. Several years ago, Shondra Rhimes of Grey's Anatomy fame and a lot of TV shows that have been wildly popular, Grey's Anatomy, definitely leading the list. Several years ago, she wrote a book called the Year of Yes. she wanted to get out of her comfort zone. She was A lot of times would say no to invitations to do things. She was much more comfortable going to work and then going home and just spending time with her family. And she decided in order to get herself out of her comfort zone, that for a year when she was presented with an invitation, she was going to say yes, because she wanted to have some new experiences meet some new people. Be more open. It seems like she needed a year of yes, because she had been so judicious with the yeses she had been giving out previously. I am the opposite of that. I certainly have what, some people would call shiny object syndrome oh, that looks fun. Or I want to try that. Or you see somebody on social media and they're out skiing or they're at the beach or you think. I want to go there and do that too. And because I have spent a lot of time chasing shiny objects. I'm always looking at the latest and greatest. I mean I'm influencer's dream we'll call me. Because you can suggest something to me and I will definitely go check it out. I might not buy it, but I'm going to go read about it and maybe understand how it works. Read some reviews. But if I buy it and I like it, everyone around me will know about it too. That's the good thing about shiny objects is I'm willing to try new things. But the problem with the shiny object syndrome is it's really easy to get off track on what's important. Because sometimes if I'm trying something new, And maybe it's not working out as quickly as I would like it to. If there is something new in my orbit. I might switch to that right away. And the problem with that is you never really have time to vet out if something is working or not. So On the one hand we have Shonda Rhimes' Year of Yes. And then on the other hand, we've got this idea of perfectionism where you're going to wait to do anything. I figured out that there had to be something between those two, between the automatic yes. And the waiting until the perfect moment. And that's where this idea of good enough came in, which puts me squarely in my year of good enough. What that has allowed me to do is it's given me more time to focus on what's important. I find that I am less stressed because I know I'm heading in the right direction and I know I'm taking action on what matters. I also have less anxiety because I'm letting go of that perfect. And because everything is a learning step or it's getting me closer to where I want to be without the heaviness or the obligation of being perfect, I don't spend so much time in my head replaying the situation, ruminating on what I said, how could I have done this better? And the bonus of that is I'm even sleeping better. So for me, this idea of good enough, it has worked beautifully. If you want to think about it on let's think about it on a bar graph. What we think consistency and good action looks like is every single day of the week, that bar graph would top out at a hundred percent. Because we think that in order to take action, we have to take highest, off the charts, best action. When we look at a bar graph again. Every all seven days, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. All of the action would be at a hundred percent. But what that actually looks like in practice is it's going to be a hundred percent, one day. And then 30% the next day. 10% the following day. And then that it might jump up to 90%. What the bar graph should look like is in order to be consistent and to be taking the next right action there has to be something more than zero every day. The intensity of the action will fluctuate again, a hundred percent, 30%, 10%, 40%. All along that spectrum, because some days you're feeling it and other days you're not, but the beauty is in the consistency. If you do a little today, you can do some more tomorrow, some of the day after that and so on and so on. And what that is doing for you is it is keeping you consistent moving you forward without having to wait until everything is perfect and the stars are lined up for you to take action. I don't know if you're familiar with Darren Hardy, but he wrote The Compound Effect. And this is a hundred percent the compound effect in action. It's the discipline of taking daily action, no matter how small. And Greg McKeown who wrote Essentialism also addressed this in his book focusing on what he calls the vital few. focus on the vital few instead of the trivial many. So when we think about that, we're focusing on that very small group that is going to get us the most action, the closest to where we're trying to get. And in focusing on that, then we're drowning out all of the other excuses and shiny objects and all of the other things that are getting in our way. Both of those The Compound Effect and Essentialism are great reads. I reread them every year. I will link to them in the show notes if you are interested in reading them yourself, What does good enough look like in your real life? I'll just give you a couple of examples of how this is showing up in my life right now. A meeting ran long last week and I need to throw together dinner with whatever's in the pantry and the refrigerator. Is it a gourmet dinner? That is perfectly plated? Nope. Is it nutritious? Does it taste good? Yes, it's good enough. When we are having company over is the house perfectly clean and spotless? Is it spotless? No. But it's good enough. Hell. I mean, even this podcast it's good enough. I'm learning a lot of new skills when it comes to sound mixing and editing and getting the right equipment. At the end of recording, am I saying everything I wanted to say in an episode? Probably not, but what I've figured out is that just gives me more to talk about in a future episode. Is the messaging perfect. No, but it's good enough. Today I have a bit of a head cold, so I'm certain that the playback is going to sound a little more nasally than usual. Does that mean I should delete it and rerecord when I'm not a little stuffed up. I could, and there certainly was a time in my life where a 100% I would, but I'm not going to because it's good enough. It doesn't matter what the sound of my voice sounds like. It's all about what is the substance of the content. And even though I'm a little stuffed up today, I think it's good enough. Is a podcast perfectly produced. Nope. Is it a good start? Absolutely. Will be better in the future. Will I get better over time? No question about that, but as far as waiting until I had all of the sound mixing and editing and the right equipment and all the apps and the message a hundred percent dialed in. If I did that, I would probably be stuck in that Ready, Aiiiiiiiiiiiiim, fire mode again. And I don't want to live there because when you get stuck in that kind of planning paralysis mode, you don't take action. And when you don't take action, you just stay where you are, which for some people is fine. That's not how I want to live my life. I want to get a little bit better every day and a little bit closer to becoming the person I want to be when I'm living my best life. Other ways this might play out in your life is what I like to call striving for the C plus holidays. I think so many of us when the holidays are right in front of us, we think we have to have the perfect picture on the holiday cards and get all the cookies baked and perfectly decorated. And all the lights on the house are perfectly hung. And go to the church service wearing the perfect Tartan plaid outfit. The tree is perfectly decorated. The wrapping paper, perfectly coordinates with the tree decorations. The wording and the pictures on the wrapping paper are perfectly lined up so you can't even see a seam. You've got a signature cocktail for your party with just the exact amount of booziness and festiveness. But what I'll say about that is: the key to the holidays is to create meaningful experiences that people will remember going forward. Think back five years ago to the holiday season in 2018. Do you remember what the picture on your holiday cards look like? Do you remember what kind of cookies you baked or what the lights look like on the house or how the tree was decorated or what the wrapping paper looked like? No. You don't. But you probably remember some great experiences with friends and family members that can't tell you. They don't know if your Tartan plaid perfectly matched your Christmas tree and the paper was all the, in the right color scheme. What they remember is the way you made them feel. And by lightening up a little bit on the perfection of the holidays, not only are you going to be able to enjoy yourself more. But the people around you are going to enjoy themselves too. Because they're going to feed off of your energy. They're going to feed off that kind of relaxed excitement that your experiencing in your life, when you let go of perfectionism when you settle for good enough. Even. Even at C plus, that's not only a passing grade, but it's better than 78% of everyone else. I think we can all agree that is good enough, right? Another way this is coming up in my life right now is I'm doing the 75 Hard again. If you were following me last year on social media, you know that I did the 75 Hard challenge last summer. If you're not familiar with it, it is challenge where for 75 days, you stick with a diet of your choice. Each day you drink a gallon of water. You complete two workouts a day. They both are at least 45 minutes each and one has to be outside. You take a daily progress picture. Read 10 pages in a nonfiction we'll call it personal development book each day. And for 75 days, you have no alcohol and no cheat meals. There are plenty of people that approach the 75 Hard because they want to lose a bunch of weight. Slim way down, look great in a bikini. There are lots of different reasons why people undertake 75 Hard. I do not approach 75 Hard to be perfect. When I do 75 Hard, and again, this is my second time doing it. I'm doing it because I want to re-establish the healthy habits in my life. Could I make sure that every workout was at a hundred percent, that it was absolutely perfect. Yup. Absolutely. Is that sustainable for me? No, my target is not, Can I get to 180 pounds of a deadlift at one point. I don't even know that's what I shouldn't be targeting as far as deadlift numbers because I just don't even think of that. I do dead lifts, but I never care how much weight I'm lifting. But my goal is not to go a hundred percent balls to the wall every single day. Instead, my target is to finish the challenge. By doing that, I will create some sustainable, healthy habits that work as a foundation for the rest of the things I'm working on in my life. I also know that my energy is going to ebb and flow during the challenge. So some days I could be a hundred percent for both workouts. Cause I've got plenty of time to do the workouts. I got enough sleep the night before my eating is on point, I'm well hydrated. So I go outside and I just crush my run. And then maybe I lift weights in the afternoon. And that's an incredible workout too. So some days, a hundred percent for both workouts. Other days I'm going to settle for 20 or 30%. And maybe that looks like an outside walk with my dog. Maybe that looks like a stretching session of yoga. Again, there are no rules on what that workout has to be other than one of them has to be outside. So I can choose how I'm going to approach the workouts based on how I feel. Just so that I can get the workouts in for the day. Because it's that idea. It's that compound effect. It's that consistent daily action. It's taking action when it's good enough, instead of waiting until it's perfect. Here's my challenge for you for the next week. I'd like you to take a look at where can you settle for good enough in your life this week. What doesn't need you to be at a hundred percent to still be successful. Where can you dial it back to say 70% or 50% or even 30%? And when you do that not only do I want you to take notice of one, did you get it done? But two, how do you feel? Are you less stressed? Are you less anxious? Did the thing get done anyway? It could even be something that you delegate, right? Where you get over the idea that you're the only one that can do it right. Hand it off to somebody and be grateful that they have taken it off your plate and they are doing it. Good enough. Just how can you infuse the idea of good enough in your life this week? And I would love to hear how that goes for you. In the meantime make it a great week. In fact, don't make it a great week. Make it a good enough week. Have a good one. I'll see you back here real soon. I have a question for you. When was it? Last time you spent a day focused completely on yourself. Oh, away from the daily grind, the constant ding of text messages, the never ending question of what's for dinner tonight. Well, If a day sounds good. What about an entire weekend away? And before you start thinking that sounds a little too indulgent. Let me remind you that you can't take care of everyone else in your life. If you don't take care of yourself first. I am thrilled to personally invite you to join me at the best life retreat. April 11th through the 14th., four days in world, famous sun valley, Idaho. With more than 12 hours of group coaching to figure out what you actually want in life, how you define success. And help you lay the groundwork for you to create a life that not only makes you happy. But also makes you feel personally fulfilled. There will be incredible group activities like happy hour paint and sips walks hikes. Your choice of spa appointments at an award-winning spa. Luxury accommodations, gourmet meals, premium drinks, and the best gift bag you have ever seen. I'm telling you this will be one of the very best weekends of your life. To keep the retreat intimate. There are only 10 spots available and when they're gone, they're gone. So go right now click the link in the show notes to grab your spot and i will see you in sun valley