Week 20: Progress

“Strive for progress, not perfection.”  --unknown

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I love the above quote.  It often makes me feel a lot better when things don’t go the way I think they should, because I am my own worst critic.  I’ve always been a bit of a perfectionist, and I always get a irritated  and down on myself if I don’t live up to my own expectations.  I want everything I do to be perfect, even though I know in my head that’s completely impossible.  I do this to myself in all areas of my life, whether it be personal or business.  I’ve been no different on this journey.  Little setbacks and a couple weeks of stress eating really upset me, even though rationally I knew it wasn’t the end of the world.

But then there’s this quote.  I remember very clearly the first time I encountered it.  It was a Sunday morning and this quote turned up in the sermon.  I’d had a fairly bad week at work and was feeling fairly badly about a few minor mistakes I’d made on an account.  No one else was upset with me, really--I immediately corrected the problems and the folks involved were totally okay with that--but I couldn’t stop reliving the embarrassment of the moment.  And then that quote and the rest of the associated sermon reminded me that I’m only human and that it’s okay to not be perfect.

This quote is in my journal now, and sometimes when I feel like I’m failing at whatever it is I’m trying to do, I open to that page and revisit it.  I need the reminder that this journey doesn’t have to be perfect, and that I need to remember that I’ve made a lot of progress along the way, and that in itself is an accomplishment I can be proud of.