The post is about letting things be as they are and trying not to make everything perfect.
This weekend I found myself rushing from place to place, struggling to do Christmas shopping, working on preparing my house for the holidays, sending out Christmas cards, making lists about people and stuff so I don’t forget anyone at Christmas, trying to fit business meetings, projects, and Holiday engagements all into the same two week period and making sure I get all the out of town family member’s packages in the mail by this week! Finally, by Sunday afternoon I just stopped and asked myself, “is this really the way I want to spend another Christmas and New Years?” Every year I do this, and every year I’m pretty much exhausted by the time January 2 rolls around. So, today I decided that my challenge for this next two weeks is to just let things develop the way they will and to try not to make everything perfect.
I have seen this tendency in me when we invite friends for dinner. I’ll often spend hours in the kitchen preparing and then add in making sure the house looks good and that the table is beautifully set. All of this lends itself to my being exhausted when the guests finally arrive. I’ve now learned to ask my husband to take on the house part, which he graciously offers to do, and I only have to worry about the food.
This addiction to perfection is one I often see in my clients. They will go to extraordinary lengths to make sure a presentation is perfect or re-write a performance review over and over again to try to make it right. The idea that they might appear stupid or not worthy of their position, often drives people to overdo and they become increasingly anxious in their efforts to perfect. By the time they present to the team or meet with a team member, they are already exhausted and their anxiety can easily be felt my others. There is also the tendency to take full control of something and to forget that delegating and involving others is a huge part of the success of any endeavor. Ironically, the fear of looking incompetent and/or wrong is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to creativity and innovation. Deeply imbedded in the process of creating anything is the knowledge that you will fail many times before you succeed.
Developing the attitude to ‘let it be’ has helped me become more balanced in my drive for perfection. I try to let each day come and unfold itself as it is meant to be.
Kathleen