New Years Resolutions that Work:
End Perfectionism, Push Yourself, and Achieve Excellence

Reader Question:

I know I'm not alone in this, but sometimes I feel pretty...mediocre, in everything I do. I'm not the Very Best Parent, or the Very Best Daughter, or the Very Best Worker. I know perfection is impossible, and what I'd like to do this year is figure out a way to feel okay with doing my best and NOT being perfect.

Larina’s Response:

New Years resolutions that work seek excellence but not perfection. Most people are not able to achieve their resolutions because they set them up as the perfect goal, such as:

• Lose 50 pounds (one’s ideal weight loss).
• Work out 5 days a week (wouldn’t that be a perfect workout schedule?).
• Go to every school and sports function for my kids (the perfect parent).

These goals set us up for quick disappointment and loss of motivation because they are unrealistic. When you set your expectations too high for yourself (at an unreasonable level), you will always fall short and be disappointed. This is what I call the peril of perfectionism.

You can, however, be your personal best in all you do. One way to do this is to focus on the process rather than the destination. If you focus on being the Perfect Daughter, you’re focusing on the end-goal and most likely losing all enjoyment of the activities that go into being a daughter.

If, on the other hand, you focus on spending quality time with your parents, appreciating them, and doing something nice for them every week, you’ll enjoy the process. And ironically you’ll be less mediocre and more like the Very Best Daughter.

In researching my new book The Confident Leader: How the Most Successful People Go from Effective to Exceptional, I found that people who are most successful (in work, fitness, life) are great at knowing when and how much to push themselves, and it’s never to the level of perfection. They push themselves by about 20% beyond what’s comfortable. When they reach the goal they then push themselves another 20% (if the ultimate goal has not yet been reached and is reasonable).

For example, if you rate your current level of parenting as 50%, you would push yourself to reach 70%. If your average level of working is 60% you would push yourself to reach 80%. To do this, you MUST accept the discomfort that comes with change.

Most people are not able to achieve New Years resolutions because they set them as 100% goals, and then become uncomfortable with the needed changes and back away. Instead, pace your goal into steps, and expect and embrace the discomfort that will inevitably arise as part of your growth process.

Another key to achieving resolutions is that you give yourself a break. Our bodies perform best if we challenge ourselves and then allow a brief period of total recovery and then challenge ourselves again. For example, if you’re working on building muscle at the gym, you would do best to exercise your muscles, allow them to recover, and then exercise them again.

The final and most important piece to the puzzle is that you recognize and give yourself credit for every step of the process towards your goal. This keeps you from feeling mediocre and helps you feel (and therefore be) more successful.

We can always say, “Yes, I worked out but I only got there 2 days a week instead of 5.” This is type of interpretation sets us up to focus on failure and lose motivation. Instead, say to yourself, “good for me- I went from zero days a week to 2, so I increased my workouts by 200%. The next step is to go for 3 days a week. It felt great to get to the gym, so this is doable.”

Practice these personal development strategies, and you are likely to see better results with a whole lot less stress and more enjoyment in the process.

And you will be the VERY best at one thing: Being YOU.

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