Not good enough is sometimes good enough

You set out a goal, you imagine how things will happen, you picture how you will feel when you get there and then...it doesn't happen. Does this sound familiar? You tried but you just weren't good enough to reach that goal, right? Likely, it is not your goals that are unreachable, it is your standards.

Good enough? [Copyright Bulletproof Journalist]

Slowly moving away from 'perfection', we arrive to the land of 'good enough'. On paper that all seems great and genuinely positive because it erases the pressure of trying to reach something impossible. Good enough allows for mistakes and flaws. Usually. Unless you are, like me, setting that standard so high that you end up expecting perfection.
I always had really rigid expectations of myself, it didn't matter that someone else might have been doing something for years to get to a level, I wanted to get there right there and then. This was not about the other person (who I adored and respected for their hard work), it was always about me. It wasn't about what society expected of me, it was about where I thought I should be. It goes like this: I set a standard of 'good enough', an expectation towards myself and then I end up feeling like a sitcom character as I fall over during training and as I struggle with words on a meeting. (And I don't even get the funky music.) I look at the people who gracefully run towards the finish line as I collapse, wheezing and looking like a tomato. What I don't realise is that that is their finish line and I might have just passed mine. It's easy for anyone to say 'I am not good enough' when their 'good enough' is perfection.
This is what you need to realise too. It is inevitable that we don't always live up to our expectations, even if they are perfectly reasonable. Instead of beating yourself up constantly, you could look around and find your finish line. The one that allows you to be flawed, confused and in the wrong sometimes. Some days you feel like you could conquer the world and some days, nothing seems to work out. When things are tough, what makes the difference between a winner and loser is that the winner will keep trying. It might be the smallest step they take, it might be backwards, but they keep moving. So keep moving and practice some kindness towards yourself.

Remember: not good enough is sometimes good enough.

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