What if there was something holding you back from becoming the best version of yourself? Lets talk about that.

The thing we’re talking about affects how you’ll spend this weekend. Your hobbies and career. Your relationships. In fact, it affects our entire life.

For many of us it began when we were young. Walt Disney made a fortune capitalizing on it. We were made to imagine that life was going to be a fairy tale. Everything was going to be perfect. We’d get rich, marry the right person, have the perfect family, live someplace where it’s hot year around.  Yet somehow that’s not happened to most of us.

Most of us would not consider ourselves rich, some of us struggle with marriage, some of our families are less than perfect. And I certainly don’t live someplace where it’s hot all year. Today I think it reached about 50 degrees.

Some people decide the hassle just isn’t worth it. Complacency is much easier. Eventually, we settle.  There may be more but for now, what we are and have is enough.  So what if we’re overweight or in debt.  It’s too much work and bother to have things otherwise.

While complacency can have negative affects, it’s not a bad idea to embrace your present reality. In fact, acceptance is a great first step. And until you define your present reality, you cannot change it. Be it your marriage or your finances, determining that which pertains to reality is a huge first step in the right direction.

But don’t camp out there.  Don’t camp out in the land of Despair.  Don’t camp out in the land of Depression because of what the Dr. said.  Don’t camp out in the land of Sadness because your spouse served you divorce papers this week or is threatening too.  Don’t camp out because your daughter says she hates you.  Make plans to move forward.

Keep doing what you’re doing differently.

I know that goes against common thinking, but there is some truth in it.  You don’t have to quit your job to change your life.  Nor do you have to move to another country to begin again.  You don’t have to leave your wife or find new kids.  Work with what you have.

What keeps many of us back is our search for perfection.

Perfection can take you in the wrong direction.

If you’re creative, the situation can be worse.  In your mind’s eye you see your life as it could and should be.  You imagine how your spouse and kids should treat you.  You imagine what your house or 401k should look like.  You know what your perfect job would be.  Then there is reality.  And in between what could and should be and what is (reality), there is a gap.

We don’t like the gap.  We want to close it.  For some of us reality is too painful.  We don’t want a gap.  We want what we want and when it comes to closing the gap, we think we need the perfect strategy. The problem is we don’t know what it is.  If we did we would use it and our problems would be over.

The good news is there is no perfect strategy.  In our minds there is, and we’ll do whatever it takes to discover it.  We’ll spend money, attend conferences, call people, read, go to the Dr.  Someone, we think, must know the perfect solution.

There’s nothing wrong with having a strategy.  You’ll need one if you’re going to succeed.  Doing nothing is still a strategy.

When developing a strategy, doing something is usually better than doing nothing.  Spending 5 minutes a day with your child is better than spending no time at all with them.  Putting 10 dollars a week into a savings account is better than putting no money aside.  Exercising for three minutes a day is better than no exercise at all.

However, when we desire the perfect strategy, we often spend more time searching for it rather than implementing an imperfect strategy that we can adapt or change later.

An imperfect strategy that can be improved or shaped is better than no strategy at all.

So this is how it works.  Continue with the strategy that you are using now until a better one comes along.  Put another way, do the best with what you have now until you can do better.

Take for example, the writing of a dissertation.  Our tendency is to think that it has to be the best thing we’ve ever written.  In some ways, it should be.  But in actuality the things we write after our dissertation should be better.  The dissertation is just practice for the real work to come.

Or think about your wedding.  It has or had to be perfect.  Yet, a wedding is just a preview of things to come.  You can have a horrible wedding and go on to make a beautiful life together.

The truth is life is messy and the only perfect things that exist exist in fairytales and your mother-in-laws imagination.  🙂

If you’re having trouble praying perfectly, pray poorly until you can do better.

If you’re not the perfect husband, don’t give up because your brother-in law is a much better one.

Write poorly until you can write better.

Bench 100 pounds until you can bench 200.

But whatever you do, keep on doing.  If you have any hope at all of closing the gap, it’s going to require action on your part.  You’ve come too far to cash in your chips and sit on a beach in Maui for the rest of your life.  Don’t settle for less.  Be the best version of yourself.  Study, learn, grow and reach for the stars.  Until then, embrace the gap.  If you still have a gap, you’re still alive and that’s better than the alternative.