George Bernard Shaw once said that "If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn't be anything for us to do." Put well but differently by Salvador Dalí, "Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it". The strive for perfection is one familiar to many of us. Who doesn't want the perfect life? The perfect spouse? The perfect kids? Perfection comes in big and small packages - do you have a kid who needs to achieve perfect marks? Do you need a picture perfect clean house? We view the world through the lens of social media and everyone's picture perfect moments and its hard to remember that life is not actually perfect. And people are definitely far from perfect.
I find myself grappling with this concept a lot - I set up a picture in my mind of what my life should be like or how a specific situation should go and then when it doesn't go as scripted, I'm often left feeling a great amount of disappointment. When I was a teenager I remember consciously setting my expectations low so I wouldn't be disappointed. When my sister went to a year abroad and really didn't have a great experience, I followed her trail and went to the same school abroad the following year with expectations at about zero. (Ask me what I was thinking going to the same place when she really didn't enjoy the experience and I'll go back to the young and dumb post from the past, but honestly it was an amazing year experience for me and I really grew from it). As an adult, I have grappled with the expectations piece - I don't want to set low expectations so that I will always be satisfied, I want to strive for greatness and be able to achieve it. So how do we find that balance? Can we be great but not perfect parents? Help our children have high but realistic expectations? Strive for near perfection but not think they must be perfect? Make mistakes and misstep and still stay on track to reach goals?
To tell you the truth, the greatest lessons I've learned on this particular topic have been from a wise friend of mine. Of all the adults I know, this friend has been one that has shown me what true growth and development as an adult mean. They often tell me about the fairy tale world that I live in (in a friend kind of way of course) and about adjusting my expectations to be more in line with the real world. So today I will share some of the wisdom I have learned from them.
It is not always the actual event or end result that matters, it is the process. We can't always get a situation right on the first try, and we don't have to. What matters more than the actual result is what we do with the experience. If we make mistakes, if we don't achieve perfection, what do we do with our failure or lack of perfection? It breaks down into a few pieces:
1. How quickly do we right our course? If we make a mistake, can we recognize it and get back on track? The more quickly we are able to course correct, the nearer we come to the perfection we are striving towards. There are times we can correct ourselves immediately and reset. Other times, we need to give ourselves a moment (or a day or a week) to regroup. Learning to take that time and analyze ourselves is a hard but important step towards fixing our missteps.
2. What lessons can we take away from these experiences? Can we find ways to prevent the same experience happening again? Being able to discuss and dissect our mistakes is a real sign of a growing person who is striving towards near perfection. This piece can also have very important ramifications in terms of helping our kids achieve the results they are striving for in their various situations. If we can help them dissect their processes and figure out how to set up systems for success that work for them, they will have an easier time achieving good results. A child who needs more structure and process with their studying will constantly face the feelings of anxiety and potentially failure when trying to study for exams if they cram. And two week study plans would fall flat for others. Helping them figure out their best fit can help set them up for success.
3. Can we leave our mistakes and failures behind and move forward? Not dwelling on the things you haven't done perfectly helps us be able to move forward and learn from all of our experiences. Mistakes should be used as a springboard for success. Most inventors failed several times before hitting their mark - we should expect no less of ourselves.
For fear of sounding like a broken record, I will venture to say talk to your kids! Discuss your goals, discuss your struggles. Keep the dialogue going, share your failures and successes, they need to see you as a growing, changing, developing human.
We will make mistakes, we are human. What we do with our mistakes is far more important than the fact that we made them. Modeling these behaviors to our children will help them integrate these techniques into their lives.
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