Believe it or not, I have believed it. Maybe, you have, too.

Working hard is a great quality to have. There have been times when I have worked myself tirelessly for excellence, to give my best and then some. If this sounds like a line from a football film like Remember the Titans or Friday Night Lights, it probably is inspired from it. Growing up, I loved football films. As a former collegiate football player, hard work is necessary, but working hard to be perfect is not. It served me well at certain points, but perfectionism is a silent assassin to dreams. For every step you make towards that dream, perfectionism can set a different trap for you to fall into to delay or destroy that vision.

Perfectionism has eyes fixed on this particular lie: you can control the outcome of whatever you choose to do, with no room for mistakes. For some reason, I believed this. Many, including you, have or continue to fall for this trap. Perhaps you believe if things go perfectly on an assignment that you are leading will result in that promotion that you always wanted. You work day and night on that assignment. You beat yourself up for missing minor deals and mistakes. As a result of your hard work, you obtain the promotion, but are disappointed. Have you been there before?

I have been disappointed by my pursuit of perfection. Even when I have achieved a goal, I never allowed myself to pause and celebrate it, but I criticized myself so that there was nothing left to celebrate. The achievement never lived up to the hype that I placed on it. Instead, I dismissed the achievement, and began another goal to feed my ambition. That’s the problem with perfection: you can’t obtain it. What do you strive for instead of perfection? Excellence.

“Unfortunately, perfectionism dies slowly. It’s persistent and particularly dangerous because it masquerades as excellence”

Jon Acuff

Over the years, this quote has been true for me. I had my definitions of perfection and excellence mixed up. I read several books like Finish by Jon Acuff to dig into this topic. The common theme of these books is to examine the motivation of your goal. Are you being driven by fear, or driven by progress? Excellence requires your best without the pressure of a specific outcome. It is built upon on strong, consistent effort to be better over time. If we all focus on the steps that lead to the goal with an open mindset, we will be more malleable to adjust our routes to the end goal.

We can’t be perfect. That is a fact. However, we shouldn’t sabotage our growth toward a better version of ourselves. Using excuses keeps all of us bound to present-day, with no hope for progress in the future. There was one man that was perfect on this earth, named Jesus. We aren’t saviors, but we are people progressing. Embrace progress and the end will take care of itself.