While change is never easy, it is worth it. Even though it feels that we may be moving at a snail's pace, or we can't see any difference, as we continue to perfectly try and put forth an honest effort, the results will come.
This past week, my family and I were watching the movie When the Game Stands Tall, and a line in it really caught my attention. In the movie, Coach Ladouceur notes, “We’re not asking you to be perfect on every play. What we’re asking of you and what you should be asking of each other is to give a perfect effort from snap to whistle.” I think that this line stood out so much to me because the idea of perfection or being perfect is so easy to get fixated on. I know that there have been different activities that I have been hesitant to do because I knew that I would mess up, make mistakes and that I would be far from perfect. I let my imperfections or my fear of failure keep me from branching out and trying new things, thus limiting my growth and my potential. That is why I loved this quote, it shows that success and failure are not measured based upon a certain outcome (ie doing something perfectly), but rather it's based upon the effort that we exert.
Once we change our focus from something we can't control (perfection) to something we can control (effort), growth and change will be able to come quicker and easier. A personal example from my own life was with my singing. While I loved singing, I had always avoided trying to sing certain types of songs that involved techniques such as belting, singing clearly at extremely high notes, etc because I knew that I wouldn't be able to sing it well. However, once I realized that I was never going to master those techniques without making mistakes along the way, I was more willing to push myself out of my comfort zone and my singing began to improve and those techniques that seemed so unattainable started to become possible.
I think that we not only struggle with the idea of perfectionism in performance areas but with character as well. We would all love to be more patient, more charitable, more optimistic, etc. However, we often fall short of the ideal that we set for ourselves. It can be so easy to get caught up in all that we are doing wrong, that we forget to focus on what we are doing right. Just as it is so important to give others the benefit of the doubt, and allow them the opportunity to change and improve, we need to give that same chance to ourselves.
In Shakespeare's As You Like It the character Oliver is confronted about his past behavior in contrast with his present. He responds to the questioning with, "'Twas I, but ’tis not I. I do not shame to tell you what I was, since my conversion so sweetly tastes, being the thing I am." All of us will have those moments, where we undergo our own transformations and we no longer are what we once were. Granted, we will always have things that we could do better at, or that we would like to improve upon, but the important thing is that we keep trying and recognize and rejoice in the progress that we have made. As Jeffrey R. Holland once said "except for Jesus, there have been no flawless performances on this earthly journey we are pursuing, so while in mortality let’s strive for steady improvement without obsessing over what behavioral scientists call 'toxic perfectionism.' We should avoid that latter excessive expectation of ourselves and of others"
While change is never easy, it is worth it. Even though it feels that we may be moving at a snail's pace, or we can't see any difference, as we continue to perfectly try and put forth an honest effort, the results will come. Improvements will be made, and lives will be touched. We are doing better than we think we are.