You woke up late. Your alarm didn’t go off. The kids took longer to get ready than usual. There was traffic.

You’re off your game and feeling a bit frustrated with running behind.

You’re late starting your workout.

And while usually you’d do 5 rounds of your circuit, you only get in 2.

You then have to rush off for the rest of your day.

But all day you’re slightly frustrated because you didn’t get in your full session.

You feel GUILTY.

And maybe even a bit grumpy about not doing what you’d ideally like to have done.

Your meal prep starts to look worse and worse to you.

It would be so easy to grab those chips, those crackers, that candy, instead.

I mean, who cares right? Your days already off. Wouldn’t it be better to just start over tomorrow anyway?

If you can’t be perfect with things…

BOOM.

That thought right there, that thought we’ve all had…this desire for perfection…is so often what holds us back.

Even just hearing this story, we all think BUT you still did SOMETHING.

Yet in the moment it is so easy to let our failure of achieving perfection with implementing of our plan completely sabotage us from still doing what we can.

While we “know” logically something is better than nothing it doesn’t always feel that way when we WANT to be perfect.

Because most of us DO want to do what we feel we should. We want to excel in those habits.

We want to do everything we can to achieve results.

But we have to recognize that while we can strive for perfection, we also have to embrace good enough at times.

While it’s hard in the moment to step back, we have to realize that if perfection is on one side and do nothing/completely sabotage ourselves/use poopy habits is on the other, good enough may be enough on that “perfect” side of the continuum to keep us moving forward.

And ANYTHING is better than not only doing nothing, but even consciously doing the habits that hold us back.

I think it’s when we really step back to see it as that continuum we can start to see that anything we can do to stay closer to that perfect side will really help us allow our results to snowball.

So sure, the workout may have only been half of what we wanted, BUT that’s good enough to be darn near perfect.

Heck sometimes we even need to think it is better than what we could have done…because we could have skipped the entire thing!

And then had we embraced that being good enough and eaten our meal plan we would have stayed even more on that perfect side of the continuum.

However, by feeling like we’d failed just because we weren’t perfect, and then NOT eating foods or macros in line with our goals we start to slide down that continuum toward poopy habits.

Because I know I’ve done this personally and I see this all or nothing attitude with clients often, I wanted to share some questions I think are key we consider.

1. Why do we fear good enough?

I say “fear” because I feel like we feel that good enough is failure. And most of us do not like to fail. There is definitely a fear of failing when we start something new.

And I think often when we aren’t perfect with something, we sabotage ourselves instead of feeling like we failed. Because when we just give up, even though we did fail, we feel a control in it. We gave up. We chose not to do it.

While often we can ultimately still feel guilty, which can lead to more self sabotage, there is an odd sense of control.

So I think we need to recognize that good enough isn’t a failure.

It’s a win.

Instead of looking at the things we didn’t do, we need to realize how much more we’ve already done than we would have at another time.

Focusing on those 1% improvements and the times we are “better than” we would have been in the same situation in the past, the more we can recognize and celebrate our growth to keep ourselves moving forward!

2. Why don’t you set a minimum?

Yes we all want results yesterday. But think about how often life really is perfect.

Think about how often a lack of time, a lack of energy, a lack of focus…basically a bazillion and 1 excuses don’t pop up?

The simple fact is…there is always something.

And honestly the more we want a perfect time, the more likely it is we will find an excuses. We are almost looking for a reason at times that things won’t work out, just because they haven’t in the past.

So often with clients I like to really recognize the fact that life doesn’t often work with us.

It often does its best to get in the way!

So instead of planning always for the ideal, sometimes it is best to plan for the worst.

Find minimums you can always return to.

Because if you set the minimum, you know you can be PERFECT with that.

Sure the perfect isn’t with your ideal.

But sometimes we need to rock being perfect with just good enough.

And that is what leads ultimately to the perfectly consistent enough that gets us results.

SUMMARY:

We are human. I know perfect isn’t in my DNA.

But I can find ways, and so you can you, to be perfectly good enough.

So today even, consider minimums for those daily habits and routines that you can do to stay on track even when a bazillion reasons not to do anything are thrown your way.

Consider ways things you can do to stay in a groove doing something…

Because small steps forward are still steps forward! And good enough keeps the momentum building!