You just can’t. Sometimes you’ll make mistakes, but it’s important to realise that’s what makes you human. It’s the mistakes that you make which ultimately make you more ‘perfect’ overall. Let me explain..
Say you do everything right, and you’re always right, You always make the ‘right’ decisions.. So what? You’re viewed in a different way by everyone else. You see, someone else might look at you and think, ‘He’s always perfect, and he always has to be right. No-one likes a know it all’. And that would shatter your image of ‘perfection’. Perfection doesn’t really exist, except in the eye of the beholder, as they say. In the eyes of someone looking at you.
For that reason, it’s basically impossible to be perfect, because everyone who looks at you will all see something slightly different. They’ll all see the same person, same appearance and such, but everyone will see a different version of you. For some people, you’ll seem a certain way and for others, you’ll seem like someone different. Everyone has different perceptions of the world and the people in it.
So why try to be perfect? Well, you shouldn’t. As long as about 80% of the time, you’re doing the right things in your life, and by ‘right things’ I mean moving towards your goals, being kind and compassionate to everyone in your life and treating yourself and others with respect, then the other 20% of the time you can afford to do some things that aren’t ‘perfect’. What do I mean by this?
Well, let’s say you smoke. I’m going to use an example of a person again to illustrate a point. Let’s call him Adrian. Adrian smokes, maybe about a packet every month. This is spread out over the weekends, so when he goes out at the weekend, he’s offered a couple of fags by his friends, and he accepts. He smokes about 2-3 every weekend. Now the REST OF THE WEEK he’s healthy, he works out, he works on his business and he is moving forward with his life.
BUT, he just can’t seem to shake the habit of smoking with his friends at the weekends. He loves it. Going to the pub or wherever he goes, meeting with his friends and having a coupe of fags. It’s just a habit that he can’t get rid of. So is this a bad thing? Well, I would say not really. As long as for the most part, remember we said for the rest of the week, he doesn’t smoke, and instead he works on his business.. Then it’s probably okay.
So smoking is good for you?
No. That’s NOT what I’m saying at all.
It’s not good for you, and really you should stop if you do smoke. It’s an EXAMPLE of a bad habit that someone has, that they can’t get rid of. I believe that in some cases, that habit isn’t as bad as the GUILT or ‘discomfort’ you’d experience when trying to give it up. Let’s say someone is constantly eating healthy and then on the weekend, they love to go and eat a huge pizza..
They just eat and eat a huge pizza every weekend. Is that bad? Yeah it’s probably bad for them. BUT it’s not THAT bad! It’s just a pizza. It has too much fat and salt in it, but if the guy is eating healthy the rest of the week, what’s the worst that one pizza could do? It wouldn’t have that much of an effect on him. So you’ve got to be sensible with this, and don’t assume this means to just keep any bad habits you have and just switch to only doing them on weekends, but for SOME habits, for SOME ‘imperfections’, doing them or having them isn’t so bad after all.
Sometimes the habit is better than the ‘discomfort’ of wanting to do it
That might sound a little confusing. Let’s explain.. Imagine you’re a KFC lover. (for those who don’t know, KFC is a fried chicken company) and you also want to get healthy and lose weight. Now the sensible thing would be to give up this fried chicken, because hey, fried stuff is bad for you, right? And it is.. It’s not healthy and it can cause a few health problems.. But, let’s say you REALLY love KFC.
Now in the grand scheme of things, KFC isn’t that bad. It’s just chicken, covered in batter that’s been fried. It’s got fat and salt, not good things, but at the same time, it’s not AS BAD as say, Heroin, is it?
So in some cases the actual feeling of WANTING the thing, whether it’s KFC, a cigarette, or a beer, can be more damaging than actually HAVING the thing. When you cause internal discomfort, by not giving yourself something you want it’s a stressor.
You’ll get stressed, and internally you’ll start to feel bad. Imagine for example that you are starving hungry.. You REALLY want some food, KFC to be specific. Now imagine someone else walking around eating that KFC right in front of you.
See them crunching on the crispy batter, the moist chicken practically falling off the bone. You want it, don’t you? And that feeling of wanting it and not having it is going to make you feel bad.. You’ll either feel:
- Upset because you can’t have it
- Annoyed at yourself for going on a diet in the first place
- Annoyed because you can see someone else having it
- Etc..
Do you see?
So you’re telling me to keep bad habits?
No. Ideally, it’s best to get rid of bad habits. Get rid of them altogether and be healthy, happy and free. But sometimes, that’s not easy to do and so I’m suggesting it might be better to ‘ease off’ certain things. It’s all about what you truly want. If you REALLY want a cigarette, have one. As long as you know that it’s bad for you and you know that you’ll need to stop in the end, have one because the feeling you’ll get from having one, (Satisfaction relaxation, happiness) is more beneficial to you than the feeling from Not having one; (You’re upset, annoyed, anxious).
Don’t get the wrong impression from this post.. I’m not saying it’s good to just indulge in bad habits. Quite the opposite.. I’m just saying that you shouldn’t feel so bad.. And you shouldn’t beat yourself up over a small slip up. It’s not the end of the world. You’re still here reading this, right? So those mistakes you’ve made in the past can’t have been that bad.
If you REALLY want to have a beer, eat a KFC and have a cigarette, then go for it.
It’s your choice, and ultimately you should be happy. If however, you aren’t happy by making those choices, then don’t. Look for the better way, which is to give up your bad habits.
You can’t be perfect all the time
Try and make sure 80% of the time, you’re on the right track
That’s what it takes really.. The vast majority of the time you should be healthy, happy and moving towards your goals. You should be making the right decisions in your life and making the right decision for your business etc.. But as long as you’re doing that, the 20% of the time where you’re watching TV, relaxing, having a beer or whatever.. It’s not the end of the world.
Trying to be perfect is going to tire you out and you’ll only end up hating yourself. Because it’s not possible to be perfect. Certainly try to strive for perfection, but don’t get too attached because it’s not actually a real thing in the world. What’s ‘perfect’ to one person is horrible to another. It’s all subjective.