THE ART OF PERFECTION

Perfection is an addiction. Mind it, not just for the one who is a perfectionist  but also for the ones who are at the receiving end. Isn’t it hard to find seamless people and isn’t it nice to see them around you?  Yes it is because they deliver more than what you do; more than what you expect.

But a sweet little warning to all those perfectionists out there. Sometimes your impatience, your calm is bound to go tipsy, at least for a while if not always; you are human; then even your little mistakes are will be made to sound as blunders. 

Sometimes I pity with these people. All their lives they work hard every inch to get to that last level of excellence and when they fall even 1 % short, their conscience together with expectations of others  makes them miserable. There is a sequence of habits which go into building this chain of events. Such people start with enjoying precision and go on to become obsessed with it;  not knowing where to take a breather.

And I am not talking about the celebrities. I am not talking about icons like ‘The Perfectionist Aamir Khan’. I am talking about people around us. Sometimes it could be your mom, your boss, your husband, your child. So my one question to these flawless people: Are you relaxed? 

Don’t get me wrong here. It’s not that I am trying to say that one should not strive to be better. One certainly should but not at the cost of happiness. It does not pay to stretch yourself so much when it deprives you of the pleasure of doing it. It is important to draw a line. I have myself gone through something like this. 

In trying to be most efficient,

I enjoyed my work……

put in my hard work…….

worked too hard………

I slogged ………

I slogged harder……

I lost the charm of doing my work. 

So the graph went from fun to No fun.
"The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." ; Anna Quindlen, American bestselling author and Journalist. 

 

Isn’t it perfectly worded. It may not pay you to be ideal, but it shall certainly pay to be yourself.

I am not sure how many of us are aware of the Pareto principle, more commonly known as the eighty-twenty principle or the law of the vital few. Business-management consultant Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Any layman would understand that it is a common rule of thumb in business that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.

Though these big organizations have enough number of workshops to induce this principle amongst their employees but there is hardly anything which brings to light this fundamental to the common people like us.

The way to go about this principle is optimization. First try to focus on the most important twenty percent effort that brings you the maximum results. That will take you off the stress, the constant worry and then you can choose to enjoy and do the rest.

 

So, while Pareto used this principle to observe wealth, business houses use it achieve sales targets, we should make an effort to use it in almost every area of work. 

My last word to all those who took out time to read this;

“ it is perfectly perfect to be imperfect a few times”. Think about it.