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Can you imagine finding satisfaction in your projects and activities even when you do not perform perfectly? Try this simple visualization: Imagine a common situation in which you perform well but less than perfectly. See the actual outcome in your mind's eye and compare it to your image of the perfect performance. How different are the two? Are they so different that good enough performance should bring you any less satisfaction than some unrealistic state of perfection? |
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Now, using this same outcome, imagine feeling very satisfied with your performance, more than you would ordinarily allow yourself to feel. Notice that you have a choice as to how much satisfaction you feel over your performance. |
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Enjoying Less Than Perfect Performance |
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The connection between satisfaction (or pleasure) and perfection was made long ago, in childhood. For the most part we don't even think about it anymore. But the way we experience it is quite obvious: we feel less satisfaction and too much self-critical pessimism. The self-acceptance and satisfaction we could be enjoying is replaced by a self-critical sense of inadequacy. Instead of stroking ourselves gently with soothing gratification, we bat ourselves over the head for not being good enough. |
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For example, let's say your expectation of perfection involves how you play tennis. You have an image in mind as to what it would be like to play the perfect game. And you always end up feeling like you have fallen short, since your image of perfect tennis means committing no unforced errors. While you may occasionally play a match in which you have a few unforced errors, you may have never have played a match with none. Consequently, you have deprived yourself of feeling the amount of satisfaction with your performance that you would have felt had you lowered your expectation from perfection to excellence. More satisfaction might be possible if it were permissible to give yourself a healthy dose of good enough feeling for simply playing the best you could. |
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Your degree of satisfaction, then, is a matter of consciously giving yourself permission to feel more enjoyment and contentment with a less than perfect performance. How much satisfaction you feel about anything, including investing, is up to you. This can be reinforced by saying, "I will allow myself to feel a high degree of satisfaction with 10 or fewer unforced errors in any given match." The goal of |
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