The Problem With Perfection

"There you stand . . paralyzed at the crossroads of opportunity."

For some reason this quote has hung with me ever since I read it a number of years ago. The only problem is - I cannot remember what book it came from! Oh well, that's beside the point. The point is what the quote is saying. Hundreds of times every day we are faced with decisions. We have opportunities, big and small. Most of the time, we zip through our days making quick decisions and not looking back. However, sometimes fear and perfectionist tendencies swirl together resulting in no decision and consequently a missed opportunity. This problem arises when, desperately trying to make the best (the perfect) decision, we don't make any decision . . we stand paralyzed . . not taking action.

For more than a week I've known that I wanted to address this issue of perfection paralysis. How ironic that I purposefully put it off because "I didn't have all my ducks in a row." In a nutshell, I hadn't completely thought through everything I wanted to include and how I wanted to organize my thoughts. Sheesh! You would think I was writing a flippin' mid-term paper or something! Finally, I decided to just jump in and write what was swirling in my head rather than demanding perfect planning and organization for my writing.

Right now, you might be asking - "How in the world is all of this rambling related to nutrition, fitness, and wellness?" I'm glad you asked . . .
A few weeks ago my wife and I were working out, wait . . let me correct myself, we were attempting to workout. A number of obstacles were popping up. We were running late, the gym was really crowded, and we were experiencing a number of little aggravating "tweaks." ('Tweaks' is gym lingo for a little ache or pain that is not serious enough to be classified as an injury, yet can still really inhibit your workout.) The point is - we were encountering obstacles and, after almost an hour of warming up and discussing new workout ideas (in order to work around our 'tweaks' and time constraints), we had not even started our workout! We were super frustrated and even thought about just leaving the gym and calling it a day. Forget the workout . . the irritating warm-up was enough for us!
There we stood at the crossroads of opportunity, thinking about leaving the gym with no workout. Underneath it all I knew why we were frustrated. Time constraints, 'tweaks,' and being forced to "shift gears" from our originial exercise plan was going to result in a workout that was not up to my standards - not properly planned or thought through (kinda like this blog, huh?). Fortunately, we took the energy of our frustration and poured it into hodge-podge training session that actually wound up being a fantastic (and pretty dog-gone fun) workout!

Just in case you made through all of that and you're still reading, the moral of the story is -
Don't miss out on an opportunity because of perfection paralysis (or fear of a bad decision). The large and small decisions that you make every single day impact your physique, mindset, and overall health. While I am certainly an advocate of proper research and planning when it comes to exercise and nutrition, it might just do some of us good to get past demanding "the best workout" or "the best diet." Actually, no such thing exists (I'll discuss this more in a future blog) and if it did you probably wouldn't have the discipline or time to stick with it.

So, for the time being, how about we . . .

- Don't worry about the best workout and just work hard and consistent.

- Don't worry the latest diet trend and just start cutting out the crap (i.e. any and ALL sugary drinks, late night snacking, rich desserts, and huge portions)

- Don't stand paralyzed by fear of change and start making decisions that will have a positive impact on your body and health.