Prolific is better than perfect.
– Richard Crawford-Small
When I first started working with Richard, he’d constantly tell me I was overthinking things and taking too long to get them out. I wanted everything to look perfectly polished, I wanted to give the whole world the illusion that I had 100 years experience in my clinic, money was no object and that whatever I needed, I got. I didn’t want people to see my messy desk, my unbrushed hair and my spotty skin. I certainly didn’t want people to see me fumbling over my words and listening to my dog barking at the postman. He’d tell me to get over myself and get on with it and reminded me that something is always better than nothing.
It’s now a mantra that I’ve come to realise is applicable to so many areas of life and more-so than we think.
When I start working with people, it’s funny how often I spend the first few weeks listening to their excuses.
“I couldn’t eat healthily because I had a stressful week at work.”
“I couldn’t meal prep because my kids want to eat kit-kats for dinner.”
“I couldn’t get started on the exercise routine because it was raining.”
There comes a point for us all where we have to acknowledge what is a reason, what is an excuse and what is just life.
The difference between a reason and an excuse.
I am not at all “success at all costs”. I don’t believe in burn out, “the daily grind” and the four hours a night sleep routine. I don’t believe in knuckling down and working your arse off constantly because eventually you’ll earn a big break. I believe in acknowledging the parameters for our own success, understanding our values and accepting we’re human and we have bad days. But I also believe we need to know when to kick on and when to hold back.
A wise professor once said to me “If you warn the patient of a complication before it happens, it’s a warning. If you tell them about it after it’s happened, it’s an excuse.” When you’re lining up the schedule for the day or the week, there are some things you can forsee – perhaps it’s going to be a difficult week because of child care issues or perhaps you’ve got a rammed week at work. For those things, we need to prepare and acknowledge the challenges, accept them and acknowledge that we may not have the perfect week when it comes to the rest of our lifestyle choices as a result. However, by being prepared for the likely mishaps, we can also feel more secure and more relaxed knowing that we’ve designed the week to fit in around the challenges and certain compromises may need to be made. We have essentially acknowledged legitimate reasons that the ideal plan may not come together and hopefully, we have a plan B for that.
There are of course always those things that pop up unexpectedly. For those, we need to be ready to adapt and change the plan at the drop of a hat, but we also need to learn not to give ourselves a hard time about it. Perhaps you’d planned an amazing healthy roast this weekend, but your kid swallowed a buzz light year and now you’re in A&E for the next four years and trying to decide what the healthiest Uber Eats is you can get delivered to the hospital. Shit happens. When you’re reflecting on that week, that’s a fair REASON that things didn’t go to plan.
But then there’s the other stuff. The life stuff. The “I just couldn’t be arsed” EXCUSES. With all the best will in the world, with all the advice when it comes to prioritising, planning, goalsmashing, stress is inevitable. Sometimes LIFE IS HARD. There’s never going to be an easy day to change. Well, there might be, but there are 365 days in a year and only making positive changes on the days when it’s easy is not going to result in the transformation you want to see. You know what will? Solid hard work. Little changes day after day, that are doable even when normal life stress comes into play, that add up to big changes. All those little lies you tell yourself about why “I’ll start Monday”, are exactly what’s holding you back.
You’re waiting for perfection. You’re waiting for all the conditions to be ideal. You’re waiting for that polished, perfect version of your life to appear and guess what? IT ISN’T COMING. Once you accept that, you’ll be a lot happier. And guess what? That makes change a lot easier. And that makes success something that’s actually achievable.
So think about the lies you tell yourself. Think about the excuses you make for yourself. Think about what the REASONS might be that things aren’t perfect, but also think realistically about what you can change, what you can’t and what success has to fit in around. Because once you do that, this all gets a lot fucking easier.