Many perfectionists struggle to let go of perfectionism because they think it means settling for bad work: sloppiness, inaccuracies, etc.
But giving up on perfectionism doesn’t mean embracing mediocrity. It means embracing effectiveness.
It’s about recognizing that perfection is an impossible ideal – a place you can never reach. So at some point, you have to let go of that ideal and settle for “good enough.”
What is good enough?
Accuracy.
What counts is whether or not your work is accurate enough to be effective. Is it understandable? Is it useful? Is it correct?
Handwriting doesn’t need to be beautiful. It just needs to be legible. Neatness matters, but only to the degree that it improves clarity. Beyond that, time is wasted. (Unless you’re creating art, but I’m not talking about art; I’m talking about homework.)
Your essay doesn’t need to be written in beautiful, perfectly phrased prose. It just needs to clearly convey the correct ideas. Too many writers get hung up on making their writing fancy – on trying to sound smart – when they should really just focus on getting their ideas across. Does your essay logically respond to the prompt? Does it have effective evidence and analysis? Can the reader understand what you mean? Is it mostly free from grammatical errors? If so, it’s good enough.
Perfectionism is like expressing pi as 3.14159265358979 when 3.14 will do. We need to cultivate the mental flexibility to know where and when to stop – when to call it “good enough.” Good enough for what? To be understood, to be useful, to be accurate.
Insisting on accuracy is not perfectionism.
Saying the area of a rectangle is 14 inches when you should say 14 square inches is sloppiness. Insisting that you give the proper units isn’t demanding perfection; it’s demanding accuracy.
The same goes for using the wrong form of there/their/they’re or saying effect when you mean affect. We do need to strive to get things right.
Truth be told, I wanted to name this article “Precision vs. Perfection” because I liked the alliteration. But precision means being consistent – keeping all your attempts close together, while accuracy means being correct – getting your attempts close to the target:
Since accuracy is what really matters, I named this article “Accuracy vs. Perfection” because that was the correct title. Using the word precision incorrectly wasn’t good enough.
But what if you’re not sure how to get it right?
Perfectionism often creates paralysis. You’re unsure about the second step of the problem, so you don’t even take the first. You don’t think you can get the answer right, so you leave the question blank. You know your work won’t be perfect, so you refuse to start.
It would be nice if you could always be sure of yourself. If you always knew all of the steps. If you could always envision a perfect plan for your projects and papers. But that’s not how school (or life) works. There will be many times when you’re unsure.
Of course, if you can use resources to figure out the problem, you should. But oftentimes you’ll just have to go for it. The math test is in front of you, and you need to try all of the problems. The essay is due tomorrow, and you need to get words on the page. The Spanish teacher is asking you a question, and you have to give it your best shot. In none of these cases will you perform perfectly, but doing something is far better than doing nothing at all.
You have no chance of being accurate if you don’t make an attempt. As Wayne Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. And the best way to learn how to make those shots is to take a lot of them. Practice doesn’t make perfect because nothing makes perfect, but practice does make better.
When you choose to let go of perfectionism, you’re not choosing to fail; you’re choosing to learn. And you’re not choosing to do a bad job. You’re choosing accuracy over artfulness, effectiveness over excessive effort, and action over paralysis.
Chris Loper has been working as a tutor and academic coach since 2014, racking up over 13,000 hours of experience supporting students.
Along with Greg Smith, Chris is the co-creator of Parenting for Academic Success, a series of classes that create empowered parents, confident students, and harmonious families.
Chris writes the popular self-improvement blog Becoming Better, where he also offers habit coaching, helping busy adults with habit formation and productivity.
Chris’s most recent endeavor combines his academic and habit-formation expertise to help students thrive in college. Visit SmartCollegeHabits.com to learn more.
In 2021, he published a humorous memoir titled Wood Floats and Other Brilliant Observations, a book that blends crazy stories with practical life lessons.
He lives in Issaquah, WA, where he is the owner of South Cove Tutoring.