Perfection

The other day I drove past a high school, and I was very impressed with what I saw on the reader board. The message congratulated a student who had perfect attendance from Pre-Kindergarten all the way through graduation from high school!! Imagine that, perfect attendance for 14 years—not one sick day, not one “I’m too tired day,” and not one family vacation day or visit the dentist day. Reading this accomplishment thoroughly impressed me, and it caused me to think about perfection and what may have pushed this student to be perfect. I also wondered how I could learn to be more perfect and apply the same principles the student had demonstrated at school, in my life.

So what does being perfect at something require? Obviously, it requires a great deal of discipline—the discipline to do something consistently, even when you don’t want to. It requires a great deal of focus—doing something over and over again without being distracted or drawn away by other things that are trying to draw our attention. It requires determination—having the resolve to accomplish perfection, regardless of what others say or do. Lastly it requires great effort—the stamina to be consistent over a long period of time. This student, whether knowingly or not showed a great deal of discipline, focus, determination, and effort. I determined I could do better at being perfect in my life; so I decided to give it a try.

Let me first preface that every year I set goals. Often these goals include doing something everyday such as exercising at least 20 minutes each day or spending one on one time every day with each of my kids. I create a chart that lists my goals to remind me of them and to help me track my progress. As I’ve reviewed my charts over the last few years, and especially this year, I’ve noticed I am far from perfect. In fact, only on a few rare occasions am I perfect in one or more of my goals during a whole week, let alone a month or even a year. Also, never once have I been completely perfect at every goal for a whole week at the same time. Being perfect is hard, and being perfect in anything is something truly special!

So, after being inspired and impressed by this student, I decided to try and be perfect for one complete week by accomplishing the four “daily” goals I had set for the year. I started on Sunday, and I began doing very well. In fact, the whole work week I kept my focus and completed everything on my tracking sheet even though it required a few late nights and other “extra” sacrifices. On Friday, when I checked off that I had completed each task for nearly an entire week, it felt good to see my chart at perfection up to that point. Then Saturday came, and I got distracted and lost my focus. Though I did three of the four items, I did forget one--thus perfection had eluded me again! I couldn’t believe I could not even be perfect for one week, when this student had been perfect for 14 years!

So what keeps us from being perfect? Often it is a lack of focus, effort, discipline, and determination. Though I haven’t reached complete perfection in fulfilling each of my goals for an entire week, striving to do so is helping me to be better, to push harder, and to stay more focused. As we shoot for perfection in different aspects of our lives—like this student—we will only improve in what we are aiming to accomplish. Thus the result of striving for perfection will be positive. Though difficult, I believe with the right discipline, focus, determination, and effort, we can be perfect at certain things in our lives.