Track Your Progress

 Track Your Progress

"You will not pass in Math" my teacher said pointing his finger at my friend, Rishika who managed to score just about 45 in the mid-term exam. She was hurt...very hurt, and in the heat of the moment swore to score a PERFECT 100 in the final Math exam. She worked hard, gave up watching Shaktiman & Swabhiman (2 iconic serials back in the 90s) and she even gave up lagori (an iconic street game in the 90s) and Super Mario too (an iconic video game in the 90s) and focused only on Math. The results were out, and she had scored 92. What do you think she felt?

She was disappointed, depressed, and devastated. Does this sound familiar?!?!

We live in a world where perfection is worshipped. Perfect marks, Perfect Service, Perfect Movie, Perfect piece of writing, and the list goes on. People who worship perfection are called perfectionists. They suffer terribly for imposing unrealistic standards on themselves. This puts a lot of pressure on not only them, but others as well.

Everybody is a perfectionist to some degree. It's when it becomes an obsession that it's a problem.

My sister too was a victim of perfection, especially after her children were born. She wanted to be the perfect mother. She made a "perfect" schedule for their eating, playing, napping, studying, bed time, potty time etc., and did not give room for any flexibility in the schedule. She was so rigid and fixated on becoming the perfect mother with perfect schedule that she dragged them to the park, walked then, here, there, and everywhere even when they weren't up to it. As a result, her children felt suffocated in her presence, laughed less and did not crack jokes anymore. She had killed their creativity too, they stopped doodling on each other's face and behaved more like robots adhering to her schedule. There is nothing more hurtful for a mother than to know that her children have stopped connecting with her. She made her children's lives, and her life too... miserable in the pursuit of perfection.

And, one day it all changed when She was cleaning her husband's cupboard. (that's the beauty of being a woman, even when things aren't going well for her, she still wants to clean the cupboards) and She found Winston Churchill's picture with a quote " Perfection is the enemy of Progress!" Churchill said that and the old chap... was he right!

She immediately confronted her husband and asked him for an explanation to which he said, "If you want joy and a stress-free life, never aim for perfection, instead track your progress." That statement changed her world.

She dint know whom to thank, her husband or Churchill...She thanked Churchill!

Despite leaping from an average 50 to a whopping 92, my friend Rishika had failed to see her progress and did not value her achievement.

I too had failed to see my own progress from where I was to where I'm now.

Tracking my progress has helped me grow positively. I've exchanged perfection for fun and it's the best deal I've made in my life.

What about You?

Are You willing to track your progress instead of tracking that mythical destination called Perfection? It's never late because:

Tracking your progress builds your confidence.

Tracking your progress motivates you to achieve more.

Tracking your progress increases your Self worth.

It matters not where you are...here & now. What matters is where you have come from...and where you are going!