10 Ways to Focus on Progress, Not Perfection

There’s a big difference between progress and perfection. Progress is making strides to your end goal, while perfection is making sure anything and everything is done to your standards and likings.

Focusing on perfection is not a good way to do things – if something doesn’t come out perfect for you, you won’t stop until it does and you may never make progress.

By focusing on your progress, you set yourself up for feeling good and like you accomplished something – even if it wasn’t perfect every step of the way.

What Does it Mean to Focus on Progress and Not Perfection?

When you focus on your progress, not perfection, you don’t set yourself up for failure, self-doubt, and self-criticism.

If you set yourself up for a project or goal and think “I want everything to be done perfectly”, there’s no doubt you’re going to be let down during the process.

By focusing on progress during your project or goal, you’ll feel good about yourself when you do check-ins. When you focus on progress and progress only, you’ll be able to look back at what you’ve done so far and you’ll feel proud of yourself for making it so far already.

Build milestones for yourself and celebrate you when you reach each one!

10 Ways to Focus on Progress Not Perfection:

1. Create milestones for yourself.

This is a great way to focus on and track your progress towards a special goal or project. Each time you reach one of your milestones, you’ll feel amazing that you accomplished something.

2. Think positive.

Focus on what you have in life rather than focusing on what you don’t have. This relates to focusing on progress because having a positive mindset can take time to grow and progress. If you focus on perfection, you’ll be let down often which oftentimes leads to negative thoughts.

3. Take actions that you know won’t be perfect.

How we look at this strategy is that as long as you’re taking action, you’re doing something. By taking action and steps towards your project or goal are better than doing nothing – showing that progress is more important than perfection.

4. Give yourself a break.

Constantly trying to be perfect is only going to cause burnout and exhaustion. Take a look at who you are as a person right now, and embrace it!

There is no other person on this planet who is as amazing as you, so give yourself a break from striving to be perfect and see how much progress you’ve made.

On the other hand, if you have reached multiple milestones you set for yourself, give yourself a break and let yourself celebrate all your success and progress in your project or towards your goal.

Rewarding yourself is the best way to keep yourself motivated.

5. Don’t procrastinate.

Trying to do everything perfectly from the start is focusing on perfection. If you want things to be done perfectly right away, you’re going to procrastinate as much as you can. Let go of the urge to be perfect, and just start. As you go through your journey towards whatever you are working towards, you’ll learn as your progress.

6. Move slow.

Moving slowly through your journey is better than being stuck at a certain stage. Progress focuses on comparing your present self with your past self and seeing how much you’ve improved. When you focus more on your progress, you may notice things are moving slowly, but at least you’re moving.

When you focus on perfection, you may get stuck at different stages because you feel you can’t move on to the next one until this one is perfectly completed. This way, you’ll get stuck in your journey while if you focus on your progress, you’ll realize you can keep going even if everything isn’t perfectly right.

7. Write down small goals and cross them off when you complete them.

This is old school, but it works. Every day, make a list of things you want to complete that day. In your head, you’ll have an idea of what you need to do with your time that day and you’ll be able to plan out your day better.

This is an easy way to focus on your progress daily because you’ll be able to physically see the progress you’ve made on your to-do list each day.

8. Unfollow influencers.

This is one of our best tips to help you focus on progress, not perfection. Social media influencer’s job is to show off how ‘perfect’ their lives are – none of it’s real! Don’t compare yourself to influencers because you’ll never make progress.

If you want to lose weight and get fit, don’t follow accounts that are of people who are in extremely good shape. You’re going to always wonder why you don’t look like them – and that’s setting yourself up for failure. Rather, follow people who are on a fitness journey and are at the same stage as you.

This will show you that what you want is possible, it’s just going to take time. This way, you won’t be constantly comparing yourself, you’ll focus more on your progress rather than being perfect.

9. Embrace the mistakes you make.

Most people learn from their mistakes – in other words, they make mistakes, and they make progress based on the actions they took that created that mistake. Some of the world’s greatest decisions were made from someone learning from their mistake. Embrace any mistakes you make and turn that into a learning experience – you’ll focus more on your progress than you will on being perfect.

10. Reflect on your day, week, or month.

At the end of each day, week, or month (or all three) and take an inventory of what you’ve done during that day, week, or month.

This is a great way to show yourself how much you’ve progressed and accomplished within a certain time frame. Checking in with yourself allows you to see the bigger picture and see how far you’ve come.

Our Final Thoughts

If you’ve been struggling with focusing on being perfect, and not on your progress, try all the tips above and we promise, you’ll notice a difference in your life.

As humans, we are raised to believe that we need to be perfect at everything we do – but that’s not the case anymore.

We need to focus on our progress, not perfection. We know it’s easier said than done, but with the strategies above, it can be done in time!