“Good Enough” is Underrated
What do you see in this picture?
Perhaps grass, a busted tail light, or a dented van. But I’d wager that #1 is that playful, big ol’ KAPOW!
This delightful van stopped me in my tracks with a chuckle and a visible reminder that often “Good Enough” isn’t just good enough, it’s better than it would have been if perfection were pursued.
Whomever owns this van saw this bash not as a blemish, but as a canvas for self expression, for an appreciation of imperfection. I can only imagine that their thought process ran something like:
Will the van still run? Yes.
Do the tail lights still work? Yes.
Will I make commuters smile? Double yes.
Turning a car dent into KAPOW reminds me of the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi. In Leonard Koren’s Wabi-Sabi for Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers, he defines wabi-sabi as “a beauty of things imperfect, impermanent and incomplete. It is a beauty of things modest and humble. It is a beauty of things unconventional.” Seeing the world through this lens resonates deeply with me. The patinaed fence outside my window becomes a reminder of impermanence and a variegated piece of nature’s art. A book from a used bookshop has a special smell versus the crisp newness of a book delivered next-day in a bubble wrapped envelope.
Although greatness is a fantastic north star, there’s tremendous value in Good Enough. When used as a perspective, Good Enough and wabi-sabi provide both practical and emotional/spiritual benefits.
Continuous Improvement, Learning, and Productivity
Knowingly or unknowingly, if you’ve shopped online in the last decade, you’ve been impacted by the principle of Minimum Viable Product or MVP for short. Start-ups use this method as a way “to test a business idea at minimal cost to find a response from the target audience and determine further iterations to enhance the value development.” (Forbes) By launching an imperfect offering, they are able to save money, learn from customer feedback, and move faster than engineering a flawless offering from the get go. Freedom to be Good Enough allows these companies to test, iterate and create a better product (and if lucky, achieve profitability).
Good Enough applied in personal choices facilitates diversity of experience AND the opportunity to spend more time in our stretch zone of learning. Children do this naturally. Just watch a baby transition from crawling to walking or a toddler evolve from a strider to a regular bicycle. There’s a natural evolution of skill facilitated by a complete disregard of needing to get it just right.
Examples abound in every field, in every discipline. Just watch an outtake reel or a documentary that shares behind the scenes training. By not needing to excel, I’ve gotten to try things like improv comedy, windsurfing, and emceeing town hall events. I was pretty bad at all these things before hitting my stride.
Even when I have reached the limit of my ability, the freedom to be Good Enough was the only thing that eventually let me reach peak performance. The hardest climb I’ve ever done took me 4 years to ascend successfully. On my first attempt, I couldn’t even finish the whole route. Eventually, I could piece together parts. After much visualization, route specific training, and the support of patient climbing partners, I lowered from the top, crying in joy, surprise, and sheer effort.
Other personal examples:
My blog posts and newsletters. None of these would ever see the light of day if I went for perfection.
I’m definitely a Good Enough cook. I just don’t have the natural inclination to become a chef, and being alright at cooking allows me to eat relatively healthy most of the time because I can reliably make, at the best, enjoyable, and at the worst, edible, home cooked meals.
Sometimes I’m not the best friend. I might forget to text back. Or a game of phone tag might peter out.
Self-Compassion, Acceptance of Self and Others
The inspiration of this blog post was germinating in my head from a section of therapist Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD:
“Nowadays, many therapists attach the phrase ‘good enough’ to concepts like friend, partner, therapist or person. This is usually done to deconstruct perfectionistic expectations of relationships - expectations that are so unrealistic that they are destructive to essentially worthwhile relationships… I apply this concept liberally to contradict the black-and-white, all-or none thinking of the critic which reflexively judges people and things as defective unless they are perfect.”
Our zeitgeist feels defined by concepts of identity, of right and wrong, us vs. them. While I’m not advocating for an abdication of values, I do urge us to look for the Good Enough in ourselves and others. To appreciate our common humanity underneath our differences of opinion, ways of expression, and preferences. Intellectually, this is easy to understand. Of course we want to follow the Golden Rule. Yet we still get sent into reactivity when someone acts in a way that affronts our values of conceptualizing the world. Herein lies the challenge and the opportunity: mindful acceptance of our automatic thoughts.
Dr. Kristin Neff, mindfulness author and pioneer of self-compassion research, offers hope for greater acceptance of ourselves and others. In her talk for the Greater Good Science Center, she shares that compassion is “concern for the alleviation of suffering of sentient beings.” Turning compassion into action, she elaborates that compassion is composed of three essential practices: mindfulness, kindness and common humanity. The order of these is meaningful because without an awareness of suffering happening, we wouldn’t know to take action to alleviate it. Mindfulness allows us to see our reactivity AND make new choices on how we want to respond.
I recall Ram Dass sharing in an interview about how he has pictures of his guru, other spiritual figures, and Donald Trump on his kitchen table. He explains that Donald Trump is a hard person for him to love. Regardless your political persuasion, maintaining positive regard for people whose views are different than our own is at the heart of compassion.
What About Growth?
As I write this, I also feel some tension pulling at me because I do ascribe to the idea growth mindset and its attendant continuous improvement. How can a Growth Mindset and Good Enough co-exist?
Adopting a practice of Good Enough acknowledges the full spectrum of the human experience that includes joy and sorrow, victory and defeat, courage and fear. It’s a profound acceptance of ourselves just as we are in the present so that we can continue to grow into the future. Author Boyd Varty encourages us to take a cue from nature: “Everything in the natural world knows how to be itself... Yet most of us have so much of the social conditioning of modern life that the track of the wild self has been lost.” His words encourage me to trust that I’m whole just as I am, and that wholeness knows intuitively how to act to reach my highest potential. I just need to listen to my own nature.
We can all rest easier, and move forward with more peace, knowing that just by showing up for our lives, we are always Good Enough.
Some questions for reflection:
How might “Good Enough” help with a current challenge?
Where is going for perfection holding you back?
What rich, nurturing, “Good Enough” relationships are waiting for you?