The Elephant

"Do not carry with you your mistakes. Do not carry with you your cares." - The Dhammapada

"Perfection is the lowest standard a human could ever take on because it is unattainable; therefore you ultimately have no standard at all." - Anthony Robbins

For years when I played dog agility, if I would make a mistake, and I would always make a mistake because there is no such thing as a perfect run, I would focus on it, obsess over it, let it weigh on me, let it color the whole rest of the trial. Then I learned about the trap of perfection - that if our goal is to be perfect, you set yourself up for failure and will never be happy. I confused perfection with progress and with satisfaction with what went right. Now, when I look at the results of a run, I focus on what went right. I think about things in terms of what percent of the run went well. Instead of all or nothing, it's shades of gray. I don't ignore when things go wrong, but I look at them as pointers of what I need to focus on in training instead of personal failures. It's much more fun that way. As we enter the second week of the Winter Olympics, my favorite moments have been watching athletes just be happy with their performance, regardless of place.