This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 1708. If you only aim for perfection then...

by James Altature of Jamesaltature.com and I'm Justin Mollick.

Happy Friday and welcome back to Optimal Living Daily or OLD or Old, if you like,

where I read blogs to you for free. It's an award-winning podcast thanks to you and

thank you to the authors for giving me permission. I could not do it without them.

James Altature is a popular one. He's also a podcaster. Let's get right to his post

and continue optimizing your life.

If you only aim for perfection then... by James Altature of Jamesaltature.com.

Perfectionism. My dad would hit me if I brought home a report card with 1b and even worse,

I was a bad student. It's almost a cliche to say that perfectionism is the enemy of perfect,

particularly in a post about being perfect. Because it's true. If you only aim for perfection

then you won't take enough risks. Risks are the cracks in your life where knowledge and

experience can seep through and infect you. And I ate to admit it about myself but when I love

something I wanted to be perfect. When I throw my all into something I want to win all the time.

But that's just a setup for disappointment. I try very hard to go with the flow a bit more,

try my best to give a control over the results. But it's a practice and I'm working on it.

Don't care what people think. Most of the time I don't care. But then sometimes I do.

Last night I went on a podcast at the Comedy Seller in New York. I'd never been on their

podcast before. I was afraid the other guests would judge me depending on how funny I was or not.

It's hard to be yourself in every situation. You know why? I suspect there is no such thing as

myself. Depending on mood, chemicals, life circumstance, etc. myself changes every day.

We can only do our best here and even that is hard to do. There's no recipe for authenticity.

...