Progress Through Imperfection

One of my clients felt frustrated this month. They are early in their budgeting journey, having just finished their first full month of planning, execution, and tracking. It's a newer concept to them, and I'm asking them to approach it in an entirely different way. They are nervous, excited, and cautiously optimistic about the entire thing. They felt pretty good entering their first month, but ultimately exceeded the budget by approximately $150.

They expected me to be disappointed in them, but I was nothing short of excited and optimistic. While they viewed a $150 miss as a loss, I call it a win. Here's why. They were expecting perfection, while I was expecting progress. My hope was for them to have a plan, give their best efforts to honor the plan, do it with unity, and track it accordingly. In my book, they get an A+! Nowhere in there did I expect perfection.

Here's a little secret. The best budgeters rarely get closer than $150 to their targeted budget. What it most often looks like is missing by several hundred on either side of zero, month after month after month. Then, if you take an average over a long period of time, it averages out reasonably close to zero. Perfection is never the goal. The goal is progress through imperfection.

This is a powerful concept with money (among other things). We need to let go of the expectation of perfection. The moment we stop expecting perfection is the moment we can actually make meaningful progress.

You're going to mess up. I'm going to mess up. We're all going to mess up. When we do, we have two options: 1) give ourselves grace and simply move on, or 2) beat ourselves up and dwell in frustration.

Back to the couple at the beginning of the story. They began the conversation frustrated, but ended it encouraged, optimistic, and excited. The lynchpin was grace. They gave themselves grace to be imperfect. Progress through imperfection.

Go be imperfect today!