Effort - Not Perfection

Recently I was speaking to someone about diet, exercise; you know the usual stuff.

Specifically, I was speaking about the work I needed to do in the yard for the animal pens and the food forest.  They said, ‘what’s the point if you’re not giving it 100%’. 

They said ‘until I’m ready to commit100% to something, then there isn’t any point in doing it at all’.

I felt bad for this person.  I thought how much of their life are they thinking is not worth doing, simply because they don’t have the time (or energy in some cases) to give it 100%.

I went on to say, that there are sometimes when all you have is 25% to give.  If you are putting forth 100% effort in that 25% then that is sufficient.  Each day all we can do is our very best.  If our very best is 80% then give it 100% of your 80%.

 Think about when you were teaching the kids to make their bed.  They’re not going to be perfect (heck I’m not perfect) but they do their very best.  Their 100% may be 60% complete but they gave it 100% effort.

 Another example are your kids and their schoolwork.  Not everyone is a 100% straight A student.  Maybe at 100% effort, they are a B/C student.  That’s fine.  They’ve given it 100% of their effort. 

100% isn’t about perfection. 

It’s about giving all of your effort to whatever it is that you are doing.

 Note: I received a text the next day stating that they had thought about what I had to say and they were going to start back exercising. It’s about effort not perfection.