It seems to me that one of the defining features of modern life is the pursuit of optimisation. Everywhere we turn there is another metric to improve, another habit to refine, another system promising to make us more effective. We count our steps. We monitor our sleep. We track our calories. We measure our productivity. Smart watches tell us how much deep sleep we had, how many active minutes we’ve accumulated and whether we’re sufficiently recovered for the day ahead.

The message is subtle but persistent, you could be doing better.

There is nothing inherently wrong with self-improvement. Looking after ourselves matters. Exercise matters. Sleep matters. Purposeful work matters. The problem arises when healthy self-improvement quietly transforms into optimisation. Optimisation assumes that there is an ideal version of life waiting to be discovered if only we can measure enough, refine enough and eliminate enough inefficiency.

Yet life rarely works that way.

Human beings are not machines. We are complex, emotional, relational creatures. We have competing priorities. We get tired. We make mistakes. We change our minds. We sacrifice efficiency for meaning, productivity for connection and achievement for rest.

What often lies beneath the pursuit of optimisation is something older and more familiar. Perfectionism.

Perfectionism wears many disguises. Sometimes it appears as high standards. Sometimes it masquerades as discipline. Sometimes it calls itself ambition.

But perfectionism contains a hidden flaw. In trying to preserve perfection, it prevents purpose. I was reminded of this through a simple story.

Two men buy exactly the same pair of trainers. The first man likes them so much that he doesn’t want them to get dirty. At first he avoids wearing them outdoors. Then he decides not to wear them on hard surfaces. After that he only wears them inside his own home. Eventually he concludes that the safest thing to do is leave them in the box. Years later, the trainers remain pristine. Untouched. Perfect.

The second man buys the same trainers.

He wears them walking. He wears them running. He kicks a football around in them. They get muddy. They become scuffed. The white soles lose their shine. They acquire all the marks that come with being used for their intended purpose. Years later, they look worn but they have fulfilled their function perfectly.

The first man’s trainers remain flawless. The second man’s trainers have lived.

The irony is that the perfect trainers have failed as trainers.

In protecting them from wear and tear, he protected them from ever becoming what they were designed to be. Perhaps perfectionism operates in exactly the same way.

We delay starting because we want the perfect plan, we postpone writing because we haven’t found the perfect words, we avoid difficult conversations because we haven’t found the perfect approach, we wait for ideal conditions that never arrive. In trying to avoid mistakes, we avoid participation.

There is, of course, an equal and opposite trap; we could conclude that because perfection is impossible, there is no point trying at all.… that isn’t wisdom either so I feel that the challenge is to find the middle ground.

Just start…. then… persevere.

Treat mistakes as information rather than evidence of failure, maintain a general direction of travel without becoming overly attached to specific outcomes, do the thing in front of you as well as you can. When it is finished, move on to the next thing. At some point in the future  you may notice the sum gains of this persistence but I suspect that by that time you will be too focused on the next thing to afford that too much attention.

Life was never meant to be optimised into perfection, it was meant to be lived.

And trainers were made to get dirty.