It’s no secret to those around me, I tend to be a perfectionist! As a little kid I used to get so frustrated that I could not draw as well as my big sister! When it came to my school work, I took a lot of pride in my work. If it was less than perfect, I felt guilty and disappointed in myself for not doing better. I told myself if I had worked harder, I would have done better. I secretly labeled myself as Lazy.

The Lazy label stuck with me and has often threatened to undermine me even when I should be proud of my accomplishments. Even now, when I find myself in the throes of procrastination, that negative self-talk is so loud that it threatens to shut down all progress instead of allowing me to get to the heart of what is really holding me back.

My inner critic shouts, “If you weren’t so lazy you would not only have this done, but it would be perfect as well!”

This negative self-talk and desire to be perfect carried over into my running.

“Oh, but you could be so much faster if you would only work harder,” nags my inner critic.

Yet running has continued to teach me through the years that I don’t need to be perfect.

In the early 80s many runners felt they needed to run more, more, more! More mileage, more repeats, more hill workouts. Run twice a day, heck run 3 times a day! A couple of my high school teammates were begging Coach for more, but not me. Why on earth would I want to run anymore 800s than absolutely necessary? No I was that runner who was negotiating the workout with Coach. He would let me run less as long as I met my time goal, but I had to bring him homemade chocolate chip cookies the next day!

This was often followed with my inner critic screaming, “You are SO LAZY! How can you be perfect if you don’t run the original workout plus the additional laps your teammates are running! They are going to beat you! They are faster than you! Blah, blah blah!”

But guess who always finished first on the team? I didn’t have to be perfect or be the fastest in practice. I just had to give it my best effort while training, hit the numbers assigned by my coach and show up mentally ready when it was time to race. I had done the work, I was prepared, and quite frankly it didn’t matter that my teammates smoked me in practice. I was the one holding the gold medal at the end of the race.

Some time ago I was working on a business project. I realized some of the tasks on my to-do list were going be long and arduous. While they might look good, ultimately they were not necessary for they success of the project. So I skipped them.

Of course my inner critic screamed, “You’re lazy! Your work will look shoddy! People will think you are unprofessional!”

Then I remembered that those extra 800s at faster than Coach’s recommended pace had probably cost my teammates the race because they were overtrained and didn’t have fresh legs.

“Hmm” I thought, “I could take these extra steps, which could very likely frustrate me, make me feel overwhelmed and possibly cause me to miss my deadline…or worse never finish the project. Or I could kiss perfectionism goodbye and successfully complete my project!”

Let’s just say I chose not to be perfect and I still won the race!

Has running taught you some life lessons? Leave a comment and share them below.