What’s your idea of perfection when it comes to being healthy? If it includes unrealistic expectations about your body, you’ve got some changes to make. Accepting imperfection and adjusting your health goals accordingly is a much more effective way to get healthy. Trying to be perfect can hinder your chances of achieving your goals for a few reasons.
Perfection Is Unrealistic
Even the healthiest people are far from perfect. The ones who go out running every day or the ones who seem to have the ideal figure are dealing with their own problems. That marathon runner you’re envying could have a bad case of toenail fungus from those sweaty shoes, for all you know. Keep that in mind, and you’ll be less likely to berate yourself for not reaching your goals or for dealing with setbacks on the road to a healthier you.
Perfection Is Unhealthy
Lamenting the fact that you’re not where you think you should be in terms of your health isn’t going to help you get healthier. That perfect image of yourself could be preventing you from reaching your goals if you’re spending too much time obsessing over it. The added anxiety can even push you further away from your goals if you end up with stress-related health issues. Adjust that image of perfection to something more realistic in order to avoid all that unnecessary stress.
Perfection Guarantees Failure
The way you approach your efforts to become healthier depends on your outlook. If you’re striving to be perfect, you can rest assured that your efforts will be in vain. If you let go of your overall goal to be perfect and embrace imperfection, you’ll have a much better chance of being successful. Think about what really matters when it comes to your health. Living a healthy life and lowering your risk of health problems are the important goals to achieve. Having a perfect figure or being perfect at performing certain physical activities shouldn’t be on your list of health goals. As long as you’re doing your best to stay healthy, while taking your limitations into consideration, you’ll be just fine.
The author Sandy Getzky is an associate editor at ProveMyMeds, a public health and education startup focused on producing helpful resources concerning the treatment of common ailments.
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