Why Good Enough Is Actually Perfect
Here's what they don't tell you about perfection:
It's not actually about achieving excellence.
It's about avoiding the anxiety of being human, and the exhausting performance that comes with it.
The maximizing trap
Our culture has become obsessed with optimization. Sleep-maxxing. Wealth-maxxing. Body-maxxing. Every aspect of human existence has been gamified, measured, and pushed to its theoretical limits.
We live in a world of biohackers tracking their REM cycles, entrepreneurs grinding 80-hour weeks, and fitness influencers documenting every macro. The message is clear: good enough is never enough. There's always another level to unlock, another percentage point to squeeze out, another boundary to push.
But what happens when you try to maximize everything?
You end up minimizing what matters most.
A medical director of a sleep testing center recently made an observation that stopped me cold: "Sleep is a passive process. It is to be protected, not forced—or 'maximized.'"
Read the article that inspired this post by clicking here.
This simple statement reveals something profound about human nature that our productivity-obsessed culture has forgotten. Some of life's most essential processes aren't meant to be optimized. They're meant to be honored.
The perfectionist's paradox
When you dig beneath the surface of maximizing behavior, you find something unexpected: not confidence, but profound anxiety.
The person obsessing over sleep metrics isn't sleeping better—they're lying awake worried about their sleep score. The wealth-maximizer isn't enjoying financial security—they're trapped in workaholism, always one deal away from enough. The fitness maximizer isn't celebrating their strength—they're considering steroids because their natural limits feel like failure.
This is the perfectionist's paradox: the harder you chase perfection, the more imperfect you feel.
Research on perfectionism shows that it's strongly correlated with anxiety, depression, and burnout. When nothing is ever good enough, you live in a constant state of dissatisfaction with yourself and your life.
The goal isn't the problem. The relationship with the goal is.
The performance trap
Maximizing culture thrives on performance. Every aspect of life becomes a stage where you're constantly auditioning for approval—from others, from society, from the invisible audience of social media metrics.
Consider the performative family. From the outside, it looks perfect: coordinated outfits, Pinterest-worthy birthday parties, carefully curated vacation photos. But behind the scenes, there's often anxiety, exhaustion, and children who learn that love is conditional on maintaining the performance.
The family doesn't exist for itself anymore. It exists for the image of itself.
This is what happens when we mistake the map for the territory. The performance becomes more important than the experience it's supposed to represent. We optimize for appearances rather than actual wellbeing.
The passive revolution
What would it look like to approach life more passively? Not lazily or carelessly, but with the wisdom that some things are meant to be protected rather than pushed?
Think about sleep again. The best sleep happens when you're not trying to sleep. When you create the right conditions—darkness, cool temperature, comfortable bedding—and then get out of the way. The moment you start forcing it, measuring it, or anxious about it, it becomes elusive.
This principle extends far beyond sleep:
Relationships flourish when you stop trying to optimize them and start showing up authentically. The best connections happen in unguarded moments, not during carefully planned "quality time."
Creativity emerges in the spaces between effort, during walks and showers and mundane moments when you're not forcing inspiration.
Health improves more through consistent, sustainable habits than through extreme interventions that you can't maintain.
Happiness is often found in ordinary moments when you're not chasing it—in conversation with a friend, in the taste of morning coffee, in the feeling of sun on your skin.
The need versus want audit
One of the most powerful shifts you can make is distinguishing between what you need and what you want in the core areas of your life.
Health: You need adequate sleep, nutritious food, regular movement, and stress management. You might want to be the fittest person in your social circle, but optimizing for vanity metrics often undermines actual health.
Wealth: You need enough money for security, comfort, and the ability to be generous. You might want unlimited wealth, but the pursuit often costs you time, relationships, and peace of mind that money can't buy back.
Status: You need to feel valued and respected. You might want to be admired or envied, but chasing external validation is a game you can never win permanently.
Relationships: You need authentic connection and support. You might want to be seen as the perfect partner, parent, or friend, but performative relationships lack the vulnerability that creates real intimacy.
When you focus on meeting your actual needs rather than maximizing your wants, something interesting happens: you often get more of what you were chasing in the first place, but without the anxiety and exhaustion.
The wisdom of retreat
In our forward-momentum culture, we've forgotten that stepping back can be strategic. Sometimes the most growth happens when you consciously choose to regroup rather than push forward for the sake of progress.
This isn't about lowering standards or giving up on goals. It's about recognizing that sustainable excellence requires periods of rest, reflection, and integration. The farmer who tries to harvest year-round will eventually have nothing to harvest at all.
Consider what you might be forcing in your own life:
Are you optimizing habits that would work better with less pressure?
Are you performing excellence instead of simply being excellent?
Are you chasing metrics that don't actually measure what matters to you?
The good enough philosophy
"Good enough" isn't about settling or being mediocre. It's about understanding that perfection is often the enemy of satisfaction, connection, and sustainable growth.
When you embrace good enough, you give yourself permission to:
Enjoy your current level of fitness without constantly comparing yourself to others
Feel satisfied with financial security rather than always reaching for more
Be present with your family instead of documenting perfect moments
Sleep peacefully instead of optimizing your recovery metrics
Create something imperfect rather than waiting until you can create something flawless
This doesn't mean becoming complacent. It means understanding that the pursuit of perfect can prevent you from enjoying excellent.
The paradox of ease
Here's what's counterintuitive about stepping back from maximizing: you often end up with better results.
When you protect your sleep instead of optimizing it, you sleep better. When you focus on sustainable wealth-building instead of get-rich-quick schemes, you typically build more wealth. When you prioritize being a good parent over looking like the perfect parent, your children often thrive more.
This happens because you're working with your human nature instead of against it. You're creating conditions for natural processes to unfold rather than forcing outcomes through willpower alone.
The best things in life—love, creativity, health, peace—are like sleep. They come more easily when you create the right conditions and then get out of their way.
The long game of good enough
Embracing good enough is actually about playing a longer, more sustainable game. Instead of burning out in pursuit of perfect, you build systems and relationships that can last decades.
This requires a different kind of courage
It takes strength to stop performing and start being.
It takes wisdom to distinguish between productive challenge and overwhelming pressure. It takes faith to trust that good enough is actually perfect for a human life.
The maximizing mindset asks: "How can I get more?"
The good enough mindset asks: "How can I be present with what I have while still growing?"
The first question leads to endless striving. The second leads to both satisfaction and sustainable progress.
Your life doesn't need to be optimized. It needs to be lived. And lived well enough is lived very well indeed.
The path from perfectionism to good enough isn't about lowering your standards—it's about raising your awareness of what actually matters. When you stop trying to maximize everything, you finally have the space to appreciate anything.
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Breaking Free from Perfectionism in Victoria, BC
At the Scriven Program, we understand that the pressure to maximize and perfect every aspect of life can become overwhelming and counterproductive. Located in Victoria, British Columbia, and serving clients virtually across Canada, our practice specializes in helping people find sustainable approaches to growth that honor both ambition and humanity.
Our services for those struggling with perfectionism include:
Individual support for anxiety and perfectionism using evidence-based approaches
Coaching to help distinguish between needs and wants in core life areas
Programs for developing "good enough" mindsets that reduce performance pressure
We provide the safe space you need to explore what drives your maximizing behaviors and discover more sustainable paths to satisfaction and growth.
Your worth isn't measured by your optimization. Your pace is perfect as it is.
Contact Jason Scriven to learn how he can help you embrace the wisdom of good enough while still pursuing meaningful growth.
