There are a lot of ways to accidentally turn life into a performance review. Did I get enough done today? Was I patient enough? Productive enough? Healthy enough? Did I say the right thing in that meeting? Did everyone like dinner? Did I somehow manage to be an excellent employee, parent, partner, friend, citizen, and person who remembers to drink enough water?
It is exhausting.
And perhaps we are grading the wrong assignment. Researchers who study meaning in life often describe three important pieces: feeling that our lives make some sense, having a sense of direction or purpose, and feeling that our lives matter. Notice what is not on that list: perfection.
A meaningful life can still include mistakes, disappointment, awkward conversations, unfinished projects, bad moods, plans that fall apart, and days when the best you managed was getting through the day.
In fact, research on perfectionism suggests that striving to do well is not necessarily the problem. Things become more difficult when striving gets tangled up with fear of mistakes, constant self criticism, rumination, or the need for approval.
Psychological flexibility offers another way forward. Instead of asking, “Am I doing this perfectly?” we can ask: “Am I moving in a direction that matters to me?” That change sounds small, but it matters. In one study, researchers asked people to identify values that were important to them and then spend several weeks deliberately doing things that reflected those values. Participants who completed the program reported greater life satisfaction and well being.
The key wasn’t simply knowing what mattered. It was doing something about it. If being a good friend matters, send the text. If health matters, take the walk. If curiosity matters, learn something. If family matters, put down the phone for ten minutes. If kindness matters, do the kind thing. And if something difficult shows up while you are doing it, anxiety, frustration, uncertainty, fatigue, you do not necessarily have to wait for that feeling to disappear before continuing.
A meaningful life is not one in which everything feels good or goes according to plan. It is one in which, again and again, we find our direction and take another step toward it. The takeaway: You do not need to get life right. You need to keep noticing what matters and make room for a little more of it.
Today’s challenge: Choose one value you want your life to stand for. Then ask: “What is one small thing I could do today that would put a little more of that into the world?” Do that. Imperfectly is fine.