Image: silhouettes 2 courtesy of migueltexeira

As you would have seen from my Manifesto, I aim for excellence. Yet the more I strive to live by this principle, the more I realise that to achieve excellence I need to constantly make trade offs. Yes, I am finding that achieving excellence requires me to live my life using Pareto’s principle: that is, I am constantly having to identify (in every one and all areas of my life) the 20% of effort that delivers 80% of results, and try to spend most of my time in these twenty-percents.

Why? The reason is simple: There isn’t enough time in my days to achieve perfection in all the areas of my life I care to perform in. There are many areas of my life that I care about: family, work, health, personal growth, social connection, fun; and I have found that unless I choose only 1 or 2 of these, I can’t spend enough time to achieve perfection. Obviously, focusing on only a couple would lead to an unbalanced life, which would go against another of my values.

An so I must find the right trade-offs, which means I must accept imperfection.

How about you? Do you lose balance by striving for perfection? Or have you found a way to simplify your life enough and achieve balanced perfection in all of yoru priorities? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section.