I just read a blog post by my good friend, Chris Desatoff. He was explaining how you don’t have to be a perfectionist to see progress for certain achievements. And this is something I try to spread to anyone who watches my videos or reads my blogs.

Any victory is still a victory.

No matter how small you may think the achievement is, it’s still moving you in the right direction. Life isn’t a race, and you don’t need to accomplish feats of grandeur to demonstrate personal progress.

While it may give you a few bragging rights to boost self-esteem, you don’t always have to smash it out of the park to succeed.

Even a base hit can lead to an RBI.

That’s actually a pretty good baseball metaphor if I do say so myself.

Achievements Come in All Sizes

I am constantly pushing myself to see just how far I can go in just about anything in life. From writing 90 blog posts in 30 days to trying to lose the last of my weight, I’m always in a state of self-improvement.

But, I don’t always have to succeed at those grandiose goals I set for myself in order to feel accomplished.

Case in point, one of my larger goals for 2021 was to write one million words. This is something I used to do on a regular basis while writing for content mills. Currently, I am estimated to hit somewhere around 700,000 by the end of the year.

So, I could dwell on the fact that I won’t reach one million and feel like a failure. Or, I can focus on the fact that I’ve already written 145,991 words more this year than last, and I still have two months to go!

That’s the equivalent of a fairly long book.

My point is that you don’t have to meet extravagant goals to see progress and acquire a few achievements for yourself.

Don’t Compete with Others Unless It’s a Game

Unless you’re involved in direct competition, don’t pit your skills and abilities against others. The only one you’re truly in competition with is yourself.

A lot of people don’t see how I was able to write between 6,000 and 10,000 words per day while using content mills. And some feel inadequate when they see those kinds of numbers.

In reality, though, I am exceptionally good at what I do…and it took me a long time to reach those numbers. Think about it; I’ve been doing this for almost a decade.

Don’t compare what you can do to me or anyone else. Strive to improve upon what you can handle over time. Even if you write a single word more today than you did yesterday, it’s still an improvement.

Your achievements should center around going beyond expectations of yourself. And they don’t need to be immediate, either.

Like Chris said in his blog post, he was proud that he leveled off his weight for the year as opposed to gaining one pound per month. This means that instead of gaining 12 pounds, he plateaued with neither losing nor gaining. That’s a notable improvement.

Challenge Yourself, But Realize Your Limitations

I’m a big fan of creating challenges to see just how far I can push myself. However, I also keep in mind my own personal limitations. By being realistic with myself, I don’t run the risk of feeling like a failure should I miss a goal.

Well, sometimes. I do get mad at myself when I keep making the same stupid mistakes. But it won’t stop me from trying again.

Let’s take that one-million-word goal again. Looking back at my recent past, I wasn’t convinced I was going to hit it. That’s because a lot of my work nowadays involves more research and editing. There’s not a lot of writing involved today.

However, my actual focus was to simply write more this year than I did last. And I met that goal a couple of months ago, which is going to set the bar pretty high for next year.

Still, I challenged myself to hit that mark but I knew there were extenuating circumstances that would make it more difficult. So, will I be upset that I don’t hit one million words? Nope.

I’m simply tickled that I was able to write more in 2021 than I did in 2020.

Achievements Aren’t Always Centered Around Perfection

As I said, the goal was to hit one million words. But, I had a lot of achievements without hitting that mark. These included how much more I’ve written this year, the amount of time I actually spent on certain projects, and that all of my sites experienced traffic growth.

Without perfectly meeting my goals, I was still able to improve a variety of aspects of my life.

Here’s another one…yes, I’m trying to lose the last of my weight before the end of the year. And while I might be failing weight loss for the third consecutive week, I’ve also added more muscles mass than I ever have in my entire life.

Seriously, I’ve added an inch of muscle to both arms over the past few weeks, which I’ve never done before.

The point here is just because you don’t meet certain goals, it doesn’t mean that you are void of personal achievements.

I lift more than 30,000 pounds three times per week. I’ve done this since the end of August. I’ve never committed myself to the gym in such a fashion ever in my life. In this instance, I’ve succeeded.

It’s All About Building Momentum for Yourself

Smaller victories can lead to greater results. Especially if you keep building momentum over time. This is partly because you’ll start to feel a sense of pride in your achievements and continue to work that much harder.

Well, it does for me, anyway.

Each time I succeed in something small, I keep working to take it further. For example, I started with a small goal of 1,000 words per day when working with Textbroker. After about a year and a half, I started hitting the 6k mark more often.

Don’t expect to be able to handle everything all at once. Everyone works at their own pace according to their needs, wants, and limitations. As long as you can consistently move forward, that’s all that really matters.

You start to get that mindset of, “I can do this.” Then comes the building blocks of self-confidence. At which point, you’ll start to push yourself a bit further…and then a bit further, still.

But don’t expect to hit incredible pinnacles of success from the get-go. It can take time, and you need to have patience with yourself.

Sometimes, I Do Strive for Perfection

There are times when I do strive for perfection. Usually, it’s when I am trying to collect data for a certain blog post or video. But that’s just me as I love to use personal data in some forms of content.

Does this mean you need to aim for perfection as well? That really depends on your personal goals.

I wanted the bragging rights of saying that I crammed 90 blog posts in 30 days while still maintaining my regular client work. So, I made sure that I was able to accomplish that goal.

As I said earlier, though, my weight loss is anything but perfect. I’m still working on it, but I can relish the physical achievements of being able to lift more weight.

It’s not perfect, but it still moves me forward with how I want to reshape my body.

Achievements Require Effort

The bottom line is that any form of goal, achievement, or accomplishment is going to require effort. This begins by making a conscious decision to be a better version of yourself.

The amount of effort you put, though, is completely up to you. Just remember that if you put in a half-assed effort, expect a half-assed result.

Understand what you’re capable of doing and start from there.