Ep. 210 - Why “Good Enough” Feels So Hard (And Why You Need It)

 Somewhere along the way, many of us started treating every task like it needed a gold medal effort. In this episode, we’re exploring the hidden mental cost of over-polishing our lives — and why constantly optimizing everything can quietly drain our energy, time, and joy. From everyday shortcuts to lowering the pressure we put on ourselves, this is a conversation about making space for progress, presence, and a little more breathing room in your brain. 

Transcript

Why “Good Enough” Feels So Hard (And Why You Need It) 

This week, I’m starting with the Bottom Line on Top, which is simply this: good enough is good enough.

Now some of you might have just had a reaction at that thought. If so, consider this episode a little love note for you. And, if it helps, you’re not alone.

For the last month, I’ve been working with a group of super smart, super awesome people. High achievers, big thinkers, the kind of people who can power through almost anything.

So I decided to try an experiment. Instead of digging into the nerdy neuroscience, I went analog with them. I had everyone grab a sticky note and write just two words on it: Good enough

A few of them actually cringed. Just a little. But I noticed. And that’s exactly the point.

Put this note somewhere where you will see it every day, I told them. Just as an experiment.

Why? Because we don’t always need to do things fully or perfectly – and not everything needs to clear some invisible excellence bar for it to count.

And sometimes, honestly, we just need to practice not being perfect. In fact, as I sat down to record this episode, I realized that this is actually the 5th time in four years I’ve covered the good-enough topic.

Wow, okay. Clearly a concept worth revisiting as a form of cognitive re-anchor-ing. We often need to hear things a few times, maybe at different times to sink in. And apparently, many of us… including me… need to do this more than once.

And listen, I get it. It’s natural to want to press on and power through what feels mediocre and aim for what feels more like an achievement. A gold star. But that’s not realistic, not for real life.

We can get so busy preparing, perfecting, and polishing that we end up missing the here-and-now. The messy parts of us are actual parts of us. We’re not supposed to sand it all away. Our desire to show up well can absolutely be acknowledged, but polishing and perfecting cannot have a full-time role in our brain. Or even a part-time one.

Being real leads to real moments. And when others see more of the real parts, that’s where we go deeper than the screen, deeper than the I’m-fine-how-are-you and find ourselves with actual connection and conversations.

So let’s talk about what good enough looks like in practice. And it is a practice. If you’re not used to having Good Enough on the mental menu, you might not even recognize it when it’s available to you.

An example in our working or scholastic life, is how about we just send the email instead of rereading it one more time, one more time, and I’ll just send it tomorrow. Or taking a chance to show what you are working on to someone before you feel like it’s in the perfect place. And you can even say to them: this is still a work in progress, but I’d love your thoughts. Sometimes ideation makes things better than we can do in our own brain.

How about at home? Good enough could mean running the dishwasher before it’s completely full. Or the laundry. It’s true! And with modern technology, there is even a setting or sensors that adjust to what you have—you’re not wasting water friends, you are making progress. In fact, I’ve started putting things away from the dishwasher one rack at a time–just when I walk through the kitchen and have a few minutes. I don’t do it all at once if I don’t have time to do it. Progress is progress. It’ll get done, eventually.

I’ve also been using voice dictation and audio messages versus typing everything all the time, because honestly it saves me time not fixing all those typos.

I’d give you a lot more examples of Good Enough but then… well, these were good enough, right?

Once you look around, you’ll start to see what makes sense to you. What if you let average be the high bar for most of what’s on your plate?

Not everything. Pick your places you want to double-click on and be excellent. But for the rest? Average. Good enough. Done.

So this week, release a little of whatever your brain is grasping onto right now. Just get it done, good enough. You might just have some energy left over to do some fun, ridiculous, or even relaxing things.

And if you need, you can always find a sticky note. It’s just another way we can take care to take good enough care.