simply missy

So, here’s to me for writing my, first ever, official blog post!!! This one’s going to be a long one. The reason why I decided to start this blog is to connect with people and… well, I’ve always wanted one. A place where I can share my favourite places, recipes and my thoughts. It’s a safe place for genuine questions and interests. So, If this sounds like you, WELCOME TO THE CLUB!!!

Also for all who are wondering which city this beautiful picture was taken in… It’s Istanbul! One of my favourite cities ever! Defnitely in my top 3 and I would absoloutely love to do a 7-day Istanbul Itinery blog post in the near future.

I choose Istanbul, because this is one of the best city that inspires me. It’s impossible to dislike it, except when it’s rush hour- but even then it’s gourgeous. It’s a city that reminds me that even with flaws and chaos, you can still bloom and shine, bring joy and always move forward, make progress.

You’re probably wondering ‘Okay, why aren’t you getting to the point yet?’ I had to give some information beforehand in order for the rest of this blog-post to make sense.

Now, on to the topic: Why Perfection Is The Thief Of Joy and Progress? I’d really like to say that what I’m talking about doesn’t apply to everything (in my opinion). Maybe it does/doesn’t apply for you and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, so just comment down below!

I’ve always had the 100 percent or nothing mentality. However the reality is that this isn’t realistic, at all. Some days it’s going to be easier to get the workout in and other days it’s going to be a push and maybe a 5 min dance workout or something like that will be enough. And even though I hated that idea, now it just makes so much more sense! I used to get burned out so quickly, especially with studying. I’d study like crazy. I’d come home from school at 6pm, and until 12am I would study. Keep in mind that my school started at 8.45 am until 5pm. I wouldn’t allow myself to workout, watch a movie or basically do anything except studying until I was finished. When I tell it like this, it seems as if I had a lot of disipline when actually I was turning into a robot. I had literally forgotten how to talk to people and be… social. I remember very clearly one night when I was Googling ‘How to make small talk?’ Don’t get me wrong, there is absoulutely nothing wrong with this, yet I couldn’t recognize myself. I was quite a social, known student at one time and later on having to Google ‘How to make small talk?’ kind of hit me like a rock. I also remember constantly crying at school and sometimes ending up in the ‘school physcologist’. It’s funny cause I never felt ashamed of crying, I guess it was cause I was just so damn tired. And all of this for what, you know? To get perfect grades? To become the high school valedictorian? Yes, I did get good grades, but no I didn’t become the high school valedictorian. And guess what? I’m taking a ‘gap-year’. In the country I live in a ‘gap-year’ doesn’t mean to travel the world for a year, but to study again for university exams and applications. Anyways this is a different subject for a different blog post 😉

Moving on, my ambition to always get my homework, extra curricular’s done, and to make everything perfect had cost me my social life. And after a while, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I gave up on my lessons. I was constently crying, having anger issues, basically being a total b… to everyone around me and thinking I was either way below or way above everyone. So, yep basically not a fun person to be around. This is why I believe that perfection is the thief of joy and progress. It’s basically someone saying that they’re going on a diet tomorrow, so eating 10 cookies on a sunday and 0 on monday and then repeating it again next week. When actually if you had 1 cookie a day for 7 days, it’s still less than 10 cookies a week. So that mindset of perfection literally makes your progress to go backwards. One step forward and three steps back. It’s the same with reading as well. If you don’t build a habit of reading it isn’t going to last, unless you don’t want it to last anyway 🙂 I really like to keep this in my mind whenever I’m starting a new project. For example even with this blog. I had been putting this off forever, today’s a sunday and I was thinking that I’d start on a Monday but that would be like literally throwing the whole purpose of this topic in a bin. What I’m trying to say is, just write down what you’re supposed to do, turn off or put your phone in another room and just start. Don’t say that you’re going to start it, just start it! And this way you can say that you already started it. It’s like trying to find the ‘perfect’ enterance sentence for your book or speech. Did you ever think that the most ‘unperfect’ thing that you thought you wrote is actually the most ‘perfect’ thing? Or the one sentence that many people related to? Or even someone’s favourite sentence? What if all the 100 percent or not is the unperfect but the 80/20 is the perfect? What if the 20 min workout you did on a Sunday was more perfect than the 1 hour workout you did on a Monday?With all this being said, I see that many people confuse pushing yourself and burning yourself out. And that’s why we get burned out. We think as if we don’t do a crazy workout or a 12-hour study day everyday, then we lost or missed out. However this isn’t fair on us. We are all human at the end of the day and we all poo :)): I really like this perspective to keep me grounded to be honest.

Burning out or pushing yourself? I really think that after I’ve pushed myself… If I feel better, that means I should keep on going. Today, I ran a 5km race thing. I pushed myself, it hurt so much when I was doing it and I was literally breathing as if I ran all the way up a mountain. But in the end, those endorphins were way worth it. And this was an example of pushing myself. Obviously I just re-started running after being in a running rut, so my fitness level wasn’t quite at it’s peak. However, to pull myself out of that rut, I signed myself up for a run team. This currently motivates me and hopefully it’s going to be a good guide/motivator for my big-run in April 2025!

If I feel bad it means I’m slowly getting burned out and it’s really hard to get out of a rut in my experience. The way I got out of my study rut was to not study for 1 whole month which was a major set-back on my grades, yet it was a huge essential part on my mental health. I’m very grateful that I was even able to take a break like that and I did still go to school and do my homework but not as obssesively as before.

Now, why I talked about Istanbul in the beginning of this? Istanbul, to me, is that city that isn’t always perfect, but it always moves. It has this incredible motion to it that you can get swept in and make progress. But if you’re in it for the ‘all or nothing’ mindset, this city will make you think ;).

Basically what I’m trying to say is always better yourself, even if it’s one percent a day or maybe 50 percent a day. Some days you are going to reach that 100 percent and somedays it’s going to be 0. But it’s easier to turn a 0 into a 1 rather than a 100. And that is on pushing yourself and staying consistent with it. Because consistency makes progress and progress is what makes you reach your goal. It sounds difficult, especially if you’re so used to the all or nothing mindset, but once you adapt it, it’s so so so worth it.

Thank you for reading this and I really hope that you enjoyed, took or learnt something from it.

Take care!