What is “Good Enough”?
Sweeping the back porch, you want it clean and have a general idea what clean is.
You don’t sweep every speck of dust, but you get the heavy dirt and sticks. You ask your partner. “What do you think?” Your partner, says. “You hardly swept the porch, it’s far from perfect.” You know the job isn’t perfect, but for you, right now, it’s “Good Enough.”
What happened when you decided: “Good Enough”.
You were never thinking the job would be “Perfect” even before you started.
Why?
Because “Perfect” has problems. First, “Perfect” is NOT attainable.
No matter how well you sweep, how long you sweep, or how carefully and thoroughly you sweep, you will never do a “Perfect” job, and you want to finish.
But your partner didn’t think your sweeping was even “good enough.” This is your partner’s standard. For you, it was “good enough”
Why?
Because you decided “it was good enough.”
“Good Enough” has implications for your mental health, your well-being, and your adaptation.
DEFINE: (Phrase, - Good Enough - Idiom): …sufficient to suit the purpose(s) at hand without needing to be perfect. I add to this dictionary definition: “Good Enough is a phrase that judges a task/event/phenomenon as completed.”
Good Enough has 364 synonyms by my count: tolerable, acceptable, decent…
PERFECTion is defined as: (noun) 1…the condition, state, or quality of being free…from all flaws or defects…having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; 2. as good as it is possible to be. 3…absolute; complete (used for emphasis). 3. …when (something) is completely free from faults or defects.
If “Good Enough” is the midpoint on a continuum where the far right end is PERFECT. What would be at the far left (or negative) end?
“Perfection” doesn’t have a totally opposite, but qualitatively different counterpart word. You can label the left end with the same word only in the negative, “imperfect”.
Imperfect defined (Merriam-Webster): 1…not perfect; faulty or incomplete. OR 2…(imperfect)… is a tense denoting a past action in progress but not completed at the time in question.
There are synonyms for imperfection: inferior, crap, worthless, bad, inaccurate, imprecise… All with emotional baggage.
Imperfect (derives from the word “perfect”). If you don’t do a task perfectly, the task remains “in progress” but “not complete.” How would someone “perfectly complete” anything?
No wonder the word perfect drives people crazy; no acceptable negative term permits you to call it done. If you are not perfect, then you are “bad,” “worthless,” or “inferior.”
We think we know what it means to be perfect; and the opposite of perfect is imperfect, but:
What is perfect versus imperfect anyway?
This is where “Good Enough” comes in. Good Enough is not perfect, but it is slightly better than OK, allowing you to finish short of perfection and feel OK about it.
“Without the term ‘Good Enough, ’ people could not finish anything. They could not adapt to their world.’ By this, I mean that since perfection is unattainable and imperfection is insufficient, something must fill the breach, or people can’t function (or finish) without self-incrimination or self-denigration, at least as far as our language is concerned.
But, aren’t we supposed to strive for “perfection”?
Does it make sense to strive for something unattainable?
Perhaps/Perhaps Not.
It makes sense if you strive for something - as long as you can be satisfied without achieving your goal of perfection. There must be a reasonable point when you can say your work is done.
Again, it all comes down to personal judgment about when (or at what point) something is “good enough” to satisfy you.
Can something be “good enough” but simultaneously “unsatisfactory.”
The answer: Yes and No.
Humans are not socially wired to strive for “Good Enough” unless “Good Enough” is judged in some way better than satisfactory. But does one want to strive to be just above “satisfactory”? Is “just above satisfactory” the default when perfection is not achievable?
Think about school.
Back in the day, teachers gave grades F (Fail), D (unsatisfactory), C (satisfactory), B (above satisfactory), and A (excellent). Getting an A is not perfect in a class; it is doing “excellent” according to the teacher’s standards. If you get an A, you are happy because you weren’t perfect; you might have failed an assignment or two, but you recovered. Why isn’t an A “Perfect”?
Because:
Even the teacher knows that “Nobody does Everything Right.”
Nobody is Perfect (not even the Teacher).
I think most people would agree with this statement.
However, for a few people, these statements might underscore “insufficiency.” Perhaps it is OK sometimes to be “insufficient,” but I doubt people think about it this way.
For example, I do insufficient work, I’m an insufficient person, and my partner is insufficient.
What a dilemma we find ourselves in!
No wonder people get caught up in self-denigrating comments.
We should All Strive to be “Good Enough” because “Good Enough” is Complete.
REALLY?
Why is this admonition problematic?
Because it’s hard to decide when something is “Good Enough.”
AND it’s impossible to decide when you are “Complete.” Jane Fonda is not or never was “Complete.” She has been and always will be a work in progress.
Given that “Good Enough is NOT perfect” and “Good Enough is not complete, but perhaps more than sufficient, How should we evaluate ourselves?
Are you complete if you always choose Good Enough?
Think about it.
Sure, “Good Enough” is ultimately more adaptable than “Perfect,” but Good Enough is rarely (if ever) complete. Tasks are never “Perfectly Completed.”
But What about the human spirit? Is “Good Enough” akin to giving something up? For example, should we all stop “Striving” for “Perfection”?
“Striving for Perfection,” “In Search of Excellence,” “The Goal of Greatness,” “Highest Quality Possible,” “110%,” and all that stuff.
Don’t forget about The Little Engine That Could.
“I think I Can, I think I Can, I Know I Can…”
If we abandon the notion of “Perfect,” does this suggest personalized (and societal) mediocrity that we should settle for “Good Enough?”
Perhaps I can be “Good Enough” if I have high - super high - “Good Enough” performance standards.
On the other hand:
Is “Good Enough” just an excuse to stop trying because I’m tired or discouraged before I finish a “Satisfactory” job?
I believe what is happening is a realization that the term “Good Enough” is dynamic.
First, “Good Enough” is a complex construct because personal judgment is required to determine what “Good Enough” is.
Second, this judgment depends on the given task and one’s attitude towards it. Although one could argue that one person’s sense of Good Enough could be simply another person’s sense of Excellence or even Perfection, it still begs the question of why “Good Enough” is so valuable as a socially generated construct for human beings to function in a complex world.
WHAT IS GOOD ENOUGH?
“Good Enough” is a safety valve, a pressure release, or a psychological disengagement strategy when more work will not produce more gain. This is either because this is the “best you can do at the time” or because “the task is not doable any further or any better by additional effort by you.”
The Law of Diminishing Returns: “…a principle stating that profits or benefits gained from something will represent a proportionally smaller gain as more money or energy is invested in it…”
Example: I’ve lifted the most weight I can at this time without hurting myself, so this amount of weight lifted right now is “Good Enough” for me.
Have you ever found yourself faced with this kind of dilemma?
When you used the term “Good Enough” to stop yourself from doing something that would over-tax your capabilities, harm you, produce diminishing returns, or yield disappointment if you persisted any further. If you have engaged in this thought process, then you have some understanding of the value of “Good Enough.”
TRUISM #1: PERFECTION IS AN UNACHIEVABLE CONCEPTUAL ENDPOINT.
TRUISM #2: GOOD ENOUGH HELPS YOU STOP/DISENGAGE AND FEEL OK.
TRUISM #3: GOOD ENOUGH CAN MEDIATE WORRY IF THE JOB OR TASK FALLS SHORT OF PERFECTION.
TRUISM #4: SATISFACTION IS WHEN GOOD ENOUGH COINCIDES WITH WHAT YOU THINK IS THE BEST YOU CAN DO AT THE TIME AND PLACE YOU ARE DOING IT.
I’m all for “striving for perfection” as long as you understand that you will never reach the unattainable expectation of “perfection.”
Use “good enough” to pace your progress and develop a sense of personal judgment to know when it makes sense for you to stop and move on.
If you interpret “Good Enough” as always better than “OK, “ you develop a powerful counterargument to know when you can stop and it’s more than OK; it’s just right FOR YOU AT THIS TIME!
Something that is only “OK” is “mediocre.” Something that is “Good Enough” is what it says. The job is done “Good Enough” by your standards: STOP AND MOVE ON FROM this job and on to something else. Let go of perfection to permit yourself to experience satisfaction with what you have done when your work is “Good Enough.” Especially, WITH THIS MUCH OF YOUR EFFORT AND SKILL AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME TO GET IT DONE...
We can ALL be grateful for the phrase “Good Enough.”
Wow! Lance, What a great real-world application for this principle. Essential application anyone who reads this blog. Even your response opened a whole past world for me. A principle that I, myself, have worked with my whole life. Like you - and you and I have quite a bit of early history - life is a journey of "Good Enoughs" eventually embracing (in the end) the term for what it is and what it actually means and how we each reconcile "Good Enough" to ourselves in the presence of life-long efforts to become who we are knowing that we will never be what we fantasized ourselves to be. As you know, I am 67years old as well. We should get together sometime and compare life notes. Bob
When I was about 10 I was helping my dad build our home outside of Bend OR. He was giving me measurements to cut lumber. Some of my cuts were not exactly, or even close, to the measurement he required. He told me that I needed to cut the lumber exactly to the length he gave me. I said to him that the house wasn't going to be perfect when we got done. Then he said to me something I have never forgot. He said,' you are right, the house won't be perfect when we got done, but I will be closer to perfection if we try to make it perfect as we build it. "
I've learned over the years, I'm 67, that somethings need to be perfect or build with very close tolerances, but most things will be just fine with "good enough." I've spent too much time in my live trying to make things perfect when good enough would have been, well, good enough.
My youngest son was helping one day with a project in our shop and he asked me if what he did will work and I said, "good enough." He laughed and said that "good enough" should be my montra. It is true, I've learned over the years what needs close tolerances and what will work with, "good enough" and most things only need to be good enough.
So, like the great philosopher Mediocrity once said, "Eh, good enough."