Good, Better, Best: A way through for the Recovering Perfectionist

You know those days where everything falls apart before 9am?

Maybe the kids were up half the night.

Maybe something blew up at work.

Maybe you just woke up already behind and the version of yourself who had a whole plan mapped out the night before feels like a completely different person.

I have been there. A lot. And for a long time my response to those days was one of two things… wing it and probably collapse by the end of it, or say “screw it” and start fresh Monday.

Neither one actually worked.

And if you have felt that “why can’t I just do the things” spiral… it is not a you problem.

It is a planning problem. There is a difference.

But here is the thing I want to say before we get into any of this.

If you are a self-proclaimed perfectionist… and I mean that in any version of the word… this was built for you specifically.

I have no intention here in watering you down. Because trust me… there’s a time and a place for a perfectionist.

I’m just looking to give you something you have probably never had before… a range that actually honors both your capacity and your standards at the same time.

Where This Came From

Last week, I was watching an old Elevation Church sermon from Steven Furtick called “When Better Feels Backwards.” He was unpacking the word “better”… how it shows up in Scripture, what it actually means, and why it matters.

And one thing he said stayed with me.

Better is not objective.

It is not one universal standard that applies the same way to every person in every season. Better is personal. It is contextual. It is shaped by who you are and where you are right now.

Better is subjective.

That landed differently for me than I expected it to. Because I work with a lot of perfectionists (and am a recovering sometimes falling off the wagon one myself). And the one thing perfectionists struggle with most is not effort. It is never effort.

It is the inability to give themselves credit for anything that falls short of the standard they set… even when that standard was never actually theirs to begin with.

And that is where Good, Better, Best started to take on a whole new meaning for me.

The Problem With Perfectionism Nobody Talks About

Here is what I want to say about perfectionism before we go any further:

It is not all bad. Not even close.

There is a version of perfectionism that built things worth building. The person with that level of attention to detail, that drive to keep refining until something is exactly right… we need those people.

There is a season for that.

There is a time and place for all-or-nothing thinking because sometimes going all in is exactly what the moment requires.

But there is another version of perfectionism that whispers to you at 10pm when you ate one cookie and suddenly the entire day feels ruined. That mess tells you if you cannot do it perfectly there is no point in doing it at all. That mess does not build things. That mess just tears you down slowly.

And the hardest part is you cannot just decide to stop being a perfectionist. You cannot logic your way out of it. What you can do is give yourself a range… and then interrogate where your standards actually came from in the first place.

Because here is the thing nobody stops long enough to ask: the standards you are chasing… they came from somewhere.

They have a root.

And if you do not know where that root is, you are running yourself ragged chasing something that might not even be yours.

Better Is Subjective… And That Changes Everything

When Steven talked about “better” being subjective, it hit me because this is exactly where the comparison trap lives for perfectionists.

You see someone else’s better and you think you need to match it. But what you are actually seeing is one area of their life that they have chosen to prioritize. You are not seeing what they are not showing you. You are not seeing the areas where they have nothing left because they poured everything into this one thing.

Their better in one area might mean they have basically nothing left for five other areas. They made a choice about where to focus. But you are looking at their highlight and trying to be that version of better across everything simultaneously.

That is where the comparison problem lives for someone who is striving for perfection only. You see a curated slice and you measure your whole life against it.

So before we go any further, I want you to sit with these questions:

When you look at someone else’s “better,” what are you actually seeing? Is it their whole life or just the part they chose to show?

What areas of their life might not look like “better” by your own standards that you simply cannot see?

What do you actually want to prioritize in this season?

Where did the standard you are chasing come from… did you choose it, or did you absorb it somewhere along the way?

Is there data or research behind it, or is it noise you picked up from someone else’s life?

Does it align with your actual values, or are you trying to be a version of someone else?

Take your time with those. They matter.

The Root of Your Striving

When I became a stay at home mom, I did not know how to do it. And I started doing what a lot of us do… I started looking outward. At other moms. At what they were doing and how they were doing it.

And suddenly I was stressed about cloth diapers versus disposable. I was looking at these carefully curated snack boards with fruit cut into shapes and little compartments of color and variety and intention… and then looking at the bowl of goldfish I just handed my kid… and feeling like I was failing.

I started questioning the toys I was choosing. The screen time. The activities. All of it. And I ran myself absolutely ragged trying to hit a standard that I never actually sat down and chose for myself.

What I was doing was taking on other people’s definitions of better instead of giving myself the space to ask: what do Iwant to be as a mom? What matters to me? What kind of home do I actually want to build?

Those are two completely different questions. “What kind of mom am I supposed to be?” versus “What kind of mom do I actually want to be?” One comes from your values. One comes from someone else’s highlight reel.

And here is the other piece of this: my best friend and I are both people who like to strive. We like to learn. We like to accomplish things and get good at things. That is part of who we are. And that drive is not the problem. Striving toward something that genuinely matters to you is completely different from striving to meet an arbitrary standard you inherited from someone else’s life.

One builds you up. The other just wears you down.

So before anything else, get honest about what you are actually building toward. Because your better has to be yours first. Everything else builds from there.

Here Is Where It Comes Together

Instead of having one plan that either works or completely falls apart, you build three versions of your day.

Good is the bare minimum that still moves you forward. Life is chaotic, your capacity is basically gone, and this is what you can realistically do today. That is it. Nothing more is required.

Better is when you have got a little more in the tank. Not perfect, not your best, but more than survival mode.

Best is when everything is clicking. Your head is on straight, the schedule actually cooperated for once, and you can execute the way you planned.

And here is the part that matters most… all three of those days count. You are never off plan.

You are just moving in a different goal for the moment.

This is not a “settle for less”.

This is a “stop blowing the whole day because one thing went sideways”.

Those are very different things.

Why This Works

The perfectionist approach works great until life interrupts. And life always interrupts. Every single time.

What Good, Better, Best does is take the decision making out of the hard moment. Because you have already figured it out ahead of time. You already know what realistic looks like at each level. So when Tuesday hits you sideways, you do not have to think. You look at your day, pick your goal, and go.

For a perfectionist this is significant because perfectionism LOOOOOOVVVVES decision fatigue.

It loves the moment where you are overwhelmed and you default to either pushing past your limits or shutting down completely.

Good, Better, Best removes that moment. You already have an answer for whatever kind of day this turns out to be.

And I want to say this clearly because I think it gets missed…

A Good day is not a bad day.

A Good day is a day where life happened and you still showed up in whatever way you could. For someone whose default is “if I cannot do it like this, why do it at all”… choosing to show up at the Good tier is actually an act of real discipline. It is harder than crushing a Best day. It requires more intention, not less.

Nutrition Examples

This is where things tend to fall apart fastest when life gets hard. These are just starting points. You will scale this for your life and your goals.

A Good nutrition day is grabbing a protein bar or something quick, keeping basic notes on what you ate even if it is just rough estimates, and making something reasonable for dinner even if it came straight out of the freezer. You are staying aware. You are not tracking perfectly but you are not flying blind either.

A Better nutrition day is a protein-focused breakfast you actually sat down for, breakfast and lunch tracked even if dinner was a rough guess, and intentional choices at most of your meals with some grace on the ones that did not go as planned.

A Best nutrition day is high protein across all three meals, tracked consistently, choices that reflect that you either planned ahead or prepped ahead. You are in a groove and you know it.

Movement Examples

Movement is usually the first thing that disappears when life gets busy… and then the guilt about skipping it makes everything feel worse. So let’s reframe this right now.

A Good movement day is a ten minute walk. That is it. Park farther away. Take the stairs. Walk around the block at lunch. Ten minutes of moving your body keeps the habit alive on the days when you genuinely cannot do more. It counts.

A Better movement day is a twenty minute intentional walk, maybe with some stretching at the end. You moved your body on purpose and that matters.

A Best movement day is your full workout, done. Thirty plus minutes, you stretched, you recovered, you showed up for your body the way you planned to.

Mindset Examples

This is the one that gets skipped the most and it is the one that holds everything else together. Without it even the best plan eventually falls apart.

A Good mindset day is one intentional thought to reset yourself. Something simple like “Imperfect days still count” or “I am still in this.” You are not journaling, you are not doing a deep dive, you are just giving yourself one moment of permission to keep going. That is enough.

A Better mindset day is catching yourself in an all-or-nothing thought and reframing it. Something went left/right and instead of deciding the whole day is ruined, you remind yourself that it was only that. One moment. That mental muscle matters more than most people realize and you are building it every single time you do this.

A Best mindset day is actually sitting down to reflect. What went well this week? What do you want to adjust? You are looking at your wins, being honest with yourself about what is working and what is not, and setting some intentions for what is ahead.

Making It Real: The Visual Tether

Knowing about Good, Better, Best is one thing. Actually living it is another. And the piece that makes this framework actually stick for a perfectionist is giving yourself a visual way to see your progress.

I work with two types of people here.

The first is someone who needs to see it physically. For one of my clients we took a calendar… a real one, hanging somewhere she walks past every single day… and we started marking what she accomplished each day within the framework. For her, a Good day meant hitting seven thousand steps. She writes it right on that date. “7k steps.” A Better day was ten thousand. A Best day was her full training session.

Some days it was water intake. “Twenty ounces. Good.” Some days it was nutrition. “Tracked breakfast and lunch. Better.”

Here is what happened that neither of us expected: as soon as she could see the calendar, the perfectionist in her activated in the most productive way possible. Because now there were blank spaces. And blank spaces do not sit well with someone who naturally aims high. But instead of that drive becoming punishing, it became motivating. She started looking at those empty squares and asking “Okay, what am I able to do today?” And then she would go do the thing.

Every marked day became proof that she was keeping promises to herself. And over time that proof became something she could actually hold onto.

The second type is someone who processes through reflection and accountability. For those clients we use a journaling system where they mark their daily check-ins with what tier they hit across their goals. Then I recap their journals over time and show them what I see.

I will look back over three weeks and say: “Out of the last twenty-one days, here is how many were Good. Here is how many were Better. Here is how many were Best. And look at this trend. You are having more Better days than you were. Your Best days are increasing.”

And then I get to do the thing that matters most for a perfectionist: I get to hold up a mirror and name their faithfulness back to them. Because most perfectionists cannot see their own progress. They are too busy measuring the gap between where they are and where they think they should be.

But when someone can show you the actual data of the promises you kept to yourself… that is when the compassion lands. Not because someone told you to go easy on yourself. But because the evidence is right there and it is undeniable.

Before You Go

The clients I see make the most progress over time are not the ones who hit Best every single day.

They are the ones who never fully quit…. their calendars are visually filled.

They drop to Good when they have to.

They climb back to Better when they can.

And they give every version of themselves that kept going the same credit they would give their best day.

You do not have to be perfect. You just have to keep going.

And the next time you see someone else’s “better” and feel the pull to measure yourself against it… remember that you are seeing one area they chose to pour into.

Your “better” belongs to you.

Define it. Own it. And then show up for it in whatever today allows.

That is enough. ♥️

I hope this helps!

With love, Coach Nik