I’m going to put it out there: The pursuit of perfectionism is the primary reason so many people are stressed. And stuck. And less successful than they’d like to be.

Yep, it’s all wrapped up in perfectionism.

And perfection is an elusive animal. Ask any pitcher.

Yesterday, April 21, 2012, Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox pitched a perfect game. For those whose grasp of baseball is a little loose, let me explain – Humber pitched nine innings and none of the batters he faced made it to first base. Every batter had a strike out, or his fly ball was caught, or he was put out at first base.

That’s a perfect game.

Which is really rare.

How rare? Well, only 21 perfect games have been pitched since 1880.

If my math is right, that’s something like one every six years.  A perfect game is a level of perfection that most Hall of Fame pitchers never even achieve.

Baseball itself is not a game of perfect. The Sultan of Swat, Babe Ruth? Struck out 66% of the time he was at the plate. And he is revered as a big hitter.

True perfection, my friends, is elusive, and rare.

And, yet, you agonize over your presentation, that report, your website, a resume, an offer. As if what you produce has to be the equivalent of a perfect game. Every single time.

That’s a lot of pressure you’re putting on yourself. What, you expect daily perfection?  Maybe even minute-by-minute perfection?

Honey, not even Hall of Famers get to that level of perfection.

Phil Humber is not perfect. Seven years ago, Humber had reconstructive Tommy John surgery on his throwing arm. Twenty-nine years old, he’s played for four different teams, and been sent down to the minors from the big leagues a couple of times. He didn’t book his first Major League win until 2010. Probably the last guy you’d think would toss a perfect game.

But he did. And he did it despite all the odds against him.

About being added to the list of pitchers who’ve thrown a perfect game, Humble Humber said, “I don’t even know what to say. I don’t know what Philip Humber is doing in this list. No idea what my name is doing there, but I’m thankful it’s there.”

See? I’ll bet you he didn’t go out to the mound before that first inning and say, “I’m going to throw a perfect game.” I’ll bet you he didn’t say, “Today’s the day I make history.”

I’ll bet you that Phil Humber walked to the mound and said to himself, “Let this first pitch be good enough, just the way the catcher calls it.” And after he had done that, he focused on the next pitch.

And the next.

And the next.

And by the last pitch of that game against the Seattle Mariners, Phil Humber had thrown a perfect game.

He did it good enough pitch by good enough pitch by good enough pitch.

He did it loose, and easy, and focused. Totally present in that moment when he released the ball.

So, too, you. Rather than obsessing about the word choice in the fourth line of the third paragraph – obsessing for weeks, or even a month – let that good enough word go, and get the thing out there.

Rather than stressing out about your “niche”, start working with good enough clients and get an idea of who you like to serve – and serve more of them.

You can always adjust. You can always tweak. You can always revise. You can always shake off the called pitch.

But if you never deliver the throw in the first place, you’re not really in the game.

And remember the lesson from Phil Humber’s unexpected history-making perfect game: When you give yourself the space and freedom to allow for good enough, the result is a graceful kind of ease that opens up room for a result better than you might even have expected.

Good enough pitch by good enough pitch, you’ll have solid inning after solid inning to your credit.

And with that kind of steady performance, you just might find yourself in the Hall of Fame.

In a coaching session this past week, I used a tactic that sometimes gets good results.

[Sometimes. Whether it did this time remains to be seen.]

My client is a very smart, very talented, very successful guy who is in a leadership role in an industry that’s failing, in a company that’s panicked. From the day he started the job almost two years ago, he knew something was wrong. Something was off. And now he’s seeing all the bad stuff come to fruition. He’s exhausted, burned out and stressed. Yet he’s spending 80 hours a week stacking the deck chairs on what feels like a sinking ship, and there’s never enough time to do everything that could be done.

“But,” he asks me.

“But, at his level can you leave a job after less than two years in the role?”

“But, I”m a smart guy – isn’t it my obligation to make it work?”

“But, shouldn’t I have another job in hand before I leave?

“But, they’re paying me – don’t I owe them?”

I call this The Motorboat moment: But, but, but, but.

Which is no pleasure trip. It’s more like bumping through heavy chop in high winds. It’s no fun, and a little nauseating.

So I whipped out my best coaching stuff – I put on my figurative trench coat, dark glasses and beret – and I became The Coach Provocateur.

For every “but” he said, I said, “Go ahead, quit.”

For every reason he offered for staying, I offered a vision for what’s next.

For every “no”, I said “yes”.

Because time after time I have seen that when I offer a rather outlandish suggestion – “Quit today and move to Tahiti” – it allows the client to say, “Well, not Tahiti, but maybe Atlanta.”

And there you have it – Atlanta. A workable goal. A clear objective.  Something that feels pretty good.

But you only get there by considering the extreme potential.

My client’s homework is to consider what it would be like to leave in three months. What it would be like to take some time to recoup and renew – his soul, his body, his psyche. And he may come back with another solution than the one I offered. And that is perfectly OK – as long as it’s a solution he can use.

As long as it expands his comfort zone and gives him the relief he craves.

So, no doubt you have something you’d like to address.  To fix. To do better.

OK, what’s the most extreme, Lady Gaga-esque approach you can think of? Dream it up. Biggify it.

Then say, “If not that, then what?”

You may find that by considering that provocative edge, you’ll find your perfect solution.

When my belly got big with my son, I started routinely waking up around 3 a.m. as the pressure on my pea-sized bladder got to be too much. Same thing happened with my daughter – up at 3 a.m. like clockwork.

Then, for several years in a row, I found myself awake at 3 a.m. nourishing hungry, growing babies.

Of course, for any child there are night time fevers, and bad dreams, and then my own grief which prompted quiet 3 a.m. checks to make sure they were still breathing. Sometimes I needed that silent nighttime check to reassure myself that everything was going to be OK. So I could sleep.

And after so many years of that routine, I guess I got used to it.

Today, I find myself awake at 3 a.m. more often than not – an echo of the past lodged deep in my bones.

[Plus, there's still that pea-sized bladder issue.]

And I have come to love 3 a.m.

It’s wonderful. Unless you live in a college town, there’s no one coming home at that time of the morning. There’s no one heading off to work, either. There is nothing in the sky except stars. No cars whooshing by on the streets.

Even the birds are asleep.

It’s so still. So quiet. So calm. Creating an open, inviting space to just… be.

3 a.m. is a drink of cold water to a thirsty woman in the desert of busyness and doing-doing-doing that seems to be the way of our modern world.

At 3 a.m., I find I can breathe. I can lean against the door jamb for a minute and just be in the stillness, full of remembrance. And gratitude for this life, this time.

Aware of the gift of it all.

Which never fails to usher me back into a restful sleep.

The other night at 3 a.m., I heard a fox call in the night. Perhaps – a mom, too – she was up nursing her kits, and was looking for a kindred spirit who loves the morning.

She certainly found me. And me, her.

And, you know, I would never have heard her call in the regular hubbub of the day.

Your time for stillness and gratitude may not be at 3 a.m., but you’ve got a special time. You sure do – we all do – maybe you’re just too busy to recognize it.

But you need it.You need your own still, calm time as the antidote to the stress of your day.

So find it. Ready?

Deep breath.

Discover stillness.

Locate gratitude.

Hear the call in the quiet.

And live happier.

I am rather smitten with the idea of transformation. Utterly fascinates me.

It fascinates me how common things like today’s newspaper gets recycled into tomorrow’s paper towels. Like how left over table scraps can become food for tomorrow’s flowers.

Magical things fascinate me, too, like how a little baby grows into a tall adult.

And then there are amazing things like how simple trial and error leads to a new invention that changes the world. Like the light bulb. Or the Internet.

To some of these things we say, “Yes, but…”

Yes, but that’s nature’s way of doing things – has nothing to do with me.

Yes, but that’s somebody like Thomas Edison. That’s somebody like Steve Jobs. Not somebody like me.

Rarely, it seems, do we say, “Yes, but…I can do that, too.”

But it’s more than possible.

You absolutely have the power to transform things.

You.

And you can do it all by yourself, when you think about it.

You can transform the challenge of sickness into the relief of healing, just by talking about it in a different way.

As in, “I am on my way toward remission.”

You can transform the stress of working with a difficult person into calm productivity, just by managing your own energy and being an advocate for yourself.

As in, “I am not jumping into that drama with him. No, I am not.”

You can transform your business from struggling to succeeding, just by focusing on your strengths and what really matters.

As in, “Despite the advice of marketing gurus, I know I am an introvert and not at my best in large networking events. I’m going to meet people my own way.”

It’s daunting and a little confusing to think that you have any power to change anything. Because so many of us have lived our lives believing we’re at the mercy of others. That power belongs to someone else. That we’re small, insignificant, unable.

But we’re not.

I know you’re not.

The power to transform – to shift one thing into another – is your greatest superpower.

And, if you open your eyes and see, you will find that you use this great skill of yours every day, in ways large and small.

Every time you open a door, turn a corner, start a new document, begin a conversation, you have the ability to transform one thing into something else.

And guess what? The more you use this superpower, the stronger it will get.

The stronger you will get.

So begin today. Begin by transforming where you are right now, to where you’d like to be.

And that’s as easy as getting up from your chair and moving some place else.

I wish you had been a fly on the wall.

Five women – smart, accomplished, professionals – sat around the room with the look of astonished recognition on their faces.

Because they had collectively realized that none of them gave themselves credit for what they’d accomplished, but, rather, focused solely on where they fell short.

That’s like saying, “Sure, I climbed Mt. Everest, but I could have had better shoes.”

I’m reading Rick Hanson’s book Just One Thing – a helpful, practical book with instructions on how to use your thoughts to change your brain function – and even your neurological structures – by approaching problems, situations and general living in a slightly different way.

Hanson quotes John Gottman’s famous research which found that “the brain generally reacts more to a negative stimulus than to an equally intense positive one.” And researcher Roy Baumeister found that “painful experiences are usually more memorable than pleasurable ones.”

So my five stressed-out professional women were absolutely normal when they downplayed their achievements and focused on their lack.

But.

What makes for happiness?

“…sense of security and worth, resilience, effectiveness, well-being, insight, and inner peace,” offers Rick Hanson. Which sounds just about right.

So, our innate human default – to focus on what’s not working – totally undermines our ability to feel happy…

Wait a minute. You want to feel happy, don’t you?

Of course you do, unless…you don’t.

Unless “Me As A Happy Person” totally conflicts with the self-image you have of yourself. Or the self-image handed to you by your family, your schoolmates or pop culture.

Think about it. Maybe you were told that “happy” is frivolous. All that matters is work. Work for work’s sake. Eat what you kill. Climb the ladder until you’re at the top. Strive and struggle, and keep pushing. You can be “happy” when you’re retired.

Or maybe you were told that “happy” is for other people. Other people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and had everything handed to them. You know, the ones living on Easy Street. You – with your immigrant grandparents, and up-from-the-gutter family history – you have to work for whatever you get. “Happy” – pfffft. For someone else.

But here’s the intriguing thing.

Think about the children in your life. Do you want them to be happy?

How about your dearest family members? What would you do to insure their happiness?

And your best friend. What do you want for him, or for her? Would you call it happiness? Do you do what you can to help them achieve it?

Of course you do. You’re a devoted spouse, a good mom, a good dad, a great friend, a wonderful son or daughter. I know you.

You want the people you love to be happy. But you’re not really happy yourself.

So…you want for others what you deny yourself.

Innnnnteresting, huh?

Friends, it’s time to change that up.

Promise me this: Promise me that starting today, you’ll begin to wish for yourself that which you’d wish for someone you love. That you will begin to show yourself the same compassion you show others. That you will own your successes and celebrate them.

That you will begin a healthy love relationship – with you.

By doing so, you will literally change the wiring in your brain from nearly-always-negative to nearly-always-positive, and reduce your stress.

You will start being happy.

And after you’ve done that, the rest of living is all a piece of cake.