How To Do Anything Perfectly

The Quest For Perfection

Activity & work is the basis of human survival today. If you do not work, you won’t earn a living and it would make your survival difficult. But man’s aspirations have increased tremendously in the present times. He not only wants to perform an activity but also wants to master it. He aims at perfection in whatever he does. Being perfect at doing something not only earns you a living, it also makes you rich and lets you enhance your value in the economy and the society you live in. Perfection also gives you inner satisfaction and a sense of fulfillment. But this perfection is seen to exist only in some of the people who stand at the top of their respective professions. The questions that come out here are – What is perfection? Is it real or made-up? If its real then how to achieve perfection in everything we do? And should we actually aim for it?

What is Perfection?

Perfection has no definite definition. It may be said that it is the feeling of doing any act in  a way that gives the highest level of satisfaction, either to the doer or to others around. But practically, it is a very subjective term that varies in time, space and perception. This means that something that might have been considered perfect years ago might not be perfect in the present era. For eg. Sachin Tendulkar was considered the perfect batsman who could never be bettered! But today, Virat Kohli is being considered better than him. Similarly, one’s motherland is the perfect place to be for anyone. The place where a person is born can never be second to any other place. So, a city might be perfect for one person but the same city might not be so perfect for another!

Perfection Doesn’t Lie in The Activity

Perfection is not tangible. This means that whichever way you do a certain activity, there is always a better way to do it. You cannot say that you have found the perfect way of doing anything! Also, the meaning and interpretation of perfection varies from person to person. What is perfection for one might be failure for another! And even if you find the perfect way to do anything, it will be momentary due to the constantly changing and evolving nature of you and everything around you. Hence, that ‘perfect’ act cannot be repeated again. If you get 100% marks in any subject still you can never be sure whether you can repeat that performance in future. Hence, perfection is not achieving a set goal as it might have been achieved just by chance and not due to actual perfection of the doer! This is because there are innumerable factors that contribute towards the achievement of any goal most of which are beyond human control.

Perfection is a State of Mind

Perfection is only a state of mind and is not associated with the activity as such. It doesn’t matter whether you have performed the activity well or not, if your mind stays calm during the activity then you can say that you have achieved perfection in that activity. When your mind doesn’t come in between you and the activity, you are almost certain to perform the act perfectly. But, it should be noted here that the act still might not have been performed ‘perfectly’ for reasons given in previous paragraphs. Since, the mind is at peace while performing the activity, you get the feeling that you have perfected the act! You might have seen that when professionals perform an activity in their  area of expertise, their minds are absolutely at peace which gives them the feeling of perfection. But when they perform an activity out of their area of expertise their minds become noisy and perfection seems not only distant but also impossible. But why does this happen? Isn’t it possible to perform every activity with the same level of perfection?

Ways To Achieve Perfection

There are two ways to achieve perfection in what one does. The first one is by practicing limitlessly so that the activity itself starts liberating you while you perform it. This is the way perfection is achieved by professionals in their area of expertise. But this type of perfection is hard to maintain as you have to constantly be at it all the time. A little gap in your practice of the act and you might loose the perfection attached to it! The second way is to stay liberated always, whether you are performing or not performing any act. This is an easier and a more reliable way to achieve perfection in whatever one does. If your mind is at peace by its own nature, you are a true perfectionist! Have you noticed that whenever we perform any act for the first time, we do it really well? But as you perform it again and again the quality of performance and output starts coming down. For eg. when you invest in the stock market for the very first time, you definitely earn a handsome amount. Similarly, when you play a new sport for the first time,  you tend to perform better in the first game but not in the subsequent ones. Why do you think this happens? This happens because when you perform an activity for the very first time,  you are liberated in your mind while doing it. When your mind is liberated by its own nature, you perform every activity, everytime you do them, as if you are performing them for the very first time! This increases your perfection in the given activity. When liberated in your mind, you don’t have any set goals or expectations. You just explore the act like a child in its length & breadth without any pre-conceived notions. But when you start doing it on a regular basis, you start trying too hard to succeed. You try to repeat your good performances done in the past. You have expectations from yourself and you get tangled in your own mental thoughts! This brings down the quality of output from the activity. But we should remember that perfection doesn’t come by aiming at it, it comes either by a high level of awareness or by doing the same act again & again without any intent.

Essential Ingredient of Perfection

But the important point here is that LIBERATION & FREEDOM is all you need to do any activity with perfection! Your goal while performing any activity should not be to perform it with perfection but to get liberated from it while performing it. If you are able to do so, the activity would on its own be performed perfectly. On the other hand, if your mind is already always liberated then any act you perform would be perfect. So, we can also say here that when our mind is liberated  & free, it is at peace completely! And Liberation and freedom comes when we don’t make any conclusions in life; By dissociating yourself from your body & mind; By shunning the goal-oriented attitude that is embedded in modern societies!

How To Do Anything Perfectly

 The outcome of an activity you perform is just a shadow of your mental state. This means that if you want to perform an activity with perfection, your mind should be at peace completely. Once this happens, not only every activity you perform would be perfect but your whole life would become an epitome of perfection which would be used as a template by the future generations!