How to Progress
This past week, I received the results of a health test I took a few weeks ago. Nothing alarming or urgent, but something showed up—something that had also showed up a few years ago, that I had thought was behind me.
At first, I managed to keep calm. I feel good physically. The data says one thing, but my lived experience says another. So I focused more on what I was feeling than what I was reading.
For about one day. Then something shifted.
The calm gave way to unease. The unfinished business of this health marker began to loom larger than I had expected it to. Despite all the work, despite the improvements I’ve noticed in my energy, strength, clarity—despite the consistent effort—it was still there. And, with it, a quiet question: Why isn’t this fixed yet?
That question soon became a feeling I recognized. Frustration. Anxiety. A familiar tightness that used to arrive with report cards as a child. The feeling of scoring 98%, but being preoccupied with the missing 2%. Noticing what hadn’t been achieved, rather than what had.
It surprised me. Not because the feeling was new, but because I thought I might have outgrown it.
The expectation of perfection, it turns out, doesn’t retire peacefully. It lingers. Disguises itself. Sometimes it speaks quietly, in the background. Other times, like this week, it steps forward and takes the mic.
I’ve noticed this voice before. It shows up in places beyond health—in relationships, in work, in the expectations I didn’t realize I was holding. And what it often brings with it is tension. Not just in my body, but in the way life feels. Everything narrows. Options reduce. There’s a right way and a wrong way. A good outcome and a bad one. Progress becomes binary: pass or fail.
And that’s when my energy starts to drain. That’s when I hold back from trying new things, from taking risks, from allowing myself to be surprised. Because if perfection is the standard, then trying becomes a liability.
That’s also when the most joyful parts of my life—the lightness, the spontaneity, the play—begin to lose their colour.
I’ve been wondering why this happens. Why the default is so often toward judgment, even when I think I’ve moved beyond it. And I suspect part of it is the residue from years of being measured. Schools framed learning as achievement. Work rewarded outcomes. Health became something to be quantified, tracked, improved. In all those environments, the lesson is clear: better is good, but best is safest.
And so something in me continues to chase “best,” long after the reason for doing so has faded.
But this week invited a different kind of reflection. As I journaled yesterday morning, I saw, with quiet clarity, how far I’ve come—not in terms of results, but in depth of care. I noticed how conditioned I still am to measure progress by what’s unresolved, rather than what’s being tended to. And I felt, in that noticing, an invitation to see differently.
To see the daily choices—the early mornings at the gym, the quiet stretches, the red light therapy, the food prepared with intention—not as transactions toward perfection, but as demonstrations of self care and love. And when framed this way, something softens. I begin to feel more of the satisfaction I often bypass. I begin to see all the effort not as a means to an end, but as something worthy in itself.
This shift isn't unfamiliar—but it still feels new every time. Moving from judgment to curiosity. From closure to openness. From wanting control to accepting care.
It’s the difference between asking, “Did this work?” and wondering, “What is this teaching me?”
There’s something beautiful in that wondering. Something human. And less machine. It doesn’t arrive with answers, but with space. And in that space, growth happens—even when “results” do not.
This softening isn’t just inward. It echoes outward. The more I practice accepting the effort in myself, the more I begin to notice it in others. I find myself focusing less on how others measure up, and more on how they show up. Whether it's my partner, friends, colleagues—there’s a gentler gaze available. One that sees intention even when initiative falters. One that sees care even when outcomes vary.
It begins to form a kind of loop. Recognition of humanity feeds compassion, which in turn, allows more of that humanity to be seen. Less pressure. More space.
It’s not a final destination. I know the next time I receive a test result like this one, I may still feel the reaction. There may still be a moment of comparison, disappointment, desire for certainty. But maybe—hopefully—it will be softer. Less sharp. And maybe I’ll spend less time in that narrow space before remembering that my journey is not about perfection, but about progress. Not about being done, but about being here.
There’s a quiet kind of achievement in that.
The kind that doesn’t show up in test results.
The kind that takes root slowly—in the way I stretch in the morning, in the way I breathe before I react, in the way I remember to be kind when it feel I should not be.
And maybe the most perfect we can hope to be… is to keep going.
And that is how I am learning to progress.
