Letting Go of Perfect: Learning to Live the Good-Enough Life

 

When Control Becomes a Full-Time Job

In my last post, The Not-Pinterest-Perfect Halloween, we talked about finding ways to enjoy the holiday without chasing picture-perfect standards. That idea has been growing quietly in my mind for a while now, long before I really recognized the bigger picture of what it meant. It’s not just about pumpkins or front porches, it’s been showing up in the smaller, quieter corners of everyday life.

We tell ourselves this is the week the color-coded planner will stick.
We spend so much of our time trying to get life right. The right morning rhythm, the right tone when we parent, the right system for keeping it all running. We tweak and plan until “right” starts to feel like the only thing that counts. At some point, without even noticing, we start equating order with peace.

I used to believe that if I could just get the structure right, everything else would follow. If the house was clean, I could think straight. If the plan was detailed and the laundry folded neatly, life would finally feel calm. But life rarely goes according to plan.

We had a cleaning lady for a while not long ago, and after she’d leave, I’d start putting away the laundry she had folded. I’d find myself refolding it because it wasn’t done “right.” Then it hit me: I was literally paying someone to do something that I would then redo. I laughed, folded one more shirt, and finally put it down, deciding that done was better than perfect if it meant less work for me. My kids certainly don’t notice the difference, and no one walks by the drawer to admire the geometric alignment of T-shirts. They’re taken out, worn, washed, and thrown back in.

There are people who truly find joy in a drawer of neatly stacked clothes. If that small order makes your morning calmer, keep it. We all have those little things that make us feel grounded. For me, the shift has been realizing that I can enjoy a tidy drawer without expecting everyone else’s to look the same.

It’s a small example, but it speaks to a bigger shift because that drawer wasn’t the only place I tried to impose order in my life. We can spend our energy maintaining a standard no one asked us to keep, or we can use that energy to actually live the day we’re in.

There was a time when I treated efficiency like a love language. I believed that being on top of everything made me a good mom and partner, the kind of person who had it all together. I built systems, color-coded boards, and routines that could run a small business (Pinterest tells me I’m not the only one!). They looked impressive from the outside, but inside I was drained. Keeping every detail straight took more energy than doing the tasks themselves.

Eventually, the plan started to crack. Kids got sick, work demands grew, and life kept moving faster than I could organize it. It eventually began to occur to me that maybe the problem wasn’t my effort, but my grip.

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Finding Peace in “Good Enough”

Learning to let go didn’t happen in one moment. It’s been slow, uneven, and sometimes uncomfortable, but it’s also been a relief. There’s an ease that comes when we stop treating chaos like a personal failure. Some days, the laundry stays in the basket, dinner turns into breakfast for dinner, and the blog goes live a day late (or two, or three). The world doesn’t notice. No one’s keeping score. I still write my lists and use my planners. I love them, but I’ve stopped treating every change like a personal failure.

When we give ourselves permission to flow with what’s real, we start noticing how many things don’t actually need to be perfect. A conversation can be short and still be meaningful, and a house can be clean enough. Even a loose plan can still hold purpose.

This shift has changed how I approach almost everything. I still plan, but I don’t punish myself when it changes. I make lists, but I no longer expect to cross off every line. I aim high, but I don’t treat falling short as failure.

What I do still struggle with is a clean house. I get stressed when it’s messy, and if I’m honest with myself, it’s never actually “clean enough,” no matter what home-cleaning schedules I come up with. With three kids and a full life, there’s always a spill somewhere, a pile, a corner that needs attention. That gap between how I want things to look and how they actually look still makes me tense. When the toys start covering the floor or the counter clutter multiplies, I hit a point where the noise and mess feel like too much, and I’m not exactly pleasant to be around. I make mistakes. I snap, I rage clean, I forget what actually matters in that moment. I’m not giving up on wanting a clean home, but I’m also not giving up on trying to accept “good enough” when that’s all the day allows.

Every time I get lost chasing order, I lose out on the everyday moments happening around me, like the laughter and moments of connection, and these are the ones that we end up missing the most when they’re gone. One day, when the kids have all moved out, I’m sure I’ll finally have the time for a “clean enough” home. Maybe even a spotless one. But the truth is, the quiet will never feel as full. I hope that before long, the grandkids will be over making messes all over again. Not because of the mess itself, but because it will mean the house is full again with noise, stories, and life.

Letting go isn’t giving up control. It’s realizing we never really had it.

Time moves faster than we think, and getting caught up in what we can’t control only steals more of it. I don’t want to spend these years perfecting things that were never meant to stay perfect. I want to be present for them, uneven edges and all.

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