I have a problem: I’ve never understood the phrase “good enough.” If the cookies aren’t bakery-quality and beautiful, I don’t want to serve them; if I smudge my handwriting on an envelope, I tear it up and write another. I accept the best efforts of my students, colleagues, and friends all the time, knowing that perfection is unattainable and the journey is more valuable than the destination.

For myself, though, good enough isn’t enough. If I haven’t provided the most immaculate, flawless experience, I feel I’ve failed. (If you’re not first, you’re last.)

What’s especially fun about this specific neurosis of mine is that while it seems like it’s a testament to wanting to grow and refusing to settle, it’s really a paralyzing pit of quicksand, keeping me bummed out and creating metric tons of wasted time and materials. The fact is that most of the time, getting something DONE imperfectly is good enough. Especially if wanting it perfect means it doesn’t get done at all.

My spread of loose parts will not always be an impeccable landscape of organized, relevant, gorgeous materials, and rarely will a provocation be magazine-spread-worthy. Time, material access, and ability can impact what I can offer children – and that can change across days and hours. If I’ve put in thought and committed to keep thinking, then all of my offerings are good enough.

Sometimes, I’ll realize halfway through the day that I could have set something up differently, offered another experience, or phrased a conversation with a child in a more understandable way. In my early years of teaching, my first reaction to those thoughts was how they proved I wasn’t very good at this: if I didn’t do it “right” the first time, I shouldn’t be doing it at all.

This is wildly at odds with how we know children learn (through self-directed testing, trying, and fumbling), and refusing to apply that mindset to me is unfair. I can print a piece of documentation even if I don’t love the formatting! It’s good enough. I can write a weekly plan that might need edits later! It’s good enough. The beauty of doing things that aren’t perfect is often in coming back to them, reevaluating them, and altering them without the pressure of needing them to be award-worthy.

Good Enough Is Better Than Nothing Wrap-Up

It is utterly impossible to have a day in early learning where everything – every interaction, diaper change, transition outside, clean-up time, daily report – is perfect. If we let go of the need for perfection, what more might we accomplish?

How much more powerful is it for children to hear the people who care for them say, “I thought of another way to set this up today” instead of “I can’t get it to look amazing, so I won’t do it”? Instead of being bogged down in pursuing perfection, we can find freedom in the land of “I’ve done my best today. It’s good enough, and I am excited to learn from it.”

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