{"id":225,"date":"2009-09-30T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T11:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kubasek.com\/blog\/lifelong_learner\/?p=225"},"modified":"2010-08-27T19:43:43","modified_gmt":"2010-08-27T19:43:43","slug":"expect-progress-not-perfection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifelonglearner.kubasek.com\/?p=225","title":{"rendered":"Expect progress, not perfection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><?php quote(\"Maybe the most any of us can expect of ourselves isn't perfection but progress.\", \"Michelle Burford\") ?><\/p>\n<p>I love this quote. Too many times we focus on the end result. Too many times we think we are a failure because we&#8217;re not like somebody else. Too many times we stop because we have not achieved our goal. Instead, if we focus on progress and perseverance, I think we&#8217;d move ahead further.<\/p>\n<p>Am I making progress? Am I better today than I was 6 months ago? If yes, then you are on a right track! Keep going!<\/p>\n<p>One great example for this is Toastmasters. I attend meetings because I want to improve my communication skills. It&#8217;s a long term process. Sure, I would love to have the skills of somebody else that I admire. But that&#8217;s not the point. I have my own talents and skills, and the most important question for me is, am I making progress. It&#8217;s really a great feeling to see progress. Yes, I&#8217;d love to have excellent eye contact, vocal variety, body movement and other skills. But I am happy to see improvement in these areas. I am happy to see results from the changes that I try. And that&#8217;s what keeps me going. I don&#8217;t get discouraged.<\/p>\n<p>Focus on making progress and you&#8217;ll reach excellence.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reference<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/speakandlead.org\/\">Speak and Lead Toastmasters<\/a> &#8212; the club I belong to (currently serving as President)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9,49],"tags":[34,44],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning","category-quotes-i-like","category-self-improvement","tag-progress","tag-toastmasters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifelonglearner.kubasek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifelonglearner.kubasek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifelonglearner.kubasek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifelonglearner.kubasek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifelonglearner.kubasek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifelonglearner.kubasek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":520,"href":"https:\/\/lifelonglearner.kubasek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions\/520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifelonglearner.kubasek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifelonglearner.kubasek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifelonglearner.kubasek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}