"Self-Improvement"

Someone I know recently ran something she called ‘Freedom from Self-Improvement day’

I love the concept- freedom from self-improvement, and support all of us getting our need for acceptance fulfilled in a deep way.

One of my personal heroes is Paul Hawken, and in his latest book Blessed Unrest (highly recommended) writes this:

Life tends to optimize rather than maximize. Maximization is another word for addiction. “Humans exhibit addictive tendencies when trying to maximize such values as wealth, pleasure, security, and power… Too much of a good thing is not a good thing,” writes Hoagland. Critics of the movement complain that it is against free markets, expanding wealth, and security, which is not true. What is missing in that critique is a discussion of how we gauge sufficiency. A sense of balance- of knowing what is too much wealth, what is too much power, what constitutes license instead of freedom- is not easy to achieve, but it raises crucial questions.

Over the last couple of years, as Heart of Business, Inc. has come out of struggle into more ease and flow, it’s taken me awhile to recognize that we’re at a more comfortable cruising speed, and I no longer need to press the accelerator quite so hard. We’re not on quite as steep a slope as before, and it takes less power to move along.

This has brought the question of sufficiency front and center for me. And, I’d like to ask all of us about it, no matter what phase your business is in. If you are in the uphill building mode, believe me, I support you fully in growing and expanding into more ease.

I think there is another way that the issue of sufficiency manifests as well, and it’s not just in quantity or size questions. I think it also shows up in our perfectionism. How many revisions are ‘enough.’ How ‘perfect’ does our copy need to be before the website goes live? When is good enough, good enough?

Here’s what I’d like to hear from you: How do you balance between the desire to improve/grow your business and also finding acceptance of where you are? Or do you?