Don’t let Great be the enemy of Good
If you've been exposed to enough business/self-development information you've probably come across the Jim Collins quote "don't let good be the enemy of great".
While I agree with this in some contexts - we should be continuing to strive for better - I don't think that it's helpful when we are trying to change our health trajectory in a positive direction. In fact the chase of greatness can result in us not even reaching “good”, and usually has us ending up back where we started pretty quickly. This is because the gap between where we are now and what great looks like is often overwhelmingly large and trying to navigate that much distance can cause all sorts of slip ups.
When it comes to improving health I much prefer Voltaire's (maybe) quote "don't let perfection be the enemy of good". Here are a few reasons why.
The search for what great looks like is time consuming. The science around health and wellbeing is expanding at an incredible pace. No one can keep fully abreast of it, or even keep fully abreast of one area of it, even people whose life's work it is to study these areas. There is so much information out there, much of it conflicting (or at least interpreted in a conflicting way by people explaining it to the public), that it's near impossible to understand what "great" looks like across all facets of health. When we are looking for great straight away we run the risk of spending all our time and energy in the search and none on actually taking any positive action.
People often ask me "what is the best exercise I can do?" The answer is usually "it depends" (ask any decent health professional a similar question and you should get that response). There are too many context specific variables to get into. But actually the answer should be "the one you enjoy the most" because that is the exercise you're most likely to do and keep doing. And when it comes to health, consistent action trumps researching the optimal way to do it. After all, if more information was all that was required then we'd all be millionaires with 6 packs.
When we make health changes, the smaller they are (usually) the more likely they are to stick. When we shoot for great the behaviours we need to adopt are often significantly different to what our current practices are which creates a LOT of resistance to change. Transitioning to a whole food plant based diet (May not be the optimal diet, but is one of the more healthy ones) from the standard American diet is tough! But shooting for good and making sure you hit your 5+ veggies and fruit a day seems achievable. Then cutting out some junk food for healthy snacks, we can probably do. And those changes towards "good" slowly add up.
Is great actually what we need to aspire to?
I was having a conversation with a client the other day about good vs great when it came to health. He understandably wanted great health, so we spoke about it for a bit. We used the example of LeBron James as someone with great health, someone to aspire to. It would have been helpful for my guy to have the mental fitness and ability to perform under pressure that LeBron has. He is trying to crush it in the business world. But he doesn't need the same physicality LeBron has in order to go mountain biking with his kids or play social football with his mates. He also doesn't need to run a strict sleep schedule optimizing room temperature, and white noise intensity, and plan naps into his week. Often good is good enough in these areas of his health.
When you're thinking about improving your health, the image of great health is fantastic, but it's a long process with many steps along the way. And before you get to great, you need to pass through good. Play the great game over the coming decades, play the good game this year.
TL/DR
Great health is something to aspire to, it's also something that can stop us before we get started.
Good health is achievable, and usually helps us live the kind of life we want to lead.
Thanks for reading. When you’re ready to improve your health here are a couple of ways we can help with that.
Create your individualised, easy to implement health plan that will improve your health and performance at the next MY Health Plan on the 30th of May
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