Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning. ~Benjamin Franklin

It’s officially a New Year! For many, that means resolutions. What are you going to resolve to do this year? If I were to ask Marcus Buckingham, author of Now, Discover Your Strengths, or Tom Rath, author of StrengthsFinder 2.0, I’m guessing they would say, start with your strengths. In other words, what do you want to get even better at?

I’m going to suggest a different view for leaders to look at the New Year. I’m going to borrow from Sheila Heen, and use one of the questions she suggests to leaders to ask for feedback. The question is: “What am I doing, or failing to do, where I might be getting in my own way”? Excellent question, right?! I can focus on my strengths all I want to, but if I’m getting in my own way, I might be limiting some of those strengths.

For the last number of years (I’ve lost track how many), I’ve selected a theme for the year. The theme is something that I want to really focus on—read books and articles, watch videos, talk with others about, make intentional personal changes to support that theme, etc. I asked myself, where am I getting in my own way and the answer was clear. I’m a perfectionist, and like many perfectionists, to a fault. Everything I do is measured on a two-point scale. It’s either perfect or it’s terrible/a failure; kind of like only getting an A+ or an F, there isn’t anything in between. I get in my own way by falling into a failure mentality just because something didn’t go perfectly. Hence, my theme for 2017 is “perfectly imperfect.”

Even typing those words, “perfectly imperfect,” makes me cringe. If I’m going to allow myself continual growth and progress, as wise Benjamin Franklin suggests, then I need to become comfortable with “imperfection.” I won’t get into all of the benefits of “imperfection” or the psychology of “imperfection” because I have an entire year ahead of me to explore, contemplate, and create opportunities for growth and progress.

Instead, I want to focus on the idea of getting in my own way; here’s how Dennis Palumbo in Psychology Today (March 27, 2013), described it.

From my perspective, a creative artist [leader] who invites all of who he or she is into the mix—who sits down to work engulfed in “stuff,” yet doesn’t give these thoughts and feelings a negative connotation; who in fact strives to accept and integrate whatever thoughts and feelings emerge—this artist [leader] has truly gotten out of his or her own way.

My hope is to stop giving perfectionism a negative connotation; instead, strive to accept and integrate these thoughts as being perfectly imperfect.

You’ve heard my theme to get out of my own way and continually grow and progress in 2017. Leaders, what’s yours?