Goals

I recently heard a coach say he had taken perfection out of his vocabulary.
His reasoning was that we can never be perfect, but we can be the best we can be.  I really like his thinking.
Personally I do not think we should strive to be something we can never be.  We should however strive to be the best we can be.
Recently we saw a scissor kick that resulted in a goal in a soccer derby.  I do not believe it was out of the blue, it would have taken dedication and practice.  By the same token we also saw an own goal where a defender did a clearing kick, only to have it bounce off the head of one of his own players into the goal. 
Mistakes happen.  We never want them, but they occur.  If we were attempting to be perfect our record would be marred for all time.  However being the best one can be, a player can learn and move on.
To me it is sad to set goals that are unrealistic.  Certainly goals need to be hard and require intense dedication, but to strive for perfection is unrealistic.  I remember in the movie Avitar they were mining for Unobtanium (to my surprise Obtanium is a real word and concept in science).  Our goals need to be Obtanium.  Sure they need to require discipline and be difficult, but they should be obtainable.
Goals are big these days and it seems rightly so.  As the saying goes “aim for nothing and you are sure to hit it.”
At work my thankyou to the IT guys that had to fix my computer, was always tentative.  Invariably the computer would work while they were there, but not work the minute they were gone.  They would always come back, and it would work properly always thereafter.  I see it a bit the same with our setting and achieving goals.  Reaching it once is a good thing, but does not mean we have achieved our goal.  It is only when it becomes habitual we have truly achieved.  Nadia fell off the beam before she achieved perfect scores at the Olympics.  As they say “practice makes perfect.” It is only with desire and commitment, we will truly achieve high obtainable goals.
We can have goals in all sorts of things but if we can do it now, surely it is not a goal.  It may have been once, and success needs to be enjoyed, but it is time for new horizons. 
Our yard is boarded by our neighbours hedge which, while nice, keeps growing into our yard.  We regularly need to cut it back.  It is my goal to make a walk way so that cutting back is easier.  This will necessitate, weeding, transplanting and levelling.  I see it as hard work but achievable.  Doing that is one of my goals.  Merril has a goal to walk 35 km to raise money for some charity.  It is not a case of walk and hope.  She is exercising and doing ever larger walks.  She is doing what she believes she needs to do to achieve her goal.
I laughed so much at Dudly Moore in the movie Unfaithfully Yours.  He had a plan in his mind that went perfectly.  The second part of the movie was how terribly the plan went.  For us the plan to achieve our goals always appears perfect in our minds.  Reality can be very different.  It is at that point we can give up if we are not committed. 
See it through and we can achieve. Give up, and we dream of what might have been.