Better Than Yesterday

Yesterday I gave a master class at the TU Delft. The audience was composed by highly educated engineers from around the world: China, Germany, Italy, Portugal. The two more pressing problems they had were worry and perfectionism. They kept asking themselves:

How can I stop worrying if what I do is good enough?

Isn’t this worry so human? You know that feeling. You want to get it right and your strategy is worry. You know it doesn’t work, but still you do.

I felt so identified with these modern professionals. They are living where I used to live years ago: “The Land Of Not Good Enough”. This idea shows up in our life as the saboteur of our best projects at home and at work. It messes up relationships. It messes up your best contributions.

10 years ago I started healing this toxic idea. How? Well, I’ve made a video ​before about it. Today I’m going to do it in a different way. You can heal your perfectionism, worry and not good enoughness, little by little. When you adopt the mantra "better than yesterday" ideas will flow, worry and perfectionism will have less power over you.

I was a spoiled brat who didn’t know how to cook. Every time I got in the kitchen you would hear shouts of all the times I burned my hands or I let something fall. Now I dare to invite people to eat my creations and they even like them. How?

I made a weekly date with myself to try a new recipe. Every Friday I would try something new. I investigated what were those ingredients. I investigated how to cut them. I investigated how to fry them. I keep experimenting new ways (to me) of cooking all the time. I keep learning. I keep improving. I keep doing it better than yesterday.

10 years ago I had a disastrous relationship with my mother. I didn’t know how to communicate with her. I started writing letters to her. I could there express simply and with photos, how my life was, how I was feeling. The letters opened the opportunity for phone calls. The phone calls opened the opportunity for trips together. The trips together opened the opportunity of profound conversations. I enjoy how our relationship keeps growing. I enjoy the learning process. Little by little our relationship was better than yesterday.

Setting up my business after earning quite well in the corporate world was a huge source of anxiety. I didn’t know how to sell. I didn’t know even what to sell. I started learning from more senior entrepreneurs. I started applying my learning. I got one rejection. I got another one and another one. Suddenly I got a customer. Then another one called out of the blue. Suddenly I learned. I still keep learning. Everyday my business is better than yesterday.

Better than yesterday is now my motto. It expresses to me what Carol Dweck eloquently writes in her book Mindset. You are not defined. You can learn. You can grow. You can expand. No matter what your ability is, your effort can make your results world class.

Stop seeing your life as fixed. Your results and your abilities can improve. Open your mind to greater opportunities of growth and expansion. See your life as molding the clay. You can try again and again and again. Your life is in constant molding.

Take at heart the quote of Leslie Poles Hartley: “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” Yesterday you did what you did. Today you have a brand new opportunity, you can do it differently. You can do it a little better. You don’t need to do it radically better. Marginally better accumulated over years will make your results master pieces.

When a worry comes, smother him with all the progress you are creating. In fact smother your worry before it shows up. Every single day make a list of at least 8 things you did that contribute to your goals. Acknowledge yourself daily. (By the way, rest is included in actions towards your goals. Self-care is fundamental for success.)

Concentrate in progress. Stop judging yourself against your big goals. Stop judging yourself against the successes of others. Stop feeling disempowered by your past failures or the history of your ancestors. Concentrate in the tiny little progress you made from yesterday. Little by little you’ll live the world of possibility. “The Land of I’m not good enough” will be far away. As you concentrate in tiny incremental steps, they will revoke your visa to this horrible country of not enoughness. Adopt the mantra: better than yesterday.

Inspire us! Let us into your plans.