The Mental Trick That Instantly Makes You Grateful for Your Progress

How many of us strive for perfection and beat ourselves up when we don’t do something perfectly?

I was in Hawaii visiting my daughter, who lives there, and I play pickleball when I’m there. A lot of people came over to me and said, “Wow, Shelly, you’ve really improved.”

And I felt really, really good about that.

Now, I am not where I want to be in pickleball, right? I’m not a 4.0 player, which is what I would love to be. However, my mother had a saying that I live by:

“I may not be where I want to be, but I’m sure as hell not where I was.”

That way, you’re always looking at your improvements and not spending your life looking at where you’re not and wishing you were. It makes life so much more enjoyable.

But here’s what I’ve discovered after decades of helping people eliminate limiting beliefs: most of us can’t fully embrace this mindset because we have beliefs that keep us trapped in the perfectionism trap.

The Beliefs That Block Progress Appreciation

If you have the belief “I’m not good enough,” you will keep focusing on your deficits. You won’t fully appreciate the progress you’ve made or what you’ve accomplished, because that belief has you always looking at whatever needs to be improved next.

It’s really hard to celebrate and fully appreciate your growth when that voice in your head is constantly saying, “Yes, but look at what you still can’t do.”

You might also have beliefs like:

• “What makes me good enough is achieving”
• “What makes me good enough is doing things perfectly”

If you believe you have to do things perfectly to be good enough, there’s almost always something imperfect about any action you’ve taken. So your mind automatically goes to, “There’s something still not right about this. I need to fix it.”

You miss the progress entirely.

When Perfectionism Paralyzes Progress

Let me tell you about a client of mine. He had accomplished a lot in his career and wanted to write about it and share it on social media, but he kept feeling like he hadn’t accomplished anything notable.

Other people would list out all the things he’d accomplished—the problems he’d solved, the issues he’d resolved for companies. But when he sat down to write, he’d still think, “That’s just not notable. It’s not important enough.”

The belief we discovered was: “What makes me good enough is doing things perfectly.”

Because of that belief, he would always think about how everything he did could have been done better. His mind would say things like:

• “This wasn’t right and that wasn’t right about it”
• “You did this, but it was just barely by the skin of your teeth”
• “You did that, but look at all the mistakes you made”
• “That’s not really worth sharing”

He was waiting for the day when he’d have something to talk about that had worked out perfectly, which, of course, would never come.

When we eliminated that belief—and the underlying “I’m not good enough” belief—something magical happened. When he sat down to write, that critical voice was gone.

He was able to share things. It wasn’t perfect, but some people appreciated it anyway. That’s the power of removing the beliefs standing in your way.

The Mental Subtraction Solution

If you’re not ready to dive into belief elimination yet, there’s a powerful technique called “mental subtraction” that can help you appreciate your progress right now.

Here’s how it works:

Think about an accomplishment in your life that you don’t fully appreciate. Now imagine that you didn’t take that action. What would have happened instead?

For my client, instead of thinking, “I should have avoided that problem in the first place,” we could have him imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t come up with a strategy to solve the problem they were facing.

“Oh,” he realized, “we would have had to lay off people. We might have had to close the doors.”

Suddenly, his accomplishment felt significant.

Appreciation in Everyday Life

This works for the smallest things too. There are parents out there doing countless things for their kids every day—bathing them, feeding them breakfast, getting them dressed.

If you’re a parent, imagine you didn’t do those things. Picture the chaos that would follow. When I think about what it would have been like to let my children walk around without their hair done or clean clothes, it makes me laugh because I obviously wouldn’t do that. But it also makes me appreciate that I did do those things.

I’ve used mental subtraction in my own life in powerful ways. I’ve imagined never meeting my husband, Morty. I would never have experienced loving and being loved as deeply as we were. I wouldn’t have my two daughters who bring me such joy, or my wonderful grandson. I would never have learned the Lefkoe Method and seen it change thousands of lives.

After mentally subtracting Morty from my life, I feel so uplifted and grateful for everything we created together.

The Cost of the Perfectionism Trap

When you focus on your shortcomings instead of your progress, something dangerous happens. Instead of getting bolder and more courageous as you make accomplishments, you get more careful.

You start trying to preserve what you have rather than risking growth. You think, “The bigger you are, the harder you fall.”

You end up taking safer paths in your career, safer paths in your relationships. And later, you realize those weren’t the best paths to take.

The cost of perfectionism is a trail of regrets behind you—all the chances you didn’t take because they weren’t guaranteed to be perfect.

Your Two Powerful Paths Forward

You have two really powerful ways to start appreciating the life you have now and the things you’ve accomplished:

Path 1: Eliminate the beliefs that make it hard to appreciate where you are.

Everyone gives lip service to the idea that we should appreciate the good things in our lives, but we’re not doing it because we have beliefs in the way. If you have beliefs like “I’m not good enough” or “What makes me good enough is doing things perfectly,” those need to go.

You can work with me one-on-one (book a free strategy session first), or try our Natural Confidence Program to eliminate the 19 most common self-worth beliefs that keep you stuck.

Path 2: Try mental subtraction to grow your gratitude.

This is the easier place to start. Pick something in your life you don’t fully appreciate—an accomplishment, a relationship, a job (even if you don’t love it). Imagine it’s gone. How would your life be different? How would you feel about that?

When you realize how empty or reduced your life would be without these things, you start to appreciate them.

Your Next Step

I suggest taking one of these paths—or better yet, both.

The easiest one to start with is mental subtraction. Try it today and see what happens. Pick one thing you’ve accomplished recently that you haven’t fully celebrated. Imagine you hadn’t done it at all. What would have been different?

Please try this and let me know in the comments below what you experienced. It’s such a beautiful practice.

Because here’s the truth: you may not be where you want to be, but you’re sure as hell not where you were. And that, my friend, is worth celebrating.

What progress in your life have you been taking for granted? Try the mental subtraction exercise and share your experience in the comments below.