You may notice that you are more demanding of yourself today. It may seem as if everything in your life needs to be perfect, and you could feel critical of yourself as a result. Perhaps your need for perfection is the result of a desire to receive affirmation from others. If this is the case, it may be necessary to examine your life and think about what is truly essential. When you start finding fault with yourself, you might ask yourself the question, "How important is this?" Then you can think about the future and whether or not the issue will matter in a month or a year from now. You will probably notice that the small things you find fault with today usually will not have any great relevance to your life as a whole.

Examining the future impact of the issues in our lives helps us step back from our critical eye. When we are in the present, it is easy to become caught up in the details of our lives and notice when the small things are not going as planned. By thinking about our decisions in relation to the future, however, we begin to notice that not everything we do is of great consequence. There are of course times when we should be conscientious, but if we are too demanding of ourselves, we will create undue stress and frustration. Look at yourself through a humanistic lens today, and you will realize that while you will never reach the ideal of perfection, you are perfect as you are.