Tag: perfectionism

Almost

My golf match wasn’t going well. Shots missed the green, and putts skimmed past the hole. Doing badly on the first four or five means you won’t win a tournament of just 18 holes. Conditions weren’t easy but neither were they difficult enough to prevent others turning in great scores. I wouldn’t be one of them. I kept trying, but it was hard to focus. What was the point? My last hole was better, but that couldn’t improve my overall total. I handed my card to the scorers knowing I’d be well down the field. I wasn’t. The winners were announced. I wasn’t one, but I was only one place, one shot, away from getting a prize. If I’d holed just one more putt, I could have won. ‘Why did I not concentrate more, and try to give every shot my very best?’ I asked myself. But I hadn’t, and had to accept the hard fact that I almost won.

Everyone has almost moments. They almost passed their driving test. They almost got a promotion. They almost proposed to the girl of their dreams. They almost ran the whole marathon distance. They almost caught the bus. They almost won the lottery. They almost completed the crossword. They almost got the grades for university admission. They almost bought the best mobile phone. You could say there’s almost no end to a list of almosts.

I’ve been reflecting on how common and how significant almost moments are in our lives. Some of those moments (even a golf match) are not really a big deal, but others have a deep and long-lasting effect on our lives. Here are some of my reflections around the word almost.

Almost can torture us

I heard a talk recently from an athlete who’d placed fourth in the Olympics. For years she’d prepared for those Olympics. She’d trained hard every day, sacrificed greatly, given her best, and she almost got a medal. But she never made it to the podium, nor are laurels hung round the neck of the person coming fourth. The pain of being so near and yet so far from recognised success hurt that athlete deeply.

Almost achieving does that to us. A friend almost finished his PhD, and for the rest of his professional life regretted his failure to complete. When my brother and I were very young our parents nearly signed up for a special deal for us all to emigrate to Australia or New Zealand. They almost signed up, but doubts brought the process to a halt. Though we had a good life in the UK, the ‘what if?’ questions never completely disappeared.

I see two lessons to counter those kinds of regret.

One is that plainly not everyone can come first (or second or third). Being near to success, but not winning, is everyone’s experience in some sphere. And not being first does not mean we’re failures. To come fourth in the Olympics proves you’re better than the vast majority of athletes, and you’re fitter and faster than 99.9% of the population. (More on not being first in a moment.)

The second lesson is that we mustn’t live life constantly looking over our shoulder to the past. Whatever we once did was based on the facts and feelings we had then. Now we must move on. Hindsight is cruel, tempting us to believe some other path would have been better. But we don’t know that. The only thing certain is the path actually followed through our lives. It’s important we make the best of that.

Life will always have almost moments

All we need is logic and modesty to realise we’ll never be first in everything on every occasion. Jack Nicklaus was a brilliant golfer from his youth onwards. Over his career he won 18 major championships, three more than Tiger Woods. Almost more remarkably, he was runner-up in 19 major championships, in five of which he lost only by one stroke or in a playoff (which takes place after a tied tournament). Nicklaus almost won twice as many majors than his enduring record total. How did he cope with so many disappointments? The answer is that he’d learned early on, before he turned professional, that he’d lose far more golf matches than he’d win. He was ready for those almost wins.

I’ve known people controlled by a deep need to come first. Some become bullies. Some become cheats. Most end up disappointed, frustrated, and sad that they haven’t fulfilled their potential. But very likely they did fulfil their potential; it’s just that ‘potential’ cannot be equated with being perfect, or better than everyone else.

No-one succeeds in everything. Many times we’ll do well, but just short of our very best or someone else’s very best. Life is filled with almost moments, and we must come to terms with that.

Nevertheless we should not easily settle for almost

After an almost moment, there’s no harm in asking ‘Why did I come up short?’ Perhaps you went for a job interview but you weren’t selected. It was an almost moment, and you’re disappointed and perhaps angry. Now you have three main options:

  1. Blame the interviewers for being mean or stupid. You know you were their perfect candidate, and they blew it. They asked the wrong questions. They misinterpreted your answers. They didn’t give you a chance to shine. They reached the wrong conclusion. Blame-casting like that is always a temptation because surely what happened couldn’t have been your fault. Think like that and you learn nothing. It’s utterly unproductive.
  2. Of course doing the opposite with blame – blaming yourself – isn’t productive either. We think: ‘I was too nervous; I stumbled over my words; I didn’t really answer their questions; I never put over my best qualities.’ Constructive self-criticism, recognising shortcomings or learning points is fine, but getting down on yourself generates negativity and pessimism which does nothing to improve performance next time.
  3. Recognise the almost moment as a near-success. You got an interview! That’s something many others did not get. You were close to being appointed. Okay, so what professional skill do you need to improve? Or what could someone teach you about interview performance? Or how might you prepare yourself better for next time? An almost experience is evidence of needing just one more step to reach the top of the stair.  

There’s much to be said for an almost moment providing we don’t see it as a disaster. Almost does not mean the world is against us, or that we’ve failed. Rather almost can be just birth pains before we emerge into an amazing new future.

Sometimes almost is actually good enough.

Perfect isn’t always necessary, and we can waste time and energy striving for it.

I was preparing a report for church members, and decided it would help to present it in a more attractive layout. Using my Apple IIe computer and Epson dot matrix printer[1] I set out text in column width. Step two was to cut out headlines from newspapers that seemed to fit each part of my report (‘Bold new start’, ‘Exciting possibilities’, ‘Better future’ and so on). I pasted the text and then the headlines on sheets of paper, making it look like a news report. Then I had all the pages photocopied. Though dot matrix printing could never look elegant, at least my report was better than plain text. Except it wasn’t really. I had taken about a day and a half to create that layout, and the church members just shrugged. They were only interested in what the report said. A neatly presented traditional report would have been almost as good, and certainly just as acceptable to the readership. And the almost as good would have saved me a mountain of work.

Perfection is not the only acceptable goal. Sometimes good enough is good enough.

Almost can mean we’re near to achieving our goals

Sticking to a healthy diet is an obvious requirement for maintaining the right weight. Those trying to lose weight will often adopt a severely restricted diet to shed weight quickly. The problem is that crash diets can leave people feeling hungry, and hunger tempts them to cheat on the diet. And once they’ve slipped, many give up, saying “I can’t do this”.

I’ve done the equivalent when resolving to tidy everything in my home office. For several days I put everything away neatly. Then comes a super busy day, and perhaps another two after that. I didn’t tidy up and now I think I’ll never keep up so I give up, and settle for muddling along.

But the reality is that what we can almost achieve is evidence that we’re not far off from what we want to achieve. We shouldn’t be discouraged. We may have to change our approach, but we can get there. Yes, we slip up, but coming close shows those goals are possible for us. The exasperated phrase “I can never do this” isn’t true. We can. The best things in life require perseverance, and our almost achievements are evidence that we’re not far away from those best things.

Almost can be a good miss

Most of us will remember times when we almost made a bad mistake, but we didn’t. I almost added on two years of university study in my twenties because I’d become fascinated by philosophy, and was sorely tempted to catch up on philosophy courses I’d missed. Thankfully a friend counselled me to stick to my core studies and not lose time. He was right. If I’d deviated, I would have given myself big problems, some financial, some relational, some affecting my career.

Other people have stories about almost investing in a scheme which turned out to be a scam. Or almost reaching a road junction where a driver coming from a side road failed to stop; being at the junction just one or two seconds earlier would have meant a collision. Or almost buying something they found much cheaper later in the day. Or almost marrying someone, realising later what a mistake that would have been.

There are countless times a decision almost made would have been the wrong decision. We should be very thankful for what we almost did, but in fact didn’t.

Almost too late moments are, happily, just in time moments

On the spur of the moment, I put a question to my 79-year-old Dad: “Is there anywhere you’ve always wanted to go?” His immediate answer was “I’ve always wanted to see the Canadian Rockies”. “Then let’s do it” I said. Three months later we were on a plane to Canada.

My Dad’s only previous experience of air travel was the one hour flight from Edinburgh to London. Now we had begun our long journey over the Atlantic. We were half an hour into the flight when he asked, “Are we nearly there yet?” I had to explain that there were several hours to go. But – in mid-Atlantic – we had a happy interruption. One of the cabin crew leaned forward and whispered, “Would you two gentlemen like to visit the Captain on the flight deck?”[2] Of course we said yes, and a minute later we were standing right behind the pilot and co-pilot. We stared out through the cockpit to the clouds, and felt almost overwhelmed by the array of dials and controls before us. I was thrilled, and my Dad doubly so because he had been in the Royal Signals regiment during World War II so understood the fundamentals of radio traffic. He enjoyed a conversation with both pilots about how messages were transmitted, and about how navigation worked.

We arrived safely in Toronto, and our few days there included a visit to the nearby Niagara Falls. Then we were back in a plane, this time flying right across Canada to Vancouver. There we rented a car and I drove Dad on a lengthy but thrilling trip through the Rocky Mountains. We were dazzled by high snow-covered mountains, amazed to stand on a glacier, impressed by the dark waters of deep lakes, and watchful for bears crossing our path. Dad returned home excited and full of stories to tell his pals. Three months later I got the phone call no-one wants. Dad had been found dead. He hadn’t turned up for his regular golf game, so his friends, with police help, broke into Dad’s house and found him on the floor. He’d suffered a massive heart attack. It was so sad to lose him. But I had one very special comfort. The trip to the Rockies was almost too late, but in fact we’d done it just in time.

It’s often true that almost too late is not too late. To tell someone you love them. To mend a relationship. To live an experience. To achieve a goal. To accomplish a long-cherished goal. While you still can, don’t settle for almost but go ahead and achieve what you’ve always wanted.

[1] For younger readers, here’s how dot matrix printers work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot_matrix_printing),

[2] An invitation that would never be offered to anyone now.

The tyranny of the perfect

My golf match reaches the final hole with scores tied. Whoever wins that hole wins the match. My pitch to the green leaves the ball just six feet from the hole. If I sink the putt I win. I read the line, determine the speed, place my putter behind the ball, and stroke the putt toward the hole. It rolls straight and true. Until just six inches out, when the ball curves left and misses.

We played an extra hole and I lost. Afterwards I felt so stupid to have missed that putt on the 18th green. It was only six feet. I could and should have holed it. But I didn’t.

But the odd truth – which I discovered later – is that many of the very best golfers in the world might well have missed it too. The American PGA Tour publishes statistics for all their top golfers on putts holed from various distances, including from six feet. Some players are remarkably good, like Brian Harman (who won the 2023 Open Championship) who holes 91.53% of six foot putts. But others, including the biggest names in golf, are nothing like so good. For example, Jon Rahm (winner of the 2023 Masters Tournament) holes only 58.57% of times from six feet. Almost half of the top 184 sink less than 7 out of 10 of their six foot putts.[1]

If highly skilled golfers often miss relatively short putts, why did I beat myself up because I missed a six foot putt?

The answer lies in what I call the tyranny of the perfect. I don’t compare myself to my fellow amateurs, not even to highly rated pro golfers. I think I should be the perfect putter. I should always hole a six foot putt.

The truth is that no-one always does that, but, foolishly, I think I should.

That’s the tyranny of the perfect. It persecutes me in all sorts of ways – imagining I should always be patient, always be generous, always work hard, always excel in every task, always appreciate what others do, always want to wash the dishes, always be happy to walk the dogs in torrential rain. Of course I’m not always any of these things, so I feel bad.

Unquestionably I should always aim to be the best, to think, speak, and act correctly. But I have to come to terms with the reality that I won’t always be that good.

I’ll set down a few ways to think about this:

  • three negatives about perfectionism
  • two examples of when nothing less than perfect will do
  • finally a brief theological point

Perfectionism creates anxiety

Years ago I began work on a PhD with the University of Edinburgh. I’d already graduated in theology there, so I was on good terms with the faculty. One senior professor took me aside early on in my research work. “Alistair,” he said, “don’t be afraid to submit a chapter when you’ve done the work. There will always be more you could do, but you need to move on.” I owe that professor a lot. He was so right. I made steady progress through that degree, always knowing there were more books or journal articles I could have read, but accepting they wouldn’t have changed the direction of my research. But a perfectionist couldn’t have done that. The perfectionist would worry in case one more article might yield an important insight. And then there would be another article, and another, and another. Always anxious in case something was being missed.

Perfectionism causes inefficiency

My wife, Alison, remembers a near neighbour she once had. He was a keen gardener, so keen he worked endlessly on removing stones from his land. But his task was indeed endless – there were so many stones he never got round to planting his flowers and vegetables. Perfectionism made him inefficient.

The same was true for my friend Gordon who researched his doctoral thesis for five years without submitting a single chapter. His problem? He couldn’t let go of his work because he never saw it as finished. After six years he was warned about his pace of progress. The same happened after seven years, and eight years and nine years. He had drafted chapters, all excellent, but he kept refining each one. After twelve years Gordon got a final ultimatum from his university – ‘submit your thesis within the next academic year, or you get no degree’ – and after thirteen years he handed in his work. It was far better than acceptable; quite brilliant really. He got his doctorate. But he’d have been awarded his degree in a third of the time if only he hadn’t been a perfectionist.

Perfectionism forces people to become absorbed in detail to the detriment of getting work done efficiently.

Perfectionism limits performance

A figure skater practises and practises, and at last masters a quadruple Lutz. She focused on the quad Lutz because it’s extremely difficult and therefore one of the highest scoring elements. (The base value of a single Lutz is 0.60. The base value of a quadruple Lutz is 11.50.) Our skater worked up from the single Lutz to double Lutz to triple Lutz, and finally – after years of trying and failing – she succeeded with the quadruple. Surely our skater must now win every competition? But she doesn’t. Yes, she can pull off one of figure skating’s hardest jumps. But she has so concentrated on her quadruple Lutz, she’s neglected the Axel, the Loop, the Flip, the Euler, and the Salchow, important other elements in a figure skating routine. With those she’s just average. And being brilliant in one element but only average in the rest doesn’t win. Her perfectionism with the quadruple Lutz has limited her potential.

Likewise, cricket teams have specialist players, mostly bowlers and batters. But cricket teams don’t consist only of specialists. Other players are all-rounders, people reasonably good with ball and bat, but also excellent at catching, throwing, and running. Teams need players with many skills, not just one.

In life generally, most of us have to be all-rounders because focusing only on one thing neglects everything else. Perfectionism can limit performance.

However, having listed three negatives, I can offer two positives about perfectionism.

Perfectionism is sometimes essential

  • If I was ever to make a parachute jump – which will be never – I’d want my parachute packer to be an out and out perfectionist. Someone who thinks a ‘nearly right job’ is good enough might kill me.
  • If I needed brain surgery, my neurosurgeon had better have dedicated everything to be utterly brilliant. I don’t care if they can’t make a cup of tea, tie their shoe laces, or stack a dishwasher, as long as they’re an exceptional surgeon.
  • If I was trapped beside a ticking bomb, I’d need to know that the technician working to diffuse the bomb is the best bomb disposal operator ever.
  • If I was strapped in for a space flight, and the countdown has reached 5-4-3-2-1, I’m praying the aerospace engineers who constructed the rocket are the most detailed and careful people on earth.

You get my point. There are situations where it’s exactly right for someone to pour their attention and skill into just one area of work. In certain circumstances precision is an absolute requirement. – perfectionism not just desirable but essential.

Perfectionism is the inevitable instinct for some

I attended a Scottish Open golf tournament in Glasgow in the early 1980s. All day I walked the course, admiring the players’ skill. Finally, with the light fading, I headed back to my car. Right beside the car park was the practice range. There was only one player there – Nick Faldo. He was young but already well known. He’d played in several Ryder Cup matches and topped the European Order of Merit. He was already a successful golfer. But, while others had left the course or were propping up the bar, there Faldo was on the range. The sun was setting, but he was still practising. A great golfer, dedicated to becoming an even greater golfer. Which he achieved. He went on to win dozens of tournaments, including six ‘majors’ – the Open Championship in 1987, 1990, 1992, and the Masters Tournament in 1989, 1990, 1996. That’s more ‘major’ victories than any other European player has achieved since World War I. In the 1990s he was first in world rankings for a total of 97 weeks. When he finally retired from tournament play he began a significant career commentating on golf, and took up many other enterprises related to golf course design and developing young golfers. In 1998 he was awarded an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire), and then made a Knight in 2009, both awards ‘for services to golf’. Therefore he is now Sir Nick Faldo.

But his single minded devotion to golf came at a price. During matches he was so intense he hardly spoke to opponents or playing partners. He’s been described as having an insular focus that peers found less than endearing. That focus didn’t help his marriages either. The first lasted less than five years, the second for nine years, and the third for five. Faldo married his fourth wife in 2020.

Faldo’s great success as a golfer owes much to his perfectionism. It has cost him, but Faldo probably never considered any other attitude to golf. Utter dedication to his sport was how he had to live.

Similar commitments exist in other areas of life, such as:

  • the person building a corporate empire that spans the world
  • the academic whose whole existence is dedicated to study and book writing
  • people who dedicate themselves to finding rare species of moths, or trek the world as ‘twitchers’ (bird watchers)
  • those who commit all their attention to their families to the exclusion of any other activity.

Such people don’t have ‘interests’. Their goals are far more intense. Their focus is narrow. They could never be all-rounders. And their dedication to being perfect makes them very good in a single sphere.

Finally, then, a brief theological point.

Jesus said: ‘Be perfect… as your heavenly Father is perfect.’[2] That’s the standard. We shouldn’t aim for anything less. But, realistically, our lives will be less than perfect. Thankfully, the Bible also says: ‘If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves… If we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins.’[3]

So, when we don’t get things right, there can be forgiveness. For which I am profoundly grateful.

But sometimes the biggest difficulty is forgiving ourselves. That was my problem after missing my six foot putt. ‘I should have holed it’, I kept telling myself. I measured my performance against a perfect performance, and fell short. That’s the tyranny of the perfect. Yes, let’s always aim for the best. But let’s accept we’ll often fail. That’s realistic. It happens even to people far more proficient than we are. Sometimes we need to seek forgiveness from God or from others. And often we need to forgive ourselves. If we don’t, the perfect will keep on tyrannising us.

[1] Season 2022-23 statistics from https://www.pgatour.com/stats/detail/344 There are many other similar statistics on other pages on the PGA tour site.

[2] Matthew 5:48 (NIV)

[3] 1 John 1:8-9 (NIV)

Why quit while you’re ahead?

Two golfers have something strange in common. One was male and played more than 90 years ago, the other female who played more recently. Both were highly skilled, and greatly admired. In their twenties they were hard to beat, and had great golfing futures. But the strange thing they have in common happened when they were 28. They both quit.

Bobby Jones, an American, was always an amateur and played while also working as a lawyer. He won his first tournament at age 6, and shot to golfing stardom by winning the US Open in 1923 aged 21. By 1929 he’d won the US Open three times, the Open Championship (the UK’s top tournament) twice, and the US Amateur four times.

Then came 1930 when Jones did what no-one had before or since, he won the Grand Slam of Open and Amateur titles all in the same calendar year: the Amateur Championship (UK), the Open Championship, the US Open, and the US Amateur.

And then he stopped. He stayed involved with golf, such as designing Augusta National Golf Club and launching the Masters Tournament which is played there annually. But he retired from competitive golf aged 28 and practised law.

Lorena Ochoa, a Mexican, also quit at her best. She was ranked number one lady golfer in the world for 158 consecutive weeks (no-one since has got past 109 weeks), winning 30 titles in eight seasons, including two Majors. In each year from 2006 to 2009 she was the Ladies Professional Golfer Association player of the year. Then – aged 28 – she stopped. In an interview just after, she said she wanted to give time back to her family, and added: ‘I am very satisfied with my achievements’.

These are two examples, but ‘going out at the top’ isn’t unique to sport. I’m intrigued why people call a halt when things are going so well. Do they feel they’ve done all they can, and don’t want to see their abilities decline? Has the stress of getting to the top been too much and now they want out? Do they fear they’ll never produce such good work again? Or do they simply have other ambitions to fulfil?

Quitting while ahead isn’t done only by superstars.  Our achievements may be less spectacular, but they’re still achievements and family and friends would expect us to go further.

Why don’t we? Why stop doing what you’re good at doing?

I’ll describe four reasons.

Fear of not being able to repeat    Authors – including the most successful – are often afflicted with this thought. The last book was a blockbuster, and now they stare at a blank computer screen thinking, ‘I can never match that. I can never do that again’. Some get past their writers’ block and produce more good work. Some can’t even make themselves try.

The odd thing is that the more people praise us for doing well, the more we’re afraid we’ll disappoint them in the future. Perhaps an achievement was a one-hit wonder. We can’t sustain that standard and don’t want to fail, so we don’t try again.

Public acclaim comes with unreasonable expectations    I happen to be writing this blog the day before England play Italy in the final of the UEFA European Championship. Unquestionably the England football team has done well to get this far, and if they win the players will be legends in their lifetime. Children will be named after them. Huge financial rewards will flow their way. And, in England, the media and public opinion will declare the team near certainties to win the 2022 World Cup to be played in Qatar.

That’s enormous pressure. No matter how well paid, no matter how skilled, no matter what’s been won before, it’s hard to cope with that level of expectations.

Some thrive on pressure. It’s been true of top tennis players like Navratilova and Federer. But others have stopped while ahead. Björn Borg won 11 Grand Slam singles titles in seven years (including five consecutively at Wimbledon), and everyone expected more from him, but he quit aged 26, telling family and friends that tennis was no longer fun. Constantly trying to live out massive expectations would rob anyone of joy.

Failure to understand why we’re succeeding    Some personality types are happy to go with the flow of whatever happens; others like to feel in control. So when opportunity or achievement occurs, but you don’t know how or why, it’s unsettling.

Stanley Baldwin was Prime Minister in the UK three times in the 1920s and 1930s. Two out of the three occasions he didn’t expect to hold the post. In 1923 Prime Minister Bonar Law retired as soon as he was given a diagnosis of terminal cancer (and died soon after), and Baldwin was appointed PM.

After periods in and out of office, his third term began unexpectedly in 1935. Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald was becoming increasingly senile, and Baldwin deputised for him. Then MacDonald’s health declined more severely, and Baldwin was formally made PM.

That third term was tumultuous, with furious debates about disarmament / rearmament in the run up to World War II, and then almost equally ferocious arguments about the intention of King Edward VIII to marry the twice divorced Wallis Simpson. Baldwin opposed the marriage, and ultimately the King abdicated.

Two times Baldwin was thrust into the top job unexpectedly. The strain on him during those years must have been immense.

I can’t come close to rivalling Baldwin’s situation as Prime Minister of the UK. But two of the major roles of my professional life were unexpected. I became General Director of the Baptist Missionary Society without ever having been a missionary overseas or served on any of BMS’s committees. BMS (now BMS World Mission) was founded in 1792 by William Carey, the first ever society of the modern missionary movement. BMS has an illustrious history. It is also a major charity, channelling millions of pounds per annum to the least evangelised and impoverished countries of the world. After 12 years in BMS’s most senior staff role, I accepted an invitation to become President of Northern Seminary in Illinois, USA. I had the right academic qualifications for the role, but – as I pointed out to my interviewers – I wasn’t American, hadn’t come through the American education system, and though I’d taught at university level in Edinburgh and Aberdeen didn’t have academic roles in my career background. They still made me President. Both those positions were challenging, especially when people assumed you knew things you couldn’t possibly know. I persevered; some wouldn’t.

Many find themselves in roles they didn’t expect or don’t think they deserve. Even when things are going well, they’re uneasy. The result? A level of discomfort that causes some to step away.

Physical, emotional or spiritual exhaustion    I’ve always loved the biblical account of Elijah. He’s a triumphant hero but that’s not the whole story. In the book of 1 Kings, chapter 18, he challenges hundreds of false prophets to prove their god’s strength against what the Lord can do. The true God will be able to light a sacrifice without human intervention. They meet on Mount Carmel. The prophets of Baal dance around their altar calling on their god, “But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention” (1 Kings 18:29). Then it was Elijah’s turn. He organised his altar and sacrifice, dug a trench around it, and had everything soaked with water three times. Then he prayed, and the fire of God fell and burned up the sacrifice, wood and stones. And the people cried out “The Lord – he is God! The Lord – he is God!” (1 Kings 18:39).

It was complete vindication about who was the true God and who was the true prophet. A great day for Elijah. That’s 1 Kings 18.

But 1 Kings 19 is very different. The Queen was furious her prophets had been killed, and threatened Elijah’s life. Elijah ran. When he stopped he left his servant, and went on another day into the wilderness. He was at breaking point. “He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. ‘I have had enough, Lord,’ he said. ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors’” (1 Kings 19:4).

At first glance, his running away seems strange. If God hadn’t sent fire, Elijah’s life would have ended on Mount Carmel. But God did send fire and Elijah saw what God could do. But that was yesterday, and today he couldn’t cope, ran away and prayed God would take his life.

We might now call that a form of post traumatic stress disorder. Elijah had been through a hugely difficult experience. He’d survived but it had left him exhausted mentally and physically, overwhelmed and unable to cope. He couldn’t go on, and just wanted out.

Now five responses to these four reasons for quitting.

One   It’s okay to stop. Just because you do something well doesn’t oblige you to keep doing it. Besides, there will be other things you’d be good at. C.H. Spurgeon was a brilliant preacher during the Victorian era, packing massive crowds into churches. He founded a college (Spurgeon’s College is still operational today) to prepare more pastors and preachers, and in the early days interviewed all applicants himself. If a prospective student said he knew he was meant for ministry because he’d failed at almost everything else, Spurgeon always refused him. Spurgeon believed anyone who would be a good minister would be good at another six professions as well. He was right. And it’s true for more than ministers. If we can succeed in one thing, we can succeed in others. Moving on to something else isn’t the end of the road, just a junction at which we choose to turn.

 Two    Self-esteem and self-confidence are fragile things in almost everyone. I suspect someone who never self-doubts isn’t super competent but incapable of honest self-analysis. So when we doubt if we can be successful again we’re being normal and natural. And it might be right just to press on. I have a coffee coaster which includes words that have meant much to me down the years: ‘Believe in God; believe also in thyself’. I have believed in God since a child, and the coaster constantly reminds me to believe also in the self God made me. There is such a thing as righteous self-confidence. It’s not pride, and not mere positive thinking. It’s saying ‘I can do this thing and keep doing it. And I can face whatever comes next’.

Three    You might imagine successful people hear nothing but praise. You’d be wrong. I’d preached to about 2000 at a national gathering, and many gathered afterwards to thank me. Then came a lady in tears. During my talk I’d told the story of how my daughter nearly died when caught in a strong tide, and that had triggered memories in her of how her son was murdered by drowning. I couldn’t have known her situation, and my story was appropriate to my message, but I was deeply sorry I’d upset that lady and spent time talking with her. Afterwards I remembered almost none of the kind words said to me that night, but vividly remembered that lady’s pain. She was right to speak to me, and I learned lessons from how deeply she’d been affected. But the criticisms of some others are not legitimate, and I’ve tried not to be too affected by foolish comments. And, whether the negative criticisms are foolish or wise, still to face forward and do what I’ve been called to do.

Four    There can be a streak of perfectionism in high achievers. When our projects are going super-well, we imagine everything is exactly as it should be. But rarely is that true. Most things contain flaws or mistakes. The perfectionist can’t cope with that. If it’s not remedied immediately, the temptation is to get out. But none of us can escape the real world in which things are hardly ever entirely perfect. They’re good, but they’re not 100 per cent as they should be. So, especially when there’s more to be done than can be done, we must accept that good enough is good enough. Life is a balancing act of competing goals and responsibilities, and to give more time to perfect one is to steal time from another. Good enough isn’t perfect, but often it’s perfectly acceptable.

Five    There are two very down-to-earth reasons Elijah ran away when Jezebel threatened his life. 1) It wasn’t just spirituality that had sustained him on Mount Carmel, it was adrenalin. When he came down the mountain the adrenalin drained away, leaving him deflated and vulnerable. 2) He was exhausted, and therefore less able to cope. By the time he’d fled into the wilderness and prayed to die he was beside himself with tiredness and hunger. So, after he’d slept, an angel wakened him and gave him food and drink. He slept again, and a second time he was wakened to eat and drink. Only then was he fit to move forward, learn lessons and accept new challenges. I’ve learned not to look for super-complicated explanations when very ordinary factors are staring us in the face. Elijah didn’t need to die. Rather, after giving out so much, he needed time, rest, and a renewed vision for what was ahead for his life.

Most likely you’re not a golfing, tennis or football superstar. Nor a Prime Minister or a prophet. But you may feel you can’t keep doing what you’re doing even though it’s going well. I meant what I wrote earlier that it’s okay to stop. But often it’s also okay to keep going.  Reaching a ‘Stop’ sign usually means ‘Stop and check’, not ‘Stop and never move forward’.

May God make you wise with your decisions.