I sat on the piano bench in my piano teacher’s living room one Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. I was a junior in high school, and for the last 11 years, this had been a routine. Ms. Rivers had a beautiful shiny black grand piano that I was sure she polished at least once a day. She was a master pianist and composer, and if I was lucky I would catch her playing a piece she had written when I walked into her house each week for my lesson.

This particular lesson shouldn’t have been different from any other, except that during the past week I had nearly quadrupled my practice time. I was working on a nocturne by Chopin, and for nearly two hours every night, I would sit at my piano going over and over each scale, chord and trill. At the end of the week, I felt as though I had almost mastered the song, but there was one trill that was particularly pesky. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get my fingers to move fast enough between the notes. But I wanted it to be perfect, so I did the only thing I could think of: I kept practicing.

After my warm-up exercises, Ms. Rivers took a seat in her green and gold old-fashioned armchair and waited for me to begin. I wanted to play the piece flawlessly, and I hoped all my practicing was going to pay off. After all, practice makes perfect, right?

I wiped my hands on my jeans, took a deep breath and let my fingers take over. The sheet music was out, but I didn’t need it. I had practiced the song so many times that I had it memorized. I began playing softly and slowly. When I came to a crescendo, the music became loud and energetic. The chords chimed and the scales sung. I played flawlessly.

Almost.

After I had finished, Ms. Rivers rose and approached the piano bench. “Very good,” she said enthusiastically, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I can tell you’ve really been practicing.”

My vision blurred with tears. In my mind I knew she was giving me a compliment, but in my heart I knew I had messed up the trill. It wasn’t fast enough nor smooth enough. I played the rest of the piece without missing a note, but all I could think of was my failure.

I couldn’t hide my tears. But before Ms. Rivers had a chance to ask what was wrong, I spilled everything. I told her about the hours I had spent at my piano, how I would run the trill so many times my fingers became raw. By now the tears were streaming down my cheeks.

She looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. “You can’t always be perfect,” she said. “There are some things, no matter how hard you try, you just won’t be able to do. It’s the effort you put into it that really matters.”

The words knocked the wind out of me. You can’t always be perfect.

All my life, I had tried to be perfect—so much so that I would routinely wear myself out. When my friends would hang out together, I would stay at home working on a school project that I had already finished, but that I thought could look better. If I thought my notes from class were too messy, I would rewrite them so the handwriting looked perfect. I would stay after school in the journalism room after everyone had left except the night custodians, working on our school newspaper until each page looked just right or until my adviser would finally kick me out.

I had been this way for as long as I could remember. Even in preschool, while the good kids colored outside the lines and the bad kids scribbled on the walls, I would sit by myself, hunched over my paper, taking time to ensure that not a spot of color crossed the black outline of the picture.

When I didn’t reach the level of perfection I sought, I felt inadequate. I was never good enough for myself.

In that moment at the piano, Ms. Rivers helped me gain some perspective. Nobody can be perfect all the time. So what if I couldn’t hit the trill? I had tried my hardest and given it my all. Sometimes that’s all you can do. Even if failure is the result, it’s the effort that matters.

After I gained my composure, I played the piece once again. And, once again, I messed up the trill. But this time, it didn’t matter. I didn’t have to be perfect, and it was okay.

Now, every time I sense myself slipping into my old perfectionist tendencies, I try to remember my piano lesson that day. It’s all right if I’m not perfect at everything. In fact, I realize now that that’s impossible. Instead, I focus on putting the greatest effort into whatever I do, and that’s how I judge my successes.

And so far, I can say I’ve been pretty successful.