Progress vs. Perfection

I am a Piano Teacher, and have been for the past 8 years. To my piano students, the above saying is very well-known. I tell them this before they try to pass-off a song to me. I recite this saying for three reasons:

1. To help them relax and calm their nerves.
2. To help them recognize that they can still succeed even if mistakes are made.
3. To point out that in order to achieve perfection, hard work leading to progress is what's needed.

In the past few weeks, I've started to recognize what wide-range applicability this principle has. By recognizing the vital importance of simply progressing (even if we aren't where we ideally want to be) we can be more at ease and at peace in our lives, we won't let mistakes set us back, and we can value and be more aware of the distance that we've already traveled on our journey. Pretty cool stuff in my book.