Whenever I tell people about my job as a financial advisor, the conversation inevitably turns to how hopeless they feel when it comes to dealing with money. More than once, they've begged, “Just tell me what to do.”

It's no surprise that even my most successful friends feel confused or paralyzed. Even if they have a shelfful of personal finance books, they don't have time to make sense of all the information available. They don't just want good advice, they want the best advice-so rather than do the “wrong thing,” they do nothing. Their 401(k) and bank statements pile up, unexamined or maybe even unopened.

What they don't realize is that bad calls about money aren't failures; they're just what happens when emotional creatures have to make decisions about the future with limited information. What I tell them is that we need to scrap striving for perfection and instead commit to a process of guessing and making adjustments when things go off track. Of course we're going to make the best