Why You Need to Stop Striving for Perfection
Perfectionism is the death of progress
When I used to do school projects, I would always stress out.I wanted so badly to do it right that I would overthink everything. It drove my mom crazy. She would tell me, “Just put something down. They don’t care what you say, they just want you to do it.”Her saying that drove me crazy.If I was going to do a project, I was going to do it right. It had to be accurate, so I would spend hours slaving away to perfection.Moms are always right.My teachers didn’t care what I put down. They didn’t care what I did. They just wanted the project done.But I was too obsessed with the idea of getting it perfect that it paralyzed me from getting it done.
Perfection doesn’t exist.
Have you ever noticed that people rarely use 100% to predict things? It’s because you can never be 100% sure. I’m not even 100% sure that’s accurate.There’s always a margin of error, even if it’s slight.Even if it’s .0001.One of the beautiful things about life is that pure perfection doesn’t exist.There will always be work to be done.There’s an exponential curve. You can continue to get close to it, but you’ll never actually reach it.It means there’s always going to be room for improvement.
It’s just an excuse
Most of the time, perfection is used as an excuse to put something off or not execute it.You put off publishing your article because it’s not perfect yet. You’re waiting to move because you’re not ready. You’re waiting to put on the finishing touches.Full stop.The problem here is that you keep waiting. When really, the timing is never right.Your writing will never be perfect. There will always be tweaks you can make.What matters is that you find the courage to put it out in the world.Perfection is a subjective experience. Everybody’s version of perfect is different, so there is no one ‘right’ answer. There are literally billions of versions of perfection.
Perfectionism is a disease. Procrastination is a disease. Action is the cure. — Richie Norton
Take a leap of faith
The truth is you’re scared. You’re scared of failing and of people not liking it.There’s always going to be someone that doesn’t like it. That’s the way of the world. But, there will be people who love it too.The truth is the only person who needs to be okay with it is you.You have to find solace in your work and find peace. No, it’s not easy. But when you can get inner satisfaction, then it doesn’t matter what others think.It doesn’t matter if they love it or hate it because you’re happy with your work.There’s a market for everything. But you’re never going to find it if you don’t ship the damn thing.It’s time to take action. You have to either put up or shut up.
Final thoughts
You’re never going to have a perfect product because the user experience is subjective.Everyone is going to have a different opinion.What matters is finishing the product and shipping it out into the world.Wouldn’t it be nice to have an archive of your work? Wouldn’t it be amazing to have it out there in the world? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to get recognition for the work you did?You can build an incredible, new life for yourself. All it takes is giving it a shot.You can’t wait forever. Otherwise, you’ll never get anywhere.
