My entire life, I have been a perfectionist in almost every way. I had my life planned out, I had every process perfected and I had ‘control’ of almost every situation. However, I found out as I grew older that being a perfectionist was almost a curse. When things didn’t go my way, when things were out of my control, inside I literally freaked out.
For most of my life, I have felt that being a perfectionist was a great thing and I somewhat still do, but when you find the ability to harness the power of taking imperfect action, the sky becomes the limit. If I could go back in time and let my past self know about this amazing concept, I would – my life would have been forever changed in many ways. How about you? Do you consider yourself a perfectionist too?
I have always loved building plans that span from inception to completion. Plans for other people to set them up for success, that gave them step-by-step tactics to get from point a to point b and ultimately to z. I had perfect plans and they were great, but what happened when something didn’t go as planned, then what? Well, of course I would have a plan b, duh. But what if plan b failed, etc. I would be a mess feeling like a failure and feeling hopeless. But say, we stopped trying so hard to be perfect and we looked at the plan differently…what would happen. What if we were willing to take imperfect action consistently over a sustained period of time and it led us to success – what mindset shift would we have? I know that my mind would be blown.
We often let our fear of not having everything perfect keep us from actually moving the ball down the field. Seriously, when we get paralyzed because we can’t move forward until every single little detail is perfect – what happens – we do nothing. Nothing happens, nothing moves, nothing changes and we stay in the same spot as we did before. BUT, if we shift our mindset to taking action, although NOT perfect, we can make progress. And isn’t progress better than nothing? Well, I’d say yes – and even better yet, once we have something, it is easier to tweak and ultimately perfect.
I sure know how it feels to not make progress waiting on perfection and if I’m being honest, it is probably more of an excuse…an excuse that keeps me standing still rather than moving forward. Perhaps it is fear, maybe it is lack of knowledge or worse – laziness. No matter what the reason – it is keeping us from doing greatness. Do you feel the same way? Are you waiting to take action until everything is perfect?
As you know, I’ve been listening to countless podcasts, watching tons of videos and reading a lot of text on those who have been super successful online and almost every single one had a common theme when it came to action – they didn’t wait until they had every single detail mapped out.
It seems that the majority of the most successful entrepreneurs took action and then tested their efforts again and again and again until it felt right. So trial and error has worked, then adapting to the change in marketplace worked. Actually asking your target audience what they want before you create content – worked. Imagine that, providing content, asking for guidance, tweaking, then perfecting it after your audience provides feedback. It totally sounds backwards, but that is exactly what works in the online marketing space.
Having these mindset shifts has been hard for me. I am from a totally corporate mindset, but I’m extremely open-minded and have a love of life-long learning that helps me be adaptable. But what about you? Do you feel you take imperfect action? Or do you consider yourself to be a perfectionist too?
I have been told that we need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and it is so darn true. What scares you is what will transform you – so what is it that you are waiting on? What will you be able to take action on tomorrow that you been holding back on because it wasn’t perfect?
I decided to start this blog and now I’m revving up for a podcast. I’m not 100% sure about the overall strategy and in a normal world, I’d wait until I did. BUT in my dreamer/online entrepreneur world, I’m not going to wait – I’m going to take imperfect action now! How about you, you game? Let’s do this.