For as long as I can remember, the fear of failure has plagued my life, especially when it came down to communicating ideas that I did not have complete competency in.
When giving a speech or presentation, I would often find myself reading off note cards or the screen out of fear that I would mess something up.
This continued to follow me into early adulthood and plagued my early days as a business owner.
I knew there was this amazing story I needed to tell but would people believe it if it wasn’t perfect.
I know many of you can relate to this story.
Perfection is something that we constantly pursue and there are many unwritten books and unchanged lives simply because we refused to take the first step because our idea wasn’t perfect.
It wasn’t until I had a mentor tell me the statement that heads this thought that I was able to finally break free from the perfection based mindset.
My mentor told me that it was important to just get it done, even if it sucks and is downright terrible.
For many of us perfectionists, this is an incredibly uncomfortable process to subject ourselves to, but one that is also incredibly necessary to allow us to test the waters of our thoughts and subject them to the furnace of criticism to ensure they are sound.
This is no different than the concept of utilizing an axe.
Most of us spend our whole life sharpening the axe and have never even swung it.
At some point you are going to have to swing and if you are one that is continually searching for the perfect, you will probably never swing.
Yet, once you decide to swing, you get to see how “perfect” your idea is and one of two things will happen.
The axe will either cut down the tree or it will bounce off.
Guess what, either way, at some point you will have to sharpen it again.
Whether that was because you didn’t sharpen it right in the first place or because you used it so much it became dull doesn’t really matter.
If it was due to failing to sharpen it in the first place, then you have an opportunity to reassess your technique, tweak it and swing it again.
If it was due to over use and you chopped down many trees, you get to take it back, sharpen the edge and swing it again.
What matters is you took the first swing and that swing taught you a lesson.
What you learned from that lesson will determine your ability to strive for perfection going forward.
However, if you never take the swing, you will never know if perfection is achievable.
Done is better than perfect in 99% of circumstances, it is how we learn and how we grow.
“Failure” is part of the journey, so the next time you hesitate because what you have created isn't perfect, say a little prayer, and swing.
Remember…its 4:45AM and I am out on my morning walk. A time where I take to prayer all the “failures” I have from the previous day. Sometimes they sort themselves out, others like to simmer for a long time. Either way, done is still better than perfect. What can you get done today to make your Monday great again?
P.S. I don’t make any posts on social media. So if you know someone who can benefit from this content, please do us a favor and share it with them. You never know how far reaching what you may think, say, or do today will affect the lives of millions tomorrow.
