Imperfect Progress: What Perfectionism is Costing You

Imperfect Progress: The Illusion of Perfection

Imperfect progress beats perfectionism all day long. There is no such thing as the perfect time, basketball player, spouse, body, environment, choice or dog (I know some who would argue with this one).

The best advice I ever got when writing The Ripple Effect was don’t worry about writing a masterpiece on your first book, just get it done. Although I still obsessed about it, the imperfect outcome has been far beyond what I could have imagined.

Perfectionism nourishes procrastination and can become the ultimate excuse for remaining stuck.

Perfect is:

• fleeting. What’s perfect in this moment is likely to change in the next moment (compare 1920’s models- auto or female- with today). You can’t capture perfect and put it in a box. Even if it’s possible to distinguish “perfect” in this moment, in the next moment it will be less than perfect. For this and many other reasons perfect is:
• filtered. Just as “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”, perfect comes from a filter. Whether it is your filter or the filter of another, there is no perfect filter. Similarly perfect is:
• subjective. No matter what you do, how perfect it is, some people will hate it. Guess what. These same people are likely you criticize and undermine even if you do nothing. Perfect pleases everyone. You never will. Go with your heart and let it rip.

“People will judge you whether you win or lose, so you might as well win.” –Dan Lier

Perfectionism is an excuse to procrastinate. If the stars don’t line up in exactly the perfect way… nothing gets done. And that perfect time may never come. But this moment right now, yes, this one, right now, with all of it’s chaos and inconvenience, irritations and imperfections might just be the perfect time…

Imperfect Progress: Four Steps to Stop Paying the Price of Perfectionism

1. Accept Imperfect. Accept that there will never be the perfect time, situation, choice, spouse, fill in the blank _______________.
2. Embrace imperfect. How is the imperfection of now an opportunity to shift, grow, and choose powerfully?
3. Re-frame Imperfect. How could this imperfect time be the perfect time to act?
4. Do it anyway. If all else fails, resolve to take action in the face of imperfection.

“Do it anyway.”

The Ripple Effect

Maybe… the perfect moment is now. Now is all you have. Don’t die with your music still in you. Let your flawed, offbeat, imperfect noise rip. It worked for Hendrix, Dylan, Joplin and Cash. And it’ll work for you.