Hands up if you are a perfectionist.
Welcome to the club!
Keep your hands up if you have ever felt paralysed by perfectionism to the point where you struggle to finish things. Don’t worry, you are not alone.
In fact, I just spent ten minutes trying to craft the perfect intro sentence, so we are in the same boat.
It can be daunting (okay, downright terrifying) to put yourself and your work out into the big wild world. Particularly if it is something you are passionate about. While we applaud and appreciate your desire to create quality work, there is something to be said for just getting it done and dusted.
While you fine-tune and fuss over that website, video, product, or blog, someone else might be hitting publish and stealing your thunder.
There are a multitude of reasons why done is better than perfect. Let’s explore them together.
Perfect Is A Mirage
Ever tried to reach the end of a rainbow? That’s how chasing perfection feels.
The closer you think you are getting, the further away it appears! Your idea of perfect is likely to be vastly different from the person next to you, and the people on the receiving end of your offering.
You might find that you are so deep in your project that you have lost sight of what perfect is. The more you work on it, the more you find to do to make it “perfect,”. You may never reach the end.
This endless cycle saps your motivation and energy so much that the task becomes a chore and may fall off your radar altogether. Whereas, if you had just got it to a workable point and pressed the launch button, it would be done, and you would still have passion for the project.
Done Is More Competitive Than Perfect
Imagine spending months crafting a unique product or webpage that nobody else has thought of. You delay following through because it’s not quite ready, only to see a competing product launch ahead of you. You have lost the advantage of being first and look like a copycat.
While this is an extreme example, it’s not unheard of. Their site or product might only be 90 percent as good as yours, but it was first, and it’s out there. That 100 percent beats your product still sitting in development.
When it comes to online platforms, timing is super important. With websites and YouTube videos, there is an aging process or sandbox period before Google gives the site or video value. Don’t wait until you have a complete webpage full of content to launch. Even if you only have a landing page saying who you are and what you do, you are making your first digital footprints. This gives you a head start over those who are still perfecting!
Done Can Still Be Improved
Imagine if authors tried to perfect every sentence of a novel from the beginning. They would never publish. Top authors understand they need to just write, knowing that they will edit the draft several times over.
This applies to most of us. Often, we need to get a product or service done and put it out to our audience, clients, or customers to get the feedback to improve it. A website can continually be improved, a blog post can be edited, a product can be fine-tuned (just look how many versions of the iPhone there are!).
Of course, I’m not saying do a rush job and put out mediocre products. My message is that you should do your best with the resources you have, and then let it go. You can always go back and adjust it, but you will never move forward if you are in a permanent state of perfection paralysis.
Sometimes all you need to feel comfortable about launching something into the world is a strategy. Fortunately, I specialise in digital marketing strategies.
Get in touch with me today and we can get it done together. Remember, done is better than perfect!