Index of Contents
Daily Motivation for Goal Attainment
The Twin Actions of Accomplishment
Announcing a Vision for Success
Time Management and Goal Setting
A New Way to Look at Your Problems
How to Break Through Negativity
Success is Just a Matter of Time
Perfection is a Pipedream
I used to be a perfectionist. I used to believe that if a job was worth doing, it was worth doing perfectly. The problem was, while I waited for everything to be perfect, I was rapidly running out of time and most of the things I set out to do, never got done. I was paralysed by perfection.
This was especially true when I first started thinking about building a business on the web. The first task I set myself was to learn how to build a web page. But not just any web page. I wanted mine to look like it had been forged from steel; hand-hewn by a skilled artisan. I never finished it.
Then when I wrote my first e-book, I wanted it to be a world beater, stuffed with beautifully crafted metaphors, deathless prose and an earth shattering conclusion. I never finished it.
I could go on about all the other entrepreneurial projects I began, agonised over and never completed. One day, talking to a friend, who asked me how my web business was getting along, I was about to repeat my well worn mantra; “I’m just putting the finishing touches to …”, when I was stopped in mid sentence by the blinding revelation that everything I had done to date, was a complete and utter waste of energy.
I had never once reached the stage where a real person, in the real world clicked on any of my beautifully drawn buttons; no one ever smiled at my clever syntax, no human eyes ever gazed on my flawless graphics. I was a victim of perfection paralysis.
From that moment, I resolved to never again be a serial starter, but to become instead a compulsive tester.
Since that day, I have embraced the philosophy that good enough really is good enough. If my website has all it’s content, all the relevant links and it can be understood and navigated by any half competent human being, then I’ll put it on the web.
If a book has all the relevant chapters in the right order, if it makes sense and if it achieves the informational objective that I set for it at the outset, then it is ready to meet its public.
Why is good enough, good enough? Because once it is out in the world, I can test it in the eyes and opinions of real prospects; real customers; real people. If it isn’t up to their standards, they’ll let me know soon enough, by demanding a refund, by e-mailing me their constructive criticism or telling me that there are other, better offerings out there.
Only then will I start to work towards perfection, but this time, a perfection based on real world testing and not the narrow, biased, inward-looking view of perfection, that I used to use as an excuse for never finishing.
Nowadays, I get far more done in a far shorter time. I know much sooner if a project is likely to be a success and I know straightaway if putting major effort into something will pay off in the long term or be simply a waste of my time and energy.
Perfection is dead, long live action.
Andrew Grant is a web entrepreneur,
life coach and marketing consultant. He has written many articles on self
growth and how to build a successful web business. Andrew publishes a
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