I have a habit with my work to wait until everything is “just right” before putting it out there for people to see.
For some, this strive for perfection underpins everything they do; they simply won’t let something out of their grasp and let it free into the world without knowing it’s 100% right.
Here’s what I’ve learned: there’s no such thing.
There’s no perfect version of a book, or a blog post.
There’s no perfect cut of a film.
There’s no perfect design for a website or platform.
There’s no perfect time to release something.
There’s no perfect circumstance in which to do anything.
If we wait for perfect, nothing will ever happen. Even when we think we’ve got something just right, how many times have you looked back over something from the past and wondered what on earth you thought was so perfect about it? Haircuts, for example…
The true nature of perfection is constant evolution. But recognising we’ll never make something perfect, all we can do is vow to never believe we’re done.
Some of the world’s most famous and talented people do this every day:
Footballers train daily to improve their skills and keep themselves at the peak of fitness to be better able to play “the perfect game”.
Photographers who take “perfect” images are still always exploring, always playing, always looking for the next thing to make their work even better.
The startup world loves the word ‘iteration’ because they know being open to shifting their ideals of their product or service based on what the customer wants is the closest thing to perfection their product will get. Perfection is achieved perhaps for one fleeting moment before the next iteration is needed and started.
Into this same bracket I put myself: I’ve iterated this blog many times. And I’ve been working for the last three months to perfect it. But I can’t.
So this “soft relaunch”, if you will, is my acceptance of a lack of perfection. It’s my choice not to wait for perfect, but to acknowledge it never will be and instead get out of my own way to write more, share my experiences and get back to the root of this blog: smiling just once every day.
What are you waiting to perfect? Stop waiting, start doing.