Food for Thought #10: Better Than Perfect
I once had a mentor say to me, “The problem is not that no one likes making a mistake. The problem is that no one likes being seen making a mistake.”
Often, we get caught up in appearances and are afraid of what other people might think. This certainly applies to our writing.
Building a website is hard. Writing an article is hard. Do you know what makes it much harder? Trying to build the “perfect” website or write the "perfect" article.
So, for today’s food for thought, I’ve got something even better than perfect…
Progress, Not Perfection
Hogwash? Balderdash? That’s impossible, you say? What could possibly be better than perfect?
Well, I’ll tell you: DONE. Done is better than perfect.
Stop focusing on what everyone else thinks. When you are so scared to put yourself and your writing out there that you continue to buff and polish every single word without ever actually publishing, you are doing yourself a terrible injustice.
Nothing will ever be perfect. I can guarantee that six months after you post something you will still find ways that you can tinker with it and improve. Heck, I've got articles that I wrote over a decade ago that I still hope to "fix" one day! That’s how this writing stuff works.
Don’t get it perfect… get it done.
Share your thoughts and comments below.
Recent Comments
12
Perfect advice!!
It's better to go into action than to seek perfection.
Perfection is boring! Our life is made full of
mistakes and it's thanks to them if we have become
what we are.
Great post!
Ingrid
Hi AJ,
You are so right! It takes me a minute or two to get the juices flowing and then off I go! Lord knows mine are far from perfect. Oh how boring it would be if all of our post we're perfect. I feel that when I do the spell check if that's good (with a few corrections), then that's close enough to perfect for me! ;)
Happy writing,
Donna
Hahaha. Okay, you got me... I'll give you spell check. But after that, no more "perfection". Agreed? :-)
I totally agree, AJ. Get your content out, attract the audience, then work on the refinements.
Best wishes,
Steve.
Get 'er done...and you can always go back and rewrite later if you think of something to improve your post. I just did that this morning!
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Hey AJ,
To quote Nike Just do it!!
Tried and True
Elaine