I'm a perfectionist - Ugh.
Hello. My name is Jen and I'm a perfectionist.
I struggle sometimes with not getting things done because I spend so much time worrying if they're good enough or if I could do them better. And sometimes I end up with a list of unpublished articles all about pretty much the same thing but complete re-writes each time.
My goal is to always produce good quality content, design or anything. I was once told, "why produce it if it isn't worthy of putting in a portfolio." Maybe that's not the best approach, but that perfectionist outlook is so ingrained in me. I really took that advice to heart because the person that said it was so much more successful than me at the time. I figured they must be right.
One of my current business coaches has a motto: "Take Massive Imperfect Action." Basically she just means get it done and don't worry about being perfect. You can't sell anything while you're trying to be perfect. Just get it out there and tweak it later. In the mean time, you'll have taken action toward making sales. She believes that even if it's not perfect, it will still get the message across and if a few people want to judge you for a mistake here or there, let them. There are plenty of other fish in the sea.
I get it. It makes sense and I try to tell myself to take "Massive Imperfect Action" all the time, but it's TOUGH! The perfectionsist/ego inside of me sometimes takes over. For instance, I have a "Review" article written. It's ready to publish. But a big part of me says it's not good enough and I should re-do the whole thing. Ahhhhhh!!!!
Does anyone else really struggle with this? How do you get beyond the re-writes and forever-tweaking of things prior to publishing/launching them?
Recent Comments
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Write it, walk away. Come back a week or two later and edit it. If you are obsessive/compulsive, do the edit 24 hours later. (Never a bad idea to edit your initial work).
Leaving it alone for a bit allows your brain to process what you have written and will result in a much better end result.
Grammarly is a good editing program that will fix your blatant errors but won't adjust your intent.
I love Grammarly. :)
Leaving it sit overnight for me seems to do the trick. I did that last night and my article was posted earlier today. The "let it sit" method seems to help so that I don't feel so much like a complete re-write is needed and I can actually still get it done with just some final tweaks/edits.
Thanks for the suggestions! Walking away is always helpful.
I too strive for perfection. But I refuse to let myself completely rewrite any article. I am constantly tweaking my site to get it just right. I guess I have just decided getting stuff done is more important in the short term. Best of Luck Maryann
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I have the same problem.