On Perfection

Julia Cameron said: “Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough - that we should try again.”

That’s a punch right in the gut, isn’t it? I’ve always believed that the pursuit of perfection is a bane to productivity. But it’s one thing to embrace a philosophy – and another entirely to live it.

I came up with the idea for Live Unvarnished about a year ago. I wanted some sort of brand element to represent the essence of the things I’d be writing about. I worked with a designer to create a logo and develop some brand colors.

I thought it would be cool to create some branded merchandise (hats, t-shirts, hoodies, etc.) with the Live Unvarnished logo. I searched for a platform that could be both a blog and e-commerce site. I bought products wholesale to find the best prices and highest quality. I bought a heat press thinking I could do it cheaper myself. I iterated on my logo a few different times.

I spent more time thinking about the branding and merchandising of Live Unvarnished that I completely lost sight of the original purpose of my idea.

My thought process went something like this: I can’t launch Live Unvarnished until I find the right supplier for my hoodies. Should I print my own hats and shirts or send them to a printer? Which will be cheaper but also high quality? Man, this is really frustrating. Do I even want to do this? Is my idea even going to be any good?

Multiply these thoughts by 100 about 100 times a day and you get the idea. I was paralyzed by my pursuit of everything needing to be perfect and buttoned up on day 1. I ended up just spinning in place and doing nothing.

Then about 3 months ago, I had a “what the hell” moment. It suddenly (over the course of a year 🙂) became super simple and clear. Abandon perfection and focus on execution. I found a newsletter platform and launched within 2 weeks (and 1 year 😆) using the original logo and doing away with anything merchandise related.

Is it perfect? No. Does it serve the original purpose I wanted it to? Yes, it does. And now I can make adjustments as needed or wanted. It was a valuable lesson and reminder for me that the pursuit of perfection can oftentimes lead to no pursuit at all.

And we have examples all around to remind us that perfection is unattainable and unhealthy to pursue. One extreme example that stands out for me is from the sports world. Baseball players that get a hit 3 times out of 10 are considered elite. That’s a 30% success rate.

Pursuing perfection can be a real obstacle to our human growth. Falling down, getting back up, trying new things, throwing ideas in the trash, and changing course are all the things that make us inherently – and perfectly – human.

Until next week.

Cheers,

Andy

(All written content created the old-fashioned way.)