The Part of Perfectionism Everyone Struggles With
If I’m being honest with you, writing every day is hard.
Especially considering the parameters I gave myself.
Each post must:
- Be in my own voice
- Have my unique viewpoint
- Be quickly digestible
- Be actionable
When I committed to writing every day, I realized that this was big.
Coming up with a fresh concept, in my own words, that was easy to consume, and that also demanded a discrete action that could be achieved in 2 minutes or less is a pretty difficult challenge.
So, what happened?
Sometimes posts didn’t go out at the right time. I travel a lot so timezones have messed with my automated triggers that send out emails and tweets.
Sometimes I am finishing my workday at a weird hour and I’m exhausted—but I still have to write. It’s painful.
Sometimes I miss typos, fail to get the point across or make the post too short to really communicate the point.
Basically, I fail a lot.
And however much I fail, it feels like I’m failing 10 times that.
The point isn’t to make it perfect. Well, at least not today. Or tomorrow.
The point is to constantly approach the upper limit.
The point is to ride the asymptote of improvement as far over to perfect as I can.
The only way to do that is by writing, reviewing, adapting, testing, getting feedback, and writing again.
The other part is to accept that people are going to criticize what you’re doing, especially you. In fact, you are often your own worst critic.
This is the case for writing and it’s the case for everything else.
There’s no substitute for consistently doing the work.
And you’re not allowed to beat yourself up.
2 Minute Action
What’s something that you’ve been meaning to improve in your life?
- Exercise?
- Marketing your brand?
- Motivating your volunteers?
- Energizing your students in the morning?
Here are some things you can do right now in 2 minutes or less:
- Do burpees for 2 minutes straight. If you can’t, do 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off.
- Send out an email to past clients and ask them to write a testimonial for your brand.
- Pick a measurable outcome that volunteers can see. If they can see how well they’re doing, they are more likely to improve.
- Google “fun facilitation exercises” like “rock, paper, scissors, posse.” You have the whole internet at your fingertips.