When starting out and putting you or your business out in the public arena, it’s easy to get caught up in the pursuit of perfection before launching … wanting everything to be perfect, to exceed expectations … be polished … and to be the best possible representation of ourselves and our business or brand possible … In reality this pursuit of perfection is paralyzing, causing us to delay or even avoid taking action to pursue our dreams altogether.

Practicing Self-Compassion When Starting Your Business Journey

The mantra ‘done is better than perfect’ is so important, as is practicing self-compassion. There’s a big mind hurdle to overcome when we actually put the rubber to the road and start the things we’ve dreamed out, dreams that are often well outside our comfort zones. It’s totally normal for stress and anxiety to kick in and to be scared – we want to protect our innermost fears and worries like ‘what if this dream doesn’t work out how I planned?’ The simple phrase of ‘done is better than perfect’ reminds us that it’s better to take action and start and progress is better than perfection, rather than delay or take no action at all and wonder ‘what if’. Whether it’s launching a new website, setting up socials, a new advertising campaign, launching a new product, or testing new marketing strategies, it’s important to stop yourself agonizing over every detail and just take the steps and keep going, progress is better than perfection, and be sure to enjoy the process of moving your dreams into reality along the way.

Progress is Better than Perfection

The reality is, behind the excuses is often nothing more than perfectionizm and protectionizm – forms of procrastination in themselves. We tell ourselves or our teams that we need to have everything perfect or fully in place before we can launch or present the project. But in reality, we’re just afraid of failure or being harshly judged by others. And it’s natural to also want to protect our innermost fears and worries like ‘what if this dream doesn’t work out how I planned?’ By embracing ‘done is better than perfect’, taking action one step at a time and making progress, as well as being honest with yourself about things , it’s much easier to tweak what’s not working and/or overcome any doubts or fears and take action with confidence that we are at least taking steps toward the target. No one launches any business and is an immediate success overnight. It all takes time.

Using ourselves as an example, we have loads of great content we’re consistently uploading to engage with people and build our online audience, but our courses and downloads aren’t quite ready in the backend as the purchasing funnels aren’t ready. But that’s a process being progressively worked on, it’s not an excuse. Are we better to launch without having everything in the back end and potentially risk turning customers off? Or are we better to indicate to readers ‘coming soon, please subscribe for updates’ so systems and processes can be set up? It’s a vexed question, but we know we’re just not ready to launch to a wider public online audience yet.

Avoiding the Procrastination Loop

Of course, taking steps doesn’t mean settling for ‘anything is better than nothing’ and risk poor customer service or mediocre work: delivering the best possible should still be the aim. But it’s important to recognize that getting everything absolutely right or flawless is wholly unattainable and that the pursuit of perfection risks being caught in a loop of procrastination that ends up being counterproductive. Perfectionism stops many people from starting their dream business. By starting, it’s easier to iron out the bugs or things/processes that may not be quite right and fix them as you go – rather than not launching until some future subjective state of perfectionism is achieved.

In every business, there’s always room for iteration and improvement. By taking action, even if not perfect, that campaign can get launched, strategies are tested, customer feedback gathered, goals or KPI’s met. It you get to ‘beta’ test and the feedback and experience then helps improve and refine efforts making things better than they ever were before. Use techniques like the Pomodoro Technique or Traffic Light system to focus on what needs to be done and prioritize your day.

So Just Go For It

So, next time you find yourself procrastinating or waiting for some future [perfect] time that never exists, remember there will be no better day than the present, and power of ‘done is better than perfect’. By taking action – even if imperfect – you’re already ahead of those who are still stuck in the planning cycle or who’ve got cold feet and didn’t ever quite get to launching that dream or initiative at all. So, take that punt, launch that campaign or online presence, and see where it takes you. Because otherwise you’ll never know ‘what if’. Go ahead and enjoy the process!