Being “Perfect” Is Hurting Your Dream

There’s an audio version below. 

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One of the joys I have in life is being a “Lead” editor at the Good Men Project. Lead editor means I get to do a little bit of everything on the site. Every week I edit anywhere from 10 to 20 articles. I also get to see the analytics of the website—so I see what posts do well and which ones do not.

I extend the invitation to anyone who knows me (you included) to write for the Good Men Project. The site gets three million unique visitors, and eight million views a month. When someone hears this, they are excited and nervous—that’s a lot of eyeballs on something you wrote. In the desire to get massive traffic and email subscribers, dreamers try to make their article perfect.

At any given time, I work with ten coaching clients; I also consult for two companies. I see the same desire to be perfect with both of these groups. I talk to many of you each week on the phone and through email; a lot of you feel the need to be perfect so that your dream can take off.

Here’s what I want to tell you: No one is perfect, and trying to be perfect is holding you back.

Procrastination

There are already enough distractions in life that feed into our procrastination. Trying to make what you do perfect keeps you from even starting because you tell yourself you have to “think” first. I’m all for planning and researching the steps you’re going to take, but at some point the research has to stop, and the action has to start.

If your dreams are going to become a reality, you have to take more action than your fear and doubt will allow. If you give into procrastination, it will take twice as long–if it even happens at all. I remember getting home from delivering bread for 10 to 12 hours and telling myself I had a choice to make. I chose action because I hated what I did and wanted to escape.

Writing

Many who read this blog are writers—whether you view yourself that way or not. Writing is an essential part of a freedom business and an excellent way to heal. When we write, we want our articles to “go viral.” I hear this all the time from people writing for the Good Men Project.

It is very rare that you will sit down to write a “hit” and actually write one—it almost never happens that way. The articles that end up being hits have two elements to them: 1. They have a strong emotional anchor—we really connect with what the author is saying on an emotional level. 2. There is ONE clear thought—too often we sit down to write one article, and it ends up talking about a bunch of different things. Hit article’s present one idea and that idea is made clear in the article.

Stop trying to write the perfect article and just write. Sit down to get what’s on your mind onto the paper. Don’t edit while you write, express your thought. Come back after you’re done and edit that thought to make sense. When in doubt, study good writing and model your articles in that structure.

None of us is perfect and never will be–no matter how hard we try. We have to strive for excellence, but more importantly, take action on our dream. Life is too short to let being perfect keep you from amazing things that can happen when you do something about them.

Audio version:

Are you trying to be perfect?

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Photo: Flickr/ Jonno Witts