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Introduction
This is for all the compulsives out there. The day-dreamers and the procrastinators. The TV-watchers, the couch potatoes, the zombies.
Those with grand plans and the best intentions but plenty more excuses and a heap-load of distractions.
This is for every short-term thinker seeking immediate gratification and every short-cut junky jonesing for his next “get-rich-quick”.
But, essentially, this is for the beautiful perfectionist who does nothing if doing something would result in anything less than sensational.
We concoct these paradises in our minds eye and then get demotivated by how impossible they seem to achieve.
We are demanding perfection, and then we go and kill our dreams because we don’t know how to achieve them (or, rather, that we even could if we tried).
Motivation dies and, with it, so does proactivity. Better to do nothing than to waste all of our time and effort on seemingly fruitless endeavours, right?
Well, not entirely. It is true that if we don’t know where we’re going, we’ll land up pretty much anywhere. But, if we do nothing, we’ll go nowhere.
The reality, however, is even worse. Without a goal and a vision, we often participate in activities that take us backward, towards eventual failure. Or, at the very least, we are moving forward, but we are doing so without a map, which means we may end up in the most undesirable of locations or arrive at our destination rather (unfashionably) late.
In this post, I wish to give you some perspective to get you thinking about moving yourself in the right direction, without getting despondent about the less than adequate short-term results.
Later, I will go into a bit more detail about how a proactive person differs from the perfectionist and why you want to release yourself from the shackles of the perfectionist mind-set.
PERSPECTIVES
Everything is a Learning Process
The first thing that we need to realise is that nothing we do (read: NOTHING) will ever resemble anything that looks like perfection the very first time we do it.
Or even the first few times.
We need to earn our stripes, do our due diligence and make mistakes along the way. Before you become great, you must endure pain, growth and change. It’s necessary, it’s inevitable.
Direction is Key
If you’re not growing, you’re dying. I’m sure we’ve all heard that pearl of wisdom somewhere along the line. Essentially, by not taking some small positive steps towards success, you are moving slowly towards ultimate failure. Because, even the act of not deciding is a decision and the perfectionist has unknowingly decided not to do anything until he ‘knows’ that every piece is in its perfect place.
Thus, he has sadly decided never to do anything.
Because, as time moves on, the quality of perfection that will be required to begin any venture will rapidly reach drastic proportions.
And, ironically, the perfectionist becomes unworthy and incapable of achieving the levels of perfection that he, himself, has created.
It is because of this that a blueprint is necessary before considering any venture that lies beyond the comfort zone.
This will allow us to foresee where we’re going and how to (possibly) get there.
Failure is Fine
Know that the path to success means having to go through failure.
Even if you feel as if nothing you are doing right now is working, keep going… Chances are high that, if you’ve done your research, your due diligence and you’re taking the necessary positive steps towards a particular goal, you will achieve it eventually.
Like I said earlier, it’s all a process. And failure is simply just a natural consequence of that process of personal growth.
The Importance of Support
Motivation is the key to success in anything. Without it, chances are extremely high that you will not persevere nor accomplish your goals.
The reason for this is that we, as human beings, are predominantly emotional creatures (as much as we’d like to believe that we are logical at least 90 percent of the time).
We often have grand visions, dreams and desires one day (sometime even one minute) and, then, in a heartbeat, we are somehow content with the life we currently have.
This is mostly due to fear (of failure, success or the hard work we’ll have to endure) — but more on that later.
It is because of this that we need a team; a support structure. It is vital that we are constantly surrounded by a select group of highly motivated and ambitious individuals who are heading in the same direction as we are.
A team is there to support you on your endeavours and ensure you don’t fall prey to fear, doubt and perfectionism.
Conclusion
I hope this has given you some insight into why perfectionism is holding you back. It is simply a convenient way of justifying your fears, doubts and insecurities. Perfection is an assassin.
If you are not vigilant — if you are not careful — perfection will be the death of your proactivity.
Ah, and such is the classic case of perfectionism.
The best excuse for dreamers who do nothing; the procrastinator’s copout.
We often have the grandest of plans; imagining, fantasising and picturing ourselves doing the most fantastical things. And some of these things we could do and should pursue, however our expectations of ourselves hold us back.
Sometimes we go as far as thinking about this thing all the time. We write it in our dream journal, we research everyone else making it their reality and sometimes we even dip our toes in the water. But we never seem to make progress, or we just plain give up.
A lot of us go as far as taking all the preliminary steps but stop just short of putting ourselves out there. The minute vulnerability becomes a factor in any endeavour we decide to take on is the moment ‘this thing’ becomes too burdensome to bear.
So, we tell ourselves that ‘we will get to it eventually’ or ‘it’s just not the right time’ or ‘it’s simply not finished yet’ or ‘when event ‘ x’ occurs we’ll get it done’.
Hey, I’ve been there; hell, I still go there, and often too… I’ve got the t-shirt and my picture’s on the wall!
The problem is, instead of doing the very thing our ideal future self requires to get to where they are, we postpone the problem indefinitely and, failing to grow into the person we wanted to become necessitated by doing the thing we failed to do, end up delegating the task to a future self who will be faced with the exact same daunting dilemma — to do the thing or not?
Now, here’s the kicker: perfection is still a stumbling block this older duplicate of ourselves will again need to address… Except now our minds have had time to turn this molehill into a mountain and our idea of perfection has morphed into something truly horrific.
In short, perfection isn’t attainable and isn’t even real. It is the assassin of proactivity and will keep us trapped, always wondering what could have been if only we had tried.
Yes, sometimes we have to put things on hold or sacrifice them outright due to opportunity costs. For instance, a mother postpones building her business to spend time with her kids.
The difference is, she made a choice based on priorities rather than failing to act on her dreams out of fear, which by the way, perfection and procrastination is a manifestation of.
At the end of the day, all we need to determine is whether what we’ve done, what we have or who we are is enough to get going and not whether the stars are perfectly aligned in our favour; because they won’t be… they will never be.
The majority of our success is directly proportional to the number of mistakes we were willing to make and the amount of times we were prepared to fail.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again… just get started.
Whew, we made it!
Hey there, it’s Brad again.
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