Monday 8 August 2011

The Price of Perfection

Perfection is a wonderful thing when harnessed properly.

For most however, it is the personal curse they carry that stops them achieving all they could.

Perfection in and of itself is fine. Whilst standing alone it does not harm. Its when it gets between your ears that the problems start arising.

Perfection is the best friend of the “little voice” - that one that keeps telling you that you aren’t good enough.

So often I witness people who want something to happen really badly, but they spend so much time and energy waiting to get something perfect before they release it. What inevitably happens is that the project either stalls or they sabotage their success by creating a diversion around the release of their project.

Once sabotaged, it will never get to see the light of day, nor will it ever get to the right people to stamp their approval of perfection on the project.

I’ve seen people make themselves physically sick so they don’t have to go on stage. I’ve seen people manifest family disasters so they don’t have to release a project. I’ve seen people just disappear off the radar because their need for perfection overcomes their ability to deliver the so called levels of perfection they have set for themselves.

This behaviour is bogus because in business its not up to you to determine what is or is not perfect.

The people who are going to BUY what you are creating are the ones who determine whether it is perfect or not.

It becomes a very simple equation. 

If your customers buy your product or service or book a treatment with you and they don’t complain or they rebook or they buy something else in the future. Then your offering was perfect because it met their needs.

In business the only way you can figure out if your product or service offering is perfect - is to release it.

So why keep persecuting yourself trying to make everything perfect, when really you aren’t the best person to sit in judgment. Wouldn’t it be better to just get that product out to your customers and if it falls short of perfect, you can always tweak it until it is.

Some of the best things I’ve ever created took two or three goes to get right. It was the testing and tweaking and feedback that came from my customers that invariably created the perfection.

Of course I’m not asking you to put anything sub-standard out into the marketplace. All I’m asking is that you at least let it have a chance to be seen by others.

So what are you waiting for - get that thing out that you’ve been waiting to get perfect - dust if off - get it to a “good enough” standard and release it.

You might be surprised how perfect the imperfection in that action really is!

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