Completion Not Perfection: I Recommend It (Still) After Completing Book #2
Along the path to creating valuable information for our clients - you know, special reports, workshops, books, or even blog posts – we can often run into a stuck place called ‘trying to get it perfect.’ It can go by different names such as, ‘i have to come up with something brilliant and original,’ ‘it’s been done before’ or even the all-pervasive ‘who am i to.’
Whatever name it goes by, the stuck place, when you’re in it, is pretty icky indeed.
I’ll post more about this in future, however for now let me say that I still recommend the simple adage: “Focus on completion, not perfection.” Just get it done.
Why? The benefits of completing book #2 with my business partner Tina Forsyth are fresh on my mind, and start with:
- More ideas only flow after you empty yourself of the ones you’ve already got.
Completing the book has given me a lovely empty feeling in my brain that is fresh and expectant. Nature abhors a vacuum and although I’m enjoying the empty-brain feeling, hehe, I know something new and tender will be finding its way to me now that there is room. My favorite Feng Shui coaches would tell me I’ve done a mental decluttering…clutter lobotomy?
If you’re at all worried about running out of creativity, or having to come up with something new and cool – don’t let this hold you back. New ideas are being prevented from coming to you right now only because you may be too full. Completion is a creativity laxative…
- Whatever it is that you succeed at completing, will coach you, if you let it.
The things that happen after you complete that ‘thing’ – the process, the responses you get, the feelings you feel – are trying to teach you something. If you don’t complete, you won’t learn these lessons.
By allowing ideas and thoughts to leave my head and ‘sink into’ the paper they’re printed on, they take on a life of their own. It’s as though by getting some air, the concepts become breathing entities in their own right and are showing me where they want to grow next. This is a real gift because left in my head they were getting musty and fusty…I may have abandoned a very cool concept that is helpful to business owners because I couldn’t see where it might lead.
Completing and letting it out there unperfected nixes that and I now get to grow more freely as a person, instead of trying to force external events to go one way or the other. Does this make sense?
- Completion brings relief.
I know you understand this one but let me take it from a slightly different angle.
I feel validated each time I complete something because I stand for what I teach and if I couldn’t tell you in all honestly that completion is better than perfection I definitely wouldn’t say it. So each time we complete a new project, I get a goofy grin – it worked again – I can’t wait to tell everyone about it. Everyone is different and – I’ve seen it happen enough times to be able to say from the rooftops:
Regarding your current project? That one you’re working on in your head, or has been for some time? Maybe it’s approaching a huge new joint venture partner. Or starting a whole new business division. Or just the few items on your To Do list this week. Here’s what worked for me again, probably at least six times in the 45 days it took us to write book #2.
Stop thinking, stop training, stop learning – just do. Complete. Aim after you fire, yes?
If you previously voted for the book you most wanted me to write this year, at this link: http://www.msoci.com/andrea/archives/491/ you’ll either be delighted or dismayed at the one we picked to complete first. In fact, we wrote two in one, at least for now, a combination of book #1 and book #2 at the above link.
Called ‘Money, Meaning & Beyond: 27 Unexpected Ways to Create What *Really* Matters for Business Owners,’ I’m told the first print run is done and has arrived in New York City in time for the Power of Collaboration event next week. Completed, not perfected, it’s getting really strong reviews and yes, I am most gratified at the idea it will help business owners in a way no other business book has ever tried – by appealing to you in your kitchens and television sets, through your stomach and your childhood. 
Now, which book would you like us to tackle next? 
Being a perfectionist is a problem but like any problem it has a solution. You can always improve your attitude towards things and people by accepting the fact that nothing in this world is fully right or fully wrong. Each person, thing or event has both a postive and negative aspect. What we need to do is focus on the positive aspect and accept the negative aspect the way it is. Definately we need to work on imroving the negative aspect but only as much as it is in our capacity. Rest we can leave as destiny.