High achievers can get caught up in the perfection of their work. “I don’t want to put my name on it unless it’s perfect.” Sound familiar? I’ve said it too. It’s easy to get paralyzed by perfection. You need the words to be just a little better in this email or you need the shot to pop just a bit more before rendering the video. Here’s the truth – people will notice that you didn’t ship your product but they might not notice the extra effort that you invested to meet your own level of perfection.
Sometimes, your level of perfection is important. It can be critical…if you’re a brain surgeon. For the rest of the population, choose to avoid the perfection paralysis and ship your product instead. Do great work and ship. Get better on each iteration of your product and notice what people comment on and care about instead. This will be a much more valuable use of your time and you’ll have something to show for all your hard work.
Re: “Get better on each iteration of your product and notice what people comment on and care about instead.”
Agreed! It’s better to get something out there rather than stalling and making no progress at all. I see this a lot in my work with Real Estate Agents and design/blogging. They wait and wait and wait and make very little progress instead of just launching and improving with each day that goes by.
So here I sit, reading through your blog and click on this post (that whole perfection paralysis thing – I’m guilty) and who do I find in the comments but Ricardo Bueno. Truly a small world.
I’m guilty too. Yes, I had the pleasure of meeting Ricardo in San Diego recently. Great dude!