Progress over Perfection

Full disclosure. I am a perfectionist. I mean, I'm quite happy to be fishing in knee-deep water or elbow deep in the garden with mud on my face. But, when it comes to special projects, artistic gifts I do for others, the kids' birthday cakes...keeping the bathroom sink clean... I. like. perfect. I come by it naturally. My Dad is a master of everything - literally - Master Carpenter, Master Plumber, Master of the Universe. He does math in his head that most people struggle with on paper. I share this because it's important for you to know that when I bring something here, I'm never asking you to do something or change something that I haven't done or changed myself.

And sometimes the change means just getting something to done. Letting go of the illusion of perfection and calling it progress. Illusion? ILLLLLUUUSSSION?!?! Yep. It's an illusion. It's all in our heads. Perfect is what we call it when it's so good we stop seeing the things that are out of place.

Well...we thought you were a Project Manager! Doesn't that have to be perfect?!

Seriously. There's a difference between things that must be done right and things that have wiggle room. I'm not saying you release work with critical errors. That's absurd. I'm saying - we're not going to hold up a major release to production because three people can't agree on whether the shade of blue is exactly perfect. You can't get to the Chief Executive whatever that can choose between your five options before the go-live? OK. Pick one, go live. Perfect the hex code later. Do a minor revision to the color scheme. No lives will be lost.

Say it again - No lives will be lost. That's gotten me through a number of hard decisions. Working in health care makes a lot of decisions and fretting a lot easier, at least for me. Will lives be lost? You better stay on that problem until it's resolved. Absolutely no lives will be lost? Then focus on something else.

I don't know if it's the time of year or the moon cycle or what that has me needing to remind myself of 'Progress over Perfection' the last couple of weeks, but I know I'm not alone. Interacting with a leader in Occupational Therapy this week brought this same topic up. And since two of us were feeling it, I thought it would be good to share with all of you. She had a great analogy - it's all baby steps. No baby sits on the sidelines until it knows it will take steps like an adult. And the process is sneaky and amazing.

You see the baby rocking on all fours. Soon they're crawling. Then it's reaching up on objects while on their knees. Then maybe it's rocking on their feet while crouched low. This is followed by becoming more and more upright. A shaky step or two partnered with falling down. And then - out of nowhere, they're walking!

It's the same with us. Learning new things takes time. Having people see us learn new things can be scary. We will fall down, we will get bruises and scrapes. But, we will make progress. No one goes from reading a book on welding to building bridges instantly. There are apprenticeships and low-end tasks that help you prepare for the big things. Stop telling yourself you can't until it's perfect. You'll never get there.

Also - feedback is an invaluable tool for aiding progress and you don't get good feedback talking to yourself.

Things that you can make progress on this month without being perfect -

• opening the doors to your business

• creating a website

• sending a first draft of a book to a publisher

• knitting a sweater that gets worn

• creating and sharing a presentation in front of your team

• a newsletter

• planting a garden

• writing a bit of code and asking someone to review it

• starting any project for something you've never tackled before

If you have something big that you want a set of eyes on / a quick review of what's critical vs. what can be improved afterward, send it over. 😊