It doesn’t have to be perfect.
It doesn’t have to be good.
It just has to be.
Where and when did some of us get the idea that we can move ahead only when
everything is in place? As Jim Stovall (professional speaker and
President/Co-Founder of the Narrative Television Network) would tell you, all the lights do not
have to be green.
You’d never stay parked anywhere in your car until you could see green
lights in all directions. My guess is that you climb into your car, start
it, take it out of park, (and here’s the important part) you’d start
moving forward!
You know forward. According to Webster’s Dictionary, it means moving toward a point in
front, onward, advancing. When you’re parked, waiting for a better day,
time, solution, idea — you put all your resources on hold. You tie up your
feelings and resources because you’re holding tight to, and not acting on, a
solution that is “not good enough yet.”
If you’re prone to this red-light thinking, the next time you’re stopped at
a mental red light, wondering, “Is this good enough?” ask yourself instead:
Is this a viable solution?
Is it something that would work?
See the difference? The key is to accept your pretty-good solution
that will
work for now. Focus on what’s right, not on what’s lacking.
Here is a tremendously powerful way to make fear and indecision
disappear:
Any solution will access your resources and move
you ahead
even if it’s only a pretty good one.
It’s only by accepting a solution that your resources and
emotions are freed up to do something! It’s only by using your
resources that you’ll move closer to being balanced.
Try to remember that it doesn’t have to be perfect or even good. It only has
to be.
The ideas you implement are the only ones that will move you ahead while
others wait for all the green lights and all the perfect solutions.
There’s a difference between perfectionism and procrastination. There are
also some of the same results for either practice. Completion of a project,
reaching a goal, moving ahead on a new sales initiative — these things don’t
happen if they’re postponed or ‘postponed until perfected.’
Do you know someone who is a born tinkerer — a person who can become totally
involved with one question, one piece of machinery, one concept or
challenge?
A tinkerer keeps messing with things, and never feels “I’ve got to get this
right the first time!” Actually, most tinkerers don’t even think about
‘right’ or ‘perfect.’ And no one ever told you and me that the main rule to
live by is get it right or die. Or even worse, get it right the
first time or die!
Children don’t live by that rule. We don’t tell them there’s only one chance
to learn to tie your shoes, ride a bike, or master reading and writing.
Missteps and mistakes happen in every learning process. When you build in
fear of failure, you lock up your resources one more time.
Somehow the tinkerers of the world never got the “Get It Right or Die”
message. They got the “Find What Works” message instead. Think about it. Do you need
to tinker more, to stop waiting for the perfect answer, to begin working
with what’s in front of you, right now, even if it is only ‘pretty good.’
If a cat spoke, it would say things like, “Hey, I don’t see the problem
here.”
– Roy Blount Jr.
