Perfect is the enemy of the good


How often are you waiting for the right conditions?

For the right moment?

Till your ready?

I quickly lose count opportunities that passed me by while I waited for things to be perfect in my past.

I have used the catch cries of:

  1. "I'll get to that tomorrow"

  2. "I can exercise later, it's raining"

  3. "I doesn't matter it's done later"

These are the death knells of perfection rather than being ok with good enough.

Perfect never gets done.

Perfect doesn't actually exist.

I loved the quote "Perfection is the lowest standard of standard of achievement, doing is the highest" from Andy Jenkins.

It rings so true.

How often we wait for the right conditions before acting, rather than just acting despite the conditions.

We ruminate on the plan meticulously yet fail to execute as the stars haven't aligned the way we want them.

From researching this post, I cam across this a great article about perfectionism https://www.betterup.com/blog/perfect-is-the-enemy-of-good in which the following statements hit home:


  • You never feel satisfied

  • You constantly compare yourself to others

  • You often procrastinate tasks

  • You avoid sharing your work with others

  • You feel paralyzed by the choices and decisions you have to make in your work


No small wonder I didn't execute on the things I wanted for my life. My mental roadblock of perfectionism prevented me from even starting and even if I needed help, I didn't ask because I knew it wouldn't be up to standard.


But what to do about perfectionism? How to overcome it? Here are two great talks that step take about imperfect action and cultivating imperfection.

This post is isn't perfect and that's fine. Its good. Which is much more valuable than perfect.

Cheers,