Inspirational quote:

The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.”
~ Theodore Roosevelt

So true!  You can’t be free from mistakes if you ever attempt anything new or express an original thought.  And the more new things you try, the more mistakes you’re bound to make.  It goes with the territory.
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Mistakes, mistakes, mistakes...

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Entrepreneurs must be action-oriented risk takers, since that’s what starting a business is.  So for all the perfectionist entrepreneurs out there, our variation on it is “…the man who never finishes anything!”

It’s the story of perfectionism. You want every little thing to be perfect before you actually publish your masterpiece to the world, or even click Send on an e-mail to your sister.

Writing articles, marketing materials or blog posts becomes a lengthy effort to find a better word here, phrase it a bit tighter there, etc.  Web page updates turn into hours of moving a button 2 pixels to the right, changing a header to a slightly darker shade of blue, etc.

(Notice that I left the above sentences ending with “etc.” How vague, lazy and imprecise.  Progress!  Yes, I’m now showing off at being imperfect.)

All this perfectionist striving means you feel good about the end product, at least if you dedicated enough time to get to that point. But that’s the rub. It takes a long time to go through that process. That’s time that could be better spent addressing BIG items elsewhere. You’re trading time on the big important issues for time moving that button.

Why? Two reasons come to mind.

. . . (a) The idea that anything short of perfect is not good enough.

. . . (b) Little details are a lot easier! Sure, I could spend hours tweaking that photo, to get the size, colors and frame just right, but it’s a task that I know I can handle.  On the other hand, “revise business plan to maximize success in a recession” — well, that’s a lot more uncertain.

A few years ago, a friend told me that perfectionism was a problem to be overcome. This caught me off guard, since I’d always thought that doing the best possible job on everything was a good thing!

Now I can clearly see the problem.  On the other hand, I lose respect for people or businesses who do things in a sloppy way, and I know I’m not the only one.  What’s the answer?

Is it possible to  have perfectionism in moderation?  Or is that just an oxymoron?

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I’ve been away from posting for some time (sorry!) due to having too many projects going on.  Of course, I don’t want to share any of them until they’re finally perfect, but since I am making progress on this front, you can expect to see some mistakes soon!
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