You will never achieve perfection but here is why you can’t stop trying
The trending corporate motivational message that it is desirable to move fast and make progress instead of moving slow (not moving) to chase perfection is long overdue. Unsurprisingly, people's ability to execute the intent of the message perfectly hasn’t followed the mantra’s urgings to move with pace.
Here are explanations, based on my experiences, for why people continue to chase perfection instead of living in the freedom of making fast iterations of progress.
You try to evaluate or incorporate everyone’s ideas (too much collaboration or consensus) Everyone has ideas, and you might even find that everyone has excellent ideas. Waiting until you find the best combination of the best ideas or the single best idea doesn’t work. Pick a great enough idea and move forward. Add more great ideas to it in the future. You may find out that by doing the first thing, the next great idea will make itself apparent.
You lose focus on a clear definition of success (too broad or the wrong definition) If you’ve effectively defined success, you should feel confident in moving forward to deliver incremental progress. A simple definition of success includes what you will make better, what better looks like, and who you are making it better for. Memorizing a bunch of bullet points shouldn’t be required to confidently evaluate your success.
Adding too many “ands” to your definition of success prevents progress. Waiting for everything to do “this and that” isn’t always necessary for success.
An example. If your goal is to run a marathon, you can’t just start the race and get dropped at the finish line and say you successfully ran the race. You have to run each mile, as an incremental success. Therefore a marathon is achieved by successfully running 26.2 individual miles. Suppose you waited to attempt your first marathon until you figured out a way to run all 26 miles simultaneously. You would run just as many marathons as the person who never had a desire to run. ZERO.
You worry about everything equally, even the secondary things. There will always be a core set of things that you must get right in order for value to be realized. Think of the old 80/20 rule. 20% of the thing will create 80% of the value. As long as what you’re prepared to deliver has the 20% right, you can afford to learn and adjust the other 80%. Stay focused on the big things. Don’t let the little things become distractions. Recognize that almost everything is a little thing. Create your list of things you must get right, get them amazingly right, and then move forward.
You try to avoid upsetting others. Waiting until you feel like everyone will be happy with the output is stupid. Almost everyone hates change, even positive changes that will eventually delight them or improve their life. Not everyone adopts new ideas right away, even if they’re better (only 15% of people are early adopters). If you wait to move until you feel confident everyone will like it; you’re wasting time on an unachievable goal. Being liked is a terrible measure of success. I guarantee you will fail at making everyone happy, but it’s worth it.
You _______________ (your personal reason). This is something deeply personal and specific to you. I don’t know what it is, but you do. It’s the reason why when moving forward seems obvious, you pause and don’t move forward.
What it is matters, but why matters more. Your why is the 20% that is worth identifying and managing. Doing so will create 80% of the sustainable value. The what is the symptom. The why is the problem worth addressing. The why is what prevents you from moving imperfectly forward.
Conclusion.
Perfection is a myth. Perfection doesn’t exist. Chasing it is like looking for Bigfoot. It may seem like a fantastic idea because should you achieve perfection (or find Bigfoot), you’ll get lots of recognition. But the reality is no one ever finds Bigfoot, just like no human has ever achieved perfection. All searching for perfection (or Bigfoot) produces is wasted energy, wasted time, and disappointment. The better alternative is delivering impact through significant enough outputs followed by iterative adjustments towards even better outcomes.
Bonus concept
As soon as you release something new or change the existing environment, people must adapt their current behavior and expectations. And once behavior or expectations change, the thing that was once perfectly designed and crafted equally perfectly is no longer perfect. It was perfected for the old environment, not the new one being created. Therefore, perfection really is as elusive as Bigfoot.
Bonus content 2
Done shouldn’t be the end point. Fixed, different, better are the end points. Sometimes perfection is the result of believing you only get one shot. You need to allow yourself to take as many shots as needed.