How To Stop Being A Perfectionist And Fail Your Way To Success

How To Stop Being A Perfectionist And Fail Your Way To Success

Hey, it’s Matt with operationawesomelife.com.  I’m going to shoot a video today about how to stop being a perfectionist and fail your way to success.

[Video Transcript] Everyone that is ever going to be successful or that is already successful has at least once in their life dealt with being a perfectionist. It comes with the territory.

If you want to do something great in this world, then chances are you are a perfectionist.  Or you’ve had perfectionist types of ways throughout your life.

I for one deal with perfectionism and focusing too much on that. It’s been an effort of mine to continue to get better at not being such a perfectionist.  And to just focus on getting better as I progress.  But not obsessing over making things absolutely perfect the very first time.

Testing Before Perfecting Leads To Success

You know, there’s a little story that I heard the other day about Porsche. They came out with a car. I can’t remember the model exactly, but it was actually a Volkswagen first. I think it was a 924 or a 944, one of those models. Anyways, it was supposed to be a Volkswagen.  But at the last second, they decided to make this car a Porsche.  So they stuck a Porsche badge on it.  They left the Volkswagen engine in it and everything, and released this car.

The car was not very fast. It wasn’t a typical Porsche, and a lot of people did not like that about it.  But they sold some cars.

What did they do? They continued to perfect that model by increasing the horsepower and engine size.  Porsche made it a better car, and it became a successful model.

They didn’t worry so much about putting this absolutely perfect model out on the streets the first time.  The goal was to just put a car out there.  They wanted to test it out and see if people even liked the car in the first place.

80% Of Perfect Is Enough To Succeed

I think that is a really good philosophy to live by. That is to test things and not worry about making sure everything is 100% perfect before you even test. Many times, once we put it on the market, we realize that no one even likes it in the first place. So we wasted all this time and energy. We should’ve just tested it out first.  This would have shown us the best way to continue on before we put in the extra effort perfecting the model.

I think it’s a good idea for us to recognize that things don’t need to be perfect the first time. In fact, if they are perfect the first time, chances are you’re putting way too much time and effort into it to make sure it’s a perfect model the very first time.

You know a lot of times, 80% of the job is more than enough. 80% of perfection is more than enough, and most of the time, people won’t even notice the extra 20%.

Setting Yourself Up To Fail By Being Too Perfect

If you put something very high quality out on the market, or with anything, with your fitness or anything in life, if you try to be too perfect from the get-go, you’re going to struggle. But if you put something that’s really high value out at the beginning and you work to get better all the time you will accomplish much more.

Let’s say that you are someone that’s never worked out in your life before, and now all of a sudden, you’re trying to be 100% perfect. This is your attitude, “I’m going to go the gym six days a week, sleep eight and a half hours every night, and drink a gallon and a half of water in every single day. I’m going to eat this many meals. I’m going to have vegetables with every meal, no sauces, no butter, no cheese or flavoring on my meat. It’s just going to be super clean, no carbs, 100% perfect.”

If you do that, and you’re someone that’s never worked out before, you’ve never dieted before or paid attention to your nutrition, then chances are you’re going to burn out fast. And you’re going to go, “This is not even worth it. Why in the world would someone want to live this way?”

Because you just went from eating Snickers bars, chilling on the couch, and hanging out. Now all of a sudden you’re working out every single day. You’re eating perfectly. You’re getting rid of all the things that you used to enjoy in your life. Chances are this is just not going to work out for you.

Perfect The Model As You Go, But Get Started!

On the other hand, if you started with one part of it, if you said, “You know what? My first goal is to workout this week one time.” Then the next week, “My goal is to workout three times this week.” Then work your way up to working out five days a week.

Then after you get the workout down, and you’re used to working out and doing it on a regular basis, it becomes part of your lifestyle. Then you can always increase your workout’s intensity. You can make sure that you’re getting more vegetables in your diet, make sure you’re getting more sleep. Your overall lifestyle is more healthy.

The same thing goes with business.  If you’re trying to work on a new project, try to get that product to market as soon as possible. Don’t focus so much on making sure it’s the absolute perfect product from the very get-go. If you do that, you’re probably going to be very disappointed and you might expect greater results at the beginning than you really should. A lot of times, it takes way more time to perfect something than it does to make it really good.

So if you make something really good to start out, and you put it out, chances are you’re going to have success with it anyways. You don’t have to make it absolutely perfect the very first time. There’s always going to be time for you to go back in and perfect that model, so to speak.

I think it also really helps you to keep momentum in your life. If you are constantly improving your fitness, business, or whatever it’s going to make you feel great. So starting off making something really good and then improving little by little is a really great model and is something that I’m striving to focus on more so in my life.

Fail Your Way To Success

Another thing to consider is the concept of “fail your way to success.” By failing the first time, you’ll learn what you need to do to succeed the second time. And failing is a necessary experience along the way to success.

A lot of people seem to be very afraid to fail.  And that’s what fuels their perfectionism and makes them want to make sure their project or their plan is perfect from the get-go. In reality, what’s even more important is just getting started, and making the first step.

If you make the first step and you continue to fail, you’re going to get closer to success every step of the way. Because you learn the little things that need to be adjusted, just like Porsche realized they needed to build a little more powerful motor for the car that was originally supposed to be a VW.

If you follow that model of “failing a little bit to your way to success,” I think it’s going to help you to get started and stop over-analyzing things so much.

I hope you guys have enjoyed this “How To Stop Being A Perfectionist And Fail Your Way To Success” video blog post.

If you haven’t already, check out this other recent post titled: “Take Responsibility For Your life – You Vs. You Motivation!”

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Tony Robbins’ Unleash The Power Within was an invaluable resource that has helped me to overcome my perfectionism.  I would highly suggest checking out what he has to offer on his site.  You can see it here.

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