Progress Over Perfection

Perfection sounds like “If I fail, I’m done”. Progress on the other hand sounds like “Failure is an event, not a characteristic. I’ll start simple and iterate over time”.

As someone who is going through a career change, I’ve been spending the majority of my time trying to learn new skills and putting them into practice. I’d say that I know all too well about the devil that is perfectionism trying to take over this learning process.

If you have strict deadlines, you don't have an option to stall your submission just because you feel that your work isn't perfect, but it's exponentially harder to ditch the idea of perfection for those of us who don't have deadlines and are just trying to upskill.

For the longest time, I thought I had to be as good as a professional who has a ton of experience and my work should be nothing short of perfect. It took a lot of negative self-talk and months of feeling demotivated to realize that I couldn't be more wrong.

Here are a few things I've learned that might help you get started on the passion project you've been putting off because you think you're not good enough.

1. When you choose perfection over progress, your progress is pretty much non-existent. Perfectionism creates stagnation because you're scared to experiment and look stupid. As a result, it kills creativity.
   If you're not daring to be different, how far can you really go?
2. What you do as your first try or even the next ten tries is going to be very far from a masterpiece, but do it anyway, without worrying about the results. Will it get super frustrating at times and make you question your entire existence? most definitely. Show up despite that. Don't try to skip the journey and the trial and error process. Talent is nothing without refinement.
3. It's okay to make mistakes, in fact, they're your best friend.
   If you were perfect at everything, you wouldn't even have a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Forget ever learning anything or being excited to try something new. (You’ll be surprised how many inventions were made because somebody made a mistake)

Basically, perfectionism is a defense mechanism. If you have nothing to show, there's nothing people can pick on and criticize. You're safe.
But it's really not the end of the world if someone points out an error. If you're striving for progress, it can only help.

Focusing more on progress will not only produce better results but also keep your brain happy.