Are You Waiting For Everything to be Perfect to Take Action?

I seem to have used the quote "if a thing is worth doing well it is worth doing not so well at first" quite a few times this month. Looks like a recurring theme to me.

If life is a journey then it seems to me that we should always be moving forward along the path. However some people try to become perfect in what they want to do first before starting out. That's like wanting to be a world-class figure skater and not entering the local competitions. That reticent can hold us back, and as we all know practise makes perfect. The perfectionists amongst us want to ensure that we have everything covered before stepping outside of our comfort zone. But it is outside the comfort zone that we all flourish. In fact if we never step outside that comfort zone we never learn, or improve.

Sometimes this entails a chunk of self-honesty – being real with ourselves. On page 68 of my book Remembering Perfection I tell a story about a client who had to own up to his hesitancy about stepping out of his comfort zone and getting his business going. Even his practise clients were not turning up for the session, mirroring back to him his own reticence. As we worked together he began to see that he was holding back from starting, that he was avoiding getting going because of his fear to step into a new space in his life; if he could just get better at this bit then he could get going.

That need for everything to be perfect is a protection for our heart, it can be challenging to put ourselves out there on the line but when you do it and you grow and learn you are one step closer to doing it even better. How good does that feel?!

As I was thinking about this I was reminded that I have been giving presentations for a few years now and the presentations I give now are miles better than when I started. Does that make the first ones I did wrong or bad? No, people enjoyed them, got what they came for and I learnt each time I stepped up and spoke. Just think how much experience I would have missed had I insisted that I be perfect before I started.

Is there something in your life that you are holding back from? Something that you are telling yourself; just one more book to read, just one more course to take, just one more piece of understanding or knowledge before I get going with what I truly want to do? Would now be a good time to stop doing that? If you want some support why don't you drop me a line and we can have a chat about it. Life is a journey, step by step by step.

Source: Jessica McGregor Johnson