Wrap it up. Get it done. Finalize. Ship it. Share your work. Put it Out There
You have a great idea. You nurture it, develop it into a tangible product, and make the first version of what is going to be amazing. At least in your head. Right now, it is not perfect. Not yet, you are telling yourself. You polish it, fix what seems to be the problem. You take a step back and look at your work. It looks better, doesn’t it? Ah, and then there is this other thing. You fix that too. And that other thing. You keep improving your product, but this just does not seem to end.
Your friends and colleagues ask about what it is that you are working on. You tell them about this amazing thing that is on the way. Your book, a movie, or a painting. Maybe it is some innovative project at work. A product of your creativity. Just wait, you tell them. Once it is ready, you will see it. It is going to be great.
The work brings you joy. You keep polishing, keep improving, keep tinkering and tweaking. But there is no end in sight. If only I get this part of it done, you tell yourself. And that part. Almost finished.
Then doubt starts creeping in. What if this is not as good as I think? What if everyone hates it? What if they laugh at me? Fear of failure, of criticism, can be paralyzing. Polishing becomes an excuse for not revealing your product. It is not ready, you keep telling yourself. It will be at some point, but it is not yet.
Sounds familiar? How many brilliant ideas have been killed before being released to the world? How many products never saw the light of the day? Before being tried and tested? Before any feedback could be given? Guess what, it is not just us, mere mortals. One of the best Russian writers Mikhail Bulgakov famously burned the manuscript of his The Master and Margarita after two years of work. Luckily for all of us, he then worked on it again from scratch.
You have got to wrap it up. Ship it. Get it done.
You would not start anything if you did not mean to finish it. As Seth Godin put it, in creative work, “If it doesn’t ship, it doesn’t count”. Right now, I have 40 article drafts on Medium. No one knows about them. No one cares. Unless they are finalized and published, they are not making any impact. So, it is important not to leave things in the drawer.
You need to develop two habits.
Firstly, become the person who delivers. Finalize and get it out consistently. This is not to say you need to rush it. But don’t be stuck with a product that you are endlessly perfecting. Set a deadline. Commit to getting it out there. It might feel like you are compromising on quality, but a good product delivered is infinitely better than a perfect product no one has ever seen. Having the discipline of wrapping things up will beat perfectionism ten times out of ten.
You need to realize that if you finalize this product, you are then free to move on to the next one. There is the freedom that comes with shipping.
Drop perfectionism, focus on making a difference. Most of what any one of us produces does not require perfection, but action. It helps to define what makes your product finished. What is perfect? What would make you satisfied with the product?
Here is an analogy with chess. The best chess players are not the ones that make perfect moves, but the ones who come up with the best moves possible in the limited time allotted for a match. You may make a lot of perfect moves, but one horrible one will lose you the game. If you don’t manage your time properly, you end up in time trouble and might rush and make weak moves, or even lose on time. So either you learn to adjust the quality of your moves against the time available, or you never get good at chess.
Life is no different.
Make it a habit.
Second, embrace the discomfort associated with wrapping up the product and letting others see it. Trust yourself, trust your process. Trust that even the worst-case scenario — complete failure — will teach you things and in the long run be more valuable than sitting on the product indefinitely. Austin Kleon notes that when you share your work with others, you receive an education in return.
Ask yourself — what am I afraid of? Negative feedback? Damage to reputation? Disappointing someone? What is the worst that can happen? Once you visualize failure, it might help realize failure is not that scary.
Rather than second guess yourself, construct a process of how you plan to react to feedback, to the actual evidence of the impact of your work. That is what you need to concentrate on, rather than your fears and insecurities.
Worrying is normal. Here, though, is another quote from Seth Godin: “Anxiety is practicing failure in advance.” The only thing anxiety does is prevent you from moving forward. It does not help you, it does not protect you from failure.
If you feel you have these two things under control, you are on the right path. Deliver your product, and switch to the next project. Get things done, get things moving. Share your work with the world.
Finally, read Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. That is one book I would strongly recommend if you have difficulties moving forward.
Good luck!
