The One Mistake I Made That Stopped Me From Success

You’ve got a great idea, and when it comes to putting it in place, you want to get everything absolutely right from the start.

Makes sense, doesn’t it?

What if I told you that the hours you spend perfecting your product are costing you more time and money than you could possibly imagine?

At the start of my entrepreneurial journey, I chased quick wins and sales for months, if not years, before realizing that I needed to start thinking about the bigger picture — slow down, and treat the business like a real business.

Are You Drowning In The Smaller Details?

The problem then was that I overcorrected. I thought that to succeed from now on, I needed everything to be perfect.

So I made sure my website was “SEO friendly”. I spent hours agonizing over graphics, and the position of my headline — down to the pixel.

My mistake was that I was caught up, drowning in the details.

But then I read something which totally shifted the way I was thinking about things:

“You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.” — Mike Litman

Perfectionism is Stopping you

When I made my first course, I wanted to get it right. I was obsessed with making sure everything was perfect. And that’s why it took me months, not weeks (which it should have), to get it going.

You probably have an idea about how you want your business to look.

• Perhaps one of the things you feel you have to do is hop on and engage on all social media platforms — Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest — and reaching every possible audience.
• You feel like you need to have all the features ready for your software, app or tool.
• You feel like you have to have the latest and greatest camera to start recording videos to post on YouTube.

I’m putting my hand up to all of the above since I am guilty.

The truth is, you don’t need to start with all of them.

Like me, your ambition can make you forget you are only one person. The truth is, you can start small. Using the social media platforms example, simply choose one or two platforms where your audience is “hanging out”. If your niche is visual, then Instagram would be a great start.

How To Use The “Get It Going” Mantra In Practice

When I relaunched this blog, I had one post only.

No About page. No landing page. No 5-day email course. No products for sale. Just one post.

Imagine how much longer it would take me to launch my blog if I had waited to do all that. It’s a formula for procrastination.

Now, if you noticed, I’ve got an About page and 5-day email course.

So, again, you don’t need to have everything ready at the start.

“Don’t Get It Right” Doesn’t Mean Putting Out Crap

The “don’t get it right, get it going” mantra doesn’t mean just throwing out as much work as you can and hope for the best — you still need to put out your best stuff.

But by working on just one thing, you’ll have the time to make sure the work you do on it is solid.

Getting It Going Builds Momentum

As humans, we naturally want to feel a sense of achievement.

When you start by tackling even one small part of your project you feel great.

It’s that momentum that will lead to goals being tackled.

Progress Equals Results

Aim for the minimum viable product instead. The minimum viable product is a product with just enough features to satisfy early customers, and to provide feedback for future product development.

As you progress you’ll start to see what works and what doesn’t, because everything is out there, in the real world.

Successful brands and businesses started from nothing, then refined as they received customer feedback and understood their marketplace more.

The Takeaway

Don’t try to get everything right straight away.

Take your website or Facebook page or e-commerce site live. Little by little, increase its usability, add plugins and produce content.

Not only will your business start making its impression on users, you’ll have real-world data and experience to tell you where and how it can be improved.

But the only way you’re going to get there is to START.

Originally published at www.aureliustjin.com.