If You’re Waiting Until You’re Perfect…
Unless you realize you’re perfect just the way you are, your perfection will stop you from accomplishing the most amazing feats in life.
Our waiting until we have the right idea, the right thing to say, the right moment, to better our writing, or until we think we can make a difference is at the heart of procrastination. Procrastination due to perfectionism is irrational thinking (Cohen, 2005).
I speak from many years of experience. For instance, I have been waiting to write on Medium for the last six months because I had nothing brilliant to share. I couldn’t think of a thing that would propel me into people’s lives with the impact of a great sage or magnanimous prophesier.
I needed to wait until I had something to say that mattered as if what I have to offer does not. I wanted my writing to be so energised it would bring me to my feet and everyone else to the great awareness. Wha that great awareness was I had no idea. However, when it brought me to my feet I would then start running marathons and triathlons with no need for practice, preparation, or preparedness. Now mind you, I was writing not running, but somehow my mind was conflating mind preparedness with physical aptitude. Ridiculous right? Of course, it is. This thought is completely irrational.
Waiting for perfection without action and practice is a fool's addiction. So why do we do it? Is it the fear of failure? Is it the vulnerability of action? Is it embarrassment, shame, or lack of confidence? I promise you, nothing is worse than not walking through the fear, vulnerability, embarrassment, shame, or negative self-talk? Because there is no way around any of it. There is only through all of the feelings and moving in action. The feelings that are not real. The feelings only have as much power and value as you give to them. The price of inaction is regret.
The greatest mitigator of regret is action. Whatever happens, even in the worst of circumstances, is not the final arbiter of truth either. In addressing your dreams and desires with consistent, positive action you will know your truth, your self-realised empowerment, and your personal accomplishments.
The world has so much to gain from all those perfectly imperfect people that do not wait to impart on others the gift of what they have to say. Those imperfect people in action bring knowledge, inspiration, truth, and the flavor and feeling of life. It is the irrational, perfectionist frozen people that are stuck mute. The rational, self-forgiving, and inaction individuals who know the strength of empowerment and the tenor of their voice.
Today I have moved from the irrational to the rational, the perfectionist to the imperfect, from saying nothing to saying something. My wish is that it mattered as much to you as it has to me.
Cohen, E. D. (2005). Absolute nonsense: The irrationality of perfectionistic thinking. International Journal of Philosophical Practice, 2(4), 1–12.
