Forget Perfection. Do Your Reps First

2 simple tips that changed my life…

Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash

As a first-timer in any field, your priority should be practice, not perfection.

I remember back when I started learning to play chess.

My elder brother and I would play one game for hours. We felt investing so much time playing one game was justified because “chess is a mentally tasking game.”

One day, we met two brothers who never play a game for more than five minutes.

We were stunned! We couldn’t imagine playing a complete game of chess in under five minutes. At the same time, I found it funny because at times I used two whole minutes to decide on my next move.

How on earth was I now supposed to finish a game in under five minutes?

To answer that they gave us 2 tips:

1. As a newbie chess player, focus on playing as many games as you can.

2. As a newbie chess player, don’t overthink any move. Prioritize practice over perfection.

These two tips revolutionized my life beyond the chessboard.

What was the idea?

The idea that undergirds both tips is that the more you do something, the better you get at it.

My brother and I were using the time it would have taken us to play twelve chess games to play a single game. Think about it!

We failed to realize that perfection is a product of consistent, recurring practice.

Perfection is a product of consistent, recurring practice.

Route to mastery!

As you continue to work on improving yourself and commit to learning new skills, you will step into new and unfamiliar fields.

However, regardless of what new fields you get into or what new skills you decide to learn, understand that your route to mastery is the same everywhere. That is, consistent, recurring practice.

The implication, therefore, is that you must be comfortable making mistakes, learning on the go, and making adjustments as you go on.

Case study:

If you are a newbie Youtuber for instance, your focus shouldn’t be on making perfect YouTube videos.

Instead, you want to task yourself with getting acquainted with your new platform and making as many videos as you can.

James Clear wrote: “Whenever you put in consistent work and learn from your mistakes, incredible progress is the result.”

Prioritize practice over perfection!