Perfection is a Limitation — Growth is Messy, But It’s The Only Way to Do What Others Can’t

“Perfect is the enemy of good; shipped is better than perfect.” — Seth Godin

If you truly want to do what others can’t, be willing to do what others aren’t as willing to be.

Be yourself. Be real. Be open. Be ready to own your growth — which means owning mistakes, shortcomings, even failures. Be willing to own who you are, what you believe, and the sense of purpose and mission that drives you.

Be ready to drag out your soapbox, but more importantly, be compassionate and more ready to put it away. Be more ready to listen, to understand, to comprehend, to learn, and to challenge your own comfortable reality.

“No one wants to hear about the perfect person — because you can’t relate. Yet most of us try to put on a perfect facade for our audiences, thereby alienating the real men and women we are trying to reach. Conversely, as soon as the audience knows you’re not perfect, that you have character flaws, then they will start to empathize with you. They’ll like you more because you are like them: not perfect.” (Russell Brunson, DotCom Secrets)

To be honest, I wrestle with perfectionism. Mostly in my writing, my desk is a miracle of barely contained chaos more often than not. But that’s another story for another time.

I like the sense of control perfection lends me. But, it’s just a lie. A nice one with a promise, but like the mirage of water in a blistering hot desert, it’s a dangerous lie. A façade. An illusion. In fact, perfection is worse than a lie, it’s a limitation.

We hinder ourselves from our fullest potential and better opportunities for growth by pursuing perfection. Perfection freezes you up, whispers things like, “you’re not good enough” or “you can’t do that” or “That’s no good.”

Perfection is a roadblock and an enemy to what you’re capable of.

“Think in terms of progress, not perfection.” (Jocelyn K. Glei, 99U, Maximize Your Potential)

Here’s the truth.

Perfection is a lie that limits you. But progress — developing a growth mindset, looking for the lessons in the challenges, asking questions, studying up, finding your way over, under, and through — is the truth.

The reality of life? It is messy at best, chaotic even. There are more things out of our control than it, but yet legacies are forged from imperfect lives. The echoes of greatness? The sturdiness of Promethean fires built by our ancestors? Those are passed down from imperfect hands to imperfect hands. To continue the work, to carry on, to push forward.

Life at its most fundamental elements is a story of struggle, of continual change and the constant challenge to defy the odds and to adapt.

Whatever you’re facing, you can overcome. Think of all the miracles of happy chances that came together like a tapestry of chaos driven to a unifying purpose to forge you from the fires of a thousand billion suns exploding in the aeons before you were even a thought. The echoes of not only the big bang but every star-bang after lives inside your every heartbeat.

There’s a song to the mystery of your life that no human ear can comprehend but every ear can hear. If you listen close enough. Are you listening?

And in that song is the constant challenge for you to rise up, push back, dare and defy, and to live your imperfect life as well as you can.