The Upside of Imperfection

What Gary Vaynerchuk taught me about starting.

We’ve been sold this idea of perfection, as if it exists, and the only reason we haven’t personally attained it is because we aren’t good enough.

I’m here to set one thing straight:

Perfection is a fallacy.

It doesn’t actually exist. This makes the concept of perfect not only an unrealistic expectation, but it can become harmful for our mental wellness if we continue to impose it on ourselves and others.

Unfortunately this is easier said than done because our attraction to perfection has been deeply implanted into our psyches.

Like many others, I personally suffer from Perfectionism paralysis (PP).

Guess how long it took me to stop reading about starting a business and actually START the business?

7 years.

I was stuck in a job that didn’t welcome my full potential. This means it wasn’t challenging, or interesting in the least, which I found depressing because I knew I was capable of more. More important and purposeful work, more money, and more freedom to choose.

Reading about starting a biz became a great source of pleasure for me. Like a dream I was contributing to, even if the seeds of doubt cloaked my conviction and stunted my conviction to execute the endless plans that I was making.

Then I finally read ‘Crushing it’ by Gary Vaynerchuk.

The moral of the book was to ignore the sweet seductive pull of perfection, and start before my plan was perfect.

Just start.

Have an idea? TRY IT.

Like something? Cool, run with it, see what happens.

Start when it’s messy.

Start when you only have a semblance of a plan & a dream.

3 quotes

If only one of your 15 ideas succeed, that’s still better than 99% of your friends who never start a single idea.

This told me to keep coming up new ideas that excite me. The time will pass anyway, I might as well try some of these ideas out while I’m still alive right?

Skills are cheap. Passion is priceless. Don’t chase money. If your only goal is money, you’re always going to want more and you’ll never be happy.

Every other business book told me the opposite, that being multi-passionate was a fatal flaw. Vaynerchuk calls bull shit and I needed to hear it. This gave me the courage to ignite an inner-fire that wildly set my passions ablaze into the world to ski what happens.

Forget yesterday, last week, last month; forget that girl, that time, that boss, that time… there’s work to do and passions to pursue. Let’s go!

This told me that anyone can learn a skill, but passion is RARE! It also helped me let things go. Some people get lost in their past stories, turning them into a scrips that they act out over and over again to anyone that will listen. This is called being stuck in victim consciousness, a term coined by Dr. Barry K. Weinhold. When something horrible happens to us, we have two options, we can process the emotions and then let it go, or we can play it over and over again on a loop feeling more and more sorry for ourselves while simultaneously annoying the living daylights of our family and friends.

Vaynerchuk says Let it go. Nobody cares, don’t let your story become a rerun of a terrible episode of your life.

If we ever receive the rare honor and privilege to find something that we actually feel passionate about, we should go for it.

The sheer joy of pursuing passions makes life worth living.

It’s simple – when we dwell on the past, we will never move forward.

Letting go of perfection is challenging because anxiety and rumination are like pre-op conjoined twins.

I had to find a way to get out of my own way, & rewrite the story of inadequacy that kept me stuck.

Years of my life wasted, insecure, unhappy yet unable change. My fear of failure exceeded my hope of succeeding and that was the source of my misery.

Look, the person you are meant to be might be stuck behind the haze of discontent that consumes so many of us.

I truly believe that letting go of the belief in perfection has radically changed my life for the better.

As humans beings we are naturally imperfect. This is evident physically as we all have one side of our bodies a bit longer than the other; and mentally, because our brains brilliance may cause our thoughts to shift from persistent to obsessive.

So don’t focus on perfection, focus on adaptability. Have a contingency plan and be ready to whip out plan B, C and D if necessary.

Don’t let perfect get in the way of done.

1. Are you a recovering perfectionist too?
2. What scares you most about pursuing your dreams?