“Perfection is the enemy of progress.” ― Winston Churchill
Obsessing over perfection is the best way to get nothing done. Focusing on the small nitty gritty details on everything you do hurts your progress tremendously and rarely adds that much more value to your work.
When you’re focused on the process of achieving the goal rather than the end goal itself, you work more consistently, more efficiently and build momentum that carries you to your goals more effortlessly. Perfection on the other hand, creates stagnation, which is the ultimate way to destroy motivation and momentum. Being fixated on the end result always leads to disappointment. Because in reality, nothing will ever be as perfect as you imagined it. Great ideas take a lot of time to flourish over multiple iterations.
The best way to focus on the process over the end result is the make sure you have great daily habits in place that will allow you to chip away at your goal every single day. Remember small progress is still progress; you’d be surprised how quickly small improvements compound and lead to a big end result. When you’re about 80% done, call it finished and move on. We typically spend nearly as much time finishing up the last 20% of our work as we did the first 80% without necessarily adding that much more value. The goal is to keep moving and never slow down over small details.
- Sal