Is Perfection Stopping You?

[JoeRagona]

`You`ve inspired me` is what I told my treasured friend last night after parting from our regular `mastermind` dinner.

We talk, laugh & cry just about everything and call each other out if needed - it`s awesome. Then she asked me `are you a perfectionist?` I sat back and said `yea, actually I am`.


She
asked me after telling her I was behind in doing some work I promised
someone over a month ago. And even though I could blame everything and
anyone else, "it's just too busy" that's BS...it REALLY IS because I`m a perfectionist.


But being a perfectionist holds me back ` in some areas. It sometimes delays the simple things because I feel people need to see the best, if I am
the best I say I am! (whew, that was hard to write, I can imagine how
you feel reading it!) Anyway, I`m sure you get what I mean.


Are you the same, do you need to wait until everything is absolutely perfect before you move on it?

It Affects Business

I
thought about this on the way home and realized this is also part of
the challenge with Real Estate investors who have not done anything yet.


I
can totally relate to someone who has a perfectionist personality
`over-analyzing` things and waiting for everything to be just right
before they step in and buy an investment. Sure, if you want to analyze
the underlying emotion, you can relate 'fear' even if it's the
simplicity of not pleasing THEMSELVES with the results of their work.

I`m Working On It

Although
I`m not 100% `cured`, I`ve certainly come a long way. As I told my
friend, I would have never agreed to putting myself on video for instance before `perfecting` my on-camera delivery, but I committed to helping my friend Shae Bynes as best I could and I was not about to cop-out using my perfectionist excuse.


Another example is this blog you are reading. The perfectionist in my says `wait until your page looks perfect, all your settings work, the colors match, the sponsors are on board etc``.
Yes, a lot has to be said for 'professional' appearance, but I believe
in the content I deliver and spend more time on sending my message than
worrying about how it compares to other sites. As time goes by, it
evolves and I keep things real.

What about our first investment property? Clearly, I made HUGE mistakes with this property as you can read here (by the way, you can also 1/02/CREMAG-Mar-2011.pdf" _mce_href="http://engagedinvestor.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/CREMAG-Mar-2011.pdf" target="_blank">see the article published in this month`s Canadian Real Estate magazine here) but the desire to
move forward outweighed the perfectionist in me. What I learned from
that experience could NEVER be taught and I may have also still be
looking for my FIRST property today.

As you can see, there are a lot of small affected pieces in your business and personal life if you are a perfectionist.


To
sum this up, I`m not suggesting you stop being a perfectionist and do
something without putting thought, professionalism and due diligence
into it. I`m saying scale back a little and when when things are
`good-enough`, DO IT. Yes, you WILL probably have to update, upgrade
and change things moving forward but in my opinion, the more you `grow` in front of people, the more `authentic` you are`and you know how I feel about authenticity!

 

[dplummer]

Joey, I find a couple of scotches & a cigar get me over it :>) Just kidding, Great post!



Doug

 

[housingrental]

Hi Joey

Really good post

Thanks for writing this

This is something I've had to, and to some extent always still trying, to work through... What's the saying - recognizing a problem is the first step?

 

[margaretcowan]

A great post!



Like you, I see perfectionism as holding ourselves back. It's one of the many symptoms of self sabotage, of doing ourselves in unconsciouly so we don't use all of our talents to benefit ourselves and others.



I agree fear is under perfectionism. I think we need to ask ourselves what the roots of our fears are, the roots of our self sabotage behaviour. Is it low self esteem and if so, why? Are there some emotional issues we haven't resolved yet and if so, how can we get past them? Once we get to the root causes, we can work on them and dissipate them so the symptoms disappear or at least become manageable.



Self sabotage is something I'm working on aggressively these days. I found 12 symptoms and 7 root causes for a Toastmaster talk I did. Often we teach what we need to learn, don't we?

 

[JoeRagona]

Hi Adam,



Thanks for the props my friend...you are absolutely correct - "admitting" the problem is half the battle

 

[JoeRagona]

Great words of wisdom Margaret, in reading your thoughts I agree, we DO teach many times what we need to learn. I'm no 'perfectionist' when it comes to not be a perfectionist



But, as I further my business and realize how many things are suffering, I change my approach. Top of my head, it was the websites, blog etc. For years I wanted the perfect visual and studied web design etc. Only last year did I say "forget that, I'm putting out content and working on the look later as it comes" once I began that my entire process began to change as well.



I'm glad you liked the post! Good to have you along!

 

[JoeRagona]

LOL - anything that works Doug, anything that works



Thanks Doug

 

[2ndstory]

A poor decision is often better than no decision at all.



Nik