I’ve been accused by people of perfectionism, having high standards and being hard on myself and others. And those people are right, I do have high standards and I try to live at the highest standard, in fact I pride myself on it. I draw self esteem from it.
Some people consider perfectionism a problem. A problem they think they need to work on or solve. And it can be a problem, but it can also be the secret to your success, you just have to make it work for you.
How To Make Perfectionism Work For You
GSP, arguably the greatest pound for pound MMA fighter of all time, is an admitted obsessive with a single minded drive of being the best fighter in the world. And the tenacity to perform every new technique at least 1000 times.
Grant Cardone says be obsessed or be average and he’s right. Him and Tony Robbins are the kings of my industry and worth a fortune and still outwork the horde of 20 year olds coming for their crown.
Perfectionism = high standards + obsession. And to be great you have to have that mentality. The truth is, it’s only average people that see that as a problem. And that’s cool, everyone is created differently. But if you aspire to higher, perfectionism is necessary, to a degree.
It’s only when perfectionism isn’t channeled correctly that it’s a problem. In high school, I couldn’t finish my essays because they weren’t perfect. I’d spend hours obsessing, and often times not even start the essay until the night before.
Perfectionism, when not managed properly leads to paralysis. And in this day and age, with an excess of information, paralysis of analysis is the death blow for any project.
I recognized everything can’t be flawless or I’d never get anything done When an article is taking to long, or I can’t find the perfect words and logical sequence…
I just bang it out anyway because I know I have the rest of my life to come back to that concept.
The big mindset shift came from shifting to having to be perfect to accomplishing a result. I learned this in trading with the result of getting paid and doing whatever it took to make that happen, same thing in sales.
I have the soul of an artist naturally -my impulse is to create and pull flawless pictures out of what’s in my head.
But that got beaten out of me, from living in poverty, to trading, to sales, to failed businesses…
Being perfect isn’t my passion anymore, being effective is.
Because winning beats perfect 7 days a week and twice on Sundays.
Those standards are still there, and that not being satisfied is still there, and that artists soul is still there, but so is that ruthless, bottom-line-focused businessman. And half the time I let that businessman take the reigns.
And when you have those two things in balance, your standards for the goals and projects you want to accomplish, combined with the reality of getting sh*t done and executing – it’s a beautiful thing. At the end of the day it comes down to getting it done and being ok with good enough.
Or at least good enough for today, you always have another shot at flawless. The key is the 80/20 rule, if perfection is 100%, good enough is 80%. And because your standards are high, your 80% will still be better than most guys 100%.
And tomorrow is always another shot at 100%. At that flawless victory. But sometimes, for today, you have to be ok with good enough, with just getting it out, and getting something done today.
At the end of the day it’s about balance on one hand you aim for perfect, you aim for greatness, you aim to pull the intangible out of the ether and manifest it into reality…
But you also accept that reality is ugly and messy and commercial and that sometimes you just have to get it out there and be good with good enough.