When you’re about to launch your business (or, if you’ve already launched your business but are working on a new initiative), you’ll spend a lot of time planning, strategizing, and trying to make sure everything is just right before you pull the trigger. This is good, but like in many situations, too much of a good thing can become problematic. If perfectionism creeps into your process, it can lead to costly delays, do-overs, or worse, prevent progress entirely. This is not to say that you should act hastily and recklessly, but if you wait too long you can really set yourself behind. 

        The most intricately devised ideas never survive contact with the real world completely unscathed, so it may be better to just move forward and adapt your plans to what happens rather than spending countless hours trying to anticipate every single pitfall you might face. Imagine for example you’re working on some video content to market your business. You’re paying someone to develop it for you, and although they might be game to do some extra work without charging you, if you keep going back to the drawing board looking for perfect results, eventually it’s going to cost something. And ask yourself, is a video that’s 15% better going to result in 15% more sales? Likely not. There’s a chance that a video 15% worse might not even have an impact! You could be throwing extra money into a project for no result. There is a hidden cost here, too: opportunity cost. The longer it takes for that video to hit the internet, the greater the possibility that you’re missing out on being in front of some eyeballs who would be interested in your services. “Done” is better than perfect.

        Perfectionism also has a psychological component that you should be wary of: using perfectionism as an excuse for procrastination. Delaying the finish of a project because it’s not perfect. Is it because it isn’t perfect or is it because you’re afraid to actually move forward? A project on the back burner for too long has the potential to never happen at all. Maybe it’s better to launch a little earlier and messier than trying to polish things to perfection for an extra couple months. Life is unpredictable and has a way of punishing those who wait too long. At Online SuperCoach, we’re here to help you navigate the boundary between where improvement is truly necessary and where perfectionism is getting in the way of you building the business you’ve always dreamed of.