The Peril of Perfection

Perfection is a wonderful - albeit, impossibly elusive - concept. It is beautiful in movies and story books, but it just doesn’t show up in real life. In fact, perfection is a real problem, because Perfect is often the enemy of Done.

Some don’t care about perfection at all and have no drive or ambition to improve and progress. I have nothing for those people. But for the few of us that strive to make a positive impact during our short lives and seek to continually improve our value to others, perfection can be quite dangerous. Now, don’t misunderstand me, pursuing excellence is a noble and admirable endeavor. But excellence is different from perfection and too many of us neglect to deliver Excellence because we are waiting for Perfect.

The determined ambitious among us often suffer from POTA, Paralysis of the Analysis. We want to continue to tweak and adjust whatever we are working on to just make it a little bit more. Unfortunately this might prevent us from ever “shipping” our offering at all. Whether it’s a paper that could be just a little more articulate, a song that could sound a little sweeter, a painting that could be just a little more vibrant, a speech that could be a little more inspiring, a product that could be just a little cheaper or a presentation that could be a little more memorable, never sacrifice finished for flawless. The latter doesn’t exist and your creation may not either if you aren’t careful.

Excellence achieved is far more valuable than the theory of perfection. Deliver excellence and leave the pursuit of perfection to those who perfect ideas, but produce nothing.

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