What are you waiting for?
Are you waiting for the time to be right?
Are you waiting for enough uninterrupted time?
Are you going to keep waiting, all the while feeling bad about not doing anything?
When you chase perfection, you just set yourself up for unnecessary stress, and it is all too often used as a form of procrastination.
Accept that there will never be a perfect moment when you will feel completely ready.
It’s not about waiting for the time to be right. It’s about taking action because your vision is worth it.
Here are 5 ways to curb perfectionism and procrastination at the same time.
- Do something.
And if it is not perfect, focus on the fact that you actually took action. The crucial step in breaking the cycle of perfectionism is to simply start doing things. My clients know them as Small Sweet Steps.
- Re-examine your standards.
My guess is that you are overly critical of yourself. Right?
OK, do this exercise often – pretend your friend is asking your opinion about their performance at a certain task or the results of a project. What would you say? I bet if your results or performance where the same as theirs, you would not be as critical on them as you would be on yourself.
- Look at the big picture.
Ask yourself if what you’re worried about,that thing that is stopping you from taking action, will matter next week, next month, next year? Probably not. So criticizing yourself over the situation won’t help either.
- Share your works-in-progress.
Yep, that’s right. Share the drafts that have mistakes and typos. Just make sure it’s marked “DRAFT”. Consider doing this as therapy that will help you fight the urge to make sure everything is perfect before anyone sees it.
- Set more realistic goals.
Instead of setting the goal “I will write a NYT bestseller” and then getting completely overwhelmed by this big, hairy, audacious dream and freezing up, break it down into manageable steps with reasonable timelines.
Then go back to #1 – Do something.
And remember – Whatever Your Goal or Dream…
WE Can Make it Happen.
