How often do you put off creating or posting or declaring something as done because it doesn’t feel good enough? How many more projects, posts, or articles would you have under your belt if you had just said “good enough” and hit publish after initial creation?
We often feel like we need to create something amazing before sharing it with the world. This is untrue and this false belief holds us back from both creating and improving.
Practice publishing your first draft. It doesn’t need to be great, it just needs to be done. Get it out the door. Now, iterate on it. Ask for feedback, see how much engagement and views your project or post gets. Iterate based on feedback not feeling.
It’s so common to feel like we need to make changes or that we should do better, but the facts may be completely different. We may have hit gold with our first draft and all the edits afterwards have made our work less impactful. Or maybe there are some areas we can improve on but they aren’t the areas we were focusing on.
It’s hard to know what actually needs to be improved upon and what we are simply nitpicking due to an expectation of ourselves to make something perfect. The only way to overcome this is to share your work once it’s done and let feedback tell you what should be changed. Iterate on your project or post based on feedback. Don’t wait until your work is perfect, share it as soon as it’s done. Then, iterate upon it to make it better based on feedback.
It’s important to establish a clear definition of done when you start something so that you don’t trick yourself into holding onto it longer than necessary due to perfectionism. Once you have established your definition of done, you know when to stop and share what you’ve created. Lock your perfectionist tendencies in a steel cage and just share it.
Feedback and iteration go hand in hand and help you improve your project much more efficiently than trying to nitpick and tweak it all by yourself. We always view our work with a much more critical eye than pretty much anyone else. Let go and share your work as soon as it’s complete and let your network share any feedback they might have. Depending on what it is, you may not need to make any iterations for the time being and can free yourself up to work on something else. If you do receive feedback, you now have a good idea of what should actually be changed and improved upon.
Iteration is much more important and will help you improve and learn a lot more than trying to make everything perfect the first go around. Focus on learning to let go and share your work once it meets your definition of done not your unrealistic standards of perfection. You’ll learn and grow a lot more and you’ll have a lot more to show for it.
Bonus! Asking for feedback, incorporating it, and iterating on your project also gives you the opportunity to engage more with your audience/network and strengthen your connections. Always a plus!
Go out and share your work! Iteration is the new perfect.
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