Mastering the art of non-Perfection

I always try to resist striving for perfection. Perfection seems like a noble goal, but all too often it gets in the way of achieving excellence – sometimes achieving anything at all.

Take, for example, this blog which I decided to start writing two years ago. I had an outline sketch of the topics that I wanted to write about, I even wrote my first two blog posts. These posts I tweaked, re-wrote, and tweaked some more until I was happy with both of one. But I never got round to publishing either of them as I didn’t feel that I had got my narrative perfect. I wanted to have a perfect plan for how my blog would develop overtime, how each post could relate to one of my previous ones. I didn’t want to publish something that did not perfectly fit my style, my voice.

At the time I did not consider that a better approach would be to allow my writing to be influenced by my daily experiences. To write about thought topics that I felt strongly about, and so allow my blog to have a more organic feel to it.

I was too concerned about perfection that I forgot that a skill has to be practiced before any level of proficiency can be reached. Had I been publishing regularly I would have spent the last two years perfecting my voice.

So what was the consequence of my strive for perfection? Well, on the face of it all, very little – only the delayed publication of this blog. The real answer, however, is that I do not know what the consequences are. We can never fully anticipate the consequences of our actions, or lack thereof. In failing to publish my blog I may have closed a door of opportunity.