I once served briefly under a boss who always expects perfection. In fact, from his mentality, if you will not get it done perfectly, then do not start it at all. He would wait for the perfect time to take steps, will only do what would give him the perfect result. However, all these expectations of perfection were counterproductive because they demotivated people from even taking any step. He ended up achieving almost nothing throughout his short tenure until he was removed for lack of productivity. A lot of people are like that - they believe that they must get everything excellently right before they can make a move and they end up not moving at all. What matters is that you are getting things done, do not worry much about perfection because it is not a state but a process.
It is true that the world we live in celebrates perfection, but you also need to understand that the perfection will not fall from the sky, neither will it be gifted to you. It is by making a move from where you are at the moment and keep practising, even with the imperfections in and around you, that you will drew near to perfection. Of course, how will you hope to master or perfect on what you have not practised? I have come to realise that one of the things that discourage people from taking steps is the expectation of perfection - they expect perfection even before starting, and it can delay them from starting.
It is worthy to note that "done" is far better than perfection which never happens. Just to let you know, more often than not, perfectionism has its root in fear - that is, fear of not getting it done well, fear of failure, or failure of not knowing what the outcome will be. There are some people who think that if something is not flawless, then it is not supposed to be done. But they forget that nothing begins from perfection. Everything and everyone you see as successful today started from somewhere. If they kept expecting perfection, they may not start at all. Without getting started, then success might not be in view.
What determines success is not how perfect or flawless your first attempt is. What matters is that you have taken the first step and then you keep working on it and putting in more steps. Just to be very clear, choosing "done" over the expectation of perfection is not mediocrity nor reducing your standards, rather it is about favouring the journey and valuing the process, not only looking at the destination. Even in your place of work for example, you will agree with me that when it matters the most, they will give the task to the person who is available and who they know will take the step, rather than someone who is capable but will never be available nor take the step.
When you see two people who have ideas to start business. If one person starts with a very simple version of their idea, and the other person takes years to plan and never take any action, who will you think will achieve success? When you have taken a step towards an idea, no matter how small or flawed the step may appear, you are better than someone who have been waiting to have a perfect start but never made any move. What brings the result is not what you intend to do but what you have actually done. For example, having a 5mins daily workout exercise is far better than having 30mins ideal exercise which never happened. Writing a paragraph each day is far better than waiting for when you will write the entire book at once and end up not writing any.
You need to know that you are human, you are not flawless and you are not perfect. When you embrace this human nature, you will begin to take steps without fear of mistakes. Even if mistakes happen, you will learn from them and they will make you better. So start with what you have. Remember that you can only get better when you have started.
Thanks for reading
