Let’s face it, perfect is over rated and impossible to achieve. And striving for it will only serve to slow down your success and alienate a lot of people including your prospects and clients. You see, perfect means you are done, cooked, finished, finalized, complete. There is no more room for growth, no room to learn anything more, no room for new ideas and concepts. Perfect is a place of ending, not beginning.
Think about your life, haven’t you always learned the most from the SNAFU moments? Oh, you aren’t familiar with that acronym, here you go Situation Normal, All $%^&# Up. Hey I don’t have to fill in the blank do I? It is from our mistakes that we gain our greatest lessons, from our imperfections we that grow the most. I don’t ever want to stop growing because when I do it means I’m dying.
Relinquish your quest for perfection and replace it with a journey of lessons and growth. Here are three weird and wonderful reasons to welcome imperfection:
Past Perfect#1 Imperfection indicates you are still growing, changing, and yes, improving!
Imperfection gives you room to grow, room to change, room to be open to new ideas, philosophies, beliefs, and view points. Imperfection means you are ALIVE!
#2 Imperfection allows you get ideas, programs and products to market before they are built.
It’s about selling it, before you build it to make sure it is really what the market wants. When instead you go to all the time and trouble to “build it and the will come,” you often find yourself with a flop, instead of a blockbuster.
#3 Imperfection defines you as the human you are.
It is in our human experience that we connect the most with others. It is my sharing our weaknesses and exposing our vulnerabilities that others will find us most approachable and accessible. Perfect is simply too intimidating.
Let go of your perfectionist tendencies and strive for growth as a person, as a business, as a professional. It is not settling for good enough but instead embracing the amazing person you are in your delicious imperfection.
Share an imperfect moment here and the lesson you learned. We learn not just by ourselves but from others.
Oh and when you want to connect, send me a personal invite on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. I look forward to learning more and sharing my many imperfections!
I once built a website and I didn’t put an “add to cart” button, it only had a “buy now” button. So if a customer wanted to buy something, they had to purchase it right then and maybe come back to the site to finish looking around. I won’t even mention the extra shipping charges.
Carol,
Thanks for your share! Sounds like an important lesson was learned that’s what imperfection is all about.
HUgs, Melissa
Melissa, as a recovering “perfectionist” I give you a BIG AMEN for this article. My favorite tips are “…Imperfection indicates you are still growing, changing, and yes, improving!…Thanks!!!
Phyllis,
Glad to hear it! Yes, there are millions of us globally, imperfection makes life sweeter and business more human.
Hugs, Melissa