It’s good enough for now

Ever been working on a really important project and found yourself getting stuck and just not making the sort of progress you want to?  This was me a couple of years ago – I had something relatively straightforward to do, but ended up spending a WHOLE day on it – and at the end of that day, I still felt like I hadn’t got anywhere which made me feel really frustrated and unhappy with myself – in fact I was so frustrated I broke down in tears.

Once I started to see the wood for the trees, I remembered that this wasn’t the first time I’d got into this pattern, and that I would benefit from one of my own lessons!     So here’s a re-share of a video with the important message “it’s good enough for now”!

Watch the video below or scroll down to read the blog to find out more

Here’s what I shared in the video:

Back when I created the video I was in the process of creating some introductory training content for what was then a new membership site and I’d got my video kit all set up ready to do just that.

The membership was built around a pathway called “The 5 Stages of a Successful Heart-Centred Business” which enables me to take members on a journey from joining the membership through the stages to creating a genuinely successful and sustainable, heart-centred business, without compromising their values or integrity.

The next step of the plan was to create an introductory video training to talk people through these five stages of business, and share the things that I think are important to know and think about when it comes to starting and running a small business.

So far so good – Except I got stuck. Particularly on the first day I just didn’t seem to be getting any real momentum. I’d spent a day beforehand planning out what I wanted to say in the videos, but by the end of the day, I didn’t feel I’d made any progress, and was feeling incredibly frustrated.

I didn’t see what was happening until I went for a walk the next morning and realised that the reason I was getting stuck was because I had slipped back into some old perfectionist tendencies and that I had forgotten a very, very important mantra, which I leaned on very heavily during my first two years in business…

“Good enough is perfect”

If I hadn’t been able to live by this mantra “Good enough is perfect” during my first two years in business, I don’t think I would ever have run my first workshop. I wouldn’t have run my first webinar to sell my first online programme or made my first sales from a live talk.   I wouldn’t have created and delivered my first online programme, or run my first big live event, and I definitely wouldn’t have launched my first business mentoring programme.

I became comfortable (ish!) in those first two years with being willing to get moving and putting things out there even when things were not perfect and when I say they were not perfect, they were really not perfect. My branding and my online presence were nothing like they are today – honestly, they were terrible!  . I didn’t have the money, the resources, or the team to do things that looked glossy and professional. So everything was a bit cobbled together. I didn’t have the right tech set up. My course just used to sit on a page on my website instead of in a members area, I didn’t have a proper sales page. I used to run workshops without branded Powerpoints.  If I look back, much of what I put out there just didn’t look great – at all.

And I ALWAYS felt that my training content wasn’t “good enough”,  that I needed more time to get it better – yet I kept on launching courses and running live events anyway.

In fact in less than 2 years I did my first live talk to sell from speaking, ran my first webinar, created 3 separate online programmes, ran 4 live events and launched my first mentoring group.

So much of it was far from perfect, was not glossy, didn’t really have a look and feel that I was happy with and quite simply wasn’t  “good enough” according to my own high standards, yet I got on with it and took action.  And it was the action I took in those first two years of business that really propelled me forward to where I am now.

It was when I was out having a walk yesterday morning that it suddenly came to me that the reason I was struggling so much to create this video content was that I had managed to completely forget that all important early mantra to help me overcome my perfectionist tendencies.

But since then, there’s no going back and I’ve actually adapted my mantra a little to…

“Good enough for now”

So in this particular instance, I continued with recording my introductory content, but without worrying about whether it was perfect, whether I was getting the exact message across in the exact way I meant to, or worrying too much about the position or angle of the camera,  how it would look or whether there would be an awkward hesitation or a pause or somewhere where I stumbled over my words.

All of those places where I felt naturally inclined to go back and re-record, I said to myself, “Good enough for now, just keep going, keep recording. It’s good enough for now!”

There are 3 reasons it’s important we can get comfortable with “good enough for now”:

1. I can always change it later.

If I get it “good enough for now”, I can always come back and recreate this content later on.

2. I don’t want to delay things.

If I don’t opt for the mantra “Good enough for now” and I slip back into my perfectionist tendencies, there’s a very high chance that I won’t have my content created in time and it will delay the actual creation and build of new material for the membership site. That, in turn, will delay me being able to launch the membership on time, which will delay me being able to welcome in a new batch of members and give them the support in growing their businesses that I know I’m able to give.

3. My clients will be happy even if I’m not.

The other thing I need to remind myself is that when we are perfectionists, we have a tendency to not be completely happy with anything that’s less than a 100% of the quality we know we are capable of putting out there if we just worked harder, re-recorded it, made it a little bit more perfect. But actually, our clients are usually more than happy – even delighted – with what we would consider being 60% or 70% of our highest quality work. And so it becomes so much more important that we’re willing to put our work out there when it’s less than perfect in order that our clients can benefit from what we have to share.

Do you have perfectionist tendencies? Here’s a challenge for you.

When I made this video, I created it spontaneously because I got to thinking, “Well, if I really needed this reminder today and if I had fallen into this trap of tying myself up in knots and delaying getting a really important piece of work done because I was slipping into my perfectionist tendencies, perhaps you would benefit from the same reminder.”

So I’d like to ask you, what are you currently working on that you are allowing to be delayed or that you’re getting stuck on because of a tendency to want to get it perfect?

Can you commit to adopting the mantra “Good enough for now”, knowing that your good enough – is actually perfect for so many of the people who are going to benefit from it?  And also with the knowledge that you can go back at any time and improve it? For example, my first free giveaway on my website wasn’t great, but I got something up so I was growing my list –  and six months later I recreated it so that it was of a higher quality.   It was the same with my online course.  The first time I ran it I “got it out there”.  The second time I ran it I re-created it to be that little bit better – but at least I got started.

Also ask yourself:  What will be the impact to your business of continuing to delay this, rather than getting it good enough for now?

So here’s my challenge to you today…

What is “good enough for now” that you can actually get completed today or this week to keep you moving forward?   I look forward to hearing from you – just post in the comments below!

Create a Business you Love E-Guide

Because of my own journey on the way to creating a business that I love, I’m all about teaching you how to create a sustainable business that you actually enjoy running – rather than falling out of love with it along the way, and maybe burning out too.  In this guide I share the 4 key elements you need to consider if you are to create a business you can fall in love – and STAY in love with.

https://catherinewatkin.com/freeguide/