And that reminds me of the best advice I got early on as an author and speaker with my own training company. But this advice applies to everyone.
The advice was, “done is better than perfect.”
I’ve actually heard it said many times since. But the first time was like handcuffs coming off and being freed.
I have written and published dozens of books at this point for myself and others and without that advice, I am not sure how many (if any) would have made it out into the world.
Our book Go for No! had plenty of flaws including a horrible cover which we later changed.
Unfortunately, even with several proofreads by multiple people, almost every book we’ve released still came out with a typo or some other weird mistake. (Isn’t it fun watching the outtakes from a movie?)
Even projects that didn’t have obvious errors, could have been better.
- Organized differently.
- More effective choice of words.
- A tighter edit.
- More creative.
But then I recall that advice. And, what it means is, I can go around and around with the content, edit and edit and edit… until the dawn of time.
Or, I can hit the publish button and start selling books.
And that’s what we’ve done. And because of that, we’ve sold hundreds of thousands of books over the last 20 years.
This goes for any project.
You can spend your life trying to create the “perfect” thing and for someone, it still won’t be what they want. Or, you can focus on getting that creation out into the world so it has a chance to help, inspire, or impact others. They’ll never know what it “should have” been.
And, you can always fix the mistakes later. That’s why all the software and tech companies have “updates.” They are fixing flaws as they go!
Done is better than perfect.
If you want to create something remember, “Better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly.” – Robert H. Schuller
Comments? Please let me know your thoughts. And if you liked this post, please share! – AW
Have you read Go for No! yet? Pick it up at our store here on our website or on Amazon if you prefer. And if you want to write your own book, get Million Dollar Book Formula, our book about books!