According to Winston Churchill, “The maxim ‘Nothing but perfection’ may be spelled ‘paralysis’.” As a recovering (and struggling) perfectionist myself, the English statesman’s words definitely makes sense. Perfectionists demand absolute flawlessness in all activities. Since I have focused more on making time to developing content for this blog and on social media, I have learned an important lesson. Consistency matters. Consistency allows one to produce more content regularly and in a fairly short time.

How Does Perfectionism Cripple?

The perfectionist in me used to (and still does on occasion) deliberate slowly and painstakingly over the perfect introduction to a post. Was it interesting enough? Was there that perfect balance between simple and complex sentences? Did I achieve the absolute lowest possible percentage for passive voice? My pernickety thoughts went on and on.

Is there a perfect way to write an article? Maybe. I honestly don’t know for certain. What I do know is that perfection 100% is not possible. Certainly, you will have those stellar posts that are simply gems. Flawless. But ultimately tough to replicate. Instead aiming to achieve perfection always, focus on excellence and be okay with your occasional (and sometimes rare) visit to perfection. Excellence is consistent. It is stable.

Practice Makes Excellence

Aristotle made the connection between excellence and consistency. He wrote, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” The following article Excellence vs Perfection details out more key differences between the two. A link to this resource will be listed in the Resources section as the end of this post. One thing that stood out to me was the excellence tends to focus on both the goal and the journey to achieve that goal, whereas perfectionism looks solely at the end result. I have had to adjust my mindset from perfectionism to excellence. The journey involves the process of learning. Excellence learns from failure. Perfectionism tries to avoid mistakes.

Failure is the first attempt in learning. Be excellent. Strive to create first-rate content. Just remember it need not be perfect. Perfection stymies creativity and growth. Excellence nurtures creativity and daily growth.

Resources

https://www.habitsforwellbeing.com/excellence-vs-perfection/