This question comes up again and again in all kinds of different settings.
When you are trying to write a blog post, and article or create any content fro any platform there is a temptation to try for perfection. Endless research, rewriting, editing – second-guessing – and then revisions.
The same applies in all human endeavors – or almost all anyway. Large organizations of all kinds are eaten up with bureaucratic decision making and processes that embody this very concept – and in large measure – result in nothing much ever getting done at all.
That’s why it is better to forget about perfection and just go fro getting something good enough to launch and then launching the thing. After that and over time it can be revised and improved to a point – if warranted and desired.
Yet if something is NEVER created or never launched and made available to the very people who want and need it – then what use is this imaginary thing to anyone?
Do Research and Do Develop Sound Plans – Then Act!
Like most other things in life, the truth of what should be done is in the middle. On the one hand, you do not want to leap without looking and have no clue what you are jumping out into. That can be catastrophic.
On the other hand, you do not want to spend forever researching, investigating, analyzing, getting second, third, and fortieth opinions – and never ever actually do much if anything that matters at all either. That is why it is also a certain path to failure.
So figure out a goal – learn enough about what needs to be done to formulate some plans – then take action!
See what is working, and what is not. Adjust your approach as needed to tune it in or if absolutely warranted, make a course correction. But still, you must act – or nothing at all will happen to evaluate in the first place.
This is the primary reason so many businesses fail. Not so much from taking the wrong action – but from failing to take any action on the things that need to be acted upon.
Perfection is the Enemy of Progress
Yet people are all too often taught to seek the impossible. I will bet you too were taught (programmed) to believe the same nonsense that you should always do a thing right or not at all. So most people do nothing at all!
Truth? Nothing much in this world is perfect – nor will it ever be. So get over that insane idea of pursuing perfection and change course. Seek to do well enough to make progress and then seek to do better on a continuous basis – not perfect – just better. That is how you make progress.
That is how you get meaningful things done in real life.
In the real world action and progress are what matters. Not just theories and other classroom nonsense.
This is real life – and it doesn’t care what your professor thinks either.
A given thing either works or it does not. It produces results you seek or it doesn’t. That is the real-life measuring stick of how to determine what to keep pursuing and what to abandon.
Figure It Out Then Go Do It
Most people spend to much time on the figuring and never get to the doing part.
My suggestion is that you reverse that idea. Spend just enough time figuring to get to the point that you can take action and then get up and go take action. Some people call it MVP or Minimum Viable Product – and that idea or philosophy can be applied to most things.
Figure out what you need to know to get started – then get started.
In the end ACTION – not theory, not goals, and not plans – but action, that is what matters most above all else.
You can fail and you will, and you will also learn from your actions. Then make adjustments and make progress and keep on doing that. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Make progress – achieve results. Achieve goals – repeat the entire process over and over again and when it becomes a way of life for you, then my friend you will achieve amazing things over time!