Over the last week I’ve been traveling around Australia speaking at numerous events – to bankers and realtors and, just this weekend, at the Business Chicks Movers and Breakers Conference in Australia’s outback at Uluru (I posted some pics to Facebook yesterday – it was pretty spectacular!)
Something that’s come up repeatedly in conversations I’ve had has been the pressure we put on ourselves to do things ‘perfectly.’
While this is something we can all do, I think we women are particularly tough on ourselves when it comes to setting Da Vinci like standards of perfection or mastery that are near impossible to attain.
We fall into the trap of thinking we have to have the perfect business plan or be the world’s best (writer-speaker-blogger-artist-planner-coach-leader-marketer-entpreneur-strategist-craftsmen….) before we step off the starting blocks toward the goals that excite and inspire us. In the process, our deep fear of not being enough keeps us from ever knowing how very ‘enough’ we already are.
If I had waited until I was a masterful wordsmith before I began writing my first book Find Your Courage, I would never have written it, much less the two that have followed. (It’s now in five languages.)
And if i had waited until I knew how to juggle four kids and a career, a big-hearted little 12 year old boy called Matthew would never have come into the world.
The lesson: if you’re passionate about doing something, you’ll hone your craft and learn whatever you need to learn as you go along. 
Spending another year fine tuning your plan or doing another course or waiting until the timing is better won’t put you in a better position one year from now. No-sir-ee!
Nothing trumps action, even imperfect trip-as-you-go action!
You do yourself a massive disservice when you compare yourself to other people who’ve spent years mastering their trade. So don’t compare your first chapter with someone else’s last chapter. Don’t compare your weaknesses with others strengths. And don’t compare your insides with others outsides.
Those negative comparisons only fuel your fear of not being enough and give you you another excuse why should just just hang out safely in the stands.
As I said to many of the fabulous women I met in Uluru over the weekend, if there’s something you really want to do, then its because you have everything it takes already within you to do it. Waiting until you can do it perfectly before you start is a fear-led (and ineffective) game plan.
The only way you ever get really good at something is by starting at the beginning, with an open mind, a humble heart and burning passion to keep working at it for as long as it takes.
To quote Winston Churchill ‘Perfectionism spells paralysis.” And as I wrote in Find Your Courage, it can also leave us to living live’s of immaculate mediocrity; never accomplishing all that we have it within us to do; never discovering how much talent we truly have to share!
So take a deep brave breath then decide to just put your pride and desire to impress people to the side, and focus on what you really want to do. And whatever you do, remember that most of the time, good enough is good enough.
Because it is!
As Nike have been telling us all for years….#JustDoIt!
