TITLE: Perfectionism Will Lead You to the Poor House

TITLE: Perfectionism Will Lead You to the Poor House
ALTERNATIVE TITLE: How to Beat Improve Productivity by Beating Perfectionism

———————————————

In theory, perfectionism sounds like a good thing. After all, who doesnt want to do a good if not perfect job at work or even at play?

Indeed, its not a surprise if you have a tendency to be perfectionist at times. Ever since you were young, the drumbeat of perfectionism has been beating in rhythm to everything you do. Your parents and teachers probably told you, Always do the best job you can.

And now that youre an adult, you cant quite shake the feelings of guilt when you turn out something thats not perfect. If its not perfect, then you probably didnt do your best.

But heres the thing: Sometimes we need to sacrifice quality just a little in order to gain the enormous advantages that speed brings us. This is especially true in business.

Think about it

If you spend two months perfecting a product and then another month or so perfecting your sales process before you ever release the product, youll fritter away three or four months without making a dime. But if you release the product almost immediately and THEN work on improving it, youll actually make money the entire time!

Now maybe releasing a product first and improving it later doesnt sound right to you. But just observe what big business does, and youll see they do exactly the same thing. For example, car makers roll out new cars quickly, and then later put stronger engines and better features in them. Software companies (like Microsoft) release software and then later fix the bugs with patches and upgrades.

And you know why they do it? Because getting products to market makes them rich. If youre in business, you should be doing the same thing. Indeed, even your personal life can improve by finishing things fast and making improvements later.

Bottom line: People who are successful in business dont necessarily strive to get it right the first time. Indeed, one of the biggest teachers is experience and you can only gain experience when you stop being a perfectionist and start living life and running your business.

Incidentally, that also happens to be one of the quickest ways to getting rich, too. Ask a millionaire if his products and sales pieces are perfect, and I guarantee hell say no at least not at first. But hell tell you that persistence and speed are far more important than perfection.