I’ll be honest. “Progress over perfection” is a tough statement coming from a self-proclaimed perfectionist.
I’m the guy who looks at something and thinks, “That could be a little better. That could be a little different.” It’s the reason this blog almost didn’t happen. I kept not starting because it had to be perfect. The layout, the tone, the topics. Everything had to be dialed in before I could hit publish. And so I didn’t. For a long time.
But it’s not just blogs. It’s the business idea that stays in the notes app. The conversation you keep rehearsing but never have. The kid who won’t try something new because they might not be good at it. Perfectionism disguises itself as high standards, but what it really does is keep you from starting.
The One-Shot Brain
There’s a concept Jonathan Haidt writes about in The Anxious Generation that stuck with me. He describes two modes people operate in: discover mode and defend mode.
Discover mode is how kids naturally work. Curious, playful, willing to fail. They build something, knock it down, build it again. They’re not worried about getting it right because they’re not thinking about it that way.
Defend mode is the opposite. Scanning for threats. Optimizing for safety. Terrified of looking stupid.
The problem is that our education system, and honestly a lot of our culture, trains us out of discover mode and into defend mode. School teaches us that life is a series of one-shot exams. You prepare, you perform, and if you have to retake it, something is wrong with you. Ali Abdaal calls this the “one-shot brain,” and it follows us well past graduation.
But real life doesn’t work that way. Building a business isn’t a one-shot exam. Neither is leading a team, starting a creative project, or having a hard conversation. These are infinite-shot games. The more attempts you make, the more likely you are to get it right. Barack Obama put it this way: “You don’t have to get to 100% certainty on your big decisions. Get to 51%, and when you get there, make the decision and be at peace with the fact that you made the decision based on the information you had.” If that’s good enough for the president of the United States, maybe it’s good enough for the rest of us.
Falling Short Isn’t Falling Behind
Here’s what I keep coming back to.
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23.
If perfection is the standard, we’ve all already missed it. There’s only been one perfect, and his name is Jesus. But that doesn’t mean things aren’t good. It doesn’t mean progress isn’t being made. Just because you haven’t reached a destination doesn’t mean you’re not moving toward it.
Derek Sivers put it this way: “Hit songwriters often admit that their most successful hit song was one they thought was just stupid, even not worth recording. We’re clearly bad judges of our own creations. We should just put them out there and let the world decide.”
That resonates. The things we hold back because they’re “not ready” might be exactly what someone else needs to hear.
Every business grows through a series of experiments. Every leader grows through a series of decisions made with incomplete information. Every creative project grows through a series of imperfect versions that get better over time. The first version is supposed to have issues. That’s not failure. That’s the process.
Progress over perfection isn’t about lowering your standards. It’s about refusing to let the fear of imperfection keep you from starting at all.
Referenced
- Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation
- Ali Abdaal, Why Overthinkers Make No Progress
- Derek Sivers, Hell Yeah or No