Try to be Perfect, and Make Nothing Else — The Perfect Lesson I Learned at Startups
A study by leading psychologists Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett, with data from close to 42,000 participants, showed perfectionism increased significantly from 1989 to 2016. That means the recent generations are more demanding of themselves, perceive that others are more demanding of them, and are more demanding of others.
When I was preparing for my first job after university, I was intrigued by the question, “what is your weakness?” At that time, the school’s career advisor taught me that one of the easy ways was to say that I was a perfectionist. And then moving on to explaining how that made me a hardworking person who was gonna create the best products or build the perfect process. Now looking back, that was a silly thought. You will see why in a moment by continuing reading.
For most of my life, I’ve tried to be perfect. I was the kid who made straight As, read three books at a time, even wrote a book. But I never quite made it. I’d do enough to get by, but no more. And I hate the feeling of not being there yet, of not being my perfect self. When I decided to work in startups in Silicon Valley, things were totally different.
I have worked at two startups. One almost failed but pivoted successfully; one has been very successful. The one common thing between the two companies is that both make significant progress by having a high execution speed and the “perfect is the enemy of good” mindset.
Those experiences have shaped who I am today. I want to share this learning with those who want to create small changes that can positively impact their life (or even develop breakthroughs)
There is nothing perfect in this world
We’re told to be perfect, but there is nothing perfect. Even if you could do something perfectly, what exactly would that mean? A realistic standard for any given thing is simply the best you can do at it — measured against what someone else might be able to do. But perfection is different; it’s not about how good you are, but how good you could be or how good someone else is. It’s an idealized standard that doesn’t exist in the real world.
Everything has its flaw. We all have scars and cancers. Cancer is a flaw in our genes. We have two copies of most genes, one from each parent, and those copies are identical except for the occasional mutation. So any particular gene has a 50% chance of being flawed. That is the reason why we have cancerous cells. But it is also the reason why mutations have sped up evolution and made this world beautiful.
There is no such thing as a perfect anything: not a perfect person, not a perfect job, not a perfect piece of writing, not even a perfect potato chip (they always break).
By accepting that everything has its flaw, you’ll see your own life as something flawed but worthwhile, rather than as something worthless because it isn’t perfect. As a result, you’ll have more fun, take more risks, and do better work. And you’ll notice when other people are trying their best too, instead of comparing them to an impossible ideal.
“When things are perfect, that’s when you need to worry most.”― Drew Barrymore
Perfectionism is an ideology of the capitalists for the poor. It makes us feel bad about our bodies, our houses, our lives. Perfectionism is a mindset that’s all about not trying to make mistakes, as opposed to one about learning from mistakes. Perfectionism is a poison, and we shouldn’t feed it. That leads me to my next point.
Perfectionism is the source of anxiety, stress, burnout
Perfectionism is the voice in your head that keeps repeating “it has to be perfect.” It is never satisfied with what you have done. Instead, it’s constantly nagging at you, telling you there’s some detail you forgot, some corner that isn’t quite right, some way in which it could be improved just a little bit more.
This drive for perfection does not come from your parents or spouse or coworkers. It comes from inside you.
Perfectionism is highly corrosive to productivity and creativity. People who are seeking perfection are rarely satisfied with what they have done. And that means they are seldom happy with what anyone else has done, either. They are always hunting for flaws — always finding them, too — making it hard to collaborate with others.
The reason for this, I think, is that collaboration requires mutual trust and respect — a sense of community — which perfectionism destroys. It’s hard to trust someone who nitpicks everything you do; it’s hard to respect someone who complains about everything.
Perfectionism is the voice in your head that says, “If you want something done well, do it yourself.” It usually sounds like good advice. It’s not. Perfectionism is a formula for resentment. If you demand perfection from yourself or others, you will spend a lot of time feeling incompetent and resenting people who appear to be more capable than you.
Excessive perfectionism is a common problem among experts and other high achievers. But it is also a cause of low achievement because it can lead us to set unreasonably high goals for ourselves.
Perfectionism is motivated by fear: fear of criticism, fear of failure, fear of success. But fear is the enemy of creativity. The desire to create something perfect can halt your progress before it even begins. Fear of criticism and failure keeps us from taking risks and trying new things. So often, this fear dictates our decisions, stops us from pursuing our goals, or even prevents us from starting at all.
Perfectionists are plagued with doubt and question their own abilities. They pour countless hours into tasks but feel unsatisfied with the results.
Perfectionism is the reason why you procrastinate
Perfectionism is a common affliction among us procrastinators. We put off tasks and chores and projects and decisions because we can’t be bothered to do them perfectly: we know we won’t be able to live up to the ideal we have in our minds.
Perfectionism makes you feel like a failure when you are not succeeding at something, which means you will avoid trying things that might lead to failure. Unfortunately, this means that you will never learn what you are capable of.
The only way to learn how to do something well is by doing it badly first. You need failure to succeed. If you are afraid of failure, you will never get good at anything.
“A small step of progression is a thousand times better than a delayed step of perfection. Perfectionism procrastinates and paralyzes progress.”― Tony Warrick
Perfectionism in startups will slow things down
Some people consider themselves perfectionists and can attain very high standards. But perfectionism is not for everyone, especially where I work, which is a startup environment. Why? Startups need to go fast. Perfectionism slows them down. That’s why Facebook’s motto is “Move fast and break things.”
Unsuccessful ideas need to fail as soon as possible. Most of the problems in life can be solved with a heuristic solution.
“If the time feels right, it’s probably too late.”― Jim Mckelvey in The Innovation Stack
You have a vision for a product or a service that’s going to change the world, and you’re going to do it better than anyone else. You’re going to hire the best people, work harder than anyone else, scale faster than anyone else. Forget it.
If you’re doing something that’s never been done before, you have no idea whether it’s possible at all. If you somehow manage to do it, it’s going to take longer and be messier and more expensive than you expect. And there will be plenty of other companies trying to do the same thing; if they fail, no one will remember why.
But most importantly: perfectionism is the enemy of good enough. Perfectionists like to take their time, make everything just right. This makes them seem like intelligent, hard workers who care about every detail, but they end up never shipping anything in practice. Good enough is often much better than perfect because good enough ships.
“The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.”― Theodore Roosevelt
The perfectionist believes that nothing short of perfection is acceptable. A startup is full of compromises. Many of them are forced on you by circumstances beyond your control. But many others are caused by perfectionism. The problem is not that perfectionists make bad products. It is because usually they don’t.
If you are a non-perfectionist, this will be obvious because you will have shipped something perfect or almost perfect before now. If you are a perfectionist, this will not be obvious because you are still trying to ship something perfect. It may seem an easy distinction to draw in the abstract, but it can be challenging when you are actually making something.
Perfectionism is the difference between thinking about starting a company and actually doing it. It’s the difference between writing a blog post and writing the Great American Novel. It’s the difference between launching your product and making perfect your product. It’s the difference between being a founder and being an employee.
Final thought
It is a strange thing that we have been taught to aspire to perfection, and at the same time to admire those who succeed despite their imperfections.
Life is both brief and precarious. So we have to live it in the best way possible, without falling into perfectionist traps and the opposite trap of letting ourselves be defeated by our imperfections.
Perfectionism is a perfectionist’s answer to the question, “How can I live my life so that I have no regrets?” It is not about avoiding mistakes or failures but about how to avoid doing things wrong.
The obvious solution is not to strive for perfection but instead for improvement: don’t try to make everything perfect, just make everything slightly less imperfect than before.
You’ll be happier when you know that it’s perfectly OK to be imperfect!
It is the imperfect that makes this world a perfect place to be in the first place!
If you like this piece, you may also like my other pieces on startups and performance:
- This simple question has shaped my daily focus!
- A doctor asked a question three times and it got me out of anxiety!
Try to be perfect, and make nothing else — the perfect lesson I learned at startups was originally published in Startup Stash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
