Apr 27, 2018
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Today we’re talking about taking imperfect action.
So, when I decided that I was going to create a free video training series to help entrepreneurs build their own websites, I suffered from what I now know to be a severe case of imposter syndrome.
Thoughts like, “who am I to teach this to people, I don’t have a computer science degree, I’m not a programmer” popped into my mind pretty frequently. And so what that feeling of insecurity about my knowledge and expertise caused me to do is try to make everything PERFECT.
I spent HOURS recording and re-recording my tutorial series. I edited out every single, um, ah, like, and “okay so” that I said. It probably took me about 80 hours to produce a free 5 hour tutorial series.
I spent untold hours tweaking details on my website that only I would notice.
And I was working full time while I was doing this, so it’s not like I had 80 free hours just laying around. I spent most weekends holed up in my bedroom recording and editing and thank goodness it was college football season and my husband was glued to the TV all day on Saturday because otherwise, he’d be seriously annoyed with me!
When you’re working on making things perfect, you’re actually not taking any action at all. Yes, you’re busy, yes, you’re working, but if you never put the thing out into the world, then it’s just an expensive hobby, not a side hustle.
So when I say taking imperfect action, I mean a few things.
One, as side hustlers, we simply don’t have long periods of time to put into projects. We have to find a few hours here and a few hours there, and that shouldn’t discourage us from taking on the project.
Thoughts like “I don’t have time to add that to my plate right now” pop up, and while maybe you don’t have the time to do it exactly the way you’d do it if you had 40 hours a week to dedicate to it, you can take imperfect action toward making it happen.
Maybe that means being a little more flexible with the outcome, maybe it means investing in some help, maybe it means letting go of making sure every um, ah and like is edited out of your videos, maybe it means putting some of your other projects and ideas aside and focusing on just one thing at a time – which if you’re like me, can be really difficult when you listen to lots of business podcasts and read lots of books that inspire you with great ideas! Write them down, save them, but focus on what you’re working on now!
The other thing I mean by taking imperfect action is that you can spend all the time you have making something perfect to your standards, but that doesn’t at all mean it’s going to meet someone else’s standard of perfect.
You have to put the thing out there into the world first, and adjust it from there. Get feedback, find out where people are confused or stuck and make adjustments from there, because I can promise you, what you think needs to be changed is totally different than what your customers will uncover.
And the final thing I mean by taking imperfect action is that I want you to have a plan, but I want you to build some flexibility into the plan so that if something doesn’t go according to plan because maybe your day job had to take priority over another project you had planned, that you’ve given yourself enough time to SLOW DOWN and make adjustments.
This is something I constantly struggled with while I was side hustling, it was just GO GO GO until something didn’t go as planned, and then it all fell apart. And if that happens to you too? Guess what, that’s okay to. Just keep moving forward. Keep trying new angles.
Because at the end of the day, it’s going to be your persistence in taking imperfect action that’s going to pay off in the long run.