Progress Beats Perfection

Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim, Aim…

It feels less risky to just keep aiming. After all, once you fire, that metaphorical bullet is gone. You can’t take it back.

But if we spend all our time aiming and never actually fire, nothing gets done.

Even worse, the constant cycle of preparation builds stress and anxiety. Teams begin to feel the weight of endless discussions—about what we’re aiming at, how we’re aiming, which methodologies to use, and why aiming itself feels so overwhelming. Meetings start to focus on the aiming process.

Meanwhile, the work sits untouched, and pressure continues to build. Time marches on. Deadlines loom ever closer.

In the pursuit of the perfect solution, we lose sight of the real goal: progress.

We obsess over the “best” approach, the most thorough analysis, the fully optimized plan. We begin documenting the aiming process as if it were the actual deliverable. And in the process, we forget the tasks we were meant to complete.

While chasing perfection, we miss the opportunity to deliver something good, something useful, valuable, and real.

“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”

Walt Disney

Call it version 1, a prototype, a pilot program, or a minimum viable product. If perfection keeps us from taking the first step, the process is no longer serving its purpose.

Progress beats perfection every time.

Photo by Norbert Braun on Unsplash – Like the baby sea turtle, we don’t need to know every step of the journey before we start. The important thing is to move in the right direction, and let the momentum carry us forward.