RE: Mindset Skills
Are you tucked away in your safe place right now?
Are you focused inward, working on yourself, getting things ready, fine tuning, tweaking, nitpicking, overthinking and generally obsessing about whether you’re ready to ‘do this’ for real?
Quit it! Seriously now.
I’ve met people recently who seem on the surface to have it all going on. They look great in every photo and their websites are impeccable in design. Everything is polished, shiny and fancy. For all intents and purposes, they’re ready for prime time… and I am not compelled or attracted by any of it.
In their striving for a perfect presentation, they’ve focused so much on looking crisp and professional – they’ve polished away the natural humanity I’m looking for.
Funny thing is, it must work, right? I mean, someone told them they needed all the trappings of perfection to succeed, right? Surely some people are impressed and attracted to the magazine cover shimmer and glow.
It’s just not me.
I don’t need you to be perfect.
Actually, if I’m going to be honest, (and why the hell wouldn’t I be on my own blog?) too much perfection triggers my BS meter – especially in the marketing world. All that glitters is not gold, amen?
If you’ve looked around, observing people who look amazing and thought ‘I’ve got a long way to go before I can compete with that’, I want to suggest you shake that nonsense off.
Do you want to strive for excellence? Yes. Do you want to be the best you possible? Yes. Just do it without comparing yourself to others.
We are entrepreneurs, loving people and making money. We don’t have to impress anyone with our looks – what matters to our people is our substance, expertise and the solutions we offer.
Be the best you from the most natural and authentic place you’ve got to operate from.
You don’t have to wear fancy clothes, suits, heels, jewels, make up or whatever. If you’re comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt, rock jeans and a t-shirt. If your natural state involves mascara and Burts Bees on your lips, show up that way.
On the other hand, if you’re fancy every day – be fancy! I’m not turned off by beautiful presentations when I FEEL your real self in it.
Share your process with me.
I don’t need you to show up in my life picture perfect. In fact, I love meeting and friending people at every stage in the game. It’s exciting to me to hear your goals and dreams. I love talking about where you’re going and how you’re planning to get there.
When you give me (and everyone else) a chance to be part of your process, you build a whole community of cheerleaders and potential resources.
Think about it. When someone shows up out of nowhere to tell me about their perfectly polished whatever, I’m happy enough to meet them and take a peek. If they’d showed up earlier in the process, if I’d been able to see it take shape – maybe even celebrate some milestones along the way – I would be so much more invested and jazzed by the end product.
So get out of your safe place. Show up as is and let’s get to know each other.
"Give me a chance to be part of your process" – I never thought of that. I may be guilty of not sharing my weaknesses with people.
Question: where does "be the best you" end, and where does "obsessive striving for perfection" begin?
Sometimes the business world may not be impressed by my best attempt of presenting a product, so in order to sell it (and earn my livelihood), I have to do better?
This mindset helped me get my podcast launched before it felt "perfect." It's still not perfect (and honestly, I don't want it to ever be perfect) but I love listening back to pieces of the old episodes and loving how far I've come. From the sound and production to the confidence in my interviews. Perfection leaves no room to grow and change, so, no thanks!
This is me to a "T", I'm not perfect but I do the best I can. I'm not a fancy dresser, put me in a comfortable pair of jeans and I can dress them up with a nice blouse or dress down in a t-shirt. I am who I am and love to share experiences with everyone.
I appreciate your perspectives. Nobody's perfect!
Thank you for these words. I know that perfectionism is a form of procrastination. I have been moving away from needing to have everything just so and getting to work on being authentic. Not that I was ever anywhere near perfect in the first place – LOL!
So nice to meet you Elisa.
Before I can be authentic, I have to know myself and that wasn’t at true thing for 40 years of my life LOL! It IS a work we take on, isn’t it?