Per­fec­tion Hurts

Magi­ci­ans tend to over-eva­luate the importance of per­fec­tion. They try to achieve per­fec­tion in their tricks and moves, and most of the times some­thing other very important (pre­sen­ta­tion) falls behind. Ever since Dai Ver­non brought that ›per­fec­tion‹ to the atten­tion of magi­ci­ans, this mys­te­rious thing cir­cu­la­ted around the magic circles …

There is a very good say­ing: ›Per­fec­tion is for beg­in­ners. Good enough is what the real pros aim for.‹

I lear­ned this les­son only after years of strugg­ling in magic. How many times did I try to come up with a valuable and per­fect trick, rou­tine or gim­mick. How many times had I built some­thing, tried to improve it and then thrown it away, because of all the atten­tion to the little details that should make the per­fec­tion actually rui­ned everything.

Worst of all the fee­lings that were left in me: being a loo­ser, not being able to finish it per­fectly, and so on.

Why per­fec­tion is bad most of the times

»A true per­fec­tion­ist is always loo­king to get bet­ter but rea­li­zes that per­fec­tion is unattainable.«

The Prin­ci­ple That »Done« Is Bet­ter Than »Per­fect and Never Completed«.

Recently I found an article on the inter­net about ‘tips on per­fec­tion’ (I don’t remem­ber the source, unfort­u­na­tely). I will give these 11 points as a food for thought:

1. Per­fec­tion­ism doesn’t have to con­flict with »swea­ting the details«. It’s natu­ral to assume that just giving up on per­fec­tion­ism means you’ll no lon­ger have any atten­tion to detail. But that’s absurd. There’s a dif­fe­rence bet­ween awa­re­ness of detail and expec­ting per­fec­tion in order to finish some­thing. It’s still pos­si­ble – in fact desi­ra­ble – to stay on top of things to the level in which you need to in order to ensure a high-qua­lity out­put, but this doesn’t mean you get to be unre­asonable with respect to the over­all outcome.

2. Stri­ving for per­fec­tion means you’ll only do 10% of the things you want to do. When you focus on finis­hing one thing before you can start ano­ther, you’re boun­ding your crea­ti­vity and pro­duc­ti­vity. If you spend too much time »per­fec­ting« some­thing, you’re likely doing it at the expense of moving on to the next thing.

3. Per­fec­tion­ists have hig­her blood pres­sure, anxiety, and men­tal health pro­blems. This almost goes wit­hout say­ing and has been backed up in num­e­rous stu­dies, but if you expect per­fec­tion, you’re going to have hig­her stress levels which will affect your over­all men­tal and phy­si­cal health. Rela­xa­tion, medi­ta­tion, and »slow days« are hard to come by for peo­ple who are always pushing to make ever­y­thing perfect.

4. Just doing some­thing over not­hing puts you in an elite group of peo­ple. In so many cases, just doing some­thing is enough. Sig­ning up for a class even if it’s not the per­fect time, tur­ning in an assign­ment even though you know you could have done more, etc. There are hundreds of examp­les where the majo­rity of peo­ple will ago­nize until things are per­fect and never do any­thing at all, while you can get some­thing »good enough« out for the world to see.

5. Per­fect is the enemy of good. I love this Vol­taire quote and use it in soft­ware deve­lo­p­ment all the time. It’s too easy to strive for per­fec­tion and lose sight of the fact that you’re, in many cases, doing this at a huge over­all cost.

6. Fai­ling fast can shor­ten your lear­ning cycle. Some­ti­mes it’s best to take an ite­ra­tive approach and ignore per­fec­tion as a means to learn. »Fail fast« is a famous Sili­con Val­ley maxim when it comes to new busi­nesses, because if you’re going to fail, it’s best to do it early at a time when you have the resour­ces to turn it around. If you’re stri­ving to be per­fect, you could fail when it’s too late to anything.

7. Focu­sing on per­fec­tion­ism takes your focus away from the things that really mat­ter. If you’re doing any­thing you can to per­fec­tion, you could be miss­ing out on your top three focus areas com­ple­tely. Balance is a good thing.

8. Just doing some­thing will start to expose shal­low fears. Simi­lar to fai­ling fast, you may not know what you fear until you give some­thing a shot. You thought you were afraid to fail, but maybe you’re really afraid to suc­ceed. The soo­ner you can iden­tify your fears you can put mea­su­res in place to work through them.

9. Col­la­bo­ra­tion and per­fec­tion don’t mix. Have you ever tried to work with other peo­ple on some­thing but first deman­ded your con­tri­bu­tion to be »per­fect«? That’s a sure-fire way to a fai­led part­ner­ship. Col­la­bo­ra­tion requi­res ite­ra­tion and being open to feed­back in both direc­tions – if you’re shoo­ting to be per­fect, or if you believe you are, you’re not going to play well with others.

10. It isn’t what you do all or some of the time, it’s what you do most of the time. Some­thing I live by which I first read in Body for Life by Bill Phil­lips. There’s never a »per­fect time«, and you can never exe­cute some­thing »per­fectly«. But if you’re able to per­form well most of the time, it can make up for the times when you’re not »per­fect«. Per­fec­tion isn’t pos­si­ble, but spen­ding more of your time doing some­thing well is.

11. Per­fec­tion is impos­si­ble. Every phy­si­cal thing is in a con­stant state of change, so even if you think something’s per­fect, it won’t be per­fect for long. Give it up.

Pass it on!