No Replacement For Doing
“Before you are a ‘bestselling author,’ you’re an author, and authors write. Before you are an ‘acclaimed entrepreneur,’ you’re simply someone who is building something.”
If you are anything like me, you get caught up in this trap of perfectionism or maybe a better word for it is not-yet-readyism.
“I can’t publish this newsletter, it’s not good enough yet. It can be better. I’ll keep studying great newsletters and write drafts that I don’t send out. When it’s better, when it’s finally ready, then I will publish it.”
“I can’t make homemade bread yet, I’m not a good enough baker, I’m just not ready yet. Once I have read enough books, bought enough gear, watched enough tutorials, then I will start baking bread.”
The problem with these arguments that we tell ourselves is that they are fundamentally wrong! We don’t get closer to being able to publish a newsletter by not publishing a newsletter. We don’t get closer to being able to make bread by not making bread!
There simply is no replacement for doing a thing, analyzing what worked, what didn’t, and what can be tweaked the next time we do that thing.
This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t have standards and that we should purposefully ship half baked bread but it is to say that we have to start and start NOW!
Whatever it is that you have a vision of doing, being a writer, building a business, climbing the corporate ladder, baking homemade bread for your family, the only way to get there is by doing the very thing that you want to do.
It sounds so simple but we all know it’s not. And i think, at least for me, a big reason why it isn’t so simple is because it feels so scary to “put yourself out there.” To show the universe what you are creating. That critic voice in our head, that is always way worse than the most venomous real-world critic, is constantly say, “Don’t do it, it’s not ready and you will embarrass yourself!!!!”
Shut that critic off because the only way to get ready, to make amazing bread, is to make thousands of loaves of bread…so why not start baking your next loaf today?
