Perfect Is the Archenemy Of Better
“Perfection is boring. Perfection is unattainable.”
So I’m signing off folks until sometime early next year, so I wanted to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. BUT before that... I'm letting you know what my New Years resolution is as it may help you also!
As per the title of this post and the quote above - I am making those my New Years resolution.
I am completely redesigning not just my brand, my new concept, blog and worth ethic, but also my life. That’s right.. my ENTIRE life. I think the time comes when we have been through too many hurdles and barricades in life that we get backlogged with emotions, excuses, physical and mental work that we haven't dealt with because we "didn't have the time" or "it just wasn't the right moment", or "because I just can't bare to deal with it". Case and point: that pile of goods we were supposed to either donate, sell or throw away 6 months ago... Sound familiar? We have time - we use it as an excuse all. the. time. We just need to reclaim that time back people. It's not our fault, we were never taught how to use our time efficiently.
When you have a casual chat with someone, does it go a little something like this? "Hey how you doing?" "I'm good thanks and you?" "Yeah I'm good just been soooo busy with (insert excuse here)" "tell me about it.." etc etc.. I do it all the time, but am I actually THAT busy that I have to tell people about it and bore them? No, probably not. I have time, I'm just not using it wisely. Partly because I don't know how because no one ever taught me. The good thing is we all know what this feels like so you're not alone, and I'm not alone. It's about how we go about changing that attitude. D'Arcy Benincosa taught me that one of the things people are often doing wrong, is asking the wrong questions and having the wrong attitude. We need to know how to ask the right questions and by rejigging the way we think, in turn alters our actions in a positive way. Rather than saying: "Ugh I don't have enough time", we need to reword that thought process to something like: "It seems I don't have enough time, but what can I do regain some time to get this done?".
Along with all of the courses and accomplishments and lightbulb moments this year that I have done or had, I have also been reading up on how other entrepreneurs function, get organised and have clear and efficient workflows. Basically how to manage life. No one ever tells you how to manage life, there is no handbook on it either. There are a lot of things to help guide you in the right direction until you do figure out some form of workflow and self-help that is good for you and YOU ONLY. A lot of it is trial and error. I have learnt a lot, and next year I cannot wait to share with you everything I have collected and hopefully help you all get more organised, more creative, more successful, gain time back for yourself and then some so that it paves a path to a stress-free life. I'll be doing all of this along side you! :)
The thing that started this way of thinking was when my mom gave me Marie Kondo’s book "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" last year. She said “you need to read this asap”, and I was like "yeah sure", liking the idea but not really accepting that I needed help getting my shit together and declutter. There was a trigger point that did finally get me to read it and it was something along the lines of I was feeling totally bogged down with work and my brain vomit and life clutter and I was getting so stressed and confused about where I had left my favourite blue jumper and did I really need all these 100 shampoos, and how the heck do I organise my work files compared with my life files etc. etc… Sound familiar? We are only human after all... you totally forgot that right? Yeah - I do sometimes, and sometimes I feel like I'm on a different planet to everyone else.
The middle part of this story was spent travelling through Japan and America - You can follow along my blog posts that I have done in parts. Part one can be found here. Here is where I began to rediscover myself and learn new skills, as well as meet and make wonderful new friends and connections, that have been essential to my work and my life's happiness.
The final trigger in knowing that I needed to really take time out and spend about three months completely reorganising my life was Fay Wolf’s book "New Order".
I clearly knew what I needed to do to progress in the right direction - I just didn't know how. One of the most frustrating traits about myself is that I see the end goal so damn clearly but if I can't or don't know how to get there I dwell on it for so long that I work myself up to the point of exhaustion and stress. For example I know how I want to edit my images but I don't yet know how to use every single tool in Lightroom therefore I can't achieve the exact look I am going for. The same goes for my website, my blog and even my note-taking. I have been trying to perfect my blog because I had a complete vision in my head I refused to start it properly or redid my blog over the past couple years 3/4 times because it was never "quite right". Guilty! Give me £20,000 and yeah sure that will happen because someone will be able to code it to the exact aesthetic I would like, but realistically until then I realised I needed to stop being a fool, stop making excuses and just start and let it grow organically at the best of my ability for what I am equipped for and what I now know. For example I don't think writing is my strong point so I decided my blog also had to be put off for that reason until I found another way to express my brain vomit. But the thing is, I'm perfectly good enough for RIGHT NOW. As human beings we are constantly evolving and developing, we cannot and never will be perfect. We can only be the best version of ourselves for "right now".
Getting closer to that "perfection" or end goal will come in time with the right people, the knowledge and skills we gain in time and the right budget.
I have spent wayyyy too much time waiting for the perfect moment to start something or finish something or finding the perfect paper and pen to write down those thoughts or the perfect preset that would complete my photography. Do you know how many notebooks and pens I have bought in my time because I convinced myself that "OMG this really pretty paper and pen are 100% going to help me write down my ideas" um... what was wrong with the 10000 notebooks and pads of paper and 500 pens that I already owned? Nothing. Wasted time. Wasted money. It was my procrastination and my way of finding an alternate reason for why my blog hadn't started yet or why my drawings hadn't drawn themselves or on a more serious note, why my back and eczema had gotten so bad. Answer - I had put off finding that "right moment" to stretch, exercise, put on the medicated cream. No wonder my back hurts and I can't sit or stand for too long before I have to lie down or get a bad headache. All. My. Fault. I am totally lazy, and I make excuses. I honestly think I had to write this all down to finally believe it and see it for my own eyes and make it available to the public, because now it's out there I can't go back on my word. I want to prove to you and to myself that getting over this way of thinking can drastically improve your life, both mentally and physically. I've reaped the benefits already and I have only just started... albeit over a year or so, but it's been a slow and scattered process due to work and other life moments. Now I have consciously made the decision to spend the next three months stripping back to the bare bones of myself and rebuilding from scratch. For my own health, sanity and for the sake of my business and my clients, and even the ones I love that I have pushed away.
I believe you will all be in the same boat as me when I say: I knew all of the above and what I had to do to fix most of it, I just A. didn't know how/didn't know how to start and B. thought I had better things to do.
It's a vicious circle if you don't do anything about it. But, spend some time getting the fundamentals sorted and the rest will flow like running water. I am doing something about it. 2017 I see you and I am excited for you. Let's make it the year of YOU. Be selfish but be humble about it and do it because it is going to help you and your health and affect those around you in a positive way.
No longer will my life be subconsciously dictated by the stylised Instagram feeds that feed my curiosity, envy and awe. Until I'm completely comfortable in my own skin, Instagram will remain something I will only announce things on. Only until I have taken my 3 months to re-programme until I feel comfortable to be inspired once again without Mr. Judgmental. Of course my 3 months will happen alongside work - just because I am taking 3 months out for myself, it doesn't mean the world stops around me. It's all part of the learning curve to know how to get on with life but make it better at the same time.
So I leave you all with these prospective tasks and ideas
Read one or both of these books - it may change your life for the absolute better.
They both talk about how to implement a set of easy "rules" that only require you to maintain them at a human level.
Are you waiting until the right or perfect moment to get something done? I’m telling you now, that time will never come because as Fay very rightly puts it:
“Perfect is the archenemy of better”
and
“Perfection is boring. Perfection is unattainable”
So … from the bottom of my heart… Just. Go. Do. It. (Nike I now wholeheartedly appreciate your slogan).
Thank you to everyone I mentioned above for changing the way I think and see things now in a more positive way. Especially thanks to my mom for sticking by my absolute nonsense sometimes. See you in 2017! :)
P.s. these are not paid ads - these are just things that have merely changed my life for the better and I wanted to pass the baton on.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
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