Start before you’re ready…
Done is better than perfect…
Don’t prepare, begin…
Imperfect action brings clarity…
Sound familiar? I’m sure you’ve heard all of these before, or something similar. And yet how guilty are you of doing the exact opposite? Of waiting until the stars are perfectly aligned before you share that new thing you’re secretly working on with the world. I know I am – 100%. We tend to do that as creatives, right? Strive for perfection, because it feels as if our work is a reflection of our worth. Because we hate the idea of releasing anything less than perfect to our clients, our audience, our fans. Well, I decided that enough is enough. I’m going to start sharing the beginning and the messy middle, not just the end results. Why? Because of all the reasons above, but also because of a few more:
When we stop thinking and start doing, we learn.
Sometimes, regardless of how much we attempt to educate ourselves or improve our craft, we’ll really only learn the really good stuff by doing. We need to make mistakes and gain real life experience in order to improve.
Taking action creates a snowball effect of confidence.
Like a baby, navigating those first shaky steps… as entrepreneurs we need the confidence that can only be gained by finding some small success. That first win, no matter how small will drive us forward to another win and then another.
The feedback gained through action is priceless.
As a business owner, you’ll never improve your product or your services if your audience doesn’t have the opportunity to interact with you or what you do. By allowing more eyes on what you’re working on, you can gain real-time feedback, which allows you to learn and grow.
I’m giving myself a small round applause for taking action with my new brand, and putting it out into the world (even when I felt less than ready), but since then I’ve stalled out a bit. Why? Because I was hyper-focused on the visual identity of this new brand, but I lacked the brand strategy to back it up.
As a brand photographer, I was spending my time learning everything I needed to know to help other brands create visuals backed by strategy, but I failed to do that exact thing for my own new brand. I feel like I probably don’t need to hash that out any further because you know how it goes…
“The cobblers children have no shoes.”
On one hand, I’m so proud of myself for launching that brand last year before it was ready. I took imperfect action, and boy have I gained A LOT of clarity along the way. On the other hand, I am recently guilty of waiting until things are perfect before I went any further.
I’ve found that I’m at that point of needing to back to the drawing board. And I’ve decided I want to bring you along for the journey!
