Last week, I met my eldest for sushi in central London before I flew out to America.
We met at the restaurant, shared a cocktail and I took a photo of them with their glorious pink hair and posted it on social media.
‘How lovely!’ everyone commented. And it really was a wonderful moment that I appreciated all the more after some rocky teen times together.
The truth is that the amazing pink hair represents many battles over the years and some of them were pretty ugly.
Now we’re out the other side and are becoming (happily!) friends again, I’m beginning to doubt everything I’ve ever done / thought / said when it comes to raising well-adjusted young adults.
From blue hair to piercings, and from homework to short skirts, we’ve had some serious disagreements, some of which I never thought we’d come back from. But last week, sitting opposite this truly amazing, confident young person, navigating across London, living independently, juggling a tough college course and new friendships, I couldn’t have been prouder.
But I also realise that I should have trusted more in their own intuition and sense of self. They knew exactly who they needed to be and I was too slow to get on board with that.
As a recovering people pleaser, I now recognise that deep down, I wanted my own child not to ‘rock the boat’ at times. What that really translates to, is that I wanted my own life as a parent to be easier.
That’s not an easy thing to write, because it means that, at times, I was making it all about me, instead of cheering on my own child’s individually.
At their age, I was a rule-following conformist, and it’s taken decades to shake that off and learn that being imperfect but real and taking action is way better than being perfectly nice but unfulfilled (aka boring).
My teen has clearly got a better handle on being their authentic self than me, but nevertheless, here are my hard-earned insights into letting go of perfectionism.
You have to fail forward or you’ll never learn
No-one, and I mean NO-ONE, springs from obscurity to overnight success, and is suddenly and constantly creating their best work. Ok well, maybe Lady Gaga but she had some pretty questionable meat-based outfits way back in her earlier career.
That’s why the concept of a learning curve exists. And it’s hard. You have to scale that curve through constant repetition, feedback, reflection, adjustment and plain old trying again and again.
And one day, you’ll look back and laugh at your earlier efforts and that’s a good thing, because you’ll be able to see how far you’ve come.
But if you don’t put one foot on the curve and just start, you’ll never be able to access that continuous feedback loop that leads to serious improvement. I call it ‘failing forward’ and it’s vital to succeeding and growing as a business owner. Make the mistake. Learn from it. Move on.
Accept that you’ll never arrive at the summit
Have you ever thought, “When I reach this particular goal, I’ll be happy”?
Whether it’s 100k followers or achieving a certain income target, we’re all guilty of pinning our hopes on a momentary goal that we believe will fulfil our fundamental desires.
Not gonna lie. This is a tough mindset to change but it’s not a helpful one because the truth is, that as we climb our own personal mountain and near the summit, we see other bigger mountain summits appear ahead of us and our modest goals suddenly become stepping stones to the peaks above.
Our goalposts in life are constantly changing and the trick lies in knowing and accepting that’s going to happen.
Do set goals, but understand that they will change as soon as you get nearer to achieving them.
What you have to offer is right for some people right now
When I’m encouraging my members and clients to create more content, a lot of them say,
“Why would anyone want to hear from me on this subject?”
“What do I possibly have to say that is unique?”
Whatever you can create or share, you are going to be the exact right thing at the exact price point that someone in your audience needs right now.
If you wait until you feel you have the authority or expertise to write the definitive article or blog post on a subject, you’ll be waiting forever.
Remember that you don’t need to know everything about a subject to write about it. You simply need to be able to offer expertise to your audience that they don’t have.
There will always be people better than us and ahead of us (and that’s ok).
Comparisonitis is completely normal but feeling too intimidated by the ‘competition’ can be paralysing.
Some people will tell you to avoid looking at the work of others and to focus only on what you are creating, but if you’re promoting your work on any kind of social media platform, it’s almost impossible to avoid seeing what other people are creating.
The secret is learning to take reassurance from the process of improvement. And it’s a volume game – as you put the hours in, you start to develop creative ‘muscle memory’.
The best explanation I’ve ever read about ‘the creative curve’ comes from one of my favourite creators and thinkers, Ira Glass.
“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer.
And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.
Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met.
It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take a while. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
If you’d like to join an inspiring online community, you can find out more about Melissa’s online membership, The Marketing Fix, at www.themarketingfix.co.
Strange, I’ve been using Akismet for free for years. Did I get grandmothered in, or am I missing something? (p.s. I find it super useful)