I have been coaching very successful people for several years now, and the biggest problem that stops people from succeeding has nothing to do with their skills or efforts. Instead, it is the lack of understanding of when something is just good enough. Perfectionism, while appearing to be admirable, is one of the best ways you can ruin your own performance, and learning when something is already sufficient is one of the best things you can do.

Perfectionism is a productivity killer

Perfectionism passes itself off as high standards, but it tends to deliver worse results than embracing the concept of “good enough.” While the perfectionist squanders precious time perfecting tasks that were done well enough in the first place, is paralyzed by perfectionism into delaying the shipment of anything that might be less than perfect, and is burning out due to focusing on diminishing returns, the individual who embraces the concept of “good enough” will ship more, learn quicker, and eventually end up delivering better results overall.

Ironically enough, this very pursuit of perfection is one which tends to hold back the achievement of excellence that they claim they seek out. The fact that the perfectionist delays too much, polishes too long, and refuses to release the product in question means that he or she gets far fewer chances for feedback, and therefore makes progress more slowly than the individual who releases his or her product.

The diminishing returns of polish

Any project has a certain stage after which further labor becomes less and less effective. Taking something from bad to decent requires hard work that is well justified. Making it from decent to better involves putting in much more effort for little improvement, and perfecting it from excellent to perfect may require infinite labor with gains invisible to everyone except the perfectionist. Knowing your position on the curve and knowing when to stop because the results do not outweigh the cost is an important skill.

Having tools that quickly lead you to a satisfactory start will help overcome the paralysis caused by perfectionism and move you forward into action and iteration. Using a FaddyAI tools stack to reach a solid starting point fast is one way to sidestep the perfectionism that keeps so many capable people from ever shipping at all.

Good enough enables iteration

The underlying reason why good enough beats perfection is that good enough facilitates iteration. By shipping something that’s just good enough, you receive feedback from the real world, which is much better at facilitating improvement compared to the endless polishing of a solitary individual. The person who ships good enough does a lot more iterations of ship, learn, improve than the perfectionist, who is stuck polishing one idea forever. In the end, the work done by the iterator will surpass the perfectionist’s work, since it was influenced by real feedback.

This turns “good enough” from an act of compromise to one of strategy. The choice to ship something that’s “good enough” is not about taking what isn’t the best, but about taking the route that gets you to where you need to be – good. By avoiding shipping at all costs, the perfectionist cuts off their route to becoming good. Good enough is a fast track to good.

Calibrating your standards

However, it is about finding a balance with regard to such standards and adjusting them to particular situations. There are cases where it really matters to strive for perfection but most likely this is not going to apply to any job we do. The point here would be to find out how good each specific job really is and then simply stick to that level of performance rather than waste energy striving for an unrealistic perfection which is unnecessary in particular circumstances.

Permission to ship

If perfectionism is holding you back from getting your product out there, then you should allow yourself to acknowledge when good enough is truly good enough. Reaching a good-enough starting point quickly with this free AI tool options can break the paralysis and get you into the iteration where real improvement actually happens.

Being able to tell what is good enough is a much-needed skill that makes the difference between efficient people and perfectionists, who ultimately end up ruining their own lives. While perfectionism is all about high standards, it ends up being counterproductive and eliminates any chance for iteration and learning, which would be necessary to achieve true excellence. Good enough does not imply settling for less; instead, it can help get to good much faster because of how it enables continual iteration and learning.

The conversation I am constantly having with my clients is one in which I give competent people the permission to stop, to understand that what lies ahead of them is fine, that their efforts to polish it even more are draining them and costing more than the outcome. It is amazing the kind of relief this permission creates and what these people manage to accomplish afterwards. Perfectionism is mistaken for passion, but it is a prison, and the key to breaking out is just accepting to do things in an iterative way and not by perfecting something alone. The most successful people do not necessarily set the highest goals in absolute terms; instead, they know exactly what is necessary for a particular task, deliver it and move on. To know where to stop does not mean settling – it is the only tool that allows you to complete your task, and learning begins when you do just that.