For many of us, perfectionism can feel like an invisible hand that holds us back, stopping us in our tracks and preventing us from taking the first step on new projects or ventures. We wait for the 'perfect' moment, the 'perfect' idea, the 'perfect' level of readiness. But in reality, that moment of perfection often never comes. Instead, we find ourselves caught in a cycle of overthinking and procrastination, while the world continues to spin around us.

The truth is, most great things happen not from a state of perfection, but from being brave to let go. In today's post, I'll share with you the steps I’ve taken to fine-tune my need for perfection and to willingly embrace “fine”. I will discuss how this concept has revolutionised my business and personal life and share stories that vividly illustrate the transformative power of how 'fine' has led to unexpected success, innovation, and personal growth.

Furthermore, we'll debunk the myth of perfection, revealing it as a hindrance rather than a beacon of progress. By shifting our focus from the quest for perfection to embracing the journey of creation itself, we allow ourselves the freedom to explore, grow, and make significant strides forward.

Ultimately, my hope is that you'll be inspired to adopt this mindset in your own life. To see 'fine' as not quite good enough, but as a testament to courage, authenticity, and the beauty of growth - the liberating power of embracing 'fine'!

my experience

Without doubt, I can describe myself as a perfectionist. I can spend days, hours, weeks finalising minute details of designs, website pages, newsletters, monthly schedules, project planning … the list goes on.

I know many of us can relate to this, that feeling of wanting to ensure the last detail has been considered, that everything must be perfect before you can hit send or save or publish. Perfectionism can be an incredible and highly desirable trait, it can though also be debilitating, and hold us back from getting on with projects.

One thing I have been trying hard to embrace over the past few years, is that “fine” is an essential step in most projects. In fact, we have adopted it within the business. As a result, we have been able to explore innovative ideas and it has helped us fast forward quicker than we imagined.

EARLY DAYS OF FILMING

Our focus on fully embracing “fine” within the business started with our first in-house produced online tutorials. During the beginning of the global lockdowns, we had been scheduled to film with a professional team on set. The team included a producer/director, two cameramen, a sound engineer, an assistant, a stills photographer and an editor. When we were no longer allowed to have the full team on site with us, we decided to figure the process out ourselves.

My husband is a self-taught photographer, so he picked up and started practicing with a video camera, the first steps to becoming a self-taught videographer, and another member of our team, Kate, is superb with systems and technology, so she taught herself editing. Using our home as the backdrop to our “set” and with me self-directing and producing, we had our imperfect studio team!

The process was significantly more relaxed than it had been previously in a professional studio, the friendlier and more laid back atmosphere helped me to be more myself on camera, and get past my initial nerves.

I was used to being directed and receiving feedback from our previous director, he was brilliantly gushy and positive, which helped boost my confidence, so when I asked my husband if I was doing OK, he simply replied “it’s fine” … not quite the gushy, positive response I was hoping for, but it made me laugh! We knew our first few films would simply be "fine”, and we had to learn to embrace this new feeling and move on, otherwise we may never move forward with our filming.

Today, all our filming is still done solely in-house; this new process now ensures we are in full control, we can be nimble, test and try new ideas and we can move at a far faster pace than before. And as we have grown in confidence as a team, it’s beginning to lead to further innovative ideas and we can all now comfortably say that today, our combined producing, filming and editing, is definitely more than just fine. If we hadn’t originally embraced “fine”, we wouldn’t be where we are today … and with many new videos that we will be sharing with you soon.

exceptionS to the rule

There are exceptions though and circumstances when projects must be perfect! I believe when you are working on offerings, whether products or service based, they do need to be perfect, alongside exceptional customer service.  This is because your customer experience needs to be exactly as you intend it to be. If the customer experience is 'fine', then they won't come back and they won't refer you.

When I say you should embrace “fine” and move beyond procrastination, I mean in your everyday and bigger projects, the ones that you know in yourself that you are stalling on, most likely more out of fear rather than anything else. I want this post to help give you the confidence to simply start on your projects and embrace the “fine”.

a “fine” website

About five years ago, I had appointed a website designer to help me create a new website. We had quite a lot of media exposure coming up in the next few months and as our current website was dated I wanted a new design to reflect our evolved brand.

There was a huge amount of to-ing and fro-ing, it was extraordinarily time consuming, and frustrating. I was having difficulty communicating my ideas effectively. After the third or so meeting, I gently said that it wasn’t working as I had hoped, entirely my fault as I was struggling to explain what I was looking for. I was aware that there were platforms that allowed you to design and build your own website without coding, but it wasn’t something I had considered before (remember, this was a few years ago, before the non-code website platforms were a norm). I discovered, amongst many platforms, Squarespace and I played around to see if I could create our own website.

I really enjoyed the process and I found being able to make immediate layout, copy and visual changes, helped me to understand how I wanted each page to be laid out. Within a couple of days, I had a layout that I was pretty happy with, it was “fine”!

I could have spent a further few weeks designing and finishing the website, but it would have kept me away from other projects I needed to focus on, so instead, I hit publish and my new website was launched into the world. It felt hugely scary, but also really exciting to have developed something myself and I knew that I would be able to add to it and tweak it going forwards.

Within a few months it became a site that I was hugely proud of. It was an innovative design, and was featured heavily in a number of different publications, including The Sunday Times who described it as one of their “go-to websites for design inspiration” and it helped to secure some of our most notable and globally covered events. I never would have reached that point of being hugely happy with the overall design, if I hadn’t launched our new website design before it was perfect.

Today, the old design is still going strong, it is though a little dated and could do with a redesign, but for the time being, it is “fine” and something I will update over the next year – it is not a priority just now, as it works and there are other projects that need to come first, including writing our weekly newsletters and Journal posts, to help support you!

I can’t wait to start work on the new website design, and I will definitely launch it before it is completely perfect. I will test, respond to feedback and will enjoy making all the updates as new ideas evolve.