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I met with a client last week and one of my favorite stories came up during our b&b. A pottery teacher split her class in two. One half of the class was tasked with making one perfect clay pot by the end of the semester and the other half was tasked with making at least 50 pots in the same time period.
At the end of the semester, it turned out the students who made the most pots also made the best pots.
When I first heard this story, it changed my perspective on everything. I’m a writer at heart, which means I’m big on agonizing over the same thing over and over. There are just so MANY different and better ways to say pretty much anything (stupid versatile English language).
So I threw caution to the wind and just started a different blog for every passing fancy I had and felt like writing about (yes, each of these link to a different blog I started at some point!). I started writing on the regular. When I got tired of writing about one thing, I moved on to something else. Soon, I was just hitting Publish without even rereading what I wrote. My last random blog somehow ended up in theNew York Times.
I’m learning the same thing as I start to shape Brunch & Budget as a business. My tendency is still (and probably always will be) towards clay pot perfection, but I’m working on pushing past that feeling and just doing stuff anyway. This newsletter is the perfect example (not to get too meta on you guys). I was so overly concerned about when it was going to be “good enough” and “just right” that it stopped me from doing it at all.
Finally, one day, I just committed to doing it regularly, no matter what (even when I was in Cambodia). It turns out, perfection has nothing to do with whether or not something is going to resonate with people, or if you’re able to help someone, or change someone’s day or mood, or give them something new to think about. It turns out, perfection doesn’t matter.
I’d love to hear from you – what’s the perfect pot you’ve been trying to make all these years? What can you do today and what can you do tomorrow to stop trying to make the prefect pot and just start making them? Your friends, clients, and fans will love you for it.
To the next thousand pots!
Join me for Brunch on a Wednesday: the b&b biweekly and get this stuff straight to your inbox!
