Here’s Why You Can’t Wait Until Everything’s Perfect In These Final 80 Days of the Year!
I came across a story that I want to start with today.
It’s a story that will reveal the one thing that will keep you from achieving all you can in the remaining days we have left this year.
Let me tell you the story and then I’ll explain what I mean…
When Are You Going to Stop the Itching?
One day a young man moved into a cave to study with a wise man with a grand ambition: he hoped to learn everything there was to know.
Things started out well. The wise man gave his new student a big stack of books.
But things went downhill from there. Why do I say that? Because after giving the student the stack of books, the wise man sprinkled itching powder on his student’s hands.
And this didn’t just happen once!
Every morning the wise man would return back to the cave and check in on student’s progress by asking, “Have you learned everything there is to know yet?”
And every morning his student said the same thing, “No, I haven’t!”
When the student would say those words, the wise man would sprinkle itching powder on the student’s hands again and leave.
This was maddening sequence of event repeated for months.
Until one day the madness ended.
One day, as the wise man stepped into the cave, with the bag of itching powder in his hands, the student ran up, grabbed the bag of itching powder, and tossed it into the fire.
The student then waited for the scolding to begin. But to his surprise, the wise man wasn’t angry.
Instead of being angry, the wise man said, “Congratulations! You’ve graduated. You’ve learned that you don’ t have to know everything to do something positive. And you’ve also learned how to take control over your life and stop the itching.”
What” itching,” in your business or your personal life, do you need to finally deal with?
What’s that you say? You’re waiting until you everything’s perfect?
That might SEEM like a good idea.
But here’s why it’s not…
The Error of Waiting Till Things Are Perfect
Do have a goal or plan you’ve been wanting to begin, but you’ve been waiting until you have everything perfect?
That’s probably a bad idea (sorry perfectionist friends). WHY?
In his book Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works, Ash Maurya points out that our Plan A is likely to be proven wrong, so investing six months to capture Plan A is a waste. We would be better off to test and iterate Plans A, B, C, etc., until we get to a plan that works.
In my own words… Your Plan A won’t work perfectly – even if you perfect things first.
You’ll still have to change and tweak things.
Not only that, but you will only know what to tweak if you BEGIN.
You can’t change or tweak these things before you begin.
The Final 80 Days of 2017
We’re in the final 80 days of the year, so don’t delay anymore!
Deal with the itching today.
Stop trying to perfect on Plan A.
Get moving!
