Get Over It!

I've made many messy attempts to get things right in dance or music, but I realized I don't always take this approach when it comes to the rest of my life.

This goes back to my earlier post about failing – to me it’s fine to fail at first when learning something in an art, but I find myself wanting to plan everything in detail upfront before beginning execution on a project at work, which can lead to paralysis. (How many slide decks does a team of stakeholders need?)

I’m a little better about it when learning a foreign language; I used to obsess about every sentence I wrote in my early Japanese emails, which was helpful at the beginning when everything was difficult. However, I quickly realized that there’s no way to actually learn a language unless you try actually speaking it. Even if you make awful faux pas (I’ve made countless - addressing a Fujitsu manager as if he were subordinate! - and still do), you’ll never get over the hump to that great feeling of semi-fluency that comes with usage.

This goes back to doing. Without doing, there is nothing. Well, admittedly there is an idea, a vision. But it’s not concrete enough to sustain itself.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from being a program manager in operations, it’s this: You can plan all you want but there is absolutely no substitute for going out there and doing. Otherwise, you have no idea what it actually takes to bring the plan out to execution, things you wouldn’t have thought of.

It’s like a fashion designer who has created the most gorgeous evening gown on paper. After the gown is made, the model puts it on. The model tries to sit. She can’t sit. Back to the drawing board! (Tomas Maier of Bottega Veneta told the New Yorker: “Beauty … should never come at the expense of function.”)

In this vein, the pursuit of The Perfect Plan or the Perfect Blogpost or Perfect Anything should never supersede the need to actually produce something.

(That said, have a plan, or at least an idea. But just don’t get stuck in that stage.)

I almost never started this blog because I feared I’d never be pleased with my writing, and that no one would ever want to read it. Well, I got over myself. I eventually figured I’d never make it to the next step if everything had to be perfect first.

So take a leap of faith (or, in my case, it’s often the admonishment: “Get over yourself!”) and just get out there (or in there) and DO. There is no perfect moment to start something.