I, probably like a tonne of other guys on this sub, have a serious issue with perfectionist thinking. I think it's pretty common for anyone into self improvement. I procrastinate working on my goals, I put off taking that first step, because I obsess about whether or not I can do a perfect job of something… instead of just doing it. I look at the long road ahead of me, the amount of steps between where I am now and where I want to be, and I worry I’ll never get there. So instead of getting started, I end up doing nothing at all.

I’ve done this a tonne in the past. I wanted to do a 365 Photography Project (taking a photo every single day for 365 days in a row), but put it off for months because I was paranoid my photos weren’t quite good enough yet.

I put off going to the gym for years, instead opting to buy a home gym and muck around for a year, making no progress. I was worried I was too weak to step foot in the gym, worried I wouldn’t know how to do the exercises, worried I’d do a bad job. And then when I finally did go to the gym, I put off hiring a weightlifting coach for another year – again, because I was worried I’d do a bad job choosing a coach.

I put off talking to girls for seven months after finishing an “approach anxiety program” because I was terrified I’d do a poor job of literally just talking to other human beings.

I put off getting a tattoo for over a year, because I was terrified I’d never find the “perfect” design, or find the “perfect” tattoo artists.

I put off losing weight for ages before finally diving in, because I was obsessed with researching the “perfect” weight loss diet, researching the “perfect” gym program, figuring out which was the “perfect” calorie-counting app, etc… Spinning my wheels instead of, you know, actually losing weight.

Pretty much every big goal I’ve ever achieved was preluded by days/weeks/months of procrastination, because I was obsessing about perfection rather than just starting.

So how’d I stop the procrastination and end up achieving things?

By giving myself permission to suck.

With my photography, I just sat down one day, and said “Ok. Today is Day 1 of my 365 project. I’m going to be awful, my photos will suck for a while, but if I don’t start now I’ll never start.”

With girls, I told myself “I’m going to be awful at talking to girls. I’ll be nervous, anxious, I’ll probably throw up out of nervousness, I’ll forget what to say, I’ll stumble and lose my words, I’ll look like a complete creep and I’ll make a total fool of myself. No girls will like me and I’ll be a total failure. But that’s ok. I’m allowed to be shit at this, because everybody is shit when they’re first getting started.”

With the gym I told myself “I’ll be the weakest guy in here, there’s no doubt about that. I don’t know how to do the exercises, I might even injure myself, but all that is fine. I’m allowed to be awful at this, because everybody is at the start.” And the tattoo – today I went in and booked a session to finally get a tattoo done next week.

Even writing articles for my website. I put off making my own site for ages (months and months, maybe even a year) because I wanted my first article to be perfect. I have hundreds of ideas for articles, guides, rants, etc… but every time I start typing, I get in my own way and worry “this won’t be good enough, you can’t release this, it’s not perfect.” I worry what I’ve written isn’t good enough, isn’t long enough, is too long, doesn’t have enough pictures, has too many pictures, isn’t concise enough, is too verbose, has too many spelling errors, etc. I worry about what “direction” the site should have, what “voice” I should give my writing, what topics I should cover, how in-depth my guides should be, etc.

When I first started I had to set a goal of writing 10 articles in 1 month, otherwise I never would have started. And I had to tell myself “It’s ok if this isn’t your best work. It’s ok if you could have done better. Just start writing, start posting, and you’ll improve over time.”

It’s funny, because I can easily give that advice to other people. I tell mates with everything they're worried about starting, ‘It doesn’t matter how terrible you are at this – it’s ok to be awful. Just start doing it.” I’ve told people who start photography and ask me for advice, “You’ll be AWFUL at this at first. That’s ok. Just take hundreds, thousands of photos and you’ll eventually take some good ones.”

Looking back on all the work I've done, content I've produced (it would be 500 articles and videos at this point) I'm so glad I just got started. If you're reading this and in the early stages of getting started with any new goal or project, I promise that if you start now, you'll look back and be glad you did. If this resonated I have a follow up video to this idea here.