Ready, Fire, Aim

I opened the door to my motel room and sniffed cautiously.

Would it smell of smoke or mould?

Would the carpets be stained and the shower scary?

In fact, it was none of these things. Which was a relief. 

Sure, the furnishings were a bit dated. But the room was meticulously clean and quiet. 

It even came with free breakfast and WIFI!

When I booked the small motel in my high school town (long before Covid!), I didn’t know what to expect. 

There’s no Hilton or Marriott in my hometown. There’s not even a Holiday Inn Express. 

All the hotels (of which there are only two) are small and family run. 

I chose the one that’s close to the town’s Legion, where I needed to be the next day.

And as it turned out, the motel was completely fine. 

Sure, the motel wasn’t five-star perfect, but it was good enough. 

And staying there got me thinking about how we feel we have to do things 100 percent perfect in our business — or not do them at all. 

The Trap of Perfectionism

As business owners, we can get stuck in the trap of perfectionism.

If we can’t do something 100 percent perfect, we don’t want to do it at all. 

So we delay and delay and delay.  

And we don’t take any action. 

But most often, we CAN’T get something perfect right out of the gate. We need to give ourselves permission to learn on the job.

And that means striking out before we feel 100 percent ready. 

One of my clients describes this philosophy as “Ready, Fire, Aim.” We have to be willing to take action first and then adjust our aim as you go. 

It helps if you accept the idea that nothing in your business is final. Everything you create is next iteration, not final iteration. 

So if you don’t have a website, start by putting up something. It won’t be your last website, and you’ll probably want to change it immediately. That’s okay. 

Or maybe you want to start an email newsletter for your mailing list but you’re not exactly sure on design or content. That’s okay! Take a stab at it, get professional assistance, and send it out. 

Know that you’re going to make adjustments to it over time. 

Because often, doing something adequately is the first step in doing something really, really well. 

And it’s a whole lot better than not doing anything at all.

So was my little motel room perfect? No. 

Was it perfectly adequate for my needs? Absolutely!

And it beat the heck out of not going back to my hometown at all.