Lots of entrepreneurs and other humans choose a word or phrase of the year at the beginning of each year to serve as their theme. In the past, my words and phrases have been A Milli, Grace and Ease. This year my word is ENOUGH. As in “that’s enough now, in fact, that is more than enough, it’s plenty.”
Enough means “sufficient for the purpose or to satisfy desire.”
I love this word. And I encourage you to love it, too, whether it’s your word of the year or not.
When you are working in your business, you want to work to a place of sufficiency. You want to do enough to create the result you desire. Just ENOUGH. Not too much. Working beyond the point of satisfaction is inefficient, and inefficiency is where you stop getting a return on your dollars, time and mental space. They are all being wasted when you go past the point of ENOUGH.
And yet, I see women entrepreneurs overworking all the time. There is this constant striving that is absolutely draining and comes from a place of lack. If you believe you are enough, than at a certain point you must believe that your work is enough and there is no point in continuing to strive. But there lies the rub: you don’t believe you are enough and this is why your efforts are endless, because they can never BE enough either.
So let’s talk about the illusion of perfection.
There’s an illusion of perfection that will absolutely prevent you from growing your business—it won’t immediately destroy it, but perfection will fester in the background and make you a stagnant prisoner. Maintaining the illusion you’ve created is a full time job in itself. Juggling all of the “perfect” will prevent you from growing.
On paper, things look great, but you’re working too hard, trying to do everything perfectly, and completely unable to try new things. You spend a lot of time in a defensive state, hiding your cards and avoiding getting real.
Perfectionism can look like obsessively working on the same thing rather than putting it out into the world, or it can look like a Vegas smoke and mirrors act, where you’re constantly shining a light and focusing your energy on what’s working… and completely ignoring where it’s all falling apart. It can also look like fear of taking the next step in favor of resting on your current successes—because you’re terrified the next step will break everything you’ve built.
Perfectionism usually comes with a fair amount of anxiety because you are trying to look like enough instead of just being enough.
So how can you let go of the perfectionism?
It takes practice. Practice sending that newsletter before the eighth round of editing. Practice not having 120 slides for your next presentation; hey, 60 slides is probably enough, right? Try sharing an imperfect picture of yourself on social media and leave out the perfect caption that perfectly explains the deep lessons learned. Don’t wrap it all up in a neat bow; just be vulnerable … and enough.
The more imperfect I am in my business and my life, the more I get done and the more success I create. The more imperfect action my clients take, even in the face of fear, the more dollars and opportunities come their way.
It’s not all perfect, but it’s good ENOUGH—and good enough is sufficient.
To be clear, I don’t have this all down perfectly (ha!), I still find myself overworking and aiming for perfection. Hence why ENOUGH is my word of the year.
Your business, your home, your parenting, your work … none of it can ever actually be perfect. If you are in a constant state of growth, then perfection is a point that can’t be reached, because technically you would grow past it the moment it was achieved. That means that your mess is a sign of epic growth. Be proud of the mess and be proud of you because:
You are ENOUGH.
xo,
R
PS: Ready to take some massive imperfect action in your business? We can help. Book a free Scale Session with my team to figure out your next imperfect steps to reaching your next level of success. Let's get something going.
