Evan Carmichael explains how perfectionism stalled his early business and kept him from shipping work. His YouTube series improved through small, consistent upgrades rather than waiting for flawless content. High standards matter, but they can't block you from starting.
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Today I want to talk to you about how you can stop being a perfectionist. So I'm a recovering perfectionist. I like things to be exactly as I want them. You know, if something is one pixel off, it bothers me and I want it to be fixed. And, and that's held me back a lot in my business, especially my earlier years, where it would stop me from doing things because I wanted to be perfect. And until it was perfect, I wasn't going to release it. And because I could never get it to be perfect, nothing ever came out. And I feel like this hurts a lot a lot of entrepreneurs. The thing that really helped me get better is understanding that there is no perfect. This is a struggle. You want perfect, right? You want it to be exactly perfect, and because there is no perfect, you're constantly stressing out on trying to get there. So there is no perfect. Your main goal is just trying to be better than you were yesterday. And that really helped me because I look at my YouTube videos, and I look at my website, and I look at my team, and I look at my relationships. Nothing is perfect, right? You're always going to be editing your website. You're always going to be trying to make your relationship better. You're always going to be improving your products and services. There is no perfect. A lot of people want to get started on YouTube when— and they're trying to make their first video and they record it and they look at it and they don't like it, so they don't publish it. And then they try to record it again and it still isn't good, so they don't publish it. And they never actually publish anything because they have these crazy high standards. They want it to be perfect. That's never going to get there. And so then you don't end up publishing anything and you don't make any progress towards your goal. When you look at my espresso series as an example, I started with an idea, I made my first video, it was okay, you guys loved it, thank you for that, you gave me some great feedback, and it got better. And I added some theme music and I added the shot of espresso and I've gotten better every time I've done a video. And so that's the key. You gotta start. It's great to plan, it's great to have that bit of perfectionist that makes you want to have high standards, right? I'm not saying throw away all your standards and just create crap. You need to have those standards, but don't let those standards get you in the way of actually doing something and creating. You don't need to be perfect, you just need to be better than you were yesterday. Believe. So my question of the day for you guys is, I'd love to know if you're a perfectionist and if that has held you back and what you've done about it. I'm really curious to find out. Leave in the comments below and I'm going to join the discussion. Thank you guys so much for watching. Continue to believe and I'll see you soon.
