Lorne Michaels
I’m a fan of Marc Maron’s podcast and recently heard Lorne Michaels of Saturday Night Live fame re-state “done is better than perfect” in two sentences that could only be said by him.
“We don’t go on because the show is perfect. We go on because it’s 11:30 Saturday night.”
I love deadlines for that very reason. They give us a fixed time to stop trying to make something right. My gremlins have a way of minimizing my abilities and talents to the point that I can become paralyzed. Hearing the greats, like Lorne Michaels, state the same thoughts as I have is comforting.
While leading a mastermind group yesterday, one of our members saw a curious-looking set of folders in my tote bag. “What’s that?” she asked.
“My accountability commitments,” I told her, then explained that three times a week I am on the phone with my goal-buddy checking in on our self-assigned goals. Those scheduled conversations get me over the humps of fear, perfectionism and ‘ooh, shiny’ replacement projects.
My work doesn’t have the rigidity of weekly performances with live audiences. But, like any of your businesses, we have projects that become forcing mechanisms to keep us moving forward.
What checkpoints have worked for you before your Saturday nights at 11:30?
This has always been a gremlin for me too — I tend to want clarity and confidence before I start things, but that’s not the way to accomplishment. I heard Darren Hardy of Success magazine interview Marie Forleo this week — she said two things that are directly relevant to this topic:
“Start before you’re ready.”
“Clarity comes from engagement, not thought.”
So true — I had a mentor years ago who was fond of saying, “Don’t overthink this, Elizabeth!”
Checklists and self-imposed deadlines work pretty well for me.