We as humans are driven by perfection. To become the best in our fields is something that the society has taught us to desire. But In order to deliver with perfection, we get stuck in a loop, discarding our less than perfect efforts. This at times doesn’t lead to any progress and we remain at the same spot from where we have started.

I was once impressed by this concept of Perfectionism. To become a perfectionist seemed very fancy and ideal. But over time I realized that it was not working that great for me. While chasing perfection, I was rejecting my numerous efforts, the progress was slow and in the process I missed many small learnings that imperfection offers.

As I started my professional career, I realized that the world doesn’t demand perfection, it demands progress where with each effort we make towards progress we have to improvise ourselves and our practices. The goal should be to achieve excellence with consistency rather than perfection. Now excellence is not something that is God-given, it comes with practice over a period of time but to get started you have to accept the imperfection and take the first step. You have to give up the fear of looking funny to others and get ready to make continuous efforts.

Working in an organization with a progressive philosophy helps a lot to develop this practice. In ColoredCow we are encouraged to make continuous efforts and achieve consistency first. We are promoted to deliver our efforts each day no matter how small result they give.

I agree that it’s easy to lose hopes when you don’t see the results, but that’s where your team support comes into play. Surrounding yourself with people who encourage your efforts and at the same time guide you to improve them, keeps the motivation up. With time you realize that you are moving towards excellence.

This approach is true in every aspect of life. I learned this approach after joining ColoredCow and now I apply it to my coding practices and in my blog writings and it has started to show some results. I have also started to use this philosophy in more parts of my life other than work from guitar playing to reading books.

Everyone at ColoredCow follows this approach and if we ever get lost, then we have Golden rule coming to our rescue, which goes as follows:

Practice Everyday.
Whatever you are chasing to become good in, practice it everyday. This is going to be tough initially but it’s like a cough syrup or morning dose of half an hour jump rope. You have to do it irrespective of whether you see results for the next one month. The moment you start seeing it like that, you will get into the rhythm.