A Weird Mental Shift on Perfectionism

Perfectionism will often HURT you more than HELP you. Here’s a secret about you and your creativity that perfectionism loves to cover up – and a weirdly powerful mental shift to get perfectionism on your side without it taking over your creative life.

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To hire Jeff to consult on your channel, your content, or your business building, send an email to the address listed on the About page for business inquiries.

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Story Greenlight founder Jeff Bartsch edits TV full-time in Hollywood for ABC, NBC, Apple, Universal, Disney, ESPN, MTV, and many others. His commentary has been featured in the USA Today, Time Magazine, the Associated Press, and multiple textbooks.

#thethingunderthething #nosmallcreator

[BrianWorley]

People who do things pretty well, invariably have a higher threshold for "good enough" than most of the people around them. So if they put out content that's "good enough" by their standards it is still above most of the rest of their audience's level. However as the professional / expert it does take a leap of faith, or an immovable time pressure to make that happen

[HowToGYST]

Two things help me:

1. Realising that "good enough" IS good enough.
2. Letting my curiosity be greater than my fear. To be "perfect" at something, I have to learn how to do it. I have to try it and make mistakes and figure things out. By wanting to know how to do it perfectly, I feel less pressure to ACTUALLY be perfect at it straight away.

[ThrillToys]

This totally resonates with me - I came to the same conclusion about perfectionism and challenging myself to care less about a year ago. It has been the best thing ever - in every area of life. Thanks for the encouragement and motivation, Jeff!

[Mowuniverse]

We all matter now smile you're awesome.

[kenhaedrichthepieacademy]

There's a great saying that I love, and is apropos: "Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly first." Thanks for another great video.

[hotmessadhd]

Great point! Perfectionism robs other people of perfectly GOOD content. We don't inspire others by being perfect, but by how we deal with our imperfections ♥️

[Grizz]

especially as a new creator is this important ...quantity after getting started yet you still want attraction ...and that's where you have come in for me ....learning what keeps the audience watching without perfection has worked for me ...thanks jeff

[RandyParsley]

You speak the truth. Perfectionism can be a tough barrier to overcome if it starts to eat you up. Caring less can oddly be inspiring at times!

[ehJoe]

I am not a perfectionist, I am about speaking when I have something to say not speaking to here my own voice. Several times this year I tore down hours of editing and work on vids because it just didnt feel good to me, I wasnt feeling it. Not sure if that's being a perfectionist but the story has to be there #1.

[JensuyaBellyDance]

How did you know I needed to hear this THIS morning?! Totally exhausted editing the longest video for me so far...and it’s about my Baby Boy, who just got engaged. 😱 Talk about emotionally charged work...you’re so inspiring, Jeff! Thank you for being there for us. As I begin the color correction stage on the video, your words on the 80 percent, etc. really resonate 😊

[AshleyMurphyArt]

Perfectionism is a WILD ride. It affected many years of my life in the wrong way. Fortunately, the Lord spoke life over me and helped me grow into a more “balanced” arena. He did this while writing books and creating artwork. Especially, through the artwork because it’s more visible to my eyes vs words on pages. I didn’t like how my painting, drawings etc would turn out. Even my handwriting was horrible. He showed me to embrace the work I was releasing. Of course as you said “care”, and care enough to grow, learn and get better, but not to rob you from your freedom. BALANCE. Great word today Jeff. Keep shining my friend.

[darthjuno]

You're 100% right, Jeff - self confessed perfectionist here and everything you describe is exactly what I've been going through for years, and what has stopped me from making content for fear of it not being perfect. But no more! It's time to let that bit of perfectionism go. 2019 here we come! :)

Thank you for all your advice and tips on this channel as well as your collabs with Tim and others, it's really inspiring and so helpful to me (and many others I'm sure!) 😊

[PeteJohnsMusic]

Hey Jeff. Great video and an excellent topic that I can certainly relate to. I was previously lucky to get one video out a month. After challenging my own perfectionistic tendencies I’m now doing daily videos, and the funny thing is that not ONE person has mentioned anything about a drop in quality. In fact, I’m getting way MORE engagement as I’m covering more content and connection woh more people.

Keep up the great work sir. 👍

[MissionViewfinder]

Love this perspective, Jeff. As I heard another creator put it: “Done is better than perfect.”

[ThreeLittleTrees]

Another winning message. This channel has a direct line into my brain.

[BadIntent]

Incredibly helpful. I just recently released a video course that I worked super hard on for 3+ months. But it was such a grind towards the final third of the project that I knew I had to scale back to super minimalist editing. Perfection wasn't an option with the time I had and the volume of content I wanted out.

So glad I did; the content is being received super well and best of all it got DONE. Keep doing it big!

[whatsupdate]

Great video! Truth be told the viewer is the one that gets to decide, and some things that matter to us mean nothing to them, and some things they want aren’t even on our radar. Since we learn by doing a quicker release cycle will help us get to the real perfection (viewer expectations met or exceeded) rather then a labor intensive cycle that gives us too few videos to learn from.

[CarnivoreIntelligence]

This is super important!
I want all my videos to be better and better. That's great, but I feel that I have to hold my self back several times since the hours in my day must decide that it is better to getting content out than get everything perfectly done.
Thanks, Jeff :)

[cherylcarlson]

Perfectionist tendency is a global problem for me all my life. Raised my kids not to freak when things go sideways and yet strive to be better in art, writing, nursing, advocacy. Great message to be good enough in good...so hard

[phonebox]

Perfectionism is my biggest problem - It s closely tied to fears we all have. And it does stop us from moving forward. It really cripples us as u said. It hits me the most when people half-ass their work and succeed-simply because they care less. As opposed to someone paying attention to every detail- while complexity is not really what the viewer/consumer is looking for. Yet, a perfectionist has a hard time to compromise and as u said... care less. 🐸- keep up the good work. Cheers from germany