Writing is About Progress, Not Perfection

Like everything else in life, it’s all about the progress you make that will ultimately determine your success.

As you continue to write every day you learn one or two things about writing, you develop skills you didn’t have before but, at the same time there are few things you need to avoid as you continue to progress, among those things to avoid is to look for perfection especially when it comes to writing.

Doing that will not only hinder your progress, but it will also make you miss so many opportunities that would have rather made a huge difference in your writing journey.

I can tell you this from first-hand experience, possibly one you could also relate to it in case you are at the beginning of your writing career or you are ready well ahead.

For the past few months, I was struggling to write partly due to my busy schedule, but I was also contemplating what to write about to make a comeback that could possibly be perfect in content and has an eye-catching headline, until I finally realized looking for this kind of perfectionism was simply standing in my way to write at all.

A friend of mine recently shared his view with me about perfectionism. He told me that he used to believe everything you want to achieve in life should be quick and perfect, but after so many shortcomings and setbacks, he has now changed his mind.

Now he says if you want to accomplish anything in life, you have to give out time for progress to take place, forget about perfection, and only after that, you will attain your desired outcome.

Writing is no exception in this case, in fact, writing is all about evolving each day as you write, not everything you write should be perfect, but it has to show that you are indeed improving and that is the most important factor you should always keep in mind. Period.

In Conclusion

I am in no way an expert or professional in writing yet, but as the journey to becoming one is underway, I have noticed that writing is all about the progress you make, not the perfection you desire. This concept applies to all other parts of our lives and it is something we should pay close attention to.

To give you a clear example, just look at the top writers here on Medium, most of them admit with all their writing expertise, they sometimes still write posts that in way nears perfection, but they still continue to write and progress, and because of that they are on the top.

You and I need to adopt this kind of mentality to have any chance of progressing in writing and in life too.

Thank you for your precious time.