Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Badly at First

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Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Badly at First

Yes, you read that right… Anything worth doing is worth doing badly at first.
Say it with me now… say it out loud…

Anything Worth Doing is
Worth Doing Badly at First.

Take a moment and let that settle in…
I have a spiritual mentor who for years shared the above thought with me and for many, many dinner conversation I would repeat that back in my head as … ummm…  isn’t that supposed to be anything worth doing is worth doing well.
As a now recovering perfectionist I know that at an even deeper level my subconscious was drowning out all of it with “anything worth doing is worth doing perfectly or not at all.” Wow – did that rule my life for a long, long time… keeping me frozen in fear – not able to dare to do it different – to risk – to try – to stumble, blunder, fall, God forbid… fail… (GASP!)
Thank God, I finally got it. No one can sit down at a piano and immediately be a master, Malcolm Gladwell writes in Outliers that it takes 10,000 hours of action to be a master at anything. So, I can’t open my mouth and decide to speak in fluent Spanish… or stand up from my desk strike the perfect yoga pose… or… you get the idea. We all have to start somewhere… and practice… and stumble… and blunder… and fall… and yes, absolutely fail sometimes.
Today I try to live in the spirit of these statements…

  • Dare to do it different
  • Ready, FIRE!, Aim
  • Fail Fast
  • Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Badly at First

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