071: Laura Canham – How Perfection Can Kill Your Business & Tips On Shifting Your Money Mindset.

I was a notorious perfectionist, tweaking irrelevant things in Canva, going onto my website, doing stuff that I didn’t really need to. And I think what I’ve learned is if we’re honest with ourselves, perfectionism is actually just another form of procrastination. It’s just another way of us to put off doing the thing, or putting ourselves out there, or whatever it is. It’s just us holding ourselves back half the time. And there’s always a reason why we’re trying to make things perfect.

It’s because we’re worried, or we’ve got fears about putting that new package out there, or trying that new thing, it’s all self doubt, and stuff like that. So I think we’ve just got to remember that there actually is no way for anything to ever be perfect. Which means, and especially in this industry, that if you’re spending a lot of time trying to make things perfect, you end up just killing your own creativity. And then you end up overthinking things too much. And then you’ll never be satisfied. You’ll never feel accomplished, and you just get burnt out and stressed. So I think what I’ve learned is, obviously you can’t get any results if you’re not taking action. And the more you are trying to perfect things, the less action you’re taking.

So if you’re spending hours and hours trying to write perfect captions for social media, just get your message out there. Whether it’s perfect or not. Just post it, put it up, doesn’t matter if it’s got typos, you can always go back and fix stuff up later. So whatever you are doing, just try and take some action. Cause otherwise, and I don’t know if other people… Just losing myself. If other people feel this too, or they’ve had this experience, but you get into this cycle where you spend so long trying to make everything perfect, which means you don’t take action and you have no momentum in your business. And then because you’re not taking action, No one’s booking you, or you’re not getting any results. So you’re not getting any leads. And then you trick yourself into thinking that all happened because it wasn’t perfect in the first place.

So then the cycle happens again. So you’re like, “Oh, well I best go make it perfect.” So then whatever. So yeah. A Mentor of mine a few years ago always used to say, “Laura, done is better than perfect.” So I now will share that with all my clients. I’m like, “Just get it done. It doesn’t matter if it’s not completely right yet or whatever.” You want progress over perfection, essentially, rather than just wasting all your time making it pretty and perfect.

I think… And I’m still learning myself and it’s changing now that I’ve had two. The things that I implemented when I had one, I’m now even having to use a little bit now I’ve got two. But like the main thing is probably just being really realistic. You’ve just… And I’ve had to learn this myself to just not put the pressure on myself, and just think about the fact that you will have less time available. Like you just naturally will. There’s a small human or multiple humans who need your love and attention and need all the things. So your day is suddenly jam packed with not just you in the business anymore. So I think realizing that you’ve got much less time, and then trying to prioritize what you can do in the finite amount of time that you have.

And I still have to like pep talk myself daily about this, because sometimes I will come and sit here, and I have all these grand plans and stuff I’m just going to get done. And you just don’t, because all of a sudden my work has gone from a full day, a full chunk of time, to doing it in little tiny nap windows.

Do you know what? It was actually really hard. Because when I worked in my day job, I would always get offered promotions to go and manage a team or whatever. And it was never something I wanted, to have a team, or to whatever. So when I had my own business, I was like, “This is great, because it’s just me, and I can work for myself. And I don’t have to give tasks to anyone, or be accountable to anyone, or whatever.” But you pretty much, once your business starts growing, and if you want it to grow and you want to scale it and you want to earn more money or take on more clients or whatever, you have to get comfortable with outsourcing stuff, or building or growing your team, whatever that looks like for you.

Because otherwise… I got to the point where I was actually not being the CEO of my business. I was actually just being an overworked employee in my own business. Like you said, wearing all the hats. Doing the social media, doing Canva, doing the invoicing, doing things that naturally is creative probably don’t come to us as easily as the photography, or the being a celebrant, or being a florist, or whatever it is that we would do in the industry. So I probably waited until it was too late. I honestly recommend anyone in my programs now, as soon as they’re feeling a little pulled, or a little stretched, or a little too busy, or start borderline overwhelmed, I always say straight away, “Honestly, hire someone or outsource to a VA or get some support before you hit burnout.”

Because when you get way, way, way too overwhelmed, you don’t have the head space then to sit back and look at your business strategically, and see what you need to outsource and what you don’t. Whereas if you can catch yourself in a really good head space when things aren’t too overwhelming, it’s a bit easier then to go, “Right. What are all the things I do in my business?” So I recommend just literally list out everything you do. And it’s quite shocking. It’s quite a shocking exercise when you go to that level of granular detail of like, “Holy crap, I’m more than just the photographer. These are all the small things and the hats I have to wear now.” And then I recommend looking at that and going, “Oh, well, which is the stuff that only I can do? And which is the stuff that I could give to someone else? And which are the things that make me happy, and lighten me up, and fall into my zone of genius, and which stuff isn’t my strength?”

So I know website, updating my website, or doing backend stuff on there is just not my thing. I can do it, but something that would take an expert 10 minutes would probably take me 10 hours. So you just have to work out what’s the most cost effective option for you. And can you recoup some time back into your life or your business by giving that to someone who’s an expert in it. So I really shut off to the idea of having a VA just because, I don’t know, like you said, your business is your baby, and probably the biggest factor is trust.

Do I trust anyone but me to respond to email inquiries? Do I trust anyone but me to edit in my style, or communicate with my couples on my behalf? And again, it links to that perfection aspect, where you have to go, “Right, I’m going to shake off the perfectionism.” And if you find a staff member that aligns with your values and ticks the boxes, and you onboard them in a way where they understand your brand, and stuff like that, it’s totally fine. It’s not that scary. And in fact, it’s really empowering, and I love it. I honestly couldn’t live my life without my VA now.