“If you can’t do it right don’t do it at all.” I grew up with a mom who liked to have things “done right,” whether it was vacuuming the living room carpet or balancing the checkbook to the penny! I absorbed her way of doing things over the years…only now I’m 50 and she’s 75 and we’ve both loosened up a bit on the old mantra.
Even though I’ve loosened up, at my core I am a perfectionist. It takes work, lots of work to get over this part of myself. I have a critical eye that speaks loudly to me, even after years of therapy.
So, how does this quality of “perfectionism” inter-relate with finances? In lots of ways. When I first started my financial coaching business, I had to have my business cards “just right.” It took months to get them “just right.” I had this thought in my head that until my cards were perfect I couldn’t tell others about my business. What a way to lose marketing potential and clients! Instead, I could have said to people…”I am starting this exciting business, the cards are in process. I want you to know I am taking new clients as we speak and would appreciate your referrals!”
Then, once I had my business cards, my brain thought was, “you should really have your Ph.D., most people want to work with someone who has a Ph.D. You will make more money if you have a Ph.D.” I seriously thought about going back to school to get my Ph.D. when my mentor told me, “Denise, you are enough already….you don’t need one more degree…this thought is really coming from your core, that you aren’t enough already.” Well, her words shook my insides up and I knew she was right. Imagine how much money my business would have lost if I had waited until I earned my Ph.D. before I started seeing clients!
Waiting to market yourself, raise your rates or grow your business until conditions are “perfect” will lose you money, opportunity and fun! Over the years, I’ve embraced a new mantra, it’s called, “good enough.” I stole this concept of “good enough” from the psychology literature. A famous psychologist by the name of Winnicott, says that children will turn out okay if they receive “good enough mothering.” He didn’t say, “perfect mothering!” So, I apply this concept to my business and personal finances too.
These days, I’m about $1,000 off in the reconciliation between my manual checkbook register and bank statement, to my favor. So, I leave this cushion and watch it monthly. I no longer have a need or want to spend the time to balance my checkbook to the penny! Now I must say, if the $1,000 was not in my favor, that would be a different story.
When I’m asked to create a custom seminar, I put my best effort forward and no longer obsess about doing it perfectly. These days, I say “yes” to projects and then figure them out. In my old perfectionism days, I would say “no” to projects because I didn’t have them already figured out. That’s a big shift that brings in more money, more fun and stimulates creativity!
Going with the flow and being flexible is lots more fun than being rigid and so structured that it disallows room for discussion and free thinking. Creating a “good enough” seminar actually brings in more money because people have more fun and want more of what I have to offer.
Today, I embrace the concept of “good enough,” in money, marriage and life in general!
