Hi all, Coach Lauren here! Have you ever heard this phrase: “Don’t let ‘great’ get in the way of 'good’”

How about this one: “Immediate progress is better than delayed perfection”?

Or one final popular one: “Progress over perfection”?

These all make sense and have been helpful to me at some point, but as a recovering perfectionist I also sometimes struggled with these because it feels really uncomfortable to “launch” something sub-par. Like, how am I…supposed to be…just OKAY with less-than-perfect…?!

But then I heard this saying: “Get good out there, then iterate to great”.

I found this saying a little more helpful because it still gives the option to make final tweaks if needed. It also focuses on what we need to do now versus what we can “put a pin” in. Additionally, this phrase also has helped me with communicating current status. For example, I’d say “I’m rolling out a new critical process. I know it isn’t perfect, but it is ~75% ‘good’ for now. Then over the next few weeks I’ll ‘iterate to great’ on that final 25%.”

Other contexts where I’ve used this: launching a business, creating social media pages, writing papers, planning vacations, or even cleaning my house.

Have you ever heard this phrase? Where do you think it could be most useful?