[I want to acknowledge the invasion of Ukraine, and other awful events around the world. This post isn’t likely to resolve any of those things, but it just might help you take the focus off doom, and place it at least briefly on more hopeful things.]
I named my organization The Imperfect Network to free myself and my clients from the tyranny of perfectionism. I love saying the name to people and seeing their eyes light up in recognition, and relief. The name in itself conveys permission for imperfection in a world that can ask a lot of us. Phew!
Bring on the irony, in the form of me stalling the launch—for fear of the site, the plan, the services, the… me being less than perfect.
But I haven’t been using that word, 'perfect,' exactly. I’ve been saying ‘yet,’ which I’m now identifying as perfectionism’s sounding trumpet.
“It’s not quite ready YET.”
“I’m not totally feeling it YET.”
“If I’m going to be marketing myself as a branding coach, my branding had better be damn good—and it’s not there YET.”
Can you relate? Are there 'almosts' and 'not... yets' in your branding and communications?
I’m so excited to share everything I’ve developed to help you and your business, including group sessions like Imperfect Coworking and Imperfect Conversations; weekly newsletters with pithy bits; blog posts full of useful things and wisdom too, and of course one-on-one coaching.
Soooo excited, like up-all-night excited—and YET. Le grand stall.
Like months. Months of writing and rewriting, tweaking and retweaking. I could become a procrastination coach—as in how to procrastinate, not how to stop. I'm a stone cold expert in the field.
It took some group support (I'm pointing at you, Jacq Fisch and your badass MOFOs), some accountability (publicly committing to a send-by date—thanks again, MOFOs), some productive therapy sessions, morning pages*, and time.
We would all do well to remember the opposite of ‘perfect’ and its buddy ‘yet’ is ‘enough.’ The website, branding, messaging—you! me!: we are all enough. It took me a while to get there, but I did. All the while thinking about the cobbler's kids who have no shoes: It's amazing what we can do for others that we struggle to do for ourselves.
So here it is, enough already: the first post, first newsletter, first outreach, first vulnerability.
Welcome to imperfection and all of its inherent joys and freedoms. Welcome to you, all of you—the whole you: accepted, appreciated, celebrated. I really hope you’ll bring that ‘you’ to ImpCo, ImpCons, and Imperfect branding and business development.
I’m really looking forward to being imperfect and enough with you. Comment below and let me know what imperfections you want to embrace. Or poke around the website and offer up some helpful feedback (thanks!). Or book a free Discovery Call, and we can talk about how to celebrate your brand’s imperfections and turn them into successes.
I hope you can throw down your excuses, say buh'bye to your procrastination, and shout and believe, "I am enough already!"
The Imperfect Lauren
* Morning pages are a tool in The Artist's Way, and The Artist's Way at Work. Strongly recommended (the pages, and the books).
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