The Power of Starting: Why Perfection Isn't the Goal

In the veterinary field, there's a certain drive for perfection that seems almost ingrained in us. I don't know if it's a prerequisite for getting accepted into veterinary school, but it sure feels that way sometimes.

The more colleagues I meet, the more I realise that this A-type personality trait might be exactly what makes us so brilliant at what we do. After all, when lives are at stake, you want to be at your best, ensuring that every detail is perfect for your patients.

Perfectionism is something I've “suffered” from for a long time. I expect everyone around me to uphold the same high standards, and honestly, I can’t work with someone who doesn’t pay close attention to detail. I believe in doing things properly, no shortcuts.

But here's the truth: perfectionism can also be a huge downfall.

Let me share a personal story. It took me over two years to get my first online course out to market. From the moment the idea sparked, I kept revisiting it—redoing videos, completely changing the course layout because I thought there was a better way. I kept delaying the launch because it wasn’t "perfect." Finally, my web developer gave me some blunt but much-needed advice: “You just need to launch it, get something out there, and then you can improve it.”

So that’s exactly what I did. I put it out there, and guess what? No one complained.

No one mentioned the video where I dropped my pen. The small mistakes I obsessed over? No one even noticed. In fact, those mistakes made me more relatable. My audience connected with me because I wasn’t perfect—I was just like them. 

One of the biggest things about running an online business is building a connection—getting people to know, like, and trust you and perfect, sometimes prevents you from showing your true self. While I might like things to be perfect, the truth is, I don’t have it all together all the time. And those small mistakes? They don’t change the outcome or the transformation my clients experience. They show the real me, not the person I want people to think I am. 

Looking back, I realise that spending months making everything "perfect" wouldn’t have changed anything. In fact, it might have delayed the success I found by just getting started.

This experience taught me a huge lesson. When I decided to start my podcast, I made a conscious choice right from the start that it wasn't going to be perfect. I used to do everything myself—editing, recording, the whole shebang. One week, I just made up my mind to start a podcast, and I launched it the very next week. I could have spent months overthinking it, but by taking immediate action, I now have 350 episodes under my belt, and my podcast has been voted the 3rd best veterinary podcast in the world.

If I made the podcast perfect every week, that’s what my audience would expect. But by keeping it natural and easy-going, I set the tone for what they could expect moving forward—authenticity over perfection.

So, I hope this blog inspires you to get started. Don’t worry about making it perfect. Publish that eBook. Launch that course. If it’s 80% there, that’s good enough.

Remember, progress beats perfection every time. The important thing is to start, and trust that you can always improve along the way.