Overcoming Perfectionism And Procrastination

In this episode I show you round our Greek gaff, talk about how you have to “get over” yourself if you want to create content and finally share what’s on the blog and the podcast this week. Next week, drone flying!

I hope you enjoy it and all constructive comments and suggestions are welcome. See below and at the end of the video for all credits etc.

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Clicks And Leads is a “tongue in cheek” digital marketing Vzine by entrepreneur, author, podcaster, speaker, Nicola Cairncross. You can also subscribe to the video podcast on iTunes.

Some of the insights shared in this week’s Vzine…

So, I’ve come out into the garden to talk to you today about perfectionism, because we’ve just released the first issue of the e-zine. And I’m not a young, good-looking, thirty something person, who is traveling around the world, who is having a lovely time and looks gorgeous all the time. So, one could argue, who would want to watch a video about someone who’s living in one place, albeit a different country, and who is not perfect, in fact, who wears a lot of the same colors all the time, i.e., black, and who is not young and exciting and gorgeous.

But I think I’ve got a lot to share. So I’ve decided I’ve got to get over myself, as I’ve said in one of my other videos, and I’ve decided that I need to just not care about any of that stuff, not care about what my hair looks like. In fact, today I’m pretty convinced that I didn’t wash the conditioner out of it. You know how you get that feeling, girls?

When you’re drying your hair, you just think, “Oh, little bit tacky.” So I’ve decided I’m not going to worry about my hair, I’m not going to worry about whether I’ve got any makeup on, I’m not going to worry about whether I feel overweight, or every day to be honest, and I’m going to not worry too much about whether the background’s perfect.

Obviously, I have tried to get you a nice sunlit tree here and a little bit of lemon tree in the background, so it’s quite nice, not perfect, but quite nice. I wanted to just get it out there, I wanted to get started.

I knew we could start with episode one and we could improve as we go. Phoebe’s learning all the time. She’s learning new tricks with the editing. She’s learning new layovers and all sorts of things. And the more I can supply to her, the more choice she’s got of what to use.

So I’ve just got to churn out the content.

So many people worry so much about being professional, what other people think about them, having everything perfect, you know, not having the washing up in the background, that they just never get started. The thing is that I’ve actually been prevaricating about doing this bit of to camera talking for the v-zine since lunchtime. Because, I didn’t want to do it in the kitchen, because there was washing up in the background and I couldn’t be to put it away. Then someone called, and then there was whooshing to do with app.

And so, basically, I was prevaricating, because I didn’t know … I don’t really enjoy doing this. It gets easier as you do it, but I don’t massively enjoy it. Everyone calls me a narcissist, but I’m not that bad. I just had to push through it. I just had to think, “The sun is going down. It could be nice in parts of the garden. Let’s go and find a different location and let’s just get it done.” Because, if I don’t get it done, Phoebe can’t get episode two of the e-zine out, and that’s not fair on her.

And I find that’s a really helpful way of pushing through procrastination actually, is to make yourself accountable to someone else. If I don’t make the content, she can’t make the e-zine. If she doesn’t make the e-zine, the e-zine doesn’t go out, and that’s my fault, down to me, nobody else. So I think it’s really important now, having released episode one, she’s keen to go on episode two, because we know there’s things we could do better. So let’s give her a chance. She can’t have that chance to make things better unless I do my bit.

So, here I am in the garden talking about perfectionism and not being a perfectionist, and about how important it is to just get the content out there, not to worry about whether people like you, not to worry about whether people are going to criticize you.

You know, the only people who’ve got the right to criticize are the people who are doing something better themselves. So if you’re not doing anything better than me, I don’t actually give a … what you think of me. Because, unless you’re doing something better and more creative, in which case I’ll learn from you, you know.

If you’re doing something better and more creative and more exciting, I will be watching you to learn from you, like Dan Knowlton, because he’s always doing something really cool.

So I think the haters, the only people who’ve got the right to hate are the people who are doing better.

But what you’ll find is, the people who are doing better than you will not hate on what you’re doing, because they’ll want to encourage you, because people will have encouraged them. They would have had to get over their own perfectionism, their own procrastination, their own fear of being criticized or not liked.

So that’s pretty much the thing, people who are going to criticize you, you don’t care about them anyway because they’re not doing anything exciting. The people who you look up to and aspire to be, the Casey Neistat, the Gary Vs, the Dan Knowltons, the Matt Duggans, those are the people I’m looking at, those are the people who I care about what they think.

I know none of them are going to say anything horrid. I know that they’re only going to come back with suggestions for how to make this v-zine better, more professional, more funny, better location, whatever, they’re going to come back with constructive criticism, and I’ll always be open to that.

So, if you know that you could talk to a camera and that you could potentially get Facebook Live videos out, and if you could potentially create a v-zine, whatever niche you’re in. You know, you could be an electrician, you could be a plumber, you could be a dentist, you could be just someone who just goes about and sweeps the streets, for heaven’s sake, you could become the first YouTube street sweeper to become famous, because you’re a cool person.

You know, you document your days and you share cool houses or interesting places in the town you live. Just don’t not get started because you’re afraid of what people are going to say about you.

The people who care will support you. And the people you care about will support you and everybody else can just go take a flying … over the lemon tree.