Every now and then it happens.

I’ll be so tired that I’m virtually sleep walking. Head hits the pillow, then suddenly it’s like I’ve entered a boxing ring and I hear this “ding ding ding” go off in my head (if that’s really what happens in a boxing ring!).

Suddenly, I’m wide awake and next thing, it’s like I’m travelling through space with all these thoughts and ideas flying at me from all angles like HUGE meteors! It’s all I can do just to contain myself and lie in peace instead of jumping out of bed to frantically write everything down.

So I take big breaths. Relax. Tell myself I am really tired and it’s time to sleep.

Thing is, next thing I know, one of those ideas has latched itself onto my brain and in a trance like state I realise I’ve drafted an outline for an article and written half of it in my mind already!

Sighing, I determine sleep is not possible at this point in time; after all, my article sounds sooooo good I REALLY need to finish it off.

In a dream-like state, I piece together the rest of the article, write a FABULOUS headline and then, bit by bit, read through what I’ve written and edit it to PERFECTION!  I chop out bits and pieces, alter a word here and there, and even include an entirely new paragraph.

By the time I’m done – an hour or so later – the darn thing is pretty much PERFECT!  I’m starting to get a little sleepy again and I’m feeling so content that I’ve written this PERFECT article. I can’t wait to get it down on paper tomorrow!

But just to make sure I don’t forget this super duper article, I’m just going to read through it one more time before I drift off to sleep… and as I do, I think “wouldn’t it be great if there was a computer thing on the wall that could zap my thoughts so it would be there in the morning?”

Tomorrow’s here and I jump out of bed and seem to have something at the back of my mind… but I can’t quite recall exactly what it was.

No time to waste!!! I’ll think about it later!  Dog needs to be fed, exciting things happening with the business, clients to attend to, need to get something out of the freezer for dinner that night.

You get what I mean – the normal morning stuff!  And well, just LIFE and business!

Three hours later, it suddenly HITS me! Ohhhhh! That’s right! I wrote a PERFECT article about XYZ last night… I MUST get it down because it was the BEST!

Put everything on hold as the excitement builds. I just NEED to get it on paper.

So I eagerly make a start… tapping away at the keyboard for a few lines.  Then I stop.  Hmm. It doesn’t seem to be flowing as well as it did last night in my dream-like state. No matter.  I plug away like a demented woman on a mission!

Three hours later, it’s two thirds done and I feel like I’m losing it.

Determinedly, I keep at it. And in another five or so hours, 10 revisions and 30 headlines later, I’m done! I feel exulted that, FINALLY, my PERFECT article is out of my head.

I leave it for a bit and go and have a coffee.

I come back to the article, read through it and gasp in horror that I wasted five hours on something that a pre-schooler would have done a better job at!

What happened to my PERFECT article from last night… the one that had me smiling with contentment before I drifted off to sleep?  The one that had me dreaming of all these wonderful awards?  (Yeah right!)

I read through it again, just to make sure my exhaustion from five hours of frantic writing hasn’t got to me.  Nope.  Still reads the same. Then I get frustrated because I’m so hard on myself – particularly when it comes to my writing.

So I toss it. Five hours was enough… it’s not the PERFECT article I wrote last night so now it will have to wait until I have time to MAKE IT perfect.

Hmm.

You know, that article never ends up being perfect. So it never ends up seeing the light of day.

What’s the whole point to this post?

PERFECTION is near impossible!  And if we wait until WE believe things are perfect then it never gets done. It results in stagnancy. And when we don’t take action because of something not being “perfect”, then it results in something coming to a halt in our personal or business life and we don’t achieve what we want (or perhaps not as fast as we would hope).

The funny thing is, those dream-like states of writing perfect articles DO happen to me!  And tonight this one popped into my head (although on a slightly different theme about perfection and inaction).

I wrote my article to PERFECTION and after I finished it in my mind, I was so wired I couldn’t sleep.  So I thought, okay, I’m going to get up and get it down while it’s still there in my head!

And you know what?  This article is nowhere near as perfect as it was when I dreamily wrote it in my head (hmm, maybe because I changed the angle half way through 😉 ). I spent a good 15 minutes deliberating over whether to publish the darn thing!  But I thought, what the heck, it’s getting out there anyway! Even though the brilliant headline I concocted was 100 times better 🙂

Taking action and not sweating the small stuff never felt so good 🙂  Perfect? What’s that?!!

I can now go to bed.

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