Overcome Perfectionism: How To Stop Polishing And Start Publishing Your Blog Articles

I used to have a blog called The Florida Explorer and it was my pride and joy and it died. It died not because I ran out of things to write, but because I could not get my articles as good as I wanted them.

Months would go by without a single published article. Shrinking traffic, falling engagement…and then I quietly let the domain and hosting expire.

Failure.

It was a failure, not because I chose the wrong niche or chose a subject that wouldn’t lead to making a full-time blogging income; it failed because I wanted the blog to be the best Florida blog, and it wasn’t.

It had the potential to be the best Florida blog. It had potential to make $3,000 per month.

One reader even left a comment on my blog: “Please keep your articles coming.”

People were literally telling me they liked my articles and to please publish more. A Florida school linked to one of my articles for their students to study. Even Wikipedia linked to one of my articles to use as a source.

Oh, how it pains me to even write that last paragraph! What a fool I had been to let my blog die!

All the signs of a blog that was on its way to being successful were there.

All that was lacking was a consistent, frequent publishing schedule; which was well within my power.

Sure, there were many other issues–the blog design wasn’t good, I needed to desperately improve my email capture game, I wasn’t making partnerships with others in the same niche, etc. But all those things were easy fixes.*

(FYI–Most new blogs look like garbage and that’s okay. Readers are very forgiving of blog designs that were clearly created on a shoestring budget or created by the blogger on no budget. Readers are there for the content, NOT the bells and whistles.)

We’ve all heard: “Perfect is the enemy of good.”

That saying is quintuple true for those of us in the blogging game.

Also, keep in mind blog posts aren’t etched in stone.

After a couple years of blogging, it is highly recommended to return to your old posts to make updates. You will find many ways to make improvements, which in turn will drive even more traffic and get more email sign ups.

But you will only be able to recognize how and where to make those improvements after receiving feedback from readers and analytics from A LOT of posts.

I’d say 100 posts would be the MINIMUM number of posts you can make before getting any meaningful feedback for what type of articles do and do not work on your blog.

Myth Of The “Perfect Post”

Since I absolutely love blogs, I’ve naturally read a ridiculous amount of blog posts.

Let me tell you: in my readings, I’ve noticed a lot of the most popular posts out there are pretty rough around the edges and even have typos.

Anybody that has been on social media probably has the experience of a typo post going viral. In social media, it seems almost only posts with typos go viral. This is not as true for blog posts, but I have certainly noticed the phenomenon.

Maybe we should experinent with intentionel typoos?

Either way, I don’t think there is much difference between a good post and a perfect post, and I’m just pointing out here there is an argument that a good post may even outperform a perfect post.

Opportunity Cost In Chasing The Perfect Post

Time.

Time to write is what frustrates us the most.

If we only had more time we would be able to pump out 4-5 blog posts per week. Or write that novel we’ve been thinking about or fiddling with for years. Time. Time. Time.

Well, something that gobbles up a whole lot of time is chasing the perfect post. Extra hours get sunk into chasing the perfect post. When I wrote “5 good posts > 1 perfect post” I wasn’t joking. You can write about 5 good posts in the amount of time it costs to write 1 perfect post. That’s what the ratio is.

So there is a huge opportunity cost.

Your precious writing time is not being used wisely when chasing the perfect post!

Signs It’s Time To Hit The Publish Button

• You’ve edited the post more than 10 times (guilty)
• You’re changing words back to the way you had them three edits ago
• You keep researching, researching, researching (I used to be horrible at this “I just need to read a couple more ENTIRE books on this subject before hitting publish.”)
• You’re procrastinating by endlessly searching for the perfect featured image
• Your blog hasn’t published a post in more than a week (gotta keep the momentum moving forward, baby!)

“Done Is Better Than Perfect.”

How many times can you think of in your LIFE in which “done is better than perfect” would have been a much better policy than “this needs to be perfect”?

Thinking over my life, I would be way further down Success Road if I had adopted this policy long ago. In my wake is an enormous amount of half-started, half-finished projects; websites, blogs, and books that have never seen the light of day because I simply did not finish them.

Because I was trying to be perfect instead of done.

“Perfect is the enemy of good.”

Think back to your favorite bloggers: whenever you saw there was a new post by them you were delighted! “Finally!” you thought. “They finally published another post!”

You weren’t judgey if the post wasn’t perfect, you were just happy the post was published.

I would be extremely happy if a blogger I used to follow came back to life with a zombie post, even if the zombie post wasn’t spectacular. I would just be happy to read an article in their voice. Geez, I can feel flutters of excitement in my belly as I write this just thinking about how I would feel if some of my defunct favorite bloggers were to publish a new post!

Your readers want to hear your voice more than they want a perfect post!

So, when in doubt, let it fly!

PUBLISH, PUBLISH, PUBLISH MY FRIENDS!