Stop Overthinking and Finish!
You had a revelation. You wrote it down. You were excited. Then perfectionism and the fear of criticism caused you to edit it down until it lost its unique value.
Instead of the valuable gem you started with, you were left with an idea stripped of its power, or worse, you gave up and never executed.
I am not a baker, but Donna is. She makes apple pies better than anyone else. She tells me that you can only roll pie crust out once. If you keep mixing the scraps together and keep rolling the dough out again and again it will get tough. Her rule, roll the dough out once and only once.
Sometimes I write a great thought, an inspired thought, and then my perfectionism and desire to avoid criticism causes me to knead out the most salient points. Instead of a meaningful, appropriately transparent, and flaky and tasty crust, I produce a tough and chewy read or talk that has half the value of the first raw draft. (more…)
