The other day a good friend of mine, Beverly Denver, editor of Houston Woman Magazine, shared a story from the book Life is a Verb.
A college ceramics teacher decided to do an experiment with his two fall pottery classes. He told one class they would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced that quarter and their grade depended on the number of pots they threw --- so the more the better! The second class was told their grade would be determined by the quality of their work and they only needed to produce one “perfect” pot.
Question: Which group do you think received the highest grades?
When the quarter came to a close, the final grades were surprising. The works of the highest quality came from the group that was graded on quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was churning out pot after pot, they were also getting better at pot throwing! The “quality” group sat and pondered, thought, and redesigned their pots trying to get to perfection. In the end, the perfect pot group had little more to show for their time and effort than a lot of theory and some not so perfect looking pots.
Is perfectionism holding you back from becoming whatever it is you desire to be? Take it from me --- the more speeches you give, the better speaker you become; the more classes you teach, the better teacher you become; the more articles you write; the better writer you become… and on and on.
Overnight success only happens in the movies. If you don’t believe me, ask my good friend Ruben Gonzalez.
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