Stuck and overthinking? Here’s how to start taking Imperfect Action in your business

If you've been listening to me for a while, you'll know that I *always* talk about taking imperfect action (it is the name of this podcast after all!). But what does that even mean—like really…on the day-to-day? In today's episode, I'm sharing how to *actually* take that imperfect action along with a framework you can use to do so.

– The obstacles that pop up whenever you decide to do something you haven't done before, and how to move forward instead.
– How being ready and confident comes only through doing—not by planning or waiting.
– The four-step “how to take imperfect action” process you can use to get you closer to where you want to be.

 

 
Today I'm talking about how to take imperfect action in your business because it's very easy for me to stand here on this show and say, take imperfect action, it's the secret sauce to success. But the question that comes up over and over and over again, when I say this is. But how? 

And that's fair enough because even when you know exactly what you need to do, actually doing it is an entirely different game because all of the things that pop up to derail us in our minds, fear of failure, fear of judgment, all of the uncertainty, overwhelm, perfectionism, procrastination, all of the other mindset muck that lives in this gap between knowing what to do and actually doing it, the knowing-doing gap, stuck in analysis paralysis, overthinking, over planning, that's all in the knowing-doing gap, but you're not moving any closer to stepping out of your comfort zone and doing the thing that you want to do.

Now, I'm a big fan of frameworks. I love a good framework. So I've broken down how to take imperfect action into four steps. 

 

Step #1: Dream it up.

The very first step in the process is identifying where you are going and what you really want to achieve. What are you taking imperfect action towards? Because yes, we're taking action imperfectly, but if we're just blindly taking imperfect action, we're not going to get very far and it ends up being messy and overwhelming. So we want to make sure we have a little bit of direction. 

Now, we often think we know what we want, but it's really hard to know if we want something or not until we actually experience it. And most of the time when we are deciding what we want, we're just basing it on our past experiences, or we're trying to avoid past experiences that we don't want to experience again. 

So maybe you are approaching your business with a mindset of, I don't want to go back to a job. So what you're trying to do is you're trying to achieve a business that that means you don't have to go back to this past experience you want to avoid, or we choose things based on what is expected of us or what we think we are supposed to want. 

So getting really clear on what do you want to do? What do you really want? And also asking what else could be possible for me outside of these limitations that I've placed on myself or that others have placed on me. And as I said, you probably won't know if something is the right path for you or not until you experience it and this is the magic of taking imperfect action. It's going out there and doing things, collecting these experiences, and then reviewing. Is this aligned? Is this what I want? Do I need to course correct? Do I need to change direction or is this actually the right choice for me? 

 

Step #2: Map it out.

The biggest thing that I've seen that keeps business owners stuck is this need to have it perfectly planned out to have this perfect clarity to feel a hundred percent confident before they take that big scary step, that first step and in reality, all you really need to know is where you're going and what the next step is and as you start to take each step, you'll figure it out. 

It's like driving in the dark. You can only see as far as your headlights are illuminating the road but as you move forward, you see what's in front of you, that's what taking imperfect action is about. 

And when you do something new, you'll figure it out as you go as well. Action creates clarity. It creates so much more clarity than planning and overthinking ever will and as you take action, you will start to realise what's working and what's not. You can make those changes and you'll have obstacles pop up that you never could ever have planned for and you'll figure them out as well because you will. And you'll probably be better at figuring them out because you're not so attached to this one fixed plan that you've created.

So get really specific on what is the first small step that I need to take? And it's not going to be planning. Planning is not a step. Planning is not action. What is the first action step that I need to take? And once I've done that, what's the next small step?

 

Step #3: Run the experiment.

The key to taking imperfect action is to think of it all as an experiment. Of course, you want it to work, but there is a chance that it won't work. And that's all part of the process and that's okay.

Entrepreneurship is all about risk. And if there wasn't any risk then there wouldn't be any reward in it. Everybody would be running their own businesses, creating new ideas, and putting things out there because it would be guaranteed to succeed, but there's no guarantee. And that's actually okay and if it doesn't work great, we now have a lesson. 

We're closer to success than if we hadn't tried because there was always something you could learn from it to make the experiment better next time. At this part of the process, it's really natural to want to try and control everything to be so tightly gripped to what we are doing and trying to control that outcome.

But control is quite the illusion. Now you can't control every part of the process and it's going to be a waste of your energy because there is so much outside of your control. 

 

Step #4: Review the results.

So first of all, we want to review them through an objective lens and work with so many people who are launching courses.

One of the things I hear over and over and over again is my launch failed. Five people bought it. That doesn't mean it was a success or a failure. That could be a really successful launch, depending on the context. You might have a tiny audience.

If you have 50 people in your audience and five people buy, oh my goodness, that's a really good launch or maybe the course that you're launching is like 10, 000 course and five people buying is actually 50, 000 in revenue, that could be a really successful launch. So we want to look at it objectively, right? 

What happened? What percentage of people converted if it's a launch that you're talking about? And then we want to look at it subjectively. Did it feel aligned for you? So if you launched a course and then you realised that you actually hated teaching this particular topic, then maybe you won't launch that course again or maybe you'll tweak it, or you'll pre-record it, so you don't have to teach it again. 

And if it didn't work, what was the lesson that you learned from it? Is there a way that you can pivot this thing, or you can tweak it, can try again? Sometimes, though, you just need to know when to quit. 

We focus on the gain, not the gap. So, look at what have you achieved. Take that moment to celebrate before you move on to the next thing. And if there are only two things that you take from this episode today, I want them to be these, number one, you only become ready to do something and confident to do something by doing it.

These things don't happen by waiting, by planning, by overthinking, and often overthinking and overplanning can actually make you feel less confident and less ready. They can put more doubt into your brain than there was previously. 

And the second thing I want you to know is the only thing standing between where you are and where you want to be is imperfect action.

So take those two things away, go and take some imperfect action. 

 

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