I've seen plenty of these influencers online these days. You know, the kind with perfect skin, the best kind of body, and faces with a smile so perfect it makes you want to punch out?

Yep, these are the type of people I've started to call "Optimisation" Influencers.

they're the most irritating buggers out there for me.

And no, it isn't because they're much prettier than me (Okay maybe just partially because of that)

It's because of the message they push, the extra focus they put on every detail.

It's absolutely asinine

But not because the information they push is necessarily bad, no, some of it's good advice, but it's hyper-fixation on details that has created a society of people that are to afraid to act.

I mean, generally, I don't actually care or think they're bad people, or even spreading a bad message, nor am I sitting here saying they should stop, but for some people, it's the very best kind of procrastination.

Perfection, optimisation, it's all just varying words for the exact same concept, that concept being; I won't do this unless I'm doing it perfectly, I won't workout until I have the right split, I won't start writing publicly until I'm a great writer, I won't join that music club until I can play really well.

Fear and waiting

I'm sure we've all been in that type of position before, we stand there, and we'll be very well-intentioned about it, we will feel like we are going to accomplish whatever it is we want too, just…not yet; we're not quite good enough to try yet.

Though, none of us are alone in this around 20% of people experience chronic Procrastination in a study published by scientific research publishing, and that's the extreme cases.

When we contrast this with the 1970s, where less than 5% of individuals suffered from this, we can see the increase.

So, what exactly is the cause?

In my mind, and in my thoughts the only logical cause, is perfection, in the pre-internet age, we did not have access to nearly as much as we do now; and yes, the digital age has brought with it many brilliant things, I can now talk to a friend halfway across the world with no issue.

But it's had plenty of problems come along with it

But we're going to focus on one, paralysis.

When you have a million roads open to travel, and now you find yourself the man standing in between endless paths, you're not very likely to move are you?

Because as soon as you do, that voice is going to sound out

"But what if you choose wrong" this voice is certainly one we've all encountered, it is the voice of fear, and it holds you dead still.

Now, picture what would happen if now you had to prepare perfectly for even stepping out onto the path!

It seems very clear to me that adding that into the mix, you'd never move, not even a step forward, and you can say goodbye to any adventure you might have.

That's what perfection, and optimisation does, stops you dead in your tracks.

Walking the path

Now we've established that fear causes us to stick in our tracks, we can move onto how we should go about combatting fear.

There are a number of ways in which you can get over your need for optimisation.

Now, I will preface this and say that chasing improvement is not the enemy, however, it becomes an issue, and poisonous, when it comes before action, in order to get anywhere, you have to act in life, act, that is to say, move towards what you want in life, rather than planning, and pondering on how you can improve that which you haven't even started.

So indeed, how can we fight procrastination?

• We must first change our perspective, improvement at something you want to do, will only come from doing the thing itself, you wouldn't improve at making a good coffee if you spent hours brewing tea; yes they might be slightly similar, but it won't do you any good.
• We must also change our perspective on failure, it isn't something negative, but instead, we should look at failure as a sign of growth, when you work muscles in the gym, they need to be pushed to failure to grow, therefore, we should view failure in life the same way.
• Thirdly we need to prioritise action, it doesn't matter if you're no good right now, with time you will be, but whatever you do.

Don't put it off because you aren't perfect

• Lastly, acknowledge this, you need to be bad at this, just like someone taking a class for the first time in a room full of experts, you're going to loom very stupid, but if you're good at playing that, you can ask the most simple questions, possibly be laughed at, and be better off for it

Asking stupid questions, and being a beginner at something takes actual skill, it takes guts to take the possible embarrassment, and it takes focus to take on board the lessons you'll learn. Neither being a beginner, or asking questions which will get you laughed at are bad things, but you should only have to learn these lessons once, and then you'll be on track to improve massively.

Conclusion

While it's a wholly positive trait to want to improve ourselves, but we can't have that getting in the way of moving forward in life, the main takeaway from this article should not be that optimising one's life is wrong, but that searching for perfection before even beginning is the enemy of success; we have to allow ourselves to fail, to be bad at things, otherwise we won't find the real potential inside of us.

Thank you for reading :)