Stop overthinking it

Are you guilty of overthinking things? Putting imaginary barriers in your way by making things more complicated than they need to be.

I see it all the time in my consultations.

All too often the problem stems from a ridiculous need for perfection.

I say ridiculous, because perfect rarely exists - it's an unrealistic expectation.

And yet, so many of us let it get in our way.

"I can't do it until..."

"I just need to..."

"As soon as I..."

"I have to wait for..."

"Once I've got..."

We don't want to take action until all the pieces are in place.

The problem with that is it might never happen.

There has to be a starting point.

At some point, you have to say "fuck it" and just do the bloody thing.

Done is better than perfect

I'll happily hold my hands up and admit I'm guilty of putting off the inevitable. And I've been doing it in my business for a while now.

I started offering mentoring services over three years ago, alongside my other services.

I was fully aware that my business name, Make Your Copy Count, was no longer as relevant as it was when my core services were copywriting and copywriting training, but I worked with what I had.

If I was my own client, I'd have told myself my website was too confusing, my marketing wasn't focused enough, and my company name was no longer reflective of what I do. I'd have told myself to focus fully on the mentoring.

But it's hard to follow your own advice sometimes.

And setting up a separate business would be a lot of work. I'd need a new name, new website, new logo, new social media pages. I'd have to move blog posts about, write more copy, do more work.

It would be a big job.

Or at least in my mind it would be a big job.

So I put it off. I tried to separate the services out on my website - tried to make it clear there were two separate arms to my business. I tried to make it all fit.

Until this week.

This week, I finally gave myself a kick up the arse and made a start.

I bought a new domain name - lsmentoring.com and started creating a new website.

It's not the catchiest of business names, but it's good enough for now. After all, I started out with lisaslatercopywriting.com and that served me just fine - it was just a bit long when it came to having to type it out all the time (lesson learned for this time).

The funny thing is, as soon I got started, things moved pretty fast. I realised it wasn't as big a job as I'd imagined.

Why?

Because it doesn't have to be perfect straight away.

I don't need a fancy logo or branding yet - that will come.

My website doesn't have to be fantastic to start with - as long it makes it clear what I do.

Setting up a new company page took about five minutes - the banner might be a bit crap (graphic design is not my strong point), but I can improve it at a later date.

I'm not suggesting I don't want my business to look professional, or that I don't want my copy to be amazing, or that I'm not bothered about the website looking decent.

But if I waited until everything was perfect, I might be waiting a long time.

Instead, I've taken the first steps. There's still a lot of work to do on both websites and once they're sorted, I'll revisit the branding - I know plenty of graphic designers who can help with that.

I'm doing what I did when I first started freelancing over ten years ago - I'm building my business a bit at a time.

I didn't need everything to be perfect back then to provide a great service and make money. And I don't need everything to be perfect now to provide a great service and make money.

Are you guilty of getting in your own in your way?

I know I'm not the only person who's guilty of getting in my own way.

So if you're waiting for the "perfect time" to do something, stop waiting and start doing.

Stop telling yourself:

"I can't do it until..."

"I just need to..."

"As soon as I..."

"I have to wait for..."

"Once I've got..."

You're just making excuses. And excuses don't get you anywhere.

I can be the queen of procrastination when I want to be, so trust me when I say, you need to just get on with it.

If I'd have just set up the second business in the first place, I wouldn't have wasted so much time restructuring my old website over and over again trying to make everything fit.

Thanks for reading

That's it from me for this month - don't forget to subscribe to this newsletter if you haven't already.

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And if you'd like practical, actionable advice on how to attract more of the clients you want and build a freelance business that works around you, grab a copy of my book here.

Lisa