Journal Entry #1: Taking Action!
Tags: startup, motivation
Published: 2020-10-07 14:36:41

Welcome to my first journal entry 👋 So excited for this new series! Unlike my blog posts, this will be an **unfiltered** and **unpolished** glimpse of my journey in tech. I'll be sharing things I'm learning along the way, my thoughts as I navigate my career, and definitely the mistakes I'm making as I'm working on a new startup project. It's going to cover the whole gamut 🌈 I'm so pumped to have you join me and can't wait to start sharing my story!

![Alt Text](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/i/tiayjh45yvwahvzzi3md.jpg)

## Being "Perfect" is Holding You Back

I've been thinking for quite some time to start documenting my journey in tech. But every time I start writing it in my blog, it felt too official and I have this weight of delivering a polished product. This is of course a self-inflicted pressure lol.

I bet you hear this a lot -- _I'll release it once it's perfect_

That word, **perfect** or the need to be a **perfectionist** is so often the reason for one **NOT** to do. It is not a **reason**, it is our **excuse** to **NOT** do. It is the excuse we tell ourselves in order to preserve our insecurities -- we're afraid of failing, we're afraid of the opinions of others. Failing in private is scary enough, but failing in public can be traumatizing.

So we wait. We wait until it's perfect. We convince ourselves and others that we're perfectionists. We use it as our **excuse** for not delivering. We create this safety bubble where our products can live and will never fail.

Well no more! We need to accept failing is part of the journey. Let's switch the conversation. Let's aim to fail. Let's aim for action. And through **doing**, heck, we might even achieve perfection ⭐️

## Embracing Crap 💩

There's nothing wrong with aiming to be perfect. The problem is waiting to be perfect. We need to get comfortable with delivery something that's a work in progress. Let's be okay with our first iteration. Let's be okay with shipping our baby steps 🐾

Look at all the first iteration of the most popular tech today -- Instagram, Google, Apple -- they all started looking pretty crappy when it was first released 😂 But look at them now! Look how much they evolved and all of their improvements strive they have made in terms of design, user experience, and user interface.

All of these **improvements** were only possible through **iteration**. After each iteration release, they received user feedback and from it, they were able to make it even better moving forward. This improvement would have never happened if they waited until it's perfect. Creating something in our own bubble will never bring us to perfection. It is through never-ending refinements that get us closer to perfection 🧗🏻‍♀️

## Quantity Leads to Quality

I remember reading this article (sorry I can't find it at the moment 😓) -- it talks about how quantity leads to quality. Just like how we would build muscles, you have to do the reps. The more you do, the bigger muscles you'll get. So if we want to achieve perfection, we have to put in the work and **do** 👟

## Choose Action over the Opinions of Others

We have to be comfortable that we're going suck at our first try. And the first iteration will be crap. And that's completely okay. Heck look at my first tidbit, it was not fancy at all. By the way, I still have my first tidbit on my Instagram. I haven't deleted it, I've kept it around to remind myself how far I have improved. To me, it's not something to be embarrassed about, it's a badge of honour. It is a symbol that despite it looking like crap, I pushed forward. Choose action over the opinions of others 💪

## Be your own Tony Robbins

☝️ Whoa! That's quite a long preamble 😂. LOL that pep talk was more for me than for you -- when you don't have money to hire a motivational coach, you have to talk yourself up 😆. Here's a fun quote I just thoughts of! "Be your own Tony Robbins" ✨

Who said talking to oneself is crazy, it is absolutely necessary and so much fun 😆. Don't you feel motivated after reading this 🏋🏻‍♀️ Don't you want to start taking action and building things?! I sure am and here's the result! My first post of this new series 😉

As I said, these journal entries are going to be **unfiltered** so expect a lot of randomness being dropped. Happy reading 😅

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**Thanks for reading ❤**
To read more posts, please visit [samanthaming.com](https://www.samanthaming.com/)

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