Never a perfect shot

When I played soccer, our team had two strikers; one would wait until he had the perfect shot, and one would shoot if he was anywhere near the goal.

Who made more goals? Definitely the kid that shot-without-stopping.

The reason was while one kid was “stroking his beard, calculating where to get the perfect shot,” the other kid had already rebounded it four times and made a goal.

In more than soccer, the perfect chance will practically never come. 

I struggle with this. I love writing down a list of to-dos, planning out the perfect day from start to finish. But doing it is way harder. I’m disguising procrastination as perfectionism; spending more time preparing than actually doing it.

Here are two things that have helped me:

1. Starting is half the battle. It delays the cycle of waiting, gives you some momentum, and obviously propels you to the end.
2. Action yields new information; doing the work teaches you more than planning for it ever will.

Planning feels like progress because it’s comfortable and controllable, while action exposes us to uncertainty and potential failure.

Don’t wait for perfect opportunities. Create them. The striker who shoots more also gets more opportunities, deflections, and rebounds. Action creates luck in your favor.