I just spent two hours in a Creative meeting wherein we discussed three points in a logo.  Three freaking points that are invisible to the naked eye.  Well, invisible unless you literally zoom in at a magnification rate of 64,000.  WHICH IS NOT A THING, PEOPLE. No one has laser vision in real life.  And yes, yes, this matters because if designs are offset and say this logo one day was on the side of a baseball stadium, the three points (which we figured out how to fix, by the way) would be apparent.

But sometimes?  What is perfect is not what is best.  It is said that the best can be the enemy of the good and that in 2020, we need to let good enough be good enough.  This is not a blog post angling for mediocrity, rather, it is an invitation to a classic cost-benefits analysis.  What is the payout on me worshipping at the altar of busy?  What is the handshake deal I am making as I trod down this path?  Is the juice worth the squeeze?  And if it’s not?  Well, then I should get my juice elsewhere.

Moreover, sometimes what is technically perfect doesn’t appear perfect.  In fact, the human eye prefers asymmetry.  We like the rule of thirds, not the rule of slap that image in the middle.  And while there is ample discussion in the design world about these “imperfect” brand marks, approximately zero people outside that domain discuss it.  To highlight this odd phenomena:  I submit to you the following famous imperfections: Google Logo, 7-Eleven, Starbucks, and the Nintendo Switch. And frankly, a perfect G looks ridiculous and like an oval and it is perfectly wrong.  There, I said it.  Perfect is wrong.

Around these parts, it is well known that I, Word Girl, am a huge Brene Brown fan.  In fact, one could argue that I am a super fan.  I’ve read and listened to all of her books, watched her Netflix special, listened to her podcast, and in my brain, we are best friends and wear matching clothes on our Girls’ Weekends to the lake.

Brene Brown is a shame researcher, a college professor, a best-selling author, and a Texas football fan (most likely her sole flaw as everybody knows the real UT is in Knoxville). But at her heart?  Like Word Girl, she is a storyteller.  She could very well be a marketer because she asks why, collects data, then reports the information in an engaging way.  The consummate Inbound Marketer.  But none of this is why I bring her up.  Her gift to me today is not her storytelling or her research or her TED talks.  Nope.

It is the reminder we all need in 2020:

IMPERFECTION IS A GIFT.

That’s right people, in a world telling you that your article has to be “just so”, your design perfect, your children all straight A students, Brene, in her Texas drawl tells us all that the constant pursuit of perfection is not only a load of bullcrap, but toxic.

She writes, in the book The Gifts of Imperfection, “Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it’s often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.”

So how do we tell if we are striving in a healthy manner or if we are mired in perfectionism?  Well, dear reader, my girl Brene answers that for us as well.

Healthy striving is self-focused: “How can I improve?” Perfectionism is other-focused: “What will they think?”

So when Matt, The Knife, laments about the points and finds a class to work on grids in design? Healthy self-improvement.  When he compares his work to Paula Scher, one of the most influential graphic designers in the world and imagines her comments on the three points?  I’m gonna go ahead and that that is perfectionism and not worth the squeeze.

It’s not just in the design world that this question begs to be asked.  Is your business spending time on fruitless efforts?  Is your pursuit of impossible imperfection hindering your from being extraordinary?  Joyful? Human?  Authentic?  Helpful? Because those are not only the hallmarks of good inbound marketing, but the mark of a good human and a life well lived.