The Real Reason You Can’t Start

Perfectionism doesn’t show up when you’re almost done. It shows up before you even start.
If you’re stuck tweaking, planning, overthinking, or waiting until things feel “right,” this episode explains exactly why and how to move forward without forcing motivation or burning yourself out.

Most people think perfectionism is about caring too much. In reality, it’s about trying to decide what you *should* do instead of asking what you "can" do.

Creators, founders, artists, and high performers get stuck when vision turns into "should." That’s when action dies.

In this episode, I break down:
• Why perfectionism blocks action before execution even begins  
• The difference between ideation and experimentation  
• Why great musicians, artists, and founders don’t chase perfect  
• How to move from suffering-through to enjoying-the-process  
• Why mastery starts when you stop forcing outcomes  


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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you're struggling with perfectionism of image, then you're struggling

(00:03):
with a form of perfectionism that happens before you even
get on camera. There could be perfectionism at the very
end where you're like, man, this is almost ready to release,
but I need to tweak the temperature of the lighting
just a little bit again. And you can do that
for thirty days. And this is your fundamental dilemma right now,

(00:23):
is you are trying to decide what you should do,
as opposed to going with an evidence based approach, which
would be what can I do right? Because should allows
you to invent impossible things can doesn't. And so business
owners solve this problem via market research and ab testing.

(00:47):
That's how business owners get through this particular perfectionism thing.
Artists go through this by switching from ideation to experimentation
or ideation to improvisation. Meaning all great producers never go
to a collaboration in the studio with nothing. They always

(01:11):
go with a couple of partially finished songs to show
each other what they have, so that they have something
where it's like, oh, let's play with this and see
what happens. And all the great musicians you think that
they come up with an idea of what to play
and then they play it. But what actually happens is

(01:33):
they play around and then notice what sounds good, and
then they do that. The things that you hear are
the results of their experimentation. It doesn't mean they don't
have ideas, like they go, well, what if I do this,
but they don't try to come up with it in
here and then get it out here. Visionary's advantage is

(01:57):
that they can imagine what could be, but if they
switch that to this is what should be, they become
incapable of action. The musician that imagines that sound and
tries to create it just lives in discontent forever and

(02:20):
then gets this tiny little payoff when one little thing
starts to match his vision. The musician that is experimenting
and continually fascinated by what he creates is constantly delighted.
I have put a lot of work into it, and
then I got kind of a low reward. This is
a dead ringer to tell me you're trying to create

(02:43):
a vision. You're not enjoying the process at all. It's
not fun. You're not learning to love the journey here.
You're deciding to suffer through, which is it's a different
set of values, and it's the first values you need
to learn. But there's another set of values, which is
learning to enjoy the journey. Right, suffer through is lesson one,
Enjoy the journey is lesson two. Suffer through is the

(03:07):
lesson for a beginner, and enjoy the journey is the
lesson for the master. And so you have to start
moving towards mastering. And so the next step is to
figure out how to like it. If you'd like to
build your life and business with me, go to the
link below or go to apply dot Josh cherry plays
dot com.