by Meriah Kruse
In my eBook 51 Ways to Shine Online, I encourage my readers to take their online appearances seriously, to have a standard of excellence, whether on Zoom, a live event, podcast, video, or something else. Today I want to advocate for a slight but important modification of this idea.
Here’s my proposal:
In many cases, your A+ work isn’t really necessary.
To achieve that A+ status you’ll certainly have to expend extra time to get it perfect.
All that additional time and effort might make little to no difference in your ultimate outcome.
So, here’s a question recently posed to me by online course-builder CINDY BIDAR
What’s wrong with doing B+ work?
B+ is, in reality, still very good work, it’s just not your very best.
Many of us have been inculcated with the idea that we must achieve the highest possible standard at all times. If you’re from the United States, you might recognize this as somewhat of a national obsession. Well before Melania Trump instituted her BE BEST campaign, we were instilled with the ideas “Be Best or Go Home” and “Why do it at all if you can’t give it your all?”
And, without a doubt, there are occasions when nothing less than your A+ work will do. For instance, if I’m submitting a proposal to someone in pursuit of a contract, I’ll give it that extra oomph. I’ll proofread it again on a second day, or even have a friend proofread it for spelling and punctuation errors before I hit the SEND button. I’m sure you can think of many other instances where A+ work is called for.
If you want to be a concert pianist, or an Olympic athlete, you have no choice. It really is be the best or go home. Have you asked yourself recently, Am I sure I want to be an Olympian?
Am I really preparing to be a concert pianist? Do I have to demand so much of myself? Can I ask a little less, get more done, and live a less stressful Life?
However, there are just as many, and perhaps more situations where B+ would do quite nicely in your efforts to Be Heard Online!
What does that look like? Maybe your formatting isn’t sheer perfection. Maybe you skip a point or aren’t as smooth in your delivery as you’d like to be. Maybe the lighting wasn’t perfect, or the editing a bit too minimal.
This is a kind of balance you need to strike for yourself, using your own standards, in your own situations online, both in preparing and in execution.
Here’s an example of how I find this balance when it comes to preparing a script for an online presentation of some kind. This is one area where I can get quite finicky. Recently, however, I’ve had times when getting everything just so isn’t worth the effort at all and is a waste of time.
Being a perfectionist by nature, I HAD to create a reliable mechanism for checking myself, so this is how I do it now, especially if I have something fairly lengthy or complex to talk about:
- Write down the main points I want to make.
- Speak the points aloud so that it sounds like spoken word rather than written word.
- Draft those points into a rough outline.
- Rehearse my delivery of those main points a time or two until I feel good about it.
- Streamline it further into a VERY brief outline that’s designed to just remind me of what I’ve rehearsed.
- Rehearse once from this brief outline.
- Go live!
What’s different than if I were shooting for A+ work? I’m not memorizing the script. I’m rehearsing, but I’m not requiring perfection in my delivery. I’m spending less time prior to the magic moment when I can actually RECORD my message, or go live, or show up for the podcast or interview.
And here’s a side benefit: by not boxing in my outline/script so succinctly, I leave thoughts open for the listener or reader to enhance or embellish on her own, adding value to my words.
So, here’s a question I’ll leave you with: Is there an area in your work Life, especially related to Being Heard Online, where you can ease up on yourself a little, demand a little less perfection, and get more work done without driving yourself crazy?
Let me know what you discover
