I will start a project, and then tweak, and tweak, and tweak.
And more often than I care to admit, by the time I'm done tweaking, the optimal time for presenting said project to the world has passed, and all that effort comes to nothing.
This career counseling/job searching/resume building process is a prime example. Levi has said right out loud that he's concerned that I will get so bogged down in creating the perfect resume, etc., that I'll never get around to actually sending any out. And he's right -that is a potential pitfall for me. Instead of settling for a "good enough" summary section on my resume and banging out a "good enough" cover letter,and getting the damn resume sent off for this job I'm "so" excited about, I spent most of last night - until the wee hours - tweaking. Trying different fonts and spacings. Revising a word here or there. Googling cover letter samples, looking for the "perfect" template for my "perfect" cover letter. I found this job posting almost a week ago, and it's been active for 12 days. Mine is going to be just one in a sea of resumes, if they haven't already closed it to new submissions. I need to stop picking at it and - like Nike says - just do it.
Could it be better? Could my summary statement be stronger, my cover letter more compelling?
(oh God, I'm sorry for the alliteration. It was an accident.)
Of course it could. But I'll never forgive myself if I miss out on this opportunity because I was unable to settle for good enough.
Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have a cover letter to
Get on it! I was the same way for a long, long time...I turned it around after I went back to school as I would consistently miss deadlines. It took a few times of me turning in things that I thought were complete garbage and getting it back with a good grade and praise from the professors for me to understand that as long as I put forth a respectable effort, I didn't need to endlessly revise and look for perfection.
ReplyDeleteYep...just do it.