Splatty

Wildly inefficient, but what are you gonna do? (Image by Pascvii)

I’ve been writing this blog every day for years.

I’ve been making TikToks every day for almost a year, and writing posts on LinkedIn for almost half a year.

Do I have everything dialed in? Do I know exactly what my message is, aimed like a laser beam directly at my target audience?

Nope. I’m figuring it out. But I’m not quite there.

I’ve been a bit splatty. Like the tone of a trumpet player with poor technique, I’ve been all over the place instead of tightly focused and regulated. It’s “waaaaaaaaamp” instead of “dooot.”

There’s lots of wasted effort and breath. It’s not a polished presentation.

I started before I was ready and didn’t have a precise, consistent message. And I didn’t have a clear path for people — no obvious next step for them to take to get to know me or hire me or whatever.

And yet, I’m very happy with how things have gone and how they are going. I would do it again.

I’m not trying to glorify being splatty. I don’t think my message has benefited from being splatty. I think my message has gotten out in spite of being splatty.

That said, if I had waited until I was able to offer a nice, clear, ringing sound, I would still be waiting. My willingness to be splatty has allowed the right people to find me. And because of them, I’ve grown more confident and my progress has been faster.

In short, it’s been acceptable to me to do things wrong. To be non-optimized. To waste energy and time. And that has led me to a much stronger business than I had a year ago, when I was trying to look before I leapt.

I’ve been trying to corral things a little more in recent weeks. I want to do more stuff, but it is hard to justify doing more stuff when the stuff I’m doing already isn’t as efficient as it could be.

And yet, if what I’ve been doing is working and has allowed me to progress faster and farther than I ever could before I started doing it, wouldn’t more be better?

I honestly don’t know. Every few weeks, usually triggered by travel, my day to day life will get out of control and I’ll think, “I can’t handle this pace.” And then I’ll spend an hour tidying up, and then I’m fine again. False alarm.

Even though the apparent inefficiency of what I’m doing is uncomfortable sometimes, it is still getting me closer to where I want to be. Maybe it’s actually as efficient as possible right now.

There’s a tension between seeking ease and seeking difficulty. There’s a lot to be gained from repeating a familiar action until it becomes second nature. But there’s also powerful growth to be had from forging into a wholly new realm. I’m not sure that finding an ideal balance is necessary — things can be messy and awkward and still be effective.

So while I’m sure I could find a “right way” to launch something new — a way that ensures maximum impact for the least effort — I’m not convinced that I want to wait until I figure it all out perfectly. Why would I deprive myself of all of that exploration and iteration?

Okay, there are good reasons why. With chaos levels already a bit high, maybe I don’t have room to take on anything new today. But perhaps tomorrow — or the day after that — I can let myself play in a new space, splatty as it may be. It will be ugly, it will be sloppy. It will be the scenic route. But it might just be pretty rewarding, too.