Why Taking Messy Action Beats Perfectionism in Your Career

Progress over perfection for professional growth.

Ever spent hours watching webinars, highlighting your notes, colour-coding your to-do list… and still felt stuck? That’s planning disguised as progress, and it’s one of the sneakiest ways we stall our careers. In this episode, we call out perfectionism for the joy-thieving con it is, and champion messy, scrappy, unpolished action that actually gets results.

Caroline spills some of her most cringe-worthy (but career-defining) moments, including mismatched shoes at a pitch, a coffee-soaked disaster, and the reply-all apocalypse and prove that magic doesn’t come from polished plans… it comes from movement. Even wobbly ones.

Key Takeaways

• Messy action beats perfect planning every time, especially when it comes to career momentum.
• Perfectionism is productivity in a tuxedo, it looks smart but gets you nowhere.
• Procrastination isn’t laziness, it’s emotional self-protection. Understand the brain science behind why we stall.
• Every cringe is a clue. Mistakes aren’t failure, they’re intel.
• Clarity is earned through action, not overthinking.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00.142)
So I've got a quick question for you today. You know that feeling when you've watched five webinars, taken pages of notes, highlighted the important bits, but still you haven't actually applied any of it? Maybe you find your notes as you're trawling through looking for something someone said two months later and it hits you again. The guilt. That's planning disguised as progress and it's keeping you stuck. You don't need more input. You need more outputs, even if it's scrappy.

Thank you for joining me at Little Moves, Big Careers. I'm Caroline Esterson, career strategist, unsticker of brilliant humans and your co-pilot through the chaos of real world careers. And this podcast, well, it's for you if you've ever done everything right and still felt stuck, overlooked or like you were shouting into a team's call on mute. Welcome to episode seven.

Speaker 1 (00:57.74)
This isn't a pep talk, it's a practical guide with a glitch in its eye. Smart moves, slight chaos. Welcome to Little Moves Big Careers.

Speaker 1 (01:11.192)
This episode is your permission slip to be a little bit messy, but on purpose. It looks so impressive with pages of colour coded lists, maybe a mind map of collections and post-it note labelled self-help books. But if the colour coding is as far as you get, then it's doing nothing useful, is it? And it's one of the biggest reasons people stay stuck. Because as long as you're planning, preparing, researching, tweaking, you're not risking.

You're not experimenting and you're certainly not moving. Messy actions get results. Will it be polished? No. Will it be impressive? Well, maybe. Will it teach you more than waiting ever could? Absolutely. So now I've had my little rant, it's time for one of my favourite segments.

Now, welcome to the chaos. It's game time!

Zero prizes, mild embarrassment, but hopefully.

Who doesn't love a good game? Right, this one's called Messy Moves and Cringe Clues, where we celebrate the moments that felt like disasters but somehow still move the dial. Because guess what? Perfection is out and progress is in.

Speaker 2 (02:29.934)
Are you ready for clue one? Here goes. This career move involved an airport, an unexpected nap and questionable footwear.

ouch, Billy, proper ruthless of you. But since we're playing the confessional game, let's set the scene clearly. I was young, not yet 30 young, an age where enthusiasm reliably outplaces common sense. Edinburgh had charmed me thoroughly and after delivering what I thought was a pretty good presentation, our host decided it would be delightful to whisk us off on a whisky tasting tour.

Now for clarity, this wasn't your quick sip and nod affair. This was a dedicated journey through the liquid landscape of Scotland, starting gently in the lowlands and triumphantly ascending to the heady peaks of the highlands. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth tram, it entirely slipped my mind that I had a car waiting faithfully for me at Stansted Airport. By the time I stumbled back southwards, it was

painfully clear driving wasn't going to be an option. I responsibly or desperately, depending on your perspective, decided to bend down in my trusty automotive accommodation at Stansted Airport car park. Glamorous, right? Morning sunlight has a funny way of highlighting your poor choices and mine came courtesy of an odd sensation. When I fumbled into my work attire, in my slightly hungover state, it slowly dawned on me I had precisely

half a pair of black shoes and half a pair of navy shoes. Fashionably mismatched wasn't really a thing back then, but did I surrender to embarrassment and bail on my client? Absolutely not. Instead, I walked slightly lopsidedly and confidently colourfully into the client's office, conducted the research and just brazened it out. Did they notice? Yeah, almost certainly. Did they comment? Graciously no. And did they hire me again? Well,

Speaker 1 (04:35.054)
Actually, yeah they did. Turns out commitment and colourful footwear are oddly charming when paired with absolute confidence. And anyway, life's too short to worry about mismatching shoes isn't it? Especially before 30.

What can I say? She's bold and possibly a little bit colourblind, that or possibly just disorganised.

Look, you know, at least I'd washed and cleaned my teeth in the motorway services. But the thing with messy action is show up anyway. One wobbly shoe at a time.

Okay, next one. This career moment involved a hot drink, a white shirt and a sudden change of altitude.

for goodness sake, you're determined to embarrass me, aren't you? So this time we were pitching for a big contract. We were the young upstarts against a very polished, well-established consultancy. My colleague walks in holding her coffee. She bumps immediately into the sales director and they both end up wearing the coffee on their once crisp white shirts.

Speaker 1 (05:38.792)
I turn to help, trip over the leg of the flip chart and end up sprawled at his feet like I'm auditioning for a Shakespearean tragedy or something. We look like a human health and safety hazard. But we regrouped, presented like pros and got the gig. They said, which was really interesting, we were more natural and this made us more believable. Who'd thought it? Sometimes the mess is the warm-up act for your magic.

Okay, ready for clue three. This career moment involved 200 unintended recipients and one very sarcastic comment.

yes, the classic reply all disaster. Actually, I don't feel bad about this at all as I reckon everyone has done this at some point in their career. And if not, why not? I meant to send a snarky little, is this meeting really necessary to my colleague? Instead, I sent it to everybody, including the director. Mortifying. Sure. But it's smart and honest conversation about pointless meetings and we actually cancelled some of the scheduled ones. Accidental reform.

You're welcome. The secret to real progress isn't getting it right. It's getting it going and then keeping it going. We're not building masterpieces here. We're building momentum.

Time for brain food, the research bit for making...

Speaker 1 (06:59.246)
cheeky because we all love evidence, especially when it supports our own experiences. So here's the sciencey bit and it's juicier than you think actually. Psychologist Dr Tim Pichul, a proper expert on this says, we don't procrastinate to avoid work. We do it to avoid feeling bad. So it's nothing to do with laziness. It's all about mood management. Procrastination is all about survival.

Our brains are juggling too much noise, chasing dopamine, shame and quietly hoping someone else will make the first move. So if you've been stuck, it's not because something's wrong with you, it's your brain doing what it was wired to do to keep you safe and small. But you don't outwit an ancient survival instinct with colour coded plans, do you? You outwit it by moving, even if it's messy, even if it's small.

You're human and you live and work in a world that makes motion feel risky and standing still feel deceptively safe. But remember, every confident speaker wants stammered, every manager wants avoided conflict, and every business owner wants panicked about pricing. And guess what? None of them got there through colour coded to-do lists or perfect pie charts. They got there through action, awkward, brave, occasionally messy.

Think of your career like compound interest. You don't need a grand gesture. You need consistent deposits. Two pounds here, 10 pounds there, or in your case, one email, one brave ask, one unpolished move. Repeat, grow, watch the magic happen. That's the promise, right, in theory? But in real life, it's messier.

What if you're not sure which deposit to make next? Or worse, you've made a few and nothing's happened. There haven't been any fireworks, no fast tracks. Just awkward silence and your brain whispering, told you so. Here's the thing. Sometimes the results are happening just quietly behind closed doors. Sometimes you've planted seed and what you need isn't another move, it's patience. Or positioning or a tweak in who's watching.

Speaker 1 (09:18.804)
Sometimes you are making moves, but they're not quite the right ones yet. It's not failure, it's feedback, it's the nudge to stop. Zoom out a little bit and ask, where's the real leverage point here? Who needs to see this? What shift will make this land louder? So let's deepen the practical action by heading directly into this week's What Would Caro Do?

It's time for What Would Caro Do? Like a career agony arm but with less cardigan and more fire.

because sometimes you don't need permission, you just need better advice.

now today's letter is from Overwhelmed from Osmistry. Dear Carrow, I've got loads of ideas, a side hustle, a course I want to take, a new job I'm half interested in, but I keep getting overwhelmed. I'm scared to start the wrong thing or mess it up, so I do nothing. What would you do?

Paralysis by potential, I hear you. This is me to a T, so my advice is really heartfelt here. messy doesn't mean mindless. You don't need to do it all. You just need to do something. Start small, start badly, test the waters. You're not launching a space shuttle, are you? You're just having a little bit of a poke at possibility. Give yourself permission to be in progress, not polished. Just start with one little step.

Speaker 1 (10:48.492)
And there you have momentum. You'll soon find your motivation starts to carve out time in your calendar just naturally. Choices can be overwhelming at times, but the key is to lean into one thing you can build from here.

Speaker 2 (11:05.784)
Small shifts, sharp impact. These are quick fire career moves, real things you can do before your next coffee refill.

more choices for you with our three quickfire career moves. But three is a bit of a feast, so today all three are your reminder to move. Framed slightly differently. Just one tiny, scrappy, curious move to make this week. Pick it, own it, do it. You're not trying to nail everything in one go. You're trying to get moving. So here we go. First up, it's all about action before clarity. Stop.

waiting for those clouds to part. Clarity is not a prerequisite, it's a reward for starting. Draft the message, join the call, click the bloody button. Done is smarter than perfect. And as Billy would say, JFDI, just one thing that maybe makes you feel a little wobbly. Just do the thing. Really, what is the absolute worst that could happen? And number two, build your career reps.

See action as your training regime. Every ergh move you make is a rep and reps build resilience. Open the dot, that's a curl. Ask the question, that's a squat. Show up when it's easier to hide, that's a deadlift for future self. You're not chasing perfection, you're building stamina for the stuff that matters.

Number three, treat mistakes as data. You didn't fail. You just downloaded new Intel. Mess equals map. Cringe equals course correction. Weird win equals plot twist. So there you have it. Progress isn't about waiting for the stars to align or you're in a Beyonce to appear. It's about chasing one small scrappy action and doing it on purpose, day after day. Clarity comes from motion.

Speaker 1 (13:07.202)
Momentum comes from showing up. And before we wrap up this episode, let's deal with one of the worst offenders still floating around LinkedIn like it's profound. It's time for this week's Career Quote Crime.

This quote has the right vibe and the completely wrong advice.

So let's fix that before someone puts it on a mug. So our culprit for this week is...

Don't do anything half way.

Sounds noble doesn't it? Like something a head teacher would say with a bit of a disapproving stare. But let's be honest, it's wildly unhelpful for actual grown-up careers because sometimes halfway is exactly where you should start. It's how you test the waters, how you learn what works and how you build momentum without losing your sanity. Doing something halfway isn't failure, it's a first draft. It's opening the documents, sending the message, sketching out the messy plan.

Speaker 1 (14:05.6)
It's movement and that's magic. So here's a better reframe. Start with a little, build with intent and finish when it matters. So next time someone says never do anything halfway, smile sweetly and go and do something halfway on purpose because that's where the real progress begins. And finally, remember this. You don't need to have it all figured out. You just need to start every

bold, brilliant career you admire was built on the foundation of awkward first drafts, uncomfortable experiments and scrappy little steps. So take yours. Let it be wobbly. Let it be weird. And let it be yours. Until next time.

Speaker 1 (14:55.598)
So that's a wrap on this episode of Little Moves Big Careers, where progress isn't perfect, but it is happening. If your brain's buzzing and you want more magic like this, head to inspireyourgenius.com forward slash podcast for the show notes, cheeky extras and the kind of tools your career's been crying out for. Share it, steal it with pride, start a movement. So if you did enjoy this episode, please subscribe, share.

send me your dilemmas for what would Caro do and any ideas that you've tried to caroline at inspireyourgenius.com. And if you want to bring fresh thinking into your team or company, that's literally what we do. Drop us a line, we'll make it sing for you. Until next time, make the move. Even if it's tiny, especially if it's tiny.