Perfection is NOT required for partnership

Do you think twice (or not at all…) about going for partnership because you believe you need to be so much ‘better’ to get there? Maybe not ‘perfect’, but definitely a little closer to perfect than you are right now…

After all, right now you make mistakes! You miss ‘important’ points; you don’t know all the answers; you need help from other people; there’s experience you don’t have yet.

Surely you need to fix all of that before you can think about partnership?

WRONG.

I give you myself, as exhibit No. 1.

Please believe me when I tell you that, as a partner, you will be just as ‘imperfect’ as you are right now. Sure, you’ll probably have more experience and maybe you won’t make the same mistakes you make today, but I speak from experience when I tell you that there is always more to learn and there are always shiny new mistakes to make.

As a partner, I still made mistakes; I missed ‘important’ points; I didn’t know all the answers, I needed help from other people; there was a ton of experience I didn’t have yet.

BUT… despite all of that ‘imperfection’, I was still a great lawyer. I still made a TON of money for the business. I didn’t need to be perfect. I just needed to create £ value.

The reason this is SO important, is that when you believe you need to be perfect to reach partnership, you won’t be thinking about it as an option. You won’t be dreaming about it as a possibility. You won’t be taking actions that make it happen.

Let me ask you this. If you knew (100%) that you’d be a great partner, what would you be doing differently right now? Would you be talking about your goals with sponsors and mentors, asking for support or feedback, sowing the seed that you’re partnership material?

What impact would that have on your prospects? I’m guessing it couldn’t hurt.

If any of this resonates, my best advice is to stop chasing ‘perfection’ and start focussing on the economic value you create. That value exists with and despite all of your mistakes. Perfection is not required.  

If you want to learn more about how to build confidence and make self-promotion and career progression easy, you can sign-up for a free Discovery Call with me by clicking HERE.