Stop waiting for perfect conditions to take your next step
You’re standing at the edge of quitting something.
Maybe it’s the business that hasn’t taken off like you imagined. The ministry that feels like it’s barely holding together. The relationship that’s messier than you expected. Or the faith journey that looks nothing like what you thought it would.
You’re hanging on by a thread because it’s not perfect. And somewhere in your brain, a voice keeps whispering that if it’s not perfect, you should just stop. Walk away. Give up.
That voice is lying to you.
Perfect is the enemy’s greatest tool
Perfection is a lie. It’s one of the most effective weapons the enemy uses to keep you from becoming who God created you to be. Think about it: every time you’re about to take a risk or start something new, does your brain flood with confidence? Or does it bombard you with everything you’re not, everything you don’t know, everything that could go wrong?
Most of us get hit with an absolute avalanche of negativity right before we’re about to step into something meaningful. We look around at the messy reality in front of us and think God’s standard is perfection. That He’s standing there with a judging scale, disappointed because we haven’t achieved some impossible standard.
But God’s standard isn’t perfection. It’s progress. When you embrace this truth, failure stops being failure and becomes feedback. You’re not really failing when something doesn’t work out the way you planned. You’re learning. The only real failure is refusing to learn from what didn’t work and refusing to try again.
Most people are terrified of looking like a failure. But what if you just embraced the process? What if you said, “If it doesn’t work, I’ll learn from it and try again. I’m not going to lose my identity over this.”
That’s where you get the power to actually go for it.
You are in process, and that’s the point
Here’s what changes everything: the day you say “I am fully formed” is the day you begin to die.
You are not fully formed. You’re in the process of being formed, reformed, and transformed by God’s presence and guidance in your life. Your mind is constantly changing. Your capacity is expanding. Your understanding is growing.
If you don’t love where you are right now, here’s the good news: you’re not going to be there long. As long as you embrace the process of progress and reject the lie of perfection, you’re moving forward.
God actually has ideas He wants to let you borrow. This isn’t all up to your own strength and initiation. He created you on purpose and for a purpose. He’s for you, not against you. He’s giving you ideas that are on His heart and mind, and He’s working in your favor for His purposes.
When you look back in six weeks, six months, or six years, you’re going to see what God has been doing. It won’t be perfect. But you’ll be so glad you didn’t quit.
What you do now matters
Jesus gave us clear direction right before He ascended into heaven: “All authority has been given to me. Therefore, go.”
Go. Start. Begin. Now. Today. In the imperfection.
Don’t quit. Don’t wait for it to be perfect. Keep going. Keep making progress. Keep failing. Keep getting back up. Keep growing.
You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.
So take that next step. Launch that imperfect thing. Start that messy conversation. Begin that uncertain journey. His presence is with you. His grace brings you through your failures. And the progress He brings in your life is profound and powerful.
It’s not perfect. Do it anyway.
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Episode Summary:
Welcome to the brand new Blackbird Mission studio! It’s not perfect; we couldn’t find half our equipment, we’re using borrowed carpet squares, and we threw this set together in a week. But we hit record anyway, because THIS is the message: It’s not perfect, do it anyway. If you’re about to quit something (a business, a ministry, a relationship, a dream) because it’s not perfect yet, this episode is for you. Daron unpacks why perfection is a lie, why progress is God’s actual standard, and why failure is just feedback, not the end.
Key Takeaways:
- Why perfection is one of the enemy’s greatest tools against you.
- The real difference between God’s standard and the lie in your head.
- Why failure isn’t failure—it’s just feedback.
- How being “in process” is actually profound good news.
- Why the day you say “I’m fully formed” is the day you begin to die.
- How God gives you ideas He wants you to borrow.
- What to do when all you see is your long list of failures.
- Jesus’ simple command: Go. Start. Begin. Now.
Notable Quotes:
- “It’s not perfect, do it anyway.”
- “Perfect is a lie. It is one of the enemy’s greatest tools to keep you from becoming who God created you to be.”
- “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”
- “It’s progress, not perfection.”
- “Failure is not failure. It’s actually feedback.”
- “Don’t quit. Don’t wait for it to be perfect. Keep going. Keep making progress.”
- “God’s for you, not against you. He is near you, not far away.”
Episode Resources:
Connect with Daron on Social Media:
Links to the Daron Earlewine Podcast
YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Libsyn
EPISODE 186 TRANSCRIPT
Daron: Hey, why should you listen to this episode of the Daron Earlewine podcast? Because here’s what I think. Here’s what I know. Most of us believe a lie that we have to be perfect, that it has to be perfect. And when it’s not, we want to quit. And if you’re right on the edge of quitting and you say, quit what Daron? Well, you know what it is. It just popped into your mind. It’s the business, it’s the ministry, it’s the relationship. It’s the faith. I’m about to quit. I’m hanging on by a thread.
This episode is for you. Do not quit. Do not believe the lie of perfection. We’re going to unpack it. We’re going to fill it back with a bunch of what is actually true. And I hope you walk away so inspired to keep going. Let’s jump to the episode right now. Created on purpose and for purpose.
Everybody, welcome back to the Daron Earlewine podcast. Your host Daron Earlewine here with you. And if you’re watching on YouTube, welcome to the new studio. Work in progress. If you’re listening on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening to your podcast, hopefully it sounds the same as it always does because producer Daron Cooper is the GOAT, making everything look great and sound great. But hey, welcome to our new studio. We’ve been on quite the journey.
About a year and a half ago, for about the past five years or so, we’ve had an amazing donor, major sponsor of Blackbird Mission, our nonprofit who has gifted us office space. And we ran the ministry out of there as well as recorded all of our podcasts and content there. They changed offices, made available a space in their new office, but we had to build it out. And so it took us a little longer than we were expecting. Took us about a year and a half to be able to get funding, to be able to get a plan, to be ready to go. And so if you’ve been with us for the past year, year and a half, you know we were recording at my house. And once again, producer Coop and PJ put together an awesome setup in my home office and we’ve been recording everything from there for the past year and a half and in the past month finally started the process to get in here and it’s a work in progress. If you could see what I’m staring at it’s not real pretty. We’re putting things together and even this whole set we just basically threw it together in the past week and even this morning trying to make little tweaks.
And all of that actually sets us up for the point of what I want to talk to you in our first podcast here in our new studio. And it’s basically this: it’s not perfect, do it anyway. It’s not perfect, do it anyway. And so I think somebody needs to hear that right now. Is there something in your life? It’s a new relationship. It’s something new, you know, it’s a new business. It’s a new ministry. It’s a new relationship. It’s just your own life. And you’re looking around and you’re like, it’s not perfect. And when we sense that, and it’s true, right? This is not perfect. What we’re doing, not perfect. Your life, not perfect. The new idea, not perfect. The relationship you’re thinking about, not perfect. It’s not perfect. Do it anyway.
And I think often when we get stuck in this cage, this prison of perfection, right? It’s like, has to be perfect. I’ve got to be better. It’s got to be the best it can possibly be. And before I start, before I go, before I risk, and if we believe that lie, nothing will ever happen. So much of this whole situation is not perfect. We got all of our stuff out of storage after a year and a half. And we couldn’t find some of our lights. We couldn’t find our rug. We couldn’t find. We don’t know where it went. It’s somewhere in this universe, right? We couldn’t find so much stuff that we needed and just started piecing things together, right? Like the carpet that’s on the ground. We borrowed it from somebody. It’s literally carpet squares that we put together look like a rug like it’s not perfect. But here’s the thought, okay? I love this quote by Zig Ziglar. He says this: You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.
Sometimes you just need to go. So Cooper and I got in, got things to go and he’s all right. Well, it’s as good as it’s gonna be today. Let’s go push play. We’re recording the podcast. And here’s the deal is it’s not perfect, right? But it’s going to be what it can be. It’s the best it can be today. And the reality is this, if we stopped and waited and waited until we had the studio perfect, it would be weeks, if not months. And guess what? Even with all the effort and all the planning, it still wouldn’t be perfect.
There would still be things we want to improve. There would still be things that we don’t like the way they are. And we would be waiting and not putting out the content that we put out every single week to let you know that you’re created on purpose and for a purpose. That God’s for you, He’s not against you, that He’s near you, He’s not far. And so I hope that maybe if you don’t even listen to this whole podcast episode, is just this moment helps you take your next step. Daron, I’m not perfect. It’s not perfect. I’m worth it. Just go. Just start.
We’re going to unpack that a little bit in this episode. I want to just thank you once again for downloading, for being a part of the podcast. We’ve had significant growth over the past three or four months. If you tuned in for the Earlewine podcast, got a chance to sit down with my wife and my three sons, Cole, Ty and Knox. I want to give a big shout out to the boys. I was really proud of them, their vulnerability, their authenticity, and just what they shared. We’ve heard from so many of you.
The subscriptions to the podcast, to the social media platforms, everything has been growing like crazy. So it’s so exciting to see that happen because it means that what we’re planning and what we’re praying about and what we’re putting together, it’s speaking to where you’re at and what you’re going through. And so if you’re brand new to the podcast, we’ve got a couple hundred episodes. You can go back in the archives, listen to everything that you want to. And if you’re going to come in now and just kind of join us as we’re going forward. I hope each and every episode is really, really encouraging to you. So thanks so much for downloading. If you haven’t, hit the subscribe button on whatever channel, whatever platform you’re using and allow us to just continue to grow the impact of the podcast. And if you’re brand new to it, I also want you know you can always reach out to me. You can email me, Daron, D-A-R-O-N, daron@daronearlewine.com. Would love to be able to kind of serve as a guide if I can to help you become who you were born to be and take those steps. So don’t think this always just needs to be a monologue. I don’t like it to be that way. I love it to be a conversation. So please reach out to me. Let me know what you’re going through and how we can help you.
So perfection, let’s talk about it for a minute. First point, if you need three points in this podcast, is going to be this. Perfect is a lie. Perfect is a lie, but man, it’s a lie that we love. And we love it to be beat ourselves up, to keep ourselves from taking great risk, to keep ourselves from becoming who God’s created us to be, because we think God’s meter, His judging scale is perfect, and He’s not happy with us. He’s not pleased with us if it’s not perfect, if we’re not perfect, if the thing we’re going to think about is not perfect. And I find any time I’m going to take a risk, and in the past year or so we’ve taken quite a few risks. We launched a new company called Rogue Collective, talked to you guys about that on the podcast. And right before we were about ready to launch that, I don’t know how your brain works, but most of the time, when we’re about to take some risks, when we’re about to start something new, I am not overwhelmed by amazing self-confidence. I’m not overwhelmed by how good I know I’m going to do. I’m not overwhelmed by everything that I know. I’m being absolutely bombarded by everything I’m not, everything I don’t know, everything that could happen. It’s an absolute avalanche of negativity. And we’ve had to battle through it. I’ve had to battle through that. And God’s been super faithful in that process. And what we’ve learned, and I know that I’ve learned in powerful ways over the past year and a half is it’s not perfect.
But that doesn’t have to stop us. And so I want to just say, if you just need to hear this from somebody, somebody that you’re like, I like where Daron’s going, I’m reading his book, I listen to his podcast, if you just need to hear this, here it is. Perfect is a lie. It is one of the enemy’s greatest tools to keep you from becoming who God’s created you to be. And we have to recognize that lie. And every time we start to believe it or lean in that direction of the thought process of, it’s not good enough, I’m not good enough, it’s not perfect, I can’t go, I can’t start, I can’t launch. We have to literally battle through that thought process and just say, lies, lies, lies, lies, perfect is a lie. And I’m created and called by God for a purpose.
So here’s the question, and I asked this, I gave this message a couple weeks ago at Antioch Church, shout out to Antioch in Waco, Texas. If God’s standard is not perfection, right? And if our brains lie to us and say the only acceptable standard is perfection, then what is God’s standard? And the whole idea is this. It’s progress, not perfection. And if we can stay focused on the idea that perfect is a lie, but progress is what God’s all about.
And so here’s what we start to recognize. There’s good news. Because it means that failure is not failure. It’s actually feedback. And we’re not really failing, we’re learning. And if we don’t learn something, then we failed to learn. The problem is not the thing that didn’t work out, the problem is not the thing that didn’t go the way we thought it would. The actual fail is to not learn from what didn’t work and try again.
And so I think most people are scared of the idea of looking like a failure, or they’re scared of failing. But the reality is, if you just embrace it and you say, okay, I’m just going to learn and I’m not going to lose my life over this, I’m not going to lose my purpose over this, I’m not going to lose my identity over this. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I’m going to learn from it and try again. That’s where you get power to be able to just go for it.
So the second thing I want you to consider, and maybe think about this. If perfection is a lie and progress is God’s standard, then here’s what you realize. You are in process. Like, I don’t know if you’re comfortable saying that, and hopefully you are, hopefully this is encouraging to you. Because here’s what I want you to see. The day you say, I am fully formed, is the day you begin to die.
Because you are not fully formed. You are in the process of being formed, reformed, transformed by God’s presence and his guidance in your life. Like how cool is that? You can change. Like we can even get into now or not because I didn’t do a lot of study on it to give you all the terms, but I’ve been blown away by some of the study I’m doing on like the neuroplasticity of your mind, that you can literally change the pathways of your mind, like your mind is constantly in a process of iteration, of becoming something new.
Biblically, we know that where Paul tells us that we need to be transformed in Romans 12 by the renewing of our mind. You are in process and that is profound. So if you’re in a place right now where you’re like, don’t love the place I’m in, here’s the cool part. You’re not going to be there long as long as you embrace the process of progress and reject the lie of perfection.
We’re all in that process, right? And I love that, okay? So another thing that I love as we talk about purpose and progress is how awesome is it that you can change and you can grow? But then I love this too is how awesome is it that God actually has ideas he wants to let us borrow? That you’re not making this up. This is not all up to your own initiation. I was just talking to a buddy yesterday who’s had this amazing vision for a company, for a ministry. It’s so beautiful. And I was just talking to him yesterday about all these things that are beginning to happen in imperfect ways around his life, where he is seeing that this vision and idea that he believes that God gave him years ago.
He’s beginning to see the universe conspire in his favor. He’s beginning to realize this. He’s always realized this, but to a greater degree, he’s already figuring out once again, God has created me on purpose and for purpose. God is for me. He’s not against me. He’s actually giving me ideas that are on his heart and his mind. And he’s beginning to work in my favor for his purposes. And I’m seeing progress.
That’s really encouraging news, especially if you’re tuning in today, cause you’re like, man, I hope Daron has something good in this podcast cause I’m about to freaking quit. All I can see is the long list of all the ways I keep screwing up. And dude, I get it. I’m there. I’ve been there. I’ll be there again. And this is where faith comes in. Not blind faith. No, just like, oh, it’s like, no. Looking around and seeing the progress and saying, okay, looks like God’s standard for me isn’t perfection. Looks like he’s actually in his grace walking me through failure. It looks like I am actually making progress. Not perfect, but I am making progress. And it is stoking my faith that even when I can, cause it’s like what I can see is the long list of failures, the long list of imperfections.
And the list of me making progress, it doesn’t seem quite as impressive. It doesn’t seem quite as like as lengthy, probably because you’re way too hard on yourself, right? We all are. But when you start to look and you say, yeah, you know what, I can see it. It’s incremental. It’s slow. It’s not perfect, but it is progress. And when we can stay dedicated to the purposes of God, the presence of God in our life, right? You’re going to look back in six weeks, in six months, in six years and go, oh my gosh, look what God has been doing. Man, it sure as heck isn’t perfect, but I’m so glad I didn’t quit. So last encouragement is this. So what do you do now? Well, you go back to the first words of Jesus’ great commission right before he ascended into heaven and he said this, right? All authority has been given to me. Therefore, go, start, begin, now, today, in the imperfection, because His presence is with us. His grace brings us through our failure.
And the progress that he brings in our life is profound and it’s powerful. So don’t quit. Don’t wait for it to be perfect. Keep going. Keep making progress. Keep failing. Keep getting back up. Keep growing. And you’re going to see us do that here at the podcast in the studio. We’re going to record some episodes today. We’ll keep tweaking. We’ll keep coming along. And guess what? My hope is like in six months, maybe you’ll be proud of this, right? We might have, we’re going to work on the studio here. We wouldn’t have like three different sets that we can use. One set for conversations with three or four people, one set for something like this, another set for some other idea we haven’t even come up with yet. And you’re going to get to see the progress we make in the studio. And guess what? When we make that progress and we have two or three sets in here, it still won’t be perfect. But we’ll be taking profound steps into the purpose that God’s given us because we are going, we are doing, we are starting. Therefore, my friend, go, start, make progress, don’t give up.
I’m so, so glad you downloaded this episode. I feel so honored to be a part of this podcast, to be able to share these ideas with you, to hear from you and the progress you’re making. That encourages me so much. So thanks for listening to this episode. Please share it with a friend you think that might be about to quit. Say, hey, listen, don’t quit. Don’t buy into the lie of perfection. I got someone that might encourage you. Send them the podcast and let us know. Email me, daron@daronearlewine.com. Would love to hear from you. And I also want to take a minute before we pop off today. And I want to thank you, the many people that partner with us monthly, financially. Everything we do with the Daron Earlewine podcast is made available for free all over the world. So many of the resources that we create with Blackbird Mission, they’re made possible because there are people who partner with us monthly. Sometimes people partner with us with one-time gifts. And everything we do with that is run under Blackbird Mission, which is our nonprofit. And if God has blessed you with the ability to give in that way, or you’ve been listening to the podcast and it’s brought great value to your life, I’d like to ask you to pray about joining us as a monthly partner to help us expand the mission, expand the message around the world. You can do so at blackbirdmission.com/give.
And I just want to put that out there and let you know that is an opportunity to partner with us. And I want to thank those that partner with us every single month and allow us to continue to say yes to Jesus and all the adventures He invites us into. So God bless you. Thank you. I appreciate you. We’ll talk to you next time on the Daron Earlewine Podcast. Until that time, remember, God’s for you, not against you. He is near you, not far away, and He’s created you on purpose and for a purpose. Talk to you next time on the Daron Earlewine Podcast.