GEFN—Good Enough For Now
Imagine you are on a telephone call talking with a co-worker about a project the two of you are working on. At the end of the call your colleague says with some tremor in her voice, “I will have the project summary to you by the end of the week.”
Sensing her stress, you offer relief by saying, “I only need a GEFN draft.”
“GEFN, what is that?”
“GEFN stands for ‘good enough for now’.” (Pronounced Gef -in)
At this point, your colleague starts laughing. “That is not how things are done around here. Working hard and striving for perfection is our company motto. I admit that approach sometimes creates serious stress and anxiety.”
After sharing with her that you often live by GEFN as a guide for your creating process, you hear an audible sound of relief on the other end of the phone. “Thank you,” she says. “Just thinking about GEFN helps me to relax and not worry about having a perfect outline to you. Now I can get that draft to you by Friday and enjoy writing it!”
GEFN is a concept that was created by David in the heat of facilitating a group of executives who were trying to get to a “perfect” solution. The pressure they felt to get it right was sapping the energy out of their co-creating process.
All of us want to be creative and bring forth our best self, whether we are conscious of our Creator within or not. Our job as fellow Creators is to find ways that help reduce the stress and drama in our teams, at home, and in our communities. We have found that GEFN is a tool that allows creativity to flow with more ease and grace.
The GEFN approach to creating anything can help you get into action and nurture your “inner Creator.” By not having to have everything figured out, you can more easily relax, take one Baby Step, learn, adjust, and keep moving forward.
GEFN helps interrupt the dance of your internal Dreaded Drama Triangle (DDT), which might sound something like: “I feel like a Victim if others think I don’t know what I am doing. Therefore, I will strive to look good—even perfect—at all costs.”
Your persecuting voice can come alive at this point, insisting that you must “get it right” and not let anyone see your work until it is perfect. Needing to have it all figured out before you begin to create is the enemy of learning, creativity, and innovation.
Learning often requires experimentation, multiple attempts and, yes, falling short. As you engage in the creating process, you will learn and adjust with each Baby Step, even when the step fails to produce the ultimate result you want.
We often title the first draft of our Friday “TED* Works!®” essay our GEFN draft. By saying it is “good enough for now,” our fear of having to have it perfect gives us room to breathe and reduces our fear of failure.
As a Creator, allow yourself to be vulnerable to imperfection, for that is how you learn, grow, and develop. The continuous learning mindset embraces the reality of not knowing how you are going to achieve your envisioned outcomes before you start—which makes the perfectionist in you cringe.
By embracing GEFN, you give your inner critic a break so you can focus on what you really want to create. You will immediately feel a shift from stress and anxiety to possibility, and even fun.
In this ever-changing, unbelievably fast-paced life, embrace GEFN as one of your favorite TED* tips that will reduce stress and support your creativity.
