by Stephen T. Messenger
December 9, 2025
I love the story of a teacher who divided her art class into two groups. The first group was graded on quality. Their assignment was to spend the entire semester creating one perfect clay vase. The goal was perfection, and their final grade depended on achieving it.
The second group was graded on quantity. They were instructed to make as many vases as possible. Quality didn’t matter but output did.
At the end of the semester, the results were surprising. The students chasing perfection produced vases that were okay, but nothing extraordinary. With the students who had focused on quantity, not only did they produce a large number of pots, but their vases were better than the ones from the perfectionists.
The lesson is clear: when we obsess over perfection, we spend all our energy trying to be flawless. When we focus on repeated attempts, failure, and iteration, we learn through every cycle, and our skills improve naturally.
Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers said that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something. Mastery doesn’t happen overnight. It requires repeated effort, trial and error, and consistent learning. In the era of social media, this can be especially frustrating. Every feed is filled with people traveling to exotic places, achieving amazing fitness milestones, or living lives of extraordinary wealth. Meanwhile, many of us are still stuck our “40th vase” in failing, learning, and trying again.
This isn’t just motivational talk. Research backs it up. In 1993, K. Anders Ericsson conducted landmark studies on how deliberate practice shapes expertise. He found that it’s not innate talent or planning that produces mastery, but sustained, focused, and feedback-driven effort. His framework identifies four core components that transform repeated practice into high-quality outcomes:
Repetition with feedback
Simply trying and failing isn’t enough. Improvement requires quality feedback. Someone observing our work such as a coach, mentor, or peer, can identify where we’re off track. This allows us to make targeted adjustments and refine our technique. We can’t discount being critiqued enough.
Targeted improvement on specific weaknesses
This principle aligns with The Theory of Constraints by Eliyahu Goldratt. He believed that every system has a limiting factor. By finding and focusing on our weakest areas, we can accelerate overall performance. For instance, one of our clay students might struggle with symmetry or balance. If they concentrate on that one aspect, it will dramatically improve the overall product.
Continuous adjustments
Repetition is not just about quantity but about making small, incremental changes over time. This aligns with the “1% rule” from James Clear’s Atomic Habits where improving just 1% everyday compounds into massive growth. A small tweak in hand positioning, pressure, or technique might seem trivial, but over dozens of attempts, it produces dramatic improvement.
Stretching just beyond current ability
Quantity alone isn’t sufficient. We must challenge ourselves to go slightly beyond our current capacity. The students making multiple vases likely experimented with new techniques, shapes, and approaches. By stepping out of our comfort zone, we embrace failure as a learning tool, which drives continuous improvement.
These principles translate across disciplines. In physical fitness, three perfect workouts in a year don’t produce the same gains as consistent effort, even if some sessions are imperfect. In writing, creating one flawless article is far less instructive than writing multiple drafts, exploring new topics, and putting our work out for feedback. I personally learn more from producing many articles than from laboring over a single perfect piece.
The biggest barrier isn’t a lack of effort, it’s fear of failure. We hesitate to show our work to the world, worried that imperfections will embarrass us. Yet, visible failure is one of the most powerful tools for improvement. When others see what we’ve done, they provide feedback, ideas, and corrections that we can’t generate in isolation. Without putting our “vase” on display, we rob ourselves of the insight needed to improve.
Showing our failures isn’t easy, but it is essential. Every failed attempt is a lesson, and every iteration a step closer to mastery. The next time we chase a perfect outcome, consider this: perfection is a moving target, often unattainable. A better goal is progress over perfection. It’s to make a better vase than the last one, to improve slightly every day, and to embrace the learning that comes from quantity, iteration, and failure.
In the end, mastery is not a single perfect performance. It’s hundreds of imperfect attempts, each building on the last. The students who made many vases didn’t start with extraordinary skill, but they gained it through persistent, deliberate action. Their results weren’t a fluke, and they were the inevitable outcome of focusing on process over product.
So, whether we’re learning a craft, improving our fitness, developing a skill at work, or pursuing personal growth, remember the Perfect Pot Paradox:
- Perfection-focus leads to stagnation.
- Iteration and quantity lead to improvement and excellence.
In the next vase, the next article, or the next workout, don’t aim for perfect. Aim to be better than yesterday. It’s not just okay to fail, learn, and try again; it’s imperative to growth. Let’s allow our repeated efforts to compound into skill, mastery, and achievement.
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