Do you have a big life project you want to work on but struggle to find the will to do it? If so, you’re not alone. Many people stumble when trying to execute projects, all because of our natural tendency to crave perfection. Yes, the challenge we face as human beings is that we are not perfect, and we never will be. But by letting go of the idea of perfection and caring just enough about the things we do, we can develop more effective strategies to accomplish our goals. Here are three steps for doing just that.

Step 1: identify what you need to do next. Any big project can be overwhelming, simply by virtue of it being … well … big. But often, the scope of the project ahead is not the intimidating part. It’s the individual steps we need to take that hang us up. In order to figure out which steps you should take first, let your feeling guide. Listen to that self-nagging voice within you and identify what needs to be done first.

Step 2: start on something. We tend to think we need the perfect starting point. That we need to know how each step fits into the larger whole. In reality, we just need to take the next step—even if it’s a dreadful one. More often than we’d imagine, we will discover that the dreaded task isn’t nearly as dreadful as we had imagined. Once we start in, we might even be surprised to find out that the very thing we had been avoiding is actually kind of interesting, possibly even fun. In any case, once you start something, you can get the momentum rolling and move onward.

Step 3: learn to let it go. If you don’t get everything done as perfectly as you wanted to, just relax. There’s no point in driving yourself crazy. Be proud of yourself for whatever progress you make, and save your energy for when you get working on your project again.