Focus and keep practicing on thing are not easy.
That's maybe the reason why we would admire someone who is good at a special skill. For example, the Olympic athletes who are good at at least one sport, the scientists who solved global issues, the economists who predicts the economic trends, etc. I watched a documentary film, named "Jiro Dreams of Sushi" and was deeply impressed by it. Jiro is a Japanese chef and he is extremely good at making Sushi. He is strict with the whole process of making Sushi, from selecting fish to preparing dishes before eating. That's maybe the meaning of "Sometimes the details determine the success or failure".
But if we think this from another side, there may be a different understanding. If we are always insisting with the perfection, we may ignore the frame or the structure of the whole story. In another words, the perfect match/thing may not be exist. I think I may be wrong with some understandings of research. I thought a good research should have good experiment design, good experiment operations, and good simulation result. But I did not realize that I may not design a very good experiment at the beginning. Just like I thought there should be a good match between the experimental results and simulation results. Something may be wrong and you may have no idea.
Stepping back may be not a bad choice. Since you may not able to achieve a 100% satisfaction, obtaining 80% or even 70% satisfaction is ok, as long as you can achieve the goal. Then, you may able to refine your thought/design and improve it later.
Something there is a gap between what you want and what you can do. For example, you are at Houghton (what you can do) and you want to go to Hancock (what you want to) in long long time ago. The portage river is the gap and there is no bridge. So the best solution is build a bridge and connect the two places. But the technology and funds may not be available at that time. There comes the accepted way of boating. Boating is slow, but it works.