For way too many years I lived my life as the craziest perfectionist.
While I was at university, or rather; while enrolled in university, I spent years rewriting the first page of a novel, convinced that I would be able to get that perfect flow of words I envisioned into writing.
That I let my perfectionism get the better of me was perhaps due to the fact that we creatives always have these notions about how we can change things and transform reality for the better. (I mean: to be a creative is precisely to imagine something that is not, but could be). That, and then the fact that in the beginning of the 90's we really did convince ourselves that the world was heading towards a perfect equilibrium.
Time spent learning and invested is time well spent, not wasted. In fact, the only time wasted might be the time you spend unpresent, uninvested. The time you spend procrastinating, making up bad excuses and running away.
As anyone who has suffered from delusions and bumped their head against reality will know, after years of rewriting the same sentenses over and over and over again I too had to admit that such a thing as a perfect novel page does not exist. It took me a long time and was in many ways a big disappointment. But as I eventually began to embrace my inability to fulfil my own expectations of perfection, I also began to learn to open up and let go. To trust the process and just jump on to the next page.
When you force yourself to forget about the outcome and focus on the creation process, 2 things typically happen: Firstly, you get caught up in the flow and are much more present; much less self-conscious. Secondly, things almost always end up running off in other and completely unexpected directions. Sometimes with far, far more interesting results than the imagined perfections that were your starting point.
It has taken me years of practice to unlearn resisting the ugly and flawed and I now aim for the opposite, namely to dare to live out even my weirdest ideas and just give things a go.
I keep telling myself that in the end, there is not much risk.
If it works out, fine. If it doesn’t work out, just as fine.
Time spent learning and invested is time well spent, not wasted. In fact, the only time wasted might be the time you spend unpresent, uninvested. The time you spend procrastinating, making up bad excuses and running away.
And no. I'm still not terribly proud to show other people how hopeless my artwork sometimes turns out, and how much I'm still able to miss the mark. But at least I am aware of it and I practice sharing, including my blunders, deviations and errors.
Just because you've made the same mistake over and over doesn't mean you have to make it again.
Rather than remain a hopeless perfectionist, I now strive to be a hopeful imperfectionist.
If you like the idea of creating something new in the world that does not yet exist, you could consider the same doing the same, yourself. You could and you really should.
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