Create Before You're Ready

Creating art is, most of the time, difficult and painful.

We fear being judged; we fear creating something trivial.

What can we do then? One way to persist creating despite the fear is to be kind to yourself - embrace your flaws and forgive yourself when your work isn't perfect.

Even the great philosopher-king, Marcus Aurelius, whose writings survived for almost two thousand years, keeps his motivation by writing this to himself:

“Get a move on - if you have it in you - and don’t worry whether anyone will give you credit for it. And don’t go expecting Plato’s republic; be satisfied with even the smallest progress, and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant.”

As a beginner, I also want to tame my fear, my ego, and my crushing sense of self-protection. That’s why I keep hunting for words and passages and mental models that can fuel my own motivation. So I can keep creating despite my fear of approaching the blank page or of sharing my finished work.

Here are some of what I remind myself of whenever I feel unqualified or unworthy of creative work:

• Just get the work done.

Then improve your work if you have extra time to burn. Do not aim for perfection; an ‘okay’ work finished now is better than the ‘great’ work finished never. Done is better than good.

• Set a deadline before the deadline.

We tend to consider the best-case scenarios when we estimate the future. It’s the reason why we often fail to stick to our plans - even well-planned to-do lists, monthly budgets, etc.

So moving the deadline earlier than ‘the deadline’ will help you offset the unexpected distractions. It can reduce your frustration after you submit your work. And if you decide to make minor improvements, you can have the extra time to turn your ‘okay’ work into a little bit ‘more okay.’

• Ignore the outcome.

Whether your work is terrible or unimportant, forget about it and start the next one. Do not let perfectionism stop you from submitting or publishing your work. Accept that when you are learning a new craft, you will look and sound like a fool. “You must be willing to be a fool to advance,” said Jordan Peterson.

• Focus on repetition.

The more you do a thing, the better you become at doing it. I remember the story I read from David Perell’s blog:

A ceramics class teacher decided to group the students into two - one group will be graded based on quantity; the other, for quality.

“His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an ‘A’, forty pounds a ‘B’, and so on. Those being graded on “quality,” however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an ‘A.’

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”

Conclusion:

Accept that it will take a long time to master a craft. So keep creating, keep pushing. Allow yourself to do lousy work, especially if you’re a beginner. Don’t spend too much time perfecting it that you fail to reach the finish line. No amount of time is enough. You have to live with the outcome.