Perfection Is The Enemy Of Creativity

For a lot of people, the desire to be creative has been stamped out of their daily thinking. It never crosses their mind that they have the time or the ability to create something.

For me, the realization of this happened when I wrote my first book, during NaNoWriMo. One of the tips they give is to “lock away your inner editor” and just write whatever comes to your mind. And for people like me who have high standards of quality, that works, surprisingly.

Why is this? It’s because of the fear of our output being “not good enough” from only the first draft. We look at our incomplete musical or graphical or literary first drafts, and think “this really sucks.” But if you stop there, that’s the end of the story (pun intended), and nothing gets created.

Freedom to create comes when you lock away your inner editor long enough to get past the initial aversion. Even if it’s bad, a written book is closer to publication than an incomplete one. A song with all the parts there is closer to being “finished” than one with a well-mixed intro and nothing else.

You can’t edit or polish something that isn’t there. Worry about perfection after you’ve actually completed something. In some cases, you’ll realize that the end result probably doesn’t need that much fixing anyway. You get better with it over time.

So quit double-guessing yourself, put aside the fear, and finish something. Anything, even if it’s bad, is better than not creating at all.