Last month, my best friend Lux asked me "How do you find motivation to keep at something when you're starting out and bad at it?" and I've been ruminating on it. As a perfectionist, self-taught Capricorn, I felt a little silly answering this because I feel like this all the time. In fact, I can probably count on my singular hand how many times I've been really happy with how one of my projects have turned out. But over the past few years, I have been able to come away with some tips and tricks that I regularly need to tell myself before embarking on a project, and wanted to share them with you! Because I know, feeling like your work isn't "good enough" can be gut-wrenching. Let's do it!
Lower Your Standards
While you are seeing all the little mistakes, comparing the work to what it could have been, everybody is seeing simply what is - and without that comparison they can see what is great about it! Let's take a photoshoot I recently did for example. In my mind, I had mocked up a beautiful shoot in front of a location. I was so excited - but once I was there, the location was not looking how I wanted in photos, and I couldn't figure out how to pose with it in the way I had envisioned. Defeated, I took some more photos and went home. I studied the photos on my computer and wanted to cry. I woke up the next day, looked at them some more, and realized something: they were actually still pretty good. Once I let go of this impossible standard of what was in my mind, I was able to appreciate what was actually tangibly in front of me.
Rome Was Not Built in a Day
You absolutely cannot expect yourself to be wonderful at something when you are first starting out. Any experience, even what you might perceive to be failure, is still a success because you are going forward with that experience under your belt, and the knowledge of what not to do. You need to let yourself fail, just learn from what you did wrong (or right!), and take those lessons with you onto your next project. Start small, and allow yourself to grow.
And let me tell you a little secret - if you hate how it turned out, you can always try again! You can reshoot, rewrite, revamp, or reboot later, when you are "better", and rerelease it!
You Are Wasting Time
I know, I know. This is the last thing you want to hear! And it's the last thing I want to tell myself. But this is a reality. All this time you are wasting trying to get motivated to create something you fear is going to suck, you are wasting the experience you will gain from it. You are wasting the opportunity of learning from your mistakes or successes, and you are wasting the possibility of making something even greater then you imagined. I could probably make myself cry thinking about what I could have done or where I could be if I had gained the experience from all the projects I was too afraid to pursue. We cannot let the fear of failure consume and cloud our thoughts so heavily it holds us back and enables these opportunities pass us by.
One project I really wanted to do was a lookbook set at my grandparents' house. I had drawn storyboards, picked out outfits, even wrote a little narrative down. But I kept putting it off because I wanted to do it "properly". This summer, they sold their house. This Spring, I wanted to do some portraits up against my seamless paper background of my darling dog, Maggie, but wanted to do it "perfectly" so I put it off. She passed away from cancer in May. I had and have missed my opportunity. And I really don't want you to miss yours. Stop taking for granted you will be able to do these things "later" when you are "better", and do it now. Before it's too late.
Because if you keep waiting for when you feel "good enough", you could be waiting forever.
Perfection Doesn't Exist
There have been many times I've asked friends, family, and peers for feedback on something and they said they liked the piece. I would then tell them about the "problems" I had with it, and they said they never would have noticed had I not pointed it out. I have seen pieces that were so incredible to me, and when I complimented the artist, they would say "Thank you but (points out something they perceive to be a mistake)".
I know telling yourself a version of perfection doesn't exist is hard, but you have to. If you really looked for a flaw, you could probably find a flaw in anything. You cannot allow yourself to get so caught up in the small details you can't see the big picture.
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I sincerely hope some of this will help, even if it's a little bit! Please be gentle with yourself and remember: any progress, good or bad, is still progress. Please don't hold yourself back, I believe in you and I believe in myself, and we can do it!
Unrelated photos of me by Jimmy Marble.