F*ck Perfection. Embrace Mediocrity.
The biggest lie I ever told myself is that I’m a perfectionist.
I can’t publish any project without agonizing over every small detail. If the project does not exactly fit my vision, it won’t see the light of day.
I successfully convinced myself that nothing I produce can be anything less than perfect. Hell, I once said in a job interview that my biggest weakness is that I’m a perfectionist (I still cringe every time I think about it).
Years later, it dawned on me that this trait was the single biggest cause that stifled my growth. It wasn’t until I sat with myself one day and dug deep into my subconscious to find the root cause of why I’m like this. Out of no where, the answer I was looking for hit me like a ton of bricks:
I am scared.
That was it. It wasn’t that I hold myself to a high standard. I was just terrified of putting my work out there for the world to see.
“What will people think?” ”I probably sound like an idiot.”
“Who do I think I am?”
All of these things were seared into my mind every time I worked on something. In fact, those thoughts are popping up this very moment as I am writing this sentence.
My natural instinct is to always go above and beyond to impress everyone looking at work. If they’re not going to be blown away by it, I won’t share it.
That’s when I realized just how backwards my thinking actually was. Beyond the fact that “perfect” is a myth perpetrated by our insecure minds, my approach was more detrimental to my development than anything else.
If I wait until my work is “perfect” before I publish it, I’ll be lucky if I can complete 4 to 5 projects per year.
On the other hand, if I commit to putting out 2 mediocre projects per month, I would end up with 24 projects every year. This does two things:
Putting out more work gives me a chance to see the improvement from my first project all the way to my most recent.
And, more importantly, it allows me to get more frequent feedback from others to improve my skills with every new project that I put out.
That frequent feedback will inevitably put me on the path to reaching “perfection” a whole lot quicker than if I guarded my work from the eyes of others. Embracing mediocrity early in my career and producing many projects is the only way to actually improve at my craft and increase my confidence in my work.
Kobe didn’t become the legend he was by imagining himself shooting threes. He took tens of thousands of shots until he became one of the best players in the history of the league.
I recently fell into the perfection trap when I worked on my skydiving video. I had a certain vision for documenting this once-in-a-lifetime experience and absolutely refused to release it until the quality of the video matched what was in my mind.
The problem was I didn’t have the skills, knowledge, or experience of the editing program to bring my idea to life. As a result, I delayed my video for 3 months until I was semi-satisfied with the quality of the video (yet it was still mediocre to no one’s surprise). Had I gotten over my self-consciousness and moved on to the project, I would’ve already gained the skills and knowledge I lacked.
The ironic part is that while I seek feedback to improve my work, it’s also what scares me the most.
That’s why I’m making it my goal for the remainder of 2022 to continue writing mediocre blogs, producing mediocre videos, and taking mediocre photos. Rome wasn’t build in a day, and my skills won’t be either.
If you don’t remember anything else, remember this:
F*ck perfection. Embrace mediocrity.
