Perfectionism is killing you.

I always thought that with my creative projects that I was a "perfectionist". That everything had to be just right in order for me to call the project finished. Embracing it as some kind of quirky creative character flaw that seems to follow most people in this community.

As I started growing in my understanding of self, I found out that this perfectionism was killing my growth and was simply an excuse to not ever finish work and start more.

Perfectionism is fear.

I will draw this example to show you what I mean. Let us take a fine art piece I begin working on. I start getting to the fine tuning end of the project, the final details so to speak. I used to not be able to stop picking at it and call it "done". Tons of creative artists never "finish" projects. When you call a project finished, that means that it is open to review...open to criticism. Most of our egos are pretty fragile and we like to keep it as safe as possible.

By not ever finishing anything and when we run into criticism, we can simply say, "Well it isnt finished yet...." This protects our ego's from the stones of opinion that get tossed at our work. Work that often we pour differentiated levels of ourselves into. The ol' blood, sweat and tears.

We want to take this thing that we have created and protect it...protecting ourselves from the reality of what other people think.

This inability to deal with 3rd part influences or criticism keeps our growth at bay, from truly tapping into something great that we have to offer our community.

It is our duty to finish our work, whatever it may be. Mark it and label it as finished, that way we can send it off into the world for further review. Maybe everyone hates it but then again..what if they don't? Often times, the success is more daunting than the failure, since failure is often expected and success isn't.

Finishing work lets you get started on more and repeat the cycle. Increasing your chance of finding something that is worth doing, something that matters.

Stop making it perfect and finish it.

I hate trends and so should you.

I hate trends...oh so very much....they are what constantly keeps the creative ceiling low and from growing faster.

We all know what trends are, those things, music, styles, fashion, art, design, hair etc that is pervasive throughout our society for a litany of reasons. Some are cool, some are harmless and others are just dumb. But somehow we decide what is popular and it gets used up and tossed to the side once there is nothing else to use (or something different and cooler comes along).

Trends keep creativity low because we become slaves to them. We want to provide content and work that people will like so we dip into the current trends to make clients happy...which is fair. Soon we become reliant on this type of photography, those font styles, that style of illustration and now we are stuck. We are left abusing these awesome resources till they are of no use anymore.

Then once a style starts dying off and new one comes to a head the same cycles presents itself. Use, abuse, dumb and continue the cycle.

Some of these things in and of themselves could last much longer but when coupled together with other objects to identify as a style...it is doomed for the bell curve.

We keep ourselves limited by wanting to do acceptable work so we can make our living or just provide good content. If we had more resources at our hands...one could only imagine the type of work we could produce. People say to think outside of the box for something new...but that is pretty much bullshit.

Unless this new thing has some kind of inherent value, usefulness, skill etc then it will be ignored. Most of the avant garde were thissss close to being ignored and not even recognized. The best way to have a lasting change on something is to either be that one off amazing new valuable thing. Or to work at the fringes...don't go outside the box...work near the edge of the box. That is were the new trends are, that is where you can find the lasting change and permanent impression we are looking for.

Not outside the box just near the edge.