ARTISTS! HERE'S HOW TO OVERCOME PERFECTIONISM
Today we're talking about perfectionism and how artists can overcome it. I’m going to share actual strategies that have helped me.
Perfectionism is an unhealthy obsession with holding yourself to excessively high standards and a tendency to struggle with self-criticism.
Simply put: You constantly think you’re not good enough and you hate it!
Growing up I struggled with perfectionism. As soon as I saw a mistake in my drawing, I didn’t like it anymore. Get it out my face. All I see are flaws.
Procrastination is a form of self-sabotage that can prevent us from creating our best work.
Some signs that you may be a perfectionist include:
Setting unrealistic goals,
Having the fear of not being perfect on the first try which causes you to procrastinate
You’re too critical of mistakes
You rarely create art you’re proud of
You shrug off compliments and forget to celebrate your success.
You have a rigid all-or-nothing thinking,
You engage in toxic comparisons,
You frequently struggle with creative art block,
You experience self-doubt, anxiety and stress when things don't go according to plan
Ask your doctor if procrastination is right for you.
Since perfectionism can hurt our productivity and creativity, here’s how we can overcome it.
Make friends with your mistakes
We need to make friends with our mistakes, and here’s why:
because success requires mistakes!
People won’t see your struggle. They’ll only see your success.
I saw this picture of a performer juggling plates on stage. I love it because behind him are steps leading up to the stage with many broken plates that the audience can’t see. The caption says, “People won’t see your struggle. They’ll only see your success.”
We want the success others have right now, but we don’t see the 20,000 hours it took for them to master their craft, or the hundreds or thousands of mistakes it took to get that success.
Quardev.com said, “A huge cause of perfectionism is failing to appreciate the amount of effort it takes to achieve greatness. You can’t expect yourself to be an amazing athlete never having trained before, or to have Nobel-prize-worthy ideas at the drop of a hat. Great results take time and effort and usually come from iterations of the original idea. Expecting perfection on a first try sets you up for failure and disappointment.”
Michael Jordan said, “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
Not only do we need to make friends with mistakes, because success requires mistakes, but,
making friends with mistakes is part of a healthy growth mindset.
I mentioned before, how I used to see my mistakes in my drawings and then want to throw them away, but now if I see mistakes in my art, I’m happy because it means I’ve grown!
I made a book called, The Golden Unicorn. I love showing people this book I made as a kid, because it shows how far I’ve come. I’m not ashamed of this book. I celebrate it. Look how far I’ve come.
"Every artist was first an amateur." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
The best artists remain students of art continuing to learn, experiment and improve.
A growth mindset focuses on progress, rather than perfection.
A growth mindset sees mistakes as powerful learning experiences!
A growth mindset isn’t afraid to experiment and try new things, new methods, and new materials.
A growth mindset doesn’t see other artists as competition, but valuable resources to learn from.
Watch Bob Ross, He constantly demonstrated self-compassion. Instead of focussing on mistakes, he focussed on learning from mistakes.
Making friends with mistakes is one of the fastest ways to improve your art!
One of my art teachers in college noticed my perfectionism was holding me back from improving, so he made me use my wrong hand for two weeks. It was frustrating, but when I was allowed to use my correct hand again, my art improved drastically. Why? I got so used to messing up, I started not to care so much about it.
Ironically, the less we are worried about making mistakes, the less we make.
Amanda Ripley pointed out, “The more drivers stare at potholes, the more likely they are to drive into them.”
Making friends with mistakes puts the fun back into creating!
Perfectionism takes away the joy of creating art, but making friends with mistakes is a form of self-compassion.
Give your self room to make many mistakes as you develop your skills! Enjoy the process of experimenting, making mistakes, and learning from them. There’s no time to be paralyzed by fear of mistakes when we’re so focused on enjoying the process of learning from our mistakes!
Perfectionism can lead to a never-ending cycle of reworking and nitpicking, but making friends with mistakes, will help you overcome perfectionism and put the fun back into creating.
I’m curious, what has helped you overcome perfectionism? Let me know in the comments.