One thing that most creative person struggle with is perfectionism.
It’s the feeling & tendency to set an excessively high standard towards oneself or others.
It can also act as a good way to procrastinate. To avoid the necessary work needed.
But why do we do this to ourselves? The way I see it, being in the process is messy.
There’s a lot of uncertainty in creating something, especially if it’s new & different.
And as a human, our brain detect that feeling of uncertainty & discomfort as danger.
In an effort to “save” us, our brain come up with this weird idea to help us stay away.
This includes coming up with the idea that all this messy work & process is not good.
So we tell lies to ourselves saying that it’s not the perfect time or I’m not inspired yet.
We set unnecessarily high level of standards that we know we cannot achieve.
All in the hope that we don’t have to even begin taking the steps to achieve it.
What can we do about it? How can we defeat this idea we’ve created inside our minds?
Well, for one, we can start with being aware with the problem we are facing ourselves.
The first step to solving a problem is to recognised that there is a problem.
Then, you need to take the first step even without knowing what’s ahead. It’s scary, but it is necessary.
It’s like driving at night. You can’t see what’s beyond the few meters ahead of you.
You don’t have to see all the everything ahead to get to where you want to go, you just need to clearly see road that is right in front of you.
Meter by meter, you move forward. And eventually you’ll reach your destination.
Perfectionism & procrastination is just a way of our brain to keep us “save” from the uncertainty & uneasy feeling of not knowing.
But as an entrepreneur & a creative who aspire to do things that are new & different, we must strive in the face of the unknown.