…or do you simply need to act on the information you already have?
Often, research is a symptom of fear. After a certain point, gathering more data is just procrastination.
It’s worth asking this question when you’re feeling anxious to start something new.
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It’s a presence of fear.
That thing you were considering—now you feel you aren’t “passionate” enough about it to pursue.
The business you thought of starting. The video you were going to film. The degree you thought about getting.
You’re telling yourself you aren’t passionate about it. And therefore it’s not worth doing.
You’re wrong.
Passion has nothing to do with it. You’re just scared.
Scared of starting. Scared of failing. Unsure of what it will look like once you commit.
To paraphrase Seth Godin: if it scares you, it’s a pretty good sign you should try to do it.
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Artists tend to have little faith in themselves or their work. They prejudge, rewrite, and scrap work without ever letting the work just “be.”
We don’t feel it’s good enough, so we don’t hit “Publish” or “Post”. We fail to contact that company or that prospective client with a work proposal because we don’t feel we are good enough to get the job.
I’ll let you in on a little secret:
Your work isn’t good enough.
It isn’t good enough by your own definition of “good enough to ship,” which in all likelihood is actually the definition of “perfect.” It’s not good enough for your impossibly high standards.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t good. It might even be great.
If your definition of “good enough” is actually “perfect,” you will fail. Nothing you ever make will be perfect. Nothing will ever be “finished” with that mindset.
Ship your work anyway.
“Art is never finished, only abandoned.”
–Leonardo da Vinci
It is when we decide to abandon our work that it’s good enough to ship. Some work will be better than others; some days you will struggle.
But you are an artist, and artists create.
You will never feel that what you produce is good enough. It’s called “The Resistance”. Your amygdala – the “fight or flight” part of your brain – is telling you to run and hide to avoid being criticized or judged.
It is wrong. Don’t listen to it. Ship your work anyway. Don’t procrastinate because you don’t think it’s perfect (it never will be).
Don’t let the definition of “perfection” become your definition of “good enough.” That way leads only to frustration and regret.
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You have a really good idea, an idea that people will love, that will make a difference, that will make things better. In fact, the little voice in your head continues to tell you, “This might work.” But you continue to hesitate; you still haven’t shipped. Why not?
Money.
It always come back to money…but I don’t mean money in the way you’re thinking.
You might be a freelancer, a musician, a writer, or a budding entrepreneur: you want to improve the world, and you need to eat. Essentially, you are wrestling with two competing ideas: “Will this make me money?” vs. “Will this help people?”
If you live and work by the former question, you will make very little progress. There is no way for you to know if your endeavor will generate revenue, which means you will probably wait until you are sure it will work before you act. But if you can’t be sure (and you can’t), you won’t act.
Around and around it goes.
If you are searching for “yes” to the money question, you will feel fear every time you create a new video or go to click on the checkout button of a webhosting platform. You’ll be terrified every time you pick up the phone to make a sales call or approach a new customer in a store.
If you are worried about the profit, you revert to a scarcity mindset:
“I don’t know that this article will make money, so I probably shouldn’t post it.”
“Someone else is already doing something similar; I won’t be different enough to standout and earn an income.”
“What if I spent a little money to make this happen, but I never earn it back? I’ll have wasted it!”
Is that true? What if you didn’t make any money back, but you helped someone by spending it? You gave a gift; it was charity.
You do need to eat, which might mean you need a job while you seek to serve other people. If you work to answer the question, “Will this help people?” you will find that your ideas come naturally. They will be much easier to send out into the world: you won’t hesitate, because there is much less riding on the outcome.
In fact, the outcome is practically harmless. You either end up right where you started, or you make change happen. If you only help one person, then the answer to the question is a resounding “YES!”
I think the secret is faith and the right mindset. The right mindset is seeking to help people because you want to help them, not because you want to profit from them. Ironically, if you help enough people, you will be much closer to turning a profit than the fool who is focused on it.
Seth Godin says it all the time: “Ideas that spread, win.” They do. Helping others spreads, which means it wins. If you help people, they will know who you are. If they know who you are, they will come to you for more help. They will probably tell their friends about you as well. Soon you have an audience, people who trust you because you sought to help them, not profit from them. When people trust you, you win.
Live a life of abundance and give, give, give. Have faith that if you help enough people, the money will come.
And if it never does?
Well…you still helped a lot of people.
Yesterday’s post talked about perfection getting in the way of your art. Today, I wanted to give a special thanks to John Cochran, Joey Panella, and Rebecca Smith for letting me get out of my own way.
When I was in my early twenties, I majored in Jazz Studies at the University of Southern Mississippi. My weapon of choice was the drum set, and I was pretty average.
I was learning from books, playing in jazz band rehearsals 3 days per week, and shedding in the practice room. Still, I was not great.
I wasn’t great because I had almost no experience.
For whatever reason, John, a guitarist, came to me and asked if I would be willing to play drums with him and the others in a weekly gig at a pub in Hattiesburg. I accepted.
It was not until I started playing 3 hours a day – not very well – every single Tuesday from 10pm-1am, in front of a live audience, that my skills as a musician truly started to develop. That was the experience I needed to truly begin developing as a musician. It was at that point that I began learning on what I needed to focus and develop, so that I would improve. And improve I did.
I say all of that to encourage you to do a few things:
I’m not encouraging you to be bad at something for which you’ll never put in the effort to become excellent. I’m saying that you’ll have to be bad at something you want to do before you become good; it helps if you do it in public, and it really helps if someone supports you while you do it in public.
It’s the only way you will start learning what you need to learn.
Thanks John, Joey, and Rebecca.
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If you are an artist – a person who seeks to create beneficial change in the world – you are probably a perfectionist.
This is why you never hit “publish” on your blog, why you don’t post your photos on Instagram, or why your songs aren’t on YouTube and SoundCloud. It isn’t because the work you did is bad: it’s because you think if you do just a little bit more to it, it will be perfect.
You’ll never get there.
“An artist’s job is not to be perfect, but to [always] be creating.” – Jeff Goins
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The more you create, the more practice you get. You’ll hit that 10,000 hour mark we’ve all heard about. The more practice you get, the better your work will be.
Create something today.
Ship it – today.
Repeat tomorrow.
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