Leap imperfectly!
What will you do imperfectly in 2021?
Once upon a time I used to get stuck. A lot.
And I was stuck because I wanted to do something perfectly. I wanted to have it all figured out ahead of time and think of every last detail and address any future criticism that I could predict.
I was exhausted from going nowhere.
I am going to have to give sheer necessity the credit for changing this habit. Needing to quit my full-time job waaaay sooner than originally planned, left me needing to make money. Like yesterday.
There was no time for perfection. The voices were screaming at me, but I had to put my website out there, my messaging out there, my social media out there, MYSELF out there despite everything in my head telling me that I was not ready yet.
I wasn’t ready. And the beautiful thing I learned is that this is sometimes the best and only way to start.
Imperfectly.
Doing things imperfectly is now a habit that I intentionally cultivate. If you have been following my creative business or getting my newsletters over the last few years, you know this! I’m in a constant state of experimentation, exploration, and trying something new.
I really wouldn’t have it any other way.
Do the perfection voices still come up. You betcha. But, most of the time, I simply acknowledge their presence and move on to the business of creating.
Creating is messy. The process is imperfect and, yes, even the product is imperfect. But we can still love it. We can still be proud of it. We can still watch in wonder as it unfolds and feel the confidence in ourselves grow as we just take one uncertain step after another.
If there is something you have been waiting to create, if you have been waiting to put yourself out there, take this as your sign. And give yourself the most wonderful gift this year: the permission to do it imperfectly!
We have a whole community created with other creatives doing things imperfectly together. If you want to get some creative work done and find some joy in the process, I invite you to join us in the Creative Community Circle.
If you need a bit more of a warm-up, join us for our January #CreativityChallenge2021! Here are a few doodles that participants have done so far! (Thanks Yvonne Guibert and Mike Clouse for sharing your images publicly!)
