Practice

I'm a new soul
I came to this strange world
Hoping I could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
Finding myself making every possible mistake.

-Yael Naim from her song "New Soul"

You've heard the adage "practice makes perfect". I think it should be changed to practice reminds us of our imperfection, hallelujah! In striving for perfection, we can easily keep ourselves from practicing our divine talent, we can feel constricted into inaction. When we're afraid that what we write, produce, choreograph, invent, paint, etc. will not live up to certain expectations, we've squashed our creative spirit before we've even begun. We spend more time editing and perfecting what we just started rather than submitting to the creative flow calling us forward. When we have a dreamy image of our work being immediately admired, applauded and fully understood (standing ovation included), we've missed the point. We are paralyzed by confusion, not knowing how we'll ever pull together our book, watercolor, photo montage, or prototype, thereby interfering with the flow of creation. We try to plot out our project, step by step. The big picture should elude you, the blank spots leave room for beauty to enter. Somehow we are shown the next step, if it's meant to happen.

 

To me, creativity can seem daunting. I have a negative ninny in my head shooting down every idea I have for my writing. Ninny likes to remind me that the only credentials I have are life itself, about the statistics of a writer's getting published, that I'm not always one to finish projects. I've recently told her to shove off, and I'm sitting down and writing anyway. I'm ready to make mistakes, I'm ready to get into the practice. It comes down to the fact that I know I'm a writer, and I cannot wear the label unless I ....(drum roll please)... write.

 

I'm owning my perfectionism problem, which when it comes down to it is just fear in disguise. Fear of criticism, fear of rejection, fear of not being good enough, fear of success. I'm getting in the habit of staring it down daily. I realize that there will be shitty first drafts (thanks Ann Lamott for explaining this), plenty of distractions- many of which I admittedly create, and some pain as I commit myself to a sit-my-butt-down-and-write schedule.

 

I'm being gentle with myself knowing that I'm practicing being imperfect, gloriously imperfect. This is a new for me. I may be pretty bad at my attempts to create a plot, write an interesting magazine article or explain my life experiences in a way that may inspire others. It doesn't make it any less worthwhile. This is the process of creativity, it's the only way anything ever gets done, bit by bit, with practice, and many mistakes along the way. Perhaps we should seek out more chances to make mistakes. It's in the mistakes that we truly learn, and by learning we get better. Not perfect, but better.