My Mistakes sped up my art progress: Overcoming Perfectionism as an artist

If you’re on one of those days where you feel like your art is pure garbage, you hate what you’ve drawn, you feel like you're going nowhere, you’ll never be successful, I hope this will make you feel better. 

How Perfectionism is sabotaging your artistic growth

So, Lately I've been having days where I feel like my artworks are not good, I’ll never achieve my goals of becoming a licensed artist, because my art will never be good enough. 

And I think many of us creatives or creators can relate to this feeling of being paralysed by Perfectionism.

Perfectionism makes you think you need to Appear Perfect

You know, this need to present ourselves without any flaw to the world.

We pursue an ideal that seems right, but we have no idea what that perfect ideal actually looks like.

Perfectionism makes you pursue vague artistic ideal

It’s exhausting, because, well, without knowing what that ideal looks like, we are forever incapable of achieving it.

Day-to-day action doesn’t really improve Perfectionism

To fight perfectionism, I’ve been focusing a lot on day-to-day actions, but because it’s been so ingrained in my subconscious, perfectionism would strike from time to time you see.

 These last months, I gave all of this a lot of thought, and I realised that my perfectionism stems from the fear of being called out for being a fake, and then rejected.

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Perfectionism stems from Fear

Perfectionism Protects us from Criticism and Rejection so it Prevents us from Taking the Right Action

Our Art is Our Identity

Because what we create is strongly connected to who we are, I need it to be or appear perfect to protect myself from criticism.

But the more we focus on protecting ourselves, the more our attention turns to probable criticism, rather than the creation process. And the more we will be paralysed. 

Perfectionism protects us from Criticism and Rejection so it prevents us from taking the right action. Each action that we undertake maybe imperfect, but it will get us way closer to our goal than

You’re not alone

And I know that I am not alone in this. 

When your perfectionism stems from fear, it ends up paralysing you, stopping you from feeling worthy of calling yourself an artist, or whatever you want. 

All this ends up making you feel less than who you actually are.

How Perfectionism actually affect our art

“Perfect is the enemy of good”

As Voltaire once said.

Perfectionism is strongly connected to a fixed mindset. 

The mindset where mistakes are unforgivable. 

You’re either a success or a failure. You either have talent or you don’t.

You can’t change this. So, we were taught to achieve perfection and celebrate talent. 

We could either be perfect, or mediocre. No nuance. 

How fixed mindset affects our art 

Let’s say we have the passion but no talent, we end up thinking we may never get anywhere in life pursuing a passion. 

And when we do try and try and try, we never think that it’s good enough, because the more talented people are doing better.

We celebrate talent and big achievements but never do we celebrate progress. Or surviving failures. 

Fixed mindset and perfectionism are hard to unlearn

Unfortunately many of us learned this fixed mindset too early in life, and it’s just so hard to unlearn.

Fixed mindset and Perfectionism: the illusion of having only one chance to succeed

We end up wasting our whole life thinking we get only one shot, so everything we do needs to be perfect, otherwise we’re doomed.

And the worst happens when you’ve been constantly told that talent matters more than practice and grit. 

We pressure ourselves to pursue perfection without even knowing what it looks like to us.

There’s simply no room for appreciating failed experiences, and small progress. 

Because with perfectionism, the process doesn’t matter, only the achievement does.

Ideally, I think we should be able to celebrate mistakes and progress. 

We have more than one chance

Not being perfect doesn’t mean we can’t be better. You know what I mean?

The fact that we’re not striving for flawlessness doesn’t mean we can't continuously improve. In fact, this is what life is about, always learning and growing. It will never stop. 

Life will always go on, things will always evolve and change. Some of us will move slower, some faster. And it should be acceptable. 

Here’s a toast to my failed attempt that I survived! 

Yes I have failed several times, I was rejected. But I am alive and I learned something only experiences could teach. 

I have produced average works, and I will keep producing average works,but among them, some will be good, or even great. 

Because persistent practice matters more than perfection. 

But of course, it’s easier said than done.

Does Healthy Perfectionism Exist?

Nonetheless I personally don’t believe that perfectionism is a good thing at all. I’ve heard some people talk about « healthy perfectionism » but I feel like it’s just a glamorised word for avoidance, in most cases. 

We should aspire to be better, to have high standards, but high standards require mastery. Mastery can only come from taking actions. 

Unfortunately perfectionism makes us avoid actions that matter in mastery. 

It’s most of the time an excuse for us to delay risk of failure.

What causes perfectionism in art and creative fields

Fear of not being enough is probably the root cause of perfectionism, but let’s be more practical.

I don’t want to pretend i’m an expert on this topic but after spending some time ruminating over the topic and doing some research, here are what my main sources of are (aside from the fear of rejection), and maybe they could resonate with you too

The taste gap

This is when what we produce does not fit our taste, ideal vision. The reality of what we see is so unaligned that we refuse to « show our work » because it’s like admitting we’re not good.

Comparing ourselves and our work to really experienced creators

It’s great to have successful creatives to look up to.

But beware of not comparing yourselves to those who have years of experience behind them.

Unrealistic goals

What’s unrealistic? 

Unrealistic is not dreaming big, but dreaming that is too focused on the capricious want and not what is possible with the actions we can accept to perform toward our goals

Let’s say, my goal is to become the next Andy Wahrol, but all I see myself doing is just drawing once in a while. I’ll never become him. 

Similarly to the taste gap, unrealistic goals can drag us into a perfectionism spree.

Unrealistic timing and Impatience

Even though our goal is realistic, if it’s not set in the right timeline, we’ll never feel good enough

It causes us to feel impatient and not enjoy the process

I want to become a successful licensed artist, but I can’t accomplish it in 6 months from what I can do daily. 

Enjoying the process is one of the very things that helps us fight perfectionism

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Practical solutions against Perfectionism

Intentionally make mistakes and joke about it

Most of us have been called out on benign mistakes as child, so the fear of making mistakes can take control of our creativity. 

Instead of fearing judgement from others, what I’ll do is I’ll physically laugh at my own mistakes, it helps me signal to my brain that this type of mistake is not that serious. 

By laughing at my own mistakes, I allow myself to de-dramatise the situation and take control of the anxiety

Make sure my goals are truly yours

Sometimes, we see beautiful things, success stories and go into thinking that that represents us when it does not

We’re in an era where thinking that somebody else’s goals could be ours because social media helps glamorise it. It’s great entertainment, for sure. 

To help gauge whether my goals are mine, I like thinking about my personal values. I value humour, I value generosity, curiosity and connection. Dreams that don’t go in that directions are probably just momentary adrenaline rush.

Redefining good enough

Good enough = Success. Good enough is a realistic achievement of something that is accessible to you at your current level. Not according to other people's levels. 

Mentioned earlier, most of time we pursue perfection without even knowing what 

Set realistic goals set in a realistic timeline. 

Realistic goals means this is really what YOU want and not someone else

Realistic goals > unbundled to be doable. Challenging enough to make you push yourself, but not to the point where you feel like you’ll never get past it

Being able to act small will help you feel the pleasure of small achievement

It’s easier to be patient, and set a realistic timeline.

Finish what you’ve started

This is really important.

When you let perfectionism get a hold of yourself, you don’t finish. This is BAD for your progress. It strengthens the brain connections and doesn’t make you progress.

Finishing projects is part of what it means to deliver high quality work. It's not high quality if your perfectionism prevents you from finishing. 

Even though the result is bad, finishing gives you material for improvement

Keep deliberately practising, following my own goals. 

Each imperfect attempt brings us closer to our ideal

Each imperfect attempt will bring us closer to the dream than no attempt at all. 

The only way to be even close to perfect is to act on it. 

We have more than one chance to achieve great creativity

We need to give ourselves permission to make mistakes. 

We can ALWAYS start again no matter how bad we fail. There’s no limit to attempts. The only limit is our mind. Enjoy the process, not just the success.

Watch “How to feel that your art is good enough NOW”

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