How I overcame perfectionism to become an Imperfectionist
Growing up I was a very creative kid, always making something or other. But it was a continual exercise in frustration as the ideas in my head never quite matched up to what I made in reality. Undeterred, I continued to make stuff until I had a bit of a crisis of confidence and felt like it was all falling apart.
I kept my unravelling under my hat. My friends and certainly my GCSE art teacher wouldn’t have known I was losing all creative confidence: to them I would have continued to appear to be the determined, if a little wayward, creative interpreting our class tasks in quite outlandish ways.
It was a cover. Underneath, I felt extremely under confident as my art teacher definitely didn’t “get me”, I wasn’t as skilled at drawing and painting as others and nothing I imagined ever quite worked out as well as I wanted it to.
There is one night which sticks vividly in my memory. I was sitting on my bedroom floor surrounded by half finished paintings, prints, sketches and other makes. I needed to decide what were going to be the projects I worked on over the upcoming months and submitted for my exam and I didn’t have a clue what to pick. Everything felt a bit rubbish.
My mum came in and I burst into tears.
She was doing a creative embroidery course at the time and, for the first time in her life really, her creativity was fully unleashed. She sat with me and we worked out what I could do. It was a jigsaw-y collage-y type process, finding connections between pieces and shaping projects through disparate parts.
In that moment, something clicked. Something in me shifted so I felt my work, when shaped in the right way was enough. I was enough.
Since then, I’ve actively sought ways of feeling enough and of ways to challenge my inner critics that unfairly compare me to others and continually feel frustrated and disappointed with what I create. I've also continued to work in a jigsaw-y collage-y way: it's how I create theatre, shape new courses, plan beadwork projects. Everything, really!
Those inner critic voices, which come from the land of perfectionism, will always be there and I accept that. Sometimes, when I need a reminder to strive to be exacting and for excellence when a project requires it they can be useful voices, but most of the time I tell them firmly to sssssh! I've mastered the art of keeping them quiet the majority of the time.
I knew then and have ever since, that finding ways of feeling enough and of saying “that’ll do” has led to being able to take action and get stuff done. I wouldn’t have achieved half the amount in my career without those skills.
However, I did go through a good decade or so where I felt a little shameful about my approach. I was envious of people who strived for perfect and were able to relentlessly focus on the detail to make everything excellent. Looking at myself, I felt a bit slapdash and scattered by comparison.
Now, I realise my way of working, creating and being is a super power.
Yes, I occasionally need a reminder to check over things and make sure I’m doing the best I can so I don’t do things that are sloppy, but through actively practising imperfectionism, it has led me to be able to jump into work head first; to set up new projects and companies; to take risks to see what’s possible.
It has freed up so much time which I could have spent overthinking, beating myself up for not being enough or on the endless cycle of needing to learn more before I can do the thing. Take this blog for example, I will not agonise over making it perfect as I know that is impossible; people can get useful things from it without it being carefully honed over hours and hours of edits. No, I’ll write it (it’ll take less than an hour), I’ll read through once, correcting any alarming errors and then I’ll schedule it to publish. Bish bash and imperfectly bosh!
Being an Imperfectionist has saved me so much time, earned me more money as I can put my energies into taking action, given me more life experiences, expanded my creativity and generally made life more joyful. It’s a brilliantly imperfect way to live.
It’s time I shared some of that super power with others. Through this story, it’s clear that the ability to be imperfect isn’t something I was born with, it’s something I’ve taught myself and I feel extremely lucky I worked that out relatively early in life, giving me three decades of practice!
Combining all that experience and wisdom with a large dollop of creativity and a huge amount of love, I have created The Imperfectionist.
It’s a course with a twist as not only will you have access to a self-guided course full of explorations into perfectionism and practical support to cultivate a beautifully imperfect practice, and a live workshop for each cohort, it also comes with the loveliest little kit in the post: a carefully curated selection of curiously intriguing things which hark back to past times when things were simpler, allowing space for your imagination to run free.
I’ve created it because I see a growing issue of perfectionism with my clients and through all my projects. It stifles creativity and stomps on people’s potential, and I think that’s not OK at all.
It’s also not our fault we’re in this mess. The way our society operates needs us to continually strive for more and to never feel content or enough. It’s the only way the economy can grow, right?
Well, one beautifully created kit at a time, I aim to do my bit to change that and to support you to tell perfectionism to bog off so you too can enjoy the freedom and contentment that being an imperfectionist brings!
As the kits involve so much hand making and careful curation, I’m only releasing the course in small batches. You can see on the link when the next Postage Day is and find out more about this wonderfully imperfect course I am so very, fiercely proud of. And, of course, if you would like to get a little kit in the post… I’d very much love to welcome you in the next cohort.
