Perfect vs Excellent -The Creative Process pt. 3

Last week I talked about perfectionism and how it can and is crippling to the creative process. Often times in our modern day society being a perfectionist is heralded as a strength and desirable quality. I believe people have mistaken perfectionism for a value of excellence. 


Perfectionism says your value is in what you do, not in who you are. Perfectionism says there is no room for mistakes and there is no such thing as second chances. Perfectionism is all about doing it right the first time and completely forgets about practice and stewardship. Perfectionism is all rooted in fear, of either failure or success. 


Striving for excellence is wanting to do things well, it’s wanting to do a job well done. To become excellent you must first be mediocre, and that’s a truth few want to learn. It is often what leads to the cheap knockoff of perfectionism. Excellence takes work and it takes stewardship, neither of which can be attained overnight. 


Perfection can never be attained, because it could aways be better. There is always someone out there who might do it better, or be better. But excellence isn’t about comparison or your identity, it takes the art itself and measures the merits of it against your own effort. 


I am very much so still working on getting rid of my perfectionist mindset. I consciously understand it isn’t good for me, and even why it’s unhealthy, but I find the negative self shaming thoughts still sneak up on me. Thoughts like, if it isn’t just right then it isn’t good altogether. Perfectionism likes to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It’s all hight stakes and it makes you believe there’s no room for error, like for some unknown reason you can’t go back and fix any mistakes. 


I was working on a painting a few months ago, and just as I stepped away from the first layer to have a look at it I noticed a mistake. There was drip of orange right in the middle of all my nice blended yellow. I got so irritated, thinking well know I have to do a whole second layer to cover it up. I had already planned on needing a second layer but seeing the mistake somehow made the whole process emotional and frustrating. Walking away for the painting and taking a break was the best thing I could have done, and that’s just what I did. 


I wanted the painting to be done and perfect in the first go around, even when I had planned for that to not be the case. What I’m saying is, it takes practice and practical application to work your way out of perfectionism. I’ve been at this for four years now and I’m still not great at it. But what makes the difference is separating my identity from my painting. Who I am doesn’t change based on how well I can or do paint, nor does my value inflate or deflate. It’s the most important part of the process and also the most difficult. 


There is much of the creative process that comes down to stewardship, of either detoxing from negative and destructive mindsets, or from just straight up continuing to learn and better your skills. Walking away from perfectionism and learning to value excellence in its place is no different. Rome wasn’t built in a day, that’s not to say that all good things have to take time, but it’s more than okay when they do. The key is to have patience and compassion for your self while you walk the process out.

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