I like to think of myself as an artist. I like to write, because I understand where my story is going. But I have a terrible affliction — and that is the necessity to be perfect.
Perfection is a condition that affects many people in the world of creation. It’s the state of being as free as possible from all flaws or defects — in which there is nothing more you can fix or change. But this perfection is solely based on your mental idea of your art.
Because you are the only one doing mental gymnastics with your art to determine if it’s good enough, it can be a strenuous task. A lot of people have just gotten used to labelling their perfectionism as a problem without realizing that it shows the effort and care they put into their work. People who are perfectionists have a more hardcore habit of ensuring that the work they put out there reflects them as a person. There’s an attention to detail that not everyone will notice as a mistake and a higher standard that perfectionists try to strive for.
When realizing my affliction with the idea of perfection, I found that the only way I could move on was to accept it. I was already aware of the tendencies I had to nitpick at every possible thing until the deadline was looming over my shoulder, or the work I was creating looked the way I imagined it. But my acceptance was the only reason I could move on from the criticism I was placing on my own work, and notice the positive effort that I had put into it.
His motto is: “Worry less, make more and experiment”.
There’s a lot of negatives perfectionists look at when they see their work. But by accepting it, they can focus on meaning over perfection. There is a reason why you ended up creating in the first place and it shouldn’t be swept under the rug, trying to make something better than what it already is. It can always be edited and changed to be ‘better’- but better is a subjective idea that changes with time.
One of my favorite digital creators, Keith Afadi (@keithafadi), mentioned something that really resonated with me. His key to resolving the issue of perfection is to make the things you have in mind, without the idea of sharing it. If you force yourself to create to share it, you are forced into a mindset of what do others want to see and how will they see it. But at the end of the day, you are the creator, and you should be the one who gets to have final say on your creation.
His motto is: “Worry less, make more and experiment”. The experimentation will help you determine what you like and how you like to portray your art to others. It will never really be perfect unless you accept it to be.
Leonardo Da Vinci once said, “Art is never finished, only abandoned”. This contributes to the idea that your art can never be perfected. It is only completed until you see it as fit enough to release it into the world of criticism and praise. As for how perfect you think it is, it is not based on how much criticism you get back, but based on how close it resonated with your purpose of making art.