I’ve been in a state of minor floundering the past couple of weeks. Whenever I’m in doubt or a state of limbo, I pull out a paper or open a document and start writing. It doesn’t matter what I say as long as I don’t leave anything unsaid. While spelling and grammar are important to me, they aren’t necessary when brain dumping into a very, very rough first draft.
Rough first drafts are how life is made.
If we are afraid to write something poorly (especially something that no one will see!), how are we to go about life? Our comfort in creating our art imperfectly is a reflection to how comfortable we are in creating our life imperfectly.
We’ve got to rid ourselves of this perfectionism that plagues our soul and society as a whole. It does not serve us and never will.
Each moment is a moment to rewrite, to revise, to recreate.
If we are afraid of making mistakes, we will miss out on the entirety of life because mistakes are part of life’s magic.
So much that is good comes from the unexpected situations that mistakes and imperfection give us.
Second drafts only come after rough first drafts.
World changing theories come from incomplete and incorrect ones.
A better iteration of a product can only come from a worser prior iteration.
Creating is a non-negotiable for me and something I recommend to my clients. Of course, my preferred medium is writing, and it is one that I find universally beneficial, whether you consider yourself a “good” writer or not.
If you are looking to release some of those perfectionist tendencies, write that rough first draft. And then let me know how it went.
