Finish your thoughts: choosing perseverance over perfection

First attempt at a large-scale galaxy painting with watercolor and salt.

A fresh start has always sounded appealing to me. That's why I cherish those quiet, first few moments in the morning when I peel back the covers, swing my legs over the side of the bed, and meander into the kitchen for a steaming cup of black coffee. I savor those moments. Everything is perfect, because nothing has happened yet. That same feeling comes up when I buy a new book or journal or watercolor pad. This book will probably be the best book ever. This journal will hold my most well-articulated thoughts and musings. This watercolor pad will be the stage for my best creations yet.

While these thoughts sound like harmless optimism, for me, it's usually a sign that my perfectionism is about to rear it's ugly head. When reality comes rushing past my fresh start with all its demands, my perfectionism uses it as a convenient smokescreen, and it sounds something like this: I should sit down and paint, but I've got to run those errands. I should journal, but I'm late for an appointment and there'll be traffic and I'm already rattled. Now I need to make lunch. I'll get to it later. Maybe I can try my watercolors? No, my hands are too shaky to paint because I had a little too much black coffee this morning. This book is actually really boring and too overwhelming for me to focus on today, and I've wasted an hour trying to read it. I have a little time now to write in my journal but the day is a blur and I don't remember anything notable that happened anyway. My nerves have calmed enough to settle into painting, but after a day like today I have no inspiration. See, this warm-up painting looks like garbage even for a practice piece. Guess I'll start again tomorrow. Does this cycle sound familiar?

It's fine to enjoy a fresh start and have a vision, but eventually (preferably today) it's essential to move forward from the starting line. I used to sit at the starting line all day, feet cemented to the ground, but that all changed I when shifted my focus from perfection to perseverance. And it started with the deceptively simple act of finishing my thoughts.

Now when I say finish your thoughts, I don't just mean complete the sentence in your head or out loud. I mean finish your thoughts in a more holistic sense. Pull that thread of a thought until it turns into a well-developed idea and then materializes from the work of your own hands. For example, if you really want to paint a mountainscape, don't just stop at, I should paint a beautiful mountainscape. Keep going. Pull the thread and engage in an actual thought process. Start asking yourself questions: How can I make that mountainscape exist on the canvas in front of me? Which brush would be best? Which colors? How should I layer the paint? What feeling/mood do I want to infuse into it? And so on. Then to actually finish the thought would be to take out that canvas, take out that brush, that paint, and actually create the mountainscape. That is creative perseverance. That is finishing a thought vs. malingering at the starting line with a perfect vision in your mind that only you can see. This brings me to my next point.

Let things be crappy. Since creation is such a personal experience, it's hard to accept that what we create might, at first, look kind of subpar. I have lost count of the times a burning idea with all kinds of intense emotions attached to it came bubbling up to the surface only to emerge as a giant turd. It would be funny if it didn't feel so deeply invalidating. But if you don't take that first clumsy, awkward step, you'll never give yourself anything to work with. Allowing your creation to reflect the reality of your current skill and understanding of a medium or concept provides invaluable feedback. It's the big red dot on the map that says, YOU ARE HERE. If you know where you are in the creative process, you can figure out where to go next, and you can continue to persevere, step by step.

I will acknowledge that sometimes, even when you persevere, your initial crappy creation, in the end, may be just that. However, that doesn't mean it's a worthless waste of time. The cover photo of this blog piece is my first large scale attempt at a galaxy painting. It is riddled with my very own slew of artistic regrets. There are dozens of decisions I made in the process of finishing this piece that I would have done differently. A few examples: I would have allowed for more drying time between layers, applied salt at different points in the process, and used a lighter touch with my brush. I'll do all of those things next time, because now I know to do them. Not getting it right the first time, doesn't mean you're bad; it means you're learning and growing. And to be honest, I think this galaxy piece looks pretty cool in spite of some of my missteps. Plus, it was really relaxing to make!

That brings me to my final point. If you focus on perseverance, the creative process feels more like a journey. When you focus on perfection, the creative process feels like one discouraging failure after another, even if with every draft you're becoming more skillful. It's good to have standards. Standards are achievable because they speak to a certain level of quality that you're aiming for. You can map out steps to achieve quality, as with my galaxy painting example. But perfection is not a standard. It's an impossible ideal, a moving target that will always be just out of reach. And it can trip you up on both ends of the creative process. On the front end, it discourages you from starting, because deep down you know it's an impossible task. On the back end, if you finally get started, then you can't stop. You don't know when to leave the last brushstroke. Your creation could always be a little bit better, right? With perfection, you never truly get to finish your thought, and that's the only real shame.

Other areas of life that have benefited from me finishing my thoughts (in-depth writing and research).

So do I still love a fresh start? Yes, absolutely! However, I've been finding more and more that I also really love getting my hands dirty, experimenting, and discovering what my own missteps have to teach me. I've also found that the practice of finishing my thoughts in my artwork has positively impacted other areas of my life like writing, research, and even my interactions with the world and other people in it. If I don't immediately express myself perfectly or understand a complex idea or situation it doesn't mean I've failed. It just means I need to persevere on the journey until I reach my destination (whatever that may look like). It beats seeking comfort in perfectionistic ideals that lead nowhere. Finishing your thoughts is what allows your life (creative and otherwise) to truly begin.

What's a thought that you've been wanting to finish lately? Leave a comment below!