It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect

Perfectionism is a hell of a thing.

It’s a thing that all too often stops good ideas from flourishing into something amazing because we’re too scared to just get started. We tell ourselves that I’m not good at this thing, and if it’s not perfect, then it’s not worth making.

But that’s not true.

Imagine if the Rolling Stones recorded their first song and thought oof, that sucks. They would have dropped the guitars and that’d be the end of it. They wouldn’t have gone on to create Paint It Black, Sympathy for the Devil, Satisfaction, and the countless other songs that are great.

The bad stuff is a necessary gateway to the good stuff.

Story Time

When I was designing the layout for these atomic essays - the very layout that you’re looking at right now - I went through about fifteen versions of it.

Sounds dumb, I know. It’s just text on a page. But my inner perfectionist wasn’t happy.

The text would be made bigger. Then smaller. Then the little “Atomic Essays” thing at the top wasn’t in a box, then it was, and then it wasn’t again. Then the background was black, now it’s white. Then I agonised over the size of the images themselves, and how they’re going to end up being different heights and oh God that’s not going to be good for cohesion oh my word what can I do about this I think I’m losing my mind…

But then it hit me.

It just doesn’t matter.

Publish and Iterate

The most important thing, in any project, is to create.

Your first podcast will be bad. Your first logo will be bad. Your first story, song, painting, piece of content, first…

The first of anything is bad, and that’s fine.

Things don’t have to be perfect; they just have to be made.

You can always refine and improve later.

The bottom line is that we all start bad. That’s part of being a novice. Embrace it!