MAKE YOUR ART WHATEVER IT IS!
Make your piece of creativity and throw it out there without caring about people's feedback or the work outcome.
This is the leitmotiv that Liz Gilbert tirelessly repeated in her bestseller book BIG MAGIC to insist that everyone desiring to live a creative life must have the courage, persistance and enchantment to complete his piece of creativity, of art or litterature while giving up the dream of perfection.
Perfection doesn't exist. Perfection is an illusion, a trap, a concept made up by the guardians of high culture to only keep an elite accessing the ladder of fame and wealth as a promise for those who invest in diplomas or certifications from high institutes of arts.
But the reality is that many of the laureates end up abandoning their dreams under the wheigh of frustration and the quest for perfection or high income.
Perfection holds you back, makes you procrastinate, makes you doubt yourself and your work, and not belive in your capacities to create something of value.
I've experienced myself the drawbacks of perfectionism.
In my teens, I was writing poetry in arabic and french and was happy with it, but after getting my job, I stopped writing because of the I-don't-have-time excuse and because I thought my poetry wasn't PERFECT enough to share with my friends or to publish in a book. So I wanted to veil my IMPERFECT work by hiding my manuscripts in the darkness of a drawer.
Because of the perfection illusion I have wasted many years of potential creativity while being able to at least polish my poetry skills and write consistently to develop my style and make incremental progress, which makes me feel a huge pain of regret.
And now I'm back to my manuscripts. Indeed, I'm starting my work over without the perfection obssession, though.
"Done is better than Perfect"
Therefore, you should adopt all those ideas and make them your mottos in order to go further in your creative journey and try wholeheartedly to get your work to its entire completion whatever the conditions or circumstances are.
You must also get rid of the idea of expecting income or money flow from your creative work to avoid the frustration and despair in case money or fame don't come.
For me, I feel I need just to let it flow on the paper without negative self talk, without the concern of perfection, hesitation and without an ardent desire to please everyone, people. Which is an other illusion. Even though you create the most gorgeous piece, you will have people who criticize and tear down and others who like and give a round of applause on a regular and eternal basis. Then focus on the main thing, YOUR WORK.
Agree with me?
It's obvious that creativity and disruptive ideas are not an overnight process. It's going to take time, effort and perseverence to succeed at the end. So you should give it the time it needs and try, try and always try consistently without fearing failure or negative feedback.
Those are the keys to unlock the gates of creativity and the BIG MAGIC forteresse.
"The universe burries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.
The hunt to uncover those jewels - that's creative living. The courage to go on that hunt in the first place- that what separates a mundane existence from a more enchanted one.
The often surprising results of that hunt- That what I call BIG MAGIC"
Elizabeth Gilbert
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