Embrace Your Imperfections: Some Thoughts on Overcoming Self-Doubt and Unleashing Your Creativity
My daughter is in seventh grade, which is Middle School. At this age, there is a lot of judgment and self-criticism. Some people believe that this behavior is just a teenage thing, but I disagree. I think it continues throughout life but just takes on different forms.
I’ve tried, and I made a difficult commitment to myself and to you to be completely honest in the essays I write daily. How we see ourselves and how others see us are two different things. Robert Burns had it right: “O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us / To see oursels as others see us!” I know I’m not as together as people see me. I venture to say you’re the same way. And this dichotomy affects our creativity if we let it.
One friend of mine suggested it was an imposter syndrome. I don’t think that is accurate. I’m not an imposter, and I doubt that you are either. Instead, I’m well aware I’m sometimes a nut, often imperfect, many times regretful, and occasionally fearful I will make a fool of myself. The only thing I have going for me is that I have very little, if any, shame. I live with others close to me knowing (or anyone who asks) that I’m bumbling my way through life in not always the most decorous of fashions. My other friends who feel shame try to hide that, but it is not something to hide. I’m not sure we should consider all of us imperfect, but instead, we should assume that we all are different. It is something to embrace, that difference that makes us all unique. We might not fit in with all the other square holes, but we fit perfectly in our round one.
Why am I writing this to you? Because it is freeing, I want to ensure you, like I encourage my daughter, that we all beat to our own drummer if we are to be ourselves, be self-actualizing, and be fulfilled. I suggest you think of living your life the same way. Listen, you don’t have to be right or write well. Just write. If someone thinks you have to be, think, or perceive the world a certain way, it seems to me that’s a skill issue or a snowflake issue on their part, not yours. As I tell my daughter, you can’t live your life by what others think. If you’re dishonest about your feelings of regret, maybe even shame and embarrassment, perhaps not being enough, or you try to pretend to be (or create) in a way that mimics someone else and is not authentic with you, this thinking gets in your way. It clouds your mind. I say permit yourself to be. In fact, why not make this “shortcoming” (or, in my case, “shortcomings”) something special, a personal trademark, an intricate, beautiful part of you? As a kid, I remember being told a mole on my leg was some imperfection. Then I see them as “beauty marks” on Hollywood actress’s faces. I’ve realized I don’t have to be ashamed of the mole on my leg; reframing it makes it a beauty mark, and I’m delighted to have it. If someone else is lauded for having one on their face, the one on my leg is just as delightful.
As creative people, we tend to see our work (unrealistically, really) as extensions of ourselves. Our work is, and it isn’t. It is because our work comes from us. Our work is not because it is not us. It is not our flesh and blood, our relationships, our loves. We are us, and it stops there. But in ourselves and our work as extensions, we, in the silliest of ways, look for perfection, something that we don’t even have in ourselves (unless we do a lot of mole-to-beauty mark reframing). In reality, it is not perfection that we seek; we want to imitate others we admire and fit in, just as my daughter experiences that pressure in school. That desire for perfection, fitting in, mimicking, interferes with our creativity. Instead of focusing on something fresh, we focus on what someone else will think. That is the death of innovation. It is the death of us. It is the death of our creativity.
You’re not perfect; you probably agree. I’m not sure what perfection is other than trying to be someone else whom you can never be. You know, maybe if what you create doesn’t fit the mold of someone else’s expectations, instead of a mole, you have, clever you, actually made a beauty mark, something special just as unique as you. Consider those moments and those manuscripts your best work, not something to compare to others. Sometimes, we need permission to veer from the herd mentality, so consider your permission granted here. As I tell my daughter and other creative people around me, my team that I work with at work, my family and friends: experiment, make mistakes, write things and create things, and think things you may even later regret (and are maybe even embarrassed by), but get those impediments out of your way so you can be the most creative person that you can be. You need the freedom to be your best, which only comes from being you. And whatever you write, please trust me; it will be fine if it comes genuinely from you. It will be better than satisfactory. It will be original. The important thing is that it is a creative expression of you, an individual, with all those beautiful moles and beauty marks. No one else has what you have. Be you.
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