A big part of why I walked away from creating was me. Simply put it was just me. I couldn’t get out of my own way. I couldn’t stop over thinking everything I did. A part of finding some success came pride but also doubt. Instead of just creating and playing with new ideas, everything I did had to be perfect. Any abstract artist or even fiber artist knows, nothing you make can be perfect. A huge part of creating both mediums is to invoke joy and thought. A perfect cookie cutter with straight lines and everything making sense really doesn’t bring either of those. I had to find a way to go from “It’s not good enough.” to “Let’s see what happens.”

I used to think perfectionism was a superpower. In the intellectual property world, it’s something to be proud of. I must be so careful when trademarking or patenting something because so many different things matter. From specific words to dimensions, every single letter and number matter and must be in an exact place or else I’m failing a client and could be costing the firm I work for big money. On the flip side, perfectionism could also make big money for the firm. What I’m realizing is that it doesn’t translate to every facet in life.

That perfectionism made me great at my job, but it wasn’t fueling my creativity. It was strangling it. Perfection comes across to most people as ambition, high standards, and highly sought after for my job. In creativity it breeds fear, failure, judgement, and if I’m being completely honest….I was doing it all to myself and ruining an outlet and even a future career path. I’ve even found it creeping into my brain while writing these last few blog posts. Is every sentence structured perfectly? Is it entertaining enough to capture a reader? Is any of this going to matter or am I wasting my time that I could spend doing something else? Then a shift happened.

I decided that even if no traffic showed up, I could use this as my personal diary and document rebuilding myself and building a brand. I could come back in six months and see how mentally everything is shifting. How much my life has changed. Where I’ll be living and most importantly how much my creative ventures have evolved and what new thing I’ll have gotten myself into. I just want to have some fun with it all. The last few years have been hard and I’m looking forward to finding my way back to me. I’m not even sure if I know who I am but I really hope I can find some joy in figuring it out.

With all that being said, I’ve come up with a little ritual I have been doing when perfectionism doubts start to creep in. I call it my 20-minute messy sprint. I set a 20-minute time and create without any sort of editing or erasing. I just go. Create create create. When the 20 minutes is up, I close it and step away so I can’t pick it apart and come back to it after an hour. Creativity isn’t about control. Creativity is about curiosity. For me, it’s about showing up, making a mess or creating a little chaos, and trusting something beautiful will come from it all. So, here’s to typos, creative messes, and raising wine glasses to half-baked ideas that lead to brilliance. I have one of those playing out right now and can’t wait to tell the world about it. Now go make something glorious and imperfect. I dare you!!!! I am even going to use something as my blog picture I created and would never ever share normally.

XOXO,

Savi Monroe