Go ahead. Do it badly.

Just keep doing it

Stop me if you’ve heard this one:

You try something new. You suck at it. You compare your first attempt to someone who’s been doing this for years and inevitably find it wanting. Maybe that person even makes fun of you for being so bad. You decide you are a talentless hack and give up that thing forever, even if you thought it was really fun.

Been there? Yeah, me too.

I started needle felting last fall, and it was, um, humbling. I’m a pretty crafty person, and I’m used to being reasonably good at crafty-type things on my first try.

Not so with needle felting. I went through many, many shapeless lumps of badly felted wool before I could even make a decent pumpkin. But it was fun and relaxing and an excuse to binge-watch Ghosts, so I kept doing it, and eventually I got better.

It’s easy to keep going when the stakes are low. No one was going to ridicule me for being bad at needle-felting in my own home.

What about when the stakes are higher? What about when you really care about what you’re creating, and you want other people to care, too, and you know that others’ input could help you improve, and also you’re terrified that you aren’t resilient enough to receive their feedback without curling up into a ball of misery and self-defeat?

Then, it’s even more important to keep going.

You almost always have to be bad at something before you can be good at it. That’s just how it works.

So go ahead and do the thing. Pour your heart into it. Do it badly. Feel embarrassed and ask for help anyway.

Not brave enough? I don’t buy it. You’re an artist, and all artists are brave. How else would they make their art?

All artists are brave. Including you. Especially you.

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