Try to be, anyway.

This is a tip about getting past that streak of perfectionism that is keeping you from achieving your goals.

Somewhere along the line, most of us got the idea that doing something badly was–well–a bad thing.  Maybe we missed a fly ball on the softball field in second grade, and the next time teams were chosen, we were one of the last players picked.  Maybe it started earlier–like when we got yelled at for spilling our milk.

Mistake = bad. Dangerous, even.

In the interests of survival, we started to be careful.  We started to try really hard to do things “right.”  Over time, that can be paralyzing.

But, there is an easy way around it.  Just decide to do it–whatever “it” is–wrong.  Announce that intention, if necessary.  After all, how can someone blame you for not getting it “right” if you’ve already told them you are intentionally doing it wrong?

If that sounds crazy, let me tell you a story about the first play I ever wrote.

The first draft was promising enough that Abingdon Theatre Company was willing to give it a public reading.  Jan Buttram, the artistic director, being an experienced playwright and a wise woman, suggested we should have a private reading first.  “If you hear it for the first time in front of an audience, you’re not going to be able to hear it,” she said.

So, we had the private reading, and I got some very valuable feedback.  I went off, with great enthusiasm, to do a re-write.  And promptly froze.  Oh, no!  What if I ruin it?  I wasn’t sure how I’d come to write it in the first place.  It seemed to me there was a good chance that, in re-writing it, I would lose whatever had made that first draft halfway good.

I was so stuck that I went back to Jan some weeks later and announced that we would have to cancel the reading.  In a further demonstration of wisdom, she said, “No, we’re not going to cancel.  We can always read the version you have now.  Meanwhile, why don’t you go back and try again?  If you don’t get anywhere, don’t worry.”

I sighed and groaned and gnashed my teeth–and I went home to try again.  When I got there, I remembered “We an always read the version you have now,” and I promptly saved the file under a new name.  Then, I said to myself, “Okay.  You’ve got the original saved.  Now, you’re going into this version, and you’re going to ruin it.”

The re-write began to flow.  We read the new version, and that is the version that launched my great playwriting adventure.  Once I gave myself permission to do it badly, I did just fine.

Try it.