Before we can dance beautifully, we must do so like no one’s watching.
I’ve previously spoken about excellence versus perfectionism. The main distinction between the two is that excellence starts out messy so there’s something to work with.
Perfection disallows all necessary messes, which results in remaining creatively stuck.
How do you let yourself make a mess?
This may seem like an unnecessary question, but it’s actually quite an important one.
To be perfectly frank, (and a little disgusting) making a mess is like vomiting. It is best done over a receptacle and without resistance. Privacy is desirable unless you need a friend to hold your hair. We don’t vomit and think ‘Let me do that over’. We vomit until we’re empty.
To put it less scatologically, there is a mindset to the messiness that says: There are no mistakes, only exploration. I know I will have to make sense of this mess eventually, but not yet!
Most importantly, this initial exploration should remain private unless it is helpful to collaborate or think out loud in front of a trusted witness. Of course, that depends on the medium.
The mess you make can be boring, awkward, inscrutable, ugly…it doesn’t matter. Keep baltering until your soul has just about flown out of your body. In a future blog post, I’ll go into what to do afterward. But without this first stage behind you, there is nothing wild, original, and worthwhile to shape.
With that I end where I began:
To achieve excellence at anything, you must first do it like no one’s watching.
