Let’s talk about the importance of practice… the thing I LITERALLY NEVER DID when I was in school or piano lessons or singing lessons or... anything… because it’s boring and repetitive and I'm supposed to already be perfect, right?
Well, here’s the thing… I don’t play piano as well as I could.
And I know I’m a good singer, but I also know I could have taken it further than I did. And I’d LOVE to magically be amazing at both, but I also know that the only way to actually get better is to practice. And WHO HAS THE TIME!?!?!
I do… I have the time. I just don’t make either of those things a priority, so they don’t happen… and I don’t get better.
WHAT A BUMMER!!!!!
I spent my whole life feeling like if I couldn’t do something perfectly on the first go, I just wasn’t going to do that thing. But when have you ever been perfect on the first try at ANYTHING?? What a ridiculous standard to have set for myself!! How many things have I missed out on or talked down to myself about over a lifetime of imperfection??
And what a hard lesson to unlearn… because what I REALLY need to take in is the fact that I am… never… going to be perfect… at anything. Even with practice… because practice doesn’t make perfect. It makes progress.
Perfect isn’t real.
Progress IS.
And here’s how this applies to YOU and your work, here in the Brand Therapy Group:
The creative prompts are weird and tough… the first time. They’re honestly really easy assignments, but if you’re like me you might be feeling a little rusty in the creative department. Maybe your hands and your brain aren’t communicating with each other as well as you’d hoped or remembered. Maybe you don’t really know what your first pass at this week’s assignment is going to (or “supposed to”) look like. Maybe you’re going to sit down and make time to be creative and express yourself and end up ABSOLUTELY HATING what comes out of you…
So try again.
Practice.
Our work, here, isn’t about perfection. It’s about growth.
The whole reason you HAVE a sketchbook is for this... Your sketchbook is a space that is literally MADE for mistakes. Absolutely NO ONE in the whole world is going to carefully comb through your sketchbook and expect beautiful perfection on each page… because people literally don’t do that… ever. And because your sketchbook isn’t FOR anyone else… it’s for you. And YOU can give yourself the grace to try something new, to make mistakes, to make progress, get better, and grow as you try and try again.
And I’m right there with you. Check out this first attempt at our very first EVER creative prompt… I tried using watercolor markers to make an echo art drawing… having never used watercolor markers before and with ZERO understanding of what they really were or how they worked…
It… did not go well:
But you know what DID go well? I learned something.
I learned that I should probably use a medium that I’m more comfortable with for my first ever BTG creative prompt. So I switched to rainbow sharpies. And made this:
BETTER!!! But still not great… too complicated. There’s SO MUCH GOING ON with all the colors and the pattern and everything being smushed together. Cool, and better, but still worth another go.
So then I made this:
Which is nice! Still not perfect, because it wouldn’t be. And that’s ok. I also remembered that I'm just generally not great at drawing hearts, but who cares. And I definitely like it a whole lot more which is definitely the only thing that matters.
And last, but not least… take a look at this. Which I LOVE and feel SUPER PROUD OF and DEFINITELY couldn’t have done on the first go. I even had the idea back at the start to do the stars and the straight lines and everything. But I needed to make those first few drawings... first. Which is how growth works.
So give yourself some time with the creative prompts.
Try them more than once.
They’re designed to be simple and not take a ton of time for EXACTLY that reason. So that you CAN do them a handful of times and learn and stretch and mess up and improve.
Grow with me. Let’s keep trying. And allow yourself to feel good about the process.
Practice makes progress. NOT perfect. And THAT is beautiful.
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