Perfectionism Is Just the Pretentious Kind of Procrastination

“The little dissatisfaction which every artist feels at the completion of a work forms the germ of a new work.” – Berthold Auerbach, Born Feb. 28, 1812.

Yeah, you're not alone. But you're not getting younger and time is wasting. Quit trying to craft perfection.

Publish imperfect work now.

Fix later MAYBE.

But even better: just start working on the next thing and try to correct your past mistakes in that future work.

Expect to make more mistakes in the new work, too.

That's ok.

Learn from them and try new things to correct those mistakes in the next work.

And so on. Rinse, repeat. Forever.

Otherwise, you're futzing with some alleged masterpiece while mediocre shitsmiths are scooping up your starving audience because YOU ARE NOT THERE.

Showing up is the thing. Creativity only helps if you show up. Genius only strikes if you've shown up to meet it. Bad ideas and poor execution only get purged from the system when you show up and blast it out by working through it and beyond it.

You don't have to be the best, and your work doesn't have to be the best.

You just have to commit to getting better and better. You do that through continuous and consistent practice.

Do it. Publish now. Start on the next thing immediately.

Let the last thing you did be your jumping off point, and just take it a little further, then share it. Do that every day.

See where you get in a year. Or two. Or ten. It's not a secret. Just do it. Keep going. Don't stop.