What to do with your newbie mistakes
This week, I turned all of the links on my website purple - including the one's on the wooden header.
(Yes, there was at the time writing this a wooden header. Not anymore.)
Purple on wood... not so pretty. It took me some loooong hours to figure out what my mistake was.
Oh the joys of being a newbie blogger.
Writing this second blog post and still not knowing what the heck my blog is about (I should know this by now!).
Are you a creative newbie at something? If you are, let me tell you this: you will make mistakes. A lot of them. Oh the mistakes you'll do.
You'll do cringe-worthy mistakes. You'll feel shame. You'll probably want to hide a little.
When you do your mistakes, there's different reactions you can choose between.
Maybe spin out in a self-hate session with Ben & Jerry comforting you in a blanket fort on the couch, with Adele howling on repeat. Or laugh about it and turn it into a hilarious story. You could also do both, maybe one on daytime and the other at night.
For a little while.
What you should NOT do however is get stuck there. Neither of these places are where you want to settle down (however cozy that blanket fort sounds). What you should do is move on to the next phase…
Try again.
Way too many, myself included at times, gets stuck after a mistake. People rule themselves out as not capable, or they get discouraged and don’t think it’s fun anymore. Or you get so scared of the feeling of being bad, you stop.
But if you do, you're loosing so much. Trial and error has a bad reputation of not being very efficient. And yes, if you want to be a doctor, you should probably try another method. But with most things, and especially creativity,
Failing is essential in order to succeed.
Do you have any beliefs about yourself being bad at something? Like "I can’t sing" or "I’m a terrible driver", or like me, "I draw ugly"? It’s most likely based on past mistakes, right?
Maybe you have a steeper ladder to climb than some of those annoying naturals, but being bad is not something you are. It’s a phase. We all have to go through it, even the naturals. But you can get stuck in that phase forever if you don't get moving.
You need to push through the discomfort of a mistake. Be proud of your efforts, however bad the result. Turn off Adele and howl out your mediocreness into the world. That's what I did this week. I posted some half-bad drawings on Instagram. It was liberating.
Learn to look at it not as a failure, but as one of many test runs. It's a process, not a yes or no question. Give yourself more than one chance to get it right. You deserve it.
