I get annoying negative thoughts whenever I try to write an article.
People will think it’s weird.
It’s too simple.
I have nothing interesting to say.
I get so worried about messing up that sometimes I don’t even get started. Instead, I’ll use my writing time to read and call it productivity.
The novelist Anne Lamott once wrote, “Perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully, hitting each stepping stone just right, you won’t die.”
The irony is you’re going to die anyway, and the people not looking at their feet will probably walk on top of you and have a blast doing it.
Perfectionism scars everyone—not just online writers.
It affects how we interact with friends, our work projects, the hot date this week, and that marathon we’re training for.
If you’re struggling with perfectionism (like I do every fucking day), I found something that might help.
Listen to Chris Martin. He’s the wisest rock star on the planet.
The lead singer of Coldplay, Chris Martin, recently sat down with Conan O’Brien on the Team Coco Podcasts.
Coldplay has been one of my favorite bands since junior high. I started playing piano because I wanted to be like Chris Martin. I saw he was on Conan’s podcasts and had to listen.
Chris is obviously a talented artist, but what sets him apart is his mindset. It’s something I noticed when I first started listening to him. He’s an extremely disciplined rock star and confident in his process, which is how he creates so much music—he doesn’t judge himself.
For me, the best moment was when he said, “Your limitations become your strengths.”
“I’m not going to be the best singer of all time. I’m not going to be as fast on guitar. I’m never going to dance like Tina Turner.
“But maybe I can make things weirdly me... I don’t claim our music is the best, but maybe it’s the most… us.”
Coldplay broke into the scene in 2000 with the song Yellow. Pop music at the time, in all honesty, was one-dimensional. Boy bands with frosted tips talking about getting girls. Pop singers talking about boys and breakups. All tight leather pants and sex appeal. Complicated.
You would watch all of these poppy music videos on MTV, and then Yellow would play. An average-looking guy with a receding hairline showed up on your screen wearing a rain jacket. Simple lyrics — like a nursery rhyme. Chords so simple a child could learn the song in an afternoon.
And yet it was one of the most beautiful songs I had ever heard. All my friends were obsessed too.
To this day, it remains one of my favorite songs.
I want to stop being a perfectionist and write first drafts as shitty as possible.
I don’t believe there’s a hack to getting over perfectionism.
It is a practice.
The practice involves constant reminders that you are enough.
Constant reminders that your work, your art, and how you carry yourself do not have to be complex or even the most original.
Here’s the answer: You do the best you can with what you have right now.
People respond to what’s the most you. I know this because whenever I write something that’s close to copying someone else, my audience can sense it. They know (without actually knowing) that it’s not my authentic voice.
It takes writing shitty first drafts in your own voice. And then another draft. Then another. Then another.
That’s how to beat perfectionism and be your authentic self. That’s how you become the most…you.
I didn't know this about Coldplay Cal. Pretty cool they set themselves apart by leaning into who they were. One of my favorite songs by them is Christmas Lights.