Done > perfect

#55 - make something badly (just finish it)

Hey hey - we’re returning back to the series that partly initiated this newsletter to begin with. The series of 110 things I did that helped me turn my life around, gain my sense of self, heal old deep deep wounds, and get ahold of my agencies and delights.

For more the full list go to this post here.

Tip #55 - make something badly (just finish it)

Like most of these, their meaning has morphed and taken on new layers since I identified these things as helpful actions.

Initially, this one, to make something and let it be bad and get to the end point, was mostly about taking action and removing judgement.

Extending my practice without attaching morality or shame or excess pressure or meaning to the thing - which I had done very much and very heavily.

For example, it’s not necessary or helpful to moralize housework.

I am not a better or worse parent if I vacuum a day after I intended to because I was busy.

I am not an immoral person if I choose to go to sleep instead of making sure the house is spotless every night.

I am not an idiot if I prolong a task or make a mistake and should not condemn myself on behalf of nobody if I make an error or enjoy dessert or if a recipe I try doesn’t work that well or if I am nervous to try something new and etc etc etc.

The task became, as I grew and healed, just a thing to try and see through from start to finish without judgement but as something done and complete.

Imperfect but existing.

It also was a bit of a way to give myself permission again to make weird stuff, give myself permission to change my mind, to try things, to make a test of things in an experimental way rather than anything with heavy weight on either end or a value judgement, you know?

Having grown up so religious I learned that every choice, action, behavior, thought, thing we ate/drank, way we spent our time in work and in leisure was going to relate to our eternity.

That’s pretty heavy and it weighed on me.

I wanted to do a good job.

I didn’t want to spend eternities away from my family or in a bad place.

That’s really a lot to shove at a kid, but that’s what it was and I metabolized it until it nearly paralyzed me from action of any kind in every way.

So, making something badly, not quitting, getting it completed in whatever format that meant, gave me breathing space, security, safety without harshness, and helped me ease back into life in a real way.

It helped me get my processes sorted out without being too mean to myself internally.

It helped me try outfits and meals and time structures, helped me learn my work better, helped me feel alright practicing writing again, helped me reconnect with play - as in creative time, and so much else that had positive reaches to other things.

That mention of play is important.

I’m of the mind that playing is a really valuable thing we do that shouldn’t be only for kids. It’s essential for children to have time to play, but it isn’t true that it’s not also essential for good life for us as adults too.

I feel that good work happens when we’re able to fool around with our imaginations, have space to create freely, build connections while finding animals in the cloud shapes, make stuff up with paints and create stories out of nowhere.

Play is valuable.

You can’t play if there’s judgement. It kills it.

Being able to allow myself to play again was so good for me.

I’d get the paints we have and play with those, making a combo of nonsense that had no end goal, no image I was trying to create or copy, just in the doing of playing with the paint, that was the exercise and it was good.

Now, a few years later, this specific idea of DOING over perfect (which doesn’t exist), of creating without judgment, of completing things by removing morality of administrative tasks, has a few additional layers of meaning and benefit to me that are also worth discussing.

I hope some of this can help walk with you through whatever you might need it for.

I used to run a lot.

I ran xc in high school and in college and did track (badly) in both levels as well.

We’re told to finish strong and it’s remained an important thing for me, personally, and a deep pillar I feel and hope is part of my level of integrity.

I hope I am one who finishes strong.

Regardless the level of strength we have during a day, a season, a period, we can finish strong throughout.

It means not just sprinting and striding it out at the end of my 3 miles, it means moving with efficient intensity to the best I’m able to with whatever resources I have left to complete the thing I’m striving for.

It also means I can look upon the now completed thing with pride knowing that my effort was in it with a focus.

That's something that matters to me.

And so it doesn’t need to be perfect, but it needs to be done, and I want to do it with energetic intent. Not judgement or pressure, but with a fullness and an invigoration that generates more energy, more good futures, more options, and that is an opening and a clearing expansive type of a thing.

Stay with me a moment more, and let’s look at the final mutation of this theme.

The reason for this one’s existence is that I was feeling stalled out, stuck, judged internally etc, and it was ultimately preventing forward motion in terms of literal progress of action and internal growth and healing.

Done is better than perfect, making something badly and completing it, both of those things also now mean to me that I approach my blocks differently.

Instead of feeling overwhelmed and becoming stagnant again, blocking my progress and stressing myself out in whichever direction, I can look at these things as “what is in the way of my clarity, my peace, what am I avoiding doing that, once done, will create space for peace” - and then I can see getting through whatever is on that list as a pathway back to peace, direct progress, and not as anything that’s going to impact my eternal salvation or moral standing.

Amazingly, that actually does help me get the laundry moved alone, the phone calls made or returned, the appointments scheduled.

I alchemize it - I list what’s in my way, I do the things to done not to perfect, and I work through them till they’re finished. Not half assed and not half completed.

Done as in done.

Done as in making space on the path forwards for peace, and everything that’s next.

Shifting seeing a list of tasks from being a lame boring administrative to-do list I don’t want to do and compress into a judgement filled pressure cooker, to just getting the things that are in the way completed so they’re off the path and sorted has helped me make so much progress.

It’s a clearing.

It invites more peace, more time for use in the ways I want to, adds space and thus options for the decisions I want or need to make.

So when there’s things to be done, now I can do them.

When I want to try something, I’m not afraid to do it.

I can create and play without judgment.

I can live with space for breathing, space for mistakes, space for improvement, space for learning, space for pondering, space in which and with which to take my time.

Thank you for being here.

xxoo - Marian