Your Best Is Good Enough For Me

I love to paint, and always have. However, at twenty years old I only have about seven finished paintings to show for it. That number doesn’t really seem to add up. The reason for this is that each painting takes me an absurd amount of time, because I’m never quite happy with it. I continue to add color, and strokes, and texture, and then a different color over the last because it’s, “not quite right”. It’s not quite perfect. Only when I’ve reached the point where nothing—no color, no shape, no design—could possibly make it better do I deem it finished. Imagine how many paintings this has cost me over the years. Imagine how many times I’ve hovered my hands over a blank canvas, wanting to create a new piece, but became discouraged just imagining the time it would take me and the stress it might bring, needing to create something that others will see as masterful. It makes me sad to think of all the art I could have accomplished had I just overcome this mindset. Had I worked to make myself proud rather than others proud of me.  

There is a constant voice in the back of our minds telling us to, “do better”. And it never seems to go away. It’s a slippery slope. To push yourself is a good thing, and that voice may be what pushes you, what keeps you motivated to succeed. But when you start to hear, “I need to do better” rather than, “I can do better” …that’s when you can start slipping. If what you worked toward and finally got to seems to be just not quite good enough, then steer your focus away from it, and focus on how you got there. Look at the effort you made and whether or not it was effort you can be proud of. If so, then understand this: It does not have to be your best work, only your best attempt.  Do not put all your focus toward bettering your success, but instead on bettering your motivation.

You know how the great parents, coaches, and teachers were the ones who always said, “as long as you tried your best”? It sounded so great when we were young, because someone was proud of us, despite the fact that the outcome wasn’t what it could have been or what they had hoped for. As we got older, that saying sounded futile. If we didn’t finish the job according to our boss’s standards, we’d probably get fired, whether we tried our best or not. So, I’m sure you’ve thought before, “where does trying my best get me?”. When we were young, our feelings of success came from making those around us proud. There was nothing quite like seeing pride in their eyes that got there solely because of our attempt, regardless of the result. Now our feelings of success come from making ourselves proud, which strangely seems to be much harder. Why?

We fixate on the success, and it being the best one possible. Even after we work hard, push even harder, and reach what should be the end, we continue to chip away, add color, and more and more paint until it’s perfect – at least perfect to us. We know that we are our worst critics, but we still seem surprised when it bites us in the butt. Something that’s already satisfactory, and may even seem great to others, has to be perfect to us. So, we try harder and deplete more energy when it could be put towards something new. Lately, making ourselves proud seems to rely solely on what we have to show. You can’t show how hard you worked, or how many hours you spent, or how many times you wanted to give up. If you think that whatever you put on display has to be good enough to prove somehow that you indeed did all those things, you’re wrong.

I often find myself jealous of the people who can put 100% into everything they do, get it done quickly, and then move on. I’ve struggled with that my whole life. So, I try to turn jealousy into inspiration, to let those people inspire me. Way too many times I’ve let the fear of not being able to do something good enough keep me from doing it! It makes me angry with myself, and not just angry, but disappointed… I wonder how many opportunities I’ve passed up, or how many projects I set aside, simply because I didn’t think I’d be able to do them well enough. So quickly we label, “not succeeding the right way” as “failing”. It’s understandable that failing would be enough to scare anyone away from trying. I wish that I could have simply focused on being proud of myself for the attempt and the effort, instead of disappointed in myself for not succeeding the way I wanted to.

My sister said to me one day, “Just paint. Mess up, and then do another and get better.” In order to make beautiful looking paintings one day that don’t take me an unnecessary amount of time, I have to make a hundred that look just okay. What others might see as a hundred failed paintings, I’ll see as a hundred times I put forth 100% effort, and slowly got better because of it. TRY YOUR BEST, and just try. If you do, you should be able to be proud of what you accomplish and create. There’s a pretty good chance of that, compared to being proud of no attempt at all. I said that we need to focus on bettering our motivation, not our success. Doing that begins with understanding where our motivation should be – Engulfed in this mind set: That our best attempt is worthy of pride, whether the success from the outside looks incredible or just okay.