Many of my posts have been about my own battle with perfectionism–the fear of creating new work that I think might not be as good as it could or should be.
One of the most tragic side effects of perfectionism is that it slows down your ability to create lots of pieces of artwork. You get stuck with a few ideas and spend years trying to “perfect” them. You end up getting nothing done.
We need to make lots of stuff to run into the good ideas, so when we slow that flow of ideas, we harm our potential.
Edison had more than 1,000 patents, yet most people only know him for the lightbulb. Einstein had more than 200 scientific papers published, yet people know him for relativity, being a symbol of intelligence, and his crazy hair.
To have good ideas, we must have lots of ideas. Do what it takes to allow your body to generate lots of ideas without allowing perfectionism to hold you back.