I have a nasty perfectionist streak. When things don’t go the way I want them to, I always feel anxiety and frustration bubble up inside me, even if it is something minor. If I don’t do something to the standard I think it should be done, then I have a voice that pops up in my head and tells me that it is not worth it at all. All this to say, when I come across something I am bad at, I always know how to fix it: just don’t do it anymore.
Now this is stuff I’m saying I’m actually bad at. If I see improvement when I am doing something, I can stick with it. However, I just don’t have the knack to be able to do something and it just never quite catches on. Those are the things that I just stop doing. Some people might say that it is just a matter of working harder or for longer, but in my head, when I don’t see improvement over a time frame I feel is right, it’s just not for me. Sometimes I just can’t get it.
This is exactly how I am with painting. I have tried every painting medium under the sun. I have watched over a hundred videos. I have even bought books about how to paint just one gosh-darn landscape, and I cannot seem to get it. The strokes are always sloppy, the colors never mix and the whole painting ends up looking like a bunch of art supplies thrown up on a canvas. I have gone through the cycle of trying to take up painting dozens of times in my life, and each time I have put it down in frustration and not touched it until the anger of not being able to do it has subsided again. That’s just how the cycle is.
Just recently, I was trying to paint Vinyls with my roommate, and it wasn’t turning out how I wanted it to, per usual. At this moment though, listening to music and laughing in my apartment, I had this epiphany. I realized that I was caring about the wrong things when it came to painting. It did not matter if the lines were straight or the colors were right or the circles were perfectly round. The reason I like painting is because it is a release for me, something that I can do to ease my mind off the regular stressors of my day-to-day life. I realized then that being bad at painting wasn’t a weakness, it was a strength.
I thought of it like this. What if I just embraced that I was bad at painting? Gave into the “suck” in a way. Stopped looking at it as though it had to become something and just enjoyed the process instead. What if I really leaned into the phrase, “It’s not about the journey, it’s about the destination?” By doing this, I took back the power that my perfectionism had on me and found an activity where it didn’t matter if it met my expectations because there were none. There is no bar or cutoff that I need to meet with painting, because I know I am doing it because I like it, not because I am good at it.
Let me tell you, this mindset change was one of the most freeing things I have ever experienced. If you’re like me, I would highly recommend going back to that hobby you just couldn’t seem to get. Let yourself have at least one hobby that you do just because you like it, without any need for validation or recognition. Don’t do it for improvement; just do it because it makes you feel good, not validated, just good. Embrace the suck.