{"id":29158,"date":"2025-05-01T00:11:02","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T07:11:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/?p=29158"},"modified":"2025-04-29T16:34:53","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T23:34:53","slug":"working-to-completion-not-to-perfectio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/working-to-completion-not-to-perfectio\/","title":{"rendered":"Working to Completion, Not to Perfection"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0<\/strong>A few weeks ago, I finally released my first poetry book. I\u2019d been sitting on piles of hand-written drafts for years\u2014pieces written in the cracks of long days, little bursts of truth I never quite knew what to do with. All I had to do was gather them, listen for the theme they\u2019d already been singing to me, and trust the voice I\u2019d spent a lifetime cultivating. I chose romantic poetry as the thread, then added a framing device to tie it all together. Aka, a gimmick. Not a dirty word in my world. It\u2019s the sparkle that helps the seams hold.<\/p>\n

Around the same time, I tracked the final vocal for the first side of my upcoming album, Prophecies and Promises<\/em>. I sat with a mixing engineer friend and asked, almost sheepishly, \u201cDo you think it\u2019s ready to go to mix?\u201d He laughed. \u201cThis sounds amazing. What else could it possibly need?\u201d<\/p>\n

The joy I felt was like a full-body exhale. I didn\u2019t need to labor over it anymore. I didn\u2019t need to tinker. I just needed to trust what we\u2019d made. It felt, oddly enough, like the third trimester of pregnancy. (Suspend disbelief\u2014I\u2019m a childless lesbian. But the metaphor still works: the thing was coming, ready or not.)<\/p>\n

That trust, the ability to let go and let the work stand is something I\u2019ve learned to respect over time. As artists, we talk a lot about perfection, but we don\u2019t always talk about what it costs us. I\u2019ve come to believe that chasing perfection often keeps us from what we really need: momentum<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I see it in my students all the time. Perfectionism rarely looks like excellence. It looks like hesitation. Like avoidance. Like the echo of something cruel a teacher or parent once said. I call these creative scars\u2014marks left by careless words or offhanded jokes that still shape how we see ourselves. They slow us down. They convince us that something rough or unfinished is shameful, rather than essential.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the paradox. I\u2019m a maximizer. I create every day. I write every day. I assume most of what I make will never see the light of day, so nothing is too precious. That attitude works in direct conflict with perfectionism\u2014and that\u2019s exactly why it serves me, and why I teach it. I play by the rule of excess. I\u2019m just looking for a couple of shiny pennies in a pile. Perfectionists want to protect the one thing they\u2019ve polished. But maximizers? They know the value is in the volume and the rhythm..<\/p>\n

One of the books I most often recommend is The Gifts of Imperfection<\/em> by Bren\u00e9 Brown. It\u2019s a gentle reminder that vulnerability is not just part of the process\u2014it is the process. When we create, we aren\u2019t just putting ourselves on the page or the stage. We\u2019re also learning to live with being seen. Read that again.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had to remind myself of this in my own work. When I recently rebuilt the WiseJack Marketing website, I bumped up against the business-world phrase \u201cminimum viable product.\u201d As someone who\u2019s spent thousands of hours honing my craft as a musician, that language has always rubbed me the wrong way. It sounds like settling. Like sanding down the spirit of something just to get it out the door.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a minimalist. I\u2019m a maximizer. I don\u2019t just want something done. I want it to matter. I want the tone to land, the words to feel honest, the rhythm to hold. My issue isn\u2019t with imperfection. It\u2019s with inauthenticity. I can handle rough edges. I can even love them. What I can\u2019t do is fake it.<\/p>\n

And yet, I\u2019ve also seen what happens when I wait too long. When there\u2019s no structure, no deadline, no one waiting on the other side\u2014it floats. It fades. Structure isn\u2019t a cage for creativity. It\u2019s the frame that keeps it from vanishing altogether. Deadlines, outlines, and even weird self-imposed rules aren\u2019t limitations. They\u2019re invitations to finish.<\/p>\n

So, while \u201cminimum viable product\u201d still doesn\u2019t roll off my tongue, I\u2019ve come to see the value in the concept. Sometimes viable is valuable. Especially if it reflects who I actually am right now. Not the perfect future version, but the real one. That\u2019s enough. And sometimes, it\u2019s everything.<\/p>\n

Some things are planted on purpose, like the wildflower seeds I just dusted across the fields of my finca. I\u2019m hoping they take. But the tulips that show up every spring? I didn\u2019t plant those. Someone else did, years ago. And still, they return. Creativity can work like that too. Sometimes we sow with intention. Other times, we\u2019re simply the ones lucky enough to witness the bloom. But we must be sure to harvest at least some of our crops each season.<\/p>\n

I tell my students now: work to completion, not to perfection. That\u2019s how we move forward. That\u2019s how we grow.<\/p>\n

Deadlines help, too. In fact, I need them. I\u2019ve been writing for Liz Abbott, the editor and publisher of this very paper, for nearly a decade. She knows me well enough to give me multiple deadlines\u2014one for the outline, and one for the final draft. That\u2019s not a weakness. That\u2019s just how I work best. Without a deadline, it simply won\u2019t happen. For many of us, deadlines aren\u2019t pressure. They\u2019re permission.<\/p>\n

Some things can be finished alone. But the big work, the meaningful stuff, usually involves other people. Musicians, collaborators, friends who give feedback, listeners who silence themselves to hear you. If you ask people to show up for the process, you owe them the finish.<\/p>\n

I tell my clients: finish it anyway. Maybe the moment passed. Maybe the headlines changed. Maybe your heart\u2019s already moved on. Still\u2014finish it. Learn the thing. Ship it. Next.<\/p>\n

Creatives love to start. But finishing? That\u2019s where the real magic happens.<\/p>\n

Genius doesn\u2019t usually arrive in one brilliant flash. It shows up after you\u2019ve built momentum. After you\u2019ve made enough work to recognize what matters. We don\u2019t get to brilliance without turning on the faucet and letting the water run. The early flow might be messy, even muddy. But the longer it runs, the clearer it gets. That\u2019s what makes space for the good work to come through.<\/p>\n

Homework: Pick one project you\u2019ve been avoiding. Set a deadline\u2014this week, this month, this season. Share it with a friend who believes in completion over perfection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0A few weeks ago, I finally released my first poetry book. I\u2019d been sitting on piles of hand-written drafts for years\u2014pieces written in the cracks of long days, little bursts of truth I never quite knew what to do with. All I had to do was gather them, listen for the theme they\u2019d already been singing to me, and trust the voice I\u2019d spent a lifetime cultivating. I chose romantic poetry as the thread, then added a framing device to tie it all together. Aka, a gimmick. Not a dirty word in my world. It\u2019s the sparkle that helps the seams hold. Around the same time, I tracked the final vocal for the first side of my upcoming album, Prophecies and Promises. I sat with a mixing engineer friend and asked, almost sheepishly, \u201cDo you think it\u2019s ready to go to mix?\u201d He laughed. \u201cThis sounds amazing. What else could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28224,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[190],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lessons-from-melody-ranch"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29158"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29280,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29158\/revisions\/29280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sandiegotroubadour.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}