Many creatives consider themselves perfectionists. But ask them about their own creative work, and I bet nine times out of ten, they would consider perfectionism to be their greatest limiting factor.

Why? Perfectionism leads to bad habits. Perfectionism manifests as creative quirks: edits before a finished draft, fear before beginning a project (or never starting a project at all), or not making necessary changes to a piece because the artist doesn’t want to undo all the work they’ve previously done. Perfectionism ignites the voice of our inner critic and keeps us from following a creative routine. Perfectionism make all that unrefined creative play seem pointless, useless.

Perfectionism makes writers ask themselves questions like: what’s the point of writing from a prompt when I know it won’t lead to a published work? It can make visual artists think: I shouldn’t change the layout of my first three comic book pages. What if I put all that time in and it ends up worse than the first draft? Even worse, for those creatives just starting out, it can be that terrible voice that says, I’m already too old/poor/dumb to start trying now. Better spend my time more wisely.

While I believe structure and order have their place in art, perfectionism is an animal that seeks to destroy the creative process. Letting go, making mistakes, being terrible until you suddenly aren’t as terrible? That’s good creative process; that’s good practice.