One important lesson is allowing yourself the freedom to do it poorly
Just over one month ago, on December 9th, I completed a first draft of a novel. I went through the amazing, magical process in Al Watt’s workshop called The 90-Day Novel.
Writing those last few words of the draft felt both amazing and bewildering. Part of me was elated, the other part a little stunned. I’d set out to do something which only six months before I would have found inconceivable, to write a novel, and I’d done it.
In the time since then, I’ve begun the second draft. I’ve also been musing about everything I learned, which has many uncanny parallels to the big work of developing and marketing your business.
This makes sense.
I always tell my clients that the process of building and developing their business in an authentic way is one of the biggest creative journeys they’ll ever undertake.
This week, and in the weeks to come, I’m going to explore some of what I’ve learned on my creative journey and how it applies to building and marketing your business authentically.
The Most Important Thing
The most important thing I learned I needed during the writing process was the constant reminders to give myself permission to write badly.
There were times when I’d sit back and think my writing was just awful – a littered highway of adverbs and clichés stretching as far as I could see. But, over and over again, we were reminded to allow ourselves the freedom to write poorly.
I knew intuitively this made sense. If we’re worried about doing something well in our first iteration, we can often stop ourselves cold. Anne LaMott talks about writing shitty first drafts. Lots of others too.
Yet, I needed the repetition.
I told myself this nearly every day I wrote, and it was one of the keys to me finishing the draft.
I let myself do it badly.
Let Yourself Do It Poorly
This applies to marketing and building your business as well. First of all, there is so much to learn – both in terms of growing yourself as a business owner but also in learning business and marketing skills.
Expecting yourself to be ‘good at business’ when you most likely haven’t yet acquired all the skills and training you need to is like expecting yourself to be good at playing the clarinet when you haven’t taken lessons.
And it can stop you from ever getting started.
In addition, so much of the marketing and foundational work for growing your business requires writing. For example, creating your offers, sales and landing pages, developing your website, creating effective content, promotional pieces, and more.
I’ve seen some coaches, healers and creatives get stuck before they write much of anything. Worrying about how they’ll need to sound or what they’ll need to say when they network, write copy, or create content.
New Offers AS Beta Tests and More
Even if you have much of your business’ foundation in place already, giving yourself permission to do things imperfectly can apply to other areas as well, such as launching a new offering or creating a different type of service.
Much of growing your business is about experimentation. Figuring out what works and what doesn’t. There aren’t rules to growing an authentic business, just principles. So often you have to try things out to see if something works for you, or for your clients, learning and tweaking as you go.
If you give yourself permission to do things poorly then you can better invite in that spirit of experimentation.
A Note on Excellence
Allowing yourself to do things badly doesn’t mean you don’t care about excellence. If excellence is something you value, you can still cultivate this in your business while giving yourself the freedom to do things inadequately. It’s really about understanding that anything in business takes iteration.
To iterate, you need to start.
Giving yourself permission do something imperfectly, to get anything, and I mean anything, down on the blank page gives you a starting point.
Starting points create momentum and they give you something to work on, to refine.
The draft I have is not ready for submission. It needs to be rewritten. But I have something to work with. And, since I’ve done the first draft, which is the part that seemed insurmountable, the rest feels doable. Easy even.
Try ThiS
Is there an area in your business or your creative work that you can give yourself permission to do badly in? If there is (and I’m almost certain there is), I suggest you try the following:
Focus
Focus on this area and remember why it is important to you. For me writing a draft of a novel was a huge step in my creative life and a major step towards cultivating a body of creative work. Remembering your why helps shift your focus off the results and more onto the doing.
Remind
Remind yourself, daily if you have to, that you are allowed to work imperfectly. In this case, I had the container of the workshop for reminders, but since that’s ended, I have a sticky note front and center in my notebook that says “I allow myself to write poorly.”
Notice
Notice what happens when you remind yourself of this often. For me, every time I found myself thinking that my writing was awful, I’d remind myself. After the first few weeks, I noticed I had to say it to myself less and less. I was more relaxed and trusted the process, and myself, more. Everything became easier. And I finished!
If you’re looking to lean more deeply into growing and marketing your business authentically this year, one thing that can help is giving yourself permission to do it badly.
Let yourself not be good at business. Allow yourself to write your marketing badly. See what happens when you launch offers that are imperfect.
You just might be surprised at what you get done.