“Fear not mistakes, for there are none.” 

Miles Davis 

Creative processes are not about getting from A to B as smoothly as possible. It’s a journey where mistakes and obstacles are welcome and enrich the process. When you dance, you sometimes stumble, and when you paint, the paint may splash. But these ‘mistakes’ don’t have to stop you from enjoying the dance or the flow of painting. If you stumble, you just keep going, and if you mess up, you integrate it, maybe change your plan, mess up some more, and see what happens. 

Perfectionism is in the mind. The mind looks for a perfection that doesn’t really exist and misses the perfection that is always there. As the little prince says, you can only see well with the heart, the essential is invisible to the eyes. The heart knows a perfection that integrates mistakes. 

Psychologically, perfectionism is also based on the fear of not being good enough. Again, the illusory nature of perfectionism gets in the way, for who is good enough? The demand to be good enough is not your friend. You don’t need to give it any more attention. Be prepared to not be good enough, to make mistakes! Making mistakes frees you from fictional, perfect ideas about yourself and the world. Do you want to be perfect or do you want to be happy?