One of the toughest things I’ve found in starting my own business is the ability to let go of the need to get everything right and do everything perfectly. Everything feels as if the stakes are incredibly high and I sometimes find my inner drama queen worrying that it will be the end of my career if I choose the wrong print for an exhibition, or put it into the wrong frame.
It feels as if I’m just waiting for someone to say “Ha! We knew you didn’t belong here. Now, with your choice of the two inch frame, rather than the three inch, we can see that actually you don’t know what you’re doing at all and you are about to be immediately ejected from the premises. And, seriously, black is so over.” And while I know rationally that I’ll make a whole lot of mistakes and the vast majority of them won’t matter at all, sometimes you just get the mean reds and it’s almost impossible to relax about anything.
I am a beginner at all of this. I have never been an artist before. I have exhibited my work only once before. I have never had my own business before, I have never written a press release before. I have never designed a website before. I have never been a retailer before. I have never designed a calendar before. I have never ……. you get the point. All of this is completely new to me and expecting to do everything flawlessly, on the first try, is not only unhelpful and unrealistic, but may possibly see me locked up in a padded cell.
It’s been two months since I started my business. Two months. It’s not a long time at all. In that time I’ve made numerous mistakes, some of which have cost me sums of money that I wish I hadn’t lost and some of which haven’t mattered at all. I’ve made mistakes because I’ve had to make decisions. And when you make decisions things move forwards one way or another. Decisions lead to more decisions, momentum builds and it’s no longer possible to stand still.
Often when faced with making decisions that we don’t have the experience to make, we do nothing which of course is also a choice (and when I say we, I mean me). We have a tendency to play out the repercussions of every decision we make, getting way ahead of ourselves. For me, it almost always ends up with me out on the street, perhaps living in a cardbox box, surrounded by boxes of beautiful prints, all getting soaked in the rain. The fear of this scenario leaves me paralysed and I do nothing. Recently I heard that when we play out these scenarios of everything terrible that’s going to happen to us, we should also play out what might happen if we do nothing. Because when we realise just how awful it is to stand still, it gives us the courage to move forward, even when we’re just a beginner, even when we haven’t a clue what to do. Sometimes it’s just important to do something, anything, and see what happens.
And the fact is, I’m no longer a complete beginner at dealing with vendors. I’m no longer a complete beginner at mounting and framing prints. I’m no longer a complete beginner at presenting my work to galleries. I’ve moved on. And I haven’t been ejected from any premises for choosing the 2 inch frame. I’ve chosen products that I realised afterwards weren’t the right ones. But not once has anyone told me that my career is over as a result. In a life of wrong turns and changes of direction, not once has anything been irretrievable, not once.
Beginner’s mind is what can free us from the paralysis of indecision and perfectionism. Allowing ourselves to be new at something. Making a choice from a place of inexperience and being okay with that. The willingness to be wrong, to learn, to grow. The humility to earn our experience, rather than expecting ourselves to always get it right first time. Beginner’s mind is a powerful thing. When you can allow yourself to learn by doing, you actually start doing, instead of just thinking about doing. If the worst thing that can happen from making this decision is that I end up on the streets surrounded by prints, in the rain, and the worst thing that can happen from not making this decision is that I end up on the streets surrounded by prints, in the rain, perhaps it’s a better use of time to consider the best thing that could happen in each of these two scenarios instead.