4 Reasons Why You Should Give Yourself Permission to Suck

Image source: ClearStory Data

It's the dark side of perfectionism. You want your creative project to be perfect right away. You have little patience for the process of creating first drafts, second drafts, third drafts. And heaven forbid you share your work with anybody else until it's just right. Share an unfinished draft?! The horror!

Sound familiar? Then you just might be a perfectionist.

It's both a blessing and a curse. Perfectionists strive for kaizen—continuous improvement. They are never bored. They often excel in the workplace.

But being that way can sabotage your creative work. There's no need to let perfect be the enemy of good. Putting that kind of pressure on ourselves just leads us to misery and self-doubt.

Give yourself permission to suck! Here's why:

1. Instant perfection is like a unicorn. It does not exist. Nobody gets it right the first time. All published authors have editors. Actors do second, third, and twentieth takes of their scenes. Chefs tweak herbs and spices and sauces before they put the dish on the menu.
   
   Okay, maybe there's ONE exception. We've all seen those brilliant improv comedians who stand up on stage, and somebody gives them a prompt, and they produce comic genius on the spot. But dude, those people have supernatural powers as far as I'm concerned. They're not the standard by which we mere mortals should be judged.
   
   And even those guys screw up. Take it from comic genius Wayne Brady, who told the Denver Post that Whose Line Is It Anyway? would do about three hours of taping to get a 30-minute show.
   
2. Feedback is valuable. The benefits of having other people read your drafts can far outweigh the terror and vulnerability you may feel in sharing those drafts. Why? Because you can never truly be inside somebody else's head. The more perspective you have on how your creative work is perceived by others, the better able you are to tweak that work to meet your goals. After all, the ultimate goal is for people to see your work, right? Not for you to keep it in a box.
   
3. People who don't nit-pick get MORE DONE. Take that, Type A personalities. In the time you spent editing your blog post for the fifth time, somebody else wrote two more blog posts. Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and publish because it's good enough. Fight against "analysis paralysis" and you'll end up with more work to show for it.
   
4. Witnessing someone else's screw-ups and idiosyncrasies can be kind of awesome. Isn't that why we like live performances? We don't go to a concert expecting a regurgitation of the studio album. And I love watching interviews with performers that I've known only through scripted TV or radio. Because they loosen up and show their true colors, and drop F-bombs, and make inappropriate comments, and basically reveal that they're human beings like the rest of us. It's refreshing.

Believe me, I know it's tough. I edited this blog post more times than I care to share. This post may be a final draft, but I'm not! I'm a work in progress, man.

But mistakes and flaws and messiness and imperfection are what make us human. Lovable, even. In blog terms: relatable. And those things can be just as good as perfection. 

Why I Want Tim Gunn to Be My Uncle

My life is hectic and jam-packed. I work full-time and have two kids, not to mention extended family, friends, a blog, and a Candy Crush addiction.

I don’t have time to pause and look for inspiration. But sometimes inspiration finds me. And that’s why I love Tim Gunn.

Why Tim Inspires Me

Like most people, I first saw Tim on Project Runway, where he serves as the charming, avuncular mentor and advisor to the designers who compete on the show.

I liked him immediately. Despite his quirky bow ties and overly elegant manners, there seemed something so relatable and human about the guy. Like he was somebody with a deep capacity for understanding other people, because he’d known pain and hardship himself.

And he has known pain. He grew up in a household so homophobic that he didn’t come out to anyone in his family until he was 29. As a child, he felt isolated and unhappy—teased because of his stutter, lacking close friends. Yet he put all that behind him and made an incredible life for himself.

He’s my idol. He achieved international fame, yet he remains both humble and accessible. He works in an industry that’s hyper-focused on the superficial, yet he cares deeply about being fair, kind, and encouraging to other people, and being the best possible version of himself.

Seriously, Can I Adopt Him? Or Have Him Adopt Me?

How can I not love the man who said:

• “You can be too rich and too thin, but you can never be too well read or too curious about the world.”
• “I believe that treating other people well is a lost art.”
• “I will always be there in the wings saying, 'You need to be good to people. You need to take your work seriously. You need to have integrity. You need to work with what you've got.”
• “Few activities are as delightful as learning new vocabulary.” 

― Gunn's Golden Rules: Life's Little Lessons for Making It Work
― Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste & Style

An Angel on My Shoulder

Every so often, I’ll be having a blue moment. My kids will be driving me insane and shaking my faith in my parenting abilities. Or I’ll be heading in to work on 3 hours of sleep because the baby was up half the night.

And then, in my head, Tim Gunn is there. He gives me that look that only he can give: sympathetic and sweet, but businesslike and down-to-earth. And then he says to me, as if I were a Project Runway competitor:

“Jennifer, you have a lot of work to do. But I like what you’ve done so far. Make it work.”

And then I smile. And I make it work. Because if Tim Gunn says so, then it’s going to be OK.

Comments Enabled—Tell Me How You Really Feel!

Well, here's my DUH moment of the day.

I didn't realize I could change my Blogger settings to make it so that anybody can comment on one of my blog posts. Prior to 3 minutes ago, you could only comment on this blog if you logged in. Oops.

Comments are open now. I'm very happy about that. Comments are part of the fun of blogging! I don't want to be up on a soapbox blathering on and nobody can respond without the obstacle of logging in (and maybe registering first), that's no good.

If by some chance you have a blog on this site and you have had the same problem, ask me (in a comment!) and I'll share how to change the setting.

To Share, or Not to Share? My Biggest Blog Dilemma

Image credit: condenaststore.com

I've been blogging for a couple of years now, and I think I'm hooked. Blogging is fun, it's creative, it's often cathartic. And it forces me to write more often, which is great since I am a procrastinator by nature and I need that little nagging voice telling me, "You haven't posted anything in two weeks, girl! Write something already so your blog doesn't stagnate like middle-class wages!"

Many bloggers write emotional exposés, baring their souls naked to the public. I don't mind when other people do that. I like reading them, for the most part (though there's always some that truly over-share, describing ad nauseum every single thing that passes through their head. I'm like, seriously, if I wanted that, I'd just go read Twilight again).

But I have trouble baring my own soul. It's just not my style. Outside of my family and best friends, I'm a fairly private person. I have never craved attention. I'm not necessarily comfortable disclosing intimate details of my life with total strangers. Call it insecurity, call it self-consciousness, whatever, but it's there. There's something about baring my soul publicly that feels insufferably emo to me.

So what's a privacy-loving blogger to do??

Privacy Is Passé, Right?

I suppose I could just throw in the towel and bare it all on a regular basis.

Pros:

• Great payoff requires great risk. Tapping into some deeper stuff may make for better writing. Some of my favorite blogs are the ones whose writers go into great detail about what they think and feel. I think it's cool to get inside somebody else's head and realize either how very different, or how very much the same we are inside. But if I'm going to do that myself, I need to get past some stuff.
• I need to get over myself. I may be too shy and self-conscious for my own good. If something about myself is going to make for an entertaining or relatable blog post, why hold back? Maybe I'm afraid people will laugh at me, middle-school style. But that's the chance you take when you do anything in public, even walk down the street. Dwelling on that possibility is no way to live your life.
• Words are all I've got. Readers are not gonna get to know me through body language or any of that face-to-face stuff, nor through video, cuz I'm super camera shy (see above about insecurities). My blog won't be truly mine unless I can share what's in my head.
• Blogs live forever. When I kick the bucket one day, my blog will be a permanent record of myself for anyone to find if they choose to. I don't think it's egomaniacal of me to think that my kids or grandkids might want to read some of it. If my own grandmother or grandfather had had a blog, would I want to read it? Hell yeah, I would. It would be like reading letters or postcards that they wrote back when they were young. I'd be fascinated.

Cons:

• Over-sharing grates against my nature. For me, writing true emotional exposés on my blog would be akin to flashing my boobs in public. I can share something, but not everything. Privacy is an endangered species—why should I contribute to its demise? I'm horrified enough that I'm caught on camera 800 times a day by the various recording devices in my environment (storefronts, store interiors, the bus, the train, the office building lobby, random tourists with camera phones on Michigan Avenue). It's bad enough that anybody on the internet can look me up and find my address and other details about me (public records). Why would I share even more stuff voluntarily?
• There's no place to hide. Fiction writers may very well be baring their souls in their novels, but they can hide behind their fictional characters and events. Blogs, not so much. If it's your blog, then it's all you, baby, and everybody knows it.  
• Blogs live forever. I often want to write about my kids, but I don't, because I think to myself, "What if they read this one day and say 'MOM, TMI! I did not need to know that you hated my guts and fantasized about shipping me off to a gulag camp when I was a teenager!'" I think this sometimes when I read my favorite "mommy blogs." For instance, I adore Baby Sideburns and she cracks me up like no other. But I wonder what her kids will think when they grow up and read about how she called them assholes all the time. Don't get me wrong, little kids absolutely CAN be assholes. But would you say it to their faces?

From a writing standpoint, sharing "just enough" is a welcome challenge. It's tough to balance "Have I shared enough to make this piece worthwhile?" with "Am I OK with this piece living online forever?"

I'll probably end up somewhere in between baring nothing and baring it all. It's not like I have to go to either extreme. But even taking it up a notch is going to require some effort on my part.

Deep breath... time to take myself out of my comfort zone.

Why I Love Elbow-Length Sleeves, and Janeane Garofalo

I love clothes with elbow-length sleeves. I don't mean three-quarter sleeves, which are often advertised as

Image credit: hugoboss.com

"elbow-length." I mean sleeves that go EXACTLY to the elbow.

So I've been so happy when I saw all the elbow-length sleeve action in stores this spring and summer.

Why are elbow-length sleeves the greatest thing ever? I'll tell you why. They're flattering on everyone. They're great for work. They're nice and cool for summer, yet way more professional than a tank top. They look good loose or fitted. They go nicely with a variety of necklines: drapey/cowl, V, boatneck, scoop.

But most importantly, they perform the greatest favor that fashion could ever do for me. They cover 100% of my upper arms.

I Have Matronly Upper Arms 

"I love my pink top! It
covers my upper arms!"
- J.Jill model

Everybody has an answer to the question, "If you could change one thing about your appearance, what would it be?"

My answer would be: my upper arms. They are, shall we say, fleshy. Not fat, exactly. Just... thick. And rounded.

I have matronly upper arms. If you're a woman with this type of arm, you're sitting here nodding along because you KNOW. If you're not, consider yourself lucky, because matronly upper arms are biological destiny that no amount of cardio or weight-lifting can ever change. Motherhood makes no difference, either—my arms have looked like this since well before I had children.

If you are a woman with this kind of arm, you're often self-conscious about it. None of the models and actresses have arms like that. No, they all have those beautifully defined arms where you could practically identify individual muscle fibers through the skin. If you're like me, you prefer never to wear sleeveless garments unless it's so hot outside that everybody is too busy wiping sweat out of their eyes to notice your sub-shoulder chub.

The definitive work on this topic comes from Janeane Garofalo. I saw this bit on TV circa 1997 and laughed my ass off because it's SO TRUE:

Janeane is the bomb.

"And I'm worried because I have matronly upper arms, y'know? I can't get intimate because I have matronly upper arms, and there's two kinds of women in the world: those with matronly upper arms and those with visible biceps and never the twain shall meet, because the bicep gals don't get it and the matronly upper arms girls know about life and love and losing and do you know how hot it has to be for Garofalo to go sleeveless? ... I will wear a sweater or a sweat jacket or a long-sleeve shirt until it's literally a hundred and ten degrees out."

Image credit: inkedmag.com

SING IT, GIRL! And go out shopping. Scoop up a bunch of these items now before they go out of style again and then we'll be back to boring old three-quarter sleeves. Or... heaven forbid... cap sleeves, the single most unflattering sleeve ever known to women with matronly upper arms.

Actually, I see that Janeane got tattoos on both of her upper arms at some point since that 1997 routine. Which I think is a great idea. If you don't like some part of your body, find a way to distract people. It's harder to notice the shape of someone's arm if you're busy looking at the ink.

Nicely done, Ralph
Lauren.

Even Carhartt makes
them. Score.

I have and adore
this Ellen Tracy dress.

Pet Peeve of the Day: People Who Say "Cut and Paste" When They Really Mean "Copy and Paste"

Image credit: Zazzle.com

It seems like I hear it on a daily basis.

"Check out this cool article. I cut and pasted it from the Wall Street Journal's website."

"I sent you the specs yesterday. Just cut and paste them from my e-mail." 

"This homework is plagiarized. Someone clearly cut and pasted it from the internet."

NO, NO, NO. Nobody CUT nothin'. You COPIED it.

WHY???

The words copy and cut are easy words. We all learn them in, like, preschool. Everybody knows what they mean. Hence my confusion.

If you CUT something, you take it away forever. If you cut your hair, that cut-off hair is gone for good. If you cut out trans fats from your diet, you eliminate them. If they cut you during an audition, you ain't getting that part, girlfriend.

Same with text. There is no way to CUT and paste something from the internet, unless you have admin rights and are editing the web page itself. If you COPY some text, the original page stays intact. Nothing is cut from it.

So why do people say CUT and paste when they really mean COPY and paste?

I am truly stumped. Maybe the phrase "cut and paste" is irresistibly catchy, with those cute little one-syllable words. Maybe people are so focused on the pasting part of the operation that they figure the first part doesn't matter. Maybe people just hear the phrase "cut and paste" more often, so it sticks in their head and they don't stop to think about whether it's accurate or not.

Alas, I fear this is yet another example of a VTD. A Verbally Transmitted Disease, where inaccuracies and poor grammar get spread around the world through carelessly open mouths and ears.

Resist VTD! Say COPY AND PASTE when that's what you're doing.

Road Rage, and the Things We Do to Avoid Cursing in Front of Children

Ahh, the things we say to children.

I don't mean baby talk, y'all. I mean the things we say INSTEAD of the swear words we'd like to say but hold back because a small person's big eyes are staring at us.

Another Day, Another Douchebag Driver

Not my husband. Though he used to
sport a hairdo kind of like this one.

My husband is from New Jersey. So it's pretty much encoded in his DNA to swear at other drivers and call them douchebags if they wrong him in traffic.

Well, one day we were driving along, my husband at the wheel, and some douchebag driver cut us off. I looked over at my husband and could see, as if in slow motion, his body tensing up, his vocal cords priming themselves for some quality swearing. Then I saw him check himself because our daughter, age 4, was sitting in the back seat, listening, with her eager mind and elephant memory. 

"You........ You D-BAG!" he finally yelled at the guy, through clenched teeth. Clearly not as satisfying as the real thing, but better than nothing.

Immediately our daughter piped up: "Bean bag? Why did you call him a bean bag, Daddy?"

It has become a family joke. If somebody does a stupid thing, we say, "What a bean bag!" Then we laugh and move on.

Road Rage—As Old as the Model T?

My grandfather, not from New Jersey but born and raised in the midwest, used to yell at other drivers and even shake his fist out the window. "Keith!" my grandma would scold him, sternly (and fruitlessly), from the passenger seat. She was a preacher's kid, and I mean the good kind. (I once asked Grandma if she was familiar with actress and singer Mae West. "Oh, I never liked any of her songs," she responded primly.)

I think I experienced road rage shortly after learning to drive. When you're 16, it's all about, "Oh my GOD, why are these morons driving so SLOW?!" At some point, and I am definitely beyond this point, it's all about, "Oh my GOD, what is WRONG with these idiots driving 75 miles per hour on Lake Shore Drive?!"

I read a theory somewhere that we get road rage because we are territorial, and our car is an extension of our territory. 

I think that might explain a lot. 

It would certainly explain why I get pissed off at the people who live in the condo above us, whenever they have the audacity to (1) talk at any volume above a whisper, or (2) walk across their hardwood floors. Is it their fault that our 100-year-old building has no carpeting and no insulation between floors? Not at all, but dammit, they're disturbing MY quiet evening at home. 

So I sit and stew and dream of the day when I'll live in a real house. Of course, when that day comes, I'm sure I'll feel the same way about my neighbors' lawn mowers, barking dogs, and teenagers' parties. I'm practicing my line now so I'll have it perfect when the time comes: "Damn kids! GET OFF MY LAWN!"

Maybe I should have been born in Jersey.