Creativity and Not Being Afraid to be Shit at Something

So this is the first post on Personal Progression; a blog about personal development and motivation. My name is Ben, at the time of writing this I am a 20 year old student and this article should serve to explain why I decided to start this blog in the first place and what exactly the purpose is that it is intended to serve. Formal enough intro for you?

Ahhhhhh fuck.....

Have you ever had an epiphany that makes you look behind you at your life so far and feel like you were looking at things completely wrong? Today I was driving for three hours back home from a 21st birthday in another city, more hungover than I should have been (always drink your water before bed kids!) and listening to some Tool on the way to sooth the mind. Lateralus came on, Maynards voice flowing, and I was really able to appreciate the fact that the man is a brilliant artist, he has absolutely invested his "10,000 hours" to becoming a master at his craft.

Then another song came on, "Intolerance" and I realised the stark difference in the quality of his performance. It sounds stupidly obvious to state, but Maynard is a waaaaaaay better singer in Lateralus than he was on the Undertow album.



So this is actually kinda significant; to me and probably quite a few others out there aswell, because I'm a fucking perfectionist, I NEED shit to work and I need it to work right, especially if it is out there representing me. However this regularly gets in the way of me releasing or doing things that I like because I cannot do them up to my own high standards, getting perpetually stuck in a cycle of  "NO YOU CAN'T LOOK AT IT BECAUSE IT'S NOT READY YET!".

That got me thinking about something else I had seen, a video about creativity with audio of Ira Glass, producer of "This American Life" talking about the gap between your taste and and your ability when you start doing any kind of creative work.

This is where I started to realise my problem; I've wanted to create a blog and write for a long time, years in fact. But I've slipped into the hole of deciding " oh I'm not a good enough writer yet, first I need to practice in my spare time by myself (which I haven't) first I need to read and learn more (which I didn't) first I need to take a writing course (which I wont) first I need to..." This is analysis paralysis, allowing yourself to over think a situation so much that it stops you from acting.

This is why I wasn't able to do the things that I wanted to do, I was my own biggest barrier. My own taste and fear of criticism was hamstringing me and not allowing me to do the things that I wanted to do. This spreads out to so much more than just starting a blog,  it colours so many other parts of my life, and so I decided that personal development was the best topic to write about.

So fuck it, this is my practice, I'm just gonna write and you can read. I'm gonna say stuff, it will probably offend or insult someone, we'll get into arguments. It will probably be entertaining, I hope it will be informative and educational.

I know I'm not the best writer. I know this isn't the most creatively designed or good looking blog. But I can attach the word "yet " to the end of both of those sentences. So without further adeu....


One thing that I noticed when I started heading down the rabbit hole of reading and trying to utilize self-development was that there didn't seem to be much good amateur content out there. There are countless blogs and websites all run by professionals (a term I use loosely by the way) in the areas of motivation, dating coaching, personal development or psychology, but very little information out there from people as they were piecing the more hardcore parts of life together themselves. This is something that I want to do with this blog: capture those little Eureka moments here, articulate the epiphanies to re-visit later.

It would feel a tad of a lie if I didn’t also say that there was a more selfish reason aswell, which is motivation. I figure if I commit to releasing a new piece of content weekly then I’d better actually have something to talk about, which will make me more motivated to actually go out there, make the changes and not be a little bitch about it. So this is a new years resolution, but not at the beginning of the year; to release new content weekly.

It shouldn't be too hard right? especially for you, I'm the one that's sitting here with the knowledge that as soon as I press that "Publish" button there's no going back. I've already proof-read it eight times, oh crap. 3, 2, 1...