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Writer's pictureFreda Amakiri

Embracing Imperfections As A Creative


Born in a world where everyone expects you to always know what’s right and do what’s right, there’s actually no way to escape the fear of making mistakes.


As a creative, due to the misconceptions of life, we’re left with no other choice than to second-guess our creative power, judge our flaws, and cloud our mind with past failures.


We work so hard to achieve life goals and visions to only find ourselves petrifying our worth when we don’t meet expectations.


I’m a millennial struggling with the negative impact of the “Gen-Z” culture. We’re compelled to accept trends, led to cultivate unethical morals, brainwashed to envy scripted lifestyles that leave us with no other choice but to feel like our individual lives depend on likes, follows, clothes, multiple partners, and the shortcut success syndrome.

All these lies create an unhealthy perception about life, hence the fear of making mistakes.


The fear of the unknown paralyzes who we are and our full potentials.


What could possibly go wrong, if we all decide to embrace our imperfections? Or what could become of this world, if we embrace our creative power and create extraordinarily.


Our outward and inward looks, our decisions, our wins and failures should be embraced.


Discover ways to liberate your creativity while you can. There’s actually no time to waste while you’re here on earth.


Your creative ideas are not just mare ideas. Simply put it this way; the fact that you thought about that idea means it’s totally achievable and worth sharing with the world.


Here’s a trick:

Dedicate a specific time each day of your life to explore any creativity you enjoy.

Exercising creative freedom gives you room to think less about not achieving and actualizing your life goals as expected. It makes you enjoy the process of creating your art without pressure.


Embrace the “ugly stage” of life in your journey as a creative. Most of us give up during this stage, forgetting about the “origin focus” and why we started in the first place.

Forgetting that, this is where growth happens, the “refinery stage." This is the stage where you’ll explore and experiment to build a strong success foundation.


If we loosen our thoughts of perfectionism, we’ll achieve beyond our expectations. Guard your spirit as you grow. The journey and challenges you’ll face along the way will birth the real creative in you.

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” – Mary Lou Cook

Common Lies Creatives Tell Themselves

As far as you’re someone who creates something for a living, you’re identified as a creative, and these are some of the lies we tell ourselves to feel accepted by society or to feel less overwhelmed by life’s pressure.


  • #1 It’s About Luck: No it’s not ! It’s rigorous hard work, consistency, persistency and smart work. Every successful creative passed through ridiculous rejections, pains and risks to become successful. It’s never luck but consistent work.


  • #2 It’s About Connection (Who you know): The idea that, if you know the right people, will take you to stardom should be deleted from your thoughts. It’s about finding your audience. It’s about sharing your creativity with people who appreciate what you do and understands your taste of creativity. It’s about going out there exploring and putting your creativity out there to magnet the so called “connection”.


  • #3 It’s All About Talent: Identifying that you have talent isn’t a big deal. What you should focus on after discovery is how to make that talent work exceptionally different from everyone else’s. Sure, you might not be seen as the next Beyoncé or Taylor Swift and that’s okay. You’re different and the world needs to hear something different from what they’ve already heard and experienced.


  • #4 I'm not good enough yet: Society makes you feel like, there’s a specific qualification that every creative should use as a guide to evaluate their creativity. Until they meet fixed standards they are not qualified or good enough. Biggest lie!


  • #5 I deserve to be seen/heard/noticed: In reality success requires hard work and persistence meanwhile creatives feel like there’s an entitlement to be seen or heard or noticed. Most times the world is focusing on someone else or something else because it’s their time of discovery. Patiently work with or without credits. Work twice hard to earn that attention. Work actively, network, market your art, seek opportunities, to be creatively successful and finally heard.


These lies have been leading creatives to internalize and sabotage their creative journey and freedom. “Talent is not a fixed, god-given trait - it's an aptitude that can be nurtured through passion, curiosity, practice and effort.”



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