Why not to shy away from your mediocre work?
Hello, my lovely reader 👋 This is the 92nd edition of this newsletter. We are soon approaching 100! Hope you’re enjoying 10x your mind. I have a small question to ask of you at the end of this post. I’ll be excitedly looking forward to your response, which will help me plan future editions better. Thank you for being here. Your love and support means a lot to me. ❤️
Moving on to this week’s post. It’s about developing the mindset to put ourselves out there much before we are comfortable. Hope you enjoy the read.
How's your handwriting? Do you craft beautiful, cursive letters that look like they landed straight from a fairytale? Or are you more of a no BS, straight-&-separate letters kind of a person?
As we mostly write online, it doesn’t matter much nowadays. It was a big deal though when we were kids. Our teachers encouraged students to practice ‘beautiful’ handwriting. 📝
Our school had an annual handwriting competition. I’d try and put my best foot letter forward…writing painstakingly slow, carefully working on the upsweeps, making sure all curves felt smooth.
Almost every year, I was among the top three students awarded for the best handwriting. 🏆
It felt great for years until it lost its charm.
By the time I was 12, I wanted to do something more 'meaningful'. Something that required more than making alphabets pretty.
The good thing about this competition day was that we could choose between handwriting and creative writing.
Just like there were handwriting pros like me, there were creative writing pros in my grade. I didn’t stand a chance. My friends advised me against the idea. Why compete in something you can’t win? But the amateur writer within me wanted to try.
So one fine year, in grade 8, on the competition day, I picked creative writing over handwriting. A new and exciting challenge!
There were a few topics to choose from. I picked ‘freedom’. We had around 500 words to write within an hour.
I mulled over it for some time and then wrote a story about a bird escaping a cage. Cliché, I know! Don’t ask me what I wrote. I don't remember much. What I remember is the sheer pleasure of writing. For the hour that the competition lasted, I was engrossed. Loving every bit of it….thinking, writing, putting the last period in the last sentence. The time was almost over. I was done with my masterpiece, feeling proud. 😎
Now, I read it from start to finish for the first time. And guess what, it wasn’t half as good as I imagined it in my mind. 🙈🙈
Meh, is what it was. 🫤 I couldn't believe it! I had poured my heart and soul into it and all I got was….mediocrity?!
What to do? You gotta go with what you got.
A teacher came and collected our papers. I won’t lie…There was this teeny-tiny optimism that maybe the teachers would see through my hard work. 😜
They didn't, rightfully.
Surprisingly, not winning an award didn't hurt that much. Although the work I produced wasn't as beautiful as previous years, I enjoyed the process 10x more!
Fast forward 30 years. I have been writing this newsletter for 92 weeks now.
Each week while writing, I feel the same rush as a 12-year-old. At the end of it, it still doesn't feel like great work. No, I am not comfortable putting my mediocre work out there. For others to see. For others to judge. And worse, for others to ignore. Before I hit Publish, there’s always this voice inside screaming, Hey DON’T! It’s not good enough yet!
What to do? You gotta go with what you got.
Be brave. Publish.
It took me a while to realize this bitter truth:
The only route to great work is mediocre work. Lots and lots of it.
You might get super lucky in one shot but that’s rare.
We keep shying away from the world seeing the mediocre in us. We keep on perfecting. It never ends.
Even though no one cares. No one has time to judge you for your mediocre work. They are too busy trying to make theirs better.
The next time you are scared of hitting that Publish button or sharing your new idea with someone, ask yourself — What’s the worst that can happen?
Either no one will pay attention, or others will tell you it sucks.
Neither are world-shattering scenarios.
If no one pays attention, you keep on trying until you succeed. If others tell you what’s wrong, you know exactly what to improve on.
Messy handwriting or cringy ideas, let’s put it out there.
No more shying away from mediocre work.
Prachi the quality vs. quantity debate rages on in the writing community, but I always tell people that the way to get to quality is with quantity. Practice. Nobody gets worse with more practice and that's true for literally anything. Thanks for the great piece. And congrats on approaching 100 subscribers. I'm subscribing!