The Courage to Create Before You're Ready

What if the thing keeping you stuck isn't a lack of talent, but the belief that you have to be ready before anyone sees your work?

After doing a read-through of my one-woman show, Chasing Enough, people kept telling me I was courageous for inviting an audience to see the play before it was finished. The truth is, I wasn't trying to be courageous. I was just trying to make it better.

What I realized after reflecting on it was that the biggest lessons had nothing to do with theatre, they can be applied to all areas of life.

Why We Wait

We all wait. We wait to launch, we wait to speak, we wait to write, we wait to lead, we wait to ask, we wait to publish books and podcasts.

But courage isn't the absence of fear. It's creating anyway.

Why do we wait then? We tell ourselves:

• "This isn't good enough yet"
  
• "I'll do it when I know more"
  
• "People will judge me"
  
• "One more revision and then it'll be perfect"
  

Then we don't do it.

What if perfection is actually preventing your progress?

The read-through forced me to test that belief. If I bring it perfect, I'm married to what I've said. I don't want to change it, and I've gone so far down the "this is how it is" line that I'm maybe not as open to making changes. Bringing it imperfect kept me open.

The Five Lessons

Lesson 1: You Can't Improve When Nobody Experiences What You're Putting Together

This was one of the biggest realizations. In theatre, it's already built in. There are read-throughs and workshops where you bring the content and get feedback. The script looked good on paper, but until people experienced it, I didn't know:

• When they laughed
  
• When they were confused
  
• What moved them
  
• What pieces were missing
  
• Which were really irrelevant and needed to be cut
  

This can apply to your business, books, workshops, podcasts, and even relationships.

One example is the cover of my Dynamic You book. I had two cover options and showed them to a group of people I trusted. The one I liked best got feedback I never would have seen on my own. They said, "You look confident, but not approachable. You look like someone I'd be intimidated to talk to, not someone I'd want to learn from."

That feedback completely changed my decision. So I picked the more relaxed cover with my hands in my pockets and a genuine smile. I wouldn't have made that choice if I'd waited until I thought it was perfect. Showing people the work before it was finished made it better. 

If you're trying to keep things isolated and secret and do it all yourself, it's not going to improve as much as if you have the intended audience see it before you launch.

Lesson 2: People Want You to Succeed

Before an event, or before you publish something, or before you let it out, you might worry that people are going to say, "This isn’t funny,” It’s too long," "This is boring,” “Why did she invite us?” and even “This is terrible."

But instead, people were so supportive, encouraging, and invested in my success. People were offering great help.

In your true network, people aren't waiting for you to fail. They're hoping that you'll succeed, and they want to be there to cheer you on.

We are often harsher critics in our own heads than exist in reality. I'm not talking about keyboard warriors who don't know you; when you invite your trusted people, they're not going to criticize you. They're going to support you.

Lesson 3: Feedback Isn't Failure

If I just took the script, rehearsed it, and then presented it without feedback, the show could fail. But feedback, especially if it's constructive, or even if it points out things they didn't like, that's just feedback.

Every note I received in the survey, every comment after the read-through, it wasn't proof that I'd failed. Because I wasn't going there expecting it to be perfect. It was just proof of the next step.

Feedback isn't a report card. It's just information.

I knew I wouldn't get 100%. That's the point. I had to separate myself from my work, and that makes me a better creator.

Instead of thinking "they didn't like me because they didn't like the play," we have to think: "Ah, this piece needs work. This scene can be edited. This piece of my book needs a rewrite. This cover can be redesigned." That's all it's telling us.

Lesson 4: The Things We Obsess Over Usually Aren't What Others Notice

I worried about Whether this scene would work: Will me falling on the floor when I acted this piece work? Really, no one mentioned a lot of it. Instead, they pointed out a lot of things I wasn't even concerned about at the beginning and hadn't even considered.

I was telling people that the main character feels pushed by society to be more, do more, have more. But what I actually showed was more so the pressure of people growing up: parents, teachers, coaches, and her own saboteurs in her mind. I totally forgot to show more of society's role, and they were like, "Oh, it'd be nice to see how else society does this for her now as an adult."

I was like, "Duh. That was one of the biggest things I wanted to show."

But it's that Les Brown quote: "You can't see the picture when you're in the frame." You can't see it, when you’re in it. Something could be right in front of you, and you're going to miss it.

We are often terrible judges of our own work. A lot of the stuff I thought, "I'm not sure they'll like it," they actually liked, and some parts I chose to keep that I really should have cut. I only realized that by reading it out loud.

Lesson 5: Progress Happens in Public

I'm not saying everything has to be shown to people, but the people you show it to have to be trusted, know your intention, and be there to be supportive and constructive. But this is where this becomes bigger than the play.

Progress happens in public.

• Publishing my first book had to be in public so people could buy it
  
• Creating the Dynamic Women community had to be in public so people could come
  
• Starting my podcast, I wanted listeners
  
• Speaking professionally, I needed an audience and clients to book me
  
• Launching different businesses, I needed clients and feedback from them
  
• And now the same goes in writing theatre
  

For you, be thinking about this: if I put this in the public eye, could I move forward faster?

That's why I don't create a program that I haven't sold first. I put it out to the public, sell it, then create it, because that's proof of concept.

Everything I've built in the beginning was imperfect. It wasn't the greatest. But I didn't know unless I did it. I didn't become ready first. I became ready because I kept showing up. Imperfect progress created not perfection, but created me actually doing the things I'd put off.

I know I've sat on things and put them off and put them off, and then I needed someone else to help me get them going.

Your Challenge

After these five lessons, what have you been sitting on?

• What's your version of an unfinished play?
  
• What's your version of a read-through?
  
• What's your version of workshopping something?
  

Maybe it is a book, a business, a conversation with someone, a course, a dream, or even just a piece of art.

What would happen if you let someone see it, hear it, give you feedback on it?

The key thing to remember is: you don't become ready and then share your work. You become ready because you shared your work.

I still have a lot to do on Chasing Enough. The script is nowhere near finished, especially after all this amazing feedback. But it's going to be infinitely better moving forward because people have experienced it, and I have experienced people experiencing it.

Maybe the thing you're waiting to be perfect doesn't need another month hanging out in your head. Maybe it just needs one courageous moment in the real world.

I challenge you to let it out.

If you want to get updates, invites to the next read-through or workshop, or at least the September preview, sign up using this link to follow along on the Chasing Enough journey.

Listen to the full Dynamic Women podcast episode here.
Or watch the full YouTube Video here.

Until next time, stay dynamic!