Don't self-sabotage

When I was younger, I deleted most of the things I made in fits of dissatisfaction. I undid huge amounts of time and effort with a single frustrated press of the “delete” key. I wish I had been kinder to myself, allowed myself some distance from my creations, and seen the value that was hiding beneath their imperfections and mistakes.

Work helped me kick this habit. In my personal life, I was free to self-sabotage and delete my passion projects in fits of dissatisfaction. But at work, I had to deliver and see my projects through to the end, even if they fell short of my aspirations. And something I realised, eventually: my customers were usually delighted with the work I had wanted to delete.

Most of the good things I have made in life are the product of the very slow compounding of bad things, ugly early versions that slowly, incrementally crawled closer to something useful, something polished. But throw away too many of these ugly, early incarnations and you arrest this development. You burn hundreds of hours of effort for no reward. I often think about what could have been, had I pursued those early passion projects through to the current day.

Today, I try to be kinder to myself. I keep imperfect things, file them away for a later date when I can regard them with impartiality and begin to see the small glowing facets of possibility that inevitably hide within the dross. And funnily, this website has become a big part of that process, offering a low-stakes display shelf where I can save these ugly first drafts for a future Ryan to wrestle with.

No more self-sabotage.