Iterative Improvements
Getting Better...One Step At A Time
Like many overachieving perfectionists, my natural tendency is to go all in, all at once. To master everything immediately. To take the idea in my head and try to make it real without a single misstep.
Spoiler Alert: It never quite works like that. For me anyway.
I’ve learned (and relearned…and relearned again) that creative growth doesn’t usually come in big, cinematic leaps. It comes in iterations. Step by step. Version 1.0, then 1.1, then maybe a full 2.0 a few months later when I circle back with fresh eyes and more experience under my belt.
It’s not easy when you’re wired to always strive for perfection.
Sometimes "good enough” really is good enough. Even when I feel like I’m not doing my very best, chances are it’s better than I think. And perfection…well, it doesn’t exist. Never has, never will.
Embracing imperfection has helped me move forward when I get stalled or stuck. Posting awkward, sometimes messy first drafts builds momentum—and confidence.
This blog post? An iteration.
That video I posted despite hating the sound of my voice? Another iteration.
I used to think getting better meant doing it right the first time. Now I know it means doing it again. With reflection. With curiosity. With less judgment and more play.
What’s wild is how freeing this mindset shift can be.
Though it isn’t always. Old habits die hard, boo.
When I’m able to stop demanding brilliance from the start and turn down the volume on my inner critic, I tend to notice brilliance along the way. A moment of unexpected humor in a video edit. A sentence that hits harder because I let it breathe. A photo that tells a richer story because I let it be a little blurry, a little real.
Iteration is how we grow. Creatively, personally, professionally. It’s how we surprise ourselves. And maybe most importantly—it’s how we stay in love with the process.
Keep calm and make it happen!
Clint 🌈✌️
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ON THIS DAY = APRIL 13
BIRTHDAYS
1743 = Thomas Jefferson = American lawyer, politician, and 3rd POTUS
1852 = Frank Winfield Woolworth = American businessman
1866 = Butch Cassidy = American criminal
1879 = Oswald Bruce Cooper = American type designer and educator
1900 = Pierre Molinier = French painter and photographer
1906 = Bud Freeman = American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader
1906 = Samuel Beckett = Irish novelist, poet, playwright, and Nobel Prize laureate
1909 = Eudora Welty = American short story writer and novelist
1919 = Howard Keel = American actor and singer
1919 = Madalyn Murray O'Hair = American activist and American Atheists founder
1923 = Don Adams = American actor and director
1924 = Stanley Donen = American filmmaker and choreographer
1931 = Jon Stone = American composer, producer, and screenwriter
1937 = Lanford Wilson = American playwright 🌈
1939 = Paul Sorvino = American actor and singer
1941 = Jean-Marc Reiser = French author and illustrator
1942 = Bill Conti = American composer and conductor
1944 = Charles Burnett = American filmmaker, actor, and photographer
1946 = Al Green = American singer-songwriter, producer, and pastor
1947 = Deborah Batts = America lawyer and judge
1949 = Christopher Hitchens = English-American essayist, critic, and journalist
1950 = Ron Perlman = American actor
1951 = Peabo Bryson = American singer
1955 = Ole von Beust = German politician 🌈
1964 = Caroline Rhea = Canadian actor and comedian
1970 = Ricky Schroder = American actor
1976 = Glenn Howerton = American actor
1976 = Jonathan Brandis = American actor
1982 = Nellie McKay = British-American singer-songwriter, musician, and actor
1988 = Allison Williams = American actor and singer
EVENTS
1742 = George Frideric Handel's oratorio Messiah makes its world premiere in Dublin, Ireland.
1870 = The Metropolitan Museum of Art is founded in NYC.
1943 = The Jefferson Memorial is dedicated in Washington, D.C., on the 200th anniversary of President Thomas Jefferson's birth.
1958 = In the midst of the Cold War, American pianist Van Cliburn won the inaugural International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.
1964 = At the Academy Awards, Sidney Poitier becomes the first African-American man to win the Best Actor award for the 1963 film Lilies of the Field.
1976 = The US Treasury Department reintroduces the two-dollar bill as a Federal Reserve Note on Thomas Jefferson's 233rd birthday, coinciding with Bicentennial celebrations.
HOLIDAYS + OBSERVANCES
PORTRAIT + QUOTES OF THE DAY
“If you can no longer think about the future, and you once dreamed of everlasting love, don't give up the dream, find it again.”
Lanford Wilson
“After they had explored all the suns in the universe, and all the planets of all the suns, they realized that there was no other life in the universe, and that they were alone. And they were very happy, because then they knew it was up to them to become all the things they had imagined they would find.”
Lanford Wilson, Fifth of July
NEW + FEATURED
COLLIDE PRESS Live #2 (Replay)
Always A Pleasure #1 (NSFW)
To The Front Of The Line #1 (NSFW)
In The Mood For Bromance #1 (NSFW)
Great advice. It was one of the things that my art tutor said - the only way to improve is to draw it again and again and again, learning from your previous drawings and making adjustments until you feel satisfied.
Well Clint for my Iterative Sunday improvement I'll drag my sorry arse (ass in Americanese) up to the pub to imbibe a 🍺 or so 😎😁 Cheers DougT 🇫🇴