Stop Letting Your Perfectionism Get In The Way

Your content is not your art.

It can be.

But if you’re anything like me, you may not be out shooting every week and editing new images every day.

This is why content started to matter to me.

Not to get into the infinite void of social media, but because I wanted to share other things too.

I enjoy writing, I enjoy filming, I enjoy discussing topics like fitness, business, and spirituality.

For many years I felt like my platforms should only include my photography and nothing else, or people would lose interest.

But posting only once a month didn’t feel like I was using properly what I wanted to create. So I changed that.

I lost people on the way, I still am, but it’s okay.

This is not what matters.

What matters is knowing you are doing the right thing for you and attracting other humans who may benefit from what you are doing.

In this letter I share the underlying differences between your art/photography and your content, and how they both require very different approaches.

Your art is the essence

I struggle a lot with perfectionism.

Getting every single detail right, even the ones no one will ever see but me.

But for me to feel proud and legitimate, details matter.

If it meant that an image would have to wait 8 months before putting it out there, so be it.

You have here two examples of images that I either waited to edit until the time was right or tried editing but really didn’t like what I was doing and left it aside for a while.

I started bringing that perfectionism into everything else that was not my images such as building my website, the Switzerland Photo Guide I created, the planning of my hikes…

The problem was that it would drastically decrease the odds of me publishing or finishing my projects.

For example, the photo guide I just mentioned was finished in October 2022 after months of putting it together and hiking to all the locations I wanted to include. But it wasn’t officially launched until May 2023.

Why?

Because I just felt it wasn’t good enough yet. That I could include more (it was already 120 pages for 12 locations, and I added another 2 locations right before the launch), make it look better, or find a better format.

This was the perfect example I needed to see how detrimental that personality trait of mine was in another context than creating my art.

With time, I learned that trying to erase that perfectionism trait was a mistake.

It is not a problem to be solved but a continuum to be managed.

And so instead of erasing it, which would have felt like going against something deeply rooted in me, I had to decide where I could pour that perfectionism, enough so that it wouldn’t have to spill over anything else.

The choice was clear: my photography creations.

Beyond doing it because I felt I had to, I think perfectionism makes the most sense to apply in your craft and in the special thing you’re good at.

The reason is that if there is one area people might expect you to put more effort into, it’s the area where you differentiate yourself from others because you do something more, something better, or something else.

So perfectionism makes sense when applied to the craft or topic you are more unique in.

It’s also a critical driver to progress and improvement.

And do not confuse perfectionism for disguised procrastination. This is too often what leads to the overuse of the word to justify the reasons someone is not doing or delivering on anything.

Perfectionists still do the work and move it forward every time. Procrastinators don’t.

Your content is the catch

View content as a way for you to share ideas, advice, or conversation starting points.

Just like in a discussion with someone (or yourself).

It doesn’t need to be perfect.

It needs to be out.

I view my content as the way to show more of who I am with the world, by sharing topics and ideas that resonate with me.

In the context of social media, content is the easiest way to tap into the 3 pillars of social leverage:

1. Authenticity

You do this by:

• Documenting what you’re working on, and this can be anything from professional projects, your physical body, your health, your craft…

• Being vulnerable (not being a victim though) on what you might have done wrong and explaining how you’ll do better next time.

• Being honest and sharing ideas you think are worth discussing.

2. Growth

The easiest way to measure this is to see if your content is shared or engages your audience.

Usually, the content that works the best for this pillar is the one that reaches a wider audience with very few technical details and more catchy wording and visuals.

3. Authority

This one is mostly about the depth of your content. It’s where you show you have a deep understanding of a topic by going more into detail.

Social media is usually not the best place to do it mostly because the attention span is incredibly short.

But newsletters or longer-form content like YouTube videos are the place to do it.

This is also where you can build a full argumentation around a topic and give access to part of your mind for people to better understand.

Here is a concrete example of how I feed those three pillars with my content:

• Authenticity: Instagram reels talking face, X posts, Threads posts, Instagram stories

• Growth: Instagram reels showing my images with trending music, YouTube Shorts, X posts with lists, BTS on Threads

• Authority: Newsletters, YouTube videos, website, magazine articles, and awards (for social proof)

The only way for you to build content sustainably in the long run is if you don’t try to make it perfect.

Mine is not.

And believe me when I say it’s difficult to do at first.

But it gets less uncomfortable over time, especially when you start detaching your content from your identity.

If you’re building a personal brand, you’re building around that. You’re not trying to justify who you are as a person but rather what you want to build as a legacy.

And this way of framing it has been such a relief for me.

Why separating the two matters

My images and creations are much closer to my identity than my content is.

And when you understand that, you know better how to draw the line between when a lot of effort is necessary and when it’s too much.

A good way to evaluate this for me is to see how I feel after I poured hours into something:

• When I spend 20 hours on an image, I don’t feel like I lost time and so I’m emotionally okay.

• When I spend 20 hours on a weekly YouTube video, I get incredibly frustrated, more prone to anger and deception, and have no sense of fulfillment whatsoever.

This is how I know when too much attention to detail is problematic.

Use your emotional responses as cues and feedback.

This is information for you to make better decisions on where to spend your time and focus.

Do not put your content and art in the same bucket.

Both should be approached very differently.

Instead, try and understand where your complete focus is needed the most.

This is how you play in the long run.

If you read that far, thank you for your time.

See you in the next one,

Angel