Letting your critical voice talk you out of following an idea

It’s better to do something and then apologize afterwards if it doesn’t turn out as expected, rather than thinking up millions of reasons as to why it won’t work.

Because that way, at least you tried. You overcame your doubt, took a risk and made a decision to act. That’s victory enough. That process of navigating uncertainty is where the real value is.

Something working out would be great, but since so many things in life don’t, we may as well build our muscle of experimentation and opportunism. Better to have loved and lost, right?

Think of it this way. Say you were given the choice to hire one of two candidates. The first was a person with a history of trying and failing. And the second was a person with a history of skillfully playing devil’s advocated and rationalizing others out of taking action.

I’m going with the first guy. I want the positive, forward moving, abundance minded, opportunity focused candidate. Because there’s never a shortage of doomsayers in any given group. It’s the natural human response to risk. Of course people are going to chime in with reasons why we can’t do things. May as well bring in people who are going to shake up things and counterbalance that critical energy.

One of my startup bosses always used to encourage us, if you can find a cheap way to test your hypothesis, then we will always say yes to your ideas. If failure isn’t too expensive, then you have permission to spend the time and money to see if something works.

Do you know how empowering that is to hear? Isn’t that mindset so much more life giving and generative than forcing employees to write proposals, get approval and wait for somebody’s blessing?

I’m reminded of a one star employee review I read that went like this:

This place is a human resource mill. They are adding and subtracting employees at an astounding rate. You need permission to get anything. I spent months accomplishing a comprehensive list of unfinished projects due to their process of needing approval.

Wow, it sounds so unsatisfying. People aren’t even giving things a chance.

Allow me to share a slightly different example from my creative practice.

If I’m writing a new song, sometimes it takes a while to sell myself on it. Not sure if the tune is going to work, I’ll get halfway through the second verse and think to myself, bah, this song is shite, let’s move on.

Now, the cynical part of me admittedly loves that option. It reinforces my high aesthetic standards to abandon a new work of art before it’s done. As if I have some creative crystal ball that can tell when a song is going to be a hit or not.

However, what I’ve been working on for my new album is, erring on the side of finishing. Just trying to write the whole song, if only to see what it sounds like when it’s done.

Because in many cases, I’m right. That song didn’t work. Something about the melody or lyrics or rhythm just didn’t vibe. But at least I did the work of executing to fruition, rather than let my critical voice talk me out of following an idea.

I maintained my bias towards completion and output, and that’s what matters.

What’s interesting is, sometimes the songs really do take on a life of their own. Sometimes the final product is vastly differently than what I was imagining initially. And every time that happens, I think to myself, man, I’m so glad I stuck with that one.

There was one song in particular that had the sweetest melody, but the lyrics I wrote simply didn’t belong to it.  My words were about how much I loved capitalism, which was clever and honest, it just didn’t fit the tone.

Which I knew from the start. And yet, I still forced myself to finish writing it, record the demo, and then not listen it for a while.

A few months later, I came back to the song. I thought to myself, damn it, that really is a terrific melody. Maybe I need better lyrics.

Sure enough, I had some words in my inventory about a completely different subject. Instead of making the song a love letter to capitalism, it was a love letter to depression.

Still clever and honest, but much more interesting. Greater contrast. More relatable. And the lyrics seemed to match the chords way better.

Ultimately, I rewrote the song and was elated with the result. I was proud for sticking with the work, even if it didn’t turn out as expected.

How do you overcome your feelings of doubt? Will you take a risk and make the decision to act?

It’s a wonderful habit to get into. It pays dividends in ways you don’t expect. At the very least, you can know in your heart that you’re someone who gives things a shot, rather than shoots things down.

Are you someone who gives things a shot, or someone who shoots things down?