Wonderful Words for Wednesday

The wonderful words for today were suggested by my colleague, Karla Fripp.  She suggested “Progress over Perfection“.  I soooo agree with this!  What has been brewing in my mind that I’ve been burning to write about is the same sentiment: “Practice makes Progress NOT Perfection“.

All of us are creatives, and ALL of us can make progress in our creative endeavors with practice. We should never strive for perfection as it is a perfectly unrealistic goal (see what I did there!).

So what is it that you want to learn? Watercolors? Lettering? Drawing? Knitting? Cooking? Other things? Well, start practicing daily and you WILL learn what you set out to learn. All of these things are skills that simply take practice. Each day you practice, you progress in your skill. It truly is that simple.

Now of course there will be great success days AND days when you’ll flop, but all in all, daily practice WILL make progress.

Your Failures are Gold Nuggets

The failures are key to progress, in fact. You have to learn what NOT to do, just as much as you learn what TO do. So when you have those days of failed meals, or your watercolor piece looks like a Kindergardener did it, laugh at it first, then think to yourself, “What lesson did I learn today to take forward?” Write it down in your brain or on paper and that’s a gold nugget my friends!

My good friend Denzel Washington says, “If you’re not failing, you’re not even trying!”. Truth Denzel! You have to risk and try something new and feel okay about it when you’re not YET good at the given thing. Keep those gold nuggets so you can look back and see how much progress you’ve made since you started!

The lettering art above is FAR from perfect. It is so far from perfect I didn’t even want to share it, BUT, then I remembered what I was writing about and had to put my perfectionism aside and walk the walk I’m talking about!

I love the general composition and letter styles and I truly enjoyed the process of creating it, but I can’t wait to do it again, better. I already have improvements in my mind for my next rendition of this quote. The next one will not be perfect either, and that’s OKAY, because I’m not striving for perfection, just progress!

Karla Fripp

Thank you Karla, my fellow creative, for suggesting this phrase – so perfect for us on this creative journey! The word perfect works in THIS context I think!

Karla is a hand letterer, illustrator, and a graphic designer. Check out her work on Instagram @karlafrippcreative, you’ll be glad you did! You can also visit her website:

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