The creator's dilemma is as follows: Every creator wants their work to be good before they publicly share it, but the only way to get good at making things is by finishing and releasing them. This implies that you need to start by publishing work you don't consider good enough, allowing the process of completion to build your skills and improve the quality of your output.
Why is the completion of a thing so important when trying to improve?
As a creator, ideas are a dime a dozen. You could spend a lifetime filling notebooks with all of your great ideas, but you still wouldn't be any closer to becoming what you desire. Creators must create. Whether it's a screenplay, an album, or a new startup project, nothing is real until you have brought it out into the world. You must finish it, and then you must release it.
By going through the entire creative process, from ideation to publication, you are working and improving on every step along the way. Too many people get stuck in a loop of thinking and tinkering but never finish what they start. Do you want to get good at having ideas, or at having completed projects? You can only improve at what you do, so make sure you are doing it all.
A few years into playing the piano, I thought sharing my work would be a great way to force me to actually finish pieces of music. I was practicing and learning my craft, but I wasn't creating anything of my own. So I started a new Instagram account and began posting videos of myself performing original finished pieces. At the time, Instagram limited videos to 30 seconds. To fit this constraint, what I created took the form of short, catchy loops.
The more I created, the more I improved. However, I improved at what I was releasing—30 second loops. But loops aren't songs, and ultimately my goal was to get better at writing songs.
I decided to make the switch to YouTube, where I had the ability to publish longer videos. Almost immediately, I ran into trouble. Now that my pieces were longer, my satisfaction with my work dropped significantly. I couldn’t get past the structural weaknesses within my music, and, lacking experience in pulling together a full piece, I was without a map on how to improve.
Suddenly, I was stuck, and I stopped sharing my music. I fell into the creator's dilemma.
That's when I came upon an idea: I needed to create a critic to judge my work, helping me to improve, while also pushing me to publish what I created despite the evident flaws.
Now that we have the goal of releasing more work, the natural first question is: how do I know when it's ready to share? It's easy to vacillate between two extremes: fearfully sharing nothing, or indiscriminately sharing everything. You need a filter at the end of the line, an internal critic that determines when something is ready to publish.
But how do you cultivate a critic that balances these two ends of the spectrum? Too harsh a critic, and you’re stuck endlessly tweaking and rewriting; too soft, and you release things before they’re fully mature.
The goal isn't to release the best possible work right now, but to stay on the path towards releasing good work, which in turn will guide you towards the development of great work. Your critic must be able to detach from the present outcome in service of the larger goals.
Think of a critic like a mental model, one that pushes you in striving towards the ideal, without extinguishing your flickering flame of inspiration.
The Coach:
To grow, you must focus on improving your weaknesses. The Coach is a critic who looks at what you are bad at and judges the project based on how much it has helped you improve in that area. Do you shy away from exposure of your work? Then the Coach would ignore the quality, while focusing on how you promote and share what you finish. It's up to the Coach to push you beyond your comfort zone, challenging your abilities and developing your weakest skills.
The Scientist:
All The Scientist cares about is testing new hypotheses and exploring different ideas. When you're a new creator, you haven't fully developed your voice and style, and the only way to find it is by testing many different things. For a nonfiction writer, that might mean dabbling in fiction, exploring language and narrative to convey an idea. Or maybe you change the format of your work, from long to short, publishing daily instead of spending months on one piece. The Scientist looks at every project as an experiment, focused on new and interesting ideas, while being quick to discard what doesn't work.
The Supporter:
Sometimes the voice you need to amplify is that of your inner desires. The Supporter is a critic whose standard of measurement is your own taste. Do you like it? Is this what you wanted? Regardless of the quality or outcome, if you're happy with it, does anything else matter? New movements are created by outsiders, so if you're looking to upset established conventions, you need to trust your internal compass. The Supporter acts as a guiding light to maintain your vision and creative distinction, regardless of how the output is received.
The Mentor:
Every creator stands on the shoulders of the greats that came before. With the Mentor, you have a critic who measures your work alongside the standard of what came before you. Every finished piece is compared in tone and quality to your role models, with the gap between the two highlighting what you need to develop. Creation starts with a heavy dose of imitation, and once injected with your own style, it becomes a unique contribution to the canon. With The Mentor's help, you will learn through mimicry, until your style takes flight on its own.
The Publicist:
Every act of creation holds within it the desire to share. We want to give our work to the world, hear what people think, and build a devoted audience. The Publicist is a critic who can harness the feedback of the crowd into a useful direction. Instead of getting personally wrapped up in adoration or critique, the Publicist acts as a barrier between you and the public, only allowing the most useful notes to reach you. The focus isn't to try and satisfy everyone, but instead, to use the collective judgement of quality to direct and improve your own work.
While I still have plenty of stress and pressure to make something "good", these critics give me a more objective way to view what I create. I am better able to let go of the over-analysis and frustration that get in the way of releasing more work. And just like my experience with creating loops, my songs continue to improve.
I recommend using one critic per project. I've found that it's difficult to objectively view your work through multiple lenses at once, and limiting the quantity of your filters ensures you don't further slow down the creative process. Personally, I've gone back to two critics most often: The Scientist and The Supporter. With these two, I'm able to lean into creating what I want, regardless of how it is received, while still pushing myself to explore new things.
For me, that's looked like learning new instruments, trying different video styles, and more freely mixing musical genres and tone. Instead of being overly discouraged or excited by the standard engagement metrics, I look at my output through the eyes of a critic, only concerned with whether it met their standards. Sixteen finished pieces later, I'm more motivated and enthusiastic than ever.
Creation is a delicate balance of growth, vulnerability, and self-expression. Creating work that fully captures this spirit is what leads to your own satisfaction, but it's easy to want to skip the difficult climb to reach this point. You must finish work and you must release it out into the world. It's hard to expose yourself to the lack of interest, critique, and disappointment that often accompanies sharing what you've created. And amidst this turmoil, it's difficult to determine if your work is even headed in the right direction.
Your chosen critic should act as an objective voice of reason. Let it measure the quality of your work detached from your identity as the creator, allowing you to freely try, and discard, new ideas and projects. If you feel completely burnt out after you publish your first couple of things, it's a clear sign that you haven't established a sustainable model of a critic. You're probably still being too hard on yourself.
Remember, the creative act is all about long-term progression. The only way to improve is through the consistent completion, and release, of work. So learn what you can from your current project, click publish, and then start again.