There’s a point in the creative process where I’m no longer making my work better—I’m just tinkering. Not improving. Not refining. Just fussing. It feels productive. It looks like progress. But it’s often a mask for fear: fear of calling something done when it’s not yet as original or excellent as I think it could be.
I know I’m not alone in this experience. Sometimes I think about Felix Mendelssohn, who never published his Symphony No. 4. He was oddly reluctant to release this work, despite it now being considered one of his greatest orchestral achievements. That’s the tragedy of perfectionism: it can keep our best work locked away, unfinished, and unseen.
The same story plays out in other disciplines. Ralf Ellison, despite the enormous success of his novel Invisible Man, spent the better part of 40 years on his unfinished book Juneteenth—revising, expanding, second-guessing. But he never saw it published. It was only after his death that his unfinished manuscripts were published. Despite the quality of his work, Ellison could never bring himself to say, “This is finished.”
These stories remind me that we artists often get stuck between what our work actually is and the hazy dream of perfection. There’s a line between refining and obsessing. And I cross it more than I’d like to admit. There’s a quote often attributed to Picasso that sums up this predicament well: “A work of art is never finished, only abandoned.”
That sentiment always rang true for me. But a friend of mine, Jack, once said something that really challenged me. When I quoted Picasso, Jack responded, “I disagree. I call something finished. Then, when I look back, I see where I was in that season of my life. That perspective stuck with me. What if the goal isn’t to create perfect monuments? What if, instead, we’re creating markers—snapshots of who we were, and what we were reaching for?
The example of Tchaikovsky, himself a perfectionist, is helping me see a healthier way forward. In a letter to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, he confessed: “All my life I have been much troubled by my inability to grasp and manipulate form in music… I shall end my days without having written anything that is perfect in form.” That’s a raw, honest confession. But for me, it feels freeing. Tchaikovsky acknowledged imperfection while still creating works of immense beauty. If he could do that, then maybe I can too.
So I’m learning to recognize when my fear of imperfection is crippling me, and I’m trying to say: “This is finished—not because it’s flawless, but because it’s honest. It’s the best I could give, in this moment, in this season. It reflects my struggle, my growth, and my voice.” And that is enough.