SELF-HANDICAPPING - by Emetekefe Akpovwovwo

“Oh it is not good enough, I don’t think people will like it.” “I don’t want to look like I don’t know what I am doing.” Yadiyadiyadi! Hmmm. In a nutshell, you don’t want anyone to judge you. Do you know what this is? Self-handicapping. Let me share a powerful line I recently came across: “Compulsive avoidance of embarrassment is a form of suicide.” It was by Colin Marshall. However, I found it in Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work, which I must admit feels less like a book and more like a very clever pal nudging you to say “Come on, share your stuff.” Kleon is not just another author for me. Since I picked up Steal Like An Artist, he became one of those rare voices in my life who I really trust. He writes like he gets me, no pressure, no fluff, just solid advice, and the fonts in his books make me feel at home. Now let’s come back to Marshall’s quote; “Compulsive avoidance of embarrassment is a form of suicide.” It is the heavy truth we are not brave enough to say out loud. Marshall is not referring to literal self-harm. Rather, it is the blunt reality of the potential that we are capable of coming to life at. The urge to be perfect is what leads to being dormant or inactive, that feeling of being frozen when one attempts to do something. We persuade ourselves with statements such as, "It has to be done right or it is not worth doing at all." As a result, we end up waiting and searching for that ideal day. If only people realize there is never that one perfect day for things to be executed therefore it is better to do them and share without waiting. You have that idea. That story. That video. That painting. That business. That thing burning inside you, yet, you keep waiting for the perfect time. The perfect plan. The perfect mood. The perfect YOU because God forbid you post that video and someone laughs or you share your poem and nobody claps. Or you finally put yourself out there and people think it’s “not that good.” So you wait and tweak and second-guess. Until all the initial excitement, the fire, the ginger, the magic fades into dust. We think we are protecting ourselves by not acting but we are not. We are just postponing life. We are trading real progress for imagined perfection and that, my friend, is the slowest form of creative death. The truth is Nobody escapes embarrassment. Especially not the ones doing brave, meaningful work. The only people who never get embarrassed are the ones who never show up. So please, show up. Let it be messy. Let people see your rough edges. Let them misunderstand you. Let them scroll past your work but let them see you doing the thing because perfection is a myth but progress is real and it starts the moment you stop hiding from being seen. Self-handicapping is a peaceful give up to the petrifying feeling of scrutiny, and in some sense, it absolutely is a form of killing oneself not physically, but of the spirit that longs to create, connect, and simply exist. I was guilty of self-handicapping until I realized what I was doing to myself. Let me ask you, what fantastic things are you postponing because you expect everything to be “perfect”? Perhaps it's time to begin, right at this moment, with what you possess. No more SELF-HANDICAPPING.

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