Ever feel like your creative work has to be perfect every single time? In this episode of “Follow Your Curiosity,” I share that elite athletes only succeed half the time—and why creative people should lower their expectations and embrace imperfection, too. Discover how shifting your mindset can help you get unstuck, trust the process, and keep going, even if you miss more “shots” than not. If you believe every project you start has to turn out well, this episode is for you.
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Transcript: What Pro Athletes Know that Creative Perfectionists Need to Learn
Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Did you know that highly ranked professional athletes rarely ever make more than 50% of their shots? I did not know this until recently. I was reading something completely unrelated to sports because I’m sure it will shock you that I am not a particular sports ball fan. And it blew my mind. Like I knew that obviously not everybody can make every shot.
Nancy Norbeck [00:00:43]:
That’s just not even human. I’m not sure even a robot could do that. But I did not realize that the number was that low. And of course, if you are a sports fan, you’re probably listening to this thinking, no, no, that’s really high. That’s incredible. Right? And yet to someone who didn’t know, I would have thought that it was more like, I don’t know, 75%, not as low as 50. That’s half. And those are the really, really good ones.
Nancy Norbeck [00:01:14]:
And that really got me thinking because creative perfectionists would never ever go for 50%. I’m Nancy and I’m a creativity coach here with this week’s creative pep talk. I’m Nancy and I’m a creativity and anti perfectionism coach here with this week’s creative pep talk, because really creative people tend to think that they have to get everything perfect every time. And by creative people, honestly, I mean, most of us, if not all of us, that’s a different subject for a different day. And I’ve talked about that before. But if you think about it, when you sit down to work on your big project, you are not thinking, maybe this is one of the 50% that won’t be any good. I’m sure that there are people who do think that, but most of us don’t think that way. Most of us think this is what I wanna create.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:09]:
This is how it’s gonna be. This is the picture I have in my head, and it has to absolutely match the picture that’s in my head, or I haven’t done it well enough. And we think that it has to be absolutely picture perfect. We could hang it in a museum or sing it at the opera house or whatever. But man, those pro athletes, they don’t do that. I mean, I’m sure that they are aiming to make every shot, obviously, but they also know that realistically, it’s not gonna happen. They’re gonna make it maybe 50% of the time If they’re really good. So why is it that creative people like to torture ourselves about this? That was really the question that popped into my head when I read this.
Nancy Norbeck [00:02:55]:
And I just, I think that there’s something different that comes into the creative baggage because if we can’t do it well enough, we either give up right away or we don’t start at all because we know it won’t be any good. That’s my kind of perfectionism, unfortunately, and many others. And it’s an unrecognized form of perfectionism, which I think maybe I’ll talk more about another time. But but, you know, we we think it’s gotta be that way. We think that if we can’t do it right right out the gate, it’s not good enough in the end. Therefore, we’re just not meant to do it. I’ve been rereading Kelly Flanagan’s book lovable, and he talks at one point about how when we try new things, we get out our divining rods. And if we haven’t done them well enough or if circumstances don’t line up perfectly for us or whatever, the words that come out of our own internal divination are, I guess this just isn’t meant for me.
Nancy Norbeck [00:03:57]:
Is that true? Not necessarily. We haven’t even started. We haven’t learned anything yet. We haven’t built up the foundation that we need to know. Okay. I’ve tried this for a certain amount of time now and it’s not working and I’m not loving it. And this just, I think I’m gonna move on to something that I wanna do more. No.
Nancy Norbeck [00:04:18]:
This is a dejected self rejecting, I guess this isn’t meant for me. And we slink off in shame that at least in some small part, we’ve put on ourselves by making this decision without much basis and assume that we’re a failure. 50% man, 50% for good athletes, really good athletes. I really would invite you to start thinking of yourself as one of those elite athletes. Who’s only expected to make it 50% of the time. It’s not that you’re not aiming to get it every time, but realistically that’s not gonna happen. But those athletes don’t give up because they missed 45 to 50% of their shots. They don’t, they keep going.
Nancy Norbeck [00:05:09]:
They keep going because they love it. They keep going because there’s something in them that won’t let them give up, which I think is something that creative folks, we need to work on that. And then they end up rising to the top of their game, very literally. We can do the same if we had a little more faith in ourselves, if we trusted the process a little more, and if we allowed for the fact that we are not gonna make anywhere near every single shot, but it’s still worth making the shot anyway. So think about that. Give it a try as always. I hope you’ll let me know what you think And I’m I’m here if you need me to help you get to the point where 50 doesn’t seem so bad anymore, because it really isn’t. With that, I’ll see you next time.
Nancy Norbeck [00:06:00]:
If this episode resonated with you or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at the spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage. It’s free, and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there, and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by JosephIf you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.