Is The Need To Be ‘Good’ Keeping You Trapped?

“I’m tired of being good, now all I want is to be FREE” – Glennon Doyle Melton.

I heard this line on one of Elizabeth Gilbert’s podcast episodes last year, and it didn’t strike a chord with me until recently when I’ve been given permission to do things badly at two different occasions; a contemporary dance class and a creative writing class.

Is the need to be good at doing what you love keeping you trapped? If so, keep reading. Have you ever walked out of a class at the gym because you couldn’t get the moves right? How many times have you held yourself back from singing out loud in front of others when your favorite song is playing on the radio? How many times have you turned down invitations to dance at a wedding party, because you said: “you can’t dance?”

Remember that short novel you gave up on completing? Or that poem in the notes section on your phone that you can’t get yourself to post or delete? How about that high school sketchbook that you hid in storage? “But my technique is not quite right,” you’ll say. “My writing is shit, the storyline is weak, my voice is too raspy and my moves are weird.”

You’ve been telling yourself that you’re not ‘good’ enough or not good at all. Well, let me say it for you…YOU SUCK​!

But has it ever occurred to you that you don’t have to be good at doing what you love​ in order to do it? We’re not even talking about being perfect because your definition of being good is probably already somewhere near perfection.

If being ‘good’ stops you from creating, then stop trying to be good and start trying to be real. To be real is to be vulnerable, to be messy, to make mistakes, to be human. So embrace your human nature and set yourself free.

NOW THAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE GOOD, YOU CAN BE FREE!

Free to write. Free to dance. Free to create. Free to express. Free to do it all badly! Because being good is overrated.