A Simple Mindset Shift: Iteration, Not Rejection

Okay, I fully admit I stole this idea and I’m more than happy to give the original author credit, because it is one of the most brilliant and helpful things I’ve read about creativity. It comes from hand-sewer Louisa Merry (in my non-writing life I’m an avid stitcher and knitter), and did I already mention that it is brilliant? It is brilliant.

So here you go. Louisa talks about the concept of iteration, as in a repetitive practice of some sort. In one of her classes in design school, students quickly sketched dress after dress. The point was quantity, not quality. And she freely admits that most of the drawings were not useable. Yet there always were some that were not only usable, but quite good. Excellent even.

From this exercise, she learned the concept of iteration:

And on a macro level, each morning when I wake early and sit down at my work table, ready to try again at my creative work? That feels iterative, too. Having a daily artistic practice of working toward something cool, and not quite knowing how to reach the end, is a practice in repetition, progression, and faith. It's a way of trusting in the messy middle, and knowing that out of messy middles come beautiful results.

One of the best parts of iteration is that there's no such thing as "rejection." It's simply a fact that many of the iterations will not pan out -- that's inherent in the process. So instead, you can focus on making more iterations, moving forward, thinking forward. If you put yourself out there enough times, something is likely to work out. Or maybe several somethings. And the ones that didn't? Ha! You may not even remember the things that didn't work out, because you'll be too busy focusing on the ones that did.

I love this line: “It’s simply a fact that many of the iterations will not pan out—that’s inherent in the process.” You can apply this to rejection, and you can apply this to writing as well. And it can even be applied to the “messy middle” (which we writers are all too familiar with) also.

I haven’t fully internalized this idea yet, but I can see already that the resulting mind-shift is life-changing. Instead of wringing your hands over a rejection, you see it as simply part of the process of moving forward. Instead of getting stalled in the middle of your project, you trust that iterating it—trying different solutions—will show you the way out.

A simple mindset shift, a brain-game, and there you are—much farther ahead in your writing.

You can read the newsletter where Louisa wrote about this here. And if you have any interest in hand sewing, sign up for it! And here’s her website.