It’s OK to not be the best

I was reading an article in Smithsonian Magazine titled Renoir’s Controversial Second Act. While the new understanding of Renoir’s late period is fascinating, I was really struck by something the artist said when he was 72. “I’m starting to know how to paint,” he commented.

It took him 50 years and thousands of pieces until he finally knew how to paint. Renoir was one of the great masters, but he spent the majority of his career knowing that he wasn’t as good as those who had preceded him. So why do we worry about being perfect at something? Why do we wait to do something until we’re “good enough”?

Keep working at what you love. You don’t have to be the best right now.

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  • http://tdhurst.com tdhurst

    Though I'd like to throw Seth Godin's advice from The Dip at you, I think he goes a little bit too far for most people.

    Being the best is less important than striving to do YOUR best.

  • http://matthewpetro.wordpress.com Matthew Petro

    I totally agree. Renoir spent the second half of his career trying to achieve the level of mastery reached by the Renaissance greats. He strove constantly to do his best and to improve upon it. But he didn't let the fact that he wasn't the yet the best paralyze him.

  • http://chris.ly/ Chris Lee

    Seth also speaks to this when he talks about shipping. Trying to make everything good enough or perfect gets in the way of shipping. Sounds like Renoir had the discipline of shipping under control having created thousands of pieces before he “knew how to paint.” Trying to get better about that myself/ourselves. Ship…

  • http://matthewpetro.wordpress.com Matthew Petro

    Renoir created over 4,000 paintings in his lifetime. He was a master at constant refinement. In software development, there's a lot of emphasis on agile development methodologies, which feature short, iterative cycles which allow for small but constant refinement and improvement. Renoir pretty much did that with his paintings.

    There's a lot to be said for just getting things done, learning from them and moving on.

  • http://twitter.com/krysvs krystoferJames

    this may be the BEST blog post ever.

    but seriously…

    I'm going through The Artist's Way, and one of the things it's inspired me to do is just create with the tools I have and share it even if it's not perfect. I've historically written countless half-songs in my head that I've never shared because I get paralyzed by my self-imposed expectations and restrictions.

    Thanks for the reminder that even that French painter guy thought he sucked.

  • http://matthewpetro.wordpress.com Matthew Petro

    I'm glad this connected with you. There's definitely something to be said for just doing. Renoir clearly had some natural talent for painting, but he didn't get to be a famous artist by not painting.

  • http://matthewpetro.wordpress.com Matthew Petro

    I'm glad this connected with you. There's definitely something to be said for just doing. Renoir clearly had some natural talent for painting, but he didn't get to be a famous artist by not painting.