You fail 100% of the shots you don’t take. Why the fear of failure is holding back young creatives.

By Jack Badu

1. It’s okay not to be perfect. That’s what makes us human. What I fear is that the pursuit of perfection will deter individuals from picking up a pen, opening a Word document, or asking for advice. 

2. We’re consuming a lot of information with specific agendas that are more often than not polarising us to believe that we must conform to a particular standard. I’m hoping to unlearn the thing that makes me fear judgement. I’m hoping to create discourse around growth and development. Let’s normalise the journey over constantly having to be the final product. 

This is the advice I wish I had 20 years ago in school as I battled with many aspects of reading and writing. If you’re not great at it and find it difficult, you should stop. 

Statistics show that only 16% of people in creative jobs are from working-class backgrounds, compared to almost a third of all workers from these origins. People from privileged backgrounds are more than twice as likely to land a job in the industry.

What does this mean in terms of the bigger picture? We’re creating a narrow view catering to the warped gaze of individuals who will see the world in a certain way. 

Creativity isn’t a privilege that only some should be able to exercise because they’ve reached a point of being “verified.” 

Let’s turn things on their head and allow all those who feel their inner child has something to express. Yeah, it might not be profound or industry standard, but that’s the beauty of the process. 

If an individual is willing to work on their craft, they have the capacity to grow, and that, in itself, is all that matters.