Am I good at painting? Not particularly. Am I the best at crocheting? Not really. Am I the world’s best baker? Nope, I’m always making mistakes.

And yet, I continue to do these things all the time.

Pursuing a wide variety of creative activities allows me to develop my skills and try out new things. But most importantly, they let me fail. It’s been so important for my self-growth to allow myself to fail, especially in these low-stakes and controlled environments. 

Every time I fail, I learn something and become better on the other side of it. Failing helps me feel prepared to take the bigger risks in life and know that I will be alright if they don’t work out. No matter how spectacularly I fail in my life, I know that I’ve exposed myself to failure so many times before and came out unscathed. 

It’s nice to do something not because it’s going to be perfect but because I want to challenge myself. As a perfectionist, it’s hard to do something and not feel the need for it to be 100% amazing. However, it’s still worthwhile if it’s 95% amazing, or even 80%. Making something 40% of the way still teaches me 40% more than if I had just done nothing.

As we enter into a new year and new semester, it can be tempting to think of all the ways you’re going to become perfect this time around. All the things you’re going to fix about yourself or get right this time. You might make resolutions to work out more, eat healthier, read some books or learn a new language. But I encourage you to add one more thing to that list, one thing that you can actually accomplish and grow from: Allow yourself to fail this year.

In 2025, I will continue to make bad paintings and mediocre crochet cardigans because everything doesn’t have to be perfect all of the time. I just need to have fun and learn from my mistakes.