“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” Thank you GK Chesterton for that.
With that one sentence, you’ve taught me that taking action without perfection could very well be my gateway to a new habit, that million-dollar book deal, or my dream job (that I’ve yet to determine).
You’ve also taught me that the doubts I’m feeling when writing this article doesn’t really matter. Because writing is worth it. Thus it’s worth doing badly.
So, you ready for a badly-written article? Because I know I am.
Breaking bad-ly
I have to admit, I’ve let a lot of opportunities pass me by because I like everything to line up before even attempting anything. That’s probably why I fall into random rabbit holes so often.
Like, do I need to be able to perform a certain number of pull-ups before I try rock climbing? What brand equipment should I buy? How many people have died from it in the past year?
And that’s just for one hobby.
I’d just started cooking and baking. You’ll be amazed at the things you can look up just for one recipe alone. What does reducing sugar do to a cake? Is there a difference between convection and conventional ovens? And what happens if I use baking powder instead of baking soda?
So many questions, so many things to google (yes, ‘google’ is a verb, thanks to another trip down the rabbit hole).
But you know what would’ve saved my weeks and weeks of pointless googling? Just following the damn recipes without doing all the pointless research.
That’s why I think it’s important to do things badly rather than to aim for perfection, or even ‘good enough’. Because I could screw up, but a lesson learned is much better than not doing anything at all.
Practise until you can’t get it wrong
One of the biggest perspective shifts for me is looking at practice as a way of fine-tuning my inadequacies instead of striving for perfection.
One encourages me to stumble through my imperfections and to constantly improve (do better than you did yesterday) while the other paints an ideal that may or may not be achievable (get good, noob).
With the internet constantly feeding us the best the world has to offer, it’s easy to feel like we don’t deserve to buy a pair of running shoes because people like David Goggins ran a hundred miles on broken feet.
But you know what happens if we based our choices on others’ pursuits? Nothing. Because we’d never run, and we’d never find out just where our limits are.
When in doubt, act
I can’t outthink the problems in my head. This is especially true when it comes to emotions. You know the cliché of faking it till you make it? Yeah that stuff works.
I’m not saying that you can fake happiness when you’re clinically depressed, but you can certainly coax your brain into think you’re an active person if you actually stay active every day.
So what if it’s just a walk around the block? I still worked out. Maybe tomorrow I can walk further. And the week after that I can start running. Pretty soon, I’ll end up running 10 kilometres just for fun, and all that just because I didn’t let perfection get in the way.
That’s also how I got into writing. You think I magically created a blog and people automatically liked what I posted? My lord, man, if you only saw the stuff I posted when I just started.
But I kept blogging badly, and little by little, I worked out the tiny details I could improve on, until finally, I’ve managed to fool some of you into thinking that I’m a much more accomplished writer than I actually am.
Would I have been able to do this by reading every ‘how to blog’ before publishing my first post? I don’t think so. While thinking has its place, all my best achievements in life were gotten through action.
Don’t mistake ‘badly’ for ‘half-assed’
If you’re still resisting the thought of doing things badly, then you’re probably thinking about half-assing things. But you should know that there are nuances to this rule. The most important being that we want to free ourselves from the results, not the intent.
Sure, you may suck at drawing, and your first attempts at sketching the human head may resemble the Teletubbies more than anything, but that doesn’t mean you’re half-assing things.
Choosing to draw despite the lack of talent is doing something badly. Not learning the ratios of the human head is half-assing.
However, I have to add that there is a virtue to half-assery. And that’s you actually doing stuff. Plus, if we’ve learned anything from the previous point, it’s that action is better than nothing, right?
So what am I getting at, you ask? Simple. There is a difference between doing bad work and half-assing things, but it doesn’t really matter.
The shitty first draft
Which brings us to writing. We all have an idea of what ‘good writing’ is supposed to look like—a blog post needs subheadings and images, a novel would benefit from a three-act structure, characters need to be fully fleshed out…
And while forgetting best practices isn’t ideal, you know what’s worse? Not writing in the first place.
Oh, there are a ton of reasons why we might choose not to write, such as the fear of being judged, thinking there’s such a thing as perfection, or being professional procrastinators, to name some.
But coming up with a shitty first draft is much better than formulating the best story in the world—that stays in your head.
What have we learned so far? That action is the prerequisite to reaching our goals. And much like faking it till you make it, you’ll have to write your way to a finished story. There’s no thinking your way to a better draft.
It’s just like Hemingway said: “If you want to donate blood, just sit down at your typewriter.” Or something to that effect.
“I definitely think that if you can make peace with the fact that you will likely have to throw out 90 percent of your first draft, then you can relax and even almost enjoy “writing badly.” —Karen Russell
The things I do badly
I love being a bumbling idiot. In fact, I could argue that most of my young adulthood was just me completing a crash course in general idiocy (only chasing the next high, moving to another country for a girl I’d just met, spending my days sleeping and nights playing video games, I could go on).
But more than anything, I hope that by showing how much of a fool I am, I could in turn inspire you to do more than you normally would’ve. Because if some rando from Malaysia could do it, I’m sure you can, right?
So here are some of the beneficial things I sometimes do badly:
- Learning Chinese: I only memorise two characters a day, and I do a pretty bad job at that too. Asian characters don’t come naturally to me, but now I know a few hundred words that I didn’t before.
- Exercise: Most times I’m just trying to maintain the unbroken chain of working out every day, and for that to happen, I go into my routines aiming for 60% effort. I usually end up pushing harder though.
- Writing: This is where my 250-words-a-day habit started. I wrote entire novels at this pace, and it’s important to note that I often surpass my initial target too.
- Chores: Every time I think I can’t deal with the chores, I start with something small like wiping the kitchen counter. Once I get into the groove though, branching out into mopping becomes that much easier.
- Blogging: Technically still writing, but this is specific to blogging. When I have a looming deadline but no inspiration, I search for images and create my post scaffolding with lorem ipsum, complete with subheadings and tags. Seeing the post take shape usually motivates me to actually write it.
It’s always easier to make something better
…than to start in the first place. That’s why it’s important to do things badly.
Because what happens after you start is the brain gets over the inertia and accepts the activity as your new normal. And pretty soon, you’ll be wondering how you painted that entire canvas when you just wanted to fill in a colour or two.
Maybe that’s how we should approach life. To judge things not by the outcome of our attempts, but our intention to try in the first place.
Yet some of you may be trying super hard in life right now, and you may think that you’re doing badly. You might think that this means you suck. But I’d argue the contrary.
I’d say it means your life is worth doing.
It’s also worth signing up to my newsletter because I’ll send you badly-written emails. Also exclusive.
Stuart Danker 
I’d love to hear your thoughts!