When Good Enough is Perfect 👌

Your September Love Letter + My Creative Essentials Workshop is Here!

J. Faye D'Avanza

Sep 19, 2025

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Keeping Creative Time
it’s never to late to be the creative person you want to be 💖

Me, in my apartment in Rhode Island in 2022, writing in the liminal state that is healing from creative burnout.

“Fear is what blocks an artist. The fear of not being good enough. The fear of not finishing. The fear of failure and of success. The fear of beginning at all. There is only one cure for fear. That cure is love.”

—THE ARTIST’S WAY: A SPIRITUAL PATH TO HIGHER CREATIVITY—
by Julia Cameron

Dear Creative Friends—Four years ago my relationship with fear was one of a warrior in battle. In the photo above, I’d recently quit my job to slay this monster, believing that once they were gone, only then would I would be free to be a great writer.

But great art is not made in fear. And as Julia Cameron writes in Week Nine of The Artist Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, the need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist, the need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all.

So I’m giving myself permission to make good enough art. In fact, I’m going to give myself permission to make a lot of good enough art. And I also want to give you permission to make good enough art, too.

LEFT: A afternoon playing with clay and being led by an amazing teacher in Asheville, Lenny Kyriakoulis. RIGHT: While I was working at my desk, a coworker asked for a book recommendation, and I thought, "Should I mark this down as a reference question?"

Being creative isn’t about doing something perfectly. It’s about showing up, exploring what you notice about yourself, then taking an action.

I often think about creativity, the way I think about my yoga practice. Whether I’m in a group class or at home, the first thing I have to do is show up to my mat.

Showing up is the hardest part.

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Once I’ve arrived, the practice invites me to sit quietly with myself and begin exploring how my body feels. Is my neck tight on the right side? What’s going on with my wrist today? Next, the moment arrives to become aware of my thoughts. Sometimes I get stuck here, and any action I take next is done on autopilot. I’m just going through the motions, following the voice of the teacher and the bodies of the other students. I no longer feel I have agency over my own experience.

Recovering from artist’s block, like recovering from any major illness or injury, requires a commitment to health. At some point we must make an active choice to relinquish the joys and privileges accorded to the emotional invalid. A productive artist is quite often a happy person. This can be very threatening as a self-concept to those who are used to getting their needs met by being unhappy.

—THE ARTIST’S WAY: A SPIRITUAL PATH TO HIGHER CREATIVITY—
by Julia Cameron

This lack of agency over my own experience, is me quite literally stuck in anxiety, even though my body is moving, my head is anywhere but here. At this point, I’m no longer doing yoga. I’m no longer awake for the experience, no longer feeling my body, no longer owning this as my yoga practice, no longer believing I can choose the next pose that is best for me, instead feeling the guilt of not doing the thing I came to this mat to do, of failing, again.

My relationship with my creative practice was a lot like this. Some days it still feels like this. One of the reasons I write is so I can remember. I want to remember that the need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all. And that the fear of failing isn’t always my enemy. It’s in the tension between which is greater, my fear of not creating or my fear of creating that allows me the opportunity to take an action—either make a thing or don’t make a thing.

My formerly unconscious fears of failure, of not being good enough, have stopped me from making many things. Things I really wanted to make after I left my job at the library. Reminder to future self: Not choosing to make a thing because you are afraid, is still a choice. The point of ending that career, after all, was to begin a new one. And now as I navigate an ending (that still feels rather too personal to share) to start, yet another, new beginning in my life, I want to challenge all of us over this next month to become more present with our fear and choose to make a thing anyway.

A good enough thing!

Because a good enough thing is better created than feared.

And when that good enough thing is made in love, it just might become a great thing.

LEFT: I waited a year and a half for a permanant parking spot in downtown Asheville, and it came with a front-row seat to one of my favorite murals. RIGHT: "Good things happen. Love is real. We will be okay."

Creative Questions for September:

What does good enough art mean to you as a hobbyist, a professional, or both? Good enough for me in my hobbies means I’m making time to enjoy them! And good enough in my professional work means I’m moving through projects. (I guess you could say that when it comes to overworking, a big part of that for me is when I allow perfectionism to be my boss. And boy, is she relentless! You don’t want to work for her.)
If you were to aim for good enough rather than perfect (which doesn’t exist!), how might that change your experience with creating?
For this one, I like to think about my former relationship with cooking. My focus was often on making the dish exactly as the recipe was written, and any deviation due to lack of skill, equipment, ingredient, or timing, left me feeling like I’d failed or cheated. It was less about the pleasure of cooking, and more about perfecting a product. (Oh, Instagram, why did you once encourage my love of sharing food and photography to become only fuel for perfectionism?) I actually gave up cooking as a hobby for awhile to recover from this. I’m slowly finding my way back in and excited to see how the concept of good enough could actually nourish me.
Where does fear live in your body? Mine lodges itself in my right hip. I know exactly where to massage it when it needs a loving touch. In fact, that’s probably what I should do right now, I have been sitting for way too long.

Buy The Artist's Way

🛠️ Upcoming Workshops + Events With Me 🌱

Brand New Workshop Launching with Inward & Artward’s
(New!) Online School of Creativity

🧳 Creative Essentials: How to Care for Your Creativity When Things Fall Apart
🗓️ Six Weeks | Thursdays, October 16, 23, 30 and November 6, 13, 20 with Bonus Creative Coworking Hours on Mondays, October 20, 27 and November 3, 10, 17
🕰️ Class: Thursdays 6:30-8:30pm | Coworking: Mondays 1-2pm
📍Online
💸 Sliding scale $325-$425

Reclaim your power to create and experience joy with essential tools for grounding your nervous system, connecting with your heart, and nourishing your body, mind, and soul in this six-week workshop to support resiliency and growth for creative seekers who are rebuilding after life has fallen apart.

“We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart.”

—Pema Chödron, When Things Fall Apart

Where You’ll Find Me in the Community This Month

📚 September 23 | Craft Your Commerce Fall Book Club ft. How to Not Always Be Working by Cody Cook-Parrot and facilitated by yours truly
5:30-7:30pm, Print House, Asheville, NC

☕️ September 24 | 15-Minute Creative Coffee Chats
9:30-11:30am, Cooperative Coffee, Asheville, NC

Included with each 15-minute session is an opportunity to participate in the Seasonal Nourish Your Creative Relationship Challenge. It’s a free, fun way to practice caring for yourself and your creativity throughout the changing seasons.

Not in Asheville? No problem! Book a virtual free 15-minute Creative Rx Session, and I’ll send you an invite to the Seasonal Nourish Your Creative Relationship Challenge.

Until Next Time

Remember, it’s never to late to be the creative person you want to be.

Take care y’all, and thanks for being here with me. Let’s cheer—to time! <3Faye

P.S. Before you go, enjoy a song from the playlist I call . . . Odes to Time.

Miley Cyrus —“Wrecking Ball”—Bangerz, 2013.