How to Ship Your Worst Work (On Purpose)

Why your first attempt should be terrible, and why that's exactly the point

I made my very first video today...It's terrible.

Let me count the ways: The timing on the voiceover is off. I used an AI voice when I should have used my own. The scenes don't flow right. It needs a smoother introduction. It manages to be simultaneously too long and too short. And, wait for it, this one minute video took me upwards of five hours to make.

For you Parks and Rec fans, this might sound familiar. Remember when Ben Wyatt, unemployed and searching for purpose, spent days creating stop-motion animation only to produce a few seconds of rough claymation? Yeah, Ben Wyatt and I could hang.

But I'm immensely proud of it. Not because I harbor dreams of YouTube stardom, and certainly not because it's any good. I'm proud because I finally put something out there. I'm a firm believer in a simple philosophy: first, make something exist - then make it great.

This isn't just about YouTube videos. It's about that business idea you've been sitting on, that blog post you keep redrafting, or that project you're convinced isn't 'ready' yet. Today, I want to share what I learned from my five-hour adventure in video creation, and why the hardest part often isn't the technical skills - it's pushing past that voice in your head that keeps whispering 'not good enough.'

This mindset - the ability to create something imperfect and still put it out into the world - is something I've talked about before when discussing incrementalism. But today, I want to dig deeper into why this approach matters and how to actually do it when every instinct is screaming at you to keep tweaking, keep perfecting, keep waiting.

The Voice in Your Head

That list of flaws I opened with? That's the voice we all hear when we're creating something new. It's the voice that had me spending timer debating what content to even include, second-guessing every image choice, and yes, seriously contemplating whether to just scrap the whole thing. It's the same voice that tells writers their first draft is garbage, entrepreneurs their MVP isn't ready, and artists their work isn't good enough yet.

During my five hours of creation, I was reminded of something important: perfectionism is really just fear in disguise. We dress it up as attention to detail, as high standards, as craftsmanship. But at its core? It's our mind's sophisticated defense mechanism against potential criticism or failure.

When I caught myself opening yet another tab to research 'just one more thing I could add,' I realized I wasn't making the video better - I was hiding from the scary act of putting it out there. Every new feature, every additional idea became another delay tactic, another way to say 'I'm not ready yet.'

The truth about that voice? It doesn't go away with experience. It doesn't even go away with success. What changes is how you respond to it. Instead of waiting for the voice to quiet down (it won't), you learn to nod at it and keep going anyway.

From Low Stakes to Actually Shipping

First, I reminded myself just how low the stakes really were. I have zero subscribers, no YouTube presence, and absolutely nothing to lose. No one was waiting for this video. No one even knew I was making it except my wife - and she has to love me no matter how bad my videos are, right? So no one was gonna see this. I was safe. Of course, I'm sharing it now with all of you to prove the point about just putting something out there, so that may have backfired. But no matter - I didn't start out with this in mind, and the low stakes helped keep me going!

Why share it? Well, it's easy to talk about embracing imperfection and 'just shipping it' when we're keeping our work safely hidden from view. I figured real growth happens when we're willing to let others see our early, messy attempts. So... yeah, there ya go.

OK, what else helped me hit the old 'publish' button:

I set a hard deadline: Today. Not when it was perfect, not when I had better audio, not when I figured out how to make snazzier transitions. Just today. And not all day - I spent my morning on it and I had to move on. I let time be my driving force.

I made it smaller: I was gonna do a 10-minute video about Stoicism, but that was clearly gonna take too long, so instead I locked in on something short and manageable. I love the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley, so I went with that. Bigger things could wait for future videos.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

And perhaps most importantly, I kept reminding myself that this wasn't my only shot. This video wasn't my magnum opus. It wasn't even trying to be. This was my prototype. My version 0.1. My 'let me make something and learn from it' project. This was to prove that I could actually finish something and put it out there. Putting it in this perspective kept me grounded.

Because here's what I've learned about creativity and building things: the path to better work isn't endless refinement of a single piece - it's through creating many pieces, each one teaching you something new. You can spend months polishing a single video, or you can make ten rough videos and learn ten different lessons about what works and what doesn't. As perfectly illustrated in the parable of the pottery class.

So what did I actually learn from this first attempt? Well, beyond discovering that AI voices sound remarkably void of emotion (shocking, I know), here are the key practical takeaways that apply to pretty much any creative endeavor:

  1. Start before you're ready, but start small. You don't need the perfect setup - basic tools and a clear morning are enough to create something real.

  2. Embrace time constraints. Limited time forces focus - you'll quickly learn to separate the must-haves from the nice-to-haves.

  3. Pick the easiest possible first project. Your goal isn't to make something amazing - it's to learn the basic mechanics of shipping something.

  4. Document frustrations, but don't fix them yet. Keep a list of improvements for next time, but keep moving forward today.

Why This Approach Matters

The temptation to perfect something before sharing it is deeply human. We want to put our best foot forward, to show the world our capabilities at their peak. But there's a paradox at work here: our best work almost never comes from endless polishing - it comes from consistent creation and iteration.

Think about any skill you've mastered. You didn't get better by practicing the same move for months until it was perfect. You got better by trying, failing, adjusting, and trying again. Each attempt taught you something new, and those lessons compound over time.

I think my little video experiment proves this. In just five hours of actually doing the work, I learned more about video creation than I could in weeks of watching tutorials and reading guides. I learned what actually trips me up (timing and flow), what I need to improve (definitely the audio), and what matters less than I thought (fancy transitions).

But more importantly, I exercised an important muscle: the ability to ship. Each time you push through that resistance and put something out there, it actually gets a little easier. The voice of perfectionism gets a touch quieter - or maybe you get better at acknowledging its existence and moving forward anyway.

And this compounds in unexpected ways. When you build the habit of shipping early and often, you:

  • Get real feedback instead of imagining potential criticism

  • Build momentum that carries into future projects

  • Learn to separate your worth from your work's current quality

  • Discover what actually matters to your audience versus what you think should matter

Remember: no one looking at a successful creator's work today sees their early attempts. But those early attempts, shared despite their flaws, were stepping stones to where they are now.

In Conclusion

What started as a story about making a terrible first video reveals something deeper: the courage to begin, the wisdom to start small, and the understanding that done is better than perfect.

And since I'm walking the talk (despite my insides screaming), here's that video I've been talking about. Watch it if you want to see what a first attempt really looks like. Or don't - that's not really the point. The point is that it's there, it exists, and the next one will be better.

Your turn. What will you ship this week?

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