CREATIVE ARCHETYPES: THE FAILURE TOLERANCE TO PERFECTIONISM SCALE

Now this one might actually surprise you.

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On our endless quest to inculcate more people into the cult of creativity, we created 16 creative archetypes based on four different scales of material, psychic, and existential measurement. Each scale is a sort of fluid spectrum — honestly, almost a circle by the time you get to either pole. In this series, we explain each scale and how it contributes to creative practice.

THE FAILURE TOLERANCE TO PERFECTIONIST SCALE

Satisficing is a decision-making strategy that aims for an adequate result, rather than the optimal solution. It’s the academic term for the “eh, good enough” attitude employed by pubescent boys with sub par hygiene for time in memorium.

At first blush, satisficing seems like the klonopin to perfectionism’s adderrall — it’s polar opposite. But that’s only if you *really* don’t understand the essence of perfectionism. (Lucky you!) Real perfectionists know perfectionism isn’t about quality — it’s about fragility.

The opposite of perfectionism isn’t satisficing. Its failure tolerance.

An archetypal Failure Tolerant

Some freaks of nature are born with innate failure tolerance, but for most of us its a learned behavior. A strong failure tolerance muscle indicates a tendency toward delusion (complimentary), endurance, and probably short- and long term memory loss.

Those who score high on the failure tolerance scale are unembarrassed by effort or earnestness. This could be because they have the self-awareness of Jennifer Lopez’s new film, which is to say, absolutely none at all.

Or, it could be that they’re simply too busy to spend a precious second of their lives wallowing in shame. They have things to do, and being distracted by the mortification of existence is not on the list.

Sure, you’re battling full-body nausea because of second-hand cringe as you watch them bomb in real time as they try their hand at stand up comedy during your company’s 3p Wednesday Zoom happy hour, but they’re too preoccupied already drafting a new series of jokes in their head to notice they’ve been muted by the host as an act of charity. On to the next.

A certain level of failure tolerance is necessary for success. Imagine a salesperson without failure tolerance. They’d pitch one customer, get a no, and never try again. But we know that the average salesperson probably needs to attempt to sell to at least 100 customers just to convert three or four of them. (and btw, that’d be a good conversion rate)

At their best, failure tolerant people use their missteps to rapidly iterate and improve. They’re prolific creatives, churning out experiments that are occasionally brilliant and often mediocre. The marvelous thing about this tactic is that people really only remember the brilliance. When you’re prolific, the delta for making stinkers that don’t affect your public persona is huge. Think: Pablo Picasso (13,500 paintings, over 100,000 engravings) Woody Allen (64 movies), Kylie Minogue (28 albums), Smokey Robinson (wrote over 4,000 songs).

Watching a Failure Tolerant high scorer work is like watching National Geographic footage of a catepillar turning into a butterfly at 20x speed. They are constantly evolving, dissolving from one form into the next without any preciousness.

And they make mistakes. Big ones. All the time.

Mistakes are portals of discovery.

Penicillin, the microwave, Post-Its! All famous mistakes.

For a Failure Tolerant person, there is no such thing as an unfortunate end. A loss. A finale. One door opens the next, and even if the tide is low now, Failure Tolerants know that eventually (if you stick around long enough) the waters will rise again.

The risks of temporarily “failing” are worth the reward of experience.

Failure tolerance gets tedious when the subject moves forward without assessing their previous work, and what needs to be improved or changed. At their worst, Failure Tolerants are a walking definition of insanity — creating the same thing over and over again, getting the same outcome.

It’s easy to get frustrated with a Failure Tolerant’s laziness, especially when they’re innately talented. Chipping away at a concept is muscular work; objectively and scientifically, it’s haaaawd!

Failure Tolerant high scorers aren’t always up to the task, and would prefer to skate along the superficial surface and smash the Easy Button while projecting progress (because they’re making stuff, right?) than push to dive deeper.

Failure Tolerance or Perfectionism? You decide.

Failure Tolerant people are commonly miscast by others as Perfectionists. The difference is that Failure Tolerants continue to practice repeatedly, seeking outside feedback, tinkering, adapting, adjusting. They’re pretty public.

Perfectionists make once, and disappear, preferring to edit and futz and self-flaggelate in private.

Failure Tolerant-leaning archetypes: Trailblazer, Shapeshifter, Innovator, Reflector, Magician, Dancer, Channel, Creatrix

“But what if mistakes are actually the worst thing that could possibly happen.” - Perfectionism

97.7458% of the creatives we’ve interviewed cite perfectionism as their ultimate creative nemesis. The concept of perfectionism isn’t discerning — it’ll happily haunt anyone and everyone — but the muscle of perfectionism is a different beast.

People who score high on the Perfectionist scale measure three times, rework their math to make sure the measurements are the best they could possibly be, measure again, go on a coffee break to think about the best tool to cut with, text their creative contemporaries heeeeey so do you prefer to use scissors or an X-acto knife lol i’m so torn!, put up a poll about cutting implements on Twitter, journal on the symbolic differences of blades, measure their fabric one more time for good measure, and finally make their cut.

They’re intelligent, empathetic, and respectful of their audience and their craft. Perfectionists are Game Theory experts who’ve played out every scenario in their mind — the wonderful, the terrible, the scary — and prepared for all potentials… but mostly stay in an athletic-ready squat so they’re ready for the worst case to punch them in the gut.

They don’t take their work lightly, and that’s because they know that to be chosen by The Muse to shepherd an Idea into the physical world is a rare gift. It’s important to them that they do right by the inspiration that courses through the wrinkles of your brain with the force of a Raging Waters waterslide. In fact, if they have any doubt that they can execute on an idea to its fullest incarnation, they’d rather not. They’d prefer not to start then to fall even a degree short of their vision.

Obviously, this is a double-edged sword. But in our modern world, deliberate diligence is more rare than … well, something really really rare.

Patience is a Perfectionist superpower.

Excellent graph from our friends at Reset NYC (see Liz Tran’s SPACIES interview)

Incubating an idea, letting it ferment and age and develop into something different and more powerful is a rare form of alchemy in an age where we don’t just have the tools to instantly birth a creative idea and publish it to millions but we’re *expected* to Shein-ify our work. Make a lot, quickly, according to what the market demands in this moment (knowing that the winds will change in 0.43 seconds), and pay no mind to originality or quality.

High-scoring Perfectionism people’s self-concept is about as fragile as the mental constitution of a member of the Habsberg Dynasty, which is to say, extremely delicate and terrifyingly precarious. They have a hard time bouncing back from anything — even an innocuous comment could be interpreted as a veiled (yet brutal!) critique. Float like a butterfly, sting like a tactical nuke.

Perfectionism high scorers are painfully self-aware. This results in a near-constant mental hum of brutal judgement, which makes you afraid to act and also drowns out whispers of inspiration from the Muse. Double homicide!

At their worst, they perform for ego’s sake, and become miserly with the gifts they worship by hiding them away from the world for fear of a critique that would shatter their self-perception... buddy... that’s loser behavior. It will surprise you exactly zero percent that this is not the ideal strategy for embodying your own flava of creative genius!

Perfectionism-leaning archetypes: Architect, Intellectual, Producer, Inventor, Innovator, Engineer, Author, Quicksilver, StarHere’s the thing about these two worlds — they need each other.

We need each other

Without the tempering of Perfectionism, a Failure Tolerance is Sisyphean. Rolling that stupid rock up the hill only to have it roll back down. Without Failure Tolerance, Perfectionism is a creative chastity belt. It might keep you “safe” but it surely will cockblock experiences that will help you evolve and transform.

When you know what side of the spectrum you tend towards, you know your cozy-comfy working place. You also know the medicine you crave — the other end of the spectrum.

Curious about where you fall on the Ordinary World to Special World spectrum? Take the SPACIES Creative Archetype quiz.

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