I am very excited to finally share Beyond the Big House, a podcast hosted by me about creativity and criminal justice.
This podcast has taken nearly two years to produce and I can now say I am incredibly proud of myself for finally hitting publish and overcoming the fear, perfectionism, and self-doubt that held me back from doing so for a long time.
Perfectionism eh. That old beast.
It rears its ugly head every now and then but usually I can recognise it and put things in place to make sure I continue to take action and work towards an end goal – which eventually means simply letting go of the need to be perfect. In this instance though it was incredibly difficult to let go of.
I had this constant fear in the back of my mind that I would be judged by others: That what I was planning on putting out in the world wasn’t good enough; That the music wasn’t good enough; That the interviewing technique I used wasn’t good enough; That the production wasn’t good enough; And on and on and on it went.
The judgement of my own work meant that in the process of creating I was stifling my own creativity by having expectations so high that I couldn’t achieve them.
This then stopped me from finishing because I thought ‘Well if I don’t launch it then no-one will see it and no-one will be able to judge me’.
But over time it kept eating away at me at the back of my mind. Something was telling me that I had all these amazing conversations with incredible people, such as Warren Maxwell, Lisa D’Onofrio, Tony Bull, Marietta Martinovic, David Inocencio, and Jeff Hamilton, and that I would be so disappointed in myself if I did’t launch it. I knew that if I just let all these great conversations sit there it would always weigh on me, this feeling of not finishing something that I knew deep down would potentially be great, but that my thinking was telling me wasn’t up to scratch.
When lockdown and isolation became a reality I had more time to be at home and create and I found myself once again working on it, for the first time in months. I began looking at the different music I could include. My partner Anthony recorded the voice over and I began once again enjoying the process of creating rather than putting too much emphasis on the end product.
Then of course there was the deadline of baby due which is August 6th. It had to be done by then, or it would never get done. So that was it. In the last few weeks as that date has approached I just did one little thing every day to work towards that end goal and by 24th July it was ready.
Pressing publish was equal parts exciting and nerve wracking. But I know that whenever I put new work or my creativity out into the world there is always a moment of vulnerability followed by other wonderful feelings like pride, achievement, gratitude, excitement, fulfilment, anticipation, accomplishment and satisfaction.
When I can let go of the need to be perfect I can enjoy how good it feels to achieve something I have worked hard for and to give myself the gift of doing so.
So there you have it. Series 1 of Beyond the Big House is out now and includes some incredible conversations with people from Australia, New Zealand and the United States about creative projects, innovations, and ways of working with people in the criminal justice system. I already have several people lined up for Series 2.
Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and if you enjoy it I would truly appreciate you leaving a review of the show on Apple Podcasts and sharing it with someone you know.
Enjoy!
Tess x
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