During the masterful opening scene of The Social Network Rooney Mara’s Erica Albright tells Jesse Eisenberg’s Mark Zuckerberg that, “just because something’s trite doesn’t make it any less true.”

When it comes to our creative endeavours I tend to find, more often that not, she’s right. Our creativity is a journey. Yup. It sounds like the kind of insufferable phrase you’d find in a Board of Studies-mandated booklet. But I think it’s true — along with a great many others.

An important part of the journey is looking back at our work and studying, not just the bits we like, but the bits that make us cringe. It might be a line, or a direction, a shot or an entire short film. It’s important for many reasons to endure the cringe and look back.

Often we judge ourselves based on the standards of those we admire — I’ve previously referred to Ira Glass’ The Gap — and as he says, we need to accept the time and effort it takes to repeatedly fail and subsequently improve in our creative pursuits. This through the frame of aspiring to make work that meets the quality of works we admire. Digressing for a moment, this is extremely common — and Ira Glass beautifully hit the nail on the head. My favourite painter is Jackson Pollock. When I look at his early work I see some fairly boring imitations of Picasso. Francis Bacon, same deal.

Once you’ve passed the paralysis of comparison (although I have to say it frequently revists), and you have enough work to look back on, there’s a lot to dig into.

Divorcing our work from various elements involved in making them can be tough, but without reflection we can’t grow. Maybe a project was made during the ending of a relationship; maybe you don’t speak to that colleague anymore; maybe you’d stubbornly ignored the advice of your team and pushed on with your vision, to the detriment of the finished product. Regardless, it has to be done.

I don’t mean what I write next as hubris or arrogance… for me looking back has lost a lot of the cringe. It feels somewhat like an immunity; watching my old work, accepting the context it was made in. Taking pride in my younger self. Acknowledging that — although the finished work might be weaker than individual factors — I can appreciate that shot, that cut, those decisions.

I might hate bits and pieces. I might wish I’d done things differently — if I had my chance again I know that I would. But I wouldn’t have developed without fumbling about.

I’ve written before — and spoken with colleagues many times — about having a silo mentality toward work; to try and separate your egos to limit their impact on each phase of production. The person you were when you wrote the script is not the same person who directed the production, who isn’t the same person who worked in post. So remember to allow your younger selves to be frozen in time, as other people, and have empathy toward them. Look back and see how inexperienced they were, how much they’ll learn on the project and what they did right.

Maybe it won’t work for you, but it’s how I look back at most of my work now. More often than not I look back with a sense of accomplishment and a smirk, rather than a cringe.

Joshua Lundberg is a Writer and Director at Barking Mouse®, and co-Founder along with Producer Georgia Woodward. Together they create films, web series as well as commercial and corporate content for clients.