Stop Waiting For Perfection & Start Already
How trying to get something perfect can end up as just another way to procrastinate.
If you’re reading this article, you’re probably in the same boat as me. You want to start something. You need to start something. But you just can’t make yourself take that final step.
Welcome to the Procrastinating Perfectionists Club. We have snacks.
For me, the thing I have been avoiding is finally launching my business as a freelance writer and photographer.
The funniest part about this is that I’m already doing the work. I have a website, branding, two hundred step plans for success — but I still haven’t told anyone about it.
Sure, I’ve whispered to my friends on occasion that “yes, I’m doing a writing thing” but it’s been more like I am trying to hide some deep secret and less like a confident call to be hired.
The timing was just never right. I needed time to make sure that I was going down the right path. I needed to network, and learn about freelancing more. I had to make a new brand look, and feel, and voice. A new name.
I got sick with COVID, and then a pulmonary embolism as a result of COVID, and again I waited.
“I can’t do it now,” I thought. “I need to rest. Heal. What if someone wants something urgently and I have to tell them no because I’m too sick?”
Resting is all well and good, but after a few weeks I wasn’t resting. Not really. I was working, just in secret spy mode hoping I wouldn’t be perceived.
It’s a strange thing to be a writer for a living. Your ultimate goal is for your words to find the right people so they can change their lives, but you would rather eat your own socks than have anyone notice you.
There’s the imposter syndrome around calling yourself a writer, of course. But you’d think I’d be over that by now. I’ve been a professional editor and writer for 8 years. I have a published book. I’ve been in newspapers. Made thousands of greeting cards that are sold nationwide. I’ve won awards.
I am a writer.
What’s so scary about saying so?
For me, it all comes back to the idea of being perfect.
All my life, I’ve had this self-imposed rule. If you work hard enough long enough, you’ll get it right. It will finally be good enough.
Perfect.
And if it’s not perfect, then clearly I’m not trying hard enough.
I’ve made a lot of progress on this over the years, and I thought I’d mostly outgrown my need for perfection. That is, I thought so until I realized why I could never quite hit that “post” button when it came to my business.
I was so scared to do it until I had everything just right. If it wasn’t perfect, I was afraid that everyone would see that I’m actually a horrible fraud. Three cats in a trench coat pretending to art.
That ends today.
Consider this my official notice that I, Anna Wenner, am a freelance creator. I am a writer, photographer, and storyteller who — though merely a regular human — has things worth saying.
I hope you’ll join me today in taking that next step forward. Discard perfection, and just for today, settle for “good enough.”
Because perfect doesn’t matter if you never start.
If you feel comfortable, share in the comments what you’ve been procrastinating on with the excuse of perfection! Join me in feeling awkwardly brave.
