You know, I feel like perfectionism is the biggest, hardest to remove, thorn in my side that I have ever had to this day.

If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well

On the one hand, perfectionism has almost served me well. I live by the motto that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. And that has been reflected back to me in the quality of my work.

I seek constantly to improve upon what I can do; if I can do it well, then I can learn to do it better. If I can do good, then I should kick it up to great.

But then perfectionism always decides to bite me in the butt.

Because perfectionism has this quirky little personality trait that makes it avoid anything and everything that can’t be done well like the plague.

This is very bad, because a fact of life is that every learning curve contains a stage of unskilled, imperfect output in substantial amounts before it can even begin to improve. Especially creative work.

(what the heck, it’s actually affecting how I write this blog post!)

if i could just let myself write

If I could just let myself write, then I would get better at writing. And it would probably take less energy than what it takes to avoid writing. But no, my mind tells me that I can’t touch my beloved stories until I can honor them in the way that they deserve.

As if I’ll ever get better through sheer avoidance and spite.

And the most ironic part of it all?

I literally can’t bring myself to stop thinking about writing. So quitting wouldn’t be a viable option even if I wanted to.

Every day, i push through and write anyways

Every day, I push though and write anyways. And though I do believe I have room to improve, I don’t think I’m as bad at it as my mind likes to say I am.

(Perfectionism is also really toxic about projecting its insecurities on you.)

I’m making progress on my books and short stories. Though not as quickly as I’d prefer. But what else can I do but push through and make progress over time?

I don’t know if I will ever be able to get rid of my perfectionism completely, but I’m learning to work through it.

I’m excited for the progress I’ve been making on my stories. And I’ll keep on writing and see them through to completion no matter what.

(I finished writing this blog post, that has to count for something, right?)

Insert inspirational quote here?

A. G. Swift