Blog

I sat hunched over my laptop, back and hands aching, one heart palpitation away from a panic attack.

My final graduate school paper was due in t-minus 24 hours. This academic assignment was the only thing separating me from my diploma. 

Some would say I finished the paper weeks ago. Those people would be wrong. I finished the first draft weeks ago but had only just begun the process of editing and improving. 

My jaw was so tense you could hear my teeth grinding from across the room. 

“Maegan,” my husband said tentatively, “I think it’s good enough.” 

I cut my eyes at him, a silent warning to tread carefully. 

He took a breath and said, “I just think that, maybe, you’re being too much of a perfectionist about this paper.” 

“I’m not being a perfectionist, Jonathan. I just want it to be RIGHT.” 

Silence filled the space between us as my admission reverberated through the room. Heaving a sigh, I collapsed onto the desk. He lifted an eyebrow and grinned, enjoying the sweet sensation of victory. 

That was the day I admitted that I was, indeed, a perfectionist. 

I dismissed the title for years, reserving it for people who used perfection to hide from vulnerability. This never resonated with me. I wasn’t hiding from vulnerability and wasn’t afraid to be imperfect. 

My ailment was worse than the fear of being imperfect. 

I was paralyzed by the acute awareness that the thing I was creating could always be better. This was accompanied by a deep desire to create something proportionate to my passion and respect for the subject matter. My writing could be more poetic, my sources could be more robust, my hypothesis could be more nuanced. 

It’s the curse of “conscious incompetence,” which is the state of being consciously aware of how much you do not know / how things could always be better.

For example, you might listen to a Beethoven concerto and think, “Oh, wow, that’s what music is supposed to sound like!” Then, you run to the nearest piano, sit down, put your fingers on the keys, and play a rousing rendition of Chopsticks. 

Whomp, whomp. 

You know how good the music can be, and you know that what you’re sharing with the world falls woefully short of dazzling. 

This is my fatal flaw—consciously incompetent perfectionism.

There’s a line in one of my favorite books, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin, that captures this perfectly: 

There is a time for any fledgling artist where one’s taste exceeds one’s abilities.

Yes, this! You know what you’re trying to create, but everything you do seems to fall short of your expectations. 

So, what do we do? 

How do we overcome this special brand of perfectionism that’s stopping so many of us from sharing our gifts with the world? 

Zevin answers this question in the very next sentence: 

The only way to get through this period is to make things anyway. 

Dammit, Zevin. Why are you calling me out like that? 

As therapists love to say, the only way out is through. 

In this case, the only way out of paralyzing perfectionism is through creating prolifically and sharing our creations with other humans. 

(The “other humans” part is critical. If your inner critic is the only person at the show, you’re destined to get a bad review.) 

This is one of the main reasons I host Express Yourself. 

This free weekly group is a safe space to practice creating prolifically and share your work with a community of supportive people. 

We meet every Thursday at 9am PT / 12pm ET.

During our time together, you will…

Connect → Say hello and settle into our cozy community.
Create → I’ll give you a prompt and time to make something new.
Express → Share your work (if you want) and support others by giving positive, supportive feedback about their self-expression. 

This is a weekly space where you can show up and practice overcoming perfectionism by “making things anyway.” 

You can join the group here.

Drop in and out whenever you want. The door is always open. 

I can’t wait to create with you.