Do you ever find yourself wanting to do something—start your novel, start posting on Instagram as an author, self-publish—but don’t do any of it. The task feels big/scary/vulnerable, and what if you don’t do it perfectly? 

If you’ve had conversations in your head that sound like:

• What if I write this book, and nothing ever happens with it?
• What if I say something wrong on Twitter?
• What if I tell people I want to be published, and it never happens?
• What if I try to self-publish, and I make mistakes?
• What if I query the wrong agents?

then I wrote this post for you. And for me, because I’m all about doing All The Things perfectly. I’ve had to learn to exchange my perfectionism for healthy striving, and to be kind to be kind to myself when I make mistakes.

Here’s what I’ve learned, and I hope it helps you too:

How to ask myself, “So, what will happen if I mess this up?”

Have you noticed how in suspenseful or scary movies that have literal monsters in them, they try to hold off on showing you the monster for as long as they can?

That’s because they know that the idea of the monster is way scarier than the actual monster up close. Vague is scarier than detailed.

In the same way, sometimes it’s super helpful to take those “What ifs” and your vague fears, put your creative mind to useful work, and get detailed. Like:

“What if I pitch my novel at the conference and the agent doesn’t like it?”

“Well, she won’t want to represent me. That will make me sad because I really want to work with this agent. But I could try pitching her a different book at another time, or I can pitch this book to a different agent.”

“What if I get negative reviews?”

“That’ll hurt. I’ll probably feel really sad about it. Then I could remind myself that all books get negative reviews.”

“What if I write this  book, but it never gets published?”

“That would feel disappointing. I really care about this book, and I want to see it on store shelves. But if I continue to worry about what may or may not happen, and I let that keep me from writing the book, then it really will never get published. There’s no chance of it getting published if I don’t write it!”

See how this works? When you think through what will actually happen, you realize you can survive it. 

That the only person who obsesses over my mistakes is me.

For better and worse, most of us are predominately focused on ourselves. That time in second grade when I got caught passing a note in class and had to write my name on the board? I’m sure I’m literally the only person on the planet who still remembers it. 

I’ve had typos in social media posts. I’ve said things in public that to me felt honest, but to someone else felt shaming and hurtful. I’ve had books that didn’t sell well. At my first big speaking gig, I panicked and cut my talk WAY short.

Other than my example of hurting someone with a social media post, I’m guessing the only one who remembers that stuff is me.

The same is likely true for mistakes you’ve made, and for mistakes you might make in the future. If you go to a conference and bomb pitching your novel, that agent or editor will have probably forgotten about it before the day is over. 

I need to talk nicely to myself.

Nobody is meaner to us than ourselves. Especially if you have strong perfectionism tendencies. 

If a friend of mine posted, “Get a sneak peak of my new book!” on social media, I would never say to them, “You’re so stupid for making that error. Who’s going to buy your book when you have mistakes like that in your promotional posts? You look like an amateur.”

But when I make errors like that, my default is to beat myself up for it. I’ve started making efforts to talk to myself like I would a friend. “Oh, who hasn’t made that mistake before? It’ll be fine. People will probably just think it’s an auto-correct error. No big deal!”

Make a habit of asking for and offering forgiveness.

Jill and I have had to offer each other a lot of grace as we’ve worked to re-release Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel.

We had several phone conversations that were me apologizing for mistakes I had made, her apologizing for mistakes she made, and both of us offering the other forgiveness.

When I announced the book on social media, the graphic I made HAD THE WRONG TITLE. I was embarrassed, and felt bad that I had screwed the announcement up because I had been rushing.

When we sent information to those who helped with our cover reveal, we told them the WRONG RELEASE DATE and that’s the one that circulated on social media that day.

When I told my neighbor all this on a walk home, she said, “This is an opportunity to show that you can do things imperfectly and still have success.” 

She’s absolutely right. Even though at some point we have told everyone that You Can Edit is going to release November 2nd, somehow Jill and I are still managing to release a beautiful new edition of Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel on November 6th.

To ask, “What’s mine to own, and what’s not?”

Sometimes I try to take responsibility for things that aren’t actually my responsibility.

I’ll post a picture on Instagram and then obsess over how many likes and comments I’m getting. Or I won’t post something because I’m afraid it won’t get “enough” interaction.

That first piece (what I post or don’t post) is mine to own. The reaction I get is not. While I can certainly make efforts to post things that engage and enrich my followers, I can’t really control what they do with it. 

Writing the best book I can is mine to own. What Publisher’s Weekly says about it is not.

Researching self-publishing so that I can be smart and informed during the process is mine to own. What people think about the fact that I self-published is not.

Chasing the dream of writing is mine to own. People doubting that I’ll really be able to do it is not.

To remind myself, “I’ve done the best I can do. That’s good enough.”

You can keep rewriting that book—or that chapter or blog post—for years, but it’s never going to be perfect. At some point, you have to decide that you did your best, and that’s enough.

I love how Elizabeth Gilbert says it in Big Magic:

There are only so many hours in a day, after all. There are only so many days in a year, only so many years in a life. You do what you can do, as completely as possible within a reasonable time frame, and then you let it go. When it came to everything from the dishes to wrapping Christmas presents, my mother’s thinking was much in line with General George Patton’s: “A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.”

Or, to paraphrase: A good-enough novel violently written now is better than a perfect novel meticulously written never.

That’s the biggest benefit for many when they participate in NaNoWriMo, that they are violently writing a novel NOW instead of writing a meticulously written one NEVER.

Whether it’s social media, self-publishing, traditional publishing, querying, finding critique partners, or writing itself, you will make greater strides towards your goals when you shed perfectionism and embrace “good enough.”

Perfectionism isn’t a virtue.

I’ll close with one more great quote from Big Magic about perfectionism and fear:

The most evil trick about perfectionism, though, is that it disguises itself as a virtue … But I see it differently. I think perfectionism is just a high-end, haute couture version of fear … Because underneath that shiny veneer, perfectionism is nothing more than a deep existential angst that says, again and again, “I am not good enough and I will never be good enough.”

I cannot tell you how many times I applauded myself for rewriting my first chapter over and over. Didn’t it show that I was dedicated to my craft? I cared enough to make the book perfect. Didn’t that mean something?

Caring deeply about doing your best is a good thing.

Laying the burden of, “It has to be perfect,” on yourself is not.

Be brave today and reject your fear masked as perfectionism.

Do you struggle with perfectionism? How do you keep it in check? Is there a method from the list above that you’re going to try?