From my journal, September 15, 2024:

I saw this sticker at the Haight Street Fair this morning:

My reaction:

I have over 100 blog posts sitting in “draft” status. My desk is littered with half-finished watercolors. My Google Slides are full of months-old copies of work presentations about product vision and strategy that I never completed.

So, yeah, put it on my gravestone: “Really good at starting things.”

It makes me sad, honestly, how often I stop at 75%; how there are so many things I haven’t seen through because I’m afraid of failure or embarrassment or mediocrity.

As an example – the sequence of events behind a blog post:

Spark of inspiration (“I should write about this!”/”That’s kind of a good idea!”/”I would love to connect with other people about this!”) –> Grand vision of a piece of writing where my ideas are immaculately articulated and others can relate –> Start writing, full of eagerness to connect with others –> Write a draft, say I’ll return to it the next day with fresh eyes to polish it –> Return to said draft, think it’s stupid/trite/unpolished (“Wow, Maddy, that was actually a really dumb idea”/”This post makes no sense, someone else has probably already written it better”) –> Post is relegated to its the ever-growing pile of drafts, never to be seen or heard from again.

Today, February 1, 2024:

The SHEER IRONY of this post!!! Here we are, four and a half months later, returning to the post that got – guess what? – relegated to my draft pile!!!

A few months ago I read Katherine Morgan Schafler’s “The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control” (which, if any of this resonates with you so far, I HIGHLY recommend). I’m reminded of the following passage (*re-insert above meme about “feeling attacked”*):

“What [these perfectionists] don’t have is acceptance. Acceptance that now is the only time anyone ever starts anything, and that starting now means you’re taking something that’s perfect in your mind and bringing it into the real world, where it is bound to change.

The problem for these perfectionists is that starting a process taints it—now that it’s real, it can no longer be perfect. If something is perfect to them, it exists only in past memory or future ideal.”

And so I constantly feel as though I’m living my life passively instead of actively; that I’m trapped in this state of paralysis and indecision because of the tension between wanting to do something and not executing it because it’s inevitably not going to be whatever perfect thing I imagined!!!

I want to give myself permission use as many hyphens and exclamation points as I want and not feel bad about it!!! I want to share my ideas and connect with others and not be overpowered by the voice in my head that says, “You are stupid and silly and people are laughing at you and why do you even have dreams!”

I want to write and share from a place of passion and inspiration. I want to stop letting my idea of “ready” prevent me from connecting with others. I want to operate from a place of love and courage rather than of fear.

So here I am, HITTING PUBLISH, because action > perfection … and because I don’t want my gravestone to read “Here lies Maddy Gill: Really Good at Starting Things.”