When Perfectionism Puts On A Blazer

I don’t know if you feel this way when you create, but I tend to do one of two things: I either get it out fast (a nod to my years as a public information officer and emergency management communicator), or I get stuck in creative revision.

Now that I’m out of public service and have more room to let things percolate, I can see how quickly revision turns into over-revision. Overthinking. Over-editing. Going back again isn’t always about improvement. It’s about listening to that overly loud voice in my head insisting it could be better.

It starts innocently: tighten a sentence, swap a verb, change a color, smooth an edge. But somewhere between “one more pass” and “let me just check this one thing,” I stop editing for clarity and start editing to feel safe. And “safe” looks productive. It sounds responsible. It even comes with proof: Look how much better this is than the last version.

Except sometimes it’s not better. Sometimes it’s just different.

Lately, I’ve been trying to get honest about what “done” is. What “enough” is. The first pass is the SFD, as Anne Lamott would say. The second is craft. The third, fourth, or fifth? That’s usually fear, dressed up like a boss with a disapproving face that says, “You can’t possibly send this yet.”

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been playing with Daniel Pink’s Brutally Honest Prompts, and more often than I expected, it surfaced patterns that felt uncomfortably accurate. It made me notice how easily revision becomes a delay tactic. I’m not hunting for a stronger sentence. I’m looking for reasons to second-guess myself, and ways for the fear of being seen to take over.

That’s what I’m working on this month: a process where I revise from clarity, not fear. Where “good enough” is a real finish line, not an insult.

So now, when I feel the itch for another revision, I ask:
“Am I improving this, or am I hiding?”

Because the real work, for me, isn’t becoming more. It’s trusting myself and being willing to be seen.

Originally posted on my Substack.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like these:

  • What I’m Not Leaving My Son

    How do you capture family memories in scrapbooks when many of the years, although everything ended up fine, were so painful that you stopped making albums? While I thought I was “scrapbooking” for my kids so they’d have a beautiful record of their childhood, it was really about me. It…

  • The Chapter I Cut

    I cut a chapter from my memoir, one of the hardest ones to write, and honestly, it hurt a little. Writing the whole memoir was therapeutic, but this chapter was harder than the rest because it involved a relationship that was very close and deeply important to me. It challenged…

  • The Role Had a Job Description. I Was Too Close to Read It.

    The parts of the job that nobody puts in writing. When your oldest son proposes to his long-time girlfriend, you think you know what “mother of the groom” means. Find a phenomenal dress that coordinates with the mother of the bride, host the rehearsal dinner, and provide encouragement and support…