I have struggled for an obscene amount of time to come up with the perfect first sentence for this piece,

which is hilarious, considering that the rest of it isn’t yet written. There is nothing stopping me from simply writing more and then coming back and editing this introduction. I could just type and then come back to this first paragraph and construct a whopper of an intro. Instead, I’ve spent hours, honestly days, agonizing over the first sentence and writing absolutely nothing.

I’ve always seen myself as a Chill Girl (trademark pending). I let my hair air dry. I sloppily eat hamburgers. I play video games and say things like “no worries!” And matching socks? Forget it! But I am a perfectionist. I never thought I was until it hit me like a ton of symmetrically stacked alphabetized bricks.

I am absolutely ruthless with myself. I didn’t notice it until I had to reckon with my creative output process. Why am I so slow? Why do I procrastinate? Why do I find myself immobile when the clock is ticking and I have multiple deadlines? Because I don’t want to fuck it up!

The irony is, I know deep down that writing is never perfect and I love getting notes and feedback from others. Editing and rewriting, especially with others, brings me joy because we take a piece and elevate it to the best it can be, often in ways I didn’t even think possible. It’s why I love working in a writers room more than I love creating by myself. However, even though I readily accept that my writing will always have room for improvement, it is terrifying to begin a project and know that it will not be flawless.

That first effort, the first moment I commit words to the page, is absolutely torturous. Now that I write professionally (hold for applause), I’ve really had to reckon with this mental paralysis that hits me when I start a new draft. I mean honestly, what’s the point of stressing out so much if I’m going to edit this ten million times and multiple people will give notes and we’ll edit over and over again for months on end? Why does the first sentence still have a suffocating grip on every single one of my brain cells when I know that the first draft and final draft will be oceans apart?

It is because I am a perfectionist. Eww.

I have never thought that I’m flawless; in fact, far from it. But I thought I had a pretty good grasp on my flaws. I’ve always known that I’m stubborn. I hold grudges and have a hard time apologizing. I have a short attention span. And yes, I snore. I’ve done work and reflection on all those things (snoring obviously being the hardest). But realizing that I’m a perfectionist really shocked me because it conflicted so much with this amiable, easygoing person that I thought I was.

The truth is that I was defining myself by how I treat others, rather than how I treat myself.

If you are not me, you can do whatever you want and I will be Little Miss “chill coolio it’s all good no worries sorry thanks” Mcgee. You want to do me a favor and completely mess it up? It’s no problem at all, and thank you so much for helping me in the first place! You give me the wrong date or directions for an event? That’s okay, it happens to everyone! You hit me with your car? Ouch but don’t fret, no need to be sorry! And yet, when I make a mistake, even the tiniest one like misreading a recipe or making a typo, I might as well have imploded the entire universe.

A harrowing thing was learning that I have been this way for as long as I can remember. It’s almost insultingly easy to deduce why that is: oldest daughter with young parents-caretaker syndrome, child of immigrants “you’re our only hope” culture, straight A honor roll scream into a pillow adolescence. But now that I’m a Bigass Adult (trademark also pending), I want to take more responsibility for myself. Which, in this case, means taking less responsibility for myself.

I have been working on giving myself the grace to be creatively sloppy. “You don’t have to be perfect,” I tell myself, “just start the project.” Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The constantly looming deadlines both help and don’t. I thought for a while that telling myself “it’s okay if it’s bad!” was a good thing, and it helped for a little until it didn’t. And then, I had to confront a very ugly egotistical truth about myself that changed everything.

It’s not that I’m a perfectionist who is afraid she’s a bad creator. That’s not it at all. The squirmy little unpleasant truth is that I am a perfectionist who thinks she can be perfect because she knows she’s pretty frickin’ good.

Jesus Christ, I’m a diva.

My procrastination tricks you into thinking that I don’t think I’m good and will make trash. But it’s the opposite. I know I’m good. I’m great! And I am a little diva to myself about it! It feels like a stinky nasty ego thing that’s my dirty little secret. It’s truly embarrassing to admit. But if I didn’t think I was this good, then I wouldn’t be terrified of sullying my body of work with something bad, which is why I agonize so much over every little sentence. I’ve fallen into a rhythm where I know that if I torture myself enough I can make something awesome. And that is not! Good! That is a style of creating that is totally unsustainable and impossible to truly achieve, no matter how good I may think I am.

To combat this dirty egotistical flaw in myself, I’ve shifted my perspective and it honestly feels uncomfortable which is how I know it’s working. Instead of starting a project with “this has to be good!” and being paralyzed by that, I think “Ellie you know this isn’t going to be flawless but you’re going to edit it, get a grip and just start” and that has made all the difference in the world. I didn’t have to build up my confidence to stop procrastinating; I had to tell myself I’m not capable of perfection and to get my head out of my own ass. It hasn’t been a lesson in confidence; it’s been a lesson in humility. And it’s actually working.

Never in a million years would I have thought that a perfectionism issue would be tied to ego. After all, aren’t I supposed to be a super Chill Girl? Or was thinking of myself as this idealized cool chick who doesn’t have any insurmountable issues the first sign of an inflated ego? Is the mere practice of writing itself simply an exercise in me being full of myself?

I honestly do not know. What I do know is that I am far from perfect, and that is a massive relief.