I’m showing up today to show you that this post you’re reading right now doesn’t need to be perfect. I’m making it known that perfectionism controlled my life for years, and that even at the ripe age of 23, I managed to let it win once again.

Notice the underlying tone of disappointment in my voice? Yeah, I shouldn’t be doing that either. But what I’ve realized is that perfectionsim doesn’t take you down alone. It invites others, too: blame, guilt, paralysis.

It’s not fair, but I treat myself like I’m defective.

When an idea sparks, it’s really exciting because I have an idea and a purpose to create. I start planning, creating, and brainstorming these amazing ideas…And then, perfectionism gets the best of me. I start spending hours fixated on small details, hours researching how to make it look even better, and this persists for days until finally, I hate it.

Paralysis by analysis. I can’t do anything right. It’s my fault. I just wasted days on this stupid thing. Why did I even bother starting this? I can’t finish anything. Just forget it.

It sucks when this cycle repeats itself because you find yourself feeling defeated. And to make matters worse, you recognize this pattern as failure. Because that’s how you feel, like a failure.

For a long time, I’ve always wanted to have my own YouTube channel. In 2026, I decided THIS would be the year for me. After all, it is the year of the HORSE. So that I’ve heard. I gave myself a plan, a realistic plan, because I knew that I have bad tendencies to burnout from pushing myself too hard. So I set boundaries. I would limit myself to posting one video each week, with the exception of some YouTube shorts to boost the algorithm.

Everything was going well, besides having some minor anxiety towards the topics I wanted to focus on, and not knowing if I was doing anything right… I just wanted to “start”. I was doing my best to take that advice as I had seen it everywhere on YouTube. “JUST START”. For my first few uploads, everything was going according to plan until finally I made a video that I didn’t like.

I spent hours editing it, and even scheduled it to be released this Sunday at 3:30pm. It was about Anxiety Medication (Should you take medication?). And what I’d realized is that my video wasn’t good enough to share with my audience because it wasn’t portraying the message I wanted. It wasn’t providing the support I was truly hoping for. And that was all it took to send me into a downward spiral of frustration, anger, blame, paralysis, defeat, and ultimately burnout.

Immiedetaly I began to wonder. Well, if I don’t post this Sunday, what will I post? I had no energy left to create something new. This made me want to throw in the towel because perfectionists are also extremists.

Maybe you can relate to some of these all-or-nothing mentalities:

Forget to text back → “I’m a bad friend.”

Have one argument → “Maybe we’re just incompatible.”

The pattern underneath all of them is: We let one single action define our entire goal, our life, and even our happiness. You’re not being fair to yourself. You deserve more than that. We all deserve the same patience you would have with your friend.

I’ve had to accept that honouring self-compassion is a daily practice that I need to train and something that won’t ever come naturally to me. But you need to practice self-compassion in order to forgive yourself and learn from your mistakes. And that’s exactly what I’m here to do.

Acknowledge your mistakes from a place of kindness and compassion. Because that’s what you deserve.

Don’t let perfectionism win.