What if it's good enough for today?

Learning to honor the process instead of perfection

I’ve missed sending weekly emails a few times in the past year. One week I missed an email because my family had been traveling. My teething, new to crawling 10-month-old had his own plans for our travel day and by the time we got home, ordered a pizza, and the house was still enough for me to sit down at my computer I reread a draft and thought this just isn’t working.

I still don’t know what was off about it. My husband read it and agreed: this wasn’t ready for tomorrow. Whether he genuinely thought this was true or was just agreeing with me out of love, I’m not sure. But either way, I decided to not hit send.

The next day, I felt terrible about it.

Right now, my drafts folder is a graveyard of “almost good enough” writing. Some drafts will make their way into the world eventually; others will meet the delete button. As I sat with the reality that I hadn’t sent out an email that day I felt the familiar accusation of being a failure creep into my mind.

Why couldn’t I just send out something that was good enough?

My mind flashed back to childhood conversations and words that were often spoken over me like “perfectionist.” I wondered if I was always that way or if it was more of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more adults mentioned how perfect I tried to be, the more perfect I tried to become. Unreasonably high standards have followed me all my life. I can’t even pinpoint the first time I determined I had to be the best.

In college, I began to shed that label—or so I thought. When I told friends I was thought of as a perfectionist prior they would laugh with me. I skipped classes that felt irrelevant, embraced a habit of tardiness, and refused to stress over things I deemed unimportant. But in my creative life, the impossibly high standards still stuck.

Creativity—the thing that brings me so close to God and allows me to glimpse at heaven—its still tangled up in the tight grip of old labels and internalized beliefs. Maybe you have a few of those too.

Every creative has heard how these beliefs can stop us from doing what we are meant to do: “perfect is the enemy of done.” And it’s true. High standards can paralyze us. I feel this tension in my creative life and other roles too.

As a mom I compare myself to moms who bake sourdough and feed families of six with ease while I struggle to master my weekly grocery order. (If you’ve heard about “forever oils” I use ‘em. Is what it is.)

Comparing myself to this standard is doing nothing for good for me. It leaves me feeling like I’m always coming up short. But I wonder if maybe my family doesn’t need sourdough bread. Maybe they just need me.

My husband and I have a running joke that I identify as “the mom who always gets in the pool.” I may not bake bread but I I love impromptu dance parties, make up silly stories daily, and fully immerse myself in play. (Can you tell I’m an Enneagram Seven?)

In creativity, in motherhood, in any role really—I’m learning to lean into what I uniquely bring to the table instead of striving for someone else’s version of perfect.

Perfectionism doesn’t just show up in creativity and mom life—it’s in my friendships too. I catch myself over analyzing text messages, worrying if I’m showing up enough, or feeling a need to perform to keep a friendship alive.

Here’s the irony: striving for perfection in friendships causes us to miss what makes them beautiful—vulnerability, shared struggles, and the grace to show up as we are. We can’t be seen and known if we’re too busy playing pretend.

I love Jesus’ example of choosing people who were visibly imperfect as his closest friends. Peter doubted, Thomas questioned, and the rest of the disciples all had their own flaws and imperfections. But their relationships weren’t rooted in perfection. They were rooted in love.

What if that’s the key? In creativity, in friendship, in motherhood—what if it was all good enough because it was rooted in love?

I see the gap between where I am and where I want to be as a writer, as a mom, as a wife, as a friend. But instead of letting that gap discourage me, I’m learning to view it as a place for grace and growth to coexist. A space where grace holds me steady and growth nudges me forward.

This reminds me of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 3:18 about how we are being transformed into God’s image with “ever-increasing glory.” It’s not instant. It’s a journey. It’s often small and subtle. It’s like watching a flower bloom or a child grow.

And maybe, this is good enough for today: to be rooted in love trusting God to faithfully weave glory into our imperfect lives.

“Perfectionism is not a fruit of the Spirit. Joy is.” – Jennie Allen