Dear Flylady,

I have long had terrible, almost cropping, anxiety over little things. For instance, before going shopping downtown, meeting friends, etc. I just couldn’t figure out where this anxiety was coming from. I finally know…

As I was getting ready to go downtown on what should have been a fun day, with your voice in the back of my head, I realized that I’d planned the whole day and timed it out. Not only did I have to wear the perfect thing and go to all the places I’d planned, but I had to do them within set time frames. AND I couldn’t fail!  This sounds insane now that I see it,  but I tell you that before I “saw it”, it was perfectly normal for me.

How unkind I’ve been to myself!  How harshly driven!  Right then and there I said, “Good enough is good enough”.  I decided to do it imperfectly, and let my intuition guide me. And it felt pretty good. It gives me hope that I may have found a way to beat the anxiety monster.

Who’d have thought that monster was actually perfectionism?

Thank you for your words of wisdom.

More relaxed in Seattle.