👀 All the little eyes looking at you 👀

You read your book to them.

You’re standing in a first grade, second grade, preschool classroom, and reading the book you wrote.

You read your book over and over again.

The kids love it!

But you realize — it isn't perfect.

You could have fixed [this].

You could have added [that].

You really might have thought about [this other thing too].

“I need to change things to make this better,” you say.

One of the teachers in the classroom hears you. “Or just take notes for when you write the next book.”

You look at her in surprise.

Next book?

Is that how this works?

She isn’t the only person to say that to you.

You tell a friend about your underconfidence, and she says the same thing. "Take what you learned, and apply it when you write the next book.”

... Maybe that is how this works.

You don’t erase the whole chapter, you don’t delete the entire path that led you to that point. You look at where you’ve been from the perspective of where you are now, and adjust course going forward.

You grow.

That’s how this works.

They say “perfect is the enemy of done” — and yes, it’s tough when you look back and feel like a lack of perfection is the enemy of confidence.

Yes, yesss, it’s tough.

But if you never do anything, you’ll … never … do anything.

The fact is, you did something —

Something that the kids, your target audience, actually enjoy! It isn't perfect, but that's okay.

An imperfect-done thing is worth a million perfect-neverdone things. 

Celebrate that you did. do. a. thing.

Because if you never try anything, you’ll never figure out how to try better next time.

Next time.

Because that is exactly how this works.