Perfection is Pending: In Blogging and In Life

Okay, blogging is hard.

The Paralysis of Perfection

I started a blog back when everyone was doing it in 2008. Now, after all those years of blogging for my loyal sisters on my little blogspot blog and admiring “real” bloggers from afar, I’ve finally made the jump and decided to go for the big time with this more customizable site.

But, obviously, I am having trouble getting going on a posting schedule. The perfectionist in me is working overtime, curtailing completion, yet frustrated I’m not keeping up with my overzealous posting goals.

Having high standards can be discouraging.

I love this Ira Glass quote that I’ve seen pop up on my Facebook feed a couple times (I think both times from my friend Joseph Allred Olson):

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

Why does it always have to come back to trial-and-error? Oh, how I hate the error part.

 And then there’s the privacy issue.

I knew that it would be difficult for me to put myself out there, both because of aforementioned perfectionistic tendancies and because I am shy about drawing attention to myself. My blogging has been hit and miss over the past several years, with more and more miss of late. Largely, this was because of my desire to produce quality content and a lack of energy necessary to create it. I didn’t try to attract readers to my blog outside of close friends and family, since I shared a lot of personal information and pictures of my children and I grew up in the era of “never share personal information on the internet.”

But I feel strongly that I want to reach out in this way. I have a story to share and I would love to connect with others that have had similar experiences. I love my life and want to record and share pieces of it openly and honestly. But it still is a little hard and I have continued concern with giving my loved ones ample privacy, so thanks for your patience as I figure out the balance.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Outside of perfectionism and privacy issues, there are just too many choices to make in setting up a blog.

It started with the domain name. Boy was that a commitment. I almost felt like I was getting married again. (Luckily, I never had to annul a marriage–I had to annul my domain name twice!)

I learned that when choosing a domain, you want to make sure no one has a company or domain name too similar to yours. (I made that mistake when I tried PerfectionIsPending.com and had everything ready to go when I did one last google search and made a lovely friend at PerfectionPending.net.)

You’ll also want to ascertain that your name is available across various social media platforms, especially if you are interested in promoting your blog and connecting to others that way. You want your domain to be short enough to remember and easy enough to spell. It doesn’t hurt if it sings a little too. 😉

I went through well over a hundred domain name ideas. I was set on a .com, since most people are accustomed to them, but those are getting harder to come by, so that increased the difficulty of the search. And then there are domain squatters, who take lots of good names and sit on them for hundreds or thousands of dollars (even though I’m pretty sure that’s illegal and, at very least, not nice).

Trying to choose a name also led to thinking about a niche and themes for my blog. (Can’t a girl just be random?)

When I realized I was going to have to spend a little money on web-hosting and other odds and ends of site creation, I toyed with the possibility of monetizing my site at some point in the future and learned about some of the ins and outs and legalities of that.

Once I had my site, I started to think about design. How did I want it to look and function? What themes and plug-ins should I install? There were color palettes to form; font families to choose; and a logo to consider. (All of which still could use additional attention as I have no training in this type of thing.)

Then once I got to actually creating blog posts (which is all I thought I was setting out to do in the first place), there were image programs to decide between and learn how to use (because what’s a blog without pictures?). And, of course, to find any real photos, I have to dig through my RAW files in Lightroom (that I am always promising myself I will edit and organize–and maybe even print out).

I am learning so much about the backend of blogging, social media, image creation and web design and my brain is loving the challenge in many ways. But it’s also making me a bit nuts, since I’m a rule follower and a bit of a google search addict. It seems there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything, and though I know I cannot implement it all at once, that doesn’t keep me from trying.

I want to share, but I want to share quality as well as quantity. And I want to avoid copyright issues. And I want to be frugal. And I want my work to look cohesive. And I don’t want to leave my site vulnerable to hackers. And I don’t want to spend a lot of money. I just want it all, okay?

I’ve spent much of the past few weeks googling and reading and taking notes and experimenting and I don’t see an end in site. (Accidental misspelling, but fun pun. I’ll leave it.)

So while the post ideas have been coming easily (I have a notebook I’ve been carrying around for the past month full of them!), honing my writing, creating pictures, and working on layout has been time-consuming. And I am trying to pace myself.

Amy Lynn Andrews, whose site has been invaluable to my blog setup, compares blogging to a marathon rather than a sprint. Luckily,  I’m a long-distance girl with a couple marathons under my belt.

I can do this. Right?

And in the process, I’ll try not to forget about real life.

I have four children to worry about. Meals to make. A house to clean. Storytimes to attend. Shuttling to do. Plenty to keep me busy. I just have to be keep plodding and keep after what I can when I can.

Really, the truth is that life in general is a marathon, not a sprint (for most of us). As one of my favorite mom bloggers Shawni Pothier often points out, “Life is Long.” There will be time to do most of the things our hearts yearn to do, we just can’t do it all at once and all perfectly.

I’m grateful this new venture is helping me feel alive again. I finally enjoy waking up in the morning once more. My motivation in all areas of life is renewed and life doesn’t seem to stretch out endlessly before me anymore. Any frustration and effort and late nights have been worth it. Even if I am mostly spending time producing lame content as I wait for my quality to catch up with my expectations.

I love these comforting words of Elder Russell M. Nelson, a leader in my church:

…Let us do the best we can and try to improve each day. When our imperfections appear, we can keep trying to correct them. We can be more forgiving of flaws in ourselves and among those we love. We can be comforted and forbearing. The Lord taught, ‘Ye are not able to abide the presence of God now … ; wherefore, continue in patience until ye are perfected.’

We need not be dismayed if our earnest efforts toward perfection now seem so arduous and endless. Perfection is pending. It can come in full only after the Resurrection and only through the Lord. It awaits all who love him and keep his commandments. It includes thrones, kingdoms, principalities, powers, and dominions. It is the end for which we are to endure. It is the eternal perfection that God has in store for each of us.

I’m always trying to teach my kids: We can do hard things.

It might take me a while to get where I want to be, in blogging, in life in general, and throughout eternity, but when I do, it’s going to be good. That hope, as well as the hope that family and friends, like you, will be there with me along the way, keeps me from giving up.

Does the quest for perfection ever get in your way? What paralyzes you?