Ambition without action is anxiety
For the perfectionist, the over-thinkers and everyone scared to begin.
I’m not just writing this for you. I’m writing it for me, too.
maybe you’ve felt it, that quiet, heavy weight of trying to get everything just right.
Being a perfectionist sounds admirable… until it starts to drain you.
And I won’t lie, I’m drained.
I’ve always thought it was a good thing.
Oh my God, I’m so organized. I love planning. I can’t stand chaos.
I say it proudly. I say it like it’s part of my brand
I hate spontaneity. I need to know when, where, how. I need structure.
For the longest time, I believed that made me put together. That made me efficient. That made me safe.
But lately, I’ve been asking myself, safe from what?
Because I’m starting to see that it’s not organization. It’s control. It’s fear.
And this constant need to have everything figured out before I start anything, holds me back.
There’s this woman on TikTok, always dropping wisdom as if she knows what my brain is saying. I listened to her the other day and it felt like she opened my journal and read it back to me out loud.
She said something about perfectionism, about how the reason we keep postponing the things we love, the reason we don’t start the things we care about, is because we feel we’re not “ready.” because we feel it’s “not time yet.”
And when she said that?
I paused.
Because how many times have I done that? How many times have YOU done that?
You have something you know you’re meant to do, something that excites you, that scares you in the good way, but you don’t move.
Because you’re waiting for the perfect version of you to show up first.
The more confident you.
The more knowledgeable you.
The more organized you.
I’m learning that Ambition without action is anxiety. The more you plan and don’t do, the more you trap yourself in your own head.
Every time things don’t go your way, you’re one step closer to the thing that will
imagine you’re working on something. Let’s use music as an example. You’re working on a track. First draft—eh, it’s okay. Second—nope. Third—getting worse. Fourth—you’re literally considering throwing your laptop out the window. Fifth—you’re convinced you have no talent.
But what if the sixth or seventh draft was the one? What if the version that finally makes you proud was just three steps away?
Would you still give up at the fifth?
I think about that a lot now. Especially when things don’t go my way.
Like the job rejections.
The moments I put something out and it flops.
The days I plan everything down to the second and life laughs in my face.
You don’t know everything.
You don’t know what’s going to happen next week. You don’t know the thing that’s five steps ahead of you, just waiting for you not to quit.
Chimamanda Adichie once said she got rejected 45 times. Forty-five.
And yet, we get rejected five times, and suddenly we’re not cut out for this? We apply to two jobs, don’t get them, and we’re ready to say, “maybe this is not for me.”
She said something else that stuck with me: Before you give up, make sure you’ve given at least 7,000% of your effort. Not 70%. Not even 100%. Seven. Thousand.
So, no, this isn’t the part where you give up.
This is the part where you keep going.
2021 and 2022 were the hardest years of my life. And I know that the only reason I passed through that fire was so I could learn how to carry things heavier than me.
Those years?
They molded me.
They gave me skin thick enough for the life I’m building now. So when things go wrong these days, I don’t panic as much.
I just remind myself: This is one step closer to the life I’m trying to create.
You know that quote “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey”?
It used to annoy me.
But now I see it.
Yes, it’s about the destination, and it’s also so much about the journey.
The tears. The setbacks. The voice notes you send your friends crying at 1AM.
Those are the stories.
Those are the reasons why it all feels worth it when it finally clicks. The imperfect, uncertain middle, that’s the real beauty.
What’s that thing you’ve been putting off?
The thing that makes you feel anxious but also deeply alive. The thing that feels too big. Too complicated. Too imperfect to start.
I want you to start it.
Not because you have everything figured out.
But because you’re willing to try. The willingness to try is what makes you capable.
Life might not be too short or too long, but either way, it’s not long enough to waste on overthinking
So, start. Not perfectly. Not all at once. But start scared, start unsure, start messy,
Just. Start.