Good morning, friend. This blog post isn’t the typical post you may read on our website. This is more of an open letter to you. It’s a pouring out of my heart on some very real topics I’ve been internalizing as of late. So much of blogging is public, but there is so much more that is private. We writers keep these private things tucked away in corners where we hope no one ever finds them. Because if someone finds them, we may be discovered as a fraud, unqualified, or a failure. But writing is about hope. And that is what I want to talk to you about today!

Perfection is a pathway to failure
Boy does that headline strike a raw chord in me. Confession: I am a recovering perfectionist. It has infiltrated every aspect of my life, and not in a good way. I habitually set unrealistic goals, I want to reach them immediately, and in this, I ultimately set myself up for failure. Why? Because perfection is unattainable! Perfection is the pathway to failure.
Last January I sat at my computer working on a customer project in a corporate job, miserable in work that felt unfulfilling. I felt as if the time I was spending was not making any real difference, and wanted so desperately to do something more. My heart longed to inspire, motivate, and encourage other people who were feeling the same way I was feeling. I wanted so desperately to offer hope.
A few months later, this blog was a reality. I started following my dream of writing and immediately fell into a habit of checking blog stats, and measuring success by my number of subscribers. That’s when perfectionism once again forged a pathway to failure. I wanted to see immediate growth, I wanted to have a growing number of subscribers, and I wanted to see it all happen very quickly.
But in order for hope to flourish, we have to let perfectionism die. There is not room for both. They cannot co-exist side by side. One is in direct contrast with the other.
Heavy thoughts are a burden we shouldn’t carry
Nearly every day I woke up to invasive thoughts like: “What am I doing? What was I thinking? I can’t do this!” In December I heard a snippet of an online sermon that said our purpose is not in completing the tasks, or doing the next thing, or being a success. Our purpose – the one we were created for – is to abide: To abide in Him, to abide in His word, to allow his word to abide in us. When, and only when, we find our purpose in abiding in him do we begin to see the works he created us for fulfilled.
And still, I strive. Again, I wake up to heavy thoughts I shouldn’t carry. Once again, I allow hope to hide in the corner and allow fear and self-doubt to lead my day. Again, I allow perfectionism to make me feel like a failure and a fraud. I struggle to find the hope to write anything of merit, judging merit on the number of readers, subscribers, shares, and statistics.
But writing is hope in its truest form. It is the hope someone will read the heart you poured onto the page. It is the hope someone will be blessed. It is the hope someone will be encouraged, or motivated, or inspired. When I deal with self-doubt I do toe-to-toe combat with hope. But hope must always win!
Inadequacy is the pathway to success
That’s quite the statement, isn’t it? “Inadequacy is the pathway to success.” That sounds so contrary of what we’ve always learned. We are taught to strive, be the best, beat out the other guy, and above all, WIN WIN WIN.
Erin Davis wrote a devotion in the She Reads Truth Bible. She writes the following – and I hope it brings you as much hope as it brought me:
“Maybe the secret to doing big things…is making peace with the sentence, “I can’t do this!”
Jesus calls his followers to a life of selfless sacrifice, but our good works are not built on elbow grease and effort. They are the byproduct of our dependance on our Savior. As we go about our work we desperately need a grasp on this truth: “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.” {Eph 2:10}
All the prep work has been done. The heart change necessary to pry our eyes off ourselves and direct them to see the needs of others is His specialty. What is our job? To walk on the path God has paved for us, ‘keeping our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.’ {Heb 12:2}
Our good works are a fruit of our salvation… Even our good works are a gift from God.
With this newfound acceptance of my own inadequacy, I felt so much hope! Yes, writing is about reaching out and finding your reader, meeting their expectation, and solving their problem. But it does not mean the burden is solely on me! Erin writes, “The heart change necessary to pry our eyes off ourselves and direct them to see the needs of others is His specialty.” It is HIS specialty, not mine! I’m a selfish, self-focused, arrogant human being. But if my goal in writing is to motivate, inspire and encourage, and if I believe this is the gift given to me and the pathway laid out for me, then my own inadequacy only causes more dependance on the one who created these good works in me from the start!
Recognizing my own inadequacy sets me on the pathway to a much greater success. THAT, my friend, is hope!
Hope is found in the process of trust
All of this truth-telling and confession has led me to this: Hope is found in the process of trust. And with that, I focus my attention on you.
What is your dream? What would you do, if you weren’t afraid of failure, looking like a fraud, or embarrassing yourself? What metrics are you using to measure your success? Are they realistic? Do they measure the true version of success you want to reach?
We often hear “trust the process.” But, I argue that hope is actually found in the process of trust. What does that mean? In its simplest form, it means we find our purpose in HIM, the one who created us for good works. It means we find our sole purpose in abiding in Him. It means we do what we’ve been gifted to do, and we do it with fervor, with diligence, with excellence, and we leave the rest to him. It means, we do our part, and we trust him to do his. That is trust, and that, my friend, is where hope is found.
Recognize your gifts
I want to tell you about two friends. My friend, Erin, is a physical therapist. I believe she operates in her God-given gift of healing. While not miraculous healing, although to her patients it may feel that way, she uses her knowledge, her listening skills, and her heart to improve people’s lives as a form of helping them heal. It is a phenomenon I was fortunate to observe and experience for more than 20 years of our friendship. She operates in her gifts.
My friend, Laurie, who I’ve only known a short while, is a women’s Bible study leader. We were fast friends and connected at such a deep level. She uses her knowledge of God’s word to teach others, guide them, and encourage them to discover Biblical truth for themselves. She is a gifted teacher and she operates in her gifts.
And you. What are your gifts, friend? Are you encouraging yourself with the truth that your gifts are truly, your gifts? That you have been created for good works, and that you can – even though inadequate in yourself – operate in those good works?
I want you to walk away with some very important reminders:
- Perfectionism is the pathway to failure.
- Heavy thoughts are a burden we should not carry
- Inadequacy is the pathway to success.
- Hope is found in the process
- Recognize your gifts as gifts, and operate in them
Additional References:
She Reads Truth Bible: Champagne Gold
She Reads Truth Bible: Rose Gold, Hand-lettered, Engraving Available
NIV Journal the Word Bible for Women
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Billie, your words speak to me. I myself have so many of those thoughts. I’ve wasted a lot of my life with feelings of inadequacies. Thank you❤️
There’s no time like the present! You’ve got this!