It started with a single blank page. Full of potential, yet riddled with traps.

I still remember sitting there at my desk, sketching the first layout for what I hoped would become my first real product: a guided journal. A simple thing, on the surface it’s just pages, prompts, a structure to help someone think deeper than a to-do list ever could.

But inside that simplicity, perfectionism lives like a parasite.

At first, my ambition for this journal felt harmless, it was built on the feeling that ‘if they could do it, why can’t I?’ Although looking back I’m glad I had that ruthless self belief, it did grossly oversimplify the whole process. If I was going to make a journal, it had to be beautiful. Every illustration had to resonate, not just with myself, but with as many others as possible. The paper had to feel right under a pen. The prompts had to provoke just enough discomfort to be honest, but not so much that they pushed people away. The margins. The icons. The font weight. The cover texture. Everything had to be considered. And with no mentor and no expertise in publishing, I was completely thrown into the deep end.

I told myself this obsession was good. Necessary. After all, if I was going to build something worth selling, shouldn’t it be perfect?

That was the first loop. I didn’t see the bars of the cage forming around me because they looked like craft. Like quality. Like care.

But perfectionism is sneaky, it always looks like virtue on day one.

Designing My Own Trap

Most people imagine procrastination as laziness. For me, it was the opposite: it was work. Endless, restless, well-meaning work.

I would tweak an illustration for hours, convinced the balance of the lines could make or break someone’s experience. I’d design ten versions of a page spread, convinced that one day I’d land on the one that felt right, not just for me, but for everyone who’d ever hold it.

One day I’d feel proud of the layout. The next day I’d hate it. I’d sit at my desk, opening the file again, moving an icon a millimeter to the left. Changing a header. Moving it back.

No version was ever finished. Every improvement spawned three more ideas. If I fixed one thing, I’d wake up wanting to push the boundary again, new illustrations, new styles, new prompts. Maybe the entire theme needed to evolve.

What I didn’t see then was that I’d trapped myself in an endless loop with no exit, except the one I didn’t want to face: publishing it.

Because once you release something, it’s real. And once it’s real, people can judge it. Approve it. Ignore it. Love it. Hate it.

My obsession with perfecting the journal wasn’t just about the product, it was about control. So long as it stayed on my laptop, untouched by the world, it could still be perfect. It could still be for everyone.

And yet every day I delayed, I buried the very thing I wanted most: real impact, real connection, real growth.

The Realization That Shattered the Loop

The realization didn’t come in some dramatic epiphany. It came in a quiet hour, late at night, staring at the same spread I’d designed for the fiftieth time.

I saw the insanity of it, clear as day:
I could spend my whole life perfecting this one product. And for what? So that a single page would be 3% more elegant? So that one more person might approve? And even if they did, perhaps their appreciation would be at the expense of someone else’s dissatisfaction.

Because the second truth hit me harder: there is no perfect.

What I see as a flaw, someone else might find beautiful. The illustration that one person calls inspiring might make another cringe. The minimalist layout that calms one mind might feel empty to another.

I was acting like there was a universal definition of “perfect” waiting to be discovered if only I worked hard enough. But people aren’t math. They’re subjective chaos. Taste, culture, mood, context — it all shifts. What people hate today, they’ll praise tomorrow. What they love tomorrow, they’ll replace next year.

Perfection is not a destination. It’s a moving target that expands the closer you get.

That night, I realized I was worshiping an idol that could never bless me back.

The Bigger Picture and the Real Escape

The second realization was even bigger... And it changed everything.

I saw that the journal I was so obsessed with wasn’t the end. It was the beginning.

If I let myself spend my life in the loop of perfecting this single product, I would die with one beautiful thing in a drawer and none of the dozens, maybe hundreds, of other ideas I could have built if I’d only let go.

My brand, Calmlyflow, was never about one perfect journal. It was about many imperfect but living things. Products that breathe, evolve, exist in real people’s hands. A collection of imperfect pieces that together form something far more powerful than a single polished gem in a box.

Once I saw that, the weight shifted.

The new goal wasn’t perfection, it was momentum.

I didn’t have to get it perfect for everyone. I just had to get it good enough for launch and then let real people tell me what worked, what didn’t, what needed to grow.

Action became my editor. The market became my mirror.

The only real way to perfect something is to release it, get it wrong, listen, improve, repeat.

Not once. Forever.

If You’re Stuck in This Loop…

I wish I could say I broke the loop overnight. I didn’t.

Even now, part of me wants to fuss over every detail before showing anything to the world. But now I see it for what it is: fear dressed as care.

I still design my pages carefully. I still want my brand to stand out, to feel sharp and intentional. But I don’t worship the idol anymore. I don’t freeze my future trying to perfect my first draft.

When I look back, I see that my perfectionism wasn’t a standard, it was a cage. And the key was simply this: progress leaves perfection behind.

If you’re reading this and you feel that same loop in your head, that nagging sense that it’s never ready, never good enough, never “done”, remember this:

Perfect isn’t coming to save you. But action will.

Launch the thing that scares you. Let the world judge it. Watch it break. Fix it better. Grow it bigger. And then do it again.

Perfectionism is a trap that looks like mastery. But the real masters move fast, break things, learn out loud.

There is no one size fits all. There is only the next version and the version after that.

So here’s your nudge:
Release the draft. Publish the design. Ship the product.

You can spend forever worshipping the ghost of perfect or you can build an imperfect empire that actually lives.

One page at a time.