During the COVID years, K and I purchased two beautiful handmade standing garden beds from our carpenter friend J.
At the time we thought growing our own vegetables, herbs, and flowers would give us the chance to bring some much-needed nourishment and beauty into our lives. But the cute container gardens turned out to be more complicated than we thought. Each one took 100 pounds of topsoil to fill, and because we wanted to use organic everything, it got a little spendy.
Our gardening skills were secondary at best. We knew how to stake and space the tomato plants, ways to prevent the chives from growing out of control. We understood the importance of healthy soil, good water, plenty of sun. But we had no clue what to do when blight started taking over the tomatoes. The squirrels kept invading everything. And for some reason, mushrooms were growing in a corner.
When I gave up after the tomatoes started looking like they had skin cancer, K showed up, did his best watering, pruning, and salvaging what he could. As a result, our yield at the end of the season was one salad’s worth of green peppers, cherry tomatoes, chives, and a dose of oregano. Rather satisfied with our meager bounty, I turned to K and said, “Good enough.”
We grew a little garden and it was good enough. But I am usually not such a “good enough” person. As a writer, an editor, and my own deepest critic, succumbing to good enough has always meant giving up, giving in, settling for less that what I knew was possible.
Good enough would never be good enough.
That is, until building my own website almost broke me. When I write “almost broke” me, it is not the writer in me creating hyperbole. No, I literally broke down. I fell to the floor with great dramatic effect like they do in books and movies.
Never mind that I was not a web developer. I could figure out the custom code needed to brand a theme in WordPress.
Never mind that I was not a website designer. I could work on ADA compliance and interactivity later.
Never mind that I was not a ten-person team. I could rebrand my own company, write my own content, create my own newsletter subscriber strategy—all while somehow managing to put my clients first.
And then I just … broke down and cried out in an anguished voice I barely recognized as my own, “I’m finished! I can’t do it!” The room was silent other than the heaves coming from my chest as I barely hung onto my nervous system. Then I heard K walking into the room where ever-so gently he said, “Let it go.”
I pulled myself up off the floor, grabbed some tissue, and curled like a shell into my favorite chair for reading. After some time, I settled down and let K’s words settle in, too. “Let it go.”
The website I was failing to build wasn’t a sign I was failing as a professional. It was a sign I needed to ask for help, which ultimately meant K was right (again). I needed to let it go, so I wrote about it in my journal and here’s what I discovered.
‘Good enough’ doesn’t meant not good. On one hand, refusing to be just good enough is what makes me love writing and helping others write. Shaping compelling stories that also fulfill a strategic purpose requires precision and skill, experience and discipline. But on the other hand, my insistence on going above and beyond was causing me nothing but weeds. I was supporting clients, writing my weekly newsletters, building the Garden brand and site, and resting and caring for myself and my family. Yet none of it was turning out to be good enough for my vision.
It wasn’t good enough. It was simply too much.
Good enough means it’s good — and that’s enough. Late last week, we hit a really important milestone at Garden. We planted our permanent website, professionally landscaped this time. I think of it as our own little parcel of land in the digital universe where we can cultivate stories, insights, and information to help you, me, and anyone else who wants to grow into thriving writers, creatives, and communicators.
I am thrilled to have the permanent website completed. I can feel the ground beneath my feet again, and even better, I learned that my fear of just being “good enough” is a kind of perfectionism that no longer serves me.
I am not a web developer. I am a writer.
I am not a website designer. I am an editor.
I am not a ten-person team. I am good enough.
I am good.
You are good.
We are good.
And that’s more than enough.
