It is no secret to anyone who knows me that fear is something that I struggle with on a consistent basis. Being afraid of failing has been something that has kept me from doing a lot of things that I have wanted to do. Too often I have been afraid that I wasn’t good enough to make it, or good enough to even risk trying.
I guess it stems from my childhood being told by my mother on an almost daily basis that I was never going to be good enough. After a while of hearing the same thing repeatedly from someone who is supposed to shape how you think and feel about yourself, you start to believe that it’s true. It is that fear of not being good enough that has always made me feel that I couldn’t take certain risks if the preparation wasn’t perfect.
When it comes to query letters for articles, or pitching a novel to publishers or agents, or even sending out a resume to newspapers and magazines I want to work with or for, I have always held back if I didn’t feel that the package that I was sending off was perfect. A lot of times this resulted in me taking months just to send one thing off. Trying so hard to make everything perfect only really results in a lot of wasted time and lost opportunities.
It has taken until I was an adult with my own child for me to realize that those voices telling me that I wasn’t good enough were the voices that I needed to tune out. That the voice that I should have been paying attention to all along was the voice within that whispered that not only was I good enough but that I was going to be greater than even I expected.
In a sense I have failed at being perfect because I’m not ever going to be perfect, and certainly not everything I do or write is going to meet the standards of perfection. However, if I just continue being the best version of me that I can be, that is good enough. It’s good enough for me. It’s not always the loudest voices that deserve all the attention. Sure they’re loud and extremely difficult to ignore but often times the loudness is just a distraction from the whispers of what we should really be listening to.
Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310
Write 2 Be 
It’s tough being a writer. I have been writing operating manuals for a long time, but that is completely different from pitching an idea to a magazine or newspaper. We’ve been told to get tough skin and I am getting tougher by the minute, but it doesn’t change the fact that taking a step towards freelancing won’t be just a tad bit scary. Good luck and keep writing!