I’ve started more projects than I’ve finished, and for most of my life, I thought that made me flaky. Turns out, it just makes me human—with a neurodivergent twist.
Last week I told you about some of the stories I’ve been telling myself for decades that I’m finally ready to put to rest, but there’s one I didn’t share that might be the biggest one I face: “I am an overthinking human being who complicates most of the ideas that flow through my brain, and my perfectionism holds me back from reaching any level of measurable success.”
I have always spun myself out attempting to look at problems, projects, and people from every possible angle to ensure that the conclusion, decision, or outcome I eventually arrive at is the best, most correct, and optimal choice. My default mode is to strive for perfection in all my pursuits prior to publishing, promoting, or putting the finishing touches on them—which often leads to the thing never actually seeing the light of day.
Perfectionism Was Just the Tip of the Iceberg
My lifelong inability to see projects through, stick with one career path, and do the things I know I need and want to do has kept me from achieving some of my biggest and longest-standing goals—be that writing a book, doing a TED Talk, or running a profitable business. It’s also kept me from completing smaller life goals too, like organizing that one overflowing disaster of a closet, booking the doctor’s appointment, and planning the girls’ trip my friends and I have been threatening to go on for years.
In the past, I’ve blamed this personality trait on my perfectionism, but now that I have my official AuDHD diagnosis (ADHD + Autism), everything makes a hell of a lot more sense.
The Push and Pull of the AuDHD Brain
With ADHD, it's not that I didn’t want to finish things—I often just couldn’t. Executive dysfunction meant that starting a task felt like pushing a boulder uphill, and following through to the end was like trying to carry it the rest of the way with a hundred distractions pulling at me. Add in the dopamine-seeking nature of my brain (apparently “novelty addiction” is a real thing) and the burnout that hits once the initial excitement fades, and it’s no wonder I have hundreds of half-done ideas scattered across notebooks, Google Docs, voice memos, and ChatGPT.
That’s tricky enough, but the Autism side of my brain complicates things further. While one part of me is impulsively chasing shiny new projects, the other is paralyzed by a fear of doing them wrong. I crave clarity, structure, and predictability—none of which are guaranteed when you’re chasing a dream, building a business, or writing a book. So I end up stuck between urgency and overwhelm, knowing I could do something amazing, but feeling too overloaded to begin or unsure how to finish.
Woof.
Relief, Self-Compassion, and a Little More Grace
As I’ve wandered down the rabbit hole of understanding how AuDHD presents (especially in high-masking women like myself), the relief and self-compassion I feel has increased significantly. The amount of shame, self-loathing, and disappointment I lived with for 40 years as an undiagnosed person has kept me from appreciating the goals I have been able to achieve and the strides I have made—despite (and sometimes thanks to) my neurodivergent wiring.
When the motivation and focus stars align, I can complete tasks that would ordinarily take a full week for most people in just a few inspired hours—like building new workshops, launching new content channels and offers, or redoing my website top to bottom. When I decided to move to Los Angeles from Florida 15 years ago this month at the suggestion of a tarot card reader (that’s a story for another day), I immediately got my ducks in a row and was relocated across the country less than six months later.
You Don’t Have to Be Neurodiverse to Get It
You don’t have to be neurodiverse to relate to the feeling of wanting to achieve your goals but getting stuck in the need to get it “right”—which can lead to never finishing the thing at all, out of fear it won’t be received the way you hope or because it feels too risky to release something less than perfect. I imagine the overachievers among us often feel this way, and frankly, it’s a real drag.
Whether you need pharmaceuticals to focus like I apparently do or not (I just started taking Adderall this week—stay tuned for whether everything in my life suddenly becomes easier 🤞), here are some reminders that will serve us both.
5 Reminders for Getting Out of Your Own Way
1. Done is better than perfect, and good enough is good enough—for now.
You can always make something better in time, whether it’s a landing page, a podcast, or a pitch. Feedback is useful for improving things, but you’ll never get that feedback if you don’t share it.
2. Your 50% is someone else’s 150%.
Perfection is subjective and personal to each individual, and you’ll never really know how something you put into the world will be perceived (even if you actually think it’s perfect).
3. You will likely regret not pursuing a goal simply because you didn’t feel “ready” enough.
Life is short, circumstances change, and there’s no time like the present to do what you want to do.
4. Most variables are beyond our control, so do the best you can with the time, energy, and resources you have.
The conditions will never be perfect, so make do with what you’ve got and be open to things shaking out as they may.
5. Nobody’s paying as much attention to us as we are to ourselves.
It’s unlikely people will notice or care if something you share flops, and if they do, they’ll probably forget in a matter of moments. We’re the only ones watching ourselves as closely as we are—except for maybe our biggest cheerleaders, and they think we’re great no matter what.
Just Do the Damn Thing Already
However you need to get yourself across the finish line, make it happen, captain. You’re doing nobody any favors (especially not yourself) by sitting on your genius and perfecting it until you lose interest and move on to a new project.
Give the world what you’ve got. It doesn’t have to be perfect—it just has to be real. I promise we’ll all be better for it.
Until next time, have a great weekend and happy connecting!
Baily Hancock is a Connection Strategist, Keynote Speaker, and Host of the “Seeking the Overlap” Podcast. She helps entrepreneurs and membership organizations excel through community, connection, and collaboration—the 3Cs she believes are essential to building meaningful, supported lives surrounded by people who want to see us thrive. Learn more at OverlapCollective.com and connect with her on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Threads.
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