Dear Ego, It'll Never Be Perfect...

👋🏼 Good Morning

It’s Wednesday—the day where your motivation is officially sponsored by caffeine and existential dread.

If you've rewritten the same sentence four times, rearranged your calendar twice, and opened a new Notion doc “just to think it through,” congrats—your perfectionism is doing laps before breakfast.

There’s a fine line between refining and avoiding. And that line? It probably has a color-coded label in your productivity app.

Let’s talk about the loop that keeps us stuck—and how we get out.

This Week’s Theme: The Perfectionism Trap

Perfectionism doesn’t always wear a cape. Sometimes it wears a productivity tool and whispers, “You’re almost ready.” Let’s talk about the loop that keeps you polishing when you should be publishing.

Dear Ego,

I know you mean well.

You whisper that waiting is wisdom.
That refining is responsible.
If I make it a little better, I’ll finally feel ready.

But I see it now.
That voice isn’t helping me grow—
It’s helping me hide.

You don’t want excellence.
You want control.
You want proof.
You want the illusion of safety through delay.

You dress it up as discipline—
But it’s just fear in formalwear.

Because the longer I tweak, the longer I wait.
The longer I wait, the further I drift from what matters.
And the further I drift, the more I lose myself in performance instead of purpose.

Here’s the truth:

I don’t need to be perfect.
I need to be present.

I don’t need polish.
I need permission from myself.

I don’t need one more edit.
I need to ship it.

The real clarity doesn’t come from thinking—it comes from doing.

So I’m done dressing up fear as preparation.
I’m done performing progress.
I’m done letting you delay my life.

I act now.
I share before it’s flawless.
I show up unfinished—and still enough.

That’s who I am now.

We’re done hiding.

Let’s go.

—Me.

The Model: The Performance Loop

Doubt → Delay → Overwork → Exhaustion → Repeat.

At the center of it all?
A belief: “If I just get it perfect, I’ll finally feel safe.”

But here’s the truth:
Perfection isn’t protection.
It’s a mask.

It hides the fear of being seen as messy, average, or wrong.
It makes the process feel brittle, like one mistake could shatter everything.

But what if the real strength is in showing up unfinished?
What if truth connects more than polish ever could?

Breaking The Loop

Feel the trap creeping in? Try this:

• Set a 70% Rule: Ship when it’s 70% “good enough.” Trust that real clarity comes after feedback, not before.

• Name the Fear: Write down what you're afraid will happen if it's not perfect. Seeing it on paper weakens its grip.

• Time-Box It: Give yourself a 30-minute block to finish, not polish. Then stop. Hit publish. Hit send.

• Create > Curate: Focus on getting into motion, not creating something museum-worthy. Progress over polish.

Mirror Moment

What are you perfecting instead of releasing?

Hit reply. I’d love to know.

Founder Fuel

Quote of the week:

“You don’t need to be fearless. You just need to stop negotiating with your ego.”

Make that your next sticky note.

The Inner Loop

 A new study shows people rate imperfect work as more authentic and relatable.
Polished doesn’t always mean powerful. Human does. Read the full article here!

Until Next Time, Founders

-Seshan Nissanka

📌 P.S. Know a founder who needs to hear this today? Forward this their way. It might be the nudge they need to ship.

Ready to grow or exit your business? Let’s talk.