My Own Worst Enemy

I frequently am...

[I can hear those of you that know me well go: "And your point is?" LOL ]

Most of what I've got going for me in my professional career centers around my reputation. And my reputation is solid. It's more than solid, it's excellent (and that's not me bragging.. I'll let the fact that my entire business is based on word of mouth/repeat business speak for itself). And I worked very hard to get that reputation, and I worked even harder to maintain that reputation during all the craziness over the past 4 years (my clients know that if the proverbial sh#t hits the fan here during business hours and I've got to disappear, I'll make up for it somehow)

So despite people telling me that I am very good at what I do (that's the kind of relationship I have with my clients.. they tell me when I do well, and they tell me when I f#ck up... ), despite the fact that my core clients will gladly recommend me to their business contacts (but tend not to do so too eagerly as they get kind of 'possessive' when it comes to my time.. LOL), and despite the fact that one of the top guys in my field even as recently as yesterday told me that he wished he could get me involved in projects X, Y and Z and that I could be involved but that it would all depend on MY availability, I keep thinking that I'm "no good". Especially when a deadline is looming and I have trouble getting a particular tricky piece of a project to come together.

It's happening again .... part of the problem is that I have very high expectations of myself. And when a particular piece just doesn't want to come together, I tend to take that very personal and think it's because "I've lost my touch". Instead of acknowledging that this particular piece was simply a b#tch to put together.

I've been "sweating bullets" over this last piece that's needed to get this project to completion. And as we're under a tight deadline (in fact, we're running a few days late already) and we now must get this project done and over with, I need to get into 'good enough is good enough' mode (and if we get questions after the project has been reviewed, so be it).

So I produced part of the missing piece this afternoon, am working on the last bit tonight. And I absolutely HATE what I wrote. And I really want to completely rewrite it. But as we're running out of time, I sent off what I had for review by my clients.

And dreaded opening up my email tonite as I was sure that the clients were going to hate it too.

Imagine my surprise and disbelief when I only got very minor comments. Apparently what I wrote is not so bad at all....(but here I am sitting thinking that the reason I only got minor comments is because people didn't really read what I wrote as we're all in a rush to get this wrapped up).

So why do I do this? Why am I so convinced (and it mostly happens in the endgame of a project) that I'm a total screw up when my clients think I'm doing a bang up job? What am I getting out of thinking that way? Where is that *insecurity* coming from? Especially as, when I do drop *down* to 'good enough is good enough', the end product is still pretty damn good to anybody else's standards?

Granted, this has been a tough few weeks and this could just be sleep deprivation doing the talking.. But there are other areas of my life where I do the same thing (not when it comes to my boys though.. although I do frequently feel that there is more I can do, more I should be doing for Salamander....). Is this battle fatigue creeping in???

Why, why, why? I need to explore this more, and then STOP DOING IT. It's a senseless waste of time and energy....