I never thought of myself as a perfectionist. My apartment is a mess, I’m a horrible planner, and I can’t meal prep for my life.

At the same time, I tend to be an anxious person, and I always used to associate anxiety with chasing some sort of perfect life. So if I’m fine with clothes and pencils all over the floor, what would make me anxious?

As I sat down today to look around my apartment, I realized that my messiness may have more to do with perfection than I thought.

Have you ever put off a task because you were afraid you wouldn’t do it right? Like never getting around to making that chicken recipe because you think you’ll just mess it up? Well, I’m finding that’s me, but in almost every task.

I have wanted to hang pictures in my apartment since I moved in November (it’s now April…) but I don’t, because I know it’ll be wrong and I’ll just have to redo it and who wants all those holes in the wall? So the big, beige empty spaces stare at me everyday wondering when I’ll get around to decorating. And I keep putting off cleaning my closet, because I don’t like how it’s organized anyway, so why not just leave everything on the floor? And you can see how this logic gets me into trouble.

But after a long chat with my mom and some worthwhile journaling, I could tell that the real reason I’m messy is because I worry I won’t be perfect. I worry that my apartment, my cooking, or my plans won’t turn out the way I want, and that would be the absolute end. I’m afraid of what failure looks like, so I keep around the mess I already know and love.

It’s an important lesson in just how much I can doubt myself without realizing it, revealed through tiny habits each day. So I’ve started to break down those habits and the thoughts that start them. I’m telling myself it’s OK for the living room walls to not look like Pinterest. It’s OK for my daily life to be normal, quiet and unremarkable, with no big plans on the horizon. It’s OK for my cooking to fail miserably. And especially as I spend much more time with myself at home these days, I have to remember that there’s something to be said for doing things your own way and finding them, and yourself, beautiful.