Eventually I learned that, in the beginning at least, it was better for me to be finished than to try to be perfect. I had to get out of my own way. It wasn’t that the voice in my head-the one telling me my pages weren’t good enough- went away, exactly. I just didn’t let it stop me. An important tool against self-doubt is just to ignore it. Forge ahead anyway. Just keep going, keep going, keep going.
Starring has nothing to do with how big your part is – it’s a state of mind.
I do however like to tell people, especially regarding writing and deadlines: “Don’t be perfect, just be done.
To me, Lorelai was equal parts Gal About Town and The Mom, plus a magical mix of smarts and humor that made her totally unique.
Because here’s the thing: I was fine on my own, and so are you. But it can be hard when you feel ready for Happy Couplehood and you seem to have missed the train. As my friend Oliver Platt used to say to me about hopes and dreams I’d share with him: “It’s coming, just not on your time frame.
Eventually I learned that, in the beginning at least, it was better for me to be finished than to try to be perfect. I had to get out of my own way.
An important tool against self-doubt is just to ignore it. Forge ahead anyway. Just keep going, keep going, keep going.
Stars may or may not be just like us, but generally I’ve learned it’s a mistake to think anyone else has the answer to pretty much anything. When I hear Kim Kardashian lost her baby weight on Atkins, I’ll eat steak for three days straight until I remember that, oh yeah, I’ve tried this before and it didn’t make me feel that great. You have to find what works for you, not what works for someone else.
From the front I look to put together, but every other angle would reveal how false the front of me is, how much effort has gone into presenting a one-sided image of perfection.
If absolutely everything important is only happening on such as small screen, isn’t that just a shame?
Every bit of advice below was actually given to me by a fancy person, or someone who knows a fancy person and the methods they use to stay fancy.
Keep finding the JOY in what you’re doing, especially when the joy is not finding you.
Also, while there’s nothing wrong with doing things to make you feel better, I just wish the choices were limited to simpler things many of us have access to, like drinking more water or jogging or finding a more flattering shade of lipstick.
In the meantime, perform every job as if you’re being well paid, as someone who probably wasn’t paying me well once told me. Which is to say: why not treat yourself now as the success you dream if becoming? Respect yourself and your work as you would if you were being paid to be the boss, and I bet you’ll climb the ladder even faster.
Maybe my life story is to be a person with a normal job and a normal life. That’s what most people have. I was wrong to believe I was any different.
Just keep filling up the pages.
It’s just a superstition, but looking at the river, the boats, the sign leaving Brooklyn that says “Watchtower” in big red letters, is a ritual that reminds me I am small, I am one of thousands – no – one of millions of people who looked at this river before me, from a boat or a car or the window of the D train, who came to New York with a dream, who achieved it or didn’t, but nonetheless made the same effort I’m making now. It keeps things in perspective, and strangely, it gives me hope.
Don’t be perfect, just be DONE!
Of all the lists I’ve made of goals, and all the visions I’ve had, it never before occurred to me that I could be this specific, that I could aspire to a goal actually measurable in inches. I wonder if this is how successful people do it. I wonder if the difference between success and failure could more accurately be described in the waist sizes for jeans.
Poorly chosen objects are distractions, obstacles we put in the way when we’re afraid of telling the truth.