Vanessa Bush, M.Ed.
• Author, Relationship Builder, Lifelong Learner, Avid Traveler, Managing Perfectionist •

Lessons Learned: Since I was a young child, I have been a writer. Most kids played with dolls, or did crafts, or watched TV, and while I did all of those, I mostly loved writing stories. I’ve also been a perfectionist for as long as I can remember. And while I no longer suffer from it in a crippling way, I am still figuring out not who but how I want to be, and that is always changing.

 

In the summer of 2022 at a work conference, I had the very privileged opportunity to meet Eric Koester, the founder of the Creator Institute at Manuscripts LLC, a writing community group and publishing house. Part of his keynote address was an exercise on using small projects to collaborate with others on, using them as sounding boards and mentors. Suddenly, this series of chapters on perfectionism that I had been writing for the better part of a decade looked possible. I realized so many people resonated with it, and could learn valuable techniques to manage who they naturally were in a more productive way. The conversation around mental health has opened up quite considerably over the past few years, mostly due to COVID. So now feels like the right time to tell my story and share what I know and what I’ve learned with others who might be struggling to give themselves more grace and more permission to be ‘good enough’.

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Impact: I can't believe that I'm a published author - a lifelong dream! Seeing my name in print and getting my message out there means everything to me. As a kid, I dreamt of one day adding 'author' to my resume and list of accomplishments, but beyond that, I always had so much to say. Most kids played house or ran around in the yard, and while I did those too, I also very much enjoyed writing - short stories, poems, the starts of novels, etc. I have loved writing for as long as I can remember, and it just feels natural that this goal is now complete.