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<\/a><\/p>\nI'm happy to finally be sharing\u00a0this recipe on the blog after hoarding it for a few weeks thinking I might be able to make room for it in the cookbook. But truth be told,\u00a0I need to stick\u00a0to a max of 115 recipes (+ a handful of homemade staples) since each one will be accompanied by a full-page photo, and I have 250-300 pages to do my thing. However, every time I have the lineup of recipes whittled down to 115, I doubt myself and come up with additional recipes to add. Because it can always be better, right?<\/p>\n
Note:<\/strong> If you're just here for the cookies, you're awesome and scroll on past the below paragraphs to the recipe. If you're here for cookies and some thoughts on punching perfectionism in the face, you're awesome and\u00a0keep on reading.<\/p>\n Over the last few months, the pressure of the printed page\u00a0has summoned the perfectionist side of my personality\u00a0on a regular basis. And despite the overused clich\u00e9 of citing perfectionism as a\u00a0desirable\u00a0\"weakness\" in interviews (I admit I've been guilty of this in the past), I'm citing it here as a major, pain-in-my-side flaw in terms of the cookbook writing\/creative process and life in general.<\/p>\n Sure, it's\u00a0a useful quirk when editing or doing more tedious grammatical work, but overall I would love to kick it to the curb permanently or send it on some sort of self-improvement retreat where\u00a0it would be exposed to oodles of imperfection, thereby reducing its aversion to it. Why? Because it gets in the way, questioning my every move and squashing both intuition and creativity beneath its naysayer (yet probably perfect)\u00a0feet. Back. It. Up, Perfectionism. And quit stepping on my creativity, because you're nothing but self-doubt\/\/fear dressed up in a\u00a0socially-acceptable outfit.<\/p>\n Many of us fight this battle with perfectionism, so it must serve a purpose, right? Well then, what is\u00a0its purpose?<\/p>\n I used to perceive it as a time-intensive filtering method through which all of my efforts must pass in order to yield a\u00a0successful outcome. Now\u00a0I consider it to be an overbearing, helicopter parent that has nothing better to do with its time\u00a0than\u00a0hover overhead and unnecessarily point out of all the potential fears, unknowns, flaws, and \"what ifs\" I didn't even know I had. Still not feeling very purposeful, is it?<\/p>\n What would happen if\u00a0our well-intentioned thoughts, dreams, and aspirations made it out into the world before being silenced by the part of us\u00a0that doubts the value of what we have\u00a0to\u00a0offer?\u00a0It's absolutely\u00a0possible that our efforts could\u00a0result in \"failure\" as measured by\u00a0conventional standards, but we're missing the point if we believe that the bulk of our joy\u00a0resides in the outcome<\/strong> of our efforts\u00a0rather than the process<\/strong> of moving through them.<\/p>\n At its core, I think perfectionism is\u00a0a misguided protective strategy we lean on to control the outcome of our efforts because choosing<\/strong> to do nothing feels better than putting forth our best effort and being vulnerable<\/strong> to the possibility of failure. But in its\u00a0effort to control the outcome, it filters out all the good stuff too. Pretty crappy filter if you ask me.<\/p>\n I've learned the best thing I can do when I'm experiencing the \"Are you\u00a0sure<\/em><\/span> this is perfect? Surely you can do better.\" thoughts is\u00a0to trust the guidance of my intuition\u00a0rather than succumbing\u00a0to the fears of my ego. I'm learning to\u00a0believe in the power of my\u00a0best effort rather\u00a0than\u00a0being bound by the fears of unattainable expectations. And it's freeing.<\/p>\n And with freedom, there are cookies. Not because they're perfect, but because they're awesome enough.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n