After realizing that her type A tendencies were costing her, Christina Kim stopped waiting for perfection.

Of all the obstacles you will encounter on the way to becoming a successful designer, perfectionism might not seem like one to fret over. But for Manasquan, New Jersey–based Christina Kim, it was shaking off her penchant for having everything just right that proved to have a monumental impact on her business. “What’s that saying, ‘Done is better than perfect’? Perfectionism is poison to growth,” she says.

Kim wasn’t always so open to airing a less-than-perfect resume. “For my first few years as a designer, I was hypercritical of my work and reluctant to put it out there,” she says. “Those first few projects were a hodgepodge due to super tight budgets and tricky clients that, as a newer designer, I didn’t know how to manage yet. For example, I would spec furniture, and they’d get a more budget-friendly version that was not quite the right size. By the end, I’d be like, ‘What is this bastardized design?’ It was only my vision if you were squinting.”