The most ambitious do‑it‑yourself project I’ve ever done might sound small to some people, but for me it was huge: putting together my art desk. I spent about two to three hours carefully following the instructions and slowly watching it take shape.

By the time I got to the last step, I was tired, frustrated, and agitated, and that’s when I realized something had gone wrong. I am really not someone who likes asking for help – everything in me fights it – but I finally reached out to my mom and my stepdad, Art, and asked them to come over.

Even my mom commented that she was proud of me for asking, because she knows how rarely I do that. As they walked through the steps with me, I ended up figuring out the problem myself: I had just missed two little brackets.

Once those were in place, the desk was solid, and I could see that I had basically built the whole thing on my own.

Now it’s where I do my painting, and every time I sit down at it, I remember that I pushed through the frustration, let myself ask for help, and still proved to myself that I could do something hard.