The 5th Hurdle is... Letting go.
When you're deep into a project most writers experience a kind of Stockholm Syndrome. You want to be free of the project but now there's all the internal pressure to make it perfect before you release it into the world.
Of course It will never be perfect and what's really happening is you're protecting yourself against criticism, rejection, ridicule and failure by holding the project back and keeping it safely tucked away in your computer.
Solution #1: Have at least 3 trusted readers (ideally ones who haven't read earlier drafts) read your work and give you their opinion on if it's ready to go to agents/producers/publishers/etc. And that should be your question to them (i.e., the specific kind of notes you're asking for): is this ready to go out professionally or does it still need more work? And if it needs more work, what area(s)?
Best case: they all think it's great and want to send it to someone they know. 2nd best case: they all agree on the same area that needs work. Worst scenario: 3 wildly-different opinions. You can use me or another professional reader for this too.
The truth is you've been living with the material for months (years?), are hopelessly lost in the trees and have lost all perspective on the forest. The project might be ready to go out into the world. You just don't know.
Solution #2 (or if you get the worst case results from solution #1): Wait. As Oprah says, when in doubt, don't. And the truth is that you don't want to go through all the effort and emotional pain of getting people to read your work if it isn't ready to be read yet. That will burn a bridge.
I advise that you practice what my genius partner Beth Lapides calls 'Waiting Without Waiting'. Which is to say, while you're waiting for someone to read your work, or waiting until you get enough distance that you can read it semi-objectively yourself, work on something else. A new project helps give you perspective on the other work - and it helps take some of the pressure off just in case you don't get nominated for that Nobel Prize - or Aunt Sylvia doesn't get it.
*BONUS TIP: How you know you have to let go of a project. At least for this draft. At least for now. When you keep re-writing but you're just 'moving deck chairs around' (i.e., making cosmetic changes, futzing over individual words.).
