So many of us work so hard towards our goals without realising that our self-image is causing us to self-sabotage and stop ourselves from achieving them. It’s something I’ve seen time and time again in my own business and I have no doubt you’ll be able to relate to what I’m talking about in this episode.
In this best of the podcast episode, I share the aspects of my self-image that had been stopping me from being successful – from struggling to identify myself as an entrepreneur, to seeing myself as a disorganised person who was always late and bad with money.
I also chat about the things I did on a daily basis to reshape my identity and how you can do it too.
If you’re a perfectionist and you’re building a business, you want to listen to this episode today.
WANT MORE?
Want a little motivational boost from me in your inbox every day? They’re called Perfectionist Power-Ups and you can sign up for free at samlaurabrown.com/ppu.
If you’re ready to get out of your own way in your business, you want to join my coaching program Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (PGSD). Find out more and sign up today at samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
This is the Perfectionism Project, the only podcast created specifically for perfectionists who are building businesses. I’m your host, Sam Laura Brown, perfectionism expert and entrepreneur. I teach perfectionists how to plan properly, consistently follow through and rest without guilt so they can build profitable and fulfilling businesses without burning out.
I’ve helped over a thousand perfectionist entrepreneurs do exactly that inside my program, Perfectionist Getting Shit Done. If you’re tired of procrastinating, overthinking and half finishing your ideas, you’re in the right place. Now, let’s dive in.
Sam Laura Brown (Custom intro)
Hello, I am coming to you from my front yard. I’m just walking around and I have just listened back to the episode that you are about to hear. And I really wanted to share this one because today on the coaching call Inside Perfectionist Getting Shit Done, one of our PGSDers mentioned that today she was listening back to this episode.
It is one of the original episodes on this podcast. And just listening back and just hearing how the goals I had at that point in time are goals that I have achieved. And that what I talk about in this episode, the power of self-image has been such, such, such an important part of that.
It’s part of the PGSD process that I teach my clients is how to upgrade your self-image and to do this specific work that I talk about in this episode. So I hope you find this really helpful. This is just such an important part of being a perfectionist who’s getting shit done and not just being able to do that for a few days or a few weeks.
But if you want to get out of your own way and show up and build your business and do that in a sustainable way, then shifting how you think about yourself, how you view yourself is what will allow you to achieve success and stay successful. And so what I talk about in this episode is the core of it. And then I teach this inside perfectionist getting shit done.
We do coaching on this so many times when someone comes to a PGSD call and they’re needing help with getting in their own way and getting out of their own way. Oftentimes there is a self-image or identity issue that comes up that they hadn’t even been aware of. So we coach on that and make those shifts.
It is some of my favorite personal development work. It has changed me forever, my business forever. It’s so important that you understand self-image, what it is, how to shift it, and then you apply that by joining us inside perfectionist getting shit done.
And you make those shifts so you can achieve what you know you are capable of achieving. So I really hope you enjoyed this episode on the power of self-image.
Sam Laura Brown (Start of episode)
Hi, and welcome to episode twenty six of the Smart Twenties podcast. My name is Sam Brown, and this is a podcast where I share personal growth and lifestyle advice for women in their twenties. So this episode, I’m going to be talking about self-image and the impact that that can have on our goals or habits or basically like anything that you want to do. It doesn’t just have to relate to being successful, but it can be how it impacts your relationships, just like how it impacts the way that you’re behaving on a day to day basis. So I’ve written down two lists.
You guys know that I don’t really prepare for these too much. I just love them to be like, we were actually chatting. I don’t edit them. I don’t edit out my little stumbles and when I muck up words and all of that, because I just love listening to real people chat about real shit. And so that’s what I want to do. So I have two lists. One list of the beliefs I have about myself that have helped me achieve goals, and one which is going to be the focus, which are the beliefs I have that have been undermining my attempts to achieve my goals. And the reason I’m going to be talking more about them is because I feel like that’s more interesting, and I’m going to be sharing how I’m actually changing my self image in relation to those things. And yeah, all of that. But I am going to mention some things about my self image that I unintentionally created at different times in my life that have really helped me.
So I hope you find this helpful. As always, I’ll just be chatting about myself because that way I don’t have to give generalized advice and try and get everything down to the lowest common denominator. I can actually share real in-depth examples and my own personal experience and a lot of you guys are similar to me in a lot of ways. So if you just, you know, listen to this, but think about how it might be showing up in your life. I don’t know, I feel like when I’m listening to podcasts, I find it the most helpful when people are talking about themselves rather than giving out advice.
So that’s what I want to do. It’s also like, yes, it is a bit self indulgent because I do figure a lot of stuff out about myself by talking about myself in these things, but it’s also because I feel like me telling you a whole bunch of shoulds doesn’t actually help. So I’ve written a list and I’m just kind of gonna go through them and chat about them. And I’m going to start with the one that I mentioned last week, but all of these aren’t business related or anything like that. But obviously growing my business is something that I’m working on a lot and consumes a lot of my mental energy. So that’s why it often comes up. So the first one is my self-image around being an entrepreneur.
And I was talking about this in last week’s podcast episode that I like. I just realized then, so like a week ago that I’ve been working towards my big impossible goal, which by now you guys probably know what it is. It’s to make five hundred thousand dollars in my business in 2018, and I’ve been working towards that while at the same time not being willing to self-identify as an entrepreneur, whether that’s talking to other people or even talking to myself, I just haven’t had that belief or have it be part of my self image that I’m an entrepreneur and I’ve been waiting until and this, this will be a common theme.
I have been waiting until I’m successful at being an entrepreneur before I believe that I am an entrepreneur, even though I need to believe I am an entrepreneur to be able to be an entrepreneur. Like the belief is what creates the result. But so often I find that I’m wanting to believe it only after I can see it. But it’s the belief that has to come first. And I know that I’m not the only one that does this. So if you’ve been doing it too, you’re probably, by the time I’ve gone through all of this list, because it’s like the same situation for all of them believing it only after like I see it in real life. That is what has really been stopping me from achieving a lot of big and small goals.
So I have worked it into my affirmations. So if you want to hear more about the affirmations that I use, how I use them, I like handwriting them, all of that kind of thing. Make sure you go back and listen to episode twenty four, which is about how I use affirmations and my affirmation routine. But I have added it into my affirmation that I’m a multiple six figure entrepreneur. And now that I say that like I’ve written it now enough times, I calculate it. So I’ve been writing that down as part of a bigger affirmation fifteen times a day, which takes half an hour, but I’m totally willing to spend half an hour a day creating this new belief about myself. So I have written it now over. It was definitely over two hundred. It was like two hundred and fifteen times.
At this point. I can say that in the present tense, I am a multiple six figure entrepreneur and my brain like believes it, which is why I’m so obsessed with affirmations. Because once you can really believe something, it’s only then that you can create it. So that’s what I’m doing to really create that self-image. I’ve also been trying to like, say that when I’m introducing myself to people and I still find like, I don’t want to say that, and I just want to be like, I have an online business. Um, and I think it’s partly fear that people will be like, oh my God, you’re not an entrepreneur. Like, who do you think you are? And like, I think I spoke about this last week, but I see entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg and I’m like, I’m not like Mark Zuckerberg, but I really feel that not identifying myself in that way is holding me back in so many ways.
And it’s all just to do with how I see myself. It’s stopping me from interacting with certain people because I think they’re an entrepreneur and I’m not an entrepreneur and all of that kind of thing. So it’s just one like really subtle belief that even though I was creating, a belief around achieving my impossible goal because I had this other belief about myself that I wasn’t an entrepreneur. That was like, really undermining all of my hard work to try and create that new belief about achieving my goals. So that’s one that I’m really working on. One that’s kind of related as well is being a blogger. And this might sound kind of funny, because I’m sure a lot of you see me as being a blogger, but it wasn’t until I got my photo taken, my photos taken professionally at the end of March, something about that, I was like, oh, this is like a real thing now.
And it was also like the fact that Kate, who is my photographer, she wasn’t like, oh my God, what are you doing taking these photos? Like, I don’t know. It’s like, yeah, it was just like my old self doubt that had been holding me back from doing it because I didn’t like. I don’t even know how to describe it, but I just hadn’t been willing to see myself as being like, yeah, I’m someone who can say I’m a blogger, even though literally the definition of blogger is probably just someone who has a blog. So basically anyone can say they’re a blogger, but I just thought that like until I was taking it seriously, I couldn’t identify as that. And then it’s that chicken and egg thing again where, you know, you only become that if you believe it, but you have to believe it before you become it. So it was just interesting for me to see only so recently that when I did that, and then I was suddenly like, oh, well, that’s the thing only serious bloggers do.
I guess I’m one of them. Oh yeah. Like, I don’t know. It’s so weird to think about, but that is something that I had had in my head that if you’re a blogger, you have to do this certain thing. And only once I did it, I could be think of myself as a blogger. Anyway, it’s funny these like it probably sounds ridiculous to you, but in my head that made perfect sense. And it’s just really interesting looking back on it. Another one that I’m working on at the moment is being an organized person. So you guys probably, I don’t know what you think, but I’m sure I give the illusion of being a fairly organized person and that is not always the case. I am the person that leaves twenty mugs of old tea before taking on my desk, before taking them to the kitchen.
Like I really am like a cup hoarder. Actually, I don’t have any around at the moment, but normally, and it’s because I’ve been working on this, but usually that’s something that I would do and I just feel like my laptop’s always a mess. Like the storage is almost always full. I have that message that comes up saying like, your storage is full like every day. And then like, oh, what can I delete? And I always feel like with that, I’m just putting out fires and I’m never actually proactive about it. And so anyway, I’ve had this belief that I’m not an organized person despite being organized in so many ways. And a good example of like, when you have a self-image that you look for evidence to support it and you dismiss evidence that goes against it. So I had this idea in my head that I wasn’t an organized person. Like that was my self-image. I’m not organized.
And look, all these people think I’m organized, but I’m not. So at my work desk when I’ve had, like in my corporate job, I kept my desk really neat and tidy. Like, I really like having a tidy desk when I’m working and people be like, oh my God, you’re so neat and tidy. And I’d be like, oh, you know, I’m not like this all the time. And even though people were literally saying to me like, you’re an organized person. I was so stuck in my self-image of not being organized that I would just dismiss that and be like, you guys don’t even know the half of it. When really what I should have done is been like, thank you. I am organized and there are so many little other things too that I do that are organized that I completely just dismiss because I’m just trying to have it all fit into my identity of not being organized.
And I think this is the reason, like I really wanted to talk about self-image and identity is because it’s so subtle. And I’ve heard a lot of people talking about limiting beliefs, and I’ve spoken about limiting beliefs. And I think this is kind of like a segment of a limiting belief, is the beliefs you have about the kind of person you are. But I, I feel like I have heard people talking about it, but I guess I’ve never been in a place to hear it. Like, you know, sometimes you hear someone say something and you don’t like the message just doesn’t hit, and then you hear it again a year later, you’re like, oh my God, I wish you’d told me that. They’re like, I did tell you that sometimes you just have to be in a certain place. So I don’t know.
I just haven’t been in a place previously to really get the nuance of like, the impact that my opinion about the kind of person I am, not just my beliefs, but the kind of person I am, like how much impact that has. So I really wanted to focus on it because it’s crazy the way that our mind, if we have a belief the reticular activating system goes to work to make sure that all of the. Like all of the information it feeds back to you because there’s so much happening each and every day in every single second. There’s like a million colors, sounds all of that. And our brains trying to not get us overwhelmed and only gives us certain bits of information, and it chooses that information based on what we focus on, because that’s what we’re telling our brain is important.
So if we’re telling our brain, I’m not organized, it will feed us evidence that we’re not organized and dismiss like will interpret. Like people saying, oh, wow, your desk is so clean. My brain says, oh no, I’m not a clean person. Even though it’s like what they just said you were. It’s it adds that coloring to things and it, this is what I talked about in the affirmation series, because the reticular activating system is, is what makes affirmations really work, in my opinion, is that when you focus on it, then your brain starts to filter information around you in a different way and you begin to not only believe that that is a possibility for you, but you begin to figure out how to do it in a way that you could have never done before.
But anyway, I just think this shit is important. So I have been working on really creating this belief that I’m an organized person. But what I have done is I have created like one cornerstone belief that is the foundation for that new self image. So the belief I’ve chosen is, or like the affirmation kind of thing. I’m not writing this one down like I do my other affirmations. This is one I’m just like working on as I’m going about my day is I’m the kind of person that does things at the first opportunity, which if I was looking to my past for evidence, I would say that’s not true because there are a lot of things I do at the last minute, but I’m not looking to the past. I’m looking to the future, and I am the kind of person that does things at the first opportunity.
So when I’m going around my day to day, and it does take a lot of conscious effort, so I don’t pick it up every time. But it’s the practice of doing it consciously so many times until it just becomes the new way of being instead of the old me believing I’m disorganized. I hope this is making sense, guys, but what I do is like when I’m walking around and say like, I see something on the floor that could be picked up in the past. I would pick it up later, but I will pick it up and then I’ll like say in my head, and I don’t know if this sounds like weird, but anyway, I’ll say in my head like, oh, that’s the kind of thing I do. I pick things up as soon as they could be picked up and little things like that. I just like, you know, there’s a dish out and I’ll put it away when I first could put it away. Not at the last opportunity. I’d be like, oh, that’s the kind of thing I do. And then when I don’t do it, instead of being like, oh yeah, that’s right. I’m not an organized person.
I’m just like, oh, that’s really weird because I’m the kind of person that does things straight away. And it, I don’t know, you kind of just have to trick yourself into believing that you’re that kind of person until you are. I read a quote from Lady Gaga about how she used the Law of Attraction to achieve her success. And she was basically saying, you know, she said to herself, I think it was like, the fame is inside you. I’ve I’ve made the biggest record, whatever it was. And she’s like, it’s a lie. But you say it so many times until it’s not a lie. And I was like, it is so true. It starts as a lie. As in it doesn’t match reality. But then you, you believe it enough and you repeat it enough that that is the new reality. And a belief is just a thought that you’ve had over and over again. And it was funny. I actually looked up the definition of the word belief when I was writing this week’s blog post, the one on how to change your self image. And it said that a belief is now.
I can’t remember the wording of it, but it said like, especially if you don’t have proof like a, it’s a belief, especially if you don’t have proof, as in most beliefs don’t really rely on any evidence of just something that we’ve had over and over again, a thought we’ve had over and over again. And it becomes a belief, which means you can create any belief you want just by having a thought over and over again. And you guys know, we change beliefs quite a lot. And yeah, it’s just because you’ve had a thought over and over again, the repetition of it, it just then becomes true.
So that’s what I’m doing with being organized. I’m looking for opportunities to do things at the first moment I can. And when I see that opportunity, I do that thing by reminding myself, oh, I’m the kind of person that does that now and then. Like, I’m not going to have to consciously remind myself of that hopefully for too much longer. But until it becomes a reflex, I will have to keep reminding myself. It’s like when you’re learning to drive a car, at first, you do have to be really paying attention, and it’s a really a lot of conscious effort. And then your brain’s like, okay, we know what to do. We’ve got this. And it just goes into autopilot and you don’t have to worry about it.
So that’s what we’re trying to do with this. So I am really working on it at the moment with being organized, particularly in the form of doing things at the first opportunity. So if you are wanting and I create. I talk about this in the workbook. If you’re wanting to create a new self image. I recommend figuring out just one sort of phrase that you can say to yourself that starts with, I’m the kind of person who and whatever it is. Um, and I’ll talk about some like one I have that I just decided, I don’t even know why, particularly when I was in high school, I decided like, I’m the kind of person who enjoys eating healthy food. I’m not just the kind of person who eats it. I’m the kind of person who enjoys eating it like I, I love eating salad and like all of that kind of thing. And that belief has really come in handy. But it’s just a belief.
And yeah, I don’t even know where I was going with that, but oh, I’m the kind of person who make sure you just pick one thing. Because if you keep your new self image that you want to create really vague, it’s hard to get a grip on it. So that’s why for my being organized, one, it’s I’m the kind of person who does things at the first opportunity. And I feel like that’s a lot more helpful than having the having it be. I’m the kind of person who is organized because it doesn’t really prompt me as to like what to do, because organizing is more like a vague thing and means different things to everyone. But I’m the kind of person who does things at the first opportunity is more clear, and I’m still playing around with all of this stuff.
As you guys know, I share stuff when I’m going through it and figuring it out, so this isn’t something I’m talking about in hindsight. Like this is something I’m very newly looking at. But like the other day, I drove past the petrol station and it was near the time that I would need to fill up petrol. And I was like, you know what? I’m gonna do that right now. And I did it. I was like, yep, I’m that kind of person. And it probably sounds crazy, but I can actually feel it having a much bigger impact on the way that I’m acting than before. I would change my actions, so I might have gone and filled up my petrol, but I still had this underlying belief that I wasn’t organised, so it would be out of character for me to fill it up before I the last minute that I needed to, and it would be normal for me to fill it up at the last minute. And now I’ve just flipped that.
So when I do it early, that’s normal. And when I do it late, that’s out of character and it’s just reframing it and just creating this belief that I’m actually the kind of person that does shit straight away, because that is the kind of person that I want to be and that I am being. And as I was saying, I can’t pick it up every single time, but I have just been consciously thinking about it as I’m going about my day. Also, if you’re doing one of these, I recommend doing just one because there are so many different ways that we look at self-image and so many different beliefs that make up self-image that I think trying to change your whole self image at once is challenging. So in the blog post and the workbook, I have, you select one goal or habit that you’re wanting to work towards, and then think about self image in terms of that one thing, just so that you can actually get something really clear and then make progress towards it and practice with that one thing.
And then once you’ve created that new self-image around that goal or that habit, then you can use that for another one instead of trying to change like ten at once. Please don’t do that. So the next one I’ve written down is being good with money. So this is an interesting one as well, because I used to believe that I was good with money and I’m getting that belief back and I’m, and I know I just said, don’t do so many of these at once, but I feel like I am. So you know how they say like, what is it? Do as I say, not as I do. But no, I do only recommend doing a very small number. So I’ve spoken about this before on the podcast, I’m pretty sure. But when I went on holiday in twenty fifteen sixteen, I went on a big ten week trip, um, a two week charity trip to Peru, and then eight weeks in or seven weeks in Europe, and then a week in New York.
And I overspent on that holiday by about four thousand dollars. And I had to borrow, I think it was five hundred dollars or one thousand dollars, to tide me over. And I just had so much shame about that. And I’ve spoken in previous episodes as well about when my mum died. I just attached a whole lot of shame to that experience, even though there was no logical reason. I was just a kid and that’s what my brain did. And then after that, like adding shame to all different kinds of things was just sort of the pattern that my brain would go through. So when I overspent, I just had so much shame about it. And it felt like the shame was I intensified the shame by thinking about how I used to be good with money before that, and how I’d been writing on my blog about how to save money. And I had really been good with money in my own self image, the way that I saw myself.
And then I did something that wasn’t. And it just shattered that belief. And then I just kind of like was like, oh God, like, I’m not good with money anymore. And then so this is like the thing with all of them, right? So I only wanted to believe again, that I was good with money Once I had the evidence that I was good with money. So once I had saved up money again. And, it’s just been so interesting to realize that it doesn’t work that way. Like, I really have to believe that I am good with money before the evidence will come. Because the evidence, the result only comes from the belief that I’m good with money. Like, I’m trying to, like, surprise myself by being good with money and then like, oh yeah, I’m good with money, but I need to believe that I’m good with money before it happens.
So if you’ve been struggling with money, you have to look to the future for evidence, not to the past and believe that you’re good with money. So this is one that I’ve been working on, and I feel like I’ve clawed my way back, like nearly to the belief I had before. But I still falter every now and again, because I get trapped in looking at that experience as evidence, which it wasn’t. And it like, yeah, there’s so many different ways to look at that experience. But when I was in it, I had chosen to feel ashamed about it. And that that was evidence that I wasn’t good with money and that all of these different things. And it was just really interesting. And it was having that break, like seeing that around how I was behaving with money and that I had attached shame to it.
That caused me to see that that’s what I had done with my mum dying as well, that it was just me adding shame to something that needn’t even be shameful. And then it it like the perfectionism thing, is really fear of feeling shame and wanting to be perfect so that there’s no room for any shame. So yeah, being good with money is a belief that or a self-image that I’m working on having again. And yeah, I feel like I have come a long way back, like getting back to that belief, but it’s still not one hundred percent there. So I’m just on my day to day looking for evidence that I’m good with money. If I do something that I deem not good with money, I’m like, oh, that’s out of character for me. And just really, again, framing it when I’m doing the thing that supports the self-image I want, I’m like, oh yeah, that’s normal for me. And when I do something that doesn’t, I’m like, oh, that’s weird. That’s really out of character. So the other one I want to mention is being smart.
And I have believed that I’m a smart person, I think because I was told that a lot growing up. And if you’ve had that perfectionism, fixed mindset, doctor Carol Dweck says that a lot of that comes from being told that you’re smart instead of being praised for effort. And when you are told you’re smart, it sounds like a good thing. And we say it’s a kids like we it’s, it’s praising them. It’s like, how could that do any harm? But when we praise people for being smart rather than for the effort, you get to a point where in life, if you’re going to achieve anything, you might fail. But if you’ve been praised for being smart, you only want to do things that will be seen as smart. Which means then you avoid opportunities for failure so that you can uphold this self-image about being smart and not feel any shame.
So being smart is something that having that self image, I think, hasn’t helped me in a lot of ways. Of course there are ways it has helped me. I’ve done well at school and all of that, but it’s really created a fear around failure because if I fail, that means I’m not smart and it will shatter that identity. And all of this stuff on self image really comes back to we as humans always want to be right, and we particularly always want to be right about ourselves and who we are. And it’s really uncomfortable to have our self identity, our self image shattered. And so we act in a way that just reinforces the self image that we have. So being smart has meant that I’ve been really scared to fail, and I’ve come a long way at getting into the growth mindset and out of the fixed mindset.
But I spoke about it in my episode about a recent failure that it still has been failing. Quote unquote failing has still been like something that I do struggle with and struggle to move past. and I’m getting a lot better at it. But like a lot of people, it’s challenging, especially when you have this self-image of being smart, to not be smart all the time. And I also, and this is like one that’s been so subtle that it’s taken me forever to pick up. So I’ve had this idea. Most of these aren’t logical, by the way, and this is a fine example. So I’ve had this idea that you’re either smart or you’re like attractive. And if I’m attractive, the more my attractiveness increases, the less smart I am. And again, not logical. There are a lot of very attractive, very smart people. This is just how the brain like, sometimes gets things totally messed up. And I don’t know if some of you guys might have done this one as well, so I just thought I’d share it.
So when I have been consciously working towards a goal to a what am I? Oh my God. Oh, also am I. I’m thinking of you if you’re listening to this, because she was saying to me how I just left in so many stumbles in the last one because I couldn’t speak. But, um, I just really had this belief that if I was improving my appearance, then I would be perceived as being less smart. And because really my whole identity was based on this foundation of me believing I was smart, like that was the one belief I was clinging to most that I would self-sabotage as I was working towards my, appearance goals, like my gym goals. Because then I was like worried that all subconsciously, of course, because consciously I’m working so hard and then getting so frustrated when I self-sabotage.
Subconsciously, I’m pretty sure what was happening was that I had this belief that if I’m like too attractive, which sounds kind of funny to say, but if I’m too attractive, that means I’m not smart and I want to be smart. And I think a lot of it’s come again, as I said, from being praised for being smart when I was a kid and really just having that as being the part of my self image that was like the strongest. So I don’t think it is helpful to have an identity around being smart, and I’m working on changing that to being a good learner and being someone that’s willing to fail. I want to be the kind of person who is willing to fail, not the kind of person who is smart. So there a list of all the ones that have been like in conflict with my goals.
And actually I think I skipped over this one as well, but being on time, being a person that arrives to things on time and I’ve had a belief which, again, not from a logical place, is that I’m the kind of person who’s late to things. I really don’t believe. There’s a kind of person who’s early and a kind of person who’s late, like genetically. It’s just, did you get ready at the right time or not? But because my dad got like, arrived late to things when I was growing up, it was sort of, I guess, modeled for me that it’s okay to be late. And I don’t think in any way you can inherit being late. It’s just like you see that behavior and you’re like, oh, that’s okay, it’s okay to do that. Or, you know, having the same beliefs around it. So anyway, I have been trying to be on time or early for things. And this is something I’m still working on.
And it’s so fascinating to see that when I could be on time for something I will like subconsciously without me even realizing it. Try to fill in something in that time so that I’m late. So maybe it looks like I’ll be ready to leave early, and then I’ll find something I didn’t even need to do in that time. Instead of leaving early. Because I believe that I’m the kind of person who’s late. So I’ve been using the techniques that I’ve spoken about in the rest of this podcast episode to really help me create the belief that I’m the kind of person that arrives to things early. And I’ve kind of modeled this one off Steve, my boyfriend, because he’s always early to things. He’s like always the first person there at a party. He’s like, we always need. We go on time when even though most people know, if you know, if a study, oh my God, if a party starts at six, they don’t expect anyone to be there at six.
But he’s like, it starts at six. We need to go and be there at six. And I’ve just tried to model off, like the beliefs that he has about being on time and then believing that I’m that way too. And again, when I’m early, I’m like, oh, that’s right. I’m the kind of person who’s early. And if I’m late, I’m like, oh, that’s weird. That’s really out of character for me, even though my brain’s also like, no, it’s not. You’re always late, but I’m just creating like, as Lady Gaga said, it’s a lie until it’s not. And eventually, if you just keep acting that way and believing it, you do actually then believe the lie and it becomes the truth. I will just mention a few of the ones that I have a few of the self image beliefs I have that have helped me towards my goals.
So one of them is that I’m a morning person. So I think there’s so much misconception around what a morning person is and what you have to feel like to be a morning person. Really, anyone can be a morning person like there’s no morning person police. And for me, like I say, I’m a morning person. That does not mean that I feel like waking up. Like I would definitely prefer to sleep in every day, every single morning, no matter how much of a habit I’m in. In terms of waking up early, my brain says just five more minutes every single morning. And I still have this belief, though, that I’m a morning person. I don’t even know when I created that belief. It definitely wasn’t really based on any evidence. I was like, I’m just I’m a morning person, and it does make it easier for me to get up. Not because there isn’t that resistance that every day, but because I believe I’m the kind of person who does get up.
And if you’ve been struggling to wake up early and maybe I’ll do a whole series on this, but I have done a YouTube video on it a while ago, but I’ve gotten a couple of emails lately about waking up early, But if you have a belief that you need to feel like waking up early to wake up early, I would say number one, that’s probably the biggest thing stopping you. So first of all, stop believing. You need to feel like it. I don’t feel like waking up early. I just wake up early. And it does take practice to ignore those voices in your head that tell you to just keep sleeping. And that five more minutes and it won’t even matter. And that thing wasn’t even that important anyway. And you can just do it tomorrow and you’re too tired. You’re not even going to be able to do it well today.
You need you need a break. You deserve to sleep like every morning. But if you can start to really see that, you don’t need to feel like waking up early to actually wake up early, and it’s actually okay if you’re tired when you wake up, that’s okay, then you’ll have an easier time. So just thought I’d mention that one I said before was that I have a belief about myself, that I enjoy eating healthy food, and I do enjoy eating healthy food because I believe I do. So that’s one that definitely helps me with my health. I also have the belief that I’m a gym person again. I don’t think there’s anything about me that makes me a person who likes a gym, but that also means I don’t feel like going to the gym. Like the same with being a morning person. Like, I don’t think that if you’re a gym person, it means you always feel like going to the gym most of the time. I see bf going and would rather sit at home, but I have this self-belief that I’m a gym person and that does make it easier to go.
And the other thing I wanted to mention in terms of changing your self image, and I do talk about this in the blog post, but I want to touch on it here as well, is that when you change your self image. So like all of the things I’ve spoken about that I’m changing, being an entrepreneur, being on time to things, being a blogger, being organized, being good with money, all of that stuff. When I start to act as if the person that is an entrepreneur and is on time and is a blogger and is organized and is good with money, likely I will get well-meaning but unhelpful comments from family and friends and colleagues about whether I feel okay. Oh, that’s just not like you to do that. Or why are you changing all of a sudden? Oh, you don’t need to do that. Like when you change the way that you’re acting, you guys will probably know this if you’ve been either working towards a goal, creating a new habit.
People like they call it the crab effect, where if you have a pot, I think it’s the crab effect. There’s a pot of crabs, like literal crabs, the animal. And one of them tries to climb out. All the others will literally pull them back into the pot with them. And that’s what people do as well, that when someone’s like might be shining a little brightly, we pull them back down. But I think it’s not just that it’s some people think that by commenting those kinds of things, they are protecting us from failure. And also there’s just like this need for certainty when you’re a human and we like everyone around us to be predictable. And when, for example, someone that’s always late starts being on time, even though we’ve been begging them to be on time, you’re like, oh, why are you on time? Like, this is weird and kind of reinforcing to them that they should go back to their old ways.
And I know I do it, and I think it’s just like human nature. We don’t even realize that we’re doing it, that when someone starts acting differently, we kind of like tempt them back into their old ways and tell them like they’re acting really weirdly. But I think from the side of being the person who’s trying to change your self-image. Just be aware that if you are doing a good job at it, people will comment and will try to tempt you back into the way you used to act. And if you’re a people pleaser, or you’re someone that hasn’t been in the habit of standing up for themselves, then you might just find that if you’re not paying attention, you will go back to your old ways just to avoid getting all of these super annoying comments from everyone about like, how different you are and why are you doing this? And you know, you’ll never be able to stick to it and you couldn’t do it last time.
And who do you think you are? And it’s just like that will be part of it if you are changing your self image, particularly if it’s something like being on time is a good example, or being organized like those ones that other people can observe, whether or not you’re acting that way. So I hope you found this episode helpful. My voice has nearly held up for the whole thing. Only in the last minute has it just completely left me. So I hope you’re having a lovely week and I will talk to you again soon.
Sam Laura Brown (Custom outro)
So I hope you found that episode incredibly helpful. And I just have to say, like now that you’ve heard the episode, I could talk about it more specifically, that what I talk about with like being a six figure entrepreneur and that being an identity shift, that was then the next year. So this is 2018.
That episode originally came out in 2019. I started making six figures in my business and have so consistently since then, including while having four little ones within four years. And just the thoughts about being an organized person.
I now view myself as being super organized and it’s just so much of it started with this self image work that I did, my money mindset, everything that I shared, being able to not just intellectually understand the concepts of self image and identity, but being able to actually apply it and to see what is the self image that you currently have as it relates to your business, as it relates to money, as it relates to your clients and customers and the kind of person that you are with them. It just impacts everything that we do. And as I mentioned in the intro, this is such a core part of perfectionist getting shit done.
And it’s a piece that I don’t feel like I’ve talked about recently, but it is so at the core of what we do inside the program to help you get out of your own way and get shit done in your business without burning out, without having to do things you don’t want, without having to do things that aren’t in alignment with your values. We always achieve our goals, our growth goals in a way that’s in alignment with our values. And part of the way that we do that is by doing this self image and identity work that I talked about in this episode.
So I really want to invite you into perfectionist getting shit done. Enrollment is currently open to do this work. It is part of the PGSD process.
We coach you on the on calls. It’s just, it’s so important. It’s so, so, so, so, so important.
If you have been struggling to get out of your own way for more than a few days or weeks, there is self image stuff going on. And I really want to help solve that for you. So join us inside.
It’s samlaurabrown.com/pgsd. I’ll see you in there.
Outro
If you struggle to build your business due to procrastination or overthinking, or maybe you keep burning yourself out, I want to invite you to join my program, Perfectionist Getting Shit Done. Inside, I will teach you my proven process for getting shit done as a perfectionist entrepreneur. In case you didn’t know, perfectionists can’t follow the same productivity advice as everyone else.
When we do, we get in our own way. So let me teach you what works inside the program. It’s simple and anyone can learn.
To sign up today, visit samlaurabrown.com/pgsd. I’ll see you inside.