
In today’s episode, I share a chatty Growth Goal update for Quarter 2 of 2022. In quarter 2 we made about half of what we made in quarter 1 and had a “failed” launch BUT this was by far my favourite quarter. Tune in to learn exactly why plus why I felt resistant to recording this episode, my biggest lessons from the quarter, what didn’t work and how much money the business made.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- What my goal is for 2022 and how I’ve broken my quarterly milestones down
- Why I felt resistant to doing my quarterly review and recording this episode
- The important lessons I learned about content creation (including instagram reels)
- Where I put self-coaching in my Power Planning
- My biggest lessons and ‘fails’ from the quarter
PGSD is opening to new students on 27 July 2022:
The PGSD Process will get you out of your own way in your business and have you making more money more easily. The doors to Perfectionists Getting Shit Done will be opening at 6am New York time on 27 July and closing at 11:59pm New York time on 2 August 2022. To find out more about the program and be the first to know when the doors open, join the waitlist here: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.
Featured In The Episode:
- Join the waitlist for Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (PGSD) – samlaurabrown.com/pgsd
- Learn the basics of Power Planning – samlaurabrown.com/planning
- Sign up for daily Perfectionist Power-Ups – samlaurabrown.com/power
- Follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject
- Episode 325: My Growth Goal Quarterly Review For Q1 2022
- Episode 336: Getting Your Work Done Early + Easily (Part 1: Content Creation)
- Episode 337: Getting Your Work Done Early + Easily (Part 2: Pre-Launch Period)
- Episode 338: Getting Your Work Done Early + Easily (Part 3: Launch Period)
Listen To The Episode
Listen to the episode on the player above, click here to download the episode and take it with you or listen anywhere you normally listen to podcasts – just find Episode 343 of The Perfectionism Project Podcast!
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Hi, and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project. A podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake, so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the perfectionist getting shit done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business, you can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.
In this episode, I’m going to be sharing my Quarterly Review for the second quarter of 2022. Before I get into it, though, I want to mention a couple of things. First of all, starting from the next episode that’s going out after this one, I am sharing a series on clean rest. I recently sent out a perfectionist powerup about clean rest. And we had a lot of replies saying what is clean rest? And so if you’ve been wondering about clean rest, how to get more of it, where to put it in your calendar, what counts, what doesn’t, and all those different things, then that series, it’s five episodes is going to be so helpful for you.
So the first episode in the series goes out on the 18th. And then there’s one every other day for all the five to go out. And then after that the doors to PGSD are opening on the 27th of July at 6am, New York Time for one week, the doors will be open, and you will be able to join us inside perfectionist getting shit done. And really master planning properly as a perfectionist using the power planning method, setting your growth goal doing all those things that we talked about on the podcast, I talked about on Instagram.
And this is really where you’re gonna get the support, the accountability, the coaching, everything you could want to have you actually put in everything that you’ve learned from this podcast into practice, I just wanted to let you know about the clean rest series and the doors to PGSD opening so that you don’t miss it. And you will find in the show notes, a link to sign up for the PGSD waitlist. And also, if you’re not following me on Instagram yet, I’m @perfectionismproject. But anyway, that’s just what I wanted to start with. The other thing I wanted to mention is that I felt so much resistance to recording this episode.
And I wanted to mention why because I think it’s gonna be really relatable. And I’m just sharing how I got over that resistance to get myself to where I am right now, which is recording this episode for you. So I was telling myself, and I think I mentioned in the last quarterly review, which will link up in the show notes for you as well, that for the next one, I was going to do my proper quarterly review first, and then I would do an episode on what I learned from that quarter and all of that kind of thing.
And so when it came to recording the episode, this week, which I had in my power planning, I was thinking I have to do exactly what I said I would do. And I need to sit down and do my Quarterly Review in my journal using the prompts that we have inside PGSD for that. And then I need to record my episode, and share what my quarter was like. And I just felt so much resistance to sitting down and doing the journaling for my Quarterly Review. And I feel really great about quarter two.
And so sometimes when we don’t feel like we had the best quarter, even though financially, I think I made about half compared with quarter one. But I learned so so much. In quarter two, I really feel like it is a fundamental foundational quarter for me in terms of the business and the business growth and my growth. But I just felt so much resistance to doing it. And so just before when I was making lunch, I was just thinking, what would this look like if it was easy, which would be that I would just get the quarterly review prompts up on my screen, and I would just chat through the answers.
And another reason I wanted to share this is because you can do that too. It doesn’t mean you have to start a podcast to do these kinds of episodes. But maybe you want to just record a voice note to yourself or something like that, then it might be easier sometimes if you’re feeling resistance to just sitting down and journaling to just give yourself permission to do it another way. So I’m just going to chat through my quarter. I am planning to keep this relatively brief. We’ll see how we go with that.
And one of the reasons for that is because in I have to look up what episode numbers it was. But in the podcast a few episodes ago, I shared three episodes that went behind the scenes of the launch that we did as a business in quarter two. And those episodes along and go into a lot of detail. And I think a lot of the lessons that I learned in this quarter. And a lot of the growth is really covered in those three episodes. So it’s episode 336, 337 and 338. getting your work done early and easily was the theme of that, and really a huge lesson for me.
So I’m going to point you there if you want to know more about things that I mentioned in this episode, because that is really going to provide a lot of depth and detail and really taking you through things as I was in the thick of learning them. So let’s go through the prompts. And so what I did right before recording, went to the PGSD dashboard website, and I just went to the search bar, typed in quaterly review. And I’m in the quarterly review workbook. So last quarter, this is a reflection on things.
What is your growth goal? So my growth goal for the year is a million Australian dollars in revenue, and equivalent to that is 750,000. US dollars in revenue. So I’m in Stacey Boehman’s 200k mastermind, and all of the revenue reporting and goal setting for that is in US dollars. So I really set my goal in US dollars, and then have been thinking in equivalent Australian dollars, because that’s what I see in my bank account. In my accounting software that I have. It’s all in Australian dollars.
So I’m kind of working in the two currencies. But I mainly think about Australian dollars, which is a million dollars in revenue, my quarterly milestones. So in PGSD, we recommend that you have quarterly milestones that increase every quarter. So for example, typically, if you had a goal of say, $100,000, quarter one, your goal will be 10,000, quarter two 20,000, quarter three 30,000, quarter four 40,000.
And we have a formula inside PGSD as well, if your goal isn’t around number like 100,000, that you can figure out exactly what numbers to have for each quarter. But for me, the first time I had this goal, I had it be 100 thousand, 200 300 and 400. And now that my business is making more than 100,000 in a quarter typically, that I instead for this goal, have my quarterly milestones broken down evenly, which is 250,000 per quarter. And we’re doing one or two PGSD per quarter.
So it lines up quite nicely with that as well. What was my milestone for my last quarter? 250,000 Australian dollars was the milestone. So did you reach your milestone for the last quarter? If not, how close did you get? This is really important wording. Because it says as well focus on what you did achieve rather than what you didn’t. Because a lot of times we interpret this is how far away were you from getting there?
So how close did I get and I shared in the last quarterly, update the numbers, so I will just very briefly recap them. So in quarter one, we made as a business $165,000. And in case you’re not familiar with our business revenue work, business revenue, which is a number I just shared, which is gross profit is… Actually no, it’s it’s gross revenue, is different to the amount of money that the business owner will take as a salary, there are taxes, expenses, all of that kind of thing.
And so this is why when I talk about going full time in your business, that you aren’t just focused on having your business make exactly the amount that you want to make personally, that your business will need to make more than you want to make personally, so that you can invest in yourself and in the growth of the business so that you account for taxes and things like that. So that is just something to keep in mind. Because a lot of times we hear say someone has a million dollar business, and we think that they have a million dollars per year that they are taken out of that business and living off. And that’s just simply not the case.
So 165,000 in revenue for quarter one. And 25,000 of that went to approximately these are all approximate numbers went to me as a salary slash wage just so that you can know that number as well, then encoded to the revenue was 86,000. And I just wanted to share as well the expenses. So in quarter two, I spent or invested $40,000, in my growth in terms of the 200k mastermind. And also I signed up for the Life Coach School coaching certification as well.
So I just wanted to mention that that in terms of quarter two, it wasn’t technically profitable, if you look in my accounting software, at the quarter, because I really invested in myself so heavily and the revenue was decreased from the quarter prior. And I want to really emphasize these numbers because you might be hearing this and think, well, it doesn’t really matter because Sam’s gonna make it to a goal or whatever you think about me, but so often I hear PGSD is with a very similar situation to what I’m literally in and they will say well, I’m going backwards, I’m never gonna get there, that was a fluke. And I’m really not thinking like that at all.
And a lot of the reason for that is because of the way that I went through the launch in quarter two. Again, I share that in those three episodes that I mentioned, and the debrief that I did after it been able to identify exactly the reason why the revenue for that quarter was what it was has me feeling so empowered, so excited for the next launch and not because I think you know, the next launch is definitely going to work. And a big thing that came out of the last one was that I had a feeling of entitlement that if I had done my part, then we would achieve our goal.
Of course, because I had done my bit, I done all the work early, that I felt like the quality of the content and everything that I was creating was really high. So I felt entitled to a certain result. And so I’m not feeling like that at all for this upcoming launch. But I really just feel, I guess, in a lot of ways, similar to how I felt in the January launch, which is just really connected and engaged and leaned in and curious, and courageous as well, and just wheeling and all those different feelings. But anyway, that’s a brief little overview of the numbers.
And I will go more into why I guess Oh, not really why, but what the biggest lessons were as that comes up in the quarterly review. So what are three things you could feel proud about from the last quarter? And also, I just want to share to. Oh I’m jumping all over the place, as I typically do. But what are three things you can feel proud about? And questions like this, that I had told myself? Okay, I need to work through this before I record the episode.
Because I don’t want to just say what is top of mind, because there might be a really important lesson that, you know, I need to just sit with for a minute. And I think we just need to give ourselves permission to let whatever be top of mind be the answer. Because a lot of times it is the answer. And maybe there would be something else that comes up, as we keep sitting with a bit know that your subconscious is sitting with it anyway. And I know that I’m going to find over the next probably 48 hours, that my brain is going to have thoughts of like, oh, there was this thing that happened or there was this lesson.
And so I’m just giving myself permission to share what is top of mind. And I wanted to mention that questions like this, what are three things you could feel proud about? We tend to skip them. And it might be that when you’ve done your quarterly review, you have skipped a question like this. Or maybe in your weekly review, you skip the question about you know what you accomplished what your biggest realizations were, or maybe you do it, but you’re kind of just going through the motions, and you’re not actually letting yourself feel accomplished.
So we want to make sure that before we go into a review, and into those questions about things that didn’t work in that kind of thing, that we are allowing ourselves to acknowledge ourselves and what we achieved and what we accomplished. Because if we don’t do that, especially in this situation, where I got what a third of the way to the quarterly milestone, that we can be like, well, there’s nothing to feel proud of there. So skip, but there’s so much and it’s always there if we look for it. So for me, what are three things I could feel really proud about from the last quarter. So I think the launch would be the primary one.
And in case you haven’t listened to those episodes, so the goal that we had was 60, signups for PGSD. And we had 15, from memory as the number that we achieved. And so I learned so much from that. And I’m so proud that I showed up fully for that launch, and that I didn’t make it mean anything about me as a coach, as a creator as an entrepreneur, that we didn’t get all the way to our goal. So I’m really proud of that, I’m really proud that I learned this skill of creating the launch content ahead of time that has made such a big difference.
For the upcoming launch, I’ve already prepped about 90% of everything that needed to be created. And I was able to do that, knowing that I know how to do it. And instead of like, in quarter two, I was really in this mindset of my growth is to create it ahead of time or at the beginning of quarter two. And now I have really identified that I just need to be in the self image of I am someone who creates it ahead of time, that’s not my growth, that is just who I am. And we all have evidence of being able to do that. And I could have been in that self image for the last launch.
And I’m glad that I wasn’t because it it has really allowed me to see the power of self image as it relates to this and really get that lesson. So I’ve just really been in the mindset now of, of course, I’m gonna get it done early, because that’s just what I do. And again, I haven’t created 100% of the things early, there will be things that probably happen close to the time that they’re published. But I’m still letting myself identify as someone who gets it done early, instead of putting this criteria on it, that I have to get 100% of things on early in order to identify that way.
So I’m really proud of that. And what’s another thing that I’m really proud of, I would say as well in terms of my power planning and my weekly review. Obviously, I teach that and so I also do it in my own life and I am doing my Power Hour, little tweaks and weekly review. But I feel like I had some really big lessons come out of my weekly review. And previous quarters or years, I have been, I would say I do the weekly review 50 to 75% of the time, but I did it really consistently in quarter two.
And I really felt the benefit of that. So I’m just proud of myself for doing that if when I felt resistance to doing it. And I also want to mention too, when it comes to thinking of things you feel proud of yourself for is to Yes, allow yourself to feel proud of results. But also we want to praise ourselves as process praise. That helps us create a growth mindset, that we want to praise ourselves for being courageous for being resilient. So trying again, and things like that, for showing up fully and putting in a full effort and that kind of thing.
So I want to make sure that when you are doing your weekly review, and your quarterly review, your annual review that you are allowing yourself and asking yourself to praise yourself for how you’re showing up not just did you get an A plus or not? So on the next page, what are three things you learned about yourself during the last quarter, then the next questions are, what are the three things that worked well? And then what are three things that didn’t work well, last quarter, and it ends on that one.
And I think after that would probably be really helpful as well, to identify what you want to do differently next time. And also to just give yourself some words of encouragement as well. So anyway, what are three things that you’ve learned about yourself during the last quarter. So I learned that… What would I say? I learned that this is not going to seem like a big lesson. But it’s something that I saw is that I learned that when I tried to systemize things too much, I take myself out of even doing the task and getting shit done.
And to give a specific example for that. In quarter two, I really didn’t post very much on Instagram, but I actually spent a lot of time behind the scenes, working on creating a process for Instagram and creating content and trying to be really systematic and formulaic about it. And I’ve talked recently about how when I’m doing that, now I know that when I’m doing that, that is me getting in my own way. It’s not to say not to have a process or a system for things. But that when I am trying to be really formulaic or strategic, that is me overthinking it and not trusting that I can just create things and thinking instead that I need to make sure I cover everything.
So that to me, I have learned that that’s a little alarm bell for myself, that when I’m thinking I need to cover everything specifically when it relates to marketing and feeling like I need to cover you know, a certain number of topics or categories, or whatever it is that that is me, not trusting myself, to just share what’s top of mind and to think about you and what would help you. And yeah, all those different things. So that was a big thing, because I spent so much time working on Instagram stuff behind the scenes and trying to figure out getting Daisy to help with that. And like a system. And it just, it was really enlightening as well, because when we went through that process, I realized that I wasn’t even really clear on exactly what I wanted. So it was very hard to delegate it.
So now basically, I have taken back over the reins, and I am getting really clear on what I want to create so that I can then delegate it. But there was just so much back and forth. And that was just a sign that I wasn’t clear on what I wanted and how we do things. So that was a big lesson. And I really learned that when I was doing the review for the second launch. So the one that we had in April, May. And I was comparing it with different things I did in the January launch. And in the January one in the lead up.
I was posting on Instagram a lot. I wasn’t, you know, covering everything, I would just kind of post different stuff that I wanted to post. And then for the second launch, there was only a handful of posts between the two launches. And yeah, it just wasn’t a reflection of where my time went on the back end because I did spend a lot of time thinking about it and systemising it. So anyway, that’s a long lesson. But that is something that I learned about myself. Another thing I learned about myself is that I know how to evaluate and debrief and pull out lessons from an experience that I’ve had.
So specifically, this is relating to the launch that I think before the launch that we had that I again in those episodes, I go through this all but before that, I was like, yes, it’s important to review and reflect and obviously that’s something I teach, but I really didn’t get the full power of it until I was very very methodical with it and again in that third episode I think 338 I go through the format that I went through and all those different things. So if you want to know exactly what that look like you can listen to that.
But I really got that when you can pinpoint and you have the discipline to ask your brain, what created the result that I have. And to not let your brain just divert to what’s easy like in that situation, I created the content ahead of time. And previously, when I had done an assignment early, I was like, well, it must be that I do my best work at the last minute, because when I did it early, I didn’t get a good result. And I really saw that in this launch with the debrief and evaluation, that because I really got myself, I didn’t want to do it.
But I asked my brain to figure out the reasons and it’s not like there are these right answers that I was able to find that I just asked my brain, what was the cause of the result that we had? And then I sold myself on not being the answer so that I could create a solution. So it’s very important that if you’re saying, like, I’m not hitting my goals, and I don’t know why I’m not hitting my goals, then that is just your brain, essentially being lazy, because it just prefers to not know, so that it’s not accountable.
So we want to ask our brains, if I had to decide what the reason was, and that was so important decide what the reason was, what would it be, and then selling yourself on that being the answer, it’s not like there are these answers out there that some people can find and some can’t. Evaluating is a skill. It’s one that I’ve been practicing for many, many years now. But the first one because I did I wouldn’t do any evaluation, it was just kind of my brain’s default evaluation of that sucked pretty much was normally what it would be, or I’m not good enough.
And it would, that would be my evaluation. But now it’s really taking me out of the picture when I’m doing an evaluation. And looking at things, basically, as if you’re a consultant who’s going into the business to see what went on. Rather than thinking about which we tend to do as perfectionist, thinking about how everything is a reflection of us and our worthiness and our ability and how intelligent we are, and whether we’re going to make it and all of that kind of thing. So I really learned the power of doing an evaluation and just coming out of that launch feeling.
So empowered, so sure of what I needed to do, again, just because I decided not because there are answers out there, that really was a very important lesson that I am going to take with me. And I learned about myself that I have really developed that skill set. The other thing I learned about myself is that I can coach myself out of overwhelm, which I know that can, it’s not gonna sound like a big lesson. But in the second quarter, at the end, Steve and I got married. And we got married in our backyard on our 15 year anniversary from when we started dating.
And there was a period before that, maybe like a month before it, that I just felt very overwhelmed. I was letting myself feel overwhelmed about prepping things for the launch and getting things ready for the wedding. And I think there was something else, just general like looking after Lydia and that kind of thing. I think, anyway, I was kind of telling myself, well, for the next launch that we have, maybe I just decide not to really like give it a full effort. And I will but I’ll kind of scale back what I deemed to be a full effort.
And I will allow myself, the time and the space to just be really present for the wedding and really enjoying the wedding prep and the organization and everything like that. And what I was able to do is actually coach myself and I was using the whiteboard I have in my office that I’m looking at right now as I sit at my desk. And I was able to find thoughts that allowed me to do everything I needed to do for the launch, as if I didn’t have a wedding to plan for and then be fully present for planning and that kind of thing.
And it doesn’t mean that my brain didn’t have overwhelming thoughts again, or stuff like that. But I really had this pivotal moment where I went from feeling like there’s so much to do. And I’ve got a lot on my plate, to being able to just change the way that I was thinking nothing changed circumstantially. I just changed the way that I was looking at it and decided, again, keyword decided that I can’t remember the exact thought that I came up with.
But basically I have the bandwidth I have the capacity, I have the ability to show up fully for the wedding and to show up fully for the launch. And that it’s not this compromise situation of one or the other. And that’s not to say it’s not valid to choose. I’m going to focus on this area of my life and to put less focus on my business. There are definitely times that I have done that and will continue to do that, for example, when I gave birth to Lydia, that I decided I am intentionally spending time in my personal life more and less time in the business during that period.
So it’s not to say that if you are planning a wedding or anything similar that you need to tell yourself, you should be able to do both. And I think that, again, is another really important lesson or not again, but that is an important lesson that I got this quarter as well is that I have really been shooting myself a lot. And this is a very perfectionist thing to do. We tell ourselves, we should do things and we need to do things. And something that I did a lot throughout the quarter was when I was feeling really pressured.
That was my little alarm bell to look at this. So say, for example, with Instagram, when I was feeling really pressured, that, I would write a list of all the criteria that I had for myself, like the unwritten rules that I had about, say, for example, it’s creating Instagram content about what it has to look like. And I basically would just write down like, it needs to be dot, dot dot, and I’d fill in the blank, and just write out all the things that came to mind.
And then it was easy to see why I felt so pressured, because I was telling myself, it needs to be this very certain way. And when I could change that to want, that really made such a difference. And that’s what I did when it came to the wedding. Instead of being like, I need to do all the planning for the wedding. It was I want to do that, and really telling myself on why I actually do want to do that. And I want to show up fully for this launch that I have and stick to the plan that I originally had.
And it was just really powerful to see how I was resisting it for quite a while, I’d say maybe a couple of weeks, that I was feeling that way and not coaching myself on it. And then I was like, Okay, get to the whiteboard, write down some thoughts. And yeah, I swear, after about 10 minutes, I just felt so much better. And I was able to just keep bringing my mind back to that thought. And I had a written on my whiteboard. So that when it wanted to go into overwhelm, I could just bring it back. So what are three things that worked? Well, last quarter.
So I’ve already talked, I guess, in a way about some of the things that worked well. One thing that I would say worked really well. Let me just have a little look at my power planning. Okay, I’ve just had a look at my power planning to jog my memory. And I just want to share something as well, since I’m just really sharing what I’m currently thinking in this episode, which is my brain is thinking we should just start this episode again.
We should just rerecord this because it has felt so all over the place to me. And anyway, I am just continuing to record and I’m going to publish it and not rerecord it. But I just wanted to share that because it’s easy to think especially now I have, you know, 350 plus episodes or not even that, but close that my brain wouldn’t think those thoughts. And it does. And it’s so powerful when I don’t let myself rerecord things and do that procrasti-working, and to trust that this episode is going to be helpful.
And if you’ve made it this far, there must be some part of you that is finding it helpful. And yeah, I just wanted to let you know that my brain is thinking that and like, Okay, well, now I could say this in a much more concise way. And I’m just letting this be good enough. And part of the reason I want to do that is so that you don’t feel like when your brain has thoughts about re recording or re editing or whatever that looks like for you that you have to listen, your brain can have that thought and then you can choose to just carry on. And that’s what I’m doing.
And that has been so powerful for me in my business. And that is really what has allowed me to create so much momentum and to achieve so many of the goals that I’ve had, because I’ve just let myself keep going and allowed myself to sit with those uncomfortable feelings of I’m going to sound rambly, I’m going to sound like I don’t know what I’m saying I’m not going to be helpful, like whatever thoughts, my brains thinking to just let the discomfort of them being there be there and to publish anyway.
And if I listened to them all the time, we’d have like six episodes on the podcast. So anyway, here are three things that worked really well during the quarter. The first was one that came out of myself coaching that I did, and putting that at the beginning of each workday that I have so work three days a week. Putting it at the beginning has been really helpful during this quarter.
So what I realized, and this has had a real flow and effect to how I’ve been doing things think this was after the launch. Yeah, it definitely was was thinking of each platform individually has been its own little world before I was thinking about the podcast being the main place. And then I was kind of assuming that everyone who gets my emails listens to the podcast, and everyone who follows me on Instagram listens to the podcast.
And so on the podcast, it’s where I share the most complete information and cover everything. If we want to say that. I’m not thinking about it that way, really let myself for the most part, just share what’s top of mind. And there have been times going back to that lesson I was talking about before, there have been times where I’ve been in a mindset of, I need to cover everything and be more strategic with my podcast episode choices.
And when I have done that, I really don’t think have been as well received as when I just let myself talk about whatever is top of mind. And I trust that I am saying what you need to hear, and what’s going to be helpful for you and all of that kind of thing. But anyway, I was thinking of the podcasts being the main platform, and then email and Instagram, if someone’s thinking about signing up for PGSD, that they come from the podcast.
And then the other things that just gonna kind of tip them over the edge is the way that I was thinking about how the platforms relate to each other when it comes to selling. And what I realized is that if I think of them individually, and I think about with the podcast, this is kind of already how I was thinking about the podcast, what would I create, if they only listened to the podcast? They never sign up for my emails, and they never follow me on Instagram.
So that’s pretty similar to what I was doing. And then what if I think about my emails as what would I say or how would I create here? If they never listened to a podcast episode, and they never follow me on Instagram and see any of my posts. And then for Instagram, how would I create? What would I say? How would I show up, if they never subscribed to my email list, and they never listened to the podcast.
That doesn’t mean that on the podcast, I didn’t mention Instagram, or on Instagram, I don’t refer to podcast episodes and that kind of thing, I still cross promote, because I want people to be able to get all the help that they could want. And being in each place is going to be really helpful. So I wanted to mention that.
But when it comes to the way that I’m thinking, particularly with Instagram, I had noticed that because I was thinking that whoever is following me already listened to the podcast, that I wasn’t really sharing a full picture of perfectionism and PGSD and power planning and all the different things that I was just kind of saying random things that I felt inspired to say, but I wasn’t thinking about, Okay, what if they didn’t hear it from me anywhere else. And then I was like, oh, you know, this thing I say all the time on the podcast, I should probably say that on Instagram, or this thing that I often say in emails or like there might be a perfectionist, powerful, whatever, maybe I’ll say that on Instagram too.
And just kind of thinking about things in that way and allowing myself to be repetitious and I was coaching a PGSDer on this the other day about feeling like, they need to have completely different content on all the platforms. Because if someone follows them, and all the places they don’t want to be repetitious, be repetitious, it’s so helpful for your people. And it’s also what creates a consistent brand is that they know what they’re going to get from you. And that’s what’s going to create the trust, to have them want to buy from you because they know what to expect.
And they’re not thinking, well, this person just has a new idea every week. And it’s completely different to what they see on the other platforms. And I just really don’t know what to expect. We’d love that familiarity. And there are so many people that I enjoy their content, and I buy from them. And they say the same things over and over again. And I love that because it’s that familiarity and comfort and there are definitely people say for example, like Brooke Castillo that I will go to listen to podcast episode, because I know what she’s going to say. It’s not because I don’t know.
And I want to learn, though, there’s definitely so much I’ve learned from her. But it’s because I know what she’s gonna say. And I know that I need that message. So I’m going to expose myself to something that I’ve already heard, I love re listening to podcast episodes and things like that, and going deep rather than wide. But yeah, thinking of the three platforms, I mean, ones that I’m on being email, Instagram and the podcasts as the top one. thinking of them as separate things really was helpful. And it’s also the reason that I created a video series on power planning.
So if you haven’t listened yet to Episode 342, that is a combination of those three videos, but I created the videos, because I was thinking about okay, well, I keep on Instagram, I get so many questions about how to do power planning, and what does that look like? And I’d be like, well, here is the planning series that I did. It’s this five episodes series, and it was kind of hard to point people there because you’re pointing them to an older podcast episode so they have to look for the podcast, and scroll through and all of that and I was just thinking, if they only gollow me on Instagram and they only were on my email list and they weren’t on the podcast, and they’re never gonna listen to a podcast episode.
How could I help them get that same information and those same lessons without having to point them there. And so I created a little video series so that they never have to go and listen to the podcast. And I still talk about go and listen to the podcast if you found this helpful. But it’s really thinking about if instead of trying to get everyone to the podcast, and it’s not saying that you need to not have a main platform, or whatever, I’m not saying anything like that.
But just them individually, really allowed me to create, I think, a better experience for the person on the other end. And then if they are following me, in all those places, it’s going to be even more helpful. Because on each platform, they’re really getting the full message. Rather than me this only giving that full message here on the podcast. So I hope that makes sense. The second thing was, oh, starting daily self coaching, I’ve already said that. Also, getting a lot of peer coaching during the quarter was something that really worked well.
So in the 200k mastermind, I mean, that is encouraged. And this is what you can do in PGSD as well, is reaching out to your peers, like there’s no system in the mastermind for this. All you do is you just message someone else who is in the mastermind, and you set up a time to get on Zoom, and then you just coach each other. And when you’re coaching each other, you don’t use your own. If because everyone in that mastermind is a coach, you don’t use your own tools or philosophies.
So for example, when I’m coaching someone else, on a peer coaching call, I’m not coaching them on anything that I teach in PGSD, or how it typically coach, I’m not coaching them on well you should do power planning, or here’s how I coach and get out of overwhelm or anything like that, as much as my brain wants to be like, this is gonna be so helpful, that we just coach on the 200k process, and helping that person get a deeper understanding and application of what we’re all learning collectively in the mastermind.
So getting coached from a whole lot of different people inside that mastermind and organizing that and put it in my calendar, even though my brain a lot of times didn’t want to do it. I mean, I did want to do it. And I feel like you’ll get what I mean the same with like the quarterly review, that I want to do it, but my brain feels resistant, because that will require thinking that will require me looking at myself. And it’s just easier to be busy with other stuff. But I’m so grateful that I prioritize that.
And it was really powerful to have that coaching and I’m going to be setting up peer coaching again during the upcoming launch. And then I want to have one peer coaching call per week, and organizing that. So that is something that I am working on creating for myself. And then another thing that worked really well was changing my mindset around Instagram reels. This isn’t to say and none of this in this episode is to say you should do things while I’m doing them. But I just wanted to share specific things so that you can apply them to whatever your situation is.
So if you think about with this, is there a certain kind of content, maybe it is, reels, maybe it’s TikTok? Maybe it’s YouTube videos, maybe it’s emails, whatever it is, is there something that you have been feeling resistance to doing that you want to do, it’s really important to underline that, that this is something you want to do. And it’s not well, I should do that, because everyone says that’s really effective. And then you’re trying to force yourself to do it. Again, we just need to check in with those shoulds and needs versus once.
So reels is something that I had just felt like, and I’ve seen PGSDers mentioned this in the form that when there’s a feed post, it feels so much more permanent than a story. So it’s easier to create on story because we have this belief that I guess some kind of flavor of, if it’s bad, it’ll be gone soon. And I don’t know only people who are following me will see this or something like that. So when it comes to reels, I just had in my mind that especially initially, people were mainly just dancing, and I didn’t want to do that.
And now there are a lot of examples of different ways to create on reels or TikTok or whatever. But I had just really gotten a story in my head that that format isn’t for me that especially with it being shorter form, that that’s not what I want to do. And that’s not going to work for me and I don’t want to do it and whatever. But I kept thinking about it and there was something about it that I did want to do. And so I had to check in again, is this a should and need versus a want.
And I did want to do it and I could see as well that my perfectionism handbrake was making me think that reels was such a big deal. And I didn’t know I think as well because they do get served up to more people and people who don’t follow you. Like that’s how the algorithm at the moment is designed that people who don’t follow you will see it. And with your posts, a lot of time, just a small percentage of people who do follow, you will see it. And if everyone loves it, then it might get pushed out further, but probably not.
So it was just kind of, I guess that vulnerability in my brain, my brain was thinking, basically, if we feel resistance to doing something, this isn’t safe for me to do. And so I really just took a look at those thoughts. I did some self coaching on it. And I was just like, you know, what, I’m just going to go back to the approach I’ve had before. And I’ve had with the podcast with a lot of success, and with other things as well of quantity over quality.
And instead of having to create, say, for example, three perfect reels per week, which is kind of the way I’ve been thinking about it before, it’s so funny how you notice that you can be in a certain mindset, like with the podcast, I have really been in a mindset of quantity over quality, especially initially, when I just really didn’t feel like I was someone who could have a podcast that focusing on two episodes per week, which was what I initially did until the beginning of 2021.
That that just helped me create a belief of will if this is shit and all the episodes coming soon. And I was able to create and record episodes and develop that skill set. And then I was able to change the quantity because I had developed the self image that I’m a podcaster and that my episodes are very helpful for people and things like that. So I didn’t need that kind of crutch.
Of creating a high volume, though, it’s really okay to keep creating a high volume. And I find it easier to create a high volume than a low volume. Because when I create a high volume, I’m forced to release my perfectionism handbrake and just do it. Whereas if it is low volume, and I’m not creating much output, there’s so much opportunity for overthinking and perfecting and all of that kind of thing.
And I saw a PGSDer the other day in the forum mentioned, when I’ve talked about this, they said, I just prefer myself when I create high quality content. And what I really want to if you can relate to that, what I want to invite you to consider is that the reason we say something like that, and it sounds so honorable to say I just prefer creating high quality content, because I want to help other people.
What we’re typically thinking about, and this is just my experience, and also when I’ve coached PGSDers this is what tends to come up is that when we say something like that, we’re thinking about ourselves as the creator rather than the person who were creating for. And we’re thinking about, well, I just want to sound smart, and look professional, and be articulate and have other people think I’m really good at what I do. Instead of recognizing that if we really are thinking about the person on the other end, that our low quality content or our mediocre content is going to be helpful for them.
And especially the case where our mediocre content is way more helpful for them than the perfect content that never gets published, because it’s never perfect enough. And so if you are finding that you’re very all or nothing with social media, that you post consistently for a week or a few weeks, and then you fall off the wagon, and you are telling yourself that you want to create high quality content, I really just want to invite you to consider that perhaps quantity over quality, could be the approach that would help you it’s been so helpful for me and really just recognizing that what our perfectionist brain deems to be low quality is not actually low quality in the eyes of the person on the other end.
And if we give ourselves permission to just hit publish, and keep going like I am with this episode, for example. That’s how we develop this skill set. And also the self image that we are who we want to be that we are a entrepreneur, we are a creator, we are a coach in my example, that we are the person who is doing the thing. And there’s such a powerful self image around being someone who’s up to something and who’s showing up, rather than being the person who creates high quality content, but never actually publishes anything because their standards are so high for themselves.
So speaking from experience there, that has been really helpful for me, but changing my mindset around reels and really just thinking about quantity over quality. And yesterday afternoon, even though this is technically in quarter three, yesterday afternoon, I recorded approximately 50 reels, and they will be coming out over the next few months. So when you see them go out, I’m sure I’ll be recording others as well mixed throughout. But I recorded them all in an afternoon.
And I think it was one o’clock, the first couple I did I kept re recording I just in my head. And then I was like nope. And I had a rule with myself that I could do. I think it was three takes of each, ideally just aiming for one. And recognizing as well that me doing the podcast episodes in this way has really allowed me to just think about a topic. So what I actually did, I went in the PGSD forum, and I would just read people’s persistence log, and then I would see something they said that would prompt me to think.
Okay, I’m going to talk about like, what would I say to that. Or I also went in to see my replies that I had given people and to riff on some of them and I am just able to riff and not have a script. And I found myself that when I’ve tested it with doing the script, it just isn’t fun. It’s so slow for me. And this is why as well, I don’t script podcast episodes, I just don’t really enjoy creating, I don’t want to create from a script, when I can just riff and it’d be helpful for people.
So that is the way that I prefer to do it. And yeah, so I was doing that with the reels and I was just trusting that whatever was top of mind, like I didn’t have to cover everything that I could just chat about different ideas. I could think about different perfectionist power ups I sent out and share some of them some of the reels were like 10 seconds long, some were 60 seconds long, depending what it was. So that was really from changing my mindset from this needs to be perfect and like this real with a capital R like it’s this big thing.
And I need to get it right and I need to get it right from the beginning like those classic perfectionist thoughts that I instead change it to. I’m just going to create a whole lot of them. And so I started doing that in quarter two, and experimenting with different things. And then I have just done a bunch. And I will be publishing them and just being in a much more experimental mindset and growth mindset with it, like how I am with a podcast. So those are three things that worked well, last quarter.
And then to wrap up three things that didn’t work well, last quarter, and what would I do differently to something I noticed that when I was posting more often on Instagram, after the launch, and once I realized, like, Oh, I’ve been doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes on Instagram, but I’m not actually there, that I started posting more being in that quantity of a quality mindset. And then obviously, when you’re actually putting more of an effort in and showing up more, you’re getting more responses. And like, there’s also an opportunity for your brain to and I noticed this was what I was coming up for me and I did some self coaching on it.
Like, do they like me was pretty much the question my brain not even consciously, but it’s subconsciously asking, that has been opening up the Instagram app, it’s some flavor of that, do they like me? Am I good enough and looking at how many DMS there are or likes or comments or like that kind of thing, and not even replying or doing anything with it. And that was really the alarm bell to me that I wasn’t doing anything with that information. Or if there was a comment, I wasn’t replying to it, I was just kind of trying to get this validation.
And I’m sure you’ll be able to relate to this because it is such a human thing. And yeah, my brain just wanted validation that I was doing it right. I’m people like me, I’m good enough. And then I had to do some self coaching on being willing to not be liked, and to really sell myself on that not being the purpose of me posting, which I intellectually know. But my brain wants to be like, but we need to be liked. So that was something that didn’t work well, during the quarter that I noticed a lot. And this came up a lot in my weekly review, that I was checking Instagram outside of the time.
So I usually just check in once in the morning, once in the evening. But I was checking a lot more. And so that was something that didn’t work well. And that I’m still I would say working on. But not really, I know how to just check Instagram twice a day. And I do that most days. And I just my brain just wants to check more often now that there’s more going on that because I’m showing up more. And yeah, it didn’t know that it didn’t work well. But that’s something that I noticed that wasn’t helpful and have made adjustments from that.
Another thing that didn’t work well. And that I learned throughout the quarter was that I found that doing my weekly review and power planning, like my power hour on a Sunday is the most effective way, I think to set up my week rather than doing it on a Monday morning because as I mentioned, I work three days per week. And what was happening, I noticed as my weekly review is that when I was doing my power planning in the morning on a Monday that it would kind of like it only takes an hour to do the power hour. But because of just like checking in with the team and other things that I would not really start doing the things that I really needed to do like my needle movers until the afternoon.
And I’ve shared before that from doing power planning for a few years now I’ve really figured out that my brain does the best in the morning. And if I’m doing creative tasks, if I am doing something that’s courageous, my brain does a quicker, easier job of it in the morning hours before lunchtime. And so what I tend to do when I’m scheduling my day out is that in the morning, it will be my needle movers where courage is required and that kind of thing. And then in the afternoon, that is when I’m going to be doing a check in with my team.
If I’m being interviewed for another podcast, like just things like admin things, or, for example, being interviewed for a podcast that I can do that I can speak on the main things around perfectionism and all of that so easily that it’s just a really great one for the afternoon and doesn’t disrupt my flow. So anyway, I’m doing my power hour on a Sunday, when Lydia was napping was just a really great way to set up my week so that when it came to Monday morning, that I was able to just sit down and get shit done. And it made a really dramatic difference to my experience of my work week.
And a third thing that didn’t work well. It’s actually kind of hard to think of what didn’t work well though. I’m pretty sure that if I looked through my power planning book with my weekly reviews in them that there’s a lot of things. But I’m just going to wrap up by saying that I mean, that didn’t work well was at times when it came to planning the wedding, just putting a lot of pressure on myself to be enjoying the experience of planning and thinking that I should be having more fun planning things.
And like judging myself for the experience that I was having was not helpful. And it did not help me have more fun. And so, yeah, just letting myself have the experience I was having allowed me to have a better experience. But I initially was really judging myself, and thinking, I should be having more fun, I should be enjoying this more. And obviously, when it comes to a wedding, everyone’s always saying things like, you know, you only do this once in your life and whatever. And I just felt like, like, I should be enjoying it more.
And when it came to planning the wedding, there were some fun bits. And obviously, we can quote yourself to feel fun in any circumstance. But there was also a lot of logistics. And because we got married in our backyard, there was it was basically a blank slate and in a way, and we just had to figure out how all the pieces came together and different things like that. And some bits of it wasn’t fun. And once I let that be okay, that I wasn’t having fun doing every single little thing. I had so much more fun.
So I’m gonna wrap this up here, because I have shared quite a bit, but I hope it has been helpful. And, yeah, I’m really I mean, we’re now a week into quarter three at the time, I’m recording this on seventh of July. But I am so pumped for quarter three, I have a few weeks off this quarter. Because clean rest. And also will I have most of the quarter off because I work three days a week. But I also have a chunk or two weeks off, I think it’s in August for clean rest, and then also to attend virtually the next 200K mastermind, live events that happens in the States, I will be up in the middle of the night doing that.
So I’m just pumped for this launch. And mainly like, I just really feel like because of the last launch. And as I’ve shared in this episode, the lessons that came from the evaluation that no matter the outcome of this launch, like I really feel committed but on attached to it, which I feel like is the best place and I now know in my body the difference between believing in it and being in commitment versus entitlement. That was just for sure the biggest lesson from the last launch.
But I am really just feeling very growth minded about it. And no matter the outcome, which doesn’t mean I’m not committed to the goal that we have and to welcoming in PGSDers into putting more hat more of what am I trying to say, putting the tools for getting out of your own way into the hands of more productions, entrepreneurs, that’s something I’m very passionate about. But yeah, just feeling like regardless of the outcome that I know, I’m gonna learn so much from it.
And not just in that, like, you know, put it on a bumper sticker kind of way where it’s like, you know, you learn the most from your failures. And yeah, yeah, that sounds good, but not actually and and just want to be successful. That’s kind of how it’s thinking about it before of like, yeah, you might learn from failures, but I don’t want to fail. And now from this last experience, I really feel like I, again, not that I don’t care, I really do care. But I’m not attached, because I know that like long term, when I zoom out, I’m getting to where I want to go no matter what.
And so that allows me to not feel pressured at all about the launch, or like, I need to recommend PGSD to someone who isn’t for. And we’ve only gotten more and more clear on who it’s for. And we’re only sending out more applies to people when they ask about it to say, actually, no, this isn’t for you if you’re not an entrepreneur or things like that. So yeah, I’m just feeling really growth minded about it, which is really fun.
And I just wanted to wrap up on this note to say, and because I was coaching and PGSDer on this as well, is that when it comes to our quarterly milestones, that we want to make sure we’re not using them against ourselves or as an excuse to quit on the goal. So for example, if you like in my case, I didn’t achieve my q1 or my q2 milestone. And so sometimes in that situation, we can make that mean we’re never going to get to the goal.
We can go to the goal or we can think well I know what to do with my milestone now, do I like make the next one’s bigger? What I like to think about is, if you imagine, in archery, you have the targets. And so for each quarter you have, you kind of step up to the target, and you’re going to give your best attempt at hitting the bullseye, so to speak, then the next quarter, you walk over to the next one, and then you haven’t got that, and so on that lens.
And it’s really powerful to not put pressure on yourself to increase your other quality milestones, or to decrease them. We talk in PGSD a lot about not changing your goal, and instead of changing the way you’re thinking, but however, I wanted to mention that, say, for example, your goal is 100,000, you’re in quarter four, so your milestone is 40,000. And say you made like each quarter, say you made 8000, and your brains just freaking out about 40,000 or something like that. I’m just making up a random situation.
But if you need to think about it differently, instead of changing the milestone or go seeing the goal, what you can do is say, Okay, well, if my goal was 10,000, what would I do, and if that helps you to access some thinking that thinking about the 40,000 doesn’t, then you can think about it in that way, you have permission to think about it in that way. And a lot of times when it comes to changing goals, we want to change the goal because it’ll change our thinking. But you don’t actually need to change the goal. To change the way you’re thinking you can just identify how you would think if you did let yourself change the goal and then keep the goal the same.
There’s so much power in keeping the goal the same instead of downgrading it. And in PGSD, we talked about this, how we have the desire often to downgrade our goal so that we can achieve it. And there’s so much benefit in setting a goal that you don’t achieve 100% of the time. And really when it comes back to since this is an update on my goal, that I am so glad like regardless of how much money I make this year in business, that having the goal be what it is, has me thinking at such a higher level than if the goal was something that felt easily within reach to me.
And so that is what will allow me long term to get so much further when it comes to the business. And in the short time, we might not get the satisfaction of achieving every single goal we set. But if we have to set goals so small, that we don’t even have to grow in order to achieve them, that isn’t actually satisfying, even if we do achieve it. So if you’re the kind of person who enjoys this podcast, I know you’re someone who wants to grow and evolve.
And that is why we set a growth goal inside PGSD. Because we want you to grow in order to achieve it. And it’s not a normal goal, you’re not meant to achieve it 100% of the time, and I have never fully achieved a growth goal. And yet, my business has grown exponentially by learning how to commit to a goal and pursue it fully. And I’m still learning all this but how to do that without then downgrading the goal and to just keep it the same, and allow myself to be the one that changes rather than changing the goal.
So I just wanted to mention that. Because if you have been like, Well, I’m not achieving these milestones. And maybe I should just go back to setting realistic goals. This is a reason that we have in power planning, the third step is a weekly review. So you can train your brain to notice what’s working, instead of having to set a really small, realistic goal and then ticking it off and getting your accomplishment that way, which as I mentioned, isn’t really satisfying when you didn’t have to go very much in order to achieve it.
That way instead, in the weekly review, we look at what you’ve accomplished, we look at your biggest wins throughout the week and your realisations and a hammer isn’t that kind of thing so that you can get that feeling. And this is why as well on my power planning, we actually create plans that we can follow through on and we put buffer time in our calendar, contingency plans and that kind of thing. So that we are on a daily basis, getting a sense of accomplishment and success, from the way that we’re showing up rather than relying on our results to create that feeling for us.
Because when we are in that cycle of needing to have a result, to tell us how we feel about ourselves. It’s a treadmill that is very, very hard to get off. And we only make that goal bigger and bigger and bigger, so that we never allow ourselves to feel good enough because we’re always on to the next thing before we even achieve the last one. So we are really training ourselves to see what is working to problem solve and what’s not working from the place of it is working. And I’m not missing something I know what I’m doing. And that is the mindset that will allow us to see what we need to do differently.
We are learning how to do that and to show up for the goal fully, and to feel proud of ourselves regardless of how things are going, knowing that when we do that, and when we get into that growth mindset, we achieve so much more anyway. So none of this stuff I talk about on this podcast in PGSD or anything like that none of this work to get out of your own way. And to get into a growth mindset and actually enjoy the journey and like finish what you had said you would do like actually get to the end of the day and you did everything, you accomplish everything.
If none of that is going to cost you your goals, you will achieve so much more. Being growth minded, creating plans for yourself that you’re actually able to follow through on figuring out for yourself how to actually enjoy being your own boss, and be a kind boss to yourself, and all those different things that we teach, and coached on inside PGSD. So anyway, rant over, I hope this has been helpful. And if it has, please take a screenshot or send me a DM on Instagram, I’m @perfectionismproject.
Again, looking forward to the clean rest series coming out next week in the next five episodes, they’re going to be so helpful when it comes to getting that guilt free rest, having intentional time away from the business, so that you can recharge so that you can be more courageous so that you have higher quality ideas so that you actually are able to develop a life and identity beyond your business and you can untangle your self worth from it like this.
So many benefits of clean rest is a very important part of getting out of your own way. It’s a third step plan properly as a perfectionist, follow through 80% of time and rest without guilt and repeat. So that series is all about how to rest without guilt. It’s going to be so helpful for you, and I really hope you enjoy it. Okay, that’s all for me today and I will talk to you in the next episode.
If you enjoyed this podcast, I invite you to sign up to receive a short, daily “Perfectionist Power-Up” from me. These are little notes and reminders sent to you via email that will help you plan properly as a perfectionist and get out of your own way. So you can go to samlaurabrown.com/power to sign up today and you’ll start receiving motivating Perfectionist Power-Ups this week.