![Episode 359: [Planning Series] The Hidden Reason Your Business Isn’t Growing Fast Enough](https://samlaurabrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/ep-359-blog.jpg)
My 5-part planning series will show you why your follow through problem is just a planning problem. And you’ll know how to plan properly as a perfectionist and get out of your own way.
Soon you’ll be doing the most important tasks in your business in a consistent, sustainable, productive and courageous way.
You’ll uncover why your business isn’t growing fast enough, and you’ll understand the 5 ways your productivity will soar when you plan properly.
You’ll know the 3 steps to Power Planning and how to follow through without having to become more motivated or disciplined.
You’ll discover how to use your calendar so you can get everything done without burning out. And you’ll learn how to identify your needle movers when everything feels important.
Perfectionists get in their own way when we follow the same planning advice as everyone else. But it doesn’t have to be that way…
It’s time to start planning properly as a perfectionist. And anyone can learn how.
In this episode, I’ll help you see the real reason the time and energy you’ve been investing into your business hasn’t paid off (yet).
By the end of the episode, you’ll understand why it’s not your fault that your business hasn’t been growing quickly and the ONE thing you need to do differently.
You’re sooo close to being able to make the money you want to make and have the impact you want to have with your business – there’s only ONE thing you need to change. Tune in today to discover what it is.
Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode359.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- Why perfectionists can’t follow the same planning advice as everyone else
- How to tell whether your perfectionism handbrake is on and why it’s not your fault
- Why your business isn’t currently reflecting the potential you know you have
- Why getting into a growth mindset is so important for perfectionists
- The practical steps to get into a growth mindset
- Why planning properly is the biggest lever you can pull for business growth
Our final 2022 enrollment week for PGSD begins at 6am New York Time on 26 October 2022:
Perfectionists Getting Shit one is my program for perfectionist entrepreneurs. It will have planning properly as a perfectionist and doing the most important tasks in your business in a consistent, sustainable, productive and courageous way. And it provides the accountability to make your new-found productivity levels sustainable long-term, even if you prefer to lurk and learn from the shadows.
This will be our final enrollment week for PGSD in 2022. Enrollment will open at 6am New York Time on 26 October and close at 11:59pm New York Time on 1 November 2022. To find out more about the program and be the first to know when the doors open you can join the waitlist here: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.
Featured In The Episode:
- Join the waitlist for Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (PGSD) – samlaurabrown.com/pgsd
- Follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject
Listen To The Episode
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
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.
Sam Laura Brown
This is the first part in a five part series on how to plan properly as a perfectionist. This series is going to be full of practical advice to help you do the most important tasks in your business in a consistent, sustainable, productive and courageous way. In this series we’re going to be covering today in this episode, The Hidden reason your business isn’t growing fast enough. And then in the rest of this series, I’m going to be talking about the ways your productivity will skyrocket when you’re planning properly, how to power plan in three simple steps, how to use your calendar as a tool for kindness, so you never burnt out again, and how to identify your needle movers your most important tasks when everything feels important.
So we’re gonna dive right in. But before I do that, as well, I want to mention that perfectionist getting shit done. PGSD, which is my program for perfectionist entrepreneurs, is opening for enrollment on the 26th of October. And this is our final enrollment week of the year of 2022. So PGSD will have you doing the most important things in your business consistently sustainably productively, and courageously as I mentioned, and provides the accountability to make that something that you do long term. And when it comes to power planning and planning properly, which is how you will be doing the most important tasks in a way that you’re getting everything done without burning out.
Power planning is like learning to drive you learn at once you get the benefits for a lifetime. And so the doors, as I said will be open for one week, you can find out more at samlaurabrown.com/pgsd. I’ll link that up for you in the show notes. And in an upcoming episode episode 364. I’m going to be sharing an in depth look at perfectionist getting shit done, what it is, who it’s for why it works. So stay tuned for that one as well if you want to find out more about the program, but I really want to invite you into it during our final enrollment week, especially if you can resonate with what I share in this planning series.
Because as I said, it’s going to not just provide the tools that you need, but also the accountability, there are three different kinds of accountability inside PGSD, that are going to make it so that you’re not just productive for a little while, and then you burn out. It’s something that’s a new normal for you, it’s sustainable for you, you don’t have to be worried about being productive or being successful. And if you’ll be able to maintain it, it’ll just become how you operate. So that’s what we offer inside PGSD. I want to invite you in. So let’s get into talking about the hidden reason that your business isn’t growing fast enough. So I know when it comes to this, there are lots of reasons we think might be going on, there are lots of causes we think might be happening.
So I know that when our business isn’t reflecting the potential that we know we have in the business has, that it can feel kind of challenging to pinpoint exactly what’s going on when there are so many different things that go into building a successful business. But what I want to share with you is that the reason your business isn’t growing fast enough, is not a time issue. We think, oh, it’s because I’m busy with my full time job, my children, I have a health issue. I have family commitments. I don’t have enough time. It’s not that we think it’s a follow through issue, that we’re not motivated enough, we’re not disciplined enough, we’re not focused enough, we get distracted easily.
It’s not that we think it’s a marketing issue, that we need a more aligned strategy, if we can just find the right marketing strategy, then we’d be more successful. We need a more trendy strategy, we need to be on the latest social media platforms. But it’s not that we think it’s an audience size issue. We need more people, sorry that we have more people to sell to we don’t have enough people buying because there aren’t enough eyeballs on what we are offering. That it’s not that we think it’s a social media algorithm issue. This is a big one, I want to call you out, especially if this is something you have been thinking is that I would just be so much more successful if Instagram just showed my posts to people, but I’m not getting any engagement.
And I feel like I’m kind of trapped in this because I need to post and I should be posting but then my posts aren’t going anywhere. It’s not that it’s not the algorithm. And it’s not a team issue. So especially as our business grows, we can be thinking, well, if I just had a team or even at the beginning, I used to do this when I look at other businesses that had a team and it was just me on my own doing things. And I was thinking like if I just had a team to help me, then I would have more time for the important stuff and I wouldn’t have to be doing all this admin, setting up tech stuff like all the stuff I’m not good at. And that is very time consuming. If I just had a bigger team, then my business would be going faster. But it’s not that it’s none of those things.
So what we want to do in business, and this is something to think about in any area of life, but especially in business, we need to be looking for the biggest lever, or lever, as I would say, if you’re American, you might say lever. This is basically like when you have leverage, it means that the amount of effort you’re putting in, gets multiplied, so that you have to do less, in order to get the same result, we can do less and get an even bigger result. And so when it comes to thinking about leverage, like there are lots of different things that you could surely improve in your business.
And there are lots of different things that are important. But we want to be thinking about what is the most powerful thing that I could be focusing on that would have the most impact for me, what is the biggest lever that I can pull, so that the amount of time I’m putting into my business has the biggest payoff. So you want to be looking for where that leverage is, so that we’re not on this hamster wheel, where we feel like we’re putting in so much work, but it’s not been reflected in the amount of money we’re making, in the amount of sales and the amount of success we’re having.
If you are feeling like you’re putting in so much effort into your business that it’s just not paying off, then leverage is something you really need to be paying keen attention to. Because what we think is, well, if I just had more time, as I mentioned, if I just have more time, I could put more effort in, I get a better result. But the best thing to do to get yourself a better result is to think about leverage is to think about, what could I put my time into. So that that time like every hour I spend is worth 10 hours, instead of it being worth one hour or 30 minutes or five hours. Like we want to be thinking, how can I get the biggest payoff for the amount of time that I’m putting in.
And there’s an Abraham Lincoln quote that I’ve always liked, which is if you give me six hours to chop down a tree, I’m going to spend the first four hours sharpening the axe. That’s because sharpening the axe is leverage. When you have a sharp axe execution, like chopping down that tree is so much easier. So it’s a better use of time to sharpen the axe and then chop, instead of what we tend to do is we just want to go up to the tree and hack away at it because there’s not enough time, instead of just taking a minute sharpening the axe.
And then we don’t have to chop for nearly as long because we have the sharp axe. And so that’s what we want to be looking for. And proper preparation and planning makes execution so much more effective. You get so much more out for what you’re putting in. It’s the Domino, effect everything else in your business so much easier. And if you are finding that when it comes to your business, you are often fluffing around when you’re meant to be having a productive day, maybe you’re procrasti-cleaning and you want your kitchen to be clean before you can focus on your work. You need it to be cleaned before you can focus on your work. You’re putting off sitting down to work because you don’t know what to work on.
First, maybe you have that long to do list or that overscheduled calendar that just feels completely overwhelming. If you’re struggling to trust yourself to work on the right things. And that has you procrasti-learning you’re constantly wanting to find a new strategy you’re constantly in this is especially you’re looking at what everyone else is doing to see if you’re doing the right thing. Or maybe you have someone that you look up to and you’re just copying the strategy that they’re doing because you don’t trust your own intuition on that. If you are finding that a task that should take about 10 minutes is taking an hour due to overthinking you’re jumping from task to task. You’re leaving things 80% finished and then just moving on to the next thing.
Maybe you do a lot of social media scrolling, and you’re doing regular social media detoxes to try and get yourself to be someone who’s productive to be someone who’s focused that your To Do Lists get longer throughout the day, not shorter, ringing any bells if your side is constantly adding more to your plate, you’re always feeling behind. You are scrambling to meet deadlines, and then you’re pushing off important tasks that don’t have a deadline especially when there’s no one else keeping you accountable. You’re ticking off the easy tasks before you’re working on the important ones. You’re up apologizing to your partner for not finishing your workday when you said you would, it’s like, Honey, I just need five more minutes.
And then an hour later, you’re still going. If you can relate to that, like not being fully in your business or fully in your personal life, you’ve kind of got like, one foot in one and one foot in the other and you might be working and then you’re up and down from your desk, like doing loads of laundry and doing bits and pieces like that, then I want you to really recognize that the biggest lever for you is going to be planning properly. And when it comes to this, it’s really important that as a perfectionist, and I want to go in this episode into a bit about perfectionism, and really talk about it because it’s so important that you recognize why perfectionist can’t plan the same way everyone else does.
But when you’re planning properly, that looks different for perfection is them for people who don’t have their perfectionism handbrake on. And so it’s not your fault, that you’ve been feeling like you aren’t disciplined or focused or motivated enough and that you don’t have enough time. And that you don’t know what to do to make your business grow. Because you’re already feeling like you’re giving it all you’ve got even though you spent a lot of time procrastinating. It’s like that irony that we love being productive.
We perfectionist we love it so so much. And we want more time, we just want more time we resent when people take time away from our business. And yet, when we get more time we wasted, like none of that is your fault. And he was so close to being able to have the business that you know you can have, you’re listening to this podcast, because you know that you’re capable of more you want to get out of your own way you want to be showing up fully and courageously. You can really feel that in you.
And even if there have been times where your commitment to your business might have wavered, or maybe you’ve abandoned it for a little while, that you’ve had that restlessness that has pulled you back to it because you know, that you were put here to have an impact to make a contribution. You want to do something challenging, like that’s fulfilling to you to rise to an occasion to see what you’re capable of. And so when it comes to this, when it comes to realizing that potential, and being someone who does the things that they know they need to do. It’s so important. And honestly, it was such a relief, when I realized this, that it wasn’t me, it was just that I was following advice that didn’t work for someone like me, it was like, I’d been given glosses with the wrong prescription. And that I’d had these glasses on for a very long time.
So I could still operate, I could still get things done. I could still see but I couldn’t see clearly. Because I had been given the wrong prescription. It actually didn’t work for me. But it kind of did. So it wasn’t super obvious. And my guess is that you’re someone who has had a lot of success in your life, you’ve accomplished a lot. And so it might not be so obvious that you’re perfectionism handbrake, and really particularly certain advice, it turns out handbrake on, isn’t actually working for you, and it’s making your perfectionist mindset work against you instead of for you.
So you were so close to having the business you want. It’s not like you have to go out there and get more time and then figure out how to be more disciplined, and then find the right marketing strategy and grow your audience and learn the social media algorithm and then hire a big team. They might be things that you choose to do, but your biggest lever is just learning how to plan properly learning how to plan in a way that gets your perfectionist mindset on your side and working for you instead of against you.
It’s like getting the right glasses prescription so that you can see clearly, like where do you get that it’s like if someone has been colorblind, and they didn’t know it. And then they put on like their glasses that you can put on where you can actually see color. Like they didn’t even realize that they were colorblind because that was just the way they saw the world. And then they put on these glasses that show them like what it looks like to see color. And then like I mean, if you just want to Google like videos of people putting on these glasses pretty cool. The reaction they have like, holy shit, I didn’t even know this was right there under my nose.
Because I just thought everyone else sees the world the same way I see it without bright vibrant colors. And so that’s what we’re doing. When we’re planning properly. We are getting the right glasses prescription so that we can show up fully do the work, do it in a sustainable way and grow our business To the revenue to the impact that we know it’s capable of having like, you really wouldn’t be listening to this, unless you had a deep feeling inside you, despite the the self doubt and the imposter syndrome and that kind of stuff that can go on to, you have that feeling in you, that you are capable of so much more than what your reality is currently reflecting.
And you’re trying to reconcile that. And planning properly is the biggest lever that you can pull on. If you put your effort into that, like sharpening the axe, chopping the tree down, takes so much less time when you have done the proper preparation, and you’re doing it in a way that actually works for someone with your mindset. So let’s talk about your mindset, the perfectionist mindset. This is just perfectionism is just a group of thoughts that we call perfectionism. It’s not something that’s toxic, it’s not something that’s wrong with you, it’s not even something that needs to be fixed. It’s just a neutral thing, perfectionism. So important, we start with that vases. Because if we’re thinking it’s just like a toxic thing we have to overcome, then what we resist persists, am I going to hold on to it, and we’re also going to shame ourselves for thinking those perfectionist thoughts.
And it’s so helpful, like I love talking about like, my brain, and me, like separate things. So just really try to, for myself, create a separation. So I’m not then feeling like, my thoughts are me and I and my thoughts, and I have no control over them. Because it’s just the way I am like, our brains. Just think thoughts, the more we think them, they become beliefs, those beliefs, create feelings and actions and result. And it’s, it’s so incredible to know that we can change the thinking, and that we don’t have to change all of it. It’s not all or nothing. It’s not like you have these perfectionist thoughts that you have to completely eliminate. In order to get out of your own way.
It’s just knowing that even just one perfectionist thought redirecting your brain elsewhere, is going to have you creating a different result, I really want to, to articulate that picture, you know that this isn’t some kind of all or nothing thing, we’re not trying to get to the root of anything a lot of times, perfectionist, we want to get to the root, if we can just figure out the root cause the root like experience that we had in our childhood, then maybe we can figure this all out. And there’s a time and a place for that exploring your past. But at the same time, just recognizing your present day perfectionist tendencies, which we’re going to talk about in a second are coming from your present day thoughts, they might be thoughts, you’ve been thinking for quite a while now.
They might be thoughts that at a time really served you. But they’re coming from the thoughts you are having consciously and subconsciously today. And to get out of your own way and move out of those perfectionist tendencies. It is not a matter of changing every thought, again, it’s not all or nothing. It’s just knowing that you can direct your mind to a more helpful thought that’s believable to you. And you will start getting out of your own way. And we’re gonna talk about the process for that in this episode as well.
Let’s talk about what perfectionism is just like take it back to basics. So I love the Brene Brown quote. That perfectionism is the belief that if I just look perfect and do everything perfectly, that I can avoid blame, judgment and shame. And this is when I heard this, it really clicked for me that perfectionism is just a strategy to avoid shame. And by virtue of that, it’s less about doing everything perfectly. And it’s more about avoiding doing anything, imperfectly.
So a lot of times with perfectionism, we associate people who are neat, and organized and detail oriented, basically like the people we think are doing everything perfectly. We call them perfectionist. But really perfectionism. How it manifests for most people is avoiding imperfection avoiding putting in the full effort. Because we think that our best is our best, it can never be improved. And so we’re always trying to avoid finding out that our best isn’t good enough. And so we have all these different ways of holding ourselves back.
So we never have to meet that painful reality that we think is going to be inevitable because we’re not good enough. We have that you know human very human thought everyone seems to have it I’m not good enough. I don’t belong. I’m not lovable, like shame is a very universal emotion albeit a painful one, but it’s one that we all experience. So it’s really important to if you’re just like I just need to work on like not feeling good enough. I think like there’s, you know, when you’re working on the stuff I talk about on this podcast, you are going to have a change in your self image, and the way you feel about yourself, your relationship with yourself, but I think it’s also helpful to just recognize it, because you’re human, your brain will like to think that thought and trying to completely eliminate it is not necessary.
So with perfectionism, we like to withhold effort in all these different ways, and not show up fully and hold ourselves back. By doing a few different things, we’re going to talk about the signs of perfectionism, the five signs. And there are different ways these can manifest. And I want to know, as well that I talk about, like withholding effort. And you might be like, Well, my perfectionism actually makes me overwork over prepare, over plan, and know that that is also a form of withholding effort. It’s like procrastinate, planning, is procrastinate working, it’s like, and I’m gonna talk about procrastination in a second.
But we are putting our efforts say, for example, if you’re someone who really like over prepares for things, and this is what happened to me a lot of what I did during my pregnancy with Lydia, that I wanted to feel in control, and so I over prepared, because that gave me a feeling of safety. And that to the outside, like, it didn’t look like I wasn’t putting a full effort in, that what I wasn’t doing was putting a full effort into being connected with myself and being vulnerable with myself. And with that experience, and opening myself up to uncertainty, I was spending all my effort on something that looked like I was putting in a full effort, when really, that effort wasn’t going into where it needed to go. So I just wanted to mention that as well.
My perfectionism has been doing a lot of things, it tends to, and we often are in that all or nothing mindset, we’re in the all side a lot of times where it looks like we’re putting full effort, but we’re not really being truly connected to ourselves and to others and vulnerable and putting ourselves out there. Then other times we’re in the nothing side, where we’re just coasting, we’re half-assing, and we kind of usually oscillate between the two in different situations. So let’s talk about anyway, the five signs of perfectionism. So we have procrastination, overwhelm burnouts, all or nothing thinking, and fear of judgment and people pleasing. So that last one was basically fear of judgment results in people pleasing.
So let’s talk about procrastination. As I mentioned, perfectionist, we love to be productive. We feel guilty when we rest, unless we’re doing the work we do in PGSD, working on that clean rest, but typically, when perfectionism handbrake is on, we feel guilty when we rest. And we also procrastinate, but we don’t tend to do this, for the most part with social media scrolling that That definitely happens. watching Netflix, so that definitely happens.
But what we tend to prefer and gravitate towards are those more productive forms of procrastination. So there is procrasti-working, which is when you are redoing work, you’re spending like more time on it, then you need to for example, or you I born but you pass a task to task instead of just completing something. procrasti-cleaning. This is a big one. I actually as a uni student, I used to have procrasti-bake Tuesday is what I called it, when I would bake something as a form of procrastination on a Tuesday. I quite enjoyed it, but it was procrastinating, but it felt productive because I was baking something.
And I take it to Steve’s house for dessert and like it was a whole thing. But that’s a form of procrastination, then you procrasti-cleaning, as I mentioned, procrasti-learning is a huge one. So for a lot of PGSDers before they join PGSD. They have done a lot of procrasti-learning when it comes to marketing, especially learning about algorithms, learning about different platforms. Learning about different marketing strategies and getting knowledge on marketing is really powerful like learning from others who have gone before you who figured it out.
But there’s a point at which learning becomes procrasti-learning. And that’s when we’re learning things that we’re not taking action on. And a lot of times when we procrasti-learning, we’re learning at such a volume that it’s impossible to take action on it. Because we’re so overwhelmed with how much we’ve learned, we don’t even know where to start to think, well, now I just need to learn something else, to help me implement what I’ve learned and like to help me do all this. So maybe I need to learn this other marketing strategy, or all these different things. And we want to be really focused on doing and learning through doing. That’s what we do in PGSD. There are a few things you learn but mainly you’re learning from doing things and with accountability to help with that, to help you do things and learn from doing things.
So procrasti-learning one of the ways that we procrastinate. And, as I said, like I procrasti-working to which I already mentioned, but busy work within that. So prioritizing the unimportant over the important. And then when we don’t have enough time left for the important thing, so we just keep pushing them off enough, enough enough. So that’s how procrastination tends to come up. And it can look like doing a lot of things, but not the most effective things or not doing things at all, overwhelm. So I won’t go too much into the other ones, but were familiar with overwhelm.
As perfectionist, it tends to be our emotional home. As much as we hate overwhelmed, we feel very comfortable in overwhelm. And feeling behind, I would say is part of that burnout. So really important to know burnout doesn’t come from how many hours you’re working, it comes from the emotions that you’re working from when we’re working from a place of inadequacy, insufficiency, stress, pressure, that’s what creates burnout, we can actually work a lot of hours and not burn out if we are working from a clean place. But if we are even working only like six hours a week, from inadequacy, or doing a lot of procrastination from inadequacy that creates burnout.
So burnout is something that we do as perfectionist to avoid putting in the full effort. Because we actually have to take time off to recover from it like it is actually a way that we allow ourselves to take a break, because we haven’t given ourselves a break, then there is all or nothing thinking. This one is I guess most obviously explained when it comes to health and fitness. This is where it tends to be the most obvious, say with healthy eating, for example, that you want to get in better shape. You want to improve your nutrition, you eat perfectly for two days, obviously the first day, which would be a Monday, Tuesday, and then you fall off the wagon, maybe you know, a colleague brougut cookies to work, you had one you’ve ruined the week while I wait till Monday to start over.
That’s all nothing thinking. There’s also lots of other ways that it manifests as well. Thinking that if you haven’t made any progress towards your goal, then you’re never going to get all the way there like there are so many different ways I’ve talked about on the podcast before. But all or nothing thinking and people pleasing as well to this is when we don’t want to disappoint others. So we’re not rejected, abandon and feel ashamed.
And we say yes to things we want to say no to we say no to things we want to say yes to. Then also when it comes to ourselves, we often people please ourselves. So for example, if you set a realistic goal so that you don’t disappoint yourself, or maybe you set no goals at all, then that is people pleasing yourself to avoid disappointing yourself. So those are the five signs of perfectionism. And when it comes to this is what I get asked a lot when I do interviews on other podcasts and things like that, that they say, Well, how do I overcome this? How do I stop being a perfectionist?
And I want you to know that in PGSD and what I recommend, we don’t focus on not being a perfectionist, we focus on getting into a growth mindset. And this is so helpful when it comes to actually giving yourself something practical and actionable to focus on. Because when we try to not be a perfectionist, like how do you actually do that it’s so hard to not do something. But if we give ourselves into focus on doing getting into the growth mindset, being in the growth mindset, then the action steps and what to do becomes so much more clear. And so when it comes to overcoming perfectionism, so to speak, I like to call it releasing your perfectionism handbrake.
So if we think about your perfectionism, those thoughts that we tend to put our handbrake on, everyone has one, we put that perfectionism handbrake on when we feel unsafe. And we turn that on, and we try to do that so we can avoid any shame that we think might be coming. And so you You will find that if you look at your life, there are different areas of your life where you are more in the perfectionist mindset than others. And so typically, especially for our PGSDers that and myself that we have been praised growing up for being smart and intelligent, and we tend to be most perfectionistic when it comes to areas relating to intelligence, such as business, because we associate, being smart and doing the smart, responsible thing with how lovable we are.
And so it feels very vulnerable to put a full effort into business studies, those different things like really put in a full effort given everything we’ve got, with no excuses of like, oh, well, I did it last minute. So if I didn’t get the results I wanted, then it’s because of that. Like when we go all in that feels very vulnerable, because of the way we’re thinking with the perfectionism so that our perfectionism, handbrake tends to be on when it comes to business, in different areas of business more than others. So maybe, for example, with social media, where you feel more seen by others, you might have that handbrake on more than when you’re doing stuff behind the scenes.
So this tends to be quite common that we love TINKERING AWAY WITH behind the scenes things and ideas and all of that, rather than putting our work out into the world and having our ideas meet reality and risk finding out that they weren’t actually smart ones. So when it comes to releasing your perfectionism, handbrake, it’s about getting into a growth mindset. So just a quick recap or introduction, if you haven’t heard about it, the fixed mindset and the growth mindset. So Dr. Carol Dweck, is the one who has articulated it in those times, She’s incredible. So the growth mindset is what we want to be working towards, I
like to think of the fixed and growth mindset as being on a spectrum. It’s not all or nothing, you’re either in one or the other. And there’s no in between, you’re going to be on a spectrum between the two. And that’s going to change, like pretty much every day, like where you’re sitting. But when we’re in the growth mindset, that’s when we believe our talents, our intelligence, our abilities can be improved upon with effort and practice. And we live by the mantra, it’s better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all. And we believe when we’re in the growth mindset, that our best effort can get better over time. So it doesn’t feel vulnerable to put our best effort in. Because we’re not thinking, well, this is as good as it gets for me.
And so I don’t want to find out that my best isn’t good enough, because then I’m going to be completely helpless to change it. And I’m never gonna get anywhere, we in the growth mindset are able to really be in that experimental scientific, like, have a hypothesis and tested, curious mindset, it doesn’t feel as vulnerable to put in a full effort, because of the way we’re thinking because we’re really actually living in that mindset, that if we fail, then that doesn’t have to be the way it will always be in the future. We perfectionist love to like, look at the past, and then project that way out into the future and think like it’s fixed. So if the past was this way, the future is going to be that way as well.
And so I can this is when like it comes to setting goals. And if you find yourself that you are always looking to the past for what’s possible to the future, just notes related to this, that you’re thinking that your best to date, can’t get better, or can improve marginally, but not significantly. But in the growth mindset, we really know that our best gets better. And so it’s not vulnerable to give our best because that’s something that can be improved upon. Whereas when we’re in the fixed mindset, we basically believe that everything we do is evidence of whether or not we’re good enough, because our talents, abilities, intelligence are fixed and can’t be changed significantly.
So we’re always performing. We’re always on show, we’re always it’s always in question whether we have the natural abilities, and talents and intelligence that make us lovable. And as I was saying, in the fixed mindset, which is the perfectionist mindset, we’re thinking that our best is our best that’s as good as it gets. And that has us doing all sorts of things, as I mentioned, the five signs, doing all sorts of things to avoid putting in a full effort. Because we’re so scared to see that our our best isn’t good enough because our best is our best.
And so we live by the mantra that it’s better to have not tried than it is to fail. And because we are people who have been productive as I mentioned many times in this episode, we love being productive. We believe in our potential despite the The self doubt. So not putting in a full effort and holding ourselves back and like this thought about, like, you know, our best and especially like we think our first attempt is going to be our best attempt. So it has to be perfect. That we are spending months, years sometimes in like a research phase or thinking about something, whether it’s, maybe you’ve been thinking about your niche or your offer, or whether you should have a podcast or a YouTube channel like different things like this.
So we just, we don’t do nothing but we just ruminate in decisions that can be changed because we think they’re permanent. Because our first effort is a reflection of our worse, that is obviously crippling. Like it’s suffocating when we’re thinking that way. And bringing it back to what I was saying a bit earlier that it’s just our thought is not who we are. It’s not because of what anyone else did to us or said to us or whatever, is because of our present day thoughts. And were able to change those, we don’t have to change all of them.
We think like 1000s and 1000s and 1000s of thoughts per day, we’re not trying to change all that even just changing one redirecting our brain somewhere else is going to have a dramatic change in the way that we’re showing up and in the results that we are creating. So when it comes to the fixed mindset, where we see effort it is a sign of inadequacy, because effort means that we’re lacking natural talent and ability and intelligence. And so we’re always like, if you’re ever scared of wasting effort, like you don’t want to make the wrong decision, because you might waste effort doing something that wasn’t the right thing.
That’s perfectionism. That’s okay. None of this is a problem. And this is the whole point of this podcast of PGSD to really help you understand yourself to understand there’s nothing wrong with you, there’s nothing to be fixed. There is a more fulfilling mindset to be in, which is a growth mindset. But we get into that because we want to not because we have to. And we’re not doing it, like personal development isn’t about fixing yourself, you don’t need fixing. It’s loving yourself as you are in growing because you can, there’s a huge difference with that, that it’s not about we need to fix this perfectionism that’s making us broken. Short is unhelpful in a lot of ways.
It’s also helping us in a lot of ways you could argue like there’s it’s not, it’s not this big, toxic thing. And just recognizing Yes, as I said, there’s more helpful, fulfilling, enjoyable mindset to be in the growth mindset. I also love that being in that mindset also has us creating more success, we’re making more money making more impact, because we’re not scared of putting in a full effort. So we actually put in a full effort, our best does get better, instead of always staying the same. It’s like that self fulfilling prophecy when we’re in the perfectionist minds that we think our best can’t get better, then we ignore when our best is getting better, because we’re so focused on what isn’t working.
And we’re also not really in this cycle of learning by doing so our best, it doesn’t really significantly get better, because we’re just getting more intellectual knowledge and not practical knowledge that comes through doing things. So you want to be working on getting into a growth mindset. And when it comes to the practical steps to do this, that, for example, Carol Dweck, with this she talks about process praise and different things like that. And what I have done with my work over and over like a decade with perfectionism, and with hundreds of clients, and with myself, my first claim is to put all of that together, like all of those things that get us into a growth mindset into a process.
So that it’s really easy to apply it then you can work on it, even when you’re not intentionally doing the work on it. So that process is a PGSD process. And that’s planning properly as a perfectionist, follow through with your plans 80% of the time, rest without guilt and repeat. That’s a process we focus on in PGSD. And in PGSD, there’s the accountability to have that be something that you don’t just do for a few weeks, but something that becomes a way of life for you. And so when we are following that process, we get into a growth mindset. And we are able to show up fully to get out of our own way to do the most important things in our business in a consistent, sustainable, productive and courageous way.
And so, the first step in that process, as I said, plan properly is a perfectionist, follow through 80% of the time, rest without guilt, and repeat that practical process which will involve like self coaching and personal development and things like that along the way. But focusing on those practical steps. As you grow your business business is such a great tool for this. And I love that. When you are following this process, you grow both in terms of your business revenue, impact all of that. And personally as well, like I love doing personal development, I love doing business. And I love that there’s something I can focus on that does both at the same time, like talk about leverage, you’re focusing on this one thing, and it’s having these two major benefits at the same time. And then those flow on to every area of life.
So when we are looking at that PGSD process, and getting into growth mindset, and that been like encapsulating all the practical steps, so you don’t have to be like thinking about all these individual things like it’s all covered within that. The first step in that is to plan properly as a perfectionist, which brings us full circle back to this planning series on the podcast. Also, the work we do inside PGSD, why it is so important for perfectionists. And I just want to mention as well when it comes to why perfectionist can’t follow the same planning advice as everyone else. That if you are familiar with the burnout cycle as what I like to call it, where you write a long to do list.
And that to do list is so overwhelming, that you do nothing, though it’s probably nothing in terms of procrasti-cleaning, like procrasti-learning, then you feel guilty, that you’re not doing anything, you’re not doing the things you know you should be doing. So you do busy work, you start ticking off those easy items, not the most important ones. So you might do a little bit of that and then jump to something else. But you’re doing busy work. And then you feel behind. Because you’re spending so much time working on your business. And even if you’re not spending time in the business, when you’re with your friends and family, you’re thinking about the business, you’re listening to podcasts, like you’re mentally putting a lot of time into it, you feel behind because you’re thinking like I should be further along by now.
Because I’m putting all this energy into my business. And so you write a longer to do list with like, you’re someone who has a lot of ideas, you have all these new ideas of things you’ve seen other people doing things you’ve learned about you could be doing marketing wise or whatever. And then that cycle just continues that you feel so overwhelmed with that to do lists, you don’t know where to start. If you don’t know what to work on what’s important, what isn’t you don’t trust yourself to pick the most important thing that’s overwhelming you trust yourself that if you set aside the time to do it, that it will get done in that time.
You don’t trust that if you do that thing, it will even get you to the goal that you have. And then you do nothing like procrasti-cleaning and procrasti-learning you feel guilty you do the busy work procrasti-working. You feel behind the longer to do lists. And it just goes on and on and on and on and on. And this is how we end up with so much on our plate yet we’re not doing anything that’s really important and we’re so burned out. And I at this point have been burnt out for quite a few years. I want to say this point. It’s four years, maybe verging on five years.
And it was a way of life for me before. Because I was following planning advice that doesn’t work for perfectionist, all the work I was doing was being fueled by inadequacy, and being fueled by guilt and pressure and stress. And so when we get the right glasses prescription, and we’re following advice, it actually works for perfectionist that takes into account everything I’ve mentioned in this episode, and on this podcast, like we’re actually given the instructions, a recipe that works for us on who is in our mindset, to get them into a better mindset, but also to be productive in the time being as well. It’s not like this, okay, you have this mountain of work to do. And then you can be productive.
Like once you’re in the growth mindset, like I love that the process of getting adequate and went into a growth mindset. Has you already skyrocketing your productivity? I’m going to talk about that more in the next episode in this series. So I want you to know that when it comes to what’s the biggest lever that I can pull, like where can I put my time so that I get the most bang for my buck. It’s in planning properly. And the beautiful thing about it is that it doesn’t take long to plan properly. So you create so much leverage. So when we’re doing power planning, and in the third part of this series, I’m going to go into the three steps of how planning but when we are power planning, we have a power hour at the beginning of the week.
That might be a Monday for you that might be a Thursday, whatever whenever your beginning of the week is you do your Power Hour and that saves you so many hours always throughout the week, it makes every hour that you do you spend in your business 10 times more effective. And with power planning to learn at once you get the benefits for a lifetime, like with driving, than in the beginning, there’s a few different things to pay attention to, it’s a bit new. There might be times where you feel like oh my god, I don’t know if I’m doing this, right. And you have an instructor there, you have someone who knows how to do it, who’s guiding you. And soon enough, you’re driving to work, and you have no idea how you got there, because it’s on autopilot.
And so that is what happens, the same when you’re power planning that, just through learning it. And like investing that initial time, which as I said, it isn’t much time to learn it. But when you do that, you were then getting the benefits for a lifetime and being able to put that skill on autopilot. And then you’re like without even having to work at it. Like how when you’re driving, you get better at driving, just from the repetition of it. That the same happens with power planning that you are getting better and better and better at it. Even if you’re not consciously working on it like that, you then have the power planning on autopilot and you go focus on something else, that you’re still getting even better at it.
And it’s benefiting you not just in your business life, but your personal life too, because those things go on your calendar. And it just, it’s just such a big lever, it’s so much leverage that when leverage leverage that you are sharpening the axe you are making it you were taking that time, at the beginning of your week, just an hour, there are three steps you go through in that hour, that take into account the fact that you’re going to have motivation that ebbs and flows throughout the week. Because you’re human, it’s going to be times you have resistance and you overcome it, there’ll be times you have resistance and you don’t ever comment, there will be distractions that come up.
Either you’re distracting yourself, or other people distract you and disrupt you or need you for something that something unexpected happens. It takes into account when you work best when you rest best. And you learn that over time as well. Like I’m not gonna go too far into it in this episode, but I am going to be talking about it further on in this planning series. But just having that it just it really is you learn at once you get the benefits for a lifetime, and especially if right now, you are navigating a transition or you have just been through one where you’re either getting a lot more time or less time.
So say for example, you are leaving a full time job, or some kind of circumstances happening where you are ending up with more time on your hands, you need this skill set of planning properly. Because if you’re wasting time now and you get more time, you’re just going to waste that time too. And you’re going to feel even guilty and even more behind because you should be using your time better. And if you are currently in a transition or have just been through one or just about to go through one where you’re getting a reduction in the amount of business time, maybe you’re going back to a full time job, maybe you have or you’re working a full time job.
And maybe you have children, maybe you have a health issue, maybe you’re looking after your parents like whatever, that if there’s this reduction in your time, it’s so important that you are making the most of the time that you have for your business. And that you’re able to do so in such a way where when you close your laptop, you actually are able to create a feeling for yourself of being fully done. So that when you were then in your personal life, with your children at your job doing whatever, that you were able to be present there, and you’re able to rest your brain, which is so important for working productively and doing things efficiently effectively and efficiently.
That your brain is well rested, the best ideas come from a well rested brain, not one that has never had a break and only gets a chance to break when it procrastinates or burns out. So you get that rest, you get to actually be present. You get to develop an identity for yourself beyond your business. So it doesn’t feel like such a big deal when something doesn’t go well in the business because you know, there’s more to you than the business. Even if you have a personal brand or to your artwork or anything like that. Or it’s your body, maybe you’re a dancer, that you’re able to show up for any business shortfall in your personal life. Do that without burning out in a super sustainable way.
That’s what we do inside PGSD. So I want to invite you to join us. So in the next episode, I am going to be talking about five ways your productivity will skyrocket when you are planning properly, to really help you get a feel for what is the biggest lever that you can pull on the impact that it has and all the different ways that it improves your productivity because a lot of times we perfectionist like we’ve had spurts of productivity before, but it isn’t actually in all of these five ways at the same time, which is what we really want to be looking at.
So then we’ve had this like negative association with it, because we feel like, well, I’m productive, but I never know how long it will last. It’s always in these spurts of motivation. And I just end up burning myself out. And so as much as we want to be productive, but also kind of scared to be productive, because what if I can’t sustain it, and I won’t be able to sustain it, because I haven’t been able to before.
But planning properly isn’t about creating that kind of productivity that you might be familiar with, from those experiences. It’s about a new kind of productivity, while you’re doing the most important things in a consistent, sustainable, productive and courageous way. So I’m going to talk about that in the next episode. And I want to invite you, as I said, into PGSD when the doors open on the 26th of October, so you can find out more about it at samlaurabrown.com/pgsd. Stay tuned to this planning series, and the episodes that are going to be coming out during our PGSD enrollment week to learn more about PGSD.
But if you can relate to what I shared in this episode, I really want to invite you in I really want to help you have this space in that you not just intellectually know but something that you are able to live by and benefit from in your business and in every area of your life as well how you do one things hate you everything. So when you solve for this in your business, it just everything else improves to I want that for you so badly so I’m gonna keep inviting you in. So again, samlaurabrown.com/pgsd is where you can find out more about perfectionist getting shit done, which is my program for perfectionist entrepreneurs. And I hope you’re having a beautiful day and I will talk to you in the next episode.