Podcast

Episode 401: [PERFECTIONISM SERIES] 3 Productivity Tools To Release Your Perfectionism Handbrake + Get More Done In Less Time

This episode is part 2 in a 3-part series on perfectionism.

Perfectionism makes even the smartest entrepreneurs get in their own way. That’s why I’m releasing a three part series all about perfectionism – including the surprising truth that every business owner needs to know and the exact steps to follow to take control of your productivity.

There are so many misconceptions about perfectionism that I didn’t even know I was a perfectionist when I first started my business! I thought that motivation problems, imposter syndrome and fear of judgement were to blame for the fact that I struggled to consistently promote my business and couldn’t get myself to consistent $10k months – even though I knew A LOT about how to build a successful business from all of the online learning I’d done.

I slowly began piecing together that I was a perfectionist and that’s why I kept overthinking, procrastinating and burning myself out. It was also the main reason that I struggled to be consistent with my content creation and held myself back due to fear of judgement.

After thousands of hours spent studying productivity systems, learning how the mind works and understanding the secrets of success, I was able to put together the missing pieces I needed. And I was able to grow my business to $100k per year and then $100k months and beyond.

I’m sharing everything you need to know about perfectionism and productivity in this 3-part podcast series so you can break free of your business plateau and celebrate your first six figure year – without burning yourself out!

And it’s all to celebrate the fact that my group coaching program for perfectionist entrepreneurs, called Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (aka PGSD) is officially open for enrollment. But only for this week only! The doors are closing at 11:59 New York Time on 18 June so be sure to tune into this series if you’re tired of getting in your own way and ready to take control of your productivity and make the next 12 months your most productive ever.

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode401.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

  • The simple 3-step process for getting out of your own way
  • Why to-do lists and ‘SMART’ goals don’t work for perfectionists
  • The 3 productivity tools that make it easy to release your perfectionism handbrake
  • The secret to long-term, sustainable productivity (goodbye burnout)
  • How to navigate the journey from $30k per year to $100k per year

Featured In The Episode:

Announcement: PGSD is open for enrollment for one week only

If you feel behind on your $100k goal, it’s just because nobody’s taught you the different productivity rules that apply to perfectionists.

To make $100k you need to work smarter, not harder. And to do that you need to get your perfectionist mindset on your side. 

If your week is filled with lost time even though you’re always busy working, it’s time to take control of your productivity. The process for getting out of your own way is simple – plan properly as a perfectionist, get into a growth mindset and release your perfectionism handbrake. And it’s easy when you know how!

My group coaching program Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (aka PGSD) is designed to get perfectionist entrepreneurs to $100k. Inside you’ll get the coaching and productivity tools that address your perfectionism head on so you can create sustainable, long-term productivity – and build your business to $100k and beyond.
The doors to PGSD are now officially open for one week only. To find out more about the program and sign up before the doors close at 11:59pm New York Time on 18 June, click here: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.

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

Okay, so this is officially part two of my three part series on perfectionism that’s been released on the podcast. And before I get into what we are covering today, I just wanted to mention first of all this series is to celebrate that PGSD, aka perfectionist getting shit done, which is my group coaching program for perfectionist entrepreneurs. It is open for enrollment for the first time in 2023. And it is only open for this week only.

So this series is really to celebrate that and to make sure that if you are a perfectionist, and you own a business, you’re running a business that you know about the impact that perfectionism has on productivity and business success. It’s so important that every perfectionist entrepreneur knows about this, because when we don’t, we ended up just staying so busy with trying to solve marketing issues or trying to just basically learn everything we can or the procrasti-learning, and really the issue is just that we aren’t able to be as productive as we need to be.

I mean, we’re working long hours, but they’re not productive hours, because our perfectionism handbrake is on it’s making us overthink, it’s making us procrastinate and procrasti-work, it’s burning us out it’s making us work and approach work in an all or nothing way. And the fear of judgment that we have went our perfectionism handbrake is on, causes all sorts of business problems relating to networking, related to social media content, like it really impacts every area of business.

So in this part, I’m going to be sharing with you three practical productivity tools that every perfectionist needs to know about that every perfectionist needs, in order to get out of their own way. We’re going to be also covering what the process is for getting out of your own way and how this all fits together. So that process is planning properly as a perfectionist, getting into a growth mindset and releasing your perfectionism handbrakes.

I’m going to be diving into all of that, by the end of this episode, I’m also going to talk about last time and perfectionist blind spots. So by the end of this episode, you’re really going to have a thorough understanding of what it practically looks like to get out of your own way. It’s not about mantras like done is better than perfect. It’s about being practical about it and really taking control of your productivity.

But I just want to quickly recap as well, what I discussed in part one, that covered the truth about perfectionism, and how it’s making you get in your own way, it’s really important that we begin with that understanding because everything else stems from that. So when it comes to my story, I when I started my business, I didn’t even know I was a perfectionist, which is pretty funny considering what I do today. But my perfectionism handbrake even though it was definitely on when I was in school, it wasn’t causing the kind of problems that it caused once I started my business.

So today, I’ve made over 1.8 million in my business and I’ve coached hundreds of international clients on their businesses. I work usually three days per week, so I can spend time with my husband, Steve, and with our three little ones, and I live in my dream house. We renovated it in 2021. And I have a team that supports me and they are so incredible, and I’m able to get shit done without mental drama like I’m in such a different place. I don’t burn out anymore. I’m making more money than I ever was before.

And it’s all because I released my perfectionism handbrake, but it really hasn’t always been this way. It literally took me six years to make my first $100,000 like have that first six figure year and that’s because of my perfectionism handbrake, it really was my biggest business problem. And for so long I didn’t really understand that. But yet at the same time, I was losing precious time every week to overthinking to procrastination.

Like, it was just causing me so much but I couldn’t really see I thought I had a motivation problem. Like I just, I knew something was going on with my productivity levels, but I couldn’t really pinpoint what it was. And I knew that I was smart enough to figure out like the marketing and systems that were needed to grow my business. But my real issue at the end of the day was that my perfectionism handbrake was making me get in my own way.

So these are some of the things that I used to do when I had my perfectionism handbrake on. First of all, I would spend 60 minutes, creating an Instagram post and then I wouldn’t even publish it, I had to do lists, it was so long, I just I felt overwhelmed before it even opened my eyes in the morning. And yet, I just kept adding more and more tasks to them. I don’t know if you can relate to that. Even though you just feel so overwhelmed, there’s so much to do, like, Oh, but I could do this too. And I need to do that I need to do that launching was such an emotional roller coaster.

And I just dreaded launching, I just got so burnt out and so resentful of my business going through that process. And that isn’t the case at all today. But I really just wasn’t able to stay emotionally regulated throughout a launch period due to my perfectionism handbrake, I was also this is like after a launch, I would just keep myself busy with creating high quality content. And I loved planning, like I’ve always loved planning, but I didn’t actually have proper plans to achieve my goals.

Like if you asked me to really get specific about it, I didn’t actually have a plan, I just had a long to do list and a hope a dream a wish. So really, this is when I realized that perfectionist can’t follow the same productivity advice as everyone else. And that if I wanted to make 100k per year, I needed to solve my perfectionism problems head on. Like this was such a big revelation for me when I finally understood that I was a perfectionist, and that perfectionism was causing problems in my business and that even if I had the perfect marketing strategy, the best niche like it was completely nailed, I had the right pricing, I had the most aesthetic Instagram profile you’ve ever seen in your life, that I just wasn’t going to be able to be successful.

Unless I did something about my perfectionism. Like, it really didn’t all start clicking into place for me and things happening for me, until I really addressed my perfectionism. So now and this is where this series is really coming from I have spent 1000s of hours studying productivity systems and learning about how the mind works, and really understanding the secrets of success. And I’ve been able to put together the missing pieces that I needed.

And I discovered how to plan properly as a perfectionist how to get into a growth mindset how to release my perfectionism handbrakes, I’m going to be sharing that in this episode. And I also developed the practical tools, I’m going to be talking about these as well, which are my growth goal. And having that there for me power planning my persistence log. And all of that made it so easy to be productive to get more done in less time. And to do that, when I didn’t feel motivated, when I didn’t feel like following through, I was really able to solve for those motivation problems that I thought I was having, by actually looking at and addressing my perfectionism.

And thanks to that I’ve been able to have 100k months, I’ve been able to help my clients combined make millions of dollars, and to positively impact 1000s of their customers who all around the world. And so it’s really just knowing that I have I have been where you are that that is where I have come from, where it was just perfectionism was just running my life, it was just making me get in my own way. And if you know, like you have that feeling that deep feeling that there is more that you can accomplish and achieve.

And that you don’t want to be going through the motions and ticking the boxes and spinning your wheels and just feeling like it’s rocket science to make 100k even though, you know, it’s not really rocket science, but it really does feel that way that it’s really about the perfectionism. So in this part of this series, I am going to be diving into the PGSD process and why that’s so important. And also the productivity tools that are really going to make this practical for you.

Okay, so let’s start by diving into the process for getting out of your own way. Yes, there is a process you are able to approach this strategically if you’re a very practical person and you love being able to wrap your mind around exactly what needs to be done. It is planning properly as a perfectionist. And I’ll go into in this episode exactly what that means. Getting into a growth mindset and releasing your perfectionism handbrake.

So first of all, when you have that perfectionism handbrake on, you’re not able to be in a growth mindset and you’re definitely not able to have plans that you can actually follow through on. So it all relates they all tie into each other. And it’s really important to know that first of all, when it comes to planning, especially if you’re someone who loves planning, that most planning advice most productivity advice doesn’t actually work for perfectionist, so if you have been someone who has been struggling to follow through with your plans, if you find that you jump from task to task, if you find that you just unable to do what needs to get done and you keep pushing off things from one day to the next to the next, that isn’t your fault.

Honestly, like that is not your fault, you have just been following productivity advice, that doesn’t actually work for a perfectionist it has been making your perfectionist mindset work against you instead of for you. And that’s what has been making you get in your own way it makes you overthink, it makes you procrastinate. It makes you burn out there is nothing wrong with you, it is not your fault.

And it’s knowing that if you can learn how to plan properly as a perfectionist, then you’re going to be able to follow through with your plan so easily, you’re going to be able to wake up in the morning and know exactly what you need to work on that day, you’re going to know that it’s important that it’s a needle mover. And you’re going to be able to have the clarity and the focus to get it done. Even if it’s challenging. Even if it requires a lot of courage and putting yourself out there, you are going to be able to complete it and you are going to get to the end of that day.

And even though in business, as you already know, there’s always more that you could be doing. But you are going to have that skill of being able to say, I am done. Today I did what I wanted to do today was a productive day, I got a lot done, I’m creating momentum for myself, you’re going to have the proof of that. And you’re going to be able to switch off and actually recharge and then come into your next work day feeling motivated and excited and your work days are only going to get better and better and better because of the clarity and the focus and the follow through that you’re going to have when you are planning properly as a perfectionis.

So I’m going to be going into the practical tools to do that in a minute. They are the growth goal, your power planning and your persistence log. Those are the PGSD productivity tools. And they are what every perfectionist entrepreneur needs to be using to manage their time and their mind is well, we all know that when it comes to time management, a lot of that has to do with how we’re thinking if we’re in that mental drama, or if we do have clarity, and we really need to be surrounding ourselves. And equipping ourselves with tools. And with a system that actually makes it easy to be focused and to stay on track.

In a world where there are so many distractions, whether it’s social media, or maybe like me, you have kids or you’ve got other things going on in your life, that you are actually able to be focused and be productive, without having to go to a cabin in the woods for a week, and hope and wish and pray that you’re actually going to be able to be focused when you get there that you’re not just going to go to the cabin in the woods and waste that time. Right now, if you went to a cabin in the woods to be productive.

Most likely, even though the idea of that sounds so appealing, you’d probably be a little bit worried that you might just waste that time when you got there. And then you get back and you feel so guilty. And we don’t want that it’s really about you learning how to plan properly as a perfectionist. So we have your growth goal. We have your power, power planning, we have your power planning, and we have your persistence lug. And those tools are going to get your perfectionist mindset working for you.

Instead of having it work against you recently, I was reading atomic habits by James Clear to very popular book sold millions of copies. And so much of the productivity advice in there and habit building advice and success advice and all of that, is really stuff that I have seen through myself and through the hundreds of clients that I have coached that those tactics for example, when it comes to creating a habit, and you have a rule with yourself not to skip two days in a row.

That is a recipe for the all or nothing mindset. And yes, it might help you stay on track perfectly for the beginning. But what happens if you know a family member gets sick and you’re not able to follow through for a week, are you able to pick it back up again? Most likely not. If you are following the kind of productivity advice that is most common most popular, you really need to have a productivity strategy that works for your perfectionism.

When it comes to the growth mindset. So you might already be familiar with this term of the growth mindset and most likely, if you’re like me and you love personal development, you might hear that term And this is what happened when I heard it for the first time, I was like, 100%, I have a growth mindset, I’m definitely in a growth mindset. I love learning, I love reading. I’m just all over growing. That’s what I love to do.

And yet, when I really understood the growth mindset, I learned that I wasn’t in a growth mindset, that I didn’t actually have one, at least not as it related to my business. And when I really started to understand, first of all, the growth mindset isn’t about how much you love personal development, or how much you love the idea of growing. It’s really about how you actually approach challenges and setbacks and failures. It’s about the way you think about yourself.

Do you think that, for example, skills and talent and intelligence can they be improved upon? Can they grow? Or are you someone as perfectionist tend to be. Are you someone who thinks that talent should be natural and effortless, and that if you aren’t able to achieve something without a lot of effort, that you aren’t actually smart? That that effort is a sign of inadequacy. And it’s so interesting to talk about this because at the same time, we perfectionist have this whole idea that we can’t do things easily.

We don’t want to do it the easy way. Because if we do it the easy way, we feel undeserving. And so we end up in this really tricky situation, where we want everything to feel natural and effortless. And say, for example, if you’re doing a launch, you want it to be this huge success the first time you ever do a launch. And yet at the same time, we want it to be hard so we can feel deserving, too.

Anyway. There’s a growth mindset. And you really need to understand that when you are in a growth mindset, you actually live by that mantra that it’s better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all. When we are in the perfectionist mindset when we have our perfectionism handbrake on, we live according to the mantra that it’s better to not try than it is to fail. Hence the overthinking, hence the procrastination. And all of those other perfectionist signs and tendencies that come up.

It’s all about us avoiding putting in a full effort. Because we’re so scared that we’ll put in a full effort and potentially find out that we’re not actually good enough. So we do all of these tricky things to avoid going all in so that we can always blame something else other than our intelligence, our talent, our skills, because we see those as our identity. And I just want to quickly reconcile something for you that you might be thinking, okay, but you said that all or nothing mindset is a sign of perfectionism.

And yet here, you’re also saying that perfectionism stops us from going all in. And so when it comes to this, it’s really important to know that when we’re being all or nothing about something, and just to give you a clear example, let’s talk about fitness. Because most of us have experienced on all or nothing mindset when it comes to fitness, especially for a perfectionist. So when it comes to this all or nothing mindset, you might be working every single day.

And then you do that maybe for a few days, maybe it’s a few weeks, and then you fall off the wagon, and then you’re not doing anything for a few weeks, maybe even months, and then you wait to get inspired again, then maybe there is you know, some kind of reason to get back on the bandwagon, and then you give it another go. And that just repeats itself again and again, probably for your entire life to date.

So you might say, Well, I’m really all in in those first few days, those first few weeks. But the reality is it’s conditional commitment. So I’m not going to go into it in this episode. But just know that when we’re in that all or nothing mindset, we’re only conditionally committed in the sense that we’re saying I’m all in as long as everything is working seamlessly, flawlessly, effortlessly. There are no bumps along the road. There are no setbacks, there are no obstacles to overcome. No one else is laughing at me. No one is ridiculing me. No one’s questioning me like if everything’s perfect, then yes, I’m all in.

That is not been all in it’s so important when it comes to building your business, that you really are honest with yourself. Ask yourself right now, am I all in in my business? Am I really all in on that? Or have I just been pretending to myself that I’m fully committed. And so when it comes to understanding the growth mindset, we want to be in that growth mindset. That’s where we are really all in and fully committed.

This is why it’s one of the most important pieces of getting out of your own way alongside planning properly and alongside releasing your perfectionism handbrake, because you need to be able to be all in on your business through the inevitable ups and downs and that turbulence that I was talking about in part one, that is going to be turbulence. And you need to be able to keep flying to keep climbing. If as soon as you hit turbulence, you want to just go back down under the clouds go back to where it’s comfortable.

And that’s what we do when we don’t have a growth mindset, you’re not going to be able to get through the layers of turbulence that are required to get your business from 30k to 100k for example. For example, further, you’re not going to be able to have your first 10k month and then to make those 10k months repeatable and reliable and sustainable and consistent, you’re not going to be able to do that. If you are not in a growth mindset, you’re either going to coast, or you’re just going to be having those false lifts.

Instead of actually continuing to climb. It’s so important, you normalize that turbulence, you really start to understand that when the plane starts to get shaky, that is not a sign that something has gone wrong, that is not a sign that you are inadequate, and you need to keep flying. And unless you’re planning properly, unless you’re in a growth mindset. And unless you release your perfectionism handbrake, you’re not actually able to do that.

So let’s talk about the PGSD productivity tools, the power planning the growth goal, the persistence log, because this is how to turn all of what I’ve been talking about, into a practical exercise, I really want you to have tools that you can rely on that actually support you. So you’re not having to just rely on cute little affirmations like Done is better than perfect. That might sound nice, but they aren’t actually day to day practical and going to really have you getting shit done. And doing that without burning out, you need to have a system that’s actually designed for someone with a perfectionist mindset.

So first of all, I want to talk to you about the growth goal. So inside PGSD, my group coaching program, you are going to first of all be setting a growth goal. And just as a quick side note, if you are going to be joining us for our July cohort that starts on the first of July for 12 months, you will be signing up so you can sign up from now for this week only. And as soon as you get in there you will be supported and guided to set your growth goal. And you are going to do this before the first of July. Because you can really think about and if you’re like me, you love January and that New Year energy for you, the first of July, is really going to be that New Year energy.

And you’re going to have a 12 month growth goal that is really going to support you and your mindset and help you to release your perfectionism handbrake to help you get into that growth mindset and to help you plan properly as a perfectionist. So when it comes to the Growth Goal, this goal really takes into account all of the productivity mistakes and goal setting mistakes that perfectionist make, and helps you to actually avoid them.

We love to do things like we just have goals that are so impossibly big, that it feels so inspiring. But actually, we already know there’s no way we’re ever going to get there. Or we just have really vague goals. Like for example, we might have the goal of making 100k. But we don’t have a timeline that we’re actually committed to, we haven’t broken that down into steps that are going to get us there, we just have, okay, I’m going to really hope that if I can just create a lot of high quality content, I’m going to make it to 100k. That might be the plan to get to 100k.

It’s a very fluid, it’s not going to work. But it might be the plan that we just say, Okay, I’m just going to basically hope, wish and pray. And I’m going to be busy with creating content and just hope that that eventually means that I’m going to have so many followers and such a big audience that I don’t even have to sell anything. I’m just going to be able to hit that goal and be able to have everything I want basically.

So knowing that with this growth goal, it’s really strategic, it really helps you to first of all have a goal that is set above what you’re currently capable of achieving. This is so important. Just to quickly touch on this, that people talk about having realistic goals, you know, those smart goals, so to speak. And it’s so important to know that if you’re a perfectionist and you set a realistic goal, what realistic means in this context is that your present day self can achieve it.

Which means if your present itself can achieve it, you’re not actually needing to grow in order to get there. So there’s no growth really happening at all. And also, it means you can probably achieve it with your perfectionism handbrake on. So it’s only going to reinforce your perfectionist tendencies. And I know for me, this was really the key like I used to have the Vegas goals like I just want to go full time in my business, I definitely didn’t know exactly how much I wanted to make.

I just wanted to be able to replace my income, I hadn’t actually done the math on what I needed to make in order to have that amount of money in my pocket and the business still growing. I didn’t have a timeline, I didn’t have a clear plan, I just wanted to go full time. And so when I actually started setting a growth goal and having it be above what I believed was possible for myself, so that I could grow into that goal.

And yet, at the same time, it wasn’t so impossibly big, that it just really put me into this kind of fairytale land where I could pretend that it was actually something I could achieve, and that I was actually committed to, like when I really figured out how to set a goal at that sweet spot that allowed me to grow without it having to be overwhelming, or without it having to just be completely made up and like I was never going to get there.

That’s when I was really able to start showing up fully for my business, I was able to also see the perfectionist tendencies I had because they were hiding when I was creating realistic goals. They weren’t causing these big problems, because I didn’t have a way of unveiling the but when I had my growth goal in place, I was actually able to see that things that I thought were needle movers actually weren’t my needle movers. And the overthinking that was going on and the procrastinate working that was happening. And the burnout, that that was all causing, I was able to see that the way that I would put pressure on myself and beat myself up, I could see that once I set the growth goal for myself.

And then I was able to do the work on releasing those perfectionist tendencies, because of the fact that I had that growth goal. When it comes to power planning, I want to talk about the three steps of power planning, you’re going to be learning and doing power planning inside PGSD, this is going to be one of the very first things that you learn. And just a spoiler alert, there is a special challenge that we’re doing in July. And you are going to be using your growth goal and your power planning and your persistence log that I’ll talk about in a second. But you’re going to be using that all from your very first month inside PGSD.

It doesn’t take long to learn but it is so transformational. So power planning this is how to plan in a way that actually works for your perfectionist mindset. So when it comes to planning, we perfectionist we love to do lists, the longer the better. We just love feeling productive. And we really feel like if I just have this super long to do list, that really increases my chances of getting shit done. That really increases my chances of being highly productive. And we have lists upon lists, or maybe you do time blocking, for example in your calendar.

And most likely, you aren’t able to stick to that for too long, because you don’t actually take into account the fact that you need to eat or that you need to sleep or that there’s time needed between switching tasks. Or if you are doing something really courageous, you might need a little bit of time at the end of that to just stare at a wall and kind of process everything that went on. But you really need to understand that especially with a To Do lists, but an over scheduled calendar to this actually gets you in your own way.

It’s turning that perfectionism handbrake on, it’s making it so hard to follow through with your plan. So power planning there are three steps to that. And these really answer all the problems that there are with the To Do lists or with an overscheduled calendar. So first of all, you have your power hour, then you have your little tweaks. And then you have your weekly review. So you’re going to be putting that into your persistence log.

So your Power Hour, this is where you are really looking at everything that you were telling yourself you need to do. And actually taking your growth goal into account. Rather than just thinking about what do I enjoy doing or what I don’t want to spend my day on? What’s everyone else doing, you’re actually going to be able to look strategically at your growth goal, you’re going to be able to determine your needle movers. You’re going to be realistic about the time you have, whether like me, you have kids, and you’re working a few days a week in this season of your life, or whether you are working full time or whatever that looks like for you.

We all have different things. Maybe you have a health condition. We’ve all got stuff going on, but you’re going to be really realistic about your time and how you work best as well. Maybe like me, you’re a morning person. Maybe you love doing your work in the evenings, but you’re going to be able to be super realistic about how you actually like working, instead of just trying to slot your day into this nine to five rhythm that you might have had, when you were working a corporate job, for example, you’re actually going to be able to set your week up in a way that you can actually follow through on you’re going to be building in that contingency plans.

You are going to be taking so many important factors into account, it only takes an hour to do, because procrasti-planning, I mean, that is a whole thing. We can end up just spending so much time like maybe you spent hours on a Monday morning, like just trying to wrap your head around, what there even is to do, maybe sometimes you just jump into tasks right away, because you feel like there’s so much to do, I should just be doing something. But you are writing and rewriting to do lists and color coding things.

And I mean, I love color coding, my power planning is color coded. But it takes me an hour, I get that planning done. And then I can get on my way. So you do your Power Hour, you do your little tweaks throughout the week. So your little tweaks, this is really to take into account the fact that no matter how well you plan, and yes, we take into account, the fact that unexpected things might come up when we’re going through that planning process.

But when it comes to the week, there will be things that we hadn’t even considered, or also our energy levels might be completely different than what we expected. Or maybe like me at the moment, I have infant twins. So I at the moment, they’re going through things like the four month sleep regression. So I am hopeful about how the nights will go. But sometimes they don’t go to plan. So it’s knowing that you have a system that you can just go into your calendar. And you can make those little adjustments so that your plans are always workable.

So I want you to be thinking about your little tweaks like if you are going somewhere and going on a road trip, and you put into Google Maps your destination and there’s a detour that comes up, say maybe there’s a car crash and a detour is needed, that you don’t just throw the map out the window, throw your phone out the window, Google Maps or just say Hey, okay, take a right here instead. And then you’ll be able to get to your destination. That’s what we want to do with our calendar.

And then when you get to the end of the week, your weekly review your persistence log, this is what is really going to have you actually learning understanding and seeing your perfectionism handbrake, if right now you get to the end the week, you’re like, Oh my God, I don’t know where all that time went. But I am so exhausted. And yet I kind of feel like I’m in the same position as I was this time last week is because you don’t have any mechanism for effectively and quickly debriefing on your weak really seeing what’s working, what isn’t working, and really understanding like, Okay, right now.

So say for example, with perfectionist, we have the five signs of perfectionism, and one of those signs for you is going to be most dominant, say, for example, it’s procrastination, that you might be like, Okay, I’m gonna really be setting my procrastination at the moment. And that’s not just delaying tasks, that is procrasti-working to working on things that aren’t actually important.

Procrasti-cleaning, there’s so many different ways it can come up, that you’re going to be paying extra attention to that when you are doing your weekly review and really getting to see that in a way that in the moment your perfectionist brain due to your perfectionist blind spots, which I’m going to talk about in a second, but your perfectionist brain isn’t actually able to recognize in the moment and without having a really systematic and efficient way to take a look at that all of those perfectionist tendencies are going to go unnoticed, and you’re going to be feeling the pain of it, but you’re not actually going to be able to pinpoint what the issue is.

And then they’re just going to keep repeating and repeating and repeating. And if your business does happen to grow, all of that only going to scale with it. And those problems will just become bigger and bigger and bigger. So this is why we really want to make sure that when it comes to perfectionism and productivity and being in a successful business, building a successful business that we are focusing on using productivity tools that actually work for our perfectionist mindset.

Then we have the growth mindset, you really need to create a growth mindset. So just quickly on this because I could talk about it all day long. I’m so passionate about the growth mindset. This isn’t another way of saying you’re into personal development. The growth mindset is about how you approach challenges. It’s about how you are able to handle setbacks and obstacles. When we’re in the growth mindset. We are really living in that reality that it’s better to have tried and failed than to have never tried at all.

And that’s very powerful when it comes to business and there’s no one right answer and you will need to make attempts at things before you figure out what works. When we’re in the perfectionist mindset. On the other hand, we are in the mindset of it’s better to not try than it is to fail. And when we are in that mindset, and we hit a patch of turbulence, or what do you think we do? If we stop trying, we get busy with other things, and you need to release your perfectionism handbrake.

I’ve been talking about perfectionism and the five signs of perfectionism, that you need to have tools and strategies and techniques, for the overthinking for the procrastination for the burnout for the all or nothing mindset for the fear of judgment, that you can’t just hope that those will go away. If you get yourself motivated. Or if you find the perfect marketing strategy, you need to actually have tools that give you the ability to release that handbrake and do what needs to be done.

So you might be hearing this and think, Okay, that sounds amazing. And I’m just gonna work on releasing my perfectionism handbrake, Sam has recommended that I think that sounds like a fantastic idea. But there’s something really important that you need to know, especially if you’re someone who is intelligent and smart, and you are a very accurate, you’re just great at learning, you love learning.

And I definitely am being this person where I’m like, fantastic love hearing about this new thing that’s really important. And I’m just going to go away and figure that out on my own. Think, again, part of this is in school, we get told, like in an exam, you have to figure out all the answers yourself. You can’t just walk across the room and go to someone who actually has done it before, or who knows the answer and get that from them. You’re not smart unless you figure it out yourself.

And again, that mindset doesn’t serve us at all in business. But when it comes to really understanding how to release your perfectionism handbrake and get out of your own way, you need to know that even the smartest people, they can’t see their own perfectionist blind spots. So there’s what you know, there’s what you know, you don’t know. And there’s what you don’t know that you don’t know. So this is why self coaching, I’m such an advocate of self coaching, it’s something in PGSD, we teach you how to do but it can only get you so far on its own, you need someone to point things out to you to be looking at your brain and showing you things that you aren’t able to see.

It’s like, you know, if you go to a hairdresser, and you get your hair cut, they’re going to pull out that mirror and show you behind your head where you can’t see your blind spots. You say like, hey, does this look good, because you can’t see it. If you just look in the mirror, you need me to show you what this looks like. And it’s the same thing when it comes to your perfectionist blind spots. That because their blind spots by their very nature, we’re not able to see them ourselves. And so for example, if you have a business friend, and maybe you don’t even have business friends at the moment, which is totally okay, totally normal.

Maybe you don’t have any business friends, but maybe you do. Or maybe you have someone that you’re like, Okay, I am really into business and productivity and figuring this out. So me in this friend, we’re going to really figure out our perfectionism, and we’re really going to show each other our perfectionist blind spots and things like that. Amazing, love the enthusiasm, love that you want to do that.

But it’s really important to know that if that person is a perfectionist to have got the blind spots too, so they’re not going to be able to show you what your blind spots are the same way that you’re not going to be able to effectively show them. And if they’re not a perfectionist, then they’re not even going to know what these blind spots are to be looking out for. It’s really important that you have someone looking at your brain that can show you what you can’t see, and who knows what to be looking for.

And for example, a blind spot that you might have had is or you might be having, the moment is that right now you might be working from a prioritized to do list or maybe that overpack calendar. But let’s say the prioritize to do list and you’re thinking that’s a good way to plan. That’s a blind spot because you’re a perfectionist and your perfectionism handbrake with that on. Yes, you are, you know, we love writing those lists and maybe even have like a running to do list and you copy and pasting things from one day to the other. Like you’ve got this whole system with your lists.

But actually, that’s what’s making it so that you get to the end of the week and you feel like you’ve got nothing done and that you wake up feeling overwhelmed because you don’t really know where to start. You don’t really know what’s important. You put way too much on your to do list. So even though you might be like okay, I’m just gonna highlight the top three things that I need to get done today.

They often don’t get done you find yourself making excuses and while they’re valid excuses, you kind of know deep down they’re an excuse but you can’t help yourself but make it like it’s so important to just know that there are blind spots like this, that you need someone who knows perfectionist who knows perfectionist entrepreneurs brains who’s able to look at yours. And to say, Hey, I know you think this thing is helping you. But there’s this other thing that no one’s told you about. And you need to know this so that you can get out of your way and get to your goal.

So with this as well, it’s really important, like once we kind of learn about perfectionism and about releasing the handbrake, that there can be this question of, okay, that is amazing. But I don’t have time to be working on this, like, I’m already behind. I already have so much on my overflowing plate, that I can’t actually find the time to learn this way of strategic planning, to be focused on getting into a growth mindset releasing my perfectionism handbrake, like, that sounds so important. But yeah, I don’t actually know where that’s going to fit in for me.

So first of all, I just want to say, of course, that’s the case because that’s your perfectionism handbrake of what it does, you’re going to be busy and burned out and not actually doing the things that get need to be done. Sorry, doing the things that need to be done. That was a tongue twister, you’re not going to be doing those things you’re going to be busy doing the less important things. Maybe it’s things like responding to emails, checking social media, like you’re going to be doing things that are business related, but you’re not doing those needle movers because of your perfectionism handbrake.

Because of your perfectionism handbrake, you are working hard, and not smart. And so the best way to create more time in your week, the time you need to really be productive and move your business forward is to reclaim the last time that your perfectionism handbrake is creating. And this is what happens when you use a PGSD process to release your perfectionism handbrake, that you reclaim lost time.

So let’s break it down a little. Let’s say conservatively, there are 15 hours of lost time in each workweek. So say you’re working full time in your business. And every week, you spend 15 hours on overthinking on doing something that’s important, but not actually the most important thing. So maybe, for example, you are spending about three hours a day, you’re overthinking your social media content. So that’s taking you 60 minutes, instead of 15 minutes.

You are doing things like the email that I mentioned, you are maybe doing graphics and fiddling with the back end of your business, that is a huge one as well just like back end fiddling and tweaking and like getting things prepared behind the scenes. Obviously, that’s an important part of building a business. But we tend to want to get all our ducks in a row and get everything perfect before we launch before we put ourselves out there.

So you are really just spending a lot of time. So Let’s even say again, with that social media content example, that for every social media post, it’s taking you an extra 45 minutes. That’s not to mention the scrolling. That’s not to mention that when you’re writing a sales page, for example, that you have everyone else’s sales pages open, and you are comparing yourself to them. Or maybe you are updating your social media strategy and you are looking at okay, I need to do some market research and see what everyone else is doing and what do they have in their bio? Or what links do they have? Or how do they word this? Or what do they say about that? Or what kind of photos do they use or videos on, he just ended up down that rabbit hole.

That that is last time. So let’s say conservatively, it’s about 15 hours per week, that’s 780 hours per year, which is 20 full working weeks of lost time. That’s the perfectionism handbrake that is causing that last time. And reclaiming last time is how in quarter one of this year 2023. I had a very important quarter personally, I gave birth to my twin boys in that quarter. And during that quarter two, I worked 13 days.

So when I was just pausing then I was thinking during that quarter to I mean, during that quarter as well. It was quarter one. So during that quarter, I worked 13 days, I had my team running everything. We made over $100,000 We didn’t even have PGSD open for enrollment. And we still made $100,000 more than that. And I was able to just be in my personal life being a mom doing that. All that stuff that comes with that before I sleep deprived do but able to really be enjoying that season of my life and making money doing that profitably and all the things helping people in PGSD through that time, with the process that we have and everything that’s in there for you that I was able to do that because I released my perfectionism handbrake and have been able to reclaim last time.

So I don’t need to be working very much and I love working like, if you’re listening closely, like cool, but I love working. So do I like my work has been to get myself not to work as much I definitely as I said, like my pause was working long hours like I could sit in front of my laptop easily for 16 hours. And do that day after day after day, it wasn’t productive. But I could definitely do it. So my work has been to really allow myself to rest and take that time off. And to do that without feeling guilty, which I’m now able to completely do.

And because I was reclaiming my last time, and I have that ability, now that I don’t have this last time in my week, I don’t need to work very much and all the time that I am working, I’m so productive because I’m doing the highest leverage activities for the business. I am doing the biggest needle movers a big part of becoming your most productive self in business is building a team to support you. So I’ve been able to do that. And it all began with initially like when it was just me, I needed to begin reclaiming that last time, so that I was able to build that business.

And it’s so impossible to do this if you don’t have someone there to help you see your perfectionist blind spots, and see this lost time and see how you’re getting in your own way. Because even though we experience that we’re not being as productive as we know, we could be, we aren’t able often to articulate why to pinpoint why or we have that awareness. But and we know we should be doing things differently or better, or whatever that sounds like. But we’re not able to actually create that change. You need someone who can show you those blind spots.

And you need to really have the tools that work for your perfectionist mindset. It’s so important. Again, this is something that every business owner needs to know that your productivity matters. And if you have your perfectionism handbrake on, you’re not going to be as productive as you could be, you’re going to be spinning your wheels getting in your own way. And you are going to be feeling regardless of how successful you become.

If you don’t solve for this piece. If you don’t do something intentionally and directly about this, no matter how much money you make, you’re never going to feel successful, because you’re not going to be feeling productive, you’re not going to be feeling like you actually have a real business.

Okay, so that is where I’m going to be leaving part two of this perfectionism series. In part three, I’m going to be sharing all about perfectionist getting shit done, aka PGSD, and how it’s going to help you release your perfectionism handbrake and get to 100k in 12 months, it doesn’t have to feel like it’s rocket science to get there. And you know, you’re smart enough to get there. Like, even if it was rocket science, you know, you’re pretty smart. And you could probably figure that out.

But really, for you, it’s just it all comes back to the fact that your perfectionism handbrake is on and that’s making you get in your own way. And with that handbrake released, you are going to be off to the races. So I really want to invite you into PGSD, I’m going to be in that third part telling you all about it, and exactly how it is going to be the best investment that you have made your business probably to date.

Obviously, I’m biased, I’m going to be saying that but also, I really truly deeply believe that inside PGSD you’re going to have the PGSD process of PGSDproductivity tools, plus personal support the cohort community Taiwans inside and a special bonus challenge that we’re going to be running live. I’m going to be leading it I don’t know if we are going to be doing this again. We currently don’t have any plans to so I will leave this here and I will talk to you in part three of this perfectionism series.

Author: Sam Brown