
I recently sent out a Perfectionist Power-Up that resonated with a lot of my email subscribers. It said: “Maybe your follow through problem is actually a planning problem”. So I wanted to record an episode to help you figure out whether this is what’s going on for you.
There are a lot of things we can do to help us follow through with our plans consistently. I share many of them on this podcast! But first it’s incredibly important to look at the plans you’re trying to follow through on. Are they making your perfectionist mindset work for you or against you? Are your plans setting you up for success or are they setting you up for failure? I dive into this and more in the episode.
Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode406.
In This Episode You’ll Learn:
- The hidden reason perfectionists struggle to follow through with their plans
- Why motivation and willpower aren’t the answers to your follow through problem
- The most important thing you need to know about struggling to follow through
- The simple changes to make to your planning process that will set you up for success
Featured In The Episode:
- Sign up for Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (PGSD) – samlaurabrown.com/pgsd
- Take the perfectionism quiz: samlaurabrown.com/quiz
- Sign up for daily Perfectionist Power-Ups – samlaurabrown.com/power
- Follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject
Listen To The Episode
Listen to the episode on the player above, click here to download the episode and take it with you or listen anywhere you normally listen to podcasts – just find Episode 406 of The Perfectionism Project Podcast!
Subscribe To The Perfectionism Project Podcast
- Spotify
- Apple Podcasts (iPhone only)
- Google Podcasts (Android only)
- Stitcher
- Castbox
- TuneIn
- Overcast

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 next week, I am going to have a brand new episode for you. But I wanted to share this episode that was originally released in 2021. Because it is going to be so helpful for you if you have been struggling to follow through with your plans, especially if you’re someone who loves planning, you love productivity, you love to do lists, like you love getting shit done. And yet you’re fighting that you are working in stops and start you might be someone who burns out quite a bit, you have the spurts of motivation and inspiration, and then you kind of just fall off, you need a lot of motivation and discipline and willpower to stay focused.
And to do what you said you would do, if you can relate to that this episode is really going to be the answer to your prayers, not to hype it up too much. But it’s really going to give you a perspective shift that is going to just help you see exactly what you need to do to be able to be someone who does what they need to do to build their business, even when they don’t feel like it.
And being able to do that in a way that feels in alignment with you in your business, your values you have your vision that you have for your business, that you’re not being productive against your own will, but you’re actually able to do the things that are important to you to get them done without overthinking, without second guessing without being scared of judgment, you’re able to do them then you’re able to take time off without feeling guilty. That’s what we talked about in this episode. So I hope you enjoy it. And I will talk to you again soon next week with a new episode.
Okay, so I’m really excited to be recording this episode, because I recently sent out a perfectionist power up. By the way, if you’re not sign up for those samlaurabrown.com/power is where you can go visit daily little emails that I send out to help you get out of your own way and get shit done. Recently, I sent one that said maybe your follow through problem is actually a planning problem.
And we receive so many replies to that email saying how much it resonated, that I wanted to dedicate a podcast episode to the fact that your follow through problem might actually be a planning problem. And that the reason you haven’t been following through with your plans, even though you know you’re capable of doing so much with your business and helping so many people. And you’re also feeling like you should know better at this point than to not be following through with your plans, you’re still not following through you feel ashamed that you aren’t able to consistently follow through.
And I hope that by sharing that it might actually be planning that’s more of a problem for you at the moment then follow through. And that your follow through problem is actually just being caused by your planning problem, that it will give you a sense of relief. Because there is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with you. If you haven’t been following through with your planned. If you have been falling off the wagon, if you have been struggling to stay consistent, there is nothing wrong with you.
And there’s a good chance that it’s just the planning that you need to adjust. Most perfectionist plan in a way that actually makes our perfectionist mindset work against us, instead of working for us. And if you make some tweaks to the way that you plan, and this is what I teach in the power planning method, that’s part of the PGSD process. If you make some tweaks so that your planning actually helps your perfectionist mindset work for you, it is so much easier to follow through with your plans.
If you have been trying to force yourself to follow through, I really want you to keep listening to this episode. And to consider that your follow through problem might actually just be a planning problem. And we want to be growth minded. Remember, we can learn how to plan. You can learn how to plan in a way that gets your perfectionist mindset on your side. And again, there is nothing wrong with you. If you haven’t been following through with your plans.
Even if you’re years into your personal development journey, you know all the things about productivity, and yet you’re still not following through. There is nothing wrong with you. So let’s chat about seven signs that your follow through problem is actually a planning problem. The first sign is that you always feel overwhelmed by how much you have to do, and you don’t know where to even start so it feels impossible to follow through.
So this might be the case, maybe you’re working from a long to do list. Maybe you’re working from a calendar, but you just always feel overwhelmed by how much there is to do. So you’re constantly throughout the day feeling like you’re behind and feeling like you should be doing something like just this feeling of I know I should be doing something important right now but I can’t even figure out what that is, and I just don’t even know what to focus on. So then when you do get the time to be productive, you don’t even know where to start.
So you often end up procrastinating either doing productive procrastination. So some form of busy work and doing something, say like editing a graphic, or a caption that you’ve already written and was already good enough you like it, how just double check that, or maybe I’ll write another one, and then you don’t even publish that one. But you end up doing things that aren’t really going to help you get to your goals. They’re not needle movers, they feel important, they feel busy, productive. But deep down, you know, that’s not the real stuff that you need to do. But you can’t really figure out what the real stuff is that you need to do, because you feel so overwhelmed.
So this is a sign that you just have a planning problem, you don’t have a clear goal, it might not be specific enough, it might not be set at the right level. Because if we set a goal way too high, or way too low, where it’s realistic, then it’s really going to be challenging to figure out exactly what we need to focus on. Especially if we have that goal way too low, and we can achieve it with an perfectionism handbrake on, that is a problem, that’s not going to help us get out of our own way and actually will just reinforce that the things you’ve been doing that won’t let you get to a higher level that they’re actually helping you because they do allow you to get to a lower level, even though you’re burning out, you’re not feeling good enough, you procrastinate and all these things, if you set really low goals, you will be able to achieve them with your perfectionism handbrake on.
And that will just reinforce the things that will stop you from getting to your true goals, your bigger goals that you haven’t been setting, because you’re too scared of disappointing yourself. But going back if you’re always feeling overwhelmed, and then when you do get time to do work, you don’t know where to start, that is caused by a planning problem. So in the PGSD process, the first phase of that there are three phases, planning, productivity, and persistence. And that’s a process to help you get out of your own way and consistently get shit done without burning out.
So the first part of that is planning and that involves setting your impossible goal, learning the power planning method, and also clean rest, not just intellectually learning about clean rest, you probably already know a bit about it if you’ve been listening to this podcast. But actually prioritizing and using clean rest is one of those things that you think okay, that’s what everyone else, not for me. But those three elements are very important when it comes to planning as a perfectionist, very likely that a lot of the good advice you’ve been following on planning isn’t actually designed for a perfectionist and has unknowingly been making your perfectionist mindset work against you.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, you have a planning problem in the sense that most likely you haven’t set your goal at the right level. And you probably have too many goals or it’s too vague. And you don’t have a planning system that makes it super clear exactly what to do. So for example, with power planning, we have needle movers, we identify needle movers that will get you to your goal so that it’s easier to spot busy work and productive procrastination, and all of that busyness that stops us from actually achieving our goals making the impact we’re here to make how we the people, we’re here to help, and really having a profitable and fulfilling business.
So you need to have a planning system that makes it super clear exactly what you need to do without it being overwhelming, like without it be all the things, just an achievable amount that you can actually get done. And you know exactly what you need to do. So when the time comes to get shit done, you can actually get shit done. You can actually show up for yourself, and you can actually show up for your business.
And this is especially important. If right now, your business is not your full time job, you are still working for someone else, maybe full time, maybe part time. And it’s such a great time to learn how to plan properly as a perfectionist. Because when you go full time, any planning problem you have it will just be amplified, because you will now no longer have the excuse that you don’t have enough time because you will have a lot of time. And you still won’t be following through if you haven’t figured out this planning problem.
And that’ll get really frustrating because you’ll be like I swore that having that job was a reason that I wasn’t following through that I was overwhelmed that I was burning out. So I really want to encourage you to really focus on this planning problem now at this stage of business, rather than waiting until later.
The second sign is that your follow through strategy is to be more motivated and have more willpower than before. This is especially the case, and I’m sure you’ll be able to resonate with this. If you work in bursts of motivation, you tend to have an all or nothing approach which perfectionists do when we have our handbrake on, that you really get inspired and motivated, maybe listen to a podcast episode, maybe you see something on Instagram, but you’re like, cool, yep, this is it, I am really going to start showing up for myself, I’m gonna go all in on the business.
And then you have this burst of motivation. But then a few days, a few weeks, at best later, that motivation has gone, and you’re not following through anymore. So if you can relate to that, that is a sign that the way you’re planning isn’t actually working for you. And I used to do this so much, I would just keep trying the same approach. And I had so much shame around the fact I couldn’t follow through that I was like, Okay, there’s obviously something wrong with me that I can’t follow through.
This makes me think of, for example, when I was trying to do yoga consistently, and different health and fitness habits, I can really see it there that I would just keep approaching it in the same way over and over again, trying to be more motivated, trying to just get myself to have more willpower. And with the health and fitness example, it wasn’t until I actually changed the way that I approach that area of life, and really got into a growth mindset around it and planned it differently, that I was able to follow through consistently.
So if you’re following three strategy is to be motivated to keep topping up that motivation. And that willpower, it’s a planning problem. I know it might sound like a follow through problem, it is a planning problem. That is then requiring you to have to have willpower and motivation to follow through with those plans, because you’re not planning in a way that actually works as a perfectionist.
Number three is you haven’t been getting anything done. Because you’re waiting for enough time to get everything done all at once. I know that I’m still guilty of doing this, I’m still guilty of wanting to just have this huge block of time in my calendar, so that I can just do all the things all at once and not actually have to work in a more methodical plan outweigh that’s actually achievable.
I love this idea of being able to make over an area of my business or an area of my personal life all at once. And by using power planning, that really helps me to get out of that that desire is still there. But I know now I’ve tried it, I really tried to have that work for me to be able to just show up and go all in and just wait for this day where I have all the time in the world and all the motivation to get the thing done that I needed to do.
So say for example, with life admin tasks, like cool, I’m just going to have this get my shit together day. And maybe I could do them every now and again. But it meant that because I was in this mentality as well that I need a whole day, I would just leave little things that I could have easily gotten done when they came up. And then I’d need to have this huge day. And it was just this whole thing. But now that I am actually following a planning method, that and that’s the power planning method, where I’m following this method, where I don’t actually need to stay in this mindset of having to have all the time.
And this is I’m so grateful that I really learned that lesson before having a child because it now more than ever, I really feel like I don’t have enough time. And I don’t have a full day to do things in the way that I used to. So I’m glad that I was able to get myself out of that mentality. And as I said, I still have that desire at types quite often. I want to like, have this full makeover like Queer Eye style, I’m just going to come in and everything’s going to be amazing.
I still have that desire there. But I’m actually able to show up for myself and my business and my goals, because I have a planning method that actually supports me in showing up consistently. So if you have been waiting for enough time to get everything done. So for example, maybe it’s with Instagram, you haven’t been posting it or because you need enough time to create a month’s worth. And you’re like, Okay, well, that’s going to be a full day or maybe even a couple of days. So I need to wait until I have that full block in my calendar available before I can do any of it.
It’s totally normal to be thinking that way. You’ve just been following advice that has been turning your perfectionism handbrake on without you realizing it. There’s no shame in that. There’s nothing wrong with you, really. But if that has been the case for you, you have a planning problem as you’ve been under planning and you have been too vague about what you need to get done. And when you need to do it.
If you are thinking that you need this full day to be able to do anything at all, again, I know how appealing that is. I know how appealing that is. But real life, most of us don’t have this these full days to be able to do the things. And even if we do, what are the chances that when that day comes, you’re actually in the right mindset, you’re feeling motivated enough to do it.
So want to make sure you have plans that really support you to show up. Even on the days you’re not feeling motivated. And I’m not talking here about having to always push through and push yourself to do things. As perfectionist, we love this idea of like pushing ourselves and forcing ourselves and we just think I just push a little bit harder, then maybe I’ll be able to achieve my goals. And I’ll be able to feel good enough.
But this isn’t about pushing. As I mentioned before, clean rest is such an important part. And following through with your clean rest plans is as important if not more important than following through with your needle movers. Because if you’re not following through with your clean rest, then you’re not going to have much energy for the needle movers. So clean rest following through with that is so important as well. But we want to make sure that if you haven’t been getting anything done, because you’re waiting for enough time to get everything done, that instead of seeing that as a follow through problem, we see that as a planning problem.
Number four, if you’re not following through with your plans perfectly, you abandon them all together. So this is that classic all or nothing mindset falling off the wagon. And it relates to a lot of what I’ve already been talking about where you work in bursts of motivation. And typically that motivation tends to begin on a Monday or the first of the month, or the first of January. So you have these plans, and you enjoy planning. You love planning, you love being organized the thought of being organized, you don’t feel organized. But you love the idea of being an organized person.
You love color coding things and highlighting things and making your plans super pretty. So you’ve got the plans. But the moment that things don’t work out, you abandon them, and you wait to be more motivated. You say, Okay, I’ve ruined that. It’s ruined. And I’m going to wait until Monday, the first of the month, the first of January, whatever your favorite flavor of waiting and procrastination is.
So it’s very common. Again, the fact that I if you can relate to this, the fact that I’m able to explain this means, A, I’ve been there, B, you’re not the only one who can relate to this. So, again, there is nothing wrong with you if you haven’t been following through with your plans. And this is why I’m so passionate about what I’m talking about in this episode. Because I really want you to get that it is just a planning problem. And that is a problem that can be solved by learning how to plan in a way that actually works for our perfectionist and get to perfectionism and your perfectionist mindset on your side.
So if you have been abandoning your plans, the moment they don’t work out, this is just a planning problem. It’s not a follow through problem. Why is it a planning problem, because you are not keeping your plans workable, you are not making little tweaks and adjustments, so that you can continue to follow through with your plans.
So I like to think about keeping plans workable, like a GPS, or these days, it’s Google Maps, or whatever you use, that you put a destination in the GPS. So this is why having a goal is a super important part of planning and informs everything else. It’s a destination. So you have a destination in the GPS. And when you are planning, you are figuring out what you need to do to get closer to that destination, you’re not gonna get all the way there this week, even if you want to, you’re not gonna get all the way that this week, but your plans are going to help you get that bit closer.
And what we do when we abandon our plans, is the equivalent of just completely I like to think about, like throwing it out the window, throwing your phone out the window with Google Maps on it being like, Cool, well, I’m just going to wing it now. Because there’s a detour, there’s a red light, whatever. And I wasn’t expecting this. And so I’m just going to wing it and hope I get there. I’m just going to drive for a little bit. And then when I’m feeling motivated, again, I’ll try and drive in the right direction.
It doesn’t make sense to do that. What does Google Maps do? It adjusts the arrival time, it recalibrates and figures out, okay, there’s a red light, okay, that’s not even a problem, just keep going the same direction, and just adjust your plans, or we need to take this other road. But we’re keeping the plans workable. So we can get to the destination, it makes no sense, especially if you are driving somewhere you’ve never been before to throw your google maps out the window, and to wing it.
But that is what we do when we’re planning in a way that gets our perfectionist mindset working against us. without us even realizing it, keeping your plans workable. And for me just to share a bit of what this looks like for me personally. So I power plan in my calendar, I use iCal, some of our PGSDers use Google Calendar. But I recommend using a calendar so that it’s super easy to keep things workable.
I love journals and paper planners and that kind of thing. But I’ve just found the perfectionist in me doesn’t like crossing things out and having things be messy. So if a plan becomes unworkable, I tend to find it really challenging to make the edits in that plan to keep it workable. And then if I if it becomes unworkable, then I’m not following through. And then that happens for a few weeks, I kind of just stop using the planner altogether.
So I’ve found with a digital calendar, it’s so helpful to be able to have on your phone and to be able to keep checking in on it. But you can drag and drop things, so that you can keep your plans workable really easily. Without it being that perfectionist thing of well, now my planner is going to look messy. And I’m going to see that I didn’t follow through and it’s going to be all these squiggled all this white out, you can actually just drag and drop. So for me, I am working from my calendar each day. So I do the one hour power planning process, starting with the thought download, and I do that at the beginning of my workweek, currently, that’s on a Tuesday. I do that.
And then as I am working, I have my power planning open on my calendar. And I’m following it like a to do list. And there’s a very specific way that we put our items in our calendar. Because if you are just planning activities, like Instagram posts, work on website, that kind of thing, then it’s going to be really hard to follow through. That’s a planning problem as well, that you are not actually planning outcomes. Instead you are planning activities.
So I will have everything in my power planning in terms of an outcome, a very specific one. But I don’t have too much. I know that it’s overwhelming. And I don’t have too little on there that there’s heaps of room for procrastination, overwhelming, overthinking, I will be working through it. And then I’m doing my best to stick to the timelines that I have in my calendar. But life happens and also now for example, I have a baby and I’m breastfeeding her and I’m feeding her on demand.
So I really need to be keeping my plan to work but we all do we all have interruptions that come up. So I will have my power planning and for example with feeding Lydia, if I’m feeding her during the work day, I put in blocks of time to feed Lydia and then I will move it around to whenever that happens to end up happening. So I will have that open. And I love to use a little checkmark emoji, I just Google checkmark emoji and copy and paste that. And so I get that satisfaction of ticking things off when it’s done.
And I’m keeping things workable. So if something comes up, I can either edit that day, and I’m not gonna go into the nuance here, there’s so many reasons that it’s important to have an end to your day, a clear end and to do your very best not to change that. So for example, for me, instead of having my day get longer and longer, if stuff comes up, I have my cut off time, and I will move it to a different day.
And there’s so much power in that as well, because I’m experiencing the consequence of not having done it. So if it was because I was procrastinating or anything like that, then it’s actually a consequence, which will discourage me from doing it. But if I just edit my plans, so that I end up working longer, there’s no real consequence there, because everything gets done anyway. So then there’s no reason in the future not to procrastinate.
So clean rest reasons as well, it’s really important to have that clear end to the day to draw the line in the sand. And also so that when you get things done, and even if you don’t you get that feeling of I did enough today, and I’m done for the day, and I don’t need to feel guilty, and I’ve updated my plans, so that I can actually follow through with them. This is the thing, if you don’t keep your plans workable. The next day, you are going to get to your calendar. And you’re going to look at and be like I can’t even do this because this thing I need to do before my first task, I haven’t even done that yet.
So you might be like, Okay, I’m just going to ignore that calendar. That’s a problem. That’s a planning problem, not a follow through problem. So just remember that. So when I am making those adjustments at the end of my day, I’m just checking in as well to see like, Okay, I’m gonna zoom forward in my mind to tomorrow morning and looking at my calendar, does this feel overwhelming? Am I able to do this, are there things that need to get done before I can do these certain tasks, and putting them in there and making those adjustments.
So when I’m doing my power planning session, I am planning as my highest self, and really setting a great intention for the week. And I’m doing that in a way that isn’t putting too much on my plate isn’t over planning. But at the same time, life happens. And stuff comes up. And keeping the plan workable, is incredibly important. So I will, again, I’m working with my power planning open. And I’m taking things off as I go along and constantly tweaking. And then I’m also changing the coming days as well as needed.
So that’s a very important part of any planning method. And the reason with this with to do lists that it tends to be problematic is that this is really just to do lists just gets longer and longer and longer. I’m about to go on to point five, but Lydia is napping and she has just woken up. So I’m gonna go see if she’s okay, I’m gonna come back and continue recording.
Okay, so you won’t be able to tell because this will have been edited together. But I am back from a brief intermission, I now have Lydia in the carrier and I am walking around my office while recording this. She’s still awake. But I am hoping that she will go back to sleep. And I will be able to continue talking to you. And I hope this is an example as well of keeping plans workable that I don’t know how long Lydia is going to nap for when she does, I know it’s probably going to be at least 40 minutes. But it could be 40 minutes, it could be an hour 20 It could be two hours, I just don’t know.
So instead of waiting to have a full period of time free to be able to record a podcast episode, I am able to start recording stop if I need to go and see what Lydia needs from me. If I am able to come back and then continue recording and if she wasn’t settled or I was needing to give her some more attention then I would be able to try again during her next nap. So anyway, side note but that is how I am keeping my plans workable and trying to stay out of that all or nothing mindset that it is so easy for us to find ourselves in.
So let’s go on to the fifth sign that your follow through problem is actually a planning problem. So because you haven’t been following through with your plans, you feel so behind on everything that you don’t have time to plan. So this is very common, very normal, nothing wrong with you. Again, I really want to underline that there is nothing wrong with you. If you have been feeling so behind that you don’t feel like you have enough time to plan.
This is why with power planning for example, the weekly a planning session takes one hour, because when we have our perfectionism handbrake on, we want to spend three days of the week planning. Because when we’re planning, we’re not having to follow through with those plans. But again, we want to think about planning as putting that destination in the GPS. And then we are figuring out what we need to do which roads we need to turn down to get closer to that destination.
Especially if you are achieving a goal, working towards a goal that you have never achieved before, then you are going to need to come up with a hypothesis as to how to get there, we do a weekly review so that you can reflect on what worked what didn’t work, what to do differently if you’re actually getting closer to that destination, because you’ve never been there before. You just have a hypothesis, and you’re testing it. But when we’re like, Okay, I’ve never achieved this goal before. So I don’t know how I’m gonna get there, which means I’m never gonna get there. Not true.
You just haven’t been there before. And you’re gonna figure out the how along the way. But you need to have this map this plan, it’s so much quicker to get somewhere that you haven’t been before. If you know the way, if you have a plan, okay, this week, I’m going to go down this road, and I’m going to turn here and then I’m going to continue down there. It’s so much easier to get somewhere. If you have that plan. And if you’re zooming out at the beginning of the week, you’re like, Okay, here’s the destination. Now let’s zoom into the week and figure out what we need to do to get closer to that destination, we’re not going to achieve to reach by the end of the week, hope this is making sense, we really want to be taking the time to pull over and put that destination in the GPS.
It’s quicker than just winging it and driving because driving feels busy. It feels productive. You can go to bed saying okay, well, I drove all day today. So I’m getting closer to my goals. Well, not if you just drove around in circles, because you didn’t take a moment to figure out where you need to drive to get to that end destination. And I really want to underline that if you are pursuing a goal that you’ve never achieved before, and if you’re a PGSDer this is going to be the case for you, then you really, really, really need to have a plan to get that, that plan that ends up getting you that might not be the one you thought.
But you’re going to figure out the plan, you’re going to figure out the how, by coming up with your best ideas, you can do that in so many different ways. For example, your future self doing some journaling, with your future self figuring that out coming up with a plan for the week, to get you to your next milestone, your quarterly milestone. And then you’re going to test that hypothesis, the end of the week, you’re going to reflect, did that work? What worked about it what didn’t work about, it’s always going to be some things that worked some things that didn’t work, and what to do differently next time.
And then you’re going to have your next one hour planning session, you are going to have a hypothesis as to how to get closer to your milestone. And you are going to test that hypothesis by following through with your plans, seeing what worked, what didn’t work, what to do differently, you’re going to be able to notice self sabotage because that is where power planning is super helpful. That it will show you where you are getting in your own way in a way that the to do list cannot show you.
So it’s okay, if you haven’t been following your plans. And that’s been making you feel behind you feel like you don’t even have time to plan. But you just need to make sure that you are carving out time. But it’s not going to take you three days to make your plan one hour is enough to go from overwhelm to clarity.
Number six, you burn out every time you’re trying to follow through with your plants. This is often caused by over planning, which is when we put way too much on our plates. We want to do all the things and we want to have had them done yesterday. So we create plans that are pretty much impossible to follow through on and then we try to use willpower and motivation to follow through on them.
We exhaust ourselves because a human literally cannot follow through with those plans, especially when we don’t put clean rest in those plans. And we burn out and we think that the problem is with follow through is with motivation. Like I know for me especially, I used to think that my perfectionism handbrake was actually just a motivation problem. And it was only when I saw like, okay, it’s actually perfectionism. And I need to learn how to plan in a way that gets my perfectionist mindset on my side that I was able to actually get out of my own way.
So if you have been burning out, that is a sign that you have a planning problem. There’s also other reasons Is that we burnt out as well and contribute to this. I talked about this in the PGSD process as a whole module on burnout is part of the productivity phase of the PGSD process. And I’ve talked about it on the podcast, to some degree as well, that burnout is really coming when we are working from an energy of lack, from a place of scarcity from a place of inadequacy.
We’re trying to compensate for our lack of self belief, our lack of self esteem, a lack of self confidence, with success and thinking that if we can just achieve those goals, then we will be able to shake this feeling that we’re not good enough. And when we’re in that mindset, when we’re in that energy, that’s when we tend to over plan. So it’s all very interrelated.
The seventh sign that you actually just have a planning problem and not a follow through problem is that you think there’s something wrong with you that you can’t follow through with your plans. So again, I really want to underline this, there is nothing wrong with you, if you haven’t been following through with your plans. And if you have been thinking, there’s something wrong with you, and you’ve been trying so hard, you’ve been trying to willpower and motivate your way to follow through, and it’s just not working, and you’re trying all the things, and it’s still not working.
It’s just a planning problem, you’re just not planning in a way that is actually working for you and you are planning away or not planning in a way that is turning your perfectionism handbrake on, and making it harder to follow through. And this was such a revelation for me, when I realized that it was actually just some simple tweaks I needed to make, to the way that I planned. And I would be able to follow through with those plans. And I’d be able to do it consistently, even when I’m not motivated.
So Lydia is starting to scroll around. So I gotta wrap up here. I hope this has been helpful for you. If it has, then please take a screenshot and tag me on Instagram. I’m @perfectionismproject. So if you have realized either now or previously, that you do have a planning problem that you are getting in your own way that you’re struggling to follow through consistently, that you intellectually know what you need to do. You’ve done a lot of marketing courses, but you’re not doing the things you’re not showing up.
You’re not showing up for yourself, you’re not showing up for your customers, you’re not showing up for your goals in the way that you want to PGSD can help so you can go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd The link will be in the show notes to join the waitlist and be the first to find out when the doors open. Yeah, I would love to teach you how to power plan but regardless of that, I really hope this episode has helped you to understand what your problem is, and that it is one that can be solved. So that’s all for today. I hope you are having a beautiful day and I will talk to you in the next episode.
Outro
If you enjoy this podcast, I invite you to sign up to receive a short daily perfectionist power up from me. These are little notes and reminders sent to you via email that’ll help you plan properly as a perfectionist and get you out of your own way. So you can go to Samlaurabrown.com/power to sign up today and you’ll start receiving motivating perfectionist power-ups this week.