Podcast

Episode 443: 4 Practical Steps To Overcome The Fear Of Disappointment (best of the podcast)

In today’s episode I’m going to be sharing 4 practical steps that’ll help you overcome the fear of disappointment. 

This is one of the best episodes of the podcast. This episode was originally published in 2021 and was very popular so I wanted to share it with you again.

The fear of disappointment is something that most perfectionists are very familiar with. When your perfectionism handbrake has been on for a long time – you’ve disappointed yourself, you’ve let yourself down, you’ve given up on goals and you’ve not followed through on plans.

It can come to be that you develop the fear of disappointing yourself again in the future. And then you start to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things to try to avoid disappointing yourself again. But this plan doesn’t work out because what you end up doing is creating more disappointment and you still aren’t reaching your goals. 

Tune into today’s episode to learn 4 practical steps to overcome the fear of disappointment.

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode443.

In This Episode You’ll Learn:

  • The real reason you feel disappointed when you don’t achieve your goals
  • Whether it’s worth trying to avoid feeling disappointed
  • Why setting realistic goals won’t help you to avoid disappointment
  • My 4 step process for overcoming the fear of disappointment

Featured In The Episode:

Free Training: How To Plan Properly As A Perfectionist With Power Planning

If you want to get shit done without burning out, I invite you to watch the free training I’ve created on how to plan properly as a perfectionist with Power Planning. By the end of the series, you’ll be ready to start using Power Planning today to get your perfectionist mindset on your side so you can get out of your own way. Go to samlaurabrown.com/plan to watch the training today.

Take The Perfectionism Quiz To Get Your Personalised Perfectionism Score

If you’re not sure whether perfectionism is what’s making you get in your own way, I invite you to take The Perfectionism Quiz. 

After working with over 1,000 perfectionist entrepreneurs, I created this free quiz so you can get your personalised perfectionism score and discover which of the 5 areas of perfectionism you would most benefit from working on overcoming the most: whether it’s overthinking, procrastination, burnout, all-or-nothing thinking or fear of judgement.

It takes less than 3 minutes to get your unique result and be one step closer to getting shit done without burning out. If you love learning about yourself and you’re ready to get out of your own way, go to samlaurabrown.com/quiz to take the quiz today. 

Work With Me:

My coaching program Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (aka PGSD) teaches you how to plan properly as a perfectionist so you can get out of your own way in your business. To find out more about the program and be the first to know when the doors open, join the waitlist today: 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

Renae (Intro)
I just wanted to tell you a little bit about this episode. So Sam actually recorded this episode back in 2021. And back then Sam referred to goals as impossible goals instead of what we now know, is called growth goals. But this is such a helpful episode and was a very popular, you’re gonna hear Sam really break down the four practical steps to overcome the fear of disappointment. So please enjoy.

Sam Laura Brown
Today I want to talk to you about four practical steps to overcome the fear of disappointment. This fear is something that most perfectionists are very familiar with, when our perfectionism handbrake has been on, especially when it’s been on for a long time, we have let ourselves down, we have disappointed ourselves, we’ve given up on goals we’ve not followed through with plans. And so it can come to be that we develop this fear of disappointing ourselves in the future. And then we do all sorts of weird and wonderful things to try and avoid disappointing ourselves, but it doesn’t work out.

Because what we end up doing, actually only ends up creating more disappointment because we’re not fulfilling our potential, we’re not reaching our goals. So that’s why I want to talk to you about how to overcome the fear of disappointment, if this is something that has been stopping you from really making progress with your business, and it probably has been if your perfectionism handbrake has been on.

So I want to firstly talk about what can happen, what are some of those things that we do to avoid disappointing ourselves in the future, the temptation is to set no goals, or to have no plan. So particularly this comes up with goal setting and planning and that kind of planning side of things, that we will just have no goals, no plans, so that it’s not even impossible to disappoint ourselves. Because we don’t even know what we wanted ourselves to do, is that whole idea of no expectations, no disappointment, like no goals, no disappointment, no plans, no disappointment.

Obviously, that doesn’t really work. Because it’s very disappointing not to be striving towards something that doesn’t exactly create the dream life, we kind of think it will. But we have no goals or no plans. Or what we might do is have really vague goals, or have vague plans. And this can be hard to catch. Because sometimes we think they’re specific enough. We think things like go full time in my business, make more money get fit and healthy. We think those are specific enough, but they’re not. So we have these vague goals and vague plans. So again, we can’t really tell if we’ve disappointed ourselves, then we might also approach it by having a lot on our plate.

So we will have multiple goals all at once trying to do that whole life makeover. Or we will over plan and put way too much on our plate. And this might not sound like a strategy to avoid disappointment. But what happens is when we have so much on our plate at the same time, we have an out we have something to blame, for lack of success. So instead of being disappointed with our lack of ability, we can instead say, well, I would have done better with that goal, if I wasn’t so busy with the other one, and that one would have been better if I wasn’t so busy with this one.

And we kind of get to feel busy and productive without ever having to really feel disappointed about our own lack of ability. But those strategies don’t work. We’re going to talk about what to do instead of I just want you to be thinking about whether you have been doing any of those things to try and avoid disappointment. The other thing I want to mention when it comes to disappointment before I get into the four practical steps, is that disappointment isn’t something that just automatically happens. And I think this is something that over the years, I have always been frustrated by when I hear other people say you need to set realistic goals. Otherwise, you’ll just be disappointed.

As if disappointment is something that is created outside of ourselves and just happens to us and we’re helpless to preventing it. It’s not the case. Disappointment is a feeling and our feelings come from our thoughts. It might be that those thoughts you have that create disappointment are so automatic and quick and habitual. that you don’t even recognise as a thought going on, it just feels like you go straight to disappointment. So definitely we can experience it, as it coming from outside of us it coming from the failure it coming from the rejection, and coming from the lack of progress. But it comes from our thoughts.

And we can do things to have different thoughts. But I want to mention, I’m going to be talking about this again later, that just because feeling disappointed, and other negative feelings come from our thoughts, doesn’t mean we should never feel negative feelings. It’s very easy to go into well, now I know that my thoughts create my feelings. So I should never have a bad feeling again, because that just means I’m thinking in a sloppy way and that I should be having positive thoughts and to really put this burden and expectation on ourselves that because we are aware of where our feelings come from, that now we should never have a bad feeling. And that we should be able to avoid all bad feelings.

And that isn’t the case, our brain is still going to have negative, quote unquote, thoughts. Regardless of how much personal development work we’re doing, how much self improvement we’re doing. And it’s not even healthy to try and get out of those negative thoughts all the time or to try to avoid them. So I’m going to be talking about what to do when you feel disappointed and to actually let yourself feel that. But it does come from our thoughts, that feeling of disappointment. So there are so many strategies that we try to implement, I’ve talked about some of them with a goal, setting the planning, to try and avoid this feeling that we think is automatic. But when you can really take responsibility for that feeling. And you can recognise it, you’re the one generating that feeling. You can also change that feeling.

If you want to, after you have process that feeling I’ve always not liked the saying no expectations, no disappointment. To me, that’s a really disappointing way to live with it, no expectations. I like having positive expectations. If you’re into manifestation, positive expectation is something that’s talked about there. What I think a more accurate saying is, is no attachment, no disappointment. Or if we don’t interpret things in a disappointing way, no disappointment, because that’s how it actually works. But when we have this idea that I’m disappointed because I have an expectation, that’s not entirely accurate, we think or the expectation wasn’t met, therefore, disappointments just going to naturally come. So if I just removed the expectation, I won’t feel disappointed.

But is it possible to have an expectation to have that expectation not be met, and to not feel disappointed, based on the story that we tell ourselves. So with all that said, I’m going to get into these four practical steps you can follow to overcome the fear of disappointment. The first and this is so important, and I never hear anyone discussing this, which is why I really want to make sure you pay attention to this step, this is the most important. Why is it so bad to feel disappointed? Like why are we going to such great lengths to avoid feeling disappointed? Why is it something we even need to fear? And why is it something we need to overcome the fear of.

I really want you to start thinking about that. Why is disappointment so bad? We’ve talked before on the podcast we talked about about this in PGSD, about the feeling of shame, it’s a painful emotion. And yet, it doesn’t actually feel that bad. Like when we really let ourselves feel it. For me, for example, my face feels hot, my heart rate goes up, my palms get a bit sweaty, I have this feeling and like the pit of my stomach. But it’s not that bad. When I really actually get connected to feeling that feeling. What’s really painful is really trying to resist it. But when we allow ourselves to feel the feeling, it’s not so bad. And I just want you to be thinking about how far you have been going out of your way to avoid disappointment. When it might not be that bad after all.

It might not even be worth trying to avoid. But no one talks about this, we just say, Oh, we don’t want to be disappointed, duh. So let’s just try and avoid that by setting these realistic small little baby goals. So that you always achieve everything you want to achieve. You always get that participation ribbon and you never feel disappointed. Which doesn’t work. But why do we even say that? Why don’t we just skip over that disappointment might not even be that bad after all. It’s kind of like the conversation around success that often we don’t talk about like why is it that we want to be successful?

We just talk about of course you want to be successful, here’s how to do it. Of course you don’t want to be disappointed here’s how to avoid it. But really we can investigate why we think feeling disappointed is even so bad. So why are we scared of feeling that emotion? What are we making that disappointment mean about us? Are we making it mean? That if I disappointed now we’re always going to disappoint ourselves in the future? Are you making it mean that we can never achieve anything that we’re not lovable? Which I think everything comes down to that, that we’re not worthy of love and connection? That why are we thinking it’s so bad? Why do we need to go to such great lengths to avoid it. So please really sit with that is disappointment really so bad?

Do we really need to avoid setting big goals and dreams just to avoid this potential of disappointment. And I know when your perfectionism handbrake has been on, and you have experienced that disappointed feeling. Well, you’ve probably tried to resist it, you probably haven’t actually experienced it. But that disappointment has been there. And it can feel painful when we’re interpreting it as well. This means I’m not good enough, which is what we do. And that handbrakes on. To say, this means I’m not good enough. I don’t want to feel this way. Again, it feels shitty to have confirmation that I’m not good enough, which again, is just our interpretation, this feels shitty. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to play a cool with my goals with my plans, I’m not going to hope for too much no expectations, no disappointment. But if you’re the kind of person who’s listening to this podcast, you know, you have potential, you’re smart, you’re intelligent, you have a lot to offer, there are people you want to help.

So it’s ultimately disappointing to live your life in a way designed to avoid disappointment. So that’s the first step, investigate that. Really get clear on that. Because you might be like, hey, actually, it’s not so bad. And I’m willing to have disappointment be one of the many emotions that I’m going to experience. And then we can kind of just put this whole thing aside, but let’s move on to step two, which is to create a big goal. So in PGSD, we have our PGSDers set what we call an impossible goal. This isn’t a goal that is actually impossible. A lot of times its goal has been achieved by 1000s, if not millions of people before. But it’s a goal that your brain currently believes is impossible for you based on your beliefs you have about yourself, your self image, your identity, your perception of your current abilities.

Again, it’s all about perception is our brain is mistaken, when it thinks his goal is impossible, but we call it an impossible goal because it feels impossible. When we set it and instead of bringing our beliefs down, or sorry, our goals down to meet our beliefs. We put our goal up, and then we do the work in PGSD, on bringing your beliefs, your self image, your identity, your abilities, up to meet your goal. So again, a lot of times people say okay, to avoid disappointment, set a realistic goal, something is actually achievable. But how do we know what’s realistic, what’s realistic to us when it comes to goal setting is based on our perception of our own abilities.

And a lot of times when that handbrake has been on, we have a very warped perception, we don’t think we’re that great, we don’t think we can do anything. And it’s most likely that you have two things going on at once. So you have a lot of self doubt, you have a lot of insecurity. But you also deeply believe in your potential, and that you are here to do amazing things, and that you will definitely succeed. And you kind of have those two contradictory beliefs at once. So it can be kind of hard to reconcile that sometimes. Like, I really doubt myself, and I don’t have much self confidence. And I really believe myself and I know I’m going to be successful, we can kind of kid ourselves into thinking we believe in ourselves more than we do, or into thinking we don’t believe in ourselves as much as we actually do.

But that goal and any kind of goal setting, whether it’s realistic, is based on our perception. Often again, our misinformed perception that is coming from our limiting beliefs, and the deepest darkest fears and insecurities we have, not from that positive side of us that does believe in our potential, and does believe that we are capable of achieving amazing things. So when people say set a realistic goal, what they usually mean is set a goal you’ve already achieved, but make it a little bit bigger. So you either have to do it a little faster, a little harder, a little longer. Like you’d have to just change what you’re doing slightly, but you wouldn’t have to become a new version of yourself. Like, if it’s realistic, it means your present day self could achieve it.

It might be challenging for your present yourself to achieve but you wouldn’t have to shift identities you wouldn’t have to become the next version of you. What we want you to have you do for this second step. And if you’re a PGSDer all the tools are in PGSD to help you do this, to have you create your impossible goal. So that disappointment is on the table. I know, that doesn’t sound great. There’s a lot of other reasons we set this impossible goal as well. But we actually want to open ourselves up to disappointment, remembering again, maybe disappointment isn’t so bad, maybe it isn’t worth going so far out of our way to avoid.

But when we allow ourselves to have disappointment as an option, and hey, maybe we experienced disappointment, and we can process that and reframe that, then we’re like, hey, actually, that wasn’t so bad. So I can set myself another goal, am I so much better for having those big goals and striving towards them with all the growth that comes with that instead of having these little tiny baby goals that are only just a little bit further than what we’ve done before. So that we can always feel accomplished and never have to feel disappointment. Because what happens if if you’re setting all these small, little realistic goals for yourself? Even if you achieve them, you’re not like, Oh, my God, I can’t believe I did that. I’ve just completely blown my own mind. I’m so proud of myself, that was such a big challenge. I can’t believe you’re like, cool. Yep, take next. It’s not satisfying to do that. It’s like those participation ribbons that don’t act like we’re trying to give ourselves that participation ribbon.

And it doesn’t actually help us feel accomplished. In the same way that everyone getting a participation ribbon. It doesn’t help them feel accomplished, either. So set that big goal for yourself that impossible goal, so that you are actually opening yourself up to disappointment, it’s very important that you do that. Can’t tell I don’t recommend realistic goals. Now, I will say, I mean, going into this in PGSD, you have one impossible goal, you don’t do this for every area of your life. You need some realistic goals in certain areas, so that your brain doesn’t freak the fuck out.

Because if you are setting an impossible goal, which requires you to basically kill the current version of yourself and reimagine yourself and step into this new identity, if you’re trying to do that, with business, with health and fitness, with relationships with everything with spirituality, it is going to freak your brain out, it’s too much change, it feels way too dangerous. Even just one impossible goal will feel dangerous to your brain, because it’s calling things into question. So if you do that, for every area of your life, it’s going to be too much for your brain, it will rebel. And you will not be able to make any progress whatsoever.

So what we want to have you do is just have one impossible goal. So I recommend having that goal being around your business, especially if it’s the first time you’re doing it, though it can be around other things. But if your handbrake is on when it comes to business, set a goal around business and allow yourself to have some realistic goals in other areas of your life. So for example, for myself, my impossible goal this year is around business. And I have a lot of other things going on as well. I’m not just my business, my business isn’t me. But I’m not trying to become this whole new version of myself in every area. Of course, there are some circumstances that will create that though.

So for example, I’m about to have a baby at the time of recording this. So that is going to force an identity crisis upon me in that evolution. But we really want to be making sure that we’re not trying to have these huge goals in every single area of our life, just pick one, and allow the rest to be on maintenance mode, so to speak. So that you can really learn the lessons from pursuing that goal, the benefits will trickle over into every area of your life anyway. But as I said before, one of the mistakes that we make when the handbrake is on is we set multiple goals. And we use that as a form of self sabotage and a way to let ourselves off the hook. Because we can always blame lack of achievement, on the fact that we’ve got so many goals in the fact that we’re focusing on these other goals. So I want you to have a big goal, but to just have it be around one area of your life.

The third step is to allow yourself to feel disappointed. As I mentioned, once you are aware that your thoughts create your feelings, and that you consider yourself to be someone who is self aware and so on who is smart and intelligent, it’s very easy to then go into shaming yourself for having bad feelings, quote, unquote, they are not actually bad feelings. But we want to determine and define them as like positive emotion, negative emotion. Most of us I think we put disappointment in that negative side of things. So we can shame ourselves for that and say, I know better than to be feeling disappointed. I know this is a learning opportunity. I know that I’m growing. I know this. I know that. But what I want you to do, this takes practice, especially if you haven’t been doing this and you probably haven’t been because we have we don’t get taught to do this, unfortunately, is to allow yourself to be with the disappointment.

What does that feel like in your body? Describe it. What are those sensations? Where do you feel it if you had to describe those physical sensations to someone who is like, what is disappointed actually feel like I’ve never felt that before. And you had to get present not just to the thoughts you have when you feel disappointed, because a lot of times when we are trying to explain how we feel, we will share the thoughts that create the feeling. That’s helpful to know. But what we also want to do at this stage is to identify this physical sensations we experience when we have a certain feeling, I find whenever I do this, I’m like, Oh, I can’t even really describe it. It’s kind of so vague, and not that painful that I can’t even pinpoint exactly where I’m feeling it.

But we want to allow ourselves to be with that disappointment, even if we know better, quote, unquote, than to be feeling that way. And I find as well, when I do this, that I want to just jump right out of disappointment and go into the fourth step, which is reframing that experience. So I try and get right into a positive emotion very quickly. Of Yeah, I’m disappointed, but I shouldn’t be because actually, it was a success. And here’s why. And here’s what I’m learning and all of that kind of stuff. And yes, we want to get into that growth mindset. We’re interpreting things in that way. But it’s not going to work unless we first process the feeling that we’re having. And we process that feeling without shame or judgement that.

So you need to get present to how it feels physically in your body, how would you describe it to someone else, and allow that feeling to get as big as it needs to get and to be there for as long as it needs to be there. Oftentimes when it comes to feeling our feelings, we have an agenda, we say to ourselves, consciously or not, we say I’m willing to feel this feeling. So I can get into a positive feeling quickly. And so we feel it as a means to an end. But the only way to really process that feeling is to allow it to be that for as long as it needs to be there to get as big as it needs to get as intense as it needs to get. Without this agenda of I’m processing this, so I can feel better later to just be like I’m allowing this feeling to be here, I’m going to allow myself to be disappointed.

And with this, it can be easy to think that we’re going to end up having this huge pity party, and it’s gonna go on for weeks and weeks and weeks have would just be all woe is me, I didn’t achieve my goal, or this didn’t happen, I didn’t get the job, or whatever it is, didn’t get the client, they didn’t sign up, I didn’t make enough money, whatever. That weight is gonna be this huge old pity party. But actually that pity party that only comes from resisting the disappointment. It’s only when we aren’t willing to feel disappointed. And we keep trying to jump into positive without actually processing it that that pity party just continues and it becomes very self indulgent. And sometimes we use that as a form of procrastination.

Because when we’re pitting ourselves, we don’t have to do anything. So you can be aware of that as well. You can give yourself a limit, I would recommend though you don’t. And you just actually get curious as to how long that feeling hangs around for because what I have found and many others too, is that when you allow yourself to feel a feeling properly with no agenda, it doesn’t hang around long. It’s like our brains. Like Oh, okay. Next, but when we’re resisting it, and if you think about trying to hold an inflatable beach ball under the water, which is what we’re doing, when we’re resisting, we just it just keeps going, we have to keep pushing that down. It just keeps wanting to come up. And it goes on and on and on until eventually it bursts through. But if we allow that ball, just to sit there calmly on the water.

It’s not gonna like our brains just like okay, what’s next because this is boring. And so you might have never experienced that before. If you haven’t allowed yourself to go through this, what I find is it takes usually five to 10 minutes, sometimes an hour, it depends on what emotion it is. But sometimes it can kind of hang around for a little while. But when I allow myself and get myself I mean, I when I say allow I mean like force myself, it doesn’t feel comfortable to do this. And I’m not like yay, can’t wait to sit down and feel this feeling. But if I’m like okay, I feel disappointed. I’m going to journal about it. Yes. But also that I’m just going to sit with this feeling physically, like close my eyes and get present to where it is in my body. It goes so quickly that pity party doesn’t happen. It’s only when I’m resisting that emotion that that happens. So that’s the third step.

And the fourth step is to reframe that experience. Only once you have felt that feeling of disappointment once you’ve actually allowed yourself to go there. So why did this happening the exact way it was meant to? Is the kind of thing you can be asking yourself, how is this happening for me? Why is my future self going to be so grateful that things ended up happening this way? But we can’t jump right to that. I know we want to. And I do too. I want to jump right there. And I don’t actually allow myself to feel heard, and to feel seen, and to feel like those emotions, I’m having those thoughts I’m having are okay to have. We just shut ourselves down and say, no, you shouldn’t be feeling that way. It’s a learning experience. No, you shouldn’t be feeling that way. It’s going to work out.

And oftentimes when we talk to a friend, that is what they’ll say, they will say, hey, it’s not so bad. Like, they’ll go into reframing that. What we really need first is for the friend or the coach, or whoever it is for ourselves, especially, to say, Yeah, it sucks. And it’s okay that you feel like it sucks. And it’s okay that whatever you’re feeling, whatever those thoughts are, that you’re having, that’s all okay. Of course, you feel that way. Of course, you think that. Not in some kind of condescending way. But in a Hey, it’s okay. You can have those thoughts, you can have those feelings. It’s when we don’t feel like someone’s listening to us, including ourselves that like, no, no, you don’t get it. That was such a big letdown. I had all my hopes pinned on that happening, and it didn’t happen the way I wanted to. Or whatever that situation is, we don’t feel heard. We’re just gonna keep having those thoughts until they get heard. Until that beach ball comes up the surface.

So we need to go, hey, guess I hear you. That sucks. It really, really sucks. And a way you can practice this as well, is when a friend or your partner, or anyone comes to you, and they’re saying I feel so disappointed that blah, blah, happened to practice being with them. And letting them be with that feeling. To say, yeah, it does suck. What does that feel like for you tell me more about that. Like to actually allow them to voice all of that, instead of as humans, like, we want everyone to feel good. It’s more comfortable for us when everyone feels good, and everyone’s happy. And especially if we haven’t practice processing those emotions ourselves. And when I practice that being with disappointment, of course, we don’t want to be with someone else who’s been disappointed. So we go, okay, what can I do to make it better? Hey, it wasn’t so bad. Hey, let’s go and try and ignore this completely. And you should stay busy and focus on something else. Try not to think about how disappointed it is like, no actually say to that person. It sucks. Yeah, it is disappointing, isn’t it? Tell me more about that. What does that feel like for you and like letting them go into that can really help you when it comes to yourself.

Because you’ll be more comfortable being with disappointment. And you’re doing such a great service to that friend that loved one that partner, that colleague, whoever it is, but to just notice as well how uncomfortable it does feel when someone is feeling disappointed. And we want to fix it by getting them into a positive emotion. And we get frustrated sometimes when they keep feeling disappointed. But it’s because they’re resisting that emotion. And we’re not helping them to feel it either. So practice that with a friend or whatever it is gonna come up at some point soon, someone will be disappointed about something and you’ll have the choice to be with them and the disappointment and allow them to process that or to try and jump to the reframing too soon. And it’s coming from a good place. There’s good intentions behind it. But we don’t want to jump there too soon.

We have to really acknowledge those thoughts and those feelings, process them. And then we’re in a place to reframe them. And if you’ve been trying to reframe things, and you’re wondering why it’s not working, and why you still keep having those disappointing thoughts. It is because you haven’t allowed yourself to feel disappointed, and the reframing won’t work until you’ve allowed yourself to do that. So just to summarise the four steps to overcome the fear of disappointment. investigate why feeling disappointed is even so bad. If it is, the second step is to create a big goal. So if you’re PGSD, that’s an impossible goal for just one area of your life so you can open yourself up to disappointment, which also means you’re opening yourself up to success, fulfilment, all those other things too, when we shut off the possibility of disappointment. We’re shutting off the possibility for fulfilment and all those emotions on the other end as well.

Step three, allow yourself to feel disappointed, even if you know better than to be feeling disappointed. When that happens when those circumstances come up in your brain automatically has a thought that creates a feeling of disappointment. Don’t shame yourself for thinking that way. Just allow yourself to be with that disappointment. To really be with it without agenda. And then four is to reframe that experience, only once you have felt the disappointment. So I hope this episode has been helpful if you have been really setting your sights low, so as to avoid disappointment, or maybe you haven’t, like there’s something you want to do, and you haven’t even tried pursuing it, because you’re so convinced that you’re going to disappoint yourself, have a go with these steps. If you’re a PGSDer, and you are feeling disappointed, I highly recommend getting on a coaching call at that time or posting on the PGSD form as well, we can really help you feel that disappointment and like hold the space for you obviously we are not gonna try and make you feel worse, but we will hold the space for you and help you to process that and really come out of that disappointment better off than if you hadn’t experienced it. And be I hope this has been helpful. I hope you are having a beautiful day and I will talk to you in the next episode.

Outro
If you’re not sure whether perfectionism is what’s making you get in your own way, then I invite you to take the perfectionism quiz. After working with over 1000 perfectionist entrepreneurs, I created this free quiz so you can get your personalised perfectionism score, and discover which of the five signs of perfectionism you would most benefit from overcoming whether it’s overthinking procrastination, burnout, all or nothing thinking or fear of judgement. You don’t need to focus on overcoming all of it at once. Just knowing your top sign of perfectionism is going to allow you to focus in and actually move the needle when it comes to getting out of your own way. It takes less than three minutes to get your unique result and be one step closer to getting shit done without burning out. If you love learning about yourself and you’re ready to get out of your own way in your business. Go to samlaurabrown.com/quiz to take the quiz today.

Author: Sam Brown