Podcast

Episode 477: Giving Yourself Permission To Do It The Easy Way

We perfectionists like making things hard. But what if the secret to creating the highest levels of success was to let yourself build your business the easy way? Tune in to learn what this looks like in practice, the nuance that will help you get your perfectionist brain on board with doing things easily and what’s required to give yourself the permission you need.

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode477.

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My coaching program Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (aka PGSD) teaches you how to plan properly as a perfectionist and get out of your own way in your business. To find out more about the program and sign up today, visit: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.

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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Introduction
Hi and welcome to another episode of The Perfectionism Project, a podcast full of perfectionism advice for entrepreneurs. My name is Sam Laura Brown, I help entrepreneurs release their perfectionism handbrake so they can get out of their own way and build a fulfilling and profitable business. I’m the founder of the Perfectionist Getting Shit Done group coaching program, which is otherwise known as PGSD. And for even more perfectionism advice to help you with your business. You can follow me on Instagram @perfectionismproject.

Sam Laura Brown
This episode is going to be a demonstration of exactly what the topic of this episode is, which is giving yourself permission to do it the easy way. So specifically not to get too meta about things. But with this podcast, I do a weekly episode, and most weeks, a new episode comes out. Some weeks I republish one of the most popular episodes on the podcast now that I have nearly 500 episodes. And sometimes this is because that’s what’s easy for me, and I’m focusing on other things in the business, and other times it’s because there is something that I want to say on the podcast that I’ve already said in pretty much exactly the same way before, and I reuse that rather than making myself say it over again the same way, just so it’s original and fresh.

But what I wanted to talk about with this, and giving yourself permission to do it the easy way, is that I’ve been thinking today about what podcast episode am I going to record, and also, for many months now, I have been wanting to get back ahead of schedule when it comes to the podcast, and I have been finding that really challenging because of the way I’ve been thinking about it. We are finding things challenging it is because of the thoughts and feelings that are creating the actions, and typically those actions that we keep doing things that aren’t working. And so for me, what that has looked like is making myself wrong for not being ahead of the podcast and having multiple episodes already recorded and ready to go and like needing to record at the last minute, so to speak, like doing it the last thing on the last day of my work week, which is a Thursday afternoon at 330 right now, it’s Thursday afternoon. It’s 3:22pm

And so what I was thinking about is, what if, instead of making myself wrong for not doing things the way that I know how to do them, and I know you’re familiar with that whole like mental dialog that goes on that we have, what if I actually just still did the thing that I don’t ideally want to be doing, but I just dropped the judgment. What if I just, like, dropped any drama around it and I let myself do it cleanly? What if I just let myself do it easily and really, from this place of not like it has to be perfect, and only like perfect things work, which a lot of times we perfectionists have so much entitlement to if we do something perfectly, we put in a perfect effort, it should work, and it should work quickly. If we don’t do it perfectly, we’re not entitled to it working, and so then we should abandon it because it’s not going to work because we missed a day of a workout, or we didn’t eat healthy for a meal or whatever that is.

So when it comes to me recording this episode, I was thinking, Okay, what topics do I want to record? Because I have had so many ideas lately for incredible episodes that I want to record, but also I don’t want to record it today. I got some sad news this morning, which I’m feeling okay about, but I’m just really wanting to take care of myself also. The twins are homesick from daycare today. Steve is with them, but I want to be with them as well. And so I was like, what if, instead of forcing myself to record a new episode, because that’s what my brain wants me to do, I either repurposed an episode, I publish a past episode again, and I drop any story I have about that being wrong, and then I should have a new episode, and the business isn’t going to grow if I don’t have new content and all of that. And when I did that, I was like, Okay, well, what episode would I want to actually have go out?

Because there are so many to pick from. So I was scrolling through this before recording this. I was like, Okay, I could do this one. How to stop a shame spiral I could do like so many different ones like that would be so good to do. And there are so many ones I want to reshare, obviously, because I am really proud of so many of the podcast episodes that I have recorded, the ones that have been well thought out, the ones that haven’t been well thought out. And I didn’t feel that way, oftentimes in the moment of recording them, or even after, but in hindsight, I do. And so anyway, I was going through that I was like, what I actually want to do is just like, not actually even release an episode. And not because I don’t want to release an episode or, like, notice this way of like, wiggling out of it, but almost just because I can feel my brain wanting to force me to do it just from this, like, pure consistency sake and that I should is this really, like, I should do an episode or have a new episode go out every week. I should be really consistent with the podcast.

And I do find it easy to share consistently on the podcast. Obviously, that is the case given what episode number that we are currently at. But at the same time, I’m not wanting to operate from a place of should. I’m wanting to operate from a place of want and choice and trusting that that will lead me to achieving my goals, and I don’t have to be forceful and controlling and pressuring around it. So anyway, I was like, well, I could just literally not release anything next week, like not. Have our email go out. I don’t have any perfectionist power ups that go out like we’ve been doing that for nearly three years, and we haven’t missed a single week. We haven’t missed a single day. Sometimes we share ones that have gone out previously, but we have sent out five perfectionist power ups.

They’re just like little short emails you can sign up in the show notes if you aren’t getting them, because so many people love them, but anyway, they’re little short emails, but they go out so consistently, and people talk so much about how it’s so important to do things consistently when it comes to your business, so that your customers can rely on you being there and like the compound effect and all that. And I believe in that, and also I believe in you can achieve success doing something imperfectly, and that means doing imperfect work consistently, and that also means doing imperfect work inconsistently, and that just because you are doing imperfect work inconsistently, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful, and that’s just a way that our brain has been conditioned to think you need to be perfect and do things perfectly for, like, the perfect amount of time in the perfect way, and then it will perfectly work. And we get so disappointed when we find out that’s not the reality. If you, like, do give something a full effort, you’re like, ah, like, Why didn’t that even work?

And, like, what was even the point? Because it’s not how the world works anyway. So I was just, I could just not record or post an episode at all, and like, I don’t even need to publish anything. I’m the one who set the schedule. I’m the boss. I’m the one who even made up that I put out a podcast episode every week on in Australian time, a Monday morning that we have an email that goes out every week, that we do the perfectionist power ups, I made it all up like I chose that, and it’s so important for me not to use that against myself. And also, I want to be showing up consistently, and I do want to be helping you. And I love podcasts. I love listening to podcasts. I love being subscribed to podcasts that I love that put out, episodes that I get to look forward to and listen to and enjoy and all of that. But then I was like, Okay, what if it was just so easy? And also, what if I return to trusting that whatever’s top of mind for me is going to be something that’s really helpful for you to hear. And there have definitely been times in the business that I have been so self trusting when it comes to my content strategy and my marketing strategy.

So regardless of whether you have a content based business or not. There are so many times, so many seasons of the business where I have felt like I can just speak about whatever my personal development journey is at the moment, like whatever I’m personally experiencing, what’s most personal is most universal. And due to the business model I’ve created, which is very self serving, and I love it for that reason as well, that for a living, I get to talk about personal development and my own journey and to share that with you, and then share the tools that I developed and the coaching that I give to my clients and to myself, and like all the things like that, that like I am very grateful that I have that business model where I am able to really express myself In that way and have it support the business and all of that.

And so I was just thinking like, what if I just returned to trusting myself like that? Because I would say recently, and I didn’t on it was episode 475, eight lessons from the last 18 months and starting a new chapter. That’s a great Listen, especially if you want to start a new chapter as well. But in that 18 months that I’m talking about, I really went so strategic with the podcast, and it meant that I felt so much pressure to record really, like spot on episodes about, like the perfect topics, and talk about things in just such a like strategic kind of way, which some people that word strategic feels really great for me. It’s just code for perfect.

So anyway, wanting to do it in this really perfect way and have the perfect topics and marketing and like all the things and it meant, it just put so much pressure on me to do it like that thought created a feeling of pressure, and the action that followed from that pressure was me either not recording me leaving it to the last minute and then wanting to rely on that, like last minute pressure to get it done, or me having to squeeze in the episode and just like really not having a fun experience around one of the most fun things in my business that I love, which is sharing my personal development on this podcast and having that be something that is beneficial for you, like, literally creating the podcast that I would be obsessed with listening to.

Like, I love just hearing all the behind the scenes stuff and like, this is what I’m working on. This is the mistake I made. Here how here’s how I recovered from it. Here’s what I’m working on now. Here’s this thing, like someone just sharing really openly and honestly, and I feel like I didn’t do that in that 18 month period, because I was just trying to get it right and be strategic and be perfect, so to speak. And that just made everything so hard and so unfun. And so with this episode, like, as I was going through. What do I share on the episode? Do I do an episode at all? Because I don’t have to, and there have been a couple of times, like over the last seven or whatever years now, I started in 2017 that I have just not released an episode. I have not said anything about it. I have not apologized for it.

The world has kept spinning. Nothing went wrong. My business didn’t burn down in flames or anything like that. And especially with what I do, I know it just gives you so much permission as well to do the same and to witness me doing it, so you also feel emotionally safe to do it too. So I hope this episode gives you some of that permission. But then I was just thinking like I could republish something, and I could do that without what I have been doing, which is making myself wrong, feeling guilty about it, or like, it’s not going to be as effective. And like, just having this kind of, like, just this really controlling energy around it, which, of course, not fun at all and not effective as well. We don’t have our best ideas when we are in that controlling space. It can feel like we do, but it’s just because we’re in this mindset of like, Oh, I got it right. So it’s gonna work.

And then we feel really energized by that. And I’ve had so many experiences of feeling that emotion in my body, of like, and being able to distinguish when I’m feeling entitled and when I’m actually feeling committed and confident. And you can only learn that from experience, and it’s going to be a painful lesson when you learn it, because you will put so much effort into something and feel so confident that it’s going to work, but actually it’s just a sense of entitlement, of like, well, I did it right? So they should buy they should sign up, they should like the post, they should do this, they should do that, and then being disappointed, because that’s not actually how it works, and I won’t go into that. I know I’ve said that a couple times. Won’t go into that in this episode. I’ve talked about that in other episodes, but I thought, Okay, what if I actually just did a little episode where I just trust myself again?

And I really feel, especially in the last like 48 hours, I feel like I have just shifted into such a deep self trust that I have been developing over like the last many, many months, and that I just feel like a few key things and epiphanies and realizations and so many things have just clicked into place in terms of my mindset that I really feel like last night, I went out to dinner with a friend, and as I was driving home, and I was just thinking about my growth goal and my plan to make a million dollars in revenue in the next 12 months, and just like having this realization of like, oh, it’s for fun, which might sound really obvious, but probably doesn’t, because if you’re a perfectionist, you think goals are for success. Are there for lovability, and I need to achieve it. I have to achieve it.

My business has to keep growing. It has to be profitable. And of course, there is a level of money you might need to make to survive. But also, I had some of these thought patterns about like, I have to hit my goal before I had any kind of financial reliance on the business, like, I just felt this pressure from an identity perspective of, like, I have to be successful at this. It wasn’t really anything to do with the money. But anyway, as I was driving home, I was just thinking like, Oh, it is actually for fun, and the goal that I need to achieve in terms of, like the money that I want to make. And really, I could make $0 and we would be able to figure it out, but I would like to make 150 to $200,000 which really like actually saying that number. And I recently just did a recording for the 12 week power planning challenge we’re doing inside perfectionist getting shit done about setting a sufficiency goal alongside your growth goal.

So in PGSD, we teach you how to set a growth goal, which is a 12 month revenue goal that helps you get your perfectionist mindset on your side. It’s part of planning properly as a perfectionist. And something that I’ve seen, though when we have a growth goal is that our brain gets confused and think that is a requirement now for you to even be successful and feel any sense of pride or any sense of progress or any sense of accomplishment, and because that goal is intentionally set a little bit above what you believe is possible, then it can really have us putting a lot of pressure on ourselves, Like having thoughts that create a feeling of pressure. And part of what we teach you in PGSD is how to achieve a big goal without the pressure and without hustling and burning out and forcing your way there. And what I talked about in this episode, that’s part of the 12 week power planning challenge, is how you can also set a sufficiency goal alongside your growth goal, so that you know what your growth goal is, and it’s for fun. It’s for the growth if you’re like me, and you love personal development, you love seeing what’s possible.

You love being able to challenge your thoughts and to try new things and to be courageous. And it also scares the shit out of you, but you really just want to do it, and you want to be that person. And also you don’t, like, our brains just go into this, like, Okay, well, that’s too hard. And I don’t really even need the money anyway, so I’m just gonna stop trying and kind of like, disengage. But instead of that, you can set a sufficiency goal, which is really just thinking about like, what is a sufficient amount of money for me to make? Like, what is adequate? Not in terms of my identity of being a successful, intelligent person, but in terms of, like, survivability of the business and of myself, what is sufficient. And having that number be in your mind, but then having this growth goal, for the fun of it, is just something that I have found really helpful, as I’ve learned so many lessons about like you need to be able to distinguish when even though you haven’t hit your goal, there is so much sufficiency there.

Because if we don’t see what is working, then our perfectionist all or nothing mindset has us stopping doing what was working. We often keep the parts that weren’t working and just try them harder. Then we let go of what was working and we reinvent it. We go to a different marketing strategy and like, try this shiny thing or that shiny thing, instead of just continuing with something that was already working. And just because we didn’t achieve our big goal doesn’t mean that we didn’t actually achieve success with that. So anyway, all of this to say I was thinking like, okay, what can I do for this episode? Like, what could I do if I was really trusting myself. Because I thought about, okay, I can do an episode on, like, setting a sufficiency goal versus a growth goal, and, like, what that is, and help you understand about that, which I’ve obviously like done, in a sense, through talking about it here. I just have so many, as I said, like in my iPhone notes, I have so many ideas about what episodes to record, even before, when I went out and talked to Steve, was like, sorry, give me a second. I have an idea.

I need to go write it on the whiteboard about, like, making mistakes and course correcting, and how to recover from a mistake and reduce your fear of making mistakes. And like, there’s so many things I want to say on that, but also I was like, I just don’t actually like I can coach myself to have the mental capability to actually like outline. Even though I typically do brief outlines for episodes, you can do a full script. It’s not that my way is the right way. So do what works for you, do what helps you trust yourself. So for me, I like just having brief notes. It’s like, I don’t even feel like, like the most supportive thing for me to do is to not try to force myself to do that, but to actually just do it the easy way give myself permission to do it, the easy way to trust myself and to really just, like, drop into that place that I’ve been in so many times, and I know how it feels in my body, and I can feel that feeling right now, which is this feeling of like this feels messy and like maybe it won’t work, but also I deeply know like this is the experience I want to be having, and this feels like actually sharing who I am and what I’m about and what it would be like to work with me as well.

Like I’m not a little robot or whatever like I have thoughts and feelings I want to express. I have lessons and mistakes and all the things that I’m learning as well. And yes, I have so many things to help you with. And then I figured out, but I want to share the humanness of building a business and doing personal development. And I really just want to be such an example that personal development isn’t about fixing yourself. It’s about loving yourself as you are, and changing because you want to like achieving your growth goal, because you want to, not because you have to. You don’t have to achieve your growth goal. You don’t have to do it. And when we get into that, have to energy around anything, it only makes it harder to grasp onto. Like if you think about holding a wet bar of soap, and if you squeeze it really tight, which we love to do, if you squeeze it really tight, it slips out of your hand.

But if you loosely, trustingly hold it, that is when you actually do have the most control. You might not have the most perception of control, but you have the most control when you are relaxed. And it’s so powerful to be relaxed. I’m doing a 12 month self trust experiment at the moment, which I’ve been documenting podcast style behind the scenes, and this month, I’m just focused on being relaxed. And from this idea of, if you think about an elite athlete, and I was reading about this in the book called The inner game of tennis, that when we are especially with tennis is such a great analogy. When we are trying so hard to hit the ball right, we tense up, and then we don’t. But when you were. Able to just be relaxed and to trust yourself and not let your like, analytical brain come in and tell you, like, all these little judgments and what to do better and what’s right and what’s wrong and all of that, you just actually go into that flow state and that relaxed concentration that is the most powerful place to be.

So that’s what I’m really focusing on, like as a little theme for myself with my 12 month self trust experiment that I am doing, that I would say, has been working together, and I have had such a dramatic shift in my self trust, and that’s not because I’ve been doing things perfectly. It’s not because I haven’t been making mistakes. It’s not because everything’s been going smoothly. It hasn’t, but it’s because I am changing the way I relate to myself even when I’m imperfect, which is all the time, even when I make mistakes, which is often, even when I say something that I regret later, which I do quite a lot, and I my brain’s like, No, you should have said, like, all of that, that I’m just relating to myself differently through all of it.

So anyway, then I was like, Hey, I could just do an episode about giving yourself permission to do it the easy way, which is what I’m doing for this episode. I’m just literally trusting myself and my brain wants to keep being like, okay, stick to a topic. Where are you going now? Like, there’s all these, like, analytical, perfectionist thoughts about, like, how this could be better. And, like, it’s kind of like having someone over your shoulder when you’re working being like, Hey, don’t, don’t do this. Do this instead. Like, this instead, like, but not doing it that nicely, a lot worse than that, and just being like, I’m actually just gonna share it the way I want to share it. I’m gonna trust that, and I’m gonna trust this is helpful for you, and that me showing up in this way is the most permission giving thing that I could ever do, especially for you as a perfectionist who was trying to get it right and not make mistakes and be put together and all the different things that me showing up and saying, like, here’s what I’m up to, here’s what I’m working on, here’s me doing it the easy way, not the perfect way, the easy way, which I would argue, ends up in a more perfect result than when I’m trying to do it perfectly and be controlling and like that pressure, as I mentioned, often makes me not do it at all because it’s just too hard to live up to that.

But when I let myself do it the easy way, and I drop any entitlement around, if I do it perfectly, it will work. If I don’t do it perfectly, it won’t work. And I just go into like, what if this is about connection and being engaged with someone and showing up and sharing and inviting anyone who wants to join me to work with me inside perfectionist getting shit done. Link in the show notes, if you want to join, we are open for enrollment. So really, just like sharing that with you, and especially if you do have a content based business, regardless of whether you are in personal development, and whether part of your business model is talking about this kind of thing, for most people listening, it won’t be the case that you have the same kind of business as me. Inside pgsc, we have so many different kinds of entrepreneurs from all different industries, and most of them aren’t coaches.

There are definitely coaches in PGSD, but most aren’t most don’t have the same business model as we and especially not the same topic, even if they do so with that said, it’s just thinking about for you and relating this back to you, what would doing it the easy way look like? And this doesn’t mean the perfect way, because there’s this question I love, which I’ve shared for many years now, and we talk about it in PGSD too of, this was from Tim Ferriss. What would it look like if this was easy? And what we tend to go into with that question, sometimes as a perfectionist, is, what would this look like if everything worked perfectly and we just kind of create this complicated plan or whatever? That’s not what we’re doing. What would this look like if it was simple? What would this look like if it was uncomplicated or I guess ultimately, the question is, what would this look like if I trusted myself? What would this look like if I trusted myself?

That is the question. That is the guiding question. Ultimately, inside PGSD, like the work that I’m doing too is like, How can I trust myself more, or realize that I already do trust myself and act accordingly, and that I am trustworthy, and all those different things. Because when we don’t trust ourselves, and we don’t trust ourselves to do a good enough job without constant moderate monitoring and nitpicking and criticism and judgment and blame and all the different things, and when we just feel like we have to micromanage ourselves, which I know you understand, what that feels like. That is exhausting, not only as a person, like we’re being the person micromanaging ourselves, and then we’re being the person micromanaged by ourselves, who has also been a bitch to us.

It is just not fun, and that is why most of us, like we burn out. We’re like, fuck it. I don’t even care. But then, of course, you have that desire to grow, you have that ambition, you have the goals, you have the things you want to do, and so you give it another go. But then if you end up in that cycle, and you do that with your perfectionism handbrake on, then it is not fun. And that’s what I love, unlearning, and that’s what I have unlearned so much of, and I still have a ways to go. It is a lifetime thing, and there are so many different levels I have advanced through. It’s really important not to be like, oh, here I am back at the square one, struggling with putting pressure on myself, or, like, struggling with trying to do things perfectly like, No, I’m actually going through a more advanced level of something that I have already worked through and like overcome before, and now this is just the more nuanced advanced level of that, and I am making progress.

This is not me returning to square one. This is me actually progressing forward. So anyway, with that said, what would it look like for me to record this episode if I gave myself permission to do it the easy way, and I didn’t make myself wrong for whatever that looks like, whether that was republishing the past episode, which, by the way, especially if you are someone who has been in business for quite a while, like we have often such a body of work that we can draw from that we don’t let ourselves use because we’re in this mindset of, like, we have to do things that are new and original. And like, I was able to free myself up so much when I started giving myself permission to post old Instagram posts and like quotes that I’d already posted, or like perfectionist power ups that I’d already shared before, and so many people like the perfectionist, power ups are such a great example.

They were playing like, oh my god, it’s exactly what I needed to read today, and yet I wrote it like, two years earlier, and it had already been sent out, and oftentimes that person was on my email list then, and they also received it then, and also felt perfect for them then. So when we’re in this mindset of, like, everything has to be new and original and perfect and profound and groundbreaking, and it just is so exhausting, and it doesn’t actually help us do new, original, groundbreaking, profound things when we’re in that mindset. So I decided, for me giving myself permission to do this episode, the easy way would be returning to self trust. Ultimately, that is the answer to that question for all of us. And then thinking about, Okay, what does that look like for me and for me and like I feel called to record an episode today.

I just didn’t want to do the part of, like, writing a little outline and breaking it down, like, that’s not the kind of episode I felt like recording today, and so I gave myself permission to do it the easy way to trust myself, to speak freely, to trust I don’t have to monitor myself or censor myself. To trust it will be helpful for you and to know as well. Like at this point, I have built my business on that. I have made $2 million overall in my business, more than that now from self trust being the strategy, and there are times when I have been in low levels of self trust and I’ve still made money. It’s not all or nothing, but I am having the most fun, and I am also making the most money when I’m trusting myself the most and when I am not having fun, and if I’m not making money, it feels harder to trust myself, because I should be more controlling and I should be trying harder and doing it more perfectly, because it’s not working. And then once it’s working, that’s when I can trust myself.

The trust has to come before it’s working. That is a beautiful part about trust. It is faith. It is believing in something that there is not evidence for so to speak. Trust is all about perception. It’s why we can trust someone who is actually untrustworthy, and we cannot trust people who are actually trustworthy. It’s really about the thoughts we’re thinking in our brain. And I really just wanted to give this episode as an example of what I’m teaching in this episode, which is giving yourself permission to do it in the easy self trusting way, and to know that doing that like you have to be willing to do that before you have evidence that it will work. And so much in that 18 month period that I talked about in episode 475 but I was in a mindset, not even consciously, but just in this place of like, well, I can trust myself again. Once the business is in a better place, I can trust myself again once I’m making more money, I can trust myself again. Fill in the blank like I was basically saying I can’t trust myself with anything.

I must be watched with everything. I must be like criticized about everything and all of that. And then once I can do it perfectly, then I can trust myself, and I’m so I’m so grateful that did not work like I am so grateful that created a painful, unprofitable year for the business, because that result had me pay attention and wake up to that lesson. And there were so many lessons from that 18 month period, but it really made me sit up and pay attention of like, oh, this actually doesn’t work. And yes, it has, like, we still made over $300,000 so it still worked, but it was a much more painful year than the year prior and we made half as much and had way less profitability than the like.

It was just such a stark contrast in years that it was like, Oh, I actually need to trust myself first, and then that’s how I will get the business to where I want it to be, not I can trust myself once the business is where I want it to be, because then I’m not going to be able to get it able to get it there, because I’m not trusting myself to do it. I’m not going to be able to make decisions. If I make decisions, I’m going to second guess them, I’m going to change them, I’m going to jump between different marketing strategies. I’m going to be controlling and pressuring and like all the different things, and it’s not going to work, and I’m going to try and trust myself less in the hope it works. And I’m so glad that with my growth goal as well, it just really made me see like, Oh, this is actually taking me further away from achieving that goal. But I achieved so much growth through that goal by seeing that pattern that now, like this year, I just feel like such a different person.

And I had been waiting to feel this way for so long, and there’s been so many points I’m like, Oh, I’m just like, feeling like myself again. And I just feel like, in the last 48 hours, it has clicked. And last night when I was going to bed, so like, I drove home from dinner with my friend, which is great, and then I was like, having a shower, getting ready for bed, I was like, Oh, I’m literally not going to pressure myself anymore. Like I just, I’m just actually not doing that. This is for fun, and this is, like, this is really a family season for me. And I want to achieve a big business goal for the fun of it, not because I have to make a million dollars in the business for us to survive, or I have to make a million dollars because that means we’re helping a certain number of people, and they have to be helped by me, or they’re going to be completely out on their own and, like, just be completely helpless. Like, no, this is for fun.

This is for the personal growth of it. And I love that I’ve, like, started reading personal development books again. At the moment, I’m reading a book recommended to me by someone in my mastermind called go only as fast as your slowest part feels safe to go by Robyn L. Posin, P, O, S, I, N, and the subtitle is tails to Kin, or tails to kindle gentleness. Maybe that’s written wrong, tails to kindle gentleness and compassion for our exhausted self. Maybe that is written correctly. Anyway. It is really it has, like yesterday, I was just like, I just want to read this afternoon. And so I just read for an hour on my little chair that I have in my office. I was like, Oh, this feels so good. And also it didn’t feel avoidant like I have I can feel the difference between feeling avoidant and also just like actually trusting myself, and also I know that if I am avoidant, that that doesn’t mean I’m wrong, like I just feel like I’ve learned so many lessons that I am just trying to impart, that I know you won’t be able to soak it all in, and you’ll need to learn many of those lessons yourself.

But I know that, like this episode, with any other episode, if you come back and listen to it in a month from now or a year from now, you’re going to get different things from it, depending where you are in your personal development journey. But I just feel so connected again with like, I love the personal development of it. That is why I really want to be doing this. And like, Yes, I am interested in business. And in the last that, like, 18 month period, I don’t think I read any personal development books, really, any books at all, but I was just so focused on, like business advice and trying to do business right, and marketing and sales.

And I do like that. I am interested in that. But my gem is personal development, is mindset, is your thoughts and feelings and the influence they have. I love manifestation and the law of attraction, and like, oracle cards and like all different things like that. And when I’m in that, like, strategic trying to do it right mode, I’m like, Oh no, I don’t have any time for that, and it only makes everything so hard. But when I’m like, Oh, I actually am just going to trust myself to, like, if I want to read for an hour and, like, check in with how that feels in my body. Is that avoidant, or is that actually a self trusting thing to do. And then after the fact, I can see, like, okay, maybe in the moment I thought it was coming from this place of self trust, but in hindsight, I can see it was avoidant, and I can learn that lesson and like, really get the nuance around different feelings. Like, I love my weekly review for that, and just going in and studying how I was feeling in different parts of the week, and just like how I felt in the moment, and then with hindsight and getting the nuance on different things.

So anyway, all this to say, This is me practicing what I am preaching in this episode and on this podcast in general, and inside perfectionist getting shit done, I feel like the ultimate thing that I am here to teach is how to trust yourself and like that relationship with yourself, because that is a work for perfectionists. We want to just see all the flaws and not be in the messiness, and not be in the making mistakes and in the process and just being like, Oh, I’m actually not going to, like put pressure on myself. Which I know can probably sound just so weird, but Brooke Castillo, who’s someone I have, like, learned from for so many years now, I’m certified with the Life Coach School as a coach, and she is someone I consider a mentor. Even though I haven’t personally spoken to her, I definitely feel like we have spent many hours together on walks at all the things, but she shared in one of her episodes, or many of them, she mentioned is how one day she’s like, I’m just not gonna beat myself up anymore.

Like I’m just not gonna talk to myself like that. And hearing I was always like, how do you actually do that? And last night, like my brain just did. I was like, Oh, I’m just not doing this anymore. And it’s not that my brain won’t ever have that thought pattern, because it will still be habitual. But I feel like even today, when my brain went into that thought pattern, I was like, Oh no, no, I’m not doing that anymore. So I hope it’s helpful to hear this and to just really have that permission to do it the easy, self trusting way. And that doesn’t mean that it has to be like fast and loose, or like quick and reckless or whatever. Like, for me in this moment, it meant recording an episode without any notes and just talking.

And sometimes a self trusting way will be, if you have a podcast, to write a script out. Sometimes it might be a like simple, quick thing that you do, and sometimes it might actually be a more thoughtful, thorough thing that you do, so, for example, with the finances of the business. And I got some great peer coaching today as well from someone in my mastermind about it and about like, the shame I had felt for being avoidant, especially when I hadn’t been avoidant. And I have an identity of like, being good with money and managing money well and all the different things. And got some great coaching on that, which was super powerful.

But anyway, so then after that, I was like, I actually, like, instead of trying to make quick decisions here about a few little things, I need to make decisions about. It’s like, the self trusting thing to do is actually to do this in a more thorough and thoughtful way so that I can do it properly, so to speak, so that I’m not just, like, making quick decisions and like, okay, I can just trust like, I actually don’t have all of the information I need to about certain things to be able to make certain decisions. So I can trust myself to get that information, to have those conversations and then make the decision. So I just wanted to provide that nuance as well. That doesn’t mean like, it has to be, like, fast and quick and dirty and like all of that.

Sometimes it will look like that, but it’s really just checking in with for you and just beginning to ask that question, and like in the beginning, nothing might come up when you ask, like, what would be the self trusting, easy, simple, like, whatever word resonates for you that doesn’t make you feel like you have to do anything perfectly, or things have to perfectly work, like you just feel you’re able to relax more and give yourself permission to actually just like do it, and you don’t have to do it perfectly, to just check in with your body, not just your brain, because our brain can really convince us of some shit about the complicated, like, super strategic, really, really hard way is going to work, And we have this entitlement and all of that.

So just really getting into your body, which I know for a lot of us, is hard to do. It in the beginning, you might feel like, I don’t even know what I’m feeling. I don’t even know what that feeling feels like. But just being willing to ask yourself that question, what would this look like if it was easy, what would this look like if it was simple? What would this look like if I trusted myself and seeing what comes up for you and then experimenting with that, doing that thing, following through with that thing, evaluating after, like using your weekly review to help you with that and your power planning. It’s so powerful. It is the work we support you with this as well in pgsd, but I hope that by me sharing this, like whatever as well, like little hamster wheels or treadmills that you have created for yourself in your business, to know like, you don’t actually have to keep going.

And like, just because you’re consistent doesn’t mean you have to maintain it, like you can choose to maintain it, which I choose to do, but I don’t have to, and you don’t have to. And so many of us resist consistency because we don’t want to have to maintain it. So just like releasing that grip, relaxing in a really powerful way, is what I want to invite you to do. So I hope you have enjoyed this episode and found it helpful. If you have take a screenshot and tag me on Instagram @perfectionismproject or and I haven’t mentioned this in many years, probably, but if you haven’t left a review for this podcast and you enjoy listening to it, then please leave a review wherever you are listening, or like rate it a number of stars, or whatever it is really helpful for the podcast. So I usually don’t ask that, but I just felt like it. I just trusted myself to ask. So it can be quick and easy to do it if you do want to contribute to the podcast in that way. But anyway, with all of that said, I hope you are having a beautiful day, and I will talk to you in the next episode.






Author: Sam Brown