Podcast

Episode 478: Perfectionist Entitlement + What To Do When Business Is Frustrating

Are you frustrated that your business isn’t growing as quickly as it should be? Are you working hard yet feeling behind? Do you ever get annoyed that you aren’t getting the customers or social media followers that you deserve? If so, today’s episode is for you. I’m sharing what hidden Perfectionist Entitlement is, why it’s not necessarily a ‘bad’ thing, the ways it’s shown up for me and my clients and the practical steps to get into a more empowering and resilient mindset.

Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode478.

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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 (Custom Intro)
So today’s episode, as you can see from the title, is on perfectionist entitlement and how to move out of it. If you are feeling really frustrated in your business, if you feel like you should be more successful, especially if you’ve been in business for two years or five years or 10 years, that you shouldn’t be struggling with the things you’re struggling with. Basically, if there’s a lot of should in your life, then entitlement is something that you need to look at. Doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or anything like that, but it is a topic that, as a perfectionist who is running a business, you definitely need to be aware about. So I just wanted to quickly introduce this episode, because when I recorded it, I say at the top that I wasn’t going to put the word entitlement in the title of the episode, just because it can be such a confronting word.

And so many perfectionists, I know we’ll look at that and think, Oh, that’s not something that I am struggling with. And so I won’t listen to that one. But because this podcast is a resource that I want you to be able to come back to, I didn’t want to make the episode title something cryptic. I wanted to make it something so that when you are noticing entitlement in the future coming up after you have the awareness given to you by this episode, you will know exactly which episode to come back to and get help from. So that is why this episode is all about perfectionist entitlement. Know that nothing has gone wrong. I really want to underline that, and I do throughout the episode that we can feel so bad for spotting any entitlement in ourselves that we don’t want to look for it, we don’t want to spot it. It just feels too confronting and like we’re going to make ourselves wrong if we see it and feel like we’re a bad person. But I really want to invite you to be curious about perfectionist entitlement, to be willing to see that it might be something that your brain is creating so that you can learn how to move out of that. So let’s get into the episode.

Sam Laura Brown
Today, I want to share with you some of my lessons, hard earned lessons about different feelings that perfectionists have and how to use them for good. So the episode is titled, I haven’t actually confirmed it yet at the time of recording this, but something along the lines of using curiosity and willingness to build a successful business. And what I actually wanted to call the episode was how to not be entitled, essentially, some version of that about entitlement and perfectionism and unwillingness and low levels of resilience. But I know that there is probably a good chance if I called it something like that, you would think that is not relevant to me. I’m not an entitled person. And a lot of us think that. And I think it is true when we think about how people traditionally talk about entitlement, meaning that we just expect things to be given to us. We’re not hardworking, we’re lazy, we’re unmotivated, and all of that.

And so when that is the case, we are thinking, Okay, well, I’m not entitled. So that episode is for someone else, and I’m not going to listen to it. But if we talk about it in terms of curiosity and willingness and using that to build a highly successful business, then hopefully it has caught your attention. You’re listening to this episode, obviously, and I just want to share with you, really some lessons that I have learned through my own experiences and through coaching so many perfectionist entrepreneurs on building their business, because this is going to be a really important thing for you to be aware of if you are in entitlement without realizing it, as we often are, and that has you actually not doing the things you need to be doing, it’s going to be creating a lot of frustration, a lot of feeling really disheartened, feeling like you’re failing, feeling like things aren’t working, and we don’t tend to recognize that the cause of that is often just a thought pattern, a perfectionist thought pattern that creates a feeling of entitlement or unwillingness, that has us not actually taking the actions we need to in the most effective way, or not taking the actions that are needed.

Maybe we’re doing other things instead, like busy work, or we’re doing unproductive self coaching, but what we want to do is move out of entitlement. Move out of frustration that comes with entitlement. Of course, when you think about it, if you’re being entitled, you are expecting a certain result should happen, and we get frustrated really easily when we’re entitled. We have low levels of resilience when we are entitled. So we want to move out of that perfectionist thinking and into curiosity and willingness and commitment and high levels of resilience, and ultimately, that growth mindset that I talk a lot about, that we really support you with inside perfectionist getting shit done as well, because that is going to have you actually take the steps and take them for long enough and take them at a high enough quality that you’re able to build a successful business.

So I’m going to be breaking it down for you in this episode, and just knowing that if you can relate to what I talk about, first of all, this is all speaking from experience. So nothing that I talk about is something that I haven’t experienced personally. So I just find that helpful when someone’s like, Yeah, me too. So me too. And also this is just a thought pattern. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with you morally. We tend to love to make things about morals and being good and bad people and all of that, and our perfectionist brains love to find all the ways we’re bad and wrong. So in case your brain is doing that with this episode, what I want to invite you into instead is curiosity and willingness to learn about this, to see where you might be in, some of that hidden entitlement when it comes to your business, to not make yourself wrong about that, because that is only going to make it worse and keep you in entitlement, but to instead be curious and willing to think about and I’m going to tell you about what to do, so that you can move out of that entitlement and into more curiosity and willingness.

So first of all, I just want to start by sharing some definitions of entitlement and a few other things, because it’s going to be really helpful just to set the scene and to help you know exactly what we’re talking about. So entitlement, and I Google these, entitlement is believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. So that’s really like entitled. That is what it is. When we are feeling entitled, we are believing ourselves to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. And now again, you might not think of yourself or identify yourself, or believe that you are an entitled person who is privileged and lazy and like the way we talk about it in society. Bear with me, because we’re not talking about it in that context.

So I just want you to stay engaged with this unwilling. What is the definition of that? Because when I was thinking about okay, entitlement, like what’s another way to think about it, the way that I’m talking about it here, and that would be unwillingness. We are unwilling. When we are entitled, we are unwilling. So what does that mean? It means not ready, eager or prepared to do something. So typically, when we’re feeling entitled and unwilling, we get frustrated. And so what is frustration? It is the feeling of being annoyed or less confident because you cannot achieve what you want. And then we tend to go into self brain and criticism. And to be critical is to be inclined to find fault or to judge with severity, often too readily.

So as a perfectionist, you can probably relate to that. You nitpick yourself, you judge yourself pretty harshly, and you just end up in this experience of feeling like you’re a smart person who is willing to do hard work like you want to make it work. You are showing up. You are doing the things or at least trying your very best, even though you know you’re getting in your own way. And so it might feel like, why isn’t it just working? But it’s because there’s some of that entitlement there that is making you lazier in your actions, in really subtle way, and I’ll share specific examples in this episode as well. So the key word that creates entitlement or unwillingness is the word should. We perfectionists are very familiar with the word should, and it can come up in so many different ways, but just take a quick scan in your brain of times you’ve recently said or thought should, especially when it comes to your business.

So examples of this might be, for example, if I post consistently on social media, I should have engagement, I should have followers, I should have clients or customers. If I’m full time in my business, I should be successful. Like there’s so many ways that it comes up, it’s if this, then x should happen. And we are in that thought pattern as a way to really like it’s not even like we’re trying to be entitled or be unwilling. But when we’re in that perfectionist mindset, we really are in this mindset of our talents, our abilities, our intelligence, is natural and inherent, and it can’t really be improved upon. So if I’m doing something badly, that means there’s something wrong with me, or that I am fundamentally flawed. Versus when we’re in the growth mindset, we know that our talents, our intelligence, our abilities, can be improved upon with effort and with practice. So when we’re in that mindset, we aren’t critical of ourselves, because we aren’t interpreting there being a flaw or a missed opportunity or whatever as really even being a flaw or a problem.

We’re just seeing like, Oh, this is an opportunity for me. And you probably intellectually understand that idea of like, you will learn the most from your failures and the least from your successes. But when we’re in the perfectionist mindset, we’re actually really thinking like, No, I will learn the most from my successes, and I just want to be successful all the time. And of course, that is being fueled by our thoughts and feelings of inadequacy and shame and us wanting to not be in that. So we feel like I just need to be successful and I need it now. We’re very tense and we’re very tight about it, because we feel like we really, really, really don’t have it, and we really, really, really, really need it. So when it comes to our perfectionist brains and being in this entitlement, unwillingness, frustration, self criticism, it’s just seen that when we are feeling deserving. So if we think about that definition of being entitled, believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment, it’s not even I think that we are feeling deserving of special treatment from other people. Though,

if you think about that social media example, it kind of is like that. Like, just because we are posting consistently, they should be liking it, they should be commenting, they should be buying or just because I offer something that I know is insanely valuable, they should be signing up for it. Like I know that is definitely a thought pattern I have been in, like pgse is amazing. I shouldn’t even really have to sell it. That is entitlement, that thought that makes me lazy in my selling, and then creates the result that people should be signing up, but they aren’t. So what we want to have a look at with perfectionism and understand, really, is. But it’s not even like we’re deserving of special treatment from our like from other people. That’s not really the thought pattern. It’s kind of just like we’re wanting special treatment from our results because we are smart, because we are talented, because we are hardworking, that we are wanting to get objectively, what is often unrealistic results from the amount of effort that we’ve put in, or the amount of time we’ve been putting that effort in.

And saying the word unrealistic makes me think about how you might be thinking, Well, Sam, I’ve heard you talk about you should have unrealistic goals, like when I teach my clients in pgsd How to create a growth goal, we have that goal intentionally be unrealistic, but that is a long term goal over a 12 month period that you grow into. And it’s not actually unrealistic, it’s just that your brain doesn’t identify with it being realistic for you. But when I’m talking about there being unrealistic expectations that we have due to this entitlement, they’re often very short term expectations. So for example, if I post consistently for three weeks, my followers should be going, I should have people DMing, me wanting to buy, wanting to sign up. Like we really tend to have a lot of entitlement to short term success in particular and what we want to do is actually be thinking about it in a growth minded way, which is an acknowledgement as well that it takes time and effort and practice to achieve something that you haven’t achieved before, and also just because you were taking the right actions doesn’t entitle you to success.

So we have with our perfectionist thinking, we have this mindset of, if I do something perfectly, it should work, and if I don’t do something perfectly, it shouldn’t work. So that is what I actually found, those little notes in my iPhone notes, because the other day, when I was thinking about entitlement, about entitlement, I was like, that is actually high level overall, the thought pattern that we have, if I do it perfectly, it should work. If I don’t do it perfectly, it shouldn’t work. So we can also have an entitlement to failure. And that is something really interesting to look at, because when we think about entitlement, we’re often only thinking about an entitlement to success, an entitlement to receiving things, and entitlement in the positive aspect of the word. But as well, a lot of us have even more entitlement to failure, entitlement to things not working.

And if you look at the perfectionist all or nothing thinking, it makes sense that we have that general thought pattern. If I do something perfectly, like I post on social media consistently, or I have a sales page that has everything on it that it’s meant to have, or I have a product that’s good, or whatever, then I should have that work in terms of money, success, people that I’m helping and all of that kind of thing, and if I am not doing it perfectly. So if I’m not posting consistently, for example, if I don’t have the perfect sales page, if I don’t have the perfect artwork, whatever it is that you’re creating that relates to your business, that you have, we have this thought of it shouldn’t work. And so of course, as we are doing any kind of work, our perfectionist brain only sees what’s not working like we really have to do a lot of training, and I teach you how to do this and support you with this inside perfectionist getting shit done. We have to do a lot of training of our brain to actually see what’s working, to see the progress because it is happening, your brain is just dismissing it, which only perpetuates failure and feeling like things aren’t working and feeling behind.

But when we’re in this thought pattern, like this entitlement to failure, and we’re thinking, Well, I’m not posting consistently, so why does it even matter? It doesn’t even make a difference. I’m just going to stop doing it, like we go into that all or nothingness with the work itself. Because we are thinking, Okay, well, if I can’t get this artwork perfect, if I can’t get this podcast episode perfect, or this email perfect, it’s not going to work, so why bother? And again, we have this entitlement to it not working, and therefore we disconnect and disengage. And I was actually coaching a PGSDer on this earlier this week. She’s an artist, and she was saying that she wants to create this series of 10 pieces of artwork that can be sold as print. And I said, Well, are you thinking that it has to be perfect each piece of art? And she said, Well, yeah, it does. And I was just giving her some coaching around that. And we all intellectually understand that things don’t have to be perfect, but our brain is like, but they really do.

And so part of understanding why they don’t have to be perfect in a way that actually allows you to be willing to put things out that your brain sees as imperfect, that someone else will actually be like, Oh my god, that’s amazing, but our brain’s like, no, that’s not good enough. That part of having that willingness and oftentimes courage and emotional capacity to publish imperfect work is really understanding the entitlement that is going on and that our brain not only interprets things in a way that is going to see it less favorably, and so it’s going to be really hard for anything to feel perfect, but then we can get in this really tricky situation where, if you do feel like you did the perfect piece of art, and then it doesn’t instantly sell, then it’s going to be really frustrating, and there’s going to be an unwillingness to actually look at what’s happening and solve for what’s happening, and to keep going and figuring out, okay, why isn’t this selling?

Because often, without entitlement, our brain will have us say, Okay, I just need to redo the art. I just need to be better at art. Maybe I need to do an art course to actually be good at art. Because if the artwork is perfect, it should sell. There’s that entitlement. But actually, what we can see is that we aren’t the best judge of whether the work is actually good enough, and I have learned that over the years in so many different ways, that it feels kind of like more safe and that we’re more in control if we were actually the best judge of our work and whether it is perfect. And there is something to be said for feeling satisfied with your work. But because our perfectionist brains are so critical, this is why most perfectionists can’t actually let go of their work until the last minute deadline, and a lot of times can’t even start it until the last minute deadline, because that pressure to get it perfect is so immense that until there is a limited time period, that means you no longer actually have enough time to do it perfectly so you may as well just get it done.

We aren’t willing to do it because we’re scared as well to find out that if we do do it perfectly, it won’t work. And then, oh my God, I’m in this helplessness. What do I even do? Or this idea like it’s kind of like earth shattering to find out that imperfect work can work. It can work really well. I have made, in my own business, millions of dollars from doing very imperfect work, imperfect podcast episodes. Like everything I do, my brain wants to tell me how it is not good enough, and if I believe like if I was in that entitlement of, well, if I don’t do it perfectly, it can’t work, then I wouldn’t publish any podcast episodes. I definitely wouldn’t have ever released anything for sale. I wouldn’t have ever started as a coach, because my brain just wants to see all the ways, and it’s obviously much better than this now, but especially when I started, and I hadn’t ever been paid for coaching before, my brain just wants to see all the reasons that’s not possible, and it’s a horrible idea, and they’re gonna not like it, and like all of that, all or nothing thinking just really magnifying the worst case in the extreme.

And so if you have been really struggling to publish imperfect work, or to work on things until like anytime prior to the last minute, or to let go of work like you might be someone who does your work early, but then you were just constantly polishing it and tweaking it. And like you don’t actually let it go once it is at a point of sufficiency, which is another big part of this. When we are in entitlement, we are often completely missing any sufficiency that is there and any adequacy that is there. So our perfectionist brains, it’s just knowing that it has this entitlement thought pattern. Again, if I do it perfectly, it should work, and if I don’t do it perfectly, it won’t work, and that creates low levels of resilience and resourcefulness and being engaged and connected, and will mean we end up feeling really helpless and frustrated when things aren’t working or when we’re not doing the work.

And of course, we’re not doing the work we need. If we are in that thought pattern of, I either have to do it perfectly for it to work, and if I don’t do it perfectly, it definitely won’t work. Like, oh my God, that is no fun at all to be in that thought pattern. I know because I haven’t been in that thought pattern so many times. We’re just really understanding, I hope, by me saying it in different ways, it is beginning to click that understanding your brain is going to be in that thought pattern. There’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with your brain. It makes sense that it is going to think those thoughts, especially because it is just pure repetition. If you have had that thought, and you have then acted accordingly, and because of the way our brain works, it will seek out evidence to support our current beliefs. So you might have actually had an experience where you did work ahead of time and it was easy for you and it felt imperfect, and the other person was really happy with it, or you got to go great or whatever.

But if you believe you’re someone who does the best work at the last minute, under lots of pressure, and you feel super smart because you’re that kind of person, then your brain is going to dismiss that experience and instead just focus on the experiences that are in line with your beliefs. This is why what you believe and what you think is so important it dictates your reality, like what you perceive is filtered through your beliefs, our brain doesn’t want to see anything that doesn’t match our view of the world. And so I love, and this is my like favorite thing to do. It’s why I love being a coach. It’s why I love having perfectionist getting shit done. Is that the work we are doing is changing your beliefs to create a different reality, not trying to create a different reality in order to change your beliefs.

So I want to talk a bit about willingness and curiosity, because I mentioned those two things. They’re in the title of this episode. So what are they? Willingness or being willing is ready, eager or prepared to do something. You are ready, eager or prepared to do the work required to do a certain process. And also, I would add with that, that you are ready, eager and prepared to do something for an extended period of time that a lot of times like, well, I am willing to post on social media, but that’s really like for a few weeks, and then we’re going to get disheartened if we haven’t seen this incredible result, but we want to be ready, eager and prepared to do something for an extended period of time after it is like motivating after our enthusiasm is gone. You need to be willing. We need to be willing.

Willingness is being willing to go into that messy middle of an experience and to be in that for much longer than you want to be in that your perfectionist brain doesn’t want to be in the messy middle where you are putting in an effort and not yet getting results. It doesn’t want to be there. It wants to go to a new marketing strategy, a new business idea. That’s that shiny object syndrome that we will even like in that experience. Manufacture thoughts that create that feeling of imposter syndrome, so that we have an excuse to stop doing the thing that we’re doing and try and do something we feel more confident in, like our brain just doesn’t want to be in that messy middle unless we change the thoughts that we’re having and create comfort being in the messiness of building a business or any experience in life, which means you need to be willing to do Something for longer than your brain will naturally be motivated or enthusiastic about it.

So willingness is something that you want to increase on every pgic coaching call I am subtly or directly coaching the person I’m coaching on increasing their willingness and also their curiosity as well. So what is being curious? Being curious is being eager to know or learn something, so on. Obviously, from those definitions, they go hand in hand. Being willing is being prepared to do something, and being curious is being prepared to learn something. And probably, if you listen to this podcast and someone who loves personal development, you’re like, I have no issues with wanting to learn things. I love learning things. Maybe you’re someone who does a lot of procrasti-learning that kind of thing as well, but being curious is different in some ways, to just like learning things, like from a textbook or from a video or from a podcast episode. Curiosity is really, I think, being willing to learn things that are comfortable to learn and also things that are uncomfortable to learn.

Being curious is being willing to take a look and potentially see things you don’t want to see. Like, Hmm, maybe I am an entitlement around this, because a lot of people have coached on entitlement and my initial coaching, like, I didn’t even realize this was a thing until a couple of years ago, because of my own unwillingness to see any entitlement in myself. There’s a lot of moral judgment around being an entitled person, and you probably don’t want to identify as one, but being willing to be curious about it. Of like, is this something that might be going on for me and being willing to take a look and not instantly dismiss it and also not instantly attach to it? Of like, well, if Sam says this, then it’s definitely something that’s happening for me. There probably is somewhere, if you have high levels of frustration and low levels of resilience or persistence, there is probably going to be some entitlement there. But I want you to be curious about it, and to take a look for yourself, rather than just taking my word for it, rather than just dismissing my word.

So we want to be focused on being willing and being curious. And the reason I say those two things as well to focus on, because when we look at like, Okay, if you were being entitled, okay, just stop being entitled. Or how people say, like, just stop being a perfectionist. Like, it’s so unhelpful. How are you meant to just stop doing it? Like, what do you do instead? And so anytime that I’m coaching or teaching, I’m always identifying what do we want to be doing instead in its place, like, what do we want to be focusing on creating? Because I have found an experience, and I know our PGSDers are the same.

The most growth when we have something to move towards and to focus on creating. So for example, inside PGSD, we talk a lot about the growth mindset. And we are not trying to not be perfectionists. What we are trying to do, and what we are doing is creating a growth mindset. And naturally, as you get more and more into a growth mindset, and you’re using the tools like the Growth Goal and power planning and clean rest, you will have less and less of that perfectionist thinking. Your handbrake, your perfectionism handbrake, as I like to call it, will be released. So we’re not trying to just like, okay, stop being a perfectionist about or stop being entitled. No. Instead, we are getting into a growth mindset, and we are creating willingness and curiosity around an experience, rather than being in that entitlement and unwillingness and frustration and self criticism.

So how do you notice entitlement? I’ve already mentioned a little bit about this, when it comes to an area where you are highly frustrated, you get disheartened easily, you have low levels of resilience, of persistence, or maybe as well, an area where you are jumping around from strategy to strategy. So this typically happens, like there’s a lot of entitlement around marketing, that if I just write a really good email that I absolutely love, then it should create sales and, like all of this kind of thing. There might be a different way that that thought pattern comes up for you, but perfectionists a lot of times have low levels of resilience around marketing, because there are high levels of entitlement, hidden entitlement around it, and then the result of that will be jumping to different social media strategies, for example.

So you might do Instagram, or even with Instagram, there’s, like, stories and reels and all the different things. You might be like, Okay, no, maybe it’s Tiktok, or maybe it’s LinkedIn, or maybe actually just need to focus on an email list, or maybe it’s a website, or maybe it’s like if you’re just constantly jumping between things and trying to find the perfect thing that will work for you, that in and of itself, is entitlement. There’s one perfect platform where all of your perfect people hang out, and if you just happen to be there and post consistently they should buy and a lot of times, as well as some money mindset, stuff going on underneath that that we are feeling like, we are like, either not deserving of the money. There’s just so many things under that too. And there’s in PGSD, a whole money mindset, course, that we actually have to support you with your money mindset, because it does come up as part of having a business.

But if you are jumping around from strategy to strategy to strategy, looking for the perfect thing that should work, then not only will we be exhausted and feeling behind and feeling like things aren’t working, because you aren’t probably ever actually really getting into the messy middle of anything, just as soon as you get there, you just oh, well, this didn’t work, and it should have. So I’m going to do something else. But when you are in that pattern, that’s one thing. And I want to say this is the more advanced way that it comes up, and this is how I really noticed it as well. And I say that it’s more advanced because it really takes knowing what’s going on in your body and being able to distinguish two feelings that feel very similar.

So an experience that I had, and you can listen to the whole thing, it’s Episode 336 337 and 338 of this podcast. I’ll link it up for you. But an experience I had with one of our pgsd launches was I was in entitlement, and I didn’t realize it, and it felt like confidence. And so through going through that experience, and I highly recommend listening to those episodes. They’re called getting your work done early and easily. But when I was going through that experience, and it was kind of insane, because I had to do so much self coaching and coaching to be able to be willing to create the materials for the launch ahead of time. So that meant the podcast episodes, the emails that would go out, the Instagram posts, like everything that I did early. And I don’t think I did it all early perfectly, like there are a few things maybe that I didn’t, but I did the bulk of it early when I had been in the pattern of doing it at the last minute and telling myself, like, I just love that live feeling of being in a launch.

And when I’m selling something, you have people there talking to you, and you’re interacting with it, and like the energy of that, and it’s just like, I create it better, like in the moment, I had to do so much self coaching to actually create the work ahead of time, because I want to be the entrepreneur. I want to be the person who can create the work ahead of time, not only because that’s what I want to teach, but also because it’s so much more practical, like developing that skill set meant the launch after that, when I was getting married, I was actually able to easily create all of the content for the launch, like a month earlier than I needed to, so that I could do the launch after the wedding, but throughout the whole wedding experience, I didn’t need to be thinking about the launch whatsoever, or worried about, like, Okay, I’m going to be doing it in a couple of weeks. Like, I just knew I’m going to do this all early, and I did it all early, and I am so glad I have developed that skill set.

And there are times when my brain wants to not do things early because it still feels uncomfortable, and I’m like, doing the events. Work on that now myself, but also it’s just really practical to be able to rely on yourself, not just at the last minute, but ahead of time too. And so there’s nothing wrong with doing work at the last minute, but the problem with only being able to do work at the last minute is, for a lot of things, the last minute never actually comes, or the burnout, the exhaustion, and also the problems it causes with our self trust. If we are only able to do work at the last minute, we really can’t rely on ourselves as much as we can if we have that skill set, plus the skill set of being able to get work done early and easily, ahead of time. So that is a skill I was developing with that launch as the way to practice that. And so as I said, I had to do so much self coaching to even, like, be willing to not be in the thought pattern of I do my best work at the last minute, or like in this kind of live interaction or live setting.

So I did that self coaching. And so then I was in the place like the willingness and the curiosity to do the work early and easily, and so I wrote out the emails, and I recorded the podcast episodes, and I trusted myself with them and all of that. And then I felt so confident, also. I thought that was the feeling, and I’m so glad I have this distinction now, because I can tell in hindsight and when I’m having it that distinction, but I had this feeling of confidence. But the thought pattern, if you examine the thought pattern behind a feeling so helpful. So the thought pattern behind that feeling of confidence was this should work. We should hit our goal. So that word should again is a good sign that entitled thinking is going on there, so we should hit our goal. Because I’m happy with the emails.

I wrote them early. I’m happy with the podcast series I recorded it early, and I was not expecting to be in this entitlement from doing something early, but it kind of makes sense when you think about it, right? Because I was doing things at the last minute because I was scared to find out that if I did them early, they wouldn’t be good enough, like that. If I gave it a full effort, a full clean effort, then I wouldn’t be able to create the result I wanted. So part of me doing that work at the last minute was me just not wanting to feel helpless at the reality or like my fear of my entitled thought actually being realized that, well, if I do it perfectly, it should work and like, the again, like earth shattering realization. That’s not the case. So I do the work at the last minute, so that I always get to have this belief, like, well, if I did do the work perfectly, I would get a perfect result.

And so I just want to try and be better. Like, we love being in that place as perfectionist of like, well, if I had been better, I would have done better. And so I’m just going to focus on being better. It gives us this sense of control, rather than a sense of helplessness that we have when it is I try my best and my best wasn’t good enough. As perfectionists, that is really, I think, the most painful thought that we are trying to avoid, and we have the most despair around is when we feel like I tried my best, but my best wasn’t good enough. And again, that’s that entitled thinking, and that thinking that if I do it perfectly, it should work, and so if it didn’t work, it’s because I wasn’t perfect, and that means I’m inadequate. I’m unlovable. No one wants to be around me. No one loves me. I’ll die alone, like all of that kind of thing that subconsciously goes on.

And so when I had this confidence going in, it was just so interesting. And I could tell, as it went that it wasn’t true confidence in my ability to create the result. Because when we didn’t have the sign ups happening the same way that they happened in the previous launch. So we had 50 people sign up in the January launch. In this launch, I think my goal was maybe 60 people, and we ended up with nine people. There were also some things that changed, like, we didn’t have a payment plan for that launch for pgsd, and we normally do, like we have a payment plan now when you sign up for pgsd. So there are a few things that changed and might have skewed the numbers, but as soon as the numbers weren’t rolling in the way that I thought they should be. I felt really helpless and in despair about it, and my belief evaporated instantly.

That’s another good sign that we’re in entitlement is that your confidence is conditional on you getting the result in the way that you thought the result would come. Because we can really say that is not confidence, that is entitlement, and that confidence so I’ve written down like, what is confidence and what is entitlement like in that context. So confidence is you are engaged, and you have a loose grip on the results, because you are in belief and the self image of someone who creates a result and is successful. So confidence is a belief in your ability to create the result and a willingness and a curiosity to keep going until that result is created. So if you have something that happens and could be used as against your goal happening, someone who is confident in that belief isn’t then tense about it, like they just like, Okay, well, I just need to solve for this. Versus when we’re in entitlement, we are often helicoptering the results. So we are constantly checking.

We might be completely disengaged and just like not checking at all, but we might be checking and checking and checking Instagram or checking and checking and checking like sales or signups or different things like that, are your inbox. You are tense, and you have this self image of someone who is a failure, and you are probably someone who is a highly successful person in general, that other people think of you that way. But you probably, with your self image, are focused on all the ways you aren’t perfect, all of your flaws and inadequacies, and maybe you are successful in nine out of 10 areas, but your brain is focusing on that area of life where you aren’t as successful as the others, and you are feeling like a failure. Maybe it’s not termed that way in your brain, but you were feeling behind. You were feeling like you can’t trust yourself to get the results. You have to be very controlling. You have to work long hours. You have to just be like, really micromanaging the result in order to get it.

That isn’t confidence, that isn’t the kind of commitment we want to create either that really is that entitled thought pattern that is going on. And there’s some self image work to be done there. We do a lot of that in pgsd. There’s a whole module on self image, because it is so important if you are viewing yourself as an unsuccessful person, no matter what you do to try to become successful, you will keep creating a reality for yourself where you are unsuccessful. Because we always act in accordance with who we believe we are. We see evidence for that. We create the reality of that. It is going to be a self fulfilling prophecy.

So even if you haven’t got the track record you want yet of success, you need to shift your self image and have your self image be going ahead of you, and not like when we are exhausting ourselves and burning ourselves out. It is because we are trying to create a new self image through getting new results, and our belief in ourselves is conditional upon the results we have created or the results we have created in the past. And what we want to do is actually be delusional, and I’m going to do a whole separate episode on delusion, how to use it to achieve your goals, but to be delusional and to begin seeing that you are successful. And there’s nuance to the self image and different kinds of self image you can create.

So I talk about that in PGSD, but it’s really important to know as well that underlying entitlement is typically a self image of feeling like you are a failure or you’re incapable, or you’re just someone who can’t figure things out, even though at the same time, you probably hold a self image of being smart and intelligent and someone who is willing to do the hard work, but that underlying self image of I am just someone who can’t figure this out, and I’m behind I say it again because it’s such a big one that is going to have you also been in a lot of entitled thinking. So with specific examples, I think I’ve shared quite a few in this episode already, and just knowing as well that, because it can be like, okay, but if I’m not like, having this expectation, then what should I have in the place of that expectation?

And so I just want to talk about that as well, because, for example, if we’re saying, okay, don’t be entitled. I’m not really saying that. I’m saying instead, be curious and be willing. But for example, the entitlement I was in was creating all the launch materials ahead of time. Means we should hit our goal, especially if I’m happy with them, like I’m happy with the emails, happy with the podcast series. So instead of being in that thought pattern. The thought pattern to be in is the time my work is created, like whether I do it early or late or whatever, isn’t actually what determines whether we hit our goal. And I know that can be like a bit of a groundbreaking realization.

If you are someone who is very strongly in that belief that I do my best work at the last minute, or I do my best work really early. If you tend to be on the over preparing side of perfectionism that you were like, No, it does matter, but it isn’t. It’s your willingness to do the work, to be curious, to course correct and to pose a hypothesis and not have it be this, like should kind of expectation, but this might kind of expectation, like I might expect, that if I was to create all the launch materials ahead of time, and I feel happy with those launch materials, that it will create a successful launch. So I know that sounds probably really subtle, but it’s a massive shift in the feeling it will create in your body and in the actions that will flow from that feeling. Because if we are thinking I did it ahead of time, so we should hit our goal, that means I’m not really paying attention to the launch, or I’m helicoptering it. I’m not actually being engaged.

And I can tell you this from experience, and you’ll hear it in those episodes where I documented it, but as soon as you’re not on track when I was in that should thought pattern, rather than my. Right? When I was in a should sort pattern, I didn’t want to, like, go in and troubleshoot and like, the way that I troubleshoot is so much more effective when it’s like, I’m in that growth minded scientific method kind of approach, of like, here is what I think might happen. Like, that is a hypothesis. It’s not this should happen. It has to happen. If it doesn’t happen, I’m going to be in complete despair, not a scientist says this is what I think might happen if I do this, if there’s this input, there’ll be this output, and that might not happen.

Hence why I’m doing an experiment and I’m willing to understand and be curious and be willing to have a look at okay, if that didn’t happen, why didn’t it happen? What might I do differently next time and not be in this place of should the same with like, posting consistently on social media? If you are right now in low levels of resilience or persistence about it, or maybe you’re posting but you’re just kind of going through his emotions, you probably have some entitlement around it. Posting consistently means I should have engagement, I should have comments, I should have followers, I should have sales. Versus thinking about my posting frequency doesn’t actually determine my level of success, and at the same time holding the like the hypothesis that my hypothesis is that if I post five times per week, for example, I might expect this kind of outcome from that, but even if you start to phrase it that way, you’ll start to notice, okay, actually, there’s more that goes into a result than just the frequency of the post.

But when we’re in entitlement, it’s so hard to see that like, well, I’m posting consistently, I should be getting the result versus like, Okay, but what are you posting consistently? What are your thoughts when you are posting? Are you thinking they don’t have the money, they don’t want to buy this? I don’t know what I’m doing. If you are thinking those thoughts, it doesn’t matter how frequently or consistently you post and for how many years that thought is going to create the reality that you aren’t getting sales, that people don’t have the money, they don’t see the value in what you do that is a reality that you’re going to create.

So there’s more that goes into it, but it’s not to say that posting frequency isn’t a factor in that equation. Like, if you’re not posting at all anything, then even if you have, like, the highest quality thoughts about it, it’s probably not going to produce an outcome that you want. Though, having said that, if you’re having high quality thoughts about it, you are naturally going to be inclined to post and to show up and share, but it’s looking at that hypothesis. Okay, here is my hypothesis as to what will create the result. And so when we tend to be in curiosity and willingness, we are focused on the result we’re creating, versus when we’re in entitlement, we tend to be focused on like, What action are we taking? And that action should result in something.

And that is a more nuanced, advanced thing as well, to be thinking about actions versus results, because we tend to think like, well, of course, if I take this action, I should get this result. That entitlement again. But if we look at, okay, there is your hypothesis about for me to be successful on Instagram. Okay, what does that even mean? Let’s unpack that. Do you have your growth goal, like your 12 month revenue goal? Have you got that? Do you even know how it’s going to contribute to that? That’s super important, too. A lot of times people are just like posting with this entitlement, not even knowing what success looks like. But do you know actually, how it fits into the bigger picture? Have you zoomed out? Have you looked at that? Okay, and then poising frequency is just one factor. It’s also the quality of your thoughts as you are posting what you are posting, like the format that you might post it in, the call to action that you share, and all of those things.

And so when we’re in curiosity and willingness, we’re actually willing to look at all of the different factors, and instead of being overwhelmed by them, we engage with like, okay, there are so many things to focus on when we’re in an entitlement that is a very disheartening realization, like, Oh, my God, there’s so many things. It’s like this giant puzzle I can never solve because there are so many factors versus we’re in that growth mindset, and we are in curiosity and willingness. Like, ah, there are so many things that I get to play around with and have fun with and tweak and experiment with and taking that approach too, I’m going to keep all of these things the same, like my posting consistency the same. I’m going to keep my offer the same. I’m going to keep my price the same, and now I’m going to play with just the format, versus when we’re in entitlement and jumping from thing to thing, we are reinventing the wheel over and over again.

It’s so hard to even be curious and to be willing, because we don’t have that like we’re not doing things in a way that allows us to even collect data in the most effective way. Because if you are posting, for example, very inconsistently, or you are constantly changing platforms, or you’re changing multiple variables at once, it is really hard to say, Okay, what is the impact of posting consistently or frequently? If I just take the same approach, and now I’m going to do it and I’m going to post 10 times a week, and I’m going to do that for three months, not a week. I’m going to do that for three months, okay? And now I’m going to post two times a week, and I’m going to do that for three months, and I’m going to examine that. I’m going to keep everything else the same, the way that I post, the way that I’m thinking about it. I’m going to keep that all that the same, and I’m just going to change the frequency, like that’s how we can really be engaged in our business. And it’s so much more successful to do that, but it requires a willingness and a curiosity that we don’t have when we are in entitlement.

So I just want to wrap up by sharing, first of all, what do you do when you notice your entitlement? So first of all, do not beat yourself up for seeing the entitlement. It is something to celebrate. If you see that entitled thought pattern going on, nothing has gone wrong. There is nothing wrong with you. It’s not a moral thing. It’s a thought pattern, a thought and feeling pattern. It’s one that your brain is very comfortable with has felt very safe and familiar, and probably your brain has misattributed it to success as well in your life. So it’s going to feel like, well, I actually should keep thinking this way, because there’s so much proof for it. But as I shared before, when you are believing something your brain, your reticular activating system in your brain, will filter your experiences, will generalize, distort and delete your experiences and what’s going on the information around you to reflect back to you evidence that confirms your belief.

So of course, it feels so real, and so it’s really being willing to, as I said, not beat yourself up bad. Be like, oh, how amazing. I’m gonna be curious about this and willing to see it. How amazing that I have noticed this thought and feeling pattern that my perfectionist brain has. And then there are a couple of simple questions that you can ask yourself. So first of all, this is really to increase willingness what needs to be done that I wish didn’t need to be done, because that’s really a way to get our brains to like, Oh, I wish I didn’t have to, like, go back and write these emails again. Or, I wish I didn’t have to really think through, okay, what are the actual objections of my best client who actually wants to work with me and they do have the money, or the resourcefulness to have the money, and what is coming up for them, versus, when we’re entitled, I’m like, oh, it’s because I don’t have the money. Like, no, that’s not the reason. So what needs to be done that I wish didn’t need to be done?

And what are all of the reasons that I’m willing to do that, and then getting your brain to list out all the reasons you’re willing to do that. And I do so much of my own self coaching on up leveling my willingness, like, my willingness to be wrong about something, my willingness to look at a problem, my willingness to be engaged with something, my willingness to do the work. I just list out all the reasons like, how is it true that I am willing? What evidence can I find to support that I am willing? Or what could I think that would increase my willingness? And then also, what can I get curious about here and really leaning into curiosity? And I think this is something that resonates with a lot of perfectionists, especially if you’re someone who identifies as someone who loves learning like huh? What could I be more curious about, especially if you are feeling frustrated or disheartened and you find yourself wanting to disconnect and avoid be like, what could I be curious about here?

And I love there’s a question as well. It’s from the book The Art of Possibility. I’m probably going to butcher it, but it’s a question of, what assumption am I making that I didn’t realize I’m making that is giving me what I’m seeing. So that is another question as well that I like to use to just notice, like, Okay, what assumptions are under here? That really just helps me to notice entitled thinking as well and also doing the work to get into a growth mindset. So inside PGSD, you have your growth goal, you have power planning and clean rest, as well as the optional coaching calls that we have that you have the option to attend each week, the replays of the coaching calls that you’ll get via the PGSD private podcast. Everything in pgsd is designed to support you with this work and to help you get into curiosity and willingness. There are so many things that I have done with the program, and the way that I’ve set it up and that we do it, that you won’t even realize that we are helping you increase your curiosity and willingness. It will just naturally happen. And then also, there’s those tools to directly support you with that, and the coaching calls as well.

So I just want to wrap up finally by saying how to reconcile. What will it look like if, sorry, I’m butchering that. How to reconcile that question that I ask a lot of, what would this look like if it was easy with entitlement? Because as I was creating this episode and doing the noise for ICCA, what is someone who is listening gonna be thinking about this? And I talk a lot about that question, and the previous episode actually was on this of like, giving yourself permission to do it the easy way. What would this look like if it was easy? So I just wanted to answer that if you were thinking, like, Okay, but how do I do things in an easy way without being entitled about it?

And so I’ve given some clues to that throughout this episode, but really it’s about willingness and curiosity and not having an entitlement or an expectation that because I’m doing this the easy, simple, uncomplicated way, it should work, and if it doesn’t, then I should be frustrated, or I will be frustrated. Instead, it’s I’m willing to do the work required in a simple, easy and fun way, I’m willing to do the thought work required to make that possible. So a lot of times, there is thought work and self coaching required to even identify what a simple, easy and fun way is to do the work. And sometimes doing work the easy way is letting it be hard without mental drama. So the easy way just means dropping the mental drama. In a lot of cases. In many cases, though, it’s about simplifying, removing complication, removing assumptions that are making things hard, like the assumption that if I do this perfectly, it will work. If I don’t do this perfectly, it can’t work.

So it really comes down to that entitlement of like, we’re not trying to say, if you do it easily and you’re in that experience of like, this is easy, I’m in flow, then it should work. That is going to decrease your resilience. It’s going to decrease your resourcefulness, and really just not have you actually be able to solve for anything that needs to be solved for. Because just because you do it the easy way, it doesn’t mean it’s definitely going to work, and especially not the first time, but doing it the hard way, like our brain just thinks as well, and there’s so much entitlement of if I do it the easy way, it shouldn’t work, if I do it the hard way, it should work. So that’s a whole other thing as well. But if we look at like, just because you are doing the easy way, it doesn’t mean it should work. The same way they’re doing it the harder way doesn’t mean it should work.

And that how like your experience of the work, whether it’s hard or easy, is but one factor in the result of the work. And so if we have a look at the reality that you could actually find ways to do it easily, and our brain wants to complicate everything because of that thought pattern. If it’s hard, it should work. If it’s easy, it won’t work. That entitlement has us over complicating so that question that I have gotten from Tim Ferriss many years ago now, of what would it look like if this was easy, is really just a way to remove the entitlement that we have around hard work should work and easy work shouldn’t work. And to pose to our perfectionist brains that has that thought pattern like, Huh, what if the easy way could work? And again, not entitlement of it should work. Like, we’re not trying to flip it that hard work can’t work and easy work should work. That’s not what we’re trying to do. It’s just like, oh, actually, there are other factors involved as well.

And I’m willing to be engaged with all of them, with like, the nuance of the situation. I’m willing to be curious, rather than disheartened, that there are multiple factors that influence the result that I’m creating a lot. Large one being my own thoughts and feelings about what I’m doing, about myself, about my business, about my customers and clients, about my offer and all of that. But I’m willing to do the work in a simple, easy and fun way, not just because we could say, and my experience has definitely been that it’s much more likely to be successful when I am doing things in a self, trusting and relaxed way, rather than a complicated way. But if we look at like well, if it’s gonna if neither entitles you to success, which one do you want? Do you want to do it the hard, complicated, draining way that includes lots of busy work and focusing on things that doesn’t matter?

Or do you want to be able to in a simple, easy and fun way, and again, sometimes that just means being willing to do something that is complicated or is hard without mental drama like that is much more the experience I would rather have than trying to force and clench and just really be so tense about business, it just doesn’t work as Well, like we can’t actually access our brain in as high a way when we are stressed and feeling pressured, like our brain goes into survival mode. It does not want to give us amazing, creative ideas and then the energy to actually implement them all the way through. And you might think, no, I have had experiences like that. Just imagine then, if that’s true, and that was true for me, of like, Oh no, but I do well under stress and pressure, hence why we love to create that for ourselves, to be like, Huh? And what if I do even better when I’m not under stress and I’m not under pressure, and that doesn’t mean I’m lazy and then I’m now just not caring, because our perfectionist or nothing brain wants to go into that instead and be like, Okay, well, if I’m not stressed and pressured about it, there’s that same entitlement.

Again, stress and pressure means it should work. If I’m not stressed and I’m not pressured about it, then it shouldn’t work, or it can’t work, or it won’t work. Of like, oh, actually, there are other factors involved. And also just really considering, like, you haven’t yet experienced your best work, and that that was really the case for me, that when I was doing all my work at the last minute under pressure, I didn’t actually get to see, like, okay, when I’m doing it ahead of time, it’s not that I now don’t care, and there’s no commitment. Like, I’m much more committed when I’m not in this stress or pressure. So that’s a whole other episode that I could do about all of that, and we recently did a call on it inside PGSD. If you are inside, then make sure you go and listen to that one. It was a few episodes ago on the private podcast. If you’re not inside, you can sign up today and go and listen to that and be in the program and do this work with us as well. Inside pgsd, this is life changing work to do absolutely and business changing as well.

And I love nerding out about it and supporting our PGSDers with it as well. But it’s just really starting to, like, loosen your grip on those thoughts. Of like, if I’m feeling stressed and pressured and doing it the last minute, or like, polishing and perfecting, then it should work. And if I’m not doing those things, it can’t work, versus like, Huh? What if that isn’t true, and there’s actually other factors as well that I’m just not even considering because of my low levels of curiosity and willingness, and that I can increase those levels of curiosity and willingness be engaged with the situation, the multifaceted nature of business and any result that we’re trying to create, and also just being in this place of beginning to understand that just because you aren’t stressed and pressured doesn’t mean you’re uncommitted. Those are very different things, and typically, the more stressed and pressured you feel, the less confidence you are in and the less committed you are, because you are thinking that things have to happen a perfect way or just right for you to be able to achieve the result. Hence why you’re stressed and pressured because, oh, my God, that’s so hard to do.

So you have to be stressed and pressured about that versus I am the kind of person self image. I am the kind of person who can create this result, who can solve for this result, who can figure this out? Who loves being engaged with this kind of problem, who loves having fun building their business, and who is willing to be in the journey? Like I was doing myself coaching yesterday, this is the final thing I’ll say. And I was writing it like I was just trying to solve a problem that I was like, Oh my God, my brain just wants to completely disconnect. And I was just bringing it back to, okay, but like, I’m willing, and I’m curious about this, and I’m willing to just actually keep doing this work. And so I was just writing out a list of all the skills that I learned through that experience, like, once I was done with it, and I just wrote at the end, like, this is the journey. Exclamation mark. This is it.

This is entrepreneurship, like having a problem and engaging with it and solving it and moving forward, and then knowing that tomorrow and the next day there’ll be another one, and it’s not like putting out fires, but it’s just creative thinking and getting my brain to solve things it doesn’t want to solve, and then becoming a new person that’s through the experience of doing that like that’s what I’m here for, if you enjoy this podcast and listening to me and the philosophies that I have and the way that I do. You probably like that too. And so our perfectionist brain can just also be in this sort of pattern and entitlement of like, well, if it’s fun, it can’t work, and if it’s not fun, it should work, and all of that. And so it’s just beginning to unravel all of that entitlement that we have. It’s not our fault, but it is coming from our present day thoughts, which means we have a high degree of influence over it.

You don’t have to go back and have your parents be different, or have your school experience be different, or have anyone in your life be different. It’s coming from that entitlement is coming from your present day thoughts, some of which are habitual and are long standing, but your present day thoughts, you have power and influence over them. They don’t all have to be perfect. You can have and this is from my coach. You can have so much success with a half managed mind. You do not need to be onto all of your thoughts and never have any entitlement. But now, when I’m in this pattern of entitlement, I can feel it in my body, because I have that distinction between entitlement and confidence. I can spot it so easily in someone else because I can spot it in myself as well.

Of course, it’s not always the time to say it to someone else in a coaching context, I will often mention it, sometimes not, but when it comes to you just being able to have that deeper relationship with yourself, where you are willing to see yourself in an emotion that you have maybe deemed to be morally wrong, and to have kindness and self support and compassion with yourself in that that alone is so much growth, and then being willing to be in the messy middle of seeing that entitlement, but not being able to instantly do anything about it, because it is a habitual thought pattern, and your brain needs to be reprogrammed around it, which isn’t this big job, but like again, the self image work we do in pgsd really has A lot of impact on that, but it’s just being willing to be in the messiness of like you’re a human who’s going to have thoughts that create a feeling of entitlement nothing is wrong with you.

That is not a problem at all. But also, let’s just shift into how can I be a little more curious here? How can I be a little more willing here and supporting yourself in that, and the messy middle of that, and the nuance of that, and yeah, so I just wanted to share all that because I have had so many thoughts over the last couple of years since that initial experience in 2022 about entitlement, I’ve done a lot of coaching on it, and I hope this episode has really helped you to understand it a bit better, to spot it in yourself in a kind and compassionate way and to move out of that hidden entitlement. So with that said, I hope you’re having a beautiful day, and I will talk to you in the next episode.

Outro
If you struggle to build your business due to procrastination or overthinking or maybe you keep burning yourself out, I want to invite you to join my program perfectionist getting shit done inside, I will teach you my proven process for getting shit done as a perfectionist entrepreneur. In case you didn’t know, perfectionists can’t follow the same productivity advice as everyone else, when we do, we get in our own way. So let me teach you what works inside the program. It’s simple, and anyone can learn to sign up today, visit SamLaurabrown.com/pgsd, I’ll see you inside.






Author: Sam Brown