Today I’m sharing with you a recording of my recent instagram live that was incredibly valuable for so many of my followers (I’m @perfectionismproject on Instagram). It’s on procrasti-learning because procrasti-learning stops so many smart entrepreneurs from building a successful business.
In this episode, I talk about 5 of the reasons perfectionists procrasti-learn as well as 5 signs that you’re procrasti-learning and what to do instead.
Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode508.
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Perfectionists Getting Shit Done is opening for enrollment on 31 January for one week only.
If you’re ready to get out of your own way and take consistent action in your business, you want to join my productivity program for perfectionist entrepreneurs called Perfectionists Getting Shit Done. Find out more about the program and join the waitlist today by visiting: samlaurabrown.com/pgsd. Enrollment is opening for one week only from 31 January to 7 February 2025.
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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 Perfectionists 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 – (Start of episode)
[0:29] This episode is going to be really helpful. So what I recently did is I read through the answers on the intake form that we have when people sign up for my program, Perfectionist Getting Shit Done. And one thing that kept coming up again and again and again as I was reading through everyone’s answers is that something that was really helpful for them to hear about was a concept called procrastinating, and this is when you are learning as a form of procrastination. This is something that perfectionists are very prone to especially if you are someone who identifies as smart, you identify as someone who loves learning, and you are someone who when you’re procrastinating, you prefer to do productive procrastination rather than sitting on the couch.
[1:17] So this episode is just going to be a little loving reminder, or maybe it’s the first time you’re hearing about this, but a little loving reminder, or kick in the pants to be focused this year in 2025 on implementation and executing and applyingwhat you know, rather than just learning more and more and more. And with that said, so next week, we are going to bereleasing here on this podcast, a five part series called getting shit done. And I’m going to be teaching about how to getshit done as a perfectionist who is building a business. I’m going to be talking to you in that if you’re someone who has ahistory of procrastinating, overthinking, getting in your own way, even if you’re smart, even if you have a lot of potential,you aren’t actually doing the things you know you need to do.
[2:08] You’re having a hard time with decisions you just know you aren’t showing up for your business the way that you want to be. And most likely, you are also very burned out and really finding it hard to find the energy to actually be showing up the way you want to. So that series is going to be for you. And in that it’s really focused around shifting from consuming knowledge to execution. And in that series, I am going to teach you about why perfectionists actually need to take a different approach to everyone else when it comes to productivity. So I say that because it can be easy to listen to an episode like this and then blame yourself for procrasti-learning, but really, as I talk about in the series, it’s coming out. It’s not that there’s something wrong with you, it’s just that you don’t have the right tools for your perfectionist brain.
[3:02] The same way that if someone doesn’t have 20-20 vision and they need glasses, they need the right prescription for their eyes, they just need the right prescription, the right glasses and they are able to see. And so if you are a perfectionist, and if you are having a hard time following through with the plans that you making, staying motivated, being disciplined, like if you were just having a hard time with productivity. Even though you’re smart, it’s just because you don’t have the right tools for your perfectionist brain, the right productivity tools. So I share all about that and the key three tools to be focused on, and what that looks like, and how to start using them in the getting shit done series. Soif you’re not already subscribed to this podcast. Make sure you are subscribing right now. Go and subscribe wherever you’re listening so that you get those episodes when they come out.
[3:50] And also, we will be opening my program, Perfectionist Getting Shit Done for enrollment for one week only on the 31st of january 2025 so very soon, and it’s going to be open for one week only. So if you are wanting further support and helpand to learn how to get shit done as a perfectionist entrepreneur without burning yourself out, that is our specialty. Thatis exactly what this program is designed and proven to be able to help perfectionist with. So I want to invite you inside PGSD as well. So samlaurabrown.com/pgsd is where you can go to find out more about the program. You can sign up for the wait list so that you don’t miss out fighting about when the doors are opening. You can get yourself inside and have the most productive year, but in a sustainable, realistic way that actually feels good. That is we are experts in teaching that and taking perfectionist from being procrasti-learners to being action takers, who are taking action in an aligned way, in a way that feels good, doing the things they want to do and building successful businesses. So with that said, I hope you find this episode, incredibly helpful. Enjoy.
[5:04] Today, I’m sharing with you a recording of my recent Instagram Live. I’m @perfectionismproject on Instagram, if you aren’t following me there yet, and I said a few episodes ago when I shared one of the lives I did on overthinking that I wasn’t going to be sharing any more of the lives that I did on the podcast, but I’m updating that decision. And I wanted to talk about this quickly, because sometimes we announce something, we go public with something, and then through taking that action, we realize that we actually want to make a different decision. And I’m not going to go into the whole thing here about when to stick with your decision, when to change it and update and all of that kind of thing. But I just want to get across that it is okay to update a decision that you made, and it is okay to do that, even if the decision you made was something that you publicly announced to your followers, to your clients, to whoever it was.
[6:00] So with that said, I wanted to talk about procrasti-learning for my Instagram Live, because I’ve been getting so many questions about it, and particularly when it comes to investing in programs like PGSD, for example, there can be this question of, well, is this procrasti-learning? Like I listen to the podcast a lot. This is what I hear all the time. Listen to the podcast. The podcast a lot. Should I just be implementing what I’ve learned for free on the podcast, or should I join PGSD? And often, we think that by investing in something, whether it’s PGSD or something completely different, we think that by taking that next step and investing that that’s procrastinating, because we should be first applying everything we’ve learned for free.
[6:48]
So in this Instagram Live that I’m putting on the podcast as well, I talk about that and why it is procrasti-learning to delay actually taking real action and learning in the best way possible, because you want to just play it safe and piece together things by yourself. I did that for years, and it really held me back. So I talk about that. I talk about why we procrasti-learn, five of the reasons there are more, but I talk about five specific reasons that we procrasti-learn, and then I also talk about five signs that you are procrasti-learning, and then I talk about specific things in terms of what to do instead, it’s a bit more detailed as always. Then just stop doing it, because we know that it’s best to stop when it’s any form of procrastination, and yet we still keep doing it. So it’s really helpful to understand the why have some compassion there with yourself, to be able to notice it, to have that self awareness, and then to know what to do instead.
[7:52]
And instead of focusing on not procrasti-learning, you can focus your energy on true learning and partaking in that. So Ihope that this is helpful for you. If you do enjoy it as always, please take a screenshot and tag me on Instagram. I’m @perfectionismproject. Also, if you aren’t getting my perfectionist power ups yet, what are you doing? I will leave the link for that in the show notes as well. They’re just daily emails that are one to three sentences long that are really going to help you get out of your own way. So with all of that said, I hope you enjoy the replay of this Instagram Live and yeah, here we go.
[8:31] Hi everyone. I hope you’re well. Today, I wanted to chat about procrasti-learning, which is procrastinating by learning, and this comes up a lot in business. I’m going to be talking in this live about why we procrasti-learn what the signs are that you’re procrasti-learning and also what to do instead. So if you are someone who loves learning, you’re probably someone who also did really well in school. You consider yourself to be a great learner, and you’re always, you know, watching videos, reading books, all of that kind of thing, taking online courses. I really recommend staying tuned for the entire live so that you can really start to notice where you might be procrasti-learning. And then instead of procrasti-learning, get into actually doing the things that you need to do.
[9:26] So if you’re here with me, live, please say hello, and if you have any questions as well ask them, I will try and keep an eyeon the chat that’s going on. But we are really going to be covering quite a few practical things, and there’s definitely nuance to this. I don’t have time to go into all of it in this live, but I’m at least going to give you an overview so that you can start to pay attention to this in your own life and do something about it. If procrasti-learning is something that you aredoing. So why do we procrasti-learn? There are so many reasons. I’m going to share a few of them, but you need to know from the outset that if you are procrasti-learning, that is again, you are learning as a form of procrastination, thenyou really need to be kind to yourself. There are so many good reasons that we procrastinate learn, and it’s a sign that we are really wanting to create change in our lives.
[10:27] There’s a lot of positive signs that come with it, but it is something that ultimately keeps us apart from what it is that we want to create, especially in business, especially when there’s always something that we could be learning, if we have a bias towards learning by getting more intellectual knowledge rather than learning through doing, then we’re going to know a lot about business and mindset and all the things, but our life won’t reflect it. So we want our life to be reflectingwhat we know, so that someone from the outside, if they looked at your life, they could tell what you know, they could tell what you have learned. Yes, I will be saving this live. I just saw that question. Awesome. Okay, so here are some of the reasons that we procrasti-learn.
[11:13] The first is that we were in the same mindset that helped us succeed in school. So we are thinking that there’s a right and wrong way to build our business, and that we need to find the right answers, that if we can just find the right information and the right answers, then we will be able to succeed in business. And my experience was that I did really well in school, and when I first started my business, I took that same mindset, and there are so many reasons that that made me get in my own way when it came to business, even though it worked for me when I was in high school in university, I have a law and finance degree, so I spent a lot of time in university, and The mindset that had me able to do quite well with leaving things to the last minute, doing all nighters, procrasti-learning. I didn’t do much of that, I would say, because I would just Google things at the last minute and put it together. But that mindset that there’s a right answer, and if we can just get the right answer, then we can succeed.
[12:21] If we take that to business, it’s really not going to work, and it’s going to be really frustrating, because you’ll feel like, well, I just know what to do, but I can’t get myself to actually do it. And in PGSD, it’s really about implementation and getting yourself to do the things you know you need to do. And when we’re in this mindset of procrasti-learning and thinking about business the way that we approach school, we then end up where we’re really holding ourselves back and not able to actually implement what we know, and spend that time doing the challenging work of taking messy action, reviewing that, iterating on that and repeating that process again and again. Another reason why we procrasti-learn is because we lack self trust. We don’t trust ourselves to implement what we know, so we focus instead on learningmore. So self trust is something that we work on inside PGSD.
[13:19] Because it is such an important part of getting out of your own way. You need to be able to trust yourself to make decisions. You need to be able to trust yourself that if you fail, you’re going to be okay. On the other end of that, you’re not going to be cruel to yourself. On the other end of that, self trust is really an important part of getting out of your own way, showing up fully, being consistent and all that kind of thing. And the same applies with procrasti-learning. It is a sign that there is some work for you to do around self trust. Another reason why we procrasti-learn is because we are not taking full responsibility for the results that we have in our business. So we are thinking that there are magic answers out there, and if we can just find them, that they will fix everything, and that we just have this lack of information problem.
[14:13] And when we think in business, it’s a lack of information problem that is us delegating responsibility to information to other teachers, to programs, to things that are external to us, to mentors and coaches and teachers, instead of taking responsibility for the results that we create in our business and recognizing that a lot of times, if we don’t have the business we want to have, it is not because there’s some amazing piece of information that we haven’t yet uncovered. It is because we are needing to get better at trying things, reviewing them, iterating and repeating that process again and again. PGSD teaches all of that, so it’s so important that you recognize that. That lack of information isn’t the reason why your business isn’t where you want it to be.
[15:07] Another reason why we procrasti-learning. Let me know if you were here live, if you can relate to these is comfort and safety. It is safer to learn than it is to do. Now, doing is learning. But in this context, I’m talking about learning as consuming things. So it might be listening to podcast episodes, watching YouTube videos, Googling things. Anytime youhave a question, Googling it, instead of just asking yourself, what you think the answer is, you were just consuming a lot of things all the time, and that is so much safer to our brain. That is why for survival and to seek pleasure and avoid pain, it is so much safer for our brain to be learning than it is to implement and do the things. And that’s not because it’sunsafe. It’s because our brain perceives it as being unsafe to put ourselves out there in front of family and friends, to try something that might not work, our brain perceives that as something that’s dangerous, even though it’s not actually dangerous.
[16:14] Our brains got it all wrong, but it’s very convincing, and so especially if you’re someone who has the identity, which I’m going to talk about in a second, the identity and the self image that you were someone who is smart, then procrasti-learning is really a way that we can kind of feed into that self image of, well, I’m someone who’s really smart, and look at me learning all these things that I know so much. Would never admit that to anyone else. But that’s part of the reason that procrastinating can feel so addictive when we have this self image of being a learner, and when we have learning wrong, and we think that learning means increasing our intellectual knowledge rather than learning being doing things, trying it, trying more than once, trying more than one way, reviewing that process, iterating on that, trying it again. And just a quick side note on the topic of procrastination, which is something I obviously talk about a lot, because it’s one of the signs of perfectionism that lately, a few of the podcast episodes I’ve been listening to on various podcasts, like The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett. Really love that one. I was listening to an episode recently with Mel Robbins, and they were talking about the five second rule, which is to help you stop procrastinating and other things as well.
[17:35] And I think that there are so many conversations out there about procrastination that talk about procrastination as being in action, not doing things and putting things off. And that is what’s going on with procrastinating, because by learning, we’re putting off doing. But this is the reason I want to have these conversations with you, because and why I have the podcast and pgse, because when we are intelligent, ambitious, all these other things, we don’t procrastinate by doing nothing. We feel so guilty from invest so it doesn’t feel comfortable to procrastinate by doing nothing, even though there’s a fair share of scrolling through Instagram, watching Netflix and that kind of thing, most of the procrastination that a perfectionist will do, and the kind of perfectionist that I help is actually busy work, focusing on things that don’t matter. For example. Another example is procrasti-learning, procrasti-researching, procrasti-cleaning.
[18:37] These are all things where it doesn’t obviously seem like procrastination a lot of times, because you can justify it, and especially with something like learning, where, as a society, we really place a lot of value on learning from authorized bodies who are have been anointed to teach things that We really can just stay in this procrastinating without really recognizing that it’s procrastination. And when we don’t recognize that it’s procrastination, we aren’t able to do anything about it. And we also end up being extremely frustrated, because then we get into this mindset of, well, I should know better than to be at this point in my business, but my business isn’t there, and then we feel like there’s something wrong with us, when really it’s because we’ve been spending a lot of time procrasti-learning.
[19:28] This is why as well, I’m so passionate about power planning that I teach inside pgsd, because it is a really helpful tool to be able to spot procrasti-learning for the to do list is really challenging to see. But when you are working from a calendar in a particular way, you are able to notice when you’re procrasti-learning and when you’re doing other forms of productive procrastination, such as busy work that can be really hard to miss otherwise. So the other. Reason I want to talk about there’s more, but that we procrasti-learn is due to self image. So our self image is our beliefs about ourself, the story we tell ourselves about who we are. It’s how we finish sentence, like I’m the kind of person who I am. That’s what creates our self image, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because of confirmation bias and the way that our brain filters information. A lot of times, people talk about like, well, you need evidence to be able to believe in yourself or in something, and our brain is actually not great at taking evidence as it is. It will instead twist and distort things so as to confirm what we already believe to be true.
[20:45]
So when people say, Well, you just need to create evidence that you can succeed in evidence. So for example, by getting testimonials, and then you’ll have more self belief if you don’t believe that you are going to succeed, that you are someone who is successful and resourceful and all those different things, your brain will put that down to being a fluke. They were just being nice. So even though the evidence is there, our brain doesn’t buy it, because that fundamental belief underpinning that isn’t actually the one that we want to have. So it’ll just be used as evidence against us, instead of evidence that it could be as for our belief that we actually want so if you are procrasti-learning, it’s likely that you have a self image identity around being a learner, and that you are thinking about learning as intellectual knowledge rather than doing, also that you are someone who does things right and someone who likes to follow the rules, and you just need to be told what to do, and when you’re told what to do, you can do really well.
[21:46] So you will need to do some work on your self image. That’s one of the things that we cover in the pgsd process as well. But those are a few of the reasons that we procrasti-learn. And I want to talk about some of the signs of procrasti-learning because I get a lot of questions about, is signing up for this marketing course, like whatever Instagram one they’re looking at, is this procrasti-learning? Or do I actually need the new strategy, or even PGSD? Is that procrasti-learning? Or there’s often as well when we don’t trust ourselves to make decisions. This question of like, is this procrasti-learning can come up once you start to understand more about what this is. So I want to just go through a few signs that you’re procrasti-learning, because there’s no list of like, courses and programs and podcast episodes and books that are not procrasti-learning and then ones that are. It’s really about the mindset that you’re in and the energy that you’re learning from, and the reasons behind you learning that, rather than it being about, okay, well, this kind of podcast episode is definitely procrasti-learning, and this kind of one isn’t. It’s not about that at all.
[22:56] And so these are some of the signs I’m going to talk about five that you might be procrasti-learning. So the first is that an outsider wouldn’t be able to tell what you intellectually know. So for example, say with Instagram. Say you use Instagram for your business. You have learnt a lot about Instagram. Maybe you’ve done a few courses. You’ve watched YouTube videos. You follow people online who talk about different strategies and hacks, but you never post so say, maybe you and this is very common for perfectionists, when you haven’t learned how to really get your perfectionist mindset on your side, that you will post every day for maybe a week, maybe two, and then you will just disappear, and you won’t post for a month. And then you’ll try and, you know, gather up the motivation to, you know, enter back into the Instagram scene and start posting again.
[23:54] You kind of just repeat that cycle over and over again, so someone from the outside, probably wouldn’t be able to tell that you know a lot about Instagram strategy and what you should and shouldn’t be posting in order to achieve your goals and that kind of thing, because you’re not actually implementing it, and you’re not consistently applying it and making it obvious that you know the things that you know, so that might be a sign that you are procrasti-learning. And often, in that case, we go, okay, well, what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna learn Instagram stuff from someone else, because obviously the strategy I’ve learned doesn’t work for me, and maybe 1% of the time, that might be correct, and that just doesn’t gel well with you, and it’s kind of pushing stuff uphill. But what I would recommend, especially if you have a habit of jumping from one teacher to the next to the next, and you’re always thinking that this next thing is that magic bullet that’s going to fix every. Thing that instead, you apply what you already know, and you take responsibility for your results, as I talked about before, instead of saying, Well, it’s the strategy’s fault, to go, Okay, what’s my role in this? Have I really followed that fully?
[25:18] Have I applied it as much as I possibly can, and that’s going to be uncomfortable. That’s going to mean trying more than once in more than one way for a continued period of time. We often go, Well, I tried it and we tried it once. We half assed tried it, or we maybe did it perfectly, but it wasn’t in any kind of sustainable way. And then we say, Okay, well, it’s a problem with the thing that I’ve learned, and so I’m going to find a different teacher and a different method. And this is where we can really end up in this procrasti-learning cycle. And it really feels like a helpless place to be in your business, because then you’re just having to rely on finding some kind of perfect strategy to have your business succeed when the reality is, no matter what strategy you’re learning, unless you implement it, and you implement it consistently for longer than you feel comfortable implementing it, it’s not going to work.
[26:17] So it literally doesn’t matter what strategy it is who you’re learning from, you’re going to keep coming up against that experience again and again and again. And if this is something that you are finding, it’s really challenging to implement what you learn. That’s why PGSD can come in and we help you take what you intellectually know about how to build your business. So you might be great at giving advice to others, for example, but when it comes to you, you aren’t able to just get yourself to do the things that you know you need to do. That’s what we help people do in PGSD. We help them actually make it obvious to an outsider that they know stuff, that they actually are building a business instead of doing a lot of thinking about business stuff and a lot of learning, but from the outside, someone wouldn’t even be able to tell you have a business, or that you’re building your business, and that’s the main focus that you have.
[27:12] And for example, as well, just have a think about you know, if someone was to follow you around for a week, not in a creepy way, but would they know what your goals are? I think this is a really important question. I’ve talked about this before at different times, that if someone was to look at your life and they don’t know what your goals are, just by observing how you prioritize things, what you spend your time on, that doesn’t mean that you need to like whatever youspend the most time on is your top priority. So for example, health and fitness might be a big priority for you, and you have some goals around that area of your life. That doesn’t mean you spend all day in the gym and you spend all day weighing your food or whatever, but it means that through your actions, they can tell well, they’re paying attention in that area of life. They’re putting a consistent effort. They’re overcoming their excuses. That’s someone who is actively working on that area of life.
[28:09] Often, we really get frustrated that we’re not achieving our goals, that our business isn’t where we want it to be, our health and fitness isn’t where we want it to be. How you do one thing is how you do everything, and it really is because of the way that we’re spending our time. And again, this is where power planning comes in. But we want to have it that someone could actually see your life and how you do things and say, Okay, well, I know they’re working on their business, and they have big goals for themselves there. I know that they’re working on the health and fitness, and they have goals for themselves there as well, and they’re working on this, and they’re working on that like someone could just witness instead of having to rely on your words, and you’re saying, Well, I’m thinking about doing this, or I’m trying to do this, it’s actually in your actions what your goals are. So that’s where we want to get you. That’s what PGSD is for.
[29:01] But if you are really able to give a lot of advice to other people about business stuff, but you aren’t happy with where your business is, that can be a sign that there is some procrasti-learning going on and that you need to implement whatyou’ve learned. And that if you don’t know how to implement what you’ve learned consistently, like you’ve tried that, yes. Like, this is why I really started PGSD, and this whole thing that I do is because I knew a lot about how to build a business. Like, I started my business as a blog in 2013. I spent a couple of years, like, two and a half solid years of procrasti-learning, and I haven’t got this in my notes, but this is a really important point. If you were saying, Well, I’m justgoing to apply all the free stuff first and then, because I’m smart, you know, I’ve got all the information I need, and I’m not going to invest in something until to help me learn until I have applied all the free advice that is such a big sign in procrastinating. That is what I did.
[30:08] My business only started to grow once I started investing money in myself, and it wasn’t even like the courses that I invested in taught me things that I didn’t know, but because I was invested, and also they helped with implementation. I was able to actually do it. So if you were here live, let me know if this is something that you were doing. But I hear this quite a lot. Well, I’m just gonna sign up for PGSD after I’ve applied everything that you talk about in the podcast, and you can try, you can try to do that. And I do really try to make my episodes as helpful as possible, but there are a lot of key pieces that can’t be covered in that format. There’s a lot that needs to be done with coaching, support, community. There’s so many other elements to it that a podcast or YouTube channel or an Instagram account can’t provide. So if you are someone who has been saying, Well, I’m just going to apply all the free stuff first, and then I’ll invest in myself that is procrasti-learning.
[31:14] And this is why we can have it so twisted. We think that, well, if I sign up for the course or the program, whatever it is, and I haven’t implemented all the free advice that I’m procrasti-learning by signing up for the program, but it’s the opposite you are procrasti-learning by trying to continue to piece things together. It’s also really important to recognize that a lot of the free advice out there is incomplete because of the nature of those platforms, and also because there is certain so for example, with power planning, I don’t teach that on the podcast. I don’t teach that on Instagram, the full step by step process, because it would be doing you a disservice to give you one piece of the puzzle without giving you the whole thing. Because power planning isn’t a planning method where you just see what the steps are and you can magically do it. It takes three months of consistent effort to integrate power planning into your life so that you can get out of your own way. It’s three months to then have a lifetime of being able to show up for yourself fully.
[32:21] But if I just said, hey, here are the 10 steps. I know, because a lot of perfectionists are procrasti-learners, that you’re going to think that’s all you need, and then you’re going to try it yourself, and you’re going to fail at it. Then you’re goingto blame me in the method, and then you’re going to go and try and find some other magic piece of information, and you’re going to be in that process again and again. So you have to just be mindful, when you are in this mentality of trying to piece together free advice from YouTube videos and podcast episodes and all of that, how much time that is costing you. Also, when a lot of things are conflicting I’m going to talk about that in a second. But when there’s a lot of conflicting advice, it’s really creating a lot of confusion, and we love it’s like procrasti-confusion, if that’s a word. We lovestaying confused as a form of procrastination.
[33:16] So subconsciously, we will consume conflicting pieces of advice so that we have an excuse not to do anything because we’re just trying to figure out the right way. So you just need to be really mindful of this. If you have been someone who is always thinking, well, I’ll just apply what I’ve learned for free, and then I will implement and then after that, and I’ve seen some success, then I’ll invest in the thing. You’re never going to get the success that you would from investing for so many reasons, and then you’re just going to be jumping from one teacher to the next to the next and feeling like, like,ultimately, the reason I want to help you with this and with everything that I help with is because when we don’t know how to really work well as a perfectionist, how to get that mindset on our side, how to get into the growth mindset, ultimately, then we feel like there’s something wrong with us when there isn’t. We just don’t have the right tools, and we don’t even with the tools. I’m not saying like you need to get all this information. It’s having the tools of being able to implement and having a process for that.
[34:27] So what we do in PGSD is help you to take the marketing course. You’re learning all these different things, like all this intellectual knowledge you have, and actually make that obvious through your actions. You have that knowledge and also obvious through the results that you create. So we take help you, take what you know and actually live it and actually put that into practice. So you might know a lot about personal development, you might know a lot about business, you might know a lot about health and fitness. You could tell someone else the perfect plan to follow, and yet you’re not doing those things. So I called Perfectionist Getting Shit Done, because we are having you actually do the things. But again, just be mindful if you are in this cycle of, well, I’m just gonna learn everything for free that I can.
[35:12] And also, if you are then investing in a program and thinking that the point of that is to get all of this new information that you’ve never heard before, then you are really going to find it challenging to succeed in business. I have invested in a lot of programs, and the best ones are the one that take the work I already knew, so for example, that I learned through the podcast, and go deeper and help with implementation. I don’t get in there. I’m like, Oh, my goodness, I’ve never heard of any of these things before. There’ll always be stuff that comes up that you haven’t heard elsewhere. But when you were thinking that new information is what’s going to get you results, and then you invest in a program like PGSD, like, Oh, I’m actually familiar with some of these things. I’ve had Sam talking about this before on the podcast. If you think the fact that all of the information in there isn’t new, that that means you’re not going to get result that is procrasti-learning, because, again, it’s all about implementation and actually doing the things.
[36:15] So that was the first sign that an outsider wouldn’t be able to tell what you intellectually know. The second is that you always need one more piece of information before you can get started. So this goes back to what I was saying with that school mindset and with thinking that there’s a right way and there’s a wrong way, and you just want to do it the right way, because you want to succeed right out of the gate, because you feel like a bit of an imposter, and you have a lot ofself doubt, so you don’t want to get it wrong, because if you get it wrong, then you might give up and never try again, like it’s this whole thing. So we think we just need one more bit of information before we can get started, before we can take the next step. And so that’s where we are consuming, consuming, consuming, and not doing a lot of creating. So that’s another sign. The third is expecting change to come from intellectual understanding.
[37:03] So I already talked about this a bit, but if you are telling yourself that you should know better than to be where you are in your business or to be doing something, that is a sign that you are currently in the mindset that intellectual knowledge is the same as living what you know when they’re completely different. So for example, on some of our PGSDcoaching calls, a PGSDer will say, well, I should know better than to be procrastinating. I should know better than to feeloverwhelmed. I should know better than whatever it is. And when we’re in that mindset of, I should know better, it’s so dismissive. Like, if you think about someone saying to you, you should know better, how do you feel inspired? Probably not. You feel like it’s a very condescending thing to say, and it’s not going to inspire you to change. It’s going to like if it inspires you to do everything anything, it’s just double down on what you’re currently doing, because you feel attacked when someone says you should know better than that.
[38:12] So we have to not be in that mindset and thinking that knowledge and knowing better means doing better. Knowledge is a piece of the puzzle, but implementation try more than once in a more than one way, that is where we actually create results and success and money and impact and all these different things in business, it’s not from knowing better,it’s from implementing more and more often that doesn’t mean hustling. You know, I talk a lot about clean rest and resting without guilt, and why that’s so important. So it’s not about that, but it’s about actually shifting the way that you spend time. So you’re spending less time on the learning, like intellectual knowledge side, and more on the doing side. So as an example of this, and I think there’s a question I’ll ask that. I’ll answer that in a second, but I recently joined Stacey Boehman’s mastermind, and when you sign up, so it doesn’t start till January, but when you sign up, you get access to a whole lot of content.
[39:20] So like all of like, hundreds of hours worth of video from previous mastermind events, coaching, calls, lesson videos, there is, like, an endless amount of things to watch in there. What I am doing is, instead of like, trust me, I want to spendall day watching everything and just counting that is building my business. But instead of doing that, what I am doing is I’m learning something and then I’m implementing it. I’m learning something and then I’m implementing it. And what I’ve done at this point is I’ve learned a few different things, and there’s a lot more for me to learn, but I’m just focusing now. Now on not learning anything more and implementing, which is learning by doing. So it’s still learning, but actually taking what I have learned and putting that into practice. And then once I put that into practice and giving that a reallygood go more than once, then it’s a matter of going back, seeing what else I need to learn, and then going out and applying that again.
[40:24] The question from Renae was, did you have to go through a phase where you forgave yourself for not having implemented it because of imposter syndrome? Yes, 100% so I really had to, like for me, that self forgiveness for spending two and a half years like building my business while like someone from the outside would have no idea that’s what I was doing, is I really saw that as like that’s why I can teach that two and a half years plus a lot of years after that, but I still have my perfectionism work to do to this day, but those two and a half years where I was so severely in my own way and crippled by self doubt and imposter syndrome, I would have never in a million years, ever, ever, ever, ever done anything like what I’m doing now, like it was just so scary, so unfamiliar. Like, of course, I was procrasti-learning, I was so scared, and I didn’t have tools to help me with that, because I hadn’t yet come into the world of personal development like I was getting into it, because that’s how I started.
[41:30] My business was like sharing bits and pieces that other people shared about personal development and saying, like, cool, I like this video, and just linking a video and that kind of thing. But I didn’t have the understanding that it was perfectionism, and I still don’t see really any people talking about this, which is why I’m so passionate about it. But I didn’t have that understanding that there was nothing wrong with me. And I really thought there was. I really thought like, if I’m so smart, why can’t I just fucking do the things that I need to do. And once I started to piece together what is now the pgse process, but all the things about perfectionism, teachers like Carol Dweck and Brene Brown were hugely helpful in those areas, really seeing like, oh, that’s what it is in this element and that element all apply. And being able to piece that together into an actual process for getting out of my own way, I wouldn’t be able to do any of that if I didn’t have that time where I was in my own way and procrasti-learning. I know this isn’t going to be the same for everyone. If you’re not like then just teaching what your past experience was, but really just recognizing that that time where you have been procrasti-learning, it’s part of your journey.
[42:45] You’re going to look back on that fondly, as I do now, and I’m not saying I’m saying that was the best approach, or anything like that, but it was the best I could do at the time. And now I look back and think like it really helps me see how much I’ve grown because I have such a drastic before for my before and after. I mean, I’m still in the journey, but in terms of that before and after, it’s still it’s it’s such a big contrast, and that really helps me to see how much I have grown by, how I’m now able to put myself out there and implement things and do it in a messy way, that doesn’t mean in a reckless way, but actually put out things before I think they’re 100% perfect, and everything like that that it’s it was easy to forgive myself when I was able to think of it that way. And that’s such a good question as well Renee, because when so you might have like a graveyard of online programs, or like you might have a that you’ve never taken or you did one module and then you didn’t do anything else.
[43:52] Or maybe you have, like, a stack of books next to your bed that you’ve like started reading but you haven’t finished. Or maybe you love buying books, and so you have bought a lot of books from Amazon or Book Depository or wherever, and you just have this like stack of books next to your bed that you see every day that reminds you of all the learning you haven’t done and the promises you make to yourself that you’ve broken. You have to forgive yourself for that. And my recommendation as well, is always to make a decision about what you’re going to do with that. So instead of it being this kind of thing that’s looming over you, if I should have, I should have, I should have to instead say I’m deciding all these books next to my bed. I’m not going to finish any of them I have read all I wanted to read, or I’m never gonna start reading them. Like, for me, I bought some books that I didn’t even start reading, and I was like, You know what? I actually am not interested in reading these books anymore, and I’m just gonna donate them and make that decision and move on.
[44:54] Instead of being like, well, I bought it and I should read it and whatever. Like, what’s the point of doing that? It doesn’t help. So if you have programs that you’ve signed up for, if you have books that you’ve purchased, especially if it’s something physical that’s in your everyday space, this is really important. But regardless, maybe you have, like on your internet browser, you have a tab with all these courses you’ve signed up for that you’re not doing. And every time you see it, at least subconsciously, you’re like, oh, I should be doing more of them to just delete the tab, knowing you can find the login information later, donate the books, do whatever you need to do to make that decision about, okay, yes, am I actually going to keep learning this? And if so, when and what is the structure for that? Like being specific about it. I don’t have time to go into it now, but we often really lack specificity, and that really holds us back from implementation.
[45:53] We think we’re specific. We’re like, oh yeah, I am going to read that book. What does that mean when you’re gonna read it, what’s that gonna look like? Is it actually gonna fit into your life? Like, we don’t go into the detail, like, because we love believing we have all this potential, and like being a learner, and so we just kind of let ourselves only go as far as we can commit to, which is something vague, so we can never really tell if we failed at that. So if you have those littlereminders that you haven’t implemented something, that you haven’t learned something either decide I’m going to show up for this now this is what it’s going to look like. And really put that to a learning experience, the procrasti-learning like, take the lesson from that. I love to do this once I realize something has like, when there’s something that happens, or I realize, like, I’ve been procrastinating in a certain way, or whatever, to, like, write down, like, what are the lessons I’velearned from this? That’s the way to get yourself not to do it again. Or, if you do it again, it won’t be to the same degree or in the same way, because you’re actually asking your brain, okay, what did we learn? Okay, maybe I need to read thebooks I have before I buy more books.
[47:04] Again, this is different to maybe I need to implement all this free advice before I invest in something and create that commitment for myself. It’s not the same thing, but really just kind of creating rules for yourself can be helpful. So can’t go into it here. Don’t have enough time, but personal rules. So, for example, this is unrelated, but related. So I hope you can see how this applies. Is indoor plants. I used to be someone who couldn’t keep a plant alive. Now I do a really great job, because I did the work on self image that I teach in PGSD. But anyway, part of that was like embodying someone who can actually look after plants. I created a personal rule that I’m not able to buy another plant, because I, like, go out and see all these beautiful plants and be like, yes, and then I’d put it in, like, the prettiest spot, without actually doingresearch on the lightnings and how much it needs to be watered and all these different things.
[47:59] So I had a rule with myself that I wasn’t able to buy another plant until I was taking full care of the plants that I already had, and also believing I’m someone who is great with plants, and I had a lot of evidence that I wasn’t, and I used to say things like, I can’t keep a plan alive to save my life. That was a self fulfilling prophecy. So instead, I tended to, I’m great with plants. I’m someone who’s good with plants. And that belief had me watering the plants, doing research, not buying more than I could look after and all of that kind of thing. So when it comes to procrasti-learning and that kind of thing, self image, as it was with that is such a huge part of it. But we really need to make sure that we’re deciding what we’re going to do about our past experience and how we’re going to think about that in a way that will help us move forward. And if however you’re thinking about the past experience involves the word should that is a little alarm bell you need to think about it in a different way.
[48:59] Okay, so the fourth one is the fourth sign that you’re procrasti-learning is that you’re learning a lot of conflicting information. So this tends to happen a lot when you are learning things for free, but it also happens when you are buying a lot of different programs and courses and things like that. And the way I like to think about this is like, I’m not saying to kind of be in this echo chamber and only learning one way of doing things. I’m not saying that at all, but because of this, like procrasti-confusion is what I’m going to call it, that we learn conflicting things so that we have an excuse not to take action because we’re so busy having to reconcile what we’ve learned and figure out how to put that into practice. So instead of that, I’m going to talk about what to do instead in a second. But it’s really about being constrained. And I like to think about this as with cooking.
[49:51] First of all, you learn to cook by following a recipe, and then once you’ve done that, you’re in a position to be able to you. Cook your own meal and figure out, because you have an understanding now of how things work, you can kind of piece things together, the same, for example, with skiing, first you ski on the slope that they have, you know, laid out for you, and then once you have more experience with skiing, then you can go off piss and you can ski where you’re not technically meant to be skiing, because you have more experience there. So when it comes to learning things, we kind of want to jump like we tend to jump towards being in this situation where we are like, wanting to be the advanced person who can take all these different ideas and bring them together. And I’m someone who I love, taking all these different ideas from different places and blending it into my own flavor. But at the same time, really, when I have been learning new things and true learning, I have chosen a teacher and then I am implementing what they teach, because there’s no way to know if their process works if I’m not actually following it.
[51:01] So, for example, with this mastermind that I signed up for, now that I’m in that, I have stopped listening to any business podcast that share nitty gritty strategy kind of information. I still listen to podcasts that share like the overall story of a business. I find that really interesting and helpful, and it doesn’t conflict at all. But anyone who’s sharing tips and strategies and that kind of thing, I just don’t listen to that. I might again at some point. But right now, I have my teacher that I’m focusing on, and I’m doing that work, and I’m focusing my time on implementing and I’d rather listen to something I’ve already learned again and look at how I can implement that better than learning something new and something new and something new. This is why, as well, like in pgsd, I repeat things, because if everything is new and novel, how the hell are you meant to remember it enough to be able to embody it and apply it to your life.
[51:56] You want to be able to have an understanding of what you are learning so that you can actually apply it. So for example, with cooking, it would be like if you want to be more advanced in cooking, it’s probably better to pick three recipes and cook them over and over again until you master them than it is to learn 50 new recipes. And you can’t spot patterns. You can’t really see what’s going on because it’s different and novel and new all the time. But instead picking three recipes and just making them again and making them again and making it better and making it better. So that’s what we really want to be focused on when we have this proclivity towards procrasti-learning. So just be mindful with the conflicting information. Thing number five is that you’re hesitant to invest large amounts of money into things unless you get a degree, a certificate, a qualification. And this comes back to self trust, and us not trusting that we are able to actually implement get the results from the learning that we’re doing.
[52:58]
And so we want a little certificate so that it’s worth it, instead of recognizing that the value comes from the change that we create by implementing what we’ve learned. So this is just something to be mindful of, because we really have it drilled into us, most of us, that you know, there’s only like you learn so you can pass the exam. You only need to learn what will be on the exam. That whole mindset and that is really only worthwhile to do something if you get a little certificate at the end to say, pat on the back, you did that. It’s so it puts so much more responsibility on you in an empowering way if you were investing in things that don’t have that little. And this isn’t to say to never do it. There are some times where it’s that’s the best thing to do in certain professions, suddenly where that is something that’s required.But we tend to be like, Oh no, I’ll learn this next thing and this next thing, instead of actually embodying what we’ve learned and doing that messy, uncomfortable work.
[54:07] So if you have been thinking, Oh, well, you know, I’d invest $50,000 to go to school, like to go to university or college, but to spend that on some kind of program for my business, like that doesn’t really make sense. You need to just have a little look at that. This was a mindset that I had to really shift at the beginning, because, like, as I said, I have a law degree, a finance degree that cost me 75,000 in student loans. And then when it came to hiring my first coach, which was a few $1,000 I was like, Oh my God. Like, that’s such a huge investment. And Steve was like, that’s like, one subject, one uni subject. I was like, oh, yeah, okay. Well, I know I’m gonna learn a lot more from this. And in a uni subject, that’s about something that like, because, you know, if you’ve done uni or college, or whatever you there’s a lot of courses, you have to do that, like you’re just ticking this box.
[55:02] But it’s not actually beneficial in terms of, like, what you would be doing when you actually get out into the real world and do that thing. So it’s really this all comes back to trusting yourself, trusting that you are able to actually implement what you have learned, and if you are finding that you need to get a degree or certification or qualification to if I mean whole side tangent here, but if you feel like you’re going to do that to get more confidence, it’s so going to backfire, and you’re just going to end up feeling like an imposter. I’ve talked about that before, but getting certified, qualified degree does not help with that. It’s just going to amplify what you already believe about yourself and your abilities. So if you go into that feeling like you don’t know anything, you’re going to feel like that on the other end. And I even feel worse, because now you should know better, and yet you don’t.
[55:59] There are still things you don’t know yet which of course there are, like, there’s no program, of course, or anything that’s going to be able to tell you exactly what you’re going to need to know for always and forever, without ever having to apply everything, like you learn through doing. And the best programs help you to do they aren’t just filled with knowledge and tips, and this is why it’s so powerful to invest in yourself. But anyway, let’s talk about what to do instead. I know I’ve been chatting for a while. This is really important topic, though, because I don’t want you to spend a whole lot of time procrasti-learning and thinking that you’re building your business. It’s kind of like if you sign up for a gym membership and you never go, and then you feel bad that you’re not fit and at your ideal weight. You don’t just like signing up and even to like, well, I signed up three years ago. I should be further along by now, only if you actually went to the gym and did the workouts and did them fully, and all of those different things that we think. I started my businessthree years ago, and look at this person who started two years ago.
[57:02] They’re already further ahead than I am. You’re in that mindset of thinking that signing up for the gym is the same as going and probably doing a lot of procrasti-learning. So this is important, which is why I want to talk about it. So what to do instead? Let’s finish this up by talking about that. So focus your energy on implementation. I’ve talked about that a lot in this live, but you need to try more than once in more than one way. If you are finding that it’s really hard to implement what you’ve learned and your life isn’t a reflection of what you intellectually know, then you might need help with learning how to actually do the things you know you need to do. That’s where PGSD can come in and help. Also, PGSD is opening up again in January, so if you’re not on the wait list yet, I will leave the link in the whatever caption. I’ll also put it it’s in the bio in my link.
[57:56] So definitely sign up, because it is going to help you actually make the most of all the other investments, other things you’ve learned also working on self trust, again, is something we do in PGSD, but working on self trust so that you can trust yourself to actually implement so that’s in the later stage of the PGSD process, when it comes to persistence that we work on that, but it’s so much easier to trust yourself when you’re not learning conflicting things and when you have support to help you to implement, to help you see your blind spots. A lot of times, procrasti-learning can be challenging to spot ourselves, particularly if we’re surrounded by people who are procrasti-learners as well. And they’re like, yes, learn more. Learn more.
[58:44] So also, another recommendation I have is the low information diet, which is something I learned through Tim Ferriss. And this is consuming information on a just in time basis rather than a just in case basis. So if you’re learning a lot of things in a just in case kind of way that is also could be considered procrasti-learning, especially if it’s stopping you from implementing what you have learned so low information diet. For me personally, that’s also looked like constraining the number of people that I learned from and having a certain teacher for a certain period of business, it has looked like not watching the news. For me, it has looked like and continues to look like that. Um, what else? Yeah, just really like limiting how many teachers I have, and as I said, I’d rather listen to something from my teacher at the time, over and over again, and think about how I can apply that, how I can implement that, rather than learning new things all the time, which then gets so overwhelming, you probably know what I’m talking about, where someone says something someone says something else, someone says something else.
[59:55] Again, you’re like, What the fuck am I meant to even do? So you think, well, maybe this other person I’ll learn from. Them, and they’ll bring it all together, and that’s even more confusing. So a low information diet can be really helpful, also identifying your answers to a question before you ask someone else. So this applies even if you have a coach you’re working with, say, say, for example, if you’re in PGSD, if you are, if you have somewhere to get the information from, it’s such a great practice to first ask your brain, what do I think the answer is? So instead of typing something into Google or going to YouTube, and I find myself still doing this, I really have to pick myself up on this that I’m like, Oh, what’s this person doing for this thing? Or how would I do that? And I just type it in, like, hold up, what do I think the answer is? And then I do some journaling on that with pen and paper.
[1:00:47] And a lot of the time I’m like, Okay, this actually, like, because we kind of, oftentimes, we’re doing that for validation. We want someone to confirm what we think is the case. So instead of that, you just do some journaling. If I had to answer that for someone else, what would I say? And then trusting that. And if you need to after that point, you can Google it. But usually, if you do that properly, you’re gonna be like, Okay, I do know what I need to do, and that can really help you build that self trust. And also, the last thing I’ll talk about is this has really helped me with books. Particularly, I used to read a lot of non fiction books, and when I did that, I would feel really inspired, and then I do nothing with it. Then I did another one, and feel inspired and do nothing with it.
[1:01:32] So no one would even know I’d read all these books because I wasn’t doing the things they recommended. So what I started doing was 5050, times. 5050, time. So this means that if I was reading for an hour, same applies for it half an hour, 15 minutes, whatever period of time I would take, half of that to read and half of that time to journal about how to implement things. So I’ve talked before, and I’ve done some posts, and there’s a whole actually lesson on this in pgsc about how I read personal development books and my tabbing system and that kind of thing. So when I do that, I identify journaling prompts or like things to do with my sticky color tabs, and then in the other 50% of the time I would journal.
[1:02:16] So wouldn’t necessarily be an explicit journaling prompt, but an idea I’m like, Huh? I need to think about that in my own business or my own life, or I would there be an action of, like, go and do this thing, and I would go and do that thing in that time. So if you are wanting to make the most of the non fiction books you’re reading, particularly business and personal development, I highly recommend implementing 5050 time. I just made up calling it that now, but it’s really liketaking the time 20 and half and my life dramatically changed when I started doing that. And so that’s the approach I take as well, like with the mastermind that I’m in, it’s that approach of learn 50% of the time, implement the other 50% even, like of your learning time, and then that will help you have a bias towards action, which is ultimately what we’re wanting to create. So that is all I’m gonna say for now I’ve said a lot. I hope this has been really helpful. So every now hesaid, this has been so good. I’ve been noticing I haven’t been showing up, thinking that I do have control. Yes, okay, so thank you so much, guys for being here live.
[1:03:31] And I’ve loved seeing other little hearts going as I’ve been chatting. And if you really enjoy this, I recommend if you’re not already listening to my podcast, the perfectionism project to go and check that out, because I talk about a lot more of this kind of stuff over there. Also consider joining the PGSD wait list so that you’re the first to know when the doors to PGSD open, and get a bit more information about the program and how it will help you do the things you know you need to do, like some people teach you what you need to do in terms of building a business. I teach you how to get yourself to do the things you know you need to do, and how to do that in a way that isn’t overwhelming, doesn’t burn you out, and actually has you building your self confidence and enjoying the day to day, God forbid, we actually enjoy the process of building our business. So thank you so much, and I will talk to you next time. Bye.
Outro [1:04:25] I’ve always found it easiest to get out of my own way when I read or listen to something inspiring that gives me a little boost of motivation and encourages me to keep going. So that’s why I have started sending out a short email every weekday. It’s called the perfectionist power up, and it is going to give you a little motivational boost to be more productive and confidently put yourself out there. So these are completely free, and they have also been designed especially for perfectionist who are building businesses. So if that’s you, go to samlaura brown.com/power, to start receiving. Inspiring perfectionist power ups this week.