For most perfectionists, it feels reckless—or even harmful—to publish ‘imperfect’ work unless a last-minute deadline forces our hand. Whether it’s content, a client deliverable, a sales page, or a piece of art, we don’t want to let go until it feels ready. And by ready, we mean perfect.
But this obsession with making everything perfect is what’s keeping you stuck. It’s exhausting. It forces you to rely on pressure and deadlines just to take action. It stops you from getting enough practice to become truly great at what you do. And it’s holding your business back from making sales, helping people, and growing the way it could.
I’ve built a successful business because I learned how to emotionally allow myself to put imperfect work into the world. I let my ideas meet reality before they feel perfect. Without this skill, I wouldn’t have nearly 500 podcast episodes and 3 million downloads. And this is something you can learn too.
Inside this episode, I’m sharing exactly why you struggle to hit publish, the perfectionist thought errors making perfectly good work feel flawed, and the practical things you can do to start putting your work out into the world without second-guessing yourself.
Getting out of your own way can’t wait any longer. That’s why I created Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (PGSD)—my productivity program for perfectionist entrepreneurs who are ready to stop overthinking, take consistent action, and build real momentum in their business without burning out.
The doors to PGSD close on Friday, 7 February at 11:59pm EST. Sign up now at samlaurabrown.com/pgsd and start showing up fully in your business.
Find the full episode transcript and show notes at samlaurabrown.com/episode515.
Enrollment for Perfectionists Getting Shit Done is closing on Friday.
If you’re ready to get out of your own way and take consistent action in your business without burning out, you want to join my productivity program for perfectionist entrepreneurs called Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (aka PGSD).
Enrollment is closing this Friday. Don’t wait. This is your chance to finally start showing up fully in your business.
Get all the details and sign up now at samlaurabrown.com/pgsd before doors close.
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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
[00:00:29] Okay. So today I have a really powerful episode for you. I have been going through the archives of my podcast since there are so many episodes and handpicking the ones that I think will be the most valuable for you to listen to. And this episode that’s all about how to create the emotional capacity to publish and put out in the world.
[00:00:50] Your imperfect work is really essential. It’s something that we help you with deeply inside my program Perfectionists Getting Shit Done and something that you really need to consider if you have a hard time doing the things you know you need to do. And for example, if that comes to having a hard time publishing Instagram posts, for example, or publishing on TikTok or sending that email, if you have a hard time, Completing your work and putting that work out into the world before it feels perfect.
[00:01:21] So either you’re just so busy. Constantly tweaking, refining, perfecting. Maybe it takes you 10 hours to write an email newsletter or even five hours. It takes you hours and hours and hours to do an Instagram post. A lot of the stuff you create doesn’t even get published. If that is you, there is emotional capacity work to be done.
[00:01:41] It’s not just, Oh, you need to have a better strategy. You actually need to change the way you are thinking. Thinking and feeling to be able to get yourself to hit publish and to do that consistently in a way that doesn’t burn you out. If you don’t have the emotional capacity to publish imperfect work, you will burn out when you’re showing up.
[00:02:02] And this is why so many perfectionists will be showing up for a couple of weeks and then be completely exhausted emotionally. Because of their lack of emotional capacity around this, and then we’ll end up falling off the wagon, reinventing the wheel, just getting busy with other things. And I want you to be able to show up and put yourself out there and build a successful business that you know you can.
[00:02:25] This that I talk about in this podcast episode is such an essential piece and we help you actually implement this and gain this emotional capacity inside Perfectionists Getting Shit Done. We are open for enrollment currently. Do not miss this. We are open right now for enrollment inside Perfectionists Getting Shit Done.
[00:02:44] And we are not going to be open for much longer. So go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd to get the details and sign up. I hope you enjoyed this episode and I hope to see you inside the program.
[00:02:56] Today I’m going to be sharing with you one of the secrets to my success as an entrepreneur, which is creating the emotional capacity to publish imperfect work, to have my ideas meet reality before they feel perfect to my brain, to allow myself to create things and share them that my brain loves. Has a lot of criticism about.
[00:03:21] And so I’ve talked about this topic from many different angles over the years because it is one of the core things that I teach on. It’s one of the core things that you learn inside PGSD and that we have tools and coaching to support you with doing this. But I just want to talk about it from a different angle to really support you with this.
[00:03:39] So, When it comes to publishing imperfect work, this could be content for social media. This could be client work and having that work be given to your client or to a customer. It could be a sales page. It could be an email that you’re writing. It could be anything. It could be a physical product that you are creating.
[00:04:00] It’s allowing yourself emotionally to have imperfect work out in the world. And what we try to do, and I know this from a lot of experience and also now coaching over a thousand perfectionist entrepreneurs, what we try to do to solve for this is a few things. One, we try to get the work perfect so that we don’t have to sit with the emotions of publishing imperfect work.
[00:04:28] We try to perfect, we polish, we edit. When it comes to marketing, we try to find content formulas and content calendars and beautiful graphics and all these different things to try to get the work perfect. We are reviewing and edit it, edit it, edit it, edit it, edit it, edit it, and we are spending more time.
[00:04:49] Because typically in our perfectionist brains, the more time, the more perfect it can be. And we all know the frustration of it because the more time you spend on something like that law of diminishing returns, you don’t actually get extra benefits from spending more time. But then once you’re in that mode of looking for flaws and imperfections, you will find more and more and more and more of them.
[00:05:10] It’s like, if you imagine cleaning a room, And the room is sufficiently clean, but then you’re like, I actually just feel like cleaning up this little, uh, like the, what’s it called? Skirting board or whatever, around the edge of the room. I’m just going to dust that off. Oh, actually. And when I did that, I noticed on the wall, there’s this dirt or whatever from my kids bumping up against it.
[00:05:30] So I’m going to clean that. Well, when I was doing that, I noticed on the door, the handles, I’m going to clean that. Oh. And then I was looking at the mirror in the room and I realized that there’s actually all these fingerprints on it again from the kids. So I’m going to clean that. Oh. And then like, it just goes on and on.
[00:05:44] I noticed in the mirror, I can see my fan and the fan has dust on it. So I went and cleaned that and it’s like the room was sufficiently clean. and livable and fine. But then once your brain is like, let’s fix all the flaws and it feels so satisfying, like it feels productive to do that. And this is why as well, like procrastinating is such a big thing for perfectionists of like, I just need to have the kitchen clean before I can focus.
[00:06:09] And all of that, it just, it feels gratifying to have imperfection and create perfection. And we like to do that in really contained ways. like cleaning the kitchen. It is easy to have a perfectly clean kitchen. It’s time consuming, but it’s very defined parameters. You know what to do. It’s wiping down the bench.
[00:06:27] It’s cleaning out the sink. It’s whatever that looks like for you, but it’s pretty well defined. It’s almost like when we’re in school and we get an assignment and then If you did well in school, you probably did. If you did well in school, you’re paying attention to, okay, what does this professor like?
[00:06:43] What do they grade? Well, like what things do they want to see in this exam? And then I’m going to do that. And you just have this set criteria, or you might have like a matrix or rubric or whatever that you’re told this is what success looks like. And you can meet that and you get the A plus or you get the A or whatever.
[00:06:59] And your brain’s like, yes, I feel successful. So we love doing that in little ways. in our personal lives. And also when it comes to business and the reality of creating a business, you need to publish work, put things out in the world, have your ideas meet reality. And you need to do that before it feels perfect to your brain, especially if you’re a perfectionist, because your perfectionist brain is constantly doing the equivalent of looking for the flaws.
[00:07:30] It is trying to find imperfection. and fix it so that you don’t experience shame because of a thought error that we have that imperfection is something to be ashamed about. So your brain will constantly be doing that with the work and because it feels very gratifying and satisfying to polish and perfect and also it really stops us from having to do a lot of vulnerable things like we can’t create as high a volume of things.
[00:07:55] When we are in that mode that we also have that safety of that because when we are producing a low amount of work or having a low volume of ideas meet the world there’s less chance of rejection and criticism and all of that. So it serves us in many ways and we can just really get stuck in getting the work perfect and also have, you know, a idea around it as well of like, well, I’m just someone like, I’m so meticulous.
[00:08:19] I just love being precise. And there is definitely a time and a place for that. But when we are doing it from the thought and feeling that anything less than precise isn’t sufficient, that’s when it’s a problem. It’s having to be imprecise in certain ways is still sufficient, but it’s not enough. And it is a needle mover in this case to make this precise.
[00:08:40] And so I’m going to invest the extra time and energy. Not, if this isn’t perfect, then it’s not good enough. That is not a helpful thought pattern to be in. Even though in the moment it can feel very gratifying and we can definitely be rewarded for that in many areas of our life. But zooming out big picture, looking at what’s possible, it stops us from achieving the fullest of what’s possible because we’re so busy perfecting and tweaking and polishing.
[00:09:08] And that law of diminishing returns that oftentimes we are doing that because we want to look good, feel smart, look put together. And the benefits of the person on the other side from it being so perfect isn’t actually translated across. And we’re just doing it to protect our own self image and to avoid it.
[00:09:27] Perfectionism is a strategy to avoid shame or wanting to avoid that painful emotion that our brain generates. And I mean, it’s human for it to happen. But it’s not like publishing imperfect work naturally creates shame. Our brain will think thoughts that create the feeling of shame in our body. And so that is why I am so passionate about taking a mindset approach and a thoughts and feelings approach to business.
[00:09:54] Because it creates shame. If you aren’t thinking of it in that way, then we just end up in this trap where we’re just constantly trying to have it be good enough and meet this criteria that, you know, a good post is made up of this and this and this and has a perfect hook and the perfect caption and the perfect image or a sales page should look like this or client work in this industry should look like this that we can’t actually then look at and see.
[00:10:19] the sufficiency of what we’re doing and allow ourselves to publish things. And it just causes so many entrepreneurs to not make progress, to create an app and then not launch the app or to have an idea for an online course and to not do it or have an idea for a podcast or not do it or do it and do three episodes and quit.
[00:10:36] And when we’re in this idea that it’s possible to have the work perfect, that we should have the work be perfect, that it should feel perfect. We stop ourselves. So I’ll talk about that a bit more later, but that is one of the strategies we try. to have the work feel perfect. And we do all those things. We can also to try and have ourselves actually publish imperfect work.
[00:10:59] We can be in this mindset of thinking like, okay, I just need to be, and you will have heard this. I just need to think like, if this, Post if this whatever just helps one person it will be worth it and you might try and that resonates for some people For me it never did because of the way I was thinking about myself and my business and all of that that It felt not worth it still because I was feeling like I was so at risk that of course I’d like to help someone but I might die in the process so I don’t want to do that.
[00:11:32] Like that’s how it feels and so if you have been trying those mantras and sayings to help you unless it resonates with you and creates a feeling in your body that is supportive and helps you to take action and do the things you need to do I just want to allow you to let go of that. You don’t need to be In that thought pattern of if this just helps one person, it’s worth posting even if it’s not perfect.
[00:11:54] that has just never worked for me. I will tell you what does work, but that is something that hasn’t worked for me and a lot of PGSDers as well. And the other thing we do when we are feeling like we don’t have the emotional capacity to publish imperfect work, when we feel like that’s something we can’t handle, like we just don’t want imperfect work out in the world, oftentimes this is kind of like, wrapped up in and disguised behind this idea of like, I don’t want to harm anyone.
[00:12:20] I, um, want to make sure I know what I’m talking about. Um, and of course, as a creator, as an entrepreneur, you have a responsibility, but we say that, but what we’re actually saying is I don’t want to look dumb. I don’t want people to question my expertise. And yes, we do care if we harm people, but ultimately, you know, you’re not, but it’s easier and sounds much better to say even to yourself.
[00:12:47] I don’t want to harm anyone with what I’m creating versus I’m just scared of looking really dumb and having someone send me an email or a client say to me, Hey, I think you have no idea what you’re doing because of the shame we will manufacture with our own brains when we hear that, because we’re already feeling inadequate.
[00:13:05] And so that will be more inadequacy piled on top, more shame piled on top of the shame we’re already experiencing. And it feels like too much to handle and we don’t have the emotional capacity to handle. To handle shame, which is part of this emotional capacity to publish imperfect work, but publishing imperfect work is so important.
[00:13:23] Your business will not be successful unless you develop the emotional capacity to publish imperfect work and to let yourself create. So the most recent episode of the podcast also talks about this. So if you’re resonating with this, definitely listen to that. But what you need to understand, and this is so important, is that your perfectionist brain has a few thought errors around and what’s perfect work and what’s imperfect or you might be if it’s content particularly thinking of it in terms of high quality content or low quality content and we can say things like i just really want to post high quality content make sure it’s stuff that i really stand behind again what we’re calling I really want to look smart, I really want to look like I know what I’m doing, I really don’t want to look like I’m making any mistakes or I don’t know things or whatever.
[00:14:17] Like, we’re really actually, when we say all that, thinking about ourselves and how we’re going to be perceived. That fear of judgment and people pleasing wanting to fit in is what’s coming through. And so, as well as, like, we’re living in a world where so many people are teaching, like, you should have perfect work, here’s how to create it.
[00:14:36] If you follow this formula, you can actually manage to do that. And it’s just understanding your perfectionist brain sees high quality work As work that makes you look good and low quality work or low quality content as stuff that might not make you look good. And so this isn’t to say not to trust your brain and what it’s saying, because we want to develop self trust.
[00:14:59] That’s a very important piece of building a business as a perfectionist entrepreneur. That’s something that you learn inside PGSD and that you use the tools of your growth goal and power planning and clean rest and aligned marketing and other things like that to really support you. with building your self trust.
[00:15:18] So this isn’t to say don’t believe your brain, but also At the same time, holding space for the reality of don’t believe everything you think and everything that your perfectionist brain offers you. Because your brain will say this is low quality work because you just, and it will often tie it to like the process of it.
[00:15:38] Or how you look. So this is low quality work because you just wrote this post, for example, very quickly. Or because you just did it without really thinking it through slash overthinking, especially if you’re very used to overthinking things. Thinking about it an appropriate amount will feel like reckless underthinking.
[00:15:58] And so your brain, you will have something helpful, something that can deliver the result you want, whether it’s an email, a sales page, a product. Or whatever. And also knowing that everything is going to be iterated upon, but can only be iterated upon once it meets. Once other people can interact with it.
[00:16:15] Otherwise we’re just in the echo chamber of our own brain and like our own ideas about what perfection is and what it isn’t. And we can get so lost in that and so overwhelmed by that, that we never do anything at all. So I definitely don’t want to have you in that. We need to get it out into the world and you need to understand.
[00:16:31] When your brain is saying, I want to do, for example, with social media, I want to create high quality content and this post was high quality and this wasn’t and sorry, there was recently a PGSDer, I was talking to her today in the PGSD forum, that she was saying that she feels a lot of pressure to post When she doesn’t have a backlog of posts available.
[00:16:54] And so she was saying like, should I just create something that even though it feels low quality to me and I really want to create high quality content, that I will just have this there. So that kind of like I’m motivated to create something cause I don’t want to share the low quality thing, or should I like basically what approach should I take?
[00:17:10] So I offered her quite a few different options, which wasn’t what she was thinking, but it was about self trust and emotional capacity. Okay. or also repurposing old posts and things like that. And basically strategies so that you can create without pressure and without having to feel like you are kind of like forced into this corner of like creation.
[00:17:29] So anyway. With this and just her mentioning about high quality content, what really struck me and came up for me when I was reading that is that I haven’t seen the post that she’s talking about, but I can be sure the low quality content and the high quality content What she’s really saying is the high quality content is content that she feels more confident in because she’s probably spent more time editing it, polishing it, creating a perfect graphic.
[00:18:00] If it’s a real doing 17 takes of it to get the wording just right. And it’s not that it’s higher quality to the consumer because I probably wouldn’t be able to tell. And I would oftentimes in my experience probably resonate more with what her brain thinks is low quality because it’s probably more real, more authentic, more connected.
[00:18:21] And when we do something high quality, a lot of times we polish out the things that make it beautiful. We polish out the pieces. that are us, that are things that other people would like just because of the way our brain is interpreting it. And so I know like this podcast episode, and I’ve learned this from so many episodes that I have done.
[00:18:45] This episode, I have a few handwritten notes. I’m trusting myself to speak. I’m trusting my expertise. I’m trusting my ability to communicate and be articulate. I’m not listening to the voices in my head saying this isn’t good and whatever. I’m allowing myself to trust myself and my brain in the past many times has said this is a low quality.
[00:19:09] What’s high quality is if I spend an hour and a half outlining an episode thinking of every possible thing I could ever say on this topic, then I record the episode I edit out any ums and ahs or and I don’t do if you have listened to this podcast, you know, I don’t do that. I Take the strategy of trusting myself allowing myself to sound like a human publicly to um and uh To also at the same time work on my communication skills But do it through practice and having my podcast episodes meet reality versus practicing in private There’s so much to be said for practicing in public.
[00:19:43] That’s what we want to be doing. That’s what we Publishing in perfect. Is there are so many benefits that you get from that, that you don’t get from practicing in private behind the scenes. So my brain can say this is low quality. And what’s high quality is an over thought disconnected episode where I feel like I sound smart because I’ve said the right thing.
[00:20:02] And I have. I’ve not lost my train of thought or whatever, but I’ve just stayed on point on the topic and that that’s more valuable. But I know from so much experience now that these episodes, when I’m in this mode of self trust and talking to what I know is going to be helpful for you and not overthinking it.
[00:20:22] I spent seven minutes, I think, writing out the outline. I’ve made that up that I know it’s exactly seven minutes. That’s what it feels like to me. Seven minutes writing it out. It definitely wasn’t more than 10 minutes. Just like, here are my thoughts on like what we try to do when we’re scared of publishing imperfect work or like how we solve for that, what to understand and what works.
[00:20:41] And that’s what I’m just talking through. But I have spent so much time. On different episodes trying to have it be the perfect episode when I’m in low amounts of self trust And they aren’t the episodes people are like, oh my god, this was amazing the episodes 100 percent of the time That get the best feedback and have people want to be in PGSD and sign up other episodes like this Are the episodes that help you trust yourself because I am trusting myself and regardless of whether you’re a coach You or anything like that, people can feel the energy.
[00:21:19] And you know, you can go to someone else’s Instagram feed or someone else’s work. And it’s quite easy to tell just from the vibe you get, if they have done a lot of overthinking or they have trusted that work. And I know that as well, when I look at what I have purchased and like the stories that I love following, they’re never the perfect stories and the people who have the, uh, like.
[00:21:45] perfectly put together stuff, I love and resonate with people who are just allowing themselves to create. Everyone’s different with what they resonate with and there’s a time and a place for different kinds of content and creation and of course, we want to be helping people and not harming them. That’s all a given, but our perfectionist brains Have a few thought errors about that and I know my brain can be like I don’t want to harm anyone with the advice That I’m giving but the only time I think I’m ever at risk of doing that is when I’m not trusting myself And I’m trying so hard to get it right That I lose sight of what matters because I’m so focused on how I’m perceived When I’m focused on getting things right and how I am perceived Then I do lose sight of the bigger picture.
[00:22:31] And it’s okay if that’s happened to you, but I want with this episode to call you back in to allowing yourself to publish imperfect work. Maybe you’ve never allowed yourself to do that or you only allow yourself to do it at the last minute. This is why perfectionists. We love that last minute deadline either you are an overpreparer and you do all the work ahead of time and you just spend a lot of time on it.
[00:22:55] Crossing your T’s, dotting your I’s, or, and this is how it really showed up for me, that there are definitely some ways that I’ve been on the over preparing side. Like when it came to making humans, like giving birth and having little ones, like I did, like, I definitely went into over preparing and wanted to know everything and buying all the things and just wanted to create certainty through the over preparing.
[00:23:16] But when it came to, studies and my law and finance degrees that I have and doing that and high school even that I loved leaving things to the last minute because at the last minute that I allowed myself to actually publish imperfect work or submit it because if I have enough time it should be perfect but if I don’t have much time it’s okay if it’s not perfect and so I’ll leave it to the last minute so I’m forced To share this imperfect work because I don’t know when done is done I need the last minute to tell me when time is up And so what I love doing and what power planning really supports you with as well as your growth goal and the clean rest Is to know when done is done and not have to have a last minute or a client or customer demanding something from you or doing it all early, but just spending so much time over preparing, like just allowing your brain and learning through experience of when done is done, when sufficient is sufficient, and then having the emotional capacity to move on.
[00:24:21] Even if you could spend more time, like after I publish this episode or not publish it, after I finish this, I could spend, if I wanted to, 12 hours going back through and editing out. Okay, I didn’t say that thing quite right. This bit was a little bit confusing. I could do that, but I have developed the emotional capacity To publish imperfect work.
[00:24:42] And so here I am with a business that is successful and hundreds of episodes that are helpful. And the other day I was looking at old podcast episodes and which ones I want to republish as best of the podcast episodes to be able to share with you and not have them get lost in the archives like ones that I reference a lot and Otherwise, capture earlier moments in my entrepreneurial journey that I’d love to have you speak to or hear about in real time, like I did this episode, 17 lessons from 2017, which is the year that I quit my full time job, and there was so much, I listened back to that, I was like, oh my god, I could not share those lessons the same way, and it’s just, Yeah, I wanted to share some of the things like that.
[00:25:23] Anyway, I was looking back through and it was so easy for my perfectionist brain to be like None of these episodes are any good. I don’t want to share anything again, and it’s just so Interesting to notice that when I know these episodes are well loved, have changed lives, and have made a very important impact on people and their businesses.
[00:25:48] But my brain’s like, Oh, like I haven’t even done an episode on this or this thing or like I did that one. And I remember like that was a shit episode. Like that’s where my brain wants to go. So a big part of this is understanding that your perfectionist brain can’t be trusted. When it comes to determining the quality of the work that you’re doing.
[00:26:10] That it wants every little thing to be perfect or it’s not good enough. And you can trust yourself but don’t believe everything you think. Like it’s that holding the space for both of those things. And if you ask yourself and allow yourself to be in self trust and to know, you will know when done is done and when sufficient is sufficient.
[00:26:32] Power planning helps you to practice that, but it’s when as well we’re in this mindset of like, is it done or isn’t it done? And we ask other people for feedback. We ask your husband, your wife, you ask your friends and family, you ask your followers what they think. And for example, one of our PGSDers is creating an online course and she asked her husband for feedback about one of the videos that she recorded.
[00:27:01] He was like, well, I think this bit needs to be improved and you know, maybe you should redo it and you sound a bit robotic or whatever the feedback was. I was like, no, don’t ask him. Like, I’m sure he’s very supportive and loving, but if you present to him with, I’ve created this work I don’t think is good enough, can you confirm that for me?
[00:27:17] Which is the energy behind when we are asking for that feedback. Then they’re like, okay, well, you want to tell me what’s wrong with, you want me to tell you what’s wrong with it? I will tell you what’s wrong. You should do this and you should do that. Or someone else as well. Um, I was recently talking to someone and one of their family members wants to launch an app that they have invested a lot of money in creating and then asked for feedback from their family and they said, Okay, well, you know, I think this bit should be improved and that bit should be improved and you probably need to invest a bit more in it.
[00:27:48] And it’s not that that isn’t great advice, but when that person is frozen and not able to actually hit publish, the best advice and support is helping them publish the imperfect version, getting feedback from real customers who actually want to use it, and allowing yourself to evolve and iterate in public.
[00:28:09] And that requires an emotional capacity and a willingness because we just, our brain just really wants it to feel perfect to us. So once you understand that your brain has some thought errors, that Work that takes a lot of time to create, is very hard to create, looks beautiful, doesn’t offend anyone whatsoever.
[00:28:32] Everyone in the world would agree this is great, that that is perfect work. And what I love to look at as well is like, just seeing yourself developing skill sets as an entrepreneur that the work that felt perfect to me In 2013, for example, when I was blogging, that work was what felt perfect to me with the skillset that I had and the thoughts that I had.
[00:28:57] Not that it was objectively perfect and that everyone agreed to that. And now, because I have allowed myself to publish imperfect work, imperfect blog posts initially, as I was a blogger, then imperfect YouTube videos, as I did YouTube for a while, then imperfect podcast episodes, Instagram posts, the work that I create now, even when I’m not trying my hardest or anything like that, that work is higher quality because of the skill sets that I have developed.
[00:29:28] from allowing myself to put myself out there and be seen and iterate as I go and update my decisions that I would, if I was like this work has to be perfect or I can’t publish it, it might feel like I’m creating perfect work, but that’s based on the skillset that I have in publishing in publishing, publishing in perfect work.
[00:29:49] Letting your ideas meet reality is actually what allows you to develop the skills to create high quality work. Okay. The path is volume and emotional capacity because the emotional capacity is what’s required to allow yourself to do a volume of work, to allow yourself to hit publish and hit send, especially if it’s not the last minute, because with business, I’ve talked about this many times in business, the most important things that is in a last minute deadline.
[00:30:23] There isn’t a time where it’s like, well, now I have to do it. I’m forced to do it. It’s so funny. We perfectionists, we love control. And yet so many times, like we have the control to be able to say, I’m going to create this thing today, have it be done, let it be done and move on. But like, I’d rather be forced to publish because I’ve run out of time.
[00:30:43] So when it comes to launching your business, launching a project within your business, whatever it is you’re doing, Just publishing an Instagram TikTok, whatever. That we want to develop the emotional capacity to know when done is done, and to be willing to put imperfect work out into the world. Not because it is imperfect, but because our brain will see it as such.
[00:31:09] So here’s what can help you with that. I’ve got a list. First of all, and I’ve been really thinking about like, how have I created for myself the emotional capacity to have imperfect work out in the world, imperfect work from my view, my perfectionist brain’s view, tied to my name and my business. Like my podcast, a number of times I’ve been like, I want to delete the whole thing and start again.
[00:31:33] So how is it that I’ve allowed myself to keep going and not start over and not burn everything down every time my brain’s like, Oh my God, what are we doing? Everyone can see you. not sounding smart and not looking good and all of this. So first of all, it’s been willing to have the work feel imperfect, like allowing the feeling of imperfection.
[00:31:56] And this really came up for me the other day when I was going through the podcast was like, Oh my God, I want to go back. I want to delete so many of these episodes, but I’m just going to allow in my body. This feeling of imperfection and it’s really helpful as well. You can look up a feelings wheel, like Google that, a feelings wheel and look at what is the feeling you have in your body.
[00:32:20] When you were thinking this work is imperfect. This work isn’t good enough. I should delete this. I should edit this. I should take this down. I should start over. What is the feeling you have? Is it inadequate? Is it ashamed? Is it exposed? For me it really is this feeling of being exposed. Like I’m walking out on the edge of a cliff and I could fall off.
[00:32:44] That I could be attacked. Like this feeling of just being vulnerable. And that is a feeling I need to allow to be in my body. Without the Reacting to it, responding to it, like just sitting with the urge to update it, to edit it, to polish it. Allow that urge to be there, that restlessness, that desire to go back to Instagram and hit edit.
[00:33:14] Edit caption to go back to the sales page. I found myself doing this so much with the PGSD sales page over the years I’m like, oh my god, this sentence is ruining the whole thing I have to sit with the urge in every area of my business just sit with the urge to tweak and Fiddle and polish because it my brain wants to do that all day long because then I don’t have to be doing other things putting myself out there, actually being seen, being known, risking things.
[00:33:47] Like it’s so much more comfortable to just edit my sales page and get it just right. And we have this promise, like this perfectionist entitlement promise with myself that, or ourselves, that if this is perfect, then I will be able to succeed. Like perfect work creates success. Imperfect work can’t create success.
[00:34:09] must be perfect for me to be successful and therefore loved. I did a recent episode on perfectionist entitlement. Highly recommend that one because that thought pattern really has us spinning our wheels, burning ourselves out, working super long hours and stopping ourselves from sharing. And that’s why it’s so exhausting.
[00:34:30] It’s what we help so many PGSDers with that they are exhausted. And then they don’t even know where their week has gone because they haven’t made the progress they want to make because they stopped themselves from doing the things they need to do. Like they did 80 percent of the work and stopped themselves during the last 20 percent or they recorded a reel and edited it and did the caption and they can’t get themselves emotionally to hit publish.
[00:34:54] Physically, they can hit the publish button. There’s no physical limitation stopping them. They have the internet connection. They have it all ready to go. Emotionally hitting publish And I know what that feels like. This isn’t me being like, oh my God, can you imagine? Like, oh, I don’t need to imagine. I know that.
[00:35:14] I know that so well in my body, what it feels like to do work and then have your brain come in and criticize it and nitpick it. And you stop yourself from doing it because of the emotion that we don’t want to feel and that we’re resisting. So you need to sit with the urge and just notice the urge. Sit with that restlessness, sit with the desire, explore that.
[00:35:38] What does that feel like for you? What feeling is that for you that you need to allow to be vibrating around in your body? I love how Brooke Castillo talks about it. She says it specifically with anxiety, but I think it applies to every emotion. Carrying it around like a heavy purse for the day, or for however long it takes.
[00:35:56] You just carry it around with you. Versus resisting it. We try to escape it because we, If we edit the post and get it just right or delete it, then we can escape the feeling, is what it feels like, but then we feel ashamed for stopping ourselves. And we feel all sorts of other emotions that are no better than that one.
[00:36:15] So sitting with that urge, knowing your brain and just being, by the nature of being a business owner, no matter how many team members you have, no matter if you work 24 seven, there will always be. More to do than you have time for and capacity for in the sense that there’s an endless amount of things to be adjusted and tweaked and polished and created.
[00:36:34] That’s the beautiful thing about business. But if we take our perfectionist brain and then say, well, I should be able to do everything. And if I see any imperfection, I need to fix it to be like, I am willing. And this is a lot of the work I’ve been doing to go from being multiple six weeks a year into the seven figures per year is Allowing imperfection to be there increasing my emotional capacity for that.
[00:37:00] It’s so very uncomfortable And our brains like we think, okay, if I want to get to the next level of business, I need to do everything perfectly. It needs to be bigger. It needs to be better. It needs to be more perfect. When the reality is, it’s just a matter of deciding what your needle movers are, what’s essential and allowing the feeling of doing that imperfectly because our brains, it will feel like that if we’re doing it sufficiently, our brain will be like, Oh, but it could be better.
[00:37:27] Like the willingness to have it go out in the world and keep focused on what matters and let there be imperfection in the business. Is everything is so powerful. It’s very hard. I would say impossible To build a successful fulfilling profitable business without that emotional capacity. That’s why We support you in PGSD with it.
[00:37:50] That’s why it’s something that we do a lot of coaching on I do a lot of self coaching on as well to continue developing what I can teach about it because This is so important. It doesn’t matter what your content looks like. If you have the right aesthetic, if you have beautiful graphics, the most beautiful sales page the internet’s ever seen, it doesn’t matter if you aren’t actually able to put yourself out in the world imperfectly, because if you spend so much time perfecting that, not only is that coming from a thought pattern of inadequacy, but it means that you’re not doing other things that would be more powerful and impactful.
[00:38:31] Then doing that extra bit of tweaking and polishing and perfecting. I love that. Um, I think it’s the Pareto Principle. The 20 80 rule. 20 percent of your actions create 80 percent of your results. And it’s a really helpful way to think about things that our brain wants to think. 100 percent of our actions create 100 percent of our results.
[00:38:55] And see it all as equal, but to really understand. It’s like even like, The 20%, and I’m just trying to think of how to articulate it so that it can really hit home. But our brain just wants to really be in this 100 percent or zero. And nothing else is good enough, but just in like, oh, 20%. It’s kind of like if you think about like 20 percent of your marketing creates 80 percent of your customers.
[00:39:24] There’s so many ways to apply it. 20 percent of the words on your sales page, do the selling. There’s all of that kind of way that it can be applied, but having that concept in mind can really help. But all of that said, you need to sit with the urge to have it, to edit, update, have it be perfect. Also, you need to allow your brain to say shit about Your stuff that you’re creating and not believe it and not believe it just because your brain is telling you Well, this could be better or this could be better.
[00:39:59] I’m not feeling 100 percent clear about my messaging So I need to change i’m not feeling 100 percent clear about my niche Or I need to have this figured out perfectly before I can even get started Or that thing you created isn’t good enough that podcast episode that social media post that email is not good enough Like I would not i’ve said this many times.
[00:40:18] I would not have pretty much any episodes on this podcast if I listen to my brain and what it said about the podcast episodes. And I have become a lot kinder to myself over the years in my brain, but it’s still a vulnerable act. I am just sharing my stream of conscious thoughts, expertise, learnings to the world.
[00:40:40] Of course my brain is like, shut this shit down, do not do that. So it’s gonna find really compelling reasons and offer them to me. This isn’t good enough. This bit’s confusing. You don’t sound articulate. You’re rambling. All of that. Or you could say, you didn’t even say this thing. Like, after I publish an episode or have it go to our podcast producer, I’m like, oh my god, I didn’t even say this thing.
[00:41:03] I didn’t even say that thing. I want to go back and like, I want it to be comprehensive. No, the episode doesn’t need to be comprehensive to be helpful. My brain is always going to offer me extra things to say. I don’t need to say them. I can say them another time. It’s like when I go traveling and I’m visiting somewhere that has a lot to see or do.
[00:41:26] And a lot of people take the approach of like, I want to see everything and do everything. And the approach I’ve always loved taking with travel that just releases so much pressure to do all the things is like, I love having something to come back for next time. Like I love, yeah. Knowing that the next time I go to Paris, I can go to the Moulin Rouge, because I haven’t done that before.
[00:41:45] I haven’t been inside and seen a show. So that’s something I can do. Versus I have to do everything this time. This time has to be perfect. Like, oh, I don’t know if I’ll ever go back there. I probably will. I don’t know if I actually will. Like, even when I went to Vegas for an event in 2019, and we were right near the Grand Canyon ish.
[00:42:06] I mean, it was still going to be like a decent amount of time to travel. But, We were close and I really want to see the Grand Canyon and I was like next time It’s not making sense for us to go and we can go next time and I don’t know if I’ll ever be back there But I just am okay with not doing it perfectly and allowing myself to come back So that might be something helpful as well allowing your future self to come back whether it’s a physical product a sales page An email, not that you might specifically come back to that thing, but you can create an updated version of it and share that with the world.
[00:42:39] And if you notice anything good that has ever been created, that is the process. Like how many iPhones have they made? Not just here’s the perfect one. And that’s the way it is forever and always like, no, I don’t even know what number they’re up to. Because they have allowed themselves to update it and be like, actually, this could be better.
[00:42:57] Actually, this could be better. And they wouldn’t know that unless they had given the iPhone to people who actually want to use it and pay for it and gotten feedback from customers. Like that’s the feedback you want. You want the feedback from the Apple customer, not the Samsung customer who hates Apple is never going to buy it.
[00:43:14] It doesn’t really matter what they say. It’s about the person who actually wants to do that thing or use that thing. What do they have to say when they interact with it? That’s what we need to do. to be able to create amazing work. And we can only get to that if we have a willingness and emotional capacity to publish imperfect work.
[00:43:34] So I’ve already talked about not expecting yourself to know when the work is done already, because your brain is going to say never. So if you are taking an approach of, I’ll know when done is done, you won’t, not because you can’t be trusted, but because your perfectionist brain is using criteria that isn’t actually helpful.
[00:43:53] And so we want to have helpful criteria. Yeah. Not unhelpful criteria. Criteria that allows us to publish and allows us to see the sufficiency. So just know that when you need to publish work, and you can think about when you’ve done things at the last minute, and you have allowed yourself to do it because the last minute came and you didn’t want to disappoint your professor or you didn’t want to not get a grade or whatever it is, that like you have many times handed in imperfect work, and And we are just often in that thought pattern of if I have the time to make it perfect, I should make it perfect.
[00:44:31] And that then creates pressure. But just knowing your brain, like, you will need to have it feel imperfect. And that’s basically a good sign that it’s sufficient and it’s done. And that you are doing the work and showing up and putting yourself out there and moving yourself forward. because of the way your brain is thinking.
[00:44:52] So it will need to feel a bit undercooked for it to be actually cooked because you’re so used to overcooking. If that makes sense. Increase your willingness to be seen as a human that you make mistakes that you fail and find thoughts that create that willingness for you. So for me, for example, it’ll be different depending what kind of business you have, but this is one that I love.
[00:45:13] What’s most personal is most universal. I know that the things that I can share that feel like if there’s a mistake, I made a business mistake or whatever kind of failure that, that, even if that experience isn’t universal, that feeling is, and especially if it feels very personal, it is very universal and that helps me show up.
[00:45:35] as a human versus being in the thought pattern of like, well, no one’s going to want to learn about business from me unless I have a perfect business or like, no one’s going to want to be a personal training client of mine unless I have a perfect body. If you’re in that kind of thought pattern, no one’s going to want to work with you because of how much you’re judging yourself and also judging them.
[00:45:55] The next thing is normalizing that feeling of naked. And again, just, and I know these notes kind of overlap because I just want to say it in all sorts of different ways for you. Normalizing that naked, exposed feeling of having imperfect work out there. Like anyone who’s written a book a hundred percent feels that way.
[00:46:14] I was listening to as well an interview with Dax Shepard. He was interviewing Jack Black on Armchair Expert, his podcast. I love that podcast mainly because they just chat and show up and share and like Talk about what it’s really like, but, um, Jack Black was talking about a movie that he did and like, and most actors, if you ever listen to them be interviewed, will say this.
[00:46:37] There are movies like, I never want to watch that. Like, it feels so imperfect to my brain. Like I can’t even stand to watch that. Even the movies that are so well loved, they’re like, Oh my God, I just am so self critical that I just can’t even look at it. And yet those movies will be the most perfect movies to someone else.
[00:46:53] They’ll be like, Oh my God, this is the best thing I’ve ever seen. And it’s a great thing that in that instance, the actor couldn’t say, please don’t put this movie out. Or please like, I think Jack said in it, I, if I could delete that movie, I would. So what a great thing that he couldn’t. Because Dax was saying like, that is a movie that I loved.
[00:47:13] So it’s just so interesting how our brains just want to criticize and want to find the flaws. And to be able to do great work, you need to publish imperfect work. You need to have it, not just be, I’ll create it as practice in private. It needs to meet reality because you need to create this emotional capacity and you don’t get to do that when you’re just practicing in private all the time by yourself.
[00:47:36] If you’re going to do any practice in private, it’s got to have a time limit on it. A week, a week, not months and months and months of, I’ll do this post and practice this. Or maybe I’ll practice this or I’ll practice this. Practicing in public is what allows you to actually develop the skills. It’s kind of like, I’m trying to think of the analogy with riding a bike.
[00:47:58] It’s like, if you are trying to ride a bike without actually letting yourself ride the bike and just thinking about it and reading books about it, you’re not actually going to learn how to ride the bike. I don’t know if that analogy, now I say it, is exactly right and comparative but you get the idea you have to do the thing and doing the thing when it comes to business means letting your idea meet reality and you need to have the emotional capacity as well for any criticism and things like that that comes so with that said and i’m down to the last couple now you need to align your self image with someone who can handle the negative ramifications of imperfect being out in the world you can handle criticism you can handle negative reviews All of that.
[00:48:44] You can handle it. And the way you handle it, like the way I’ve learned how to handle negative reviews is by getting them. And the way I got them is by allowing myself to share imperfect work. So you have to allow yourself to share the imperfect work. Knowing your brain is just wrong about what’s perfect and what’s imperfect.
[00:49:01] That, and you’ll see this all the time. It is other people like, Oh my God, this thing is so imperfect. I just want to burn it down. And what are we like? Oh my God, I love it. So just know again, your brain, It’s just, it has some thought errors about what’s perfect and what’s not. So you need to align yourself image with being the person who can handle it, because right now you are the person who can handle it, and support yourself through it, and get support through it.
[00:49:25] But I’ve seen this so many times with PGSDers, and also with myself, that we have a belief that we can’t handle it, and so we don’t allow ourselves to handle it. or see that we have handled it before. Quantity over quality is a practical approach. I mean, this is all very practical. Just because something is feelings work does not mean it’s unpractical.
[00:49:44] But a more tactical, classic way to think about it is creating a quantity of content over quality. Your perfectionist brain and people will tell you focus on doing less but better, higher quality but less volume. Sure, once you’re already very experienced. When you are learning a new skill, You need a sufficient volume of practice to be able to develop the skill to do high quality.
[00:50:10] So you have to give yourself the gift of practice in public. So aim for quantity over quality. I’ve done this many times in many ways with the podcast doing two episodes a week instead of one. With blog posts back in the day, I was like, I’m going to post every day. I used to do a series on YouTube called 365 days of personal growth.
[00:50:29] I have done this in so many different ways. If I allow myself to create a higher quality, I don’t act, sorry, a higher quantity, it removes the time I have available for overthinking and allows me to just publish and it helps create a lot of the thoughts and emotional capacity that we’ve talked about just through that act of focusing on quantity over quality.
[00:50:50] So if you are someone who’s been like, I want to post on Instagram. once a week, three times a week. Try posting seven, try posting 14. And to do that, because our brain’s like, Oh, I can’t do that because I can’t do enough high quality posts. But remember your brain doesn’t know what’s high quality and what isn’t because it’s saying I want to post 14 posts a week that make me look good and feel smart and be perfect and never make a mistake.
[00:51:17] Of course I can’t do 14 of them in a week. That’s very time consuming. But, and also the emotional capacity and not having the emotional willingness to do that is the time consuming thing, the drama and the overthinking and time that has us spending. But, if we look at like, okay, if I wanted to poise 14 times and I’m using a more extreme example, Even though it’s not that extreme, but then it’s like, okay, well, if I wanted to do that in the same amount of time that it took me to do three posts, so say if it’s, for example, 13, oh, sorry, 14 posts in three hours versus three posts in three hours, okay, what would I need to believe, how would I need to think, what would I allow to be okay, you’re getting 14 practices versus three, if you times that by 52 weeks, You’re going to be a lot more skilled at creating content at the end of that year and then maybe at the end of that Year, it’ll be okay.
[00:52:11] I’m going to create less but better But first you’ve got to create more but worse To your brain to your perfectionist brain and then self trust this all comes back to self trust Because you need to be able to trust yourself to be with the emotions And also to notice when you’re stopping yourself and supporting yourself to keep going So when you create the thing and then you stop yourself from publishing it whether it’s an app Whether it’s a course whether it’s an idea and then you stop yourself to just notice that And power planning really helps with that as well in your growth goal, but did you just notice that?
[00:52:46] And then support yourself to keep going, whether that is regulating your nervous system, whether that is telling someone about it, self coaching, uh, there are so many different ways. We have so many ways to support you in PGSD with that, but you need to support yourself to keep going, especially community, having a community that you relate to, that you resonate with, that supports you having coaching calls to go to that specifically help you with this.
[00:53:14] And aren’t just going to say, well, no, you should do a perfect post. You need somewhere to go that supports you with this.
[00:53:19] That is the work. That is how you create the emotional capacity, is you support yourself. to continue to show up, to put yourself out there. You don’t expect it to feel inspiring all the time or comfortable all the time, or that you’re going to feel motivated all the time. You aren’t because your brain is screaming at you to not do it.
[00:53:37] So you support yourself to do it and not in this hustly way or resistant way, but allowing the fear, the doubt, the feelings of vulnerability and being exposed, allowing that to be there while at the same time, supporting yourself to put one foot in front of the other. Instead of trying to resist those feelings and take a lot of action so you’re so busy that you don’t notice the feelings, or making a lot of rushed decisions to try and escape those feelings, we allow those feelings to come along for the ride, allow them to be in our body, and create for ourselves.
[00:54:15] The self support and get support that allow us to keep going, put imperfect workout into the world. I recommend not asking friends and family for feedback on any of your work. Ideally, ask paying customers for feedback about paid work. If you’re gonna ask anyone, ask the people who actually follow you for what you do, and ask yourself from a place of self-trust for me to be able to create like.
[00:54:43] And I’ve had different times where it’s like, Hey, can you review this podcast episode? But it’s coming from this place of, I don’t think it’s good enough. Can you tell me what’s wrong with it? And it’s like, okay, well, you could say this better. You could say this. Or Steve was like you have this podcast voice that you do for like the first 10 minutes of an episode.
[00:54:59] And then you relax. I’m like, well, yeah. And that’s okay. I have a very successful podcast, even with that. And I don’t think that’s a problem, but then it’s like, okay, well now I need to, and when I’m in a place of not trusting myself, okay, now I need to not do my podcast voice, but I’m doing a podcast, but how do I not do my podcast voice?
[00:55:16] How do I just go straight into the relaxing bit? And. The irony of it all is I’m always relaxed when I’m not thinking about that and I’m just trusting myself to show up and share. So I hope this has helped you. I think listening to this podcast, being in PGSD in general, is going to help you with that. I really want to invite you into PGSD if you’re not already inside.
[00:55:36] Get yourself inside , get yourself support with this and tools to help you with this. This is so important. Your business is not going to be able to reach its potential. You will not be able to create the life you want and not from this place of like, you have to do this, um, and you have to do it with me.
[00:55:53] Just at least get some support from somewhere that you can do this work, that you can learn how to publish imperfect work rather than investing in things that help you do perfect work. It’s so important to get the support to do imperfect work, to learn the things you need to learn. Yes. But if you don’t have this emotional capacity to publish imperfect work, it doesn’t matter if you know all the things about what makes up a perfect sales page or a perfect product.
[00:56:22] If you can’t get yourself to ship it. You need to get yourself to publish it instead of, and this is the final thing I will say, that we can be in this mindset of like, well, if I do it now, then I should have done it 10 years ago. And I will beat myself up for not having done it sooner. No, you just didn’t have the emotional capacity.
[00:56:39] Then you have it now. You can create it now and you can do it and don’t make your past self wrong for not doing that sooner because we love to do that. Oh my God, that was so easy. I should have just done that years ago. No, no, no, no, no. Now is the perfect time exactly when it’s meant to be. That you get out of your own way, allow yourself to do it. [00:57:00] Give yourself that gift. That’s what your past self wants for you to get out of your own way, not to double down on it because you don’t want to make them wrong. So with that said, I hope this episode has been helpful. I hope you’re having a beautiful day and I will talk to you in the next episode.
Outro
If you are ready to get out of your own way, you want to get inside my program, Perfectionists Getting Shit Done. And we are currently open for enrollment, but not for much longer. Doors are closing on Friday the 7th of February, 2025 at 11:59pm Eastern Time. So not long left. So you can go to samlaurabrown.com/pgsd to get the details for my productivity program for perfectionist entrepreneurs and to sign up today and get instant access to everything inside.
You don’t have to keep struggling with procrastination and overthinking and burning yourself out, spinning your wheels, trying to build your business around everything else you’ve got going on in your life and getting nowhere. Instead, you can sign up for PGSD, learn how to get your perfectionist mindset working for you, instead of against you with our practical tools and support and have your business actually be growing.
So samlaurabrown.com/pgsd is where to go to sign up. I hope to see you inside the program.