Over-challenging yourself is one of the sneakiest ways that perfectionism is keeping you stuck in your business – and that’s exactly what this episode will help you overcome.
My clients are people who love to learn, grow and push themselves. But what I’ve seen time and time again – and experienced myself – is how over-challenging ourselves can lead to freezing or getting stuck in productive procrastination for months.
In this episode, I unpack a powerful coaching moment from inside my program Perfectionists Getting Shit Done. I reveal what it really looks like to over-challenge yourself and why over-challenging yourself actually makes it harder to achieve your goals. I also share practical strategies that will allow you to step outside your comfort zone without spinning yourself out.
Whether you’re trying to post consistently on social media, launch something new into the world or perform at an open mic like the PGSDer I coached – this episode will help you get unstuck and build momentum, one aligned challenge at a time.
To dive deeper: Want to know which of the 5 Perfectionist Patterns is keeping you stuck in your business? Take The Perfectionism Quiz – it’s free, takes less than 3 minutes and gives you a personalised report that lays out the simple steps you can take to get out of your own way. Take the quiz now at samlaurabrown.com/quiz.
For more advice: Follow me on Instagram – I’m @perfectionismproject – for more behind-the-scenes insights and support with getting out of your own way in your business.
For full support: Ready to follow through with what matters most in your business? Join the waitlist for my productivity program – Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (aka PGSD) – at samlaurabrown.com/pgsd. Inside PGSD you’ll master our simple, proven process for getting shit done without burning out or building a business you hate.
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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
[00:00:29] Okay, so I am just driving to see my friend Sophia. We catch up currently every three or so weeks and just do some essentially peer coaching, talk about business things. It’s really energizing for me, so I am excited for that. And I just wanted to record an episode about something that I coached on inside perfectionist, getting shit done last week that I think it was last week.
[00:01:01] Anyway, doesn’t matter. Very recently. And I just wanted to share what the key takeaways were. Because if you are a perfectionist and you’re building a business and you are someone who loves personal development, you love the idea of learning and growing and challenging yourself. You wanna be able to do hard things.
[00:01:23] You wanna increase your capacity for what you’re able to handle. Like if that is you, this is gonna be very relevant. I also thought though, before I share that. That. I wanted to talk a bit about how I met Sophia, because making business friends is really important and I think that it’s just helpful to hear how other people do it.
[00:01:44] So for example, you can obviously do that in a community, like an online community and things. So PGSD, we have a lot of people who make friends within that community, and they do, I think we have a group who still like years later, are doing Zoom calls together. Um, but do either in-person meetups, zoom calls, that kind of thing.
[00:02:04] So it’s great to have that kind of place. And also there are other ways to meet people as well. So for Sophia in particular, what happened was that I mentioned this would’ve been, oh, must have been 2023. I’m fuzzy on the dates, but. Sometime around them. I just mentioned on the podcast like I’m actually wanting to meet more people who are at a similar stage of business to what I am and catch up and like do that kind of thing.
[00:02:36] And she just dmd me and was like, Hey, I’m actually just about to move to Brisbane. And I heard you mention on the podcast, so I reached out and Did you wanna have a catch up? And so we ended up having a catch up, like we went to Grilled, which is just. To Burger Place. I met up and had so much to talk about and thanks to share.
[00:02:59] And then also I was postpartum with the twins at that point, so I think it was quite a while before we met up again. And then just recently we’ve started meeting up. Every three weeks and just kind of having that, um, like a different sort of format and having it be more regular. ’cause we’re just finding, whenever we caught up, we were going through the same things, even though the circumstances might be different.
[00:03:20] And yeah. So anyway, I wanted to share that as well because sometimes, like say for example, in this case, for the first year or so, we caught up maybe every three or four months and now it’s different to that and we’re catching up more often. Also things evolve and change and all of that, um, as well. But sometimes you just need to like, put it out to the universe that you wanna meet other people who are at a similar stage of business to you, and then it can just happen.
[00:03:54] So anyway, I am happy about that. Excited for our catch up and just, I love chatting through things and then like getting to do some coaching because oftentimes what I’m saying, I’m like, oh, note to. I need to also implement that and then getting coached and just being like, oh, this is what I’m struggling with at the moment, or like what I’m working on and like, can you help me think about it in a better way or differently or like, what am I not seeing?
[00:04:19] Or things like that. So anyway, that is what I’m doing today and Okay. What I wanted to share about, um, the way to think, essentially the way to think about challenging yourself and growing, but doing that in a. Really supportive way and not a way that is going to make it actually harder for you to grow and learn and evolve.
[00:04:47] So I’ll share some specifics. So this PGSDer that I was coaching, we have a lot of different kinds of entrepreneurs in the program. It’s, if you don’t know, it is really a productivity program for perfectionists who are building businesses and we focus on. Helping you get shit done in an aligned way.
[00:05:07] Getting out of all the like shoulds and musts and feeling behind and comparison and shame spirals and like most PG sds also have a massive fear of. Putting themselves out there and visibility, that’s a very common perfectionist thing. Not every perfectionist experiences that, but it’s very common. Um, and so if you’re scared of being seen and putting yourself out there and all of that, then it can be really hard to sell, to promote your business, to make key decisions.
[00:05:34] We do a lot of support and guidance and, um, give tools around decision making planning properly as a perfectionist with power planning, resting without guilt, which is clean rest, and particularly what I wanna. Talk about that relates to this episode is having a momentum project. So that is something specific that we teach inside.
[00:05:55] Perfectionist, getting shit done as a way to support you to have not this like endless to-do list of a million things you wanna do, but having a structured, um, project in a way that works for your brain instead of against it. So it makes it easier to get stuff done instead of like having a good intention of like.
[00:06:15] I’m gonna launch an email list freebie, and then it just never happens. Um, or it takes two years for that to happen. But having a structured process that is flexible, that is supportive, that is in alignment with the goals that you have and how you work best. It’s not like. Here’s this formula and try and fit yourself to that.
[00:06:34] It’s really, here’s how to create a project for yourself that will make it easier to not just start, to, not just work on, but to also complete that project. And then you do in PGSD, A series of momentum projects, essentially to build your business. There’s six week projects that you do that move your business forward to your goals and.
[00:06:55] Our pg SD is love them. Anyway, this pg s year that I was coaching, she is a musician and she has a momentum project around doing, I believe it was two live shows or like open mic shows that she wanted to do and to learn, oh, maybe it was just one, one open mic, but to learn two new songs to be able to do at that open mic, where she would go.
[00:07:21] It wasn’t someone asking her to do the open mic. It wasn’t a specific date. It’s able to happen any Saturday that she can nominate herself to do the open mic. So there’s all the perfectionism that can come up with that when there’s no external deadline, when there’s no one like explicitly asking you to do something or telling you like, okay, can you come and do this open mic, and can you perform these two songs and do it on this specific day when it’s actually you self-selecting, which is a really big piece of entrepreneurship that.
[00:07:54] A lot of perfectionists can really get in their own way with that. So one thing that came up with that, she was saying that I have these two new songs I wanna learn, and they don’t feel like I’m ready enough. I don’t feel like I’m ready enough or like they’re polished enough for me to perform them. But I really wanna like challenge myself and not just do songs that are already in my comfort zone and I wanna be able to do this open mic.
[00:08:20] And I’ve done them before, but only when asked. So this is different in that sense and a key lesson, and I’ve referred other PGSDers to like listening back to this coaching call, hence why I wanted to talk about it here. But a key distinction that needs to be made and that I think is really helpful to understand as a perfectionist.
[00:08:41] And especially as I said, if you’re someone who loves learning, growing, challenging yourself, that what we can do. Is put in all of these conditions and criteria, and I called it on that call, like readiness criteria for I will be ready when X, Y, Z, and then we tend to not actually let ourselves or procrastinate on the thing that would make us ready so that we have an excuse not to be ready.
[00:09:10] And so that, especially if you have an identity of. Someone who really wants to have a successful business, someone who’s committed to that, someone again, who loves learning and growing, that it can be really painful to see yourself want to do something and be ready to do it, and then not do it. That can feel very jarring in a sense when your identity is that if you were ready.
[00:09:35] Would do it because you’re someone who does that. But then if you actually allow yourself to be ready, it’s gonna be scary to put yourself out there. It’s gonna be unfamiliar. Your brain, even if you’re very safe in that experience, like at an open mic. Very physically safe, but your brain perceives it as unsafe because it’s unfamiliar.
[00:09:58] Also, I think just primarily like putting ourselves, separating ourselves from the crowd and like putting ourselves in front of a crowd is a thing that for most human. Triggers some kind of physical response as like, this isn’t safe, even though it actually circumstantially is as safe as you are pretty much anywhere else.
[00:10:17] So anyway, all of that to say we can create these and I’ve definitely done this. Create this kind of like readiness criteria. I will be ready when X, Y, Z. So just as another example, and I talked about this in an episode, I dunno if it’s come out yet, but that I found myself having this kind of like readiness criteria when it came to just like showing up and sharing recording episodes, creating content again, and being back in the swing of that, that my readiness criteria was like.
[00:10:52] And it, it always sounds very justified. It was like, I need to have a system, like we need to be systemized about how we put out the content. And like, um, for the podcast for example, even though as I was creating this, I was like, I know this is me with my perfectionism hand break, but also. I still did it.
[00:11:13] Sorry, just sharing that so that you don’t think I’m like some perfect person who never gets in my own way. Uh, the key is just noticing it and being able to get back out of your own way and doing that with kindness and like self support and all of that. But anyway, being like, okay, we need to have like.
[00:11:30] Six different kinds of episodes on the podcast, like an epiphany episode and like you probably have come across this kind of thing where it’s like having different categories, um, episodes that are case studies and things like that. And we need to have like these different categories and then I can batch create in the different categories.
[00:11:48] And really what I know has worked best is I just talk and I naturally will say things across the different categories that are needed. I naturally sell. I naturally. Am helpful and valuable in what I’m sharing, but my brain wanted this structure to kind of like give me an excuse to not do it yet, because it felt uncomfortable, even though I’m so comfortable right now recording this, that it felt uncomfortable to just like, let.
[00:12:16] The easy stuff be enough. So that was just a side example of what else it could look like and how it recently looked for me. So for this PGSDer, her criteria was that she needed to learn these two new songs and she wants to learn songs is good reasons for that. But also what we looked at, and this is about like how to support yourself to do hard things without making it such a big deal that.
[00:12:46] You wanna freeze up? Not all perfectionists will go into the freeze response. There’s like fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. When you feel, uh, like your nervous system is activated and you go into that, like self-protection and a lot of us as well, like we do it in different ways in different circumstances.
[00:13:03] Like the foreign response is essentially like people pleasing as well. So a lot of us are familiar with that, but a lot of perfectionists in PGSD will more so go towards the freezing side and then go into like. Productive procrastination and more of like a functional freeze. So we don’t wanna have you set up things in a way that puts you.
[00:13:26] Into a functional freeze or puts you into productive procrastination or however you wanna be thinking about it. And it might come up differently for you, but we just wanna be supportive of ourselves while also inviting ourselves to grow and evolve and become the person who can run the business that we wanna have.
[00:13:46] So with this, what I said to her, and what I just wanna share here is that like, do we have to have it be new songs? Yes, you can. Learn the new songs that still can be part of your momentum project, keep learning the songs. And we could also like have done coaching around having her actually get those songs to where they needed to be.
[00:14:08] What would the plan be for that? Having that be a plan that she could actually follow through on, um, that wasn’t just like forcing herself to do it because she wasn’t, she was still learning it, but she wasn’t practicing it as much as she wanted to, if I’m remembering correctly, because. Then she’d be ready to do it.
[00:14:27] And that’s scary. So we deny ourselves being ready, so we have an excuse not to do it either. A lot of times this comes up of like, well, I just haven’t decided on my niche yet, or my avatar yet, or I just haven’t decided the perfect target market, or I just haven’t decided on what the podcast name would be.
[00:14:42] That is like a readiness criteria. And then we deny ourselves. From actually meeting that criteria because it’s scary to meet it because then we have to do the scary thing. So I said, let’s make it a bit less scary. The open mic. And we explored like her relationship with open mics, she’d done them before.
[00:14:59] So like for me, I was like, that would be really scary because I’m not a singer and I haven’t done an open mic. So even if I was singing a song, I knew back to front that that would be like a big experience for me, so to speak. Like a very new experience. For me. For her, it wasn’t as much as that, that she’d done it before.
[00:15:20] Someone had asked her to do one and like she had experience with it, but not self-selecting and not doing the kinds of songs that she was planning to do. And so we looked at, okay, what if, instead of trying to just jump to like what’s the maximum challenge because our brain wants to do that in that like all or nothing thinking perfectionists have of like, okay, I need to like do it all the way to the hardest version.
[00:15:44] Instead of like, what if I had like a staircase to being able to do new songs at an open mic? And so we had a look at like, what could this look like? And just to share. So you can still have this practical example. It was actually being able to be like, couldn’t you just perform songs you already know really well?
[00:16:05] Because doing the open mic in a self-selected. Way is a new thing for you. Like that is something that feels uncomfortable probably once you’re on stage. Or definitely once you’re off stage, like you’ll be like, okay, that was fine, but it’s something that feels like a big deal already and we don’t wanna have like two kinds of big deal at once.
[00:16:26] Sometimes that happens circumstantially, but in this case, like why add in the extra challenge if that was just gonna make you delay Actually stepping up to the challenge. So we said let’s do an open mic. Can you do one this Saturday or the. Following Saturday, and can we just have you perform either one new song?
[00:16:48] There’s also options, so either perform the new songs you’ve learned to the best of your ability and let it be okay if it’s shitty and to your brain doesn’t sound good enough because probably your brain is just hearing all the flaws in it instead of hearing all the sufficiency and everything that. Is so great about it.
[00:17:06] So could we just actually have you do the songs but do them shitty again? It’s not actually shitty. It is, and I’ve talked about this in the episode I did about publishing imperfect work. It’s not actually shitty. Your perfectionist brain just thinks so. So unless you get used to publishing things you think is shitty.
[00:17:25] You really won’t be able to make progress because your brain is just, I love this quote. I heard somewhere about like, perfectionism isn’t about being perfect, it’s about like having, like, I’m so butchering, whatever it was, but like being able to spot imperfection so much better than anyone else. Um, so anyway.
[00:17:46] Your brain, like you will just have to get used to, if you wanna do any kind of volume of work or produce any kind of body of work, no matter what industry you’re in, you will have to get comfortable emotionally with publishing work that your brain says is shitty. And that work is actually oftentimes great work.
[00:18:05] It’s sufficient, it’s actually helpful for people or impactful for the business. But your brain is gonna have all this chatter about it because it really doesn’t want any kind of extra opportunity for shame to come in because you’re already feeling so ashamed, like fundamentally, that we’re trying to avoid as perfectionists, like getting any extra shame on top because that feels unbearable to handle when we’re already so busy shaming ourselves.
[00:18:31] So with that said, being said, you could do it shitty. You could do one new song, the one that’s more, uh, like where you want it to be or like more in the normal genre of songs that you do, and one, like tried and tested. You could, like, I could wake you up in the middle of the night and you could perform it.
[00:18:50] One of those songs. You could do two songs. That you have done before and not do any of the new songs. Keep learning them. But like just let yourself be ready because right now you actually are ready to do the open mic and we don’t actually need that criteria of learning two new songs to be attached to the open mic because that is making it hard to take action and actually do the open mic, and we just wanna have you doing that.
[00:19:16] So we looked at that. Something I also said to her as well, in case it’s helpful to hear and for you to apply to whatever. Context you have for your business is that oftentimes we just in general have this criteria for like newness of things. I was saying like we could have you, and I’ll talk about having a volume of experiences in a second because that’s really important, but we could have you do an open mic every week and do the same songs.
[00:19:44] Every week. And who do we know Who does that? The best bands in the world. That’s how they do it. When they go on tour, they don’t. Try to learn new songs every time they are performing songs. They know how to perform. They’re very comfortable with, and then they have other times they’re learning songs.
[00:20:02] They’re creating songs, they’re doing all of that. But it’s okay to go to an open mic and do the same songs again and again and again. That is like a big thing in the music. Industry that you can do that, and also you can challenge yourself to do new songs and things like that, but we only wanna really have you doing that.
[00:20:23] Once you’re comfortable with the open mic and the open mic doesn’t feel like a big deal, then once that is normalized and that’s just something that you do and you’re happy to just self-select and nominate for an open mic, then you go to, okay, now I’m gonna learn a new song. Or pick something that’s not in the genre or whatever.
[00:20:43] So that over time you are much more quickly getting to the point where you’re at an open mic doing two new songs instead of having this like perfectionist ideal that we have of like, oh, I wanna be able to go to an open mic and perform new songs right off the bat. And then it never happens because it’s such a big deal to your brain and to your nervous system.
[00:21:04] That you then delay learning the songs or like, oh, I just heard this other new song. Maybe I should learn that one instead. There’s so many different ways that we subtly and convincingly take ourselves off path. Um, it’s like if you are trying to decide on your niche, this is a key thing that we help pg SD is with, because a lot of perfectionists get really stuck on like the niche and the avatar and all of that.
[00:21:26] But it’s like if you decide on what your niche is, but then you’re like, oh my God, I just came across this other thing. Or I’m not sure if I should word it this way or that way. And. You just end up kind of like so busy looking for the perfect thing that you decide nothing and you don’t actually then get to evolve as you go because you’re wanting to have the perfect thing right off the bat.
[00:21:48] So there’s like emotional work that needs to happen with that that we guide. PTSD is through as well. Uh, like letting yourself emotionally be okay with either having it feel imperfect or like having actually had made that decision instead of just, ’cause it’d be like, well, when, when I finally decide Anish, then I’ll be able to be successful.
[00:22:08] That’s so much more comfortable to our, like, basically protecting our potential and our self image and how we see ourselves. If you’re someone who’s. Smart and capable. So much more comfortable to be in indecision and be like, if only they could decide, instead of to actually decide and potentially find out or risk finding out that you were wrong or you didn’t make this smart decision.
[00:22:31] So anyway, all of that to say that we wanna have you be able to work yourself up to things. And I just wanna wrap up by talking about having a volume of experiences because something else that I identified and we talked about on this coaching call was that her plan. Was to do one open mic, and she knew that she was gonna do another momentum project after that one was complete, which it nearly was.
[00:22:55] She was in like the fourth week of it, maybe the fifth week of the sixth, that she was gonna do another one. But she hadn’t yet decided what that would be. And so what I said to her is, if we’re wanting to get you familiar with doing the open mics. And have that become normal. What would it be like as well to do this current upcoming open mic?
[00:23:16] If you knew that in the next following six weeks you were gonna do three open mics? It might be every other week. There might be three all together and then three weeks off. But you were gonna do three open mics. You could let it be easy by doing songs that you already know, but what if you knew you would, you wouldn’t just be doing it this one time.
[00:23:34] How does that make you feel? And it’s just great to try that on and be like, how does that make me feel? And oftentimes having a. Higher volume of experiences or volume of creation releases the perfectionist hand break around. This needs to be perfect because I’m only doing it once or I’m not doing very much of it.
[00:23:55] It also adds so much pressure. If you’re not doing it very often, you aren’t having much practice, you aren’t having much experience, so it’s much harder to have it be better. Because you don’t have nearly as much experience or practice as if you were doing it often or like that familiarization for your brain and your body with like what that experience is and like normalizing, regulating your nervous system around that and familiarizing with it.
[00:24:20] So if we said, okay, what if you were gonna be doing an open mic every other week? And this isn’t such a big deal. So you wanna be noticing for yourself and constantly in PTSD, like pointing this out because it can be hard to spot for yourself when you are making something a big deal. And it’s not actually a big deal, but it feels like such a big deal that that then makes you get in your own way.
[00:24:45] And so we wanna be able to make something that feels like a big deal to make it in our brains less of a big deal, as that increases our desire and motivation. And willingness to actually do the thing. Because if it feels like there’s a lot at stake in our perfectionist brains with the all in nothing theme mindset, we’ll tend towards making things a really big deal.
[00:25:09] Um, so we wanna like frame things, and this is as well how power planning works, things like that, that we wanna have things that feel like a big deal actually not be a big deal to your brain. So that you have more willingness, capacity, desire, capability to actually do them. So that was something as well that we talked about and something you can be thinking about.
[00:25:35] I’ve talked about it before with content creation, how having a higher volume of content is actually very helpful for, I’d say almost all perfectionists, that most perfectionists, if we take the approach of like less. But better, which is what a lot of people teach, like have less content, but have it be higher quality.
[00:25:55] For a perfectionist, that puts a lot of pressure on every piece of content. That makes it also really hard to get better, especially if you’re new to creating content or in your first. Few years of creating content because you’re not getting much practice and now it has to be high quality and your perfectionist brain is telling you shit that isn’t true about what it means for something to be high quality because there’s a difference between something, a piece of content that’s really valuable and something that your brain perceives as safe and perfect to share.
[00:26:28] Or really ultimately safe to share. And we conflate that with like, if it’s perfect, it’s safe because then I won’t be judged, then I won’t judge myself, then I won’t feel ashamed, et cetera, et cetera. So we really wanna be taking a more but worse approach, which. It’s hard for most perfectionists to hear, but we wanna be doing more but worse until you have enough experience to do less but better and have that not create a lot of pressure to have that not make you get in your own way.
[00:27:00] To have that not put you into a freeze, to have that, not have you get in your head and overanalyze and do unhelpful things like that. Like we wanna be in more but worse. And again, your perfectionist brain. Will just be like, that’s all about your own perception. The more but worse, because actually what other people are experiencing is more and good and getting better.
[00:27:24] That is their experience of you, that it’s good and it’s getting better. Your experience of you is, this isn’t good. This is uncomfortable. And all of that kind of thing. So you can take that approach, not just with content, but with a lot of other things too, to help you release your perfectionism, hand break around it to help it not be such a big deal to help you show up, to help you put yourself out there, to help you make decisions, to help you move forward.
[00:27:51] So I hope that it’s been helpful to hear about this. I am nearly at the. Cafe and I can’t remember exactly where I need to go to get to the car park. I’m parking in so Well, maybe I can remember. Let me try. Um, anyway, I am going to wrap up so I can go and meet Sophia, have a chai latte, have a catch up, do some peer coaching.
[00:28:15] Oh, I did find it. Um, do some peer coaching. And I have Lydia’s Daycare Easter event this afternoon. So we will be going to that. I’ve enjoyed chatting the car. I’m bringing it back. Um, but anyway, I’ll talk to you soon.
Outro
If you are constantly getting in your own way in your business, maybe you’re second guessing decisions or struggling to even make them in the first place, maybe you’re putting off tasks that really matter. Burning yourself out because you’re working all the time, or maybe you’re holding yourself back because you’re afraid of burnout or afraid of judgment.
Or maybe you’ve just been telling yourself, I just need to figure out my niche. I need to figure out my offer, my content strategy, and then I’ll be ready to start. If that is you. Then your problem, and this is great news. Your problem is just perfectionism, and that’s something that is really simple to overcome, especially once you know how it’s showing up for you, specifically when it comes to building your business.
This is why I created The Perfectionism Quiz, so it’s completely free. It takes less than three minutes, and you’re going to get a personalized report showing you which of the five perfectionist patterns is keeping you stuck, and you don’t need to fix all five. Just knowing your top pattern will show you where to start. So if you’re ready to follow through on your plans and actually build the business you know you’re capable of, go to samlaurabrown.com/quiz and take The Perfectionism Quiz now.