If you’ve fallen off with something and you’re struggling to get back on track – whether it’s posting consistently on social media or anything else – this episode is for you.
I’m sharing a concept that has helped me bypass the mental drama of being off track so I can just carry on with whatever it is I’m wanting to do. I also share why I don’t think the concept of “never missing a habit twice” is helpful for perfectionists and a more powerful way to think about it.
This is an important episode for all perfectionist entrepreneurs – especially if you struggle to consistently follow through with your plans.
To learn the simple steps to plan properly as a perfectionist, sign up for my free training here: samlaurabrown.com/planningseries.
If you’re ready to consistently follow through with your business plans without burning out, you want to join Perfectionists Getting Shit Done (PGSD). Sign up now and get started today at samlaurabrown.com/pgsd.
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
This is the Perfectionism Project, the only podcast created specifically for perfectionists who are building businesses. I’m your host, Sam Laura Brown, perfectionism expert and entrepreneur. I teach perfectionists how to plan properly, consistently follow through and rest without guilt so they can build profitable and fulfilling businesses without burning out.
I’ve helped over a thousand perfectionist entrepreneurs do exactly that inside my program, Perfectionist Getting Shit Done. If you’re tired of procrastinating, overthinking and half finishing your ideas, you’re in the right place. Now, let’s dive in.
Sam Laura Brown (Start of the episode)
Okay, so I want to do this episode about this concept of acting as if you never fell off the wagon. And I will tell you what I mean by that in this episode. But if you find that you have a hard time getting back on track, once you have gotten off track, then this is going to be super helpful. And in this episode, I’m going to tell you about how to think about it so you can just get back on track really easily. And also, as we go on, I’m sure I’ll get into some of the nuance because you might hear something like act as if you never fell off the wagon, which is essentially saying, for example, if you miss a couple of weeks of doing something, the example I’m going to talk about in this episode is power planning.
If you missed a couple of weeks of power planning, just act as if you never fell off with it and keep going. That you might think, okay, but then I’m literally just ignoring what the problem actually is. And like, it can just feel unsafe to just allow ourselves to without drama, continue on with something that we want to do. So I’m going to talk about that in this episode. So what happened this morning was that I got a WhatsApp message from one of my clients that I work with privately.
She’s also in PGSD, and she said to me that she had fallen off essentially with power planning, that she hasn’t power planned out the last couple of weeks and that she was just noticing that, A, she wants to return to power planning. It just helps her work so much better. But, B that it was feeling like such a big deal and did she need to self-coach in it, or were there any podcast episodes I’ve recorded to help her get back on track with power planning? And like, basically, how would I recommend that she approaches getting back on track with her power planning?
And so what I shared with her, which is a concept I have lived by for a long time, and I don’t know if there’s a podcast episode on it. I had a search, I swear I’ve talked about it on the podcast at some point, but I couldn’t see an episode on it. And so I wanted to record this one to really give you a concept that is going to help you continue on with things, even when you have missed them or not done them for a few weeks, or even a few months or even a few years. So something as well that came up as I was just jotting down some of my thoughts for this episode, is this concept from James Clear, which is the never miss twice rule. And I want to share with you why I don’t agree with the rule in terms of how perfectionist brains work, that I think it can actually be unhelpful.
And I think some of the core concepts in there are really helpful. But just the presentation of this idea, which is essentially you can skip a habit or something you want to do once, but never, never, never, never miss it twice. Because then it’s this snowball effect that once you miss something twice, you now have negative momentum to overcome, and it’s just way easier to only miss doing it once mistakes happen, but never not do it twice. And when I read that book, Atomic Habits that it’s in a few years ago, I just found that concept because I obviously teach and coach perfectionist entrepreneurs how to make plans and follow through with them and get shit done that if you’re a perfectionist and you follow that kind of approach, which basically treats us as quite fragile, which is you aren’t capable of recovering from more than missing something twice.
If you miss more than twice, it’s shot, it’s done. You can’t actually recover, so only miss once and then you can recover it and keep going. And you don’t have this negative momentum. But realistically, what happens is we’re humans. And if you have a perfectionist brain, sometimes there will be a lot of resistance from your perfectionist brain to doing something that you want to do, and doing something that needs to be done to build your business. And sometimes, no matter how hard you are trying, you will miss it more than twice. So say for example, if you want to be posting consistently on social media and you want to post every day, and then you miss one day, the concept of never miss twice would be you better make damn sure you are back on track the next day posting again.
But then realistically, depending on the reason that you aren’t posting, maybe you have some perfectionist fear coming up. There’s something else and it takes you more than a day to gather yourself around it and get back going again. That if you’re then in the mindset of, well, now I’ve missed twice and now I’m in this big negative spiral, I don’t think that’s helpful. I also really deeply believe in taking into account the fact that we’re human, the fact that we’re not perfect, the the fact that we are going to sometimes miss twice or miss things for a month or for sometimes even years and that we can recover anything. You can get back on track with anything, no matter how hard it has been to get back on track with previous attempts, no matter how long it has been that you have been off the wagon, if you will. We perfectionist without all or nothing thinking like to be either on track or off track. We’re either ahead or we’re completely behind.
Like we tend towards that all or nothing thinking. So given this is the case, if we have a rule like never miss twice, we are going to then beat ourselves up when we inevitably, inevitably do miss something twice, and then have an even harder time recovering. Because a concept like that creates us in our own minds to be fragile and not capable of recovering. And I want you to really see yourself as you are so capable of recovering any habit, anything that you want to do, no matter how long you have not been doing it for, and that you can just powerfully step back into whatever it is you are wanting to do and keep on doing it as if you never fell off the wagon in the first place. That no matter how long it has been, no matter how many times you have missed that you can just keep on going. As if there was never that big amount of negative momentum to overcome.
I’m going to share a few examples in this episode, but I really just want to start fundamentally with the premise that you are so capable and you are so capable of recovering things and powerfully stepping back in. So if we look at what actually allows you to get back on track with anything, whether it’s posting on social media, whether it is power planning or anything else, what is going to allow you to get back into it is the absence of a story that you have been off track, that you’re off the wagon, and that you now have to figure out what to do to get yourself back going again. So like this client who messaged me asking for my advice and my coaching, she was thinking, okay, now I have to do this self coaching and, and listen to something inspiring to get me back on track.
And like it’s now I need to put all of this energy not just into doing the power planning itself, but also into getting myself geared up to be power planning again. And what I said to her was just act as if you haven’t missed any power planning at all. Like that’s the guiding question. What would I be doing right now if I hadn’t missed any power planning at all? And I was still consistently power planning each week? Oh, I’d start with doing my weekly review to reflect on the previous week and gather the lessons from that. And then I would do my power hour and plan out the coming week. And then that’s what you can do.
You can just skip the part where you need to do all the self-coaching and get yourself motivated and get yourself inspired again. You can just carry on with it instead of needing to overcome all of the time that you’ve been away and kind of like all of this energy, like getting ready to get ready and getting geared up, like anytime we think something is a big deal and our perfectionist brains think things are such a big deal, it makes everything a big deal. Because if it’s a big deal, it’s hard to do. And if it’s hard to do, we won’t do it and we won’t risk putting ourselves out there and being rejected for either being successful or for being a failure. And all of those things. Our perfectionist brains are trying to keep us safe.
So one of the ways it does that is making things a big deal so that they are harder to do, and we are more likely to not do them and stay in our safe little cocoon. Navigating hurt, never achieving the success we want and the fulfillment we want, but ultimately never getting hurt and no one ever having to see that we are, in fact, imperfect and inadequate and flawed. So we need to know our perfectionist brain is going to operate like that. It’s going to try to produce a story that it is a big deal, that I have fallen off the wagon. And you might use language like, say, for example, if you’re thinking about your week, like, oh, the whole week was a wash. It was ruined. Like just pay attention to any of that all or nothing thinking and language that is either having you be on track or off track or everything is good or it’s horrible, all of that.
We want to make things that are a big deal. That language makes it a big deal and have them be a small deal, because when something’s a small deal, we can just do it so much more easily. And the way that we make things a big deal the most is with our language and with our stories that we tell ourselves. So it’s a big deal that you have missed power planning for a few weeks or a few months. Then it is going to feel even harder to do. It’s going to be harder to connect back in, and then that’s further going to perpetuate and elongate how long you’re not doing the thing for. And so what James Clear is talking about is, hey, don’t even get in that situation in the first place. Just never miss twice. But the reality is sometimes you’re going to miss twice.
But if you see yourself as highly capable of recovering any habit and just getting back in because you have the ability to take what would otherwise be a big story, this is such a big deal, and I have so much negative momentum. And to make it small, that can have you just stepping back in. And there are so many times that I have done this myself, especially with social media and Instagram, my perfectionist brain, when there’s a like instant feedback on what you’re posting, like all of that kind of environment, my perfectionism handbrake with Instagram has come on more than, say, podcasting, for example. That’s not the case for everyone, but for me it has been. And so the best thing to do if you haven’t say, let’s say you are posting consistently and then you fall off and then you post consistently again and then you fall off. Often what can happen is, and this also back in the day when I started as a blogger with my personal development blog Smart Twenties.
This happened for me that I would post and initially in the beginning. So I posted and then I completely ghosted for three months. I was just like so embarrassed that I was even trying. And then I was like, okay, I’m gonna post every day just to give myself something that helps me to not overthink. I just need to publish something every day. It’s just going to be a link to someone else’s thing, and I’m just going to publish it and move on. But then after that, what would happen is that if I fell off with that because I missed once and then I missed twice that, then it felt like such a big deal to get back on. And because I’d been away for so long, then there’d be so much pressure. And I just remember this so clearly writing and painstakingly perfecting a blog post because I hadn’t posted in three months.
So the next post I do better make up for it. It better be damn good to make up for the fact that I have been absent. So of course that puts the pressure on which turned my perfectionism handbrake on. And then I’d polish and polish and polish and polish and it would take way longer to even get it done, thus increasing the pressure on each piece of content because there was less of it. So every piece of content carried more weight. So in that situation, it just felt like I couldn’t just get back to it and just get back in the rhythm. I hadn’t learned or figured out this concept yet, that I could just act as if I was already in my regular routine and just return to that and carry on, and that that was actually going to be way better, way easier produce way higher quality content. Because I wasn’t so in my head about it, polishing out all the actual rawness and realness and the things that made it connecting and carry on.
I didn’t know that was a thing that I could do. And so instead, it was just such a big deal. And the same as I said with Instagram, that when I stopped posting, then I’d feel like, okay, what’s the perfect post to post when I come back? And like almost feeling like actually feeling like I need to announce that I’m back and where I’ve been and hey, guess what? Now I’m going to be consistent this time and all of that drama surrounding it. Instead of just spending all of that time that went into that inner turmoil and mental drama and posting. And the same thing with the power planning.
As I said, instead of spending all that time getting yourself to get ready to overcome all of the, like all of the, I want to say big deal. That’s not really a word, but like, if it’s such a big deal, then it’s not only the energy of doing the actual thing we have to muster up and gather up, but also the energy to overcome it and do it. When there’s so much resistance from this story that it’s such a big deal. So if you aren’t posting consistently on social media and let’s say you have been before, and then you fall off for a little while, and then you go back to being consistent, and then you fall off for a little while. One of the best things that you can do is to just allow yourself to keep posting as if you were never gone. You’re not trying to make up for your absence by now.
Definitely proving to yourself that you can finally post consistently or anything like that. It’s just acting as if you never stopped it and asking yourself, if I was posting consistently or whatever schedule it is that you have. If I was posting that way, then what would I post today? And then it removes or I wouldn’t be announcing I’m back because I haven’t been gone. I wouldn’t have to do this perfect post to make up for my absence because I haven’t been absent. I just share something valuable and I’d move on with the rest of my day. And so you can then do that. Even if you’re at the stage where sharing something valuable and helpful takes you still a long time to do.
In PGSD, you’ll learn how to think differently so your content creation time decreases, but you can get back into it by sidestepping the whole story that you’re off it, and therefore you have to really build up to it. And really, when I try to go back to when did I really learn this concept of just act as if you were still on the wagon? It’s when I went on a trip, I believe it’s when I went to the United States for a business trip, I went to a Tony Robbins event. And then I also hosted a business workshop when I was in LA. I’m pretty sure this is a trip I could be misremembering, though I’d say my sleep is better now.
The kids are mainly all sleeping through though. Last night everyone individually at different times needed a water bottle refill. But anyway, I’m better rested overall. So I think it was that trip that at the time I was doing quite a bit of running when I was at home, and then I went away on that trip and I didn’t go for any runs. I’m sure I would have packed my stuff with the good intentions of doing exercise, and then I didn’t do the running that I thought I might. And so when I came back and I could even be misremembering, did I even tend to do it? I’m pretty sure I intended to do it while I was away. When I came back, instead of going into the mindset of like, now I have to get back on track with it and like gear myself up to do it again and get back into it.
And like all of this, I’ve fallen off drama. I just went into the mentality of, I’m just going to act as if I never missed any of the runs, as if this is just a normal run for me. I.E., it’s not a big deal. I’m just going for my normal run. And sometimes it feels great and sometimes it doesn’t. And I’m just going to do it and then move on with my day. And this is something even recently and it was so helpful to do that. By the way, this is something recently that I have done. Like literally about a week ago, I was talking about this in the most recent PTSD call that I have been wanting to run and I haven’t been. And I feel like to be fair to me, we have had a lot of daycare sickness with four kids in daycare, and so that has been a disruption to the plan.
But also there were for sure times where I was healthy enough to go for a run, and I chose not to go for a run because I didn’t want the discomfort of running, even though I actually do like challenging myself and being uncomfortable. And I feel like my mindset is way more on point when I’m challenging myself in that way. But anyway, I wasn’t running and I wanted to be, and I had a conversation with Steve because I was like, can you just help me get my head in the right place with this running? Because I want to be running, but it’s not happening. Do I need to change what my plan is? Like, do I need to, instead of doing running, do something else because I do want to do weights again? Like what’s the approach to take? And really where we got to with it, which was super helpful as he talked me through it. And I was like, just like, let’s just, you know, just humor me.
Pretend I know nothing about how to get back into running. Humor me. What would you recommend? And Steve’s really fit. And I also think he should be a coach and am always just watering that seed, if you will. But he’s great at reflecting things back and asking great questions. And so as we were talking out the plan, it really just came to me of like, oh, I can just get back to running. And I could see for me that I had been trying to avoid the discomfort of running because of course, whenever you return to anything, it is going to be uncomfortable. And often like exercise is such a great example, but the same with the power planning. Like if you haven’t been doing it for a little while, it will be more uncomfortable. Just because you’re out of practice, you’re not as fit as you normally would be. That’s not a reason not to do it.
That’s actually a reason to do it is to increase your fitness. But we can go into that mindset of just feeling resistant to having the discomfort, or like, I shouldn’t have fallen off and judging ourselves for things and just being like not wanting to do it even though we really want to do it. And this is especially important, this concept is that you are doing it with something you genuinely want to do. It’s not just and this is just overall in general, what I teach. I’m not trying to teach you how to follow through on the the shoulds and the half do’s and the things you don’t actually want to do. I’m here to help you build a profitable and fulfilling business by working with your perfectionist brain, doing things in a way that’s in alignment with your values.
So for me, I wanted to run it wasn’t this should that I felt like I should be a runner. I genuinely wanted to run. I also wanted to return to weights. And I also have other responsibilities as a mom, as a business owner, with our routines and things like that, that someone obviously needs to be taking care of the kids at all times. So if I’m out exercising, that means Steve or someone else needs to be looking after the kids like there’s logistics involved that didn’t used to be involved for me going for a run, but also pre-kids. I had resistance to going for a run. I wanted to always do a good run. I wanted to make sure like it felt good.
And this is the other thing with the power planning that I said to my client is that like, expect it to feel a little bit more challenging than normal the same way, like getting back to running. And like when I got back to weights as well. So I was doing that last week, I did a leg workout and I had Doms. When you have the sore muscles from the workout, I had that really intensely to the point where if the kids would lean on my legs, I’d be like, stop, stop, stop. I had that for a solid four, if not five days, when normally it’d be like two days of sore legs, not comfortable, but bearable. Like it was really uncomfortable. And of course it was. I hadn’t done a leg workout and I did not the most intense one ever, but I did do a solid one. And so my legs were sore and I was prepared for that.
I was prepared that it was going to be uncomfortable. The same way with getting back into running, I was prepared that it was going to be a little more uncomfortable. And that’s okay, and that’s not a reason not to do it. The irony being, when I did do that first run back, if you will. I’ve already been playing tennis quite regularly each week. It’s not like I hadn’t been working out. I do have a decent level of fitness and a decent level of strength, as I’ve always carrying kids around and like doing all of that active stuff as a parent. But it was actually, I was like pleasantly surprised with how easy it was compared to what I thought it would be. We can always make it such a big deal in our brains. The same with getting. If it’s getting back into power planning, you might just sit down and do it and be like, oh yeah, I know what I’m doing and I can just do it.
So it can be a pleasant surprise sometimes to find that that thing we thought would be so hard and that we’d been avoiding because we didn’t want it to be so hard, hot. It was going to be such a big deal. Isn’t even a big deal. Or sometimes it can be really challenging. And that especially like fitness is such a great example when you get back to it that if you aren’t as fit, then you will be more puffed, you will be more sore, but you can also scale back what you’re doing and that’s okay. Super okay to do. I said that to the person that I was messaging my client. I said, just do a brief weekly review. Don’t have to do the full thing. Just do the power hour as best you can. It doesn’t have to be this perfect thing. Again, all of that making it a small deal. Because mentally, when things are a small deal, we can get back on track and just pick it back up and do it.
So you want to start noticing every time your brain makes something into a big deal, or notice it as often as you can, because there’ll be lots of little ways and big ways your brain does this. But the more you can notice when your brain makes something a big deal, and I point this out on PGSD coaching calls and an ask a coach. We always want to make it into a small deal, as that empowers you to get it done. When we feel like the circumstance or the task at hand is bigger than we are, it is really hard to do it. We have to be so motivated, so disciplined, so inspired. We have to use force to get it done. If you see yourself as bigger than your circumstance. So by making it a small deal that you fell off the wagon, you are then bigger than your circumstance. You are above it. You can handle it.
It is within your capacity. It is within your capability to do the thing that you need to do. So act as if you are still on the wagon and that you never missed a beat is a way to help you increase your capacity and your capability so that you are bigger than the small deal that is. Yeah, you didn’t do it for a little while. Okay, just pick it up and keep on going. And I one hundred percent get as a perfectionist with a perfectionist brain. How our brains really want to make it a big deal. Like it can be one thing to hear this and be like, yeah, yeah, I know, I could just pick back up and keep on going. But then we have all these yeah buts. Yeah, but what about this? And that’s what I went through with the running.
I was like, yeah, but like, I just feel like I just don’t feel comfortable when I’m running compared to when I used to go running, I just physically felt more comfortable then than I do now. But also the only way to get back to that weight and that body that I had that did feel more comfortable running is to do exercise. And I’m not saying running is the only way. I know there’s lots of different options, but yeah, okay. And that’s actually fine. It’s not actually a big deal. So you go through all of your yeah buts and you make the yeah but, you change them from being a big deal to being a small deal by changing your perspective and changing the way that you think about it, so that you change your feeling by going from feeling overwhelmed. It’s such a big deal to get back into power.
Planning to feeling capable. Oh yeah, I can just pick right back up. Oh yeah. It’s not a big deal that I haven’t posted for three months. I can just post today as if I never left. And we all know intellectually, like if someone you follow hasn’t posted for three months, maybe you notice and think about them every now and again. But it’s not consuming a lot of your thoughts. And then when they post again, you’re just delighted to see them back. You don’t need this big explanation. You don’t want a big announcement. Hey guys, I’m back. Don’t worry, I’m here. I’m never going to leave again. You just want them to show up and do the thing you like, that they do. So we want to get into the mindset of this is actually a small deal. I can just pick back up where I left off and it might be a bit more uncomfortable. It might not. I might be pleasantly surprised that it’s actually I actually haven’t decreased my fitness that much. I haven’t actually lost my skills or any of those things that much.
I actually it feels pretty similar as if I was just continuing. It might be like that. It might be really challenging and all of that is okay, but you can power yourself up by acting as if you never fell off the wagon in the first place. So rather than trying to never miss twice, and then therefore essentially treating yourself as fragile as in you’re the kind of person who, if you miss more than twice, you can’t recover it. Oh no, you can recover it. You just power yourself up by changing your thinking and thinking. The thinking you want to have is, oh, I’m just going to continue on like it’s not, oh, now I have all this negative momentum to overcome. And it’s like all of this like spiraling like, oh no, I just continue on. And there are probably areas in your life where, where you do fall off, you just continue on without drama. Once you decide super important, there needs to be a decision.
I’m getting back on. I’m doing that thing and it’s, it’s so much better to not even be in any language whatsoever of I’m on the wagon, I’m off the wagon, I’m on track. I’m behind like any of that just perpetuates it and makes that story bigger. Instead, I’m a runner. Sometimes I go running most of the time. Often. Sometimes I don’t. When I don’t, I just get back to running. I post on Instagram. If I don’t post there for a while, I just get back to posting. I power plan. If I don’t power plan for a while, I just get back to power planning. You can tell in that language it is way less of a big deal, which then makes you bigger than your circumstance and enables you to follow through with the thing you want to do without needing all this time for self-coaching and listening to something inspiring and getting ready to get ready to do it.
And then as well, when we take that approach, we want that thing to feel so good and so perfect and just like, have it be a sign that, yes, we’re going to do well now and we’re going to stay on the wagon because we’re trying to prove to ourselves that we can finally stay on track. Oh, no. Like I’m just doing the thing. And of course, if I just miss some time, whether it’s twice or more, I just get back on. I think that’s the most powerful place to be, where your identity is, that you are someone who can recover any habit, that you are someone. And even if it wasn’t a solid habit to begin with, you might be listening to this and be like, but what if you aren’t a consistent runner to start with? What if you aren’t consistently on social media to start with? There’s so much I could say about like what it means to be consistent.
But fundamentally, I would say it just means following through more often than not. We often as perfectionists think being consistent means being perfect. And if we’re not doing something perfectly, we just fall off completely and like we’re not doing it. It’s not worth doing at all. So but if you haven’t even had, let’s just say it’s true, you haven’t even had that habit in the first place to be able to pick it back up. Okay, you just pick back up with developing the habit, if that’s where you need to go. Just pick up with being the person who’s becoming a runner. Just pick back up with being the person who is showing up on Instagram or TikTok or your podcast or Substack or whatever platform it is. So you don’t have to have a consistent habit that you do perfectly and then you can recover it. No, you’re the person who can recover the habit itself if you already had it.
And if you didn’t yet, you can recover and go back into just being the person who’s developing that habit that you don’t need to lose all of this time and mental energy towards, oh my God, it’s such a big deal that I fell off. Like, no, just carry on as if you didn’t fall off and any energy that would go into the big story and then overcoming that big story, that it’s such a big deal, you put that energy into doing the actual thing. And this is such a key part of being able to get more done in less time is you just change what you do with your time and energy. So instead of having so much time going to mental drama, you can skip that and have it go to doing the actual thing that needs to be done.
And therefore, not only will that be more effective because there wasn’t all the mental drama with it, but you will need less time because you don’t need all the time for all the extra self-coaching and listening to inspiring things and going on YouTube to look for inspiring advice or asking AI what to do or any of that, you can just get back into it. So this episode is my invitation to you, wherever it is in your business, that you have fallen off, especially if it has been something that you have fallen off with for a long time, that you today, or whenever you decide super important, you got to decide. Not hope, not wish, not intend.
You need to decide when you decide. Oh yeah, I’m just getting back to that thing. You can do that. I see you as that person who is so capable of recovering any habit, or being back into that version of you that was developing the habit that is available to you right now. It is one decision away and you can make that decision today. I hope you found this episode incredibly helpful, and I will talk to you in the next one.
Outro
If you struggle to build your business due to procrastination or overthinking, or maybe you keep burning yourself out, I want to invite you to join my program, Perfectionist Getting Shit Done. Inside, I will teach you my proven process for getting shit done as a perfectionist entrepreneur. In case you didn’t know, perfectionists can’t follow the same productivity advice as everyone else.
When we do, we get in our own way. So let me teach you what works inside the program. It’s simple and anyone can learn.
To sign up today, visit samlaurabrown.com/pgsd. I’ll see you inside.