Hey, hey, hey friends, I am Dr. Patrice Buckner Jackson. But you can call me PBJ. And welcome to another episode of Heart Work with PBJ, where we are disrupting cycles of burnout and compassion fatigue. For people who serve from the heart. Friend, listen, I am so excited to let you know that now is the time to join the waitlist for the next cohort of the Heart Work Academy. I am so excited. Listen, we have a team I've had some women who have agreed to come on and help me serve well. This cohort will have eight weeks of live training and modules and worksheets and we're doing the work you hear me we are disrupting these cycles. So if you're interested in the Heart Work Academy, now is the time to join the waitlist, go over to www.heartworkacademy.com. And again, all of this will be in the show notes. But www.heartworkacademy.com There you can join the waitlist, the waitlist will have the opportunity to register first, we will have a limited number of seats 25 seats total. That's it in this cohort. And we'll be running the cohort in the month of May and June. So get signed up for the waitlist today. Again, go to www.heartworkacademy.com get signed up for the waitlist, and I cannot wait to serve you. Alright friends, let's get into this episode. For the next few weeks, as we prepare for the Heart Work Academy, we're going to be talking about perspectives that drive us to compassion fatigue. So I want to remind you of our definition of compassion. Fatigue is when caring has become too expensive. When caring and serving, and your personal investment has become too costly. And it has started costing you things that you're not willing to let go of, you're not willing to lose. So we are going to be disrupting cycles of compassion fatigue. But before we do that, I want to take us through a series of conversations of perspectives, mindsets, points of view that drives us to compassion fatigue. And the first thing I want to talk about is perfectionism. Friend, listen, I'm talking about it, because I know it, I have lived it, continue to live it and have to pull myself back from it. I'm here to tell you that perfectionism is a trap. It's a trap, it will stop you in your tracks. It will paralyze you, you know, we get so stuck in our heads, we get so focused, and listen, I get it like I'm a planner. I like to know what the first second third steps are. I like to know what I'm going to be doing a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, all of that is wonderful, right? If it were real. But I'm here to tell you that that's not how this works. We don't know day to day, what life will bring our way. And I'm not saying not to be a planner. But don't be so rigid in your need to plan that you never take a step. How often have we gotten stuck in our own heads, trying to figure out A to B to C. And then we're all the detours are from each one of those steps. And we think about it so long and so deeply that we look around and we haven't done anything yet. Because we are still stuck in our heads. Thinking about it. today. I want to help you get out of that mindset. I want to help you get out of your head so that you can start taking steps towards purpose towards the goal towards the thing that you're supposed to be doing. Nothing will change if nothing changes. You have to take steps and I'm not saying go do something just crazy risk. Just throw caution to the wind. That's not who I am. Okay, I believe in assessing the situation. But my friend we get so deep in the assessing and the assumptions and the thoughts that we don't do anything and we look around us And we wonder why people who are less capable people who have less experience people who have less skills, and I'm not listen, this is no shade on anybody. But the truth is the truth. You look around you and you think, how did that person get that? How did they get that life is not fair. It's not that life is not fair, regardless of what they had to give, they were bold enough to take a step. So we can't get frustrated. And we can't get mad when somebody was willing to do something, when all we were willing to do was think about it. So we got to find a way to get through this trap of perfection. Perfection is the number one track to purpose. It's the number one trap to purpose, because as long as you're stuck, trying to be perfect, you will never make progress. And friends, we take progress over perfection any day, and every day. So let's talk a little bit about where it comes from. Let's start with where this idea and this perspective of perfection comes from. For me, you know, I think back to my childhood. And honestly, I have to say that part of it is my personality, like part of it is just who I am, I see details, I think about details. So I'll give an example, if I'm going to plan your party, or it's going to be planned, from the colors, to the decor, to the theme to the invitations to who's on the guest list. That's just how I think it's actually a gift. But any gift out of order will become destructive, right? So there's a natural knack. There's a natural pool in me to think in detail, and to put things in order. But I also believe that because there's a natural Knack in me to do that, that I've taught people to expect a certain level. Now let's just be honest, I've never been perfect. Never been perfect. Nothing I've ever done has been perfect. But I have taught people around me to expect a certain level. And when people around you have been taught by you to expect a certain level. That's exactly what they're going to expect. So I remember even from childhood, with my grades, you know, I always got the honor roll always did. I miss the honor roll one time, and it almost wrecked me. You know, one of my uncle's he made it a habit. Whenever the honor roll, and I little town was released, he would go by that newspaper and look for my name. And that one time I missed it, I felt so bad. Because I knew my Uncle David was going to be looking for my name. And it wasn't going to be in the paper. The Uncle David loved me any less. No. Was he even disappointed in me, if he was he didn't communicate it, he still loved me, he still thought that the same of me. None of that change. But I put in my head, I put in my mind of all the things I have just disappointed on. So we teach people how to treat us. But then we add our own assumptions about what others might think. So this perfectionism, for me, is also an aspect of people pleasing. It's also an aspect of living up to what I think is somebody else's expectations of me. And I don't give myself room to make a mistake or to sidestep or for it not to be perfect. I don't make my I don't get myself wrong. And even I think it got deeper for me through my career. Because as an educator, think about it. If you get an answer wrong in education, you get a red mark, you get less points. You get a grade, you don't get an A. And I work in education. I work in an environment where there's very little room for failure, very little room for failure. And it might not even be failure. It doesn't even have to be failure. But if it's not according to somebody else's perspective, then there might be consequences for that. People might have something to say or you know, you might have to address it with a boss or there might be pressure from some students or parents because whatever the event or the thing was, didn't rise to everybody's expectations. So you continue to put this pressure on yourself, not to mention with valuate, and judge each other all the time in education, from writing a dissertation to going up to get tenure, all of these processes are you being addressed, undressed and evaluated. And I'm talking metaphorically speaking by your colleagues. So in the career field that I'm in, we are so used to being judged and not supported. So it further deepened the idea, that perspective of perfection for me, and I can't afford to mess up, I can't afford to lose, I can't afford not to show up and show out. And you know, even these ideas that were ingrained with, have, you got to work 10 times harder and, and you got to, you know, and I get it, I know where that comes from. I completely understand it as an African American female, I get that. But I'm also learning that there's grace. I'm learning that there's grace that I give to myself, even when systems and people don't give me that Grace, I'm learning to give that grace to myself. And you, I got to share an example with you, because I got to share where this wake up call came from, for me, and it just came to me to just plain as day one day, and it has never left me since then. So I use this phone, right? I'm sure you have a phone somewhere close to you this is my phone is always close to me. And it came to my attention one day that when the makers of this phone, sat down and decided that they were going to release this technology to the world, they didn't sit there and say, Oh, we got to wait, because we didn't fix this. And we didn't fix that. And it's not perfect. And you know what new technology comes out? And then it'll be behind? How do we do? They didn't hold on to the release, waiting for it to be perfect. You know, what those folks did? They release the phone, put a high price tag on it, and say we'll send you a software update. When we figure out that problem. How many software updates have you had, this is the iPhone 11. This is the iPhone 11. I think we're on 13 or 14, by now, what they've done is as they've learned more, then they've improved it, they upgraded it, put a higher price on it, and put it out here for us to buy. And we get in lines, either electronically or physically. And we buy them every time knowing that in the next couple of years, a better version is going to come out. So they're not stuck in perfection. Look at the number of companies that have changed their branding and change their logos and change their visions and change there. It's because clarity comes in the doing. That's one thing that I've learned from coaching programs that I've been a part of with Patrice Washington and with JaTeya Jones, they always say, clarity comes in the doing. What does that mean? If I stay stuck in my head, and never do anything? The questions that I have in my head will always be questions. They will I will never get the answers until I do something until I take a step. And as I take steps, then the clarity comes. And I learn as I go. And it gets better and better and better. And I'm giving myself grace to learn and improve as I go not as I think. So we've got to give ourselves permission and grace to just do the thing. Put the thing out there, step out on faith step out of the boat, because the only way that whatever your purpose, whatever your goal, whatever your thing is, will get better is for you to do it. You gotta do it. I'm here to tell you friends, that when I started my business when I started Educare and this podcast and all the things that I'm doing right now, I didn't know what I was doing. I had never had a business before. I had never done a podcast before. I remember recording my first podcast in my closet on my cell phone. I didn't have fancy mics or video cameras. My first videos were recorded on my cell phone with the light from my makeup mirror. Come on somebody. I started with what I had. I didn't wait to get all the answers. I didn't wait to figure it all out. I just started and as I went It got better and better. And I'm still learning. And it's still getting better. But I know and I have learned that it will only get better if I keep stepping. Is everything perfect? No, I post some things and I look back at them sometimes I'm like, what were you thinking? Oh, you know, you can spell better than that was that misspell? But you know what I'm doing? I'm getting clarity in the doing. I'm not worried about the judgment. I'm not worrying anybody who has anything to say, they're not my people. I'm not talking to you. If out of everything that I share, all you can see is the misspelled word, or the graphic that looks immature or, or looks like I don't have no skills, which I don't. Okay, I'm not a graphic artist. If that's all you see, you're not my people. I'm not talking to you. Because my people could care less. They could care less what the graphic looks like. They could care less about the misspell where they just hear for the message. Because their hearts have connected. And they hear truth here true for them. So here's the true for you friends. Perfection is a trap. And it is holding you back. It is holding you back from what you were called to do in the world. And we need you. We need you. We need your thing. We need what you were called to do. We're waiting. We're sitting here waiting on you to come forward. So how do you get out of the trap of perfection? Start one step at a time. One sloppy step at a time. I know, I know, your blood pressure just went up as soon as I said sloppy, but that's how it works. One sloppy step one step at a time, not perfection, not hitting the mark, not knowing all the answers, not doing all the things, but just a step of faith. One step of faith at a time. And if you will continue to step as you learn, Continue to Step. Before you know it, you will find yourself out of that trap. And you will see progress in your life. So let go of perfection. Like go a perfection. You can see all around you that there are businesses, there are people, they're individuals, there are groups who are just out here doing the thing out here doing the thing with sloppy steps, but they're doing it but they're moving, but they're progressing. So why not you? Why not? Are you as always friend, you know, you are powerful. You are significant. And you are loved. And ain't nobody out here looking for you to be perfect. So you can get out of that trap so that you can move towards purpose. Alright, that's all I got for you this week. I'll see you again next week. Bye