Ep 53 - Perfectionism and Anxiety

In Episode 53 I'm talking about perfectionism.

We all want to do well but sometimes get caught in the perfectionism trap.

Trying to be the perfect partner, the perfect mom, or perfect at your job can make you feel stressed, anxious, and stuck.

If you notice you often doubt yourself,
worry about failing,
and never feel like you're "good enough,”
You're not alone.

Perfectionism can sneak in with the best intentions.
It may seem like you're just aiming for success,
but it can stop you from reaching your goals.

Try this with me.
👉 Imagine doing life without feeling like you must always be perfect.

👉 Picture yourself achieving your goals with confidence, taking risks, and having fun doing it.

When you let go of perfectionism, you'll:
🌟 Feel Less Stressed: You won't always have to meet impossible standards. You get to relax and enjoy progress.

🌟 Boost Your Confidence: You'll feel better about yourself, knowing you don't have to be flawless because flawless doesn’t exist.

🌟 Take More Action: You'll have the guts to chase your goals and try new things.

🌟 Have Better Relationships: You'll connect with others as your authentic self, without pretending to be perfect.

Check out Episode 53 then schedule a consultation call.
We'll figure out how perfectionism affects you, what you'd like to change, and how you can start living a life you love to live.

Talk to you soon.

Thanks for listening!

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Transcript

Megan Devito  0:03 
Welcome to the More Than Anxiety Podcast. I'm Megan Devito, and I'm a life coach for stressed out and anxious women who want more out of life. I'm here to help you create a life you love to live, where anxiety is holding you back. Get ready for a light hearted approach to managing anxiety through actionable steps, a lot of truth talk, and inspiration to take action so you walk away feeling competent, calm, and ready to live. Let's get to it.

Welcome to the More Than Anxiety podcast. This is episode 53 and today, this is going to be the most perfect episode I have ever created! Actually, I'm just kidding. Today we're gonna talk about why this episode is not perfect and you won't find a perfect episode here, ever. So don't get me wrong, I record some seriously great podcast episodes with tons of valuable information about anxiety and stress. I fit in all the things and not a single one will ever be perfect. So if you're wondering now if this is the right place for you... maybe you were hoping to find out how to be more perfect then Yeah, you're in exactly the right place. My name is Megan and I'm a life coach. I help anxious women who are out there killing it, feeling like they're barely keeping their heads above water because they are constantly anxious and stressed out trying to be perfect. Today we're crossing over to where perfection and anxiety collide.

This is just one of the common themes that I find when I'm helping women start to untie those knots that anxiety has caused. So the fear of not doing things perfectly of trying to have the perfect house, the perfect body, the perfect presentation, the perfect what ever comes up frequently and it's all wrapped up in what you think about yourself, and probably what you're afraid someone else will think of you. Let's just go ahead and get started talking about this.

Let's start with what the heck is perfectionism anyway. Perfectionism is a personality trait where someone, probably you, hold yourself to excessively high personal standards. I don't mean a high standard as in I want to do well and be like prosperous and all those things. I mean, like obscenely high. So people who are perfectionist tend to be pretty self critical about how much they do, about how they look, about how their work is done, or whatever else is on their mind. They also sometimes expect those standards out of other people. One of the things that I hear often from women that I work with who are dealing with perfectionism is that they just don't see a problem with aiming for perfection, and I get this. But let's be clear, wanting to do your best and holding others to a high standard is not the same as perfectionism. Having this healthy work ethic, and setting high goals, and tying up loose ends, and doing your best is great. But when you strive for flawlessness, and only focus on what doesn't work, that is entirely different. So let me give you an example of what this might look like for you and what it looked like when recently with someone I was I was coaching.

I was working with somebody who was incredibly intelligent, really excelling in her career, and who was becoming more anxious all the time. She was taking her work home with her, trying to have this like perfect next step and the perfect process in her work. She was incredible, like the dream employee. And she was staying up super late, waking up in the middle of the night to work on or to come up with new ideas. And it was all because of this fear that she would miss a thought or an idea that was absolutely necessary for her to be able to make it to the next level in her industry. And she was exhausted, and feeling super overwhelmed and anxious, from not only missing out on sleep, but also from being constantly vigilant to be sure that she didn't miss anything. But here's the thing. She knew that she was full of lots of really incredible ideas. And she also knew that she was great at her job. But her needs to be perfect was what was holding her back. It's not that she thought she was no good at all, it's that she knew she was good, but not quite yet perfect. Maybe that sounds like you.

So this problem of trying to do and to be perfect isn't new. It's just seems to be more prevalent than it has been in the past. And I recently saw an article and it was speaking mostly about Millennials and Gen Z and how they are falling so much into this perfection trap. Maybe due to helicopter parenting, and as a Gen Xer, I don't know how we landed here or flew over I guess if we're talking about helicopters, but I don't I'm definitely not a helicopter parent. My mom might have been a little more helicoptery than me, which is funny because she's definitely not a Gen Xer. But maybe this is due to like generational things, maybe it's due to social media, or social standards. Maybe it's due to the economic and that world climate of having to prove ourselves all the time to feel like we're not gonna get anywhere. Whatever it is, it's causing more mental health issues, and more reluctance to even step out or step up, and we need these generations running on full force! I don't know if you've noticed, but it's been really hot this summer and my greatest existential, I don't know, if we want to call it a crisis, or dread, or anxiety always comes from the climate. And I have to really hold a lot of stock in these Gen Z and Millennial people to be able to help us solve this problem. And when they're afraid to step out, because they're afraid they have to be perfect, this is a major concern for me. So if you are listening to this as a Gen Z, or Millennial person, please hang tight, because I'm going to tell you how I can help you stop tripping over your own expectations for yourself, and for the other people in maybe your generation and mine, so that you can stop feeling so anxious and stressed out and go be amazing. I really, really want you to be amazing.

So let's start with the connection between anxiety and perfectionism. Anxiety, remember, I've talked about this in the past, it's just a feeling in your body that causes your brain to start figuring out what it has to do to keep you safe. When you're focusing on being perfect, or even so that you fit in or so you do enough so you can be successful, whatever it is that you're thinking, your brain just assumes you're in danger of being kicked out of your community. This might be fired from your job, or kicked out of your family, or your friend group, or the mom club, or even whatever some standard is in society or social media. It doesn't matter. The more you focus on what you think that you're messing up, or that you're not doing enough of, the more anxious that you'll become. So perfectionism is a symptom of anxiety. You guys with me there? So when you tell yourself that you're failing, because you didn't do something the way that you pictured it, or the way that you saw it on social media, or that your success really depends on never messing up and making a mistake, you are setting yourself up for more anxiety and more stress. The more you tell yourself you're failing, or that you're not good enough, or that you'll never get it right, the more that is exactly what you will see, because you're creating this cycle of shame and embarrassment that doesn't have to be there. And often, it's because you your step one is somebody else's step 1547. A lot of this can be stopped by just creating goals that aren't too easy, but that aren't so off-the-charts-big from the get go. Instead of aiming for the end result, or aiming for what you see, maybe somebody who's a little further in their career than you are somebody who's putting their highlight reel on Instagram instead of aiming for that. Let's just start with one step. Let's start with the beginning.

It seems so obvious when I say start at the beginning, not at the end. I love this part of coaching though. I get to like, I really get to hear exactly what you want, so that we can look at that big time goal, but then help you create this vision of what it looks like too. Because we see something on Instagram and when we get really clear on what we want, sometimes that's not it. Or you see what the people who are really excelling at what you want to do and you think maybe that's the way it's supposed to be and they've got it all together. But when you start digging into what you really want, sometimes what you want is actually a little different, and it's just the pressure to be that other person or have the other person's success that's getting you. All of that's okay, but we start this on a consultation call. And this is where I'll talk with you about what's tripping you up, or what you're stressing about, or what's causing you to feel anxious, and then we'll talk about what you want instead, and we'll find the places where perfectionism is sneaking into your job, or your relationships, your home life, your health, and we'll wrap them all up into this picture of the future that's exciting for you to think about...going after it instead of having it be scary and out of reach and someplace where you're just floundering from the get go. You get to feel motivated and know that you're not only going to feel more energized, but you're gonna have some good steps to follow just to get you started toward what you want. Without having to be perfect.

Here's why this is different from what you might be doing right now. When you create goals and you're focused on the perfect ending with the perfect steps to get you there, you're setting yourself up for a lot of frustration, shame and disappointment. And this doesn't look the same for everyone. For some people, perfectionism might be trying to keep their house perfectly clean all the time, looking like some posts from The Spruce. And for somebody else, it might be spending way too much time trying to type a simple email reply, just to be sure that they say the exact right thing in the exact right way. And then for somebody else, it might be refusing to go out until they look as close to Margot Robbie as possible, or you know, like whoever it is that you think is perfect right now. She just popped into mind because she's Barbie, for crying out loud. Barbie has always been perfect, right? I want to stop right there, though. And I want to emphasize the word think, because perfectionism always comes back to this one word. It's what you think perfect is. What you think the perfect house looks like. What you think the perfect job is, the perfect body, the perfect response, the perfect presentation. When you have this vision in your mind of what you think perfect is and, you're using that thought about perfect to show you how valuable you think that you are, you feel that you are; if that's determining your worth or your ability, you're not dealing with their perception of perfect. This gets really sticky really fast. Because who decides what's perfect? Is it you? Or is it the person that you're trying so hard to impress? This is why having an unattainable standard is such a catch 22. And please notice that I didn't say high standards. Set high standards for yourself, and make them a goal to work for, but don't attach those goals to who you are as a person. You are more than your job. You are more than how your hair looks for the day. You are more than, like the cereal that got dumped on your floor at breakfast.

I have seen this so many times, women telling me how they'll never be as beautiful or as thin as their sister, or they'll never be as together as their mom. And they'll never be as smarte or as lucky as their co worker. When you start going down that path of trying to be someone else and to do it the way that you think it should be done, you're gonna stress. And the more you stress, the more you're going to become anxious, and you're not giving your best to the world. You're trying to be somebody else's best. What if your best is messy, and creative, and totally unique, and exactly what we need, and what you need to do. Does that sound a little too outlandish? Because if it does, I'm going to ask you to play a little game with me and consider what it would look like to have no expectations for a minute. Don't freak out. No, I don't mean no goals, and no focus. Goals and focus are great. I mean, no expectations about what you think you should do, or look like, or who you should be. Imagine what you'd feel like if you didn't have to do the way... or do it the way someone else was doing it. If you did your best and let it be exactly right. Right now, to get you to the next step. Can you even imagine that or how like how that would be if you didn't worry about what other people were doing, or how you would measure up? I'll tell you right now your stress is gonna go down, and your ability to actually do what you want, and have what you want, will go up. I have seen this over and over in my own life, and with my clients. And I know this is possible for you too.

The longer you stay focused on trying to be perfect, and to do all the perfect steps in the right order, the more you're going to feel overwhelmed, and then the more anxious and the more stressed, you're gonna feel. The more you tell yourself, you're not doing it right, that you're not enough, or that you'll never get where you think you should be, the worst you're going to feel about yourself. So let's just knock this out right now, by taking a breath and giving yourself plenty of grace. Right away, we already know that you're motivated, you have big dreams, and you are full of excitement. Amazing! These are all incredible things. And now it's time to have some compassion for yourself. And to get to the bottom of what you think will happen if things aren't perfect. What if you fail? What does that even mean to you? What is perfect look like? These are all the things that I'm going to help you explore through coaching. And you can learn more about how I can help you on a consultation call that I mentioned earlier.

Before I go, I want to offer something that I know about you right now that is 100% true, even if we've never met or never talked, because I believe this absolutely to my core. And I believe it's the one thought that can open up an entirely new perspective on why you have to let go of perfect and go all in on just being yourself. Even if right now you think you're a hot mess, because I know and I believe that you have a specific purpose, or a unique way of being that is exactly what this world needs. You might not be the next Steve Jobs, or the next Taylor Swift, but you are the perfect person to do what you're supposed to do the way that you are supposed to do it. This world needs everyone, each person being who they are, and who they were created to be. We don't need clones and duplicates. We need you embracing your own way of thinking, and doing to make the world go around. And you do that by loving who you are, right where you are, and sharing your authentic self, even when it scares you. Even when you feel anxious. My reason for being here is to help you to learn to feel anxious on purpose, without it taking over your life. So you can be this incredible human that you are. I'm going to help you find her. And we're going to do that by using mindfulness and honesty and introspection, and a whole lot of grace and self compassion. You can schedule that call with me by going to the show notes, or by going to my website. It's just www.megandevito.com/workwithme, then you just choose a time that works for you. You're gonna give me a call. And we're going to talk about what you want to do, and what's stopping you from doing it right now. We'll also find other areas where perfectionism might be sneaking into your life and come up with a way for you to let go and to finally have some more fun and to go after your goals without getting stressed, anxious, overwhelmed, defeated and everything else. Okay, guys, that's all I have for you this week. And if I don't talk to you before, I will be back again next week. Take care.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of The More Than Anxiety podcast. Be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And of course, if you're ready to feel more relaxed, have more energy, more confidence and a lot more fun. Go to megandevito.com/workwithme or just the show notes to talk to me more about coaching. See you soon

Transcribed by https://otter.ai