Overcoming the Paralysis of Perfectionism: One Entrepreneur's Journey [394]

Have you ever felt paralyzed by the fear of perfection as an entrepreneur? I sure have. Let me share a story—it starts with my husband's truck repair, but hang with me. This simple mechanic's tale opened my eyes to the crippling fear of perfectionism that I grappled with while launching my business. The dread of making mistakes or being judged can be debilitating, but with time and influence from authors like Brene' Brown, I realized that vulnerability and the ability to laugh at oneself could be our greatest strengths.

OMNI is my full visibility system built for CEOs who want to grow online without living on their phone. If you’re ready to be truly seen, more strategic, and unmistakably in demand, head to check out OMNI at www.omniqueens.com 

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:00

So my husband dropped his truck off at the shop to get some body work done before we went to Hawaii, so this would have been the end of March. And it's been there this whole time and he's messaging. He calls him a kid and he's like I feel bad because I just wanted to give him some business and I know he's just starting this thing, but he hasn't responded to me. The communication's been really bad. And I said, well, let's just go down there. And he said what? And I was like, yeah, just go down there. Like you have every right to go down there, it's not a big deal. And so we went down and basically what happened is the work hasn't been done, because he felt like it wasn't going to be right, like there was going to be a lot of imperfections. And my husband looked at him and said it's a work truck. Like nobody's going to see that scene. I don't care Like I just want the work done on the truck. It's got some rust on it, I just want it fixed.

Speaker 1 1:07

But it reminded me of when I first got into this business. Like I remember the first time I had to send somebody their content to review and it felt like a big heavy truck was on me, like on my chest, like I was so afraid of what they were going to think. And then when I started doing logos like when I would send people logos like I would literally hold my breath or if I didn't think somebody was going to accept my proposal, I would like hold onto it Like the fear of perfectionism is so huge as an entrepreneur and I think that's one of the main reasons that I struggled getting on video, because I was so petrified I'm going to mess up, I'm going to look like a fool, I'm going to say I'm too much, I'm going to have hives, people are going to make fun of me, like all the things that I could come up with I came up with. But as I've grown and as I've read books like Brene Brown, who you know doesn't believe in, like you know ashamed ourselves and things like that and all the people that talk about you know, showing your vulnerability is like a good thing, right, and when I started realizing that, especially on video, I was able to laugh at myself on video live, not delete it. I was able to go with the flow when things don't go my way on video. But it also helped me to not be as paralyzed with the fear of what people think, the fear of what's going to happen when I send that logo and they don't like it, the fear of you know what if somebody doesn't like the content that I create this week. You know, all of those things really, really helped me and it's actually helped form who I am today, because you know we have an inner circle call every week.

Speaker 1 2:54

I don't sit around in stress wondering if they're going to like it right. I mean, I am coming, from everything I do, very heart-led and very like. I feel like this is what people need and not everybody's gonna always need the same thing. Right, some people will have takeaways from some things and others will have it from others, and that's okay. But it doesn't cripple me the way that it used to, the way that it used to scare me, the way that it used to stop me, the way that it used to really just hold me back from going all in, the way that it used to hold me back from making quick decisions. I think that is another really cool thing to acknowledge is I can make quicker decisions now because I'm no longer worried that I'm gonna make the wrong decision, because here's the thing, I will make the wrong decision sometimes, but I just get to deal with it and I get to go with it and I can't stress about it because you know, the enemy of wealth is delay, and so it's just taught me so much.

Speaker 1 3:54

But it was very funny that even in the real world people like not just the online world, but in the real world people are worried about perfectionist, like let's count the months, it is July. Today is July. When you listen to this, it's gonna be July 14th. Right, and we dropped it off the end of March. Well, say, the last day of March. So let's just go ahead and say April first, just to be safe. So that's April, may, june that's three and a half months. That's a little extreme.

Speaker 1 4:31

And then I even told my husband, I said we should have came earlier. I said you should have given him that reassurance earlier. I mean, you wanted, you knew he was new in this business and you know. But we didn't know that's what was holding him up. You know we had no idea and it just got to the point where there was no communication and no responses back and he had, we had to make a decision.

Speaker 1 4:51

So we went down there and again, it's just very interesting of the things that we do and the things we avoid and the things we procrastinate because of fear, perfectionism and all the things that hold us back. And you know, I think about if that guy has been stressing out for three and a half months how much of his life like is he like literally lost stressing out about my husband's truck being perfect or not just communicating with him and saying, hey, I think I bit off more than I can chew, like can we talk about this? Can you come down here? Can we look at this? Like communication is so huge and that's not really what this podcast episode is specifically supposed to be about. But communication is huge In client customer relationships, all of it it's huge and I think a lot of times if we can just communicate so much more, it's gonna be so much better.

Speaker 1 5:49

But also we also get to stand in our power and believe that what we do is good enough and believe that what we do we're not doing surgery here, friends, at least not to my knowledge, nobody's doing surgery from an internet certification. So what we do is life changing. What we do matters and what we do works if people put in the work right. Our job is to provide a container or provide a service that can give our client right the possibility of success, and sometimes it's up to them on whether or not they're gonna accept that success or listen to our ideas or listen to our suggestions or listen to our strategy. But you get to decide. Don't stress your life away over perfectionism and fear and all those things. Move forward, make decisions quickly, believe in yourself, believe in your people and go do something today.