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 - Become Known, In Demand, and Confidently Visible
With a visibility strategy that works harder than you do.

OMNI is your group coaching experience where you learn how to create visibility that works harder than you do. A strategic blueprint to become discoverable on the feed, search and AI. https://thevisibleceo.com/omni 

Website: thevisibilityimpactshow.com

Brand: thevisibleceo.com 

Instagram: instagram.com/itscrissyconner 

TikTok: tiktok.com/@crissyconner 

Facebook: facebook.com/crissyconner 

YouTube: youtube.com/@CrissyConner 

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/crissyconner 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

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 .