Episode 11: The Fear Factor: Overcoming Career Paralysis

Join Caroline Esterson in "Little Moves, Big Careers" as she tackles the crippling effects of perfectionism in the workplace. 

This episode features career strategist, therapeutic counsellor and coach, Chris Mooney, who shares insights on overcoming fear and embracing progress. Learn actionable strategies to boost your career momentum by prioritising progress over perfection. Discover why "practice makes progress" is the key to success, and get ready for next week's deep dive into psychological safety with expert Gary Keogh. Don't miss out on transforming your career with these powerful insights!

Key Takeaways

• Don't wait for the perfect moment to act.
• Perfectionism can disguise itself as diligence.
• Fear of judgment and failure often holds us back.
• Progress is more important than polish.
• Ask better questions to unlock momentum.
• Sharing ideas early can ignite collaboration.
• Celebrate effort, not just completion.
• Practice makes progress, not perfection.
• Embrace your flaws as part of growth.

Sound bites

"Embrace your flaw-som-ness."
"Practice makes progress."
"You just need more courage."

Useful Links

• Grab your Perfectionist Recovery Kit and Team Tool right here
• Read more about it here
• Connect with Caroline on LinkedIn 
• Connect with Chris on LinkedIn 

Ready to make your next bold move? Grab the free Bold Move Audit and join the insider crew.

Stuck, simmering, or onto something juicy? I want to hear it. Drop me a line at caroline@inspireyourgenius.com - I read them all.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the episode
• 1:40 Overcoming fear and perfectionism
• 7:38 The impact of perfectionism
• 10:04 Real life application (What Would Caro Do?)
• 13:48 Career Quote Crime: Challenging common advice
• 19:28 Conclusion and call to action

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00.166)
Welcome back to season two of Little Moves at Big Careers. I'm Caroline Esterson, career strategist, chaos navigator, and the champion of overlooked brilliance. And this show is your backstage pass to real world career wins, sharp moves that get you noticed. And it's built on over 25 years of helping people get unstuck and navigate the beautiful mess that is today's modern workplace.

So let's get this show started.

Speaker 1 (00:34.722)
This isn't a pep talk, it's a practical guide with a glitch in its eye. Smart moves, slight chaos. Welcome to Little Moves Big Careers.

Speaker 1 (00:48.558)
How many times have you sat on something? An idea, a question, a move you really want to make, but you end up waiting until it's ready. Waiting until your ducks are in a row, your confidence is high and your slide deck is just right. You have secured the support of that manager. You know that one over there that you know when you speak to them, they will support you.

But I've got a newsflash for you. Those ducks, they won't ever get fully lined up. They're chaotic little sods. There will always be a powerful reason not to take action. So the real question is, how long are you prepared to hide your brilliance in favour of waiting for polish? I want to talk about this today because I see too many high performers, brilliant, capable and hungry for more people.

getting stuck in the culture of delay. And so many of you have said that this message in season one really struck a chord. So I thought it'd be worth delving a little more deeply. People frequently talk to me about their plans and dreams in workshops or in coaching. But when I asked the question, when, when is this going to happen? More often than not,

This question is followed by a list of things they've got to do first before they can make their move. The visible move, the one that signals their intentions. Their delay is disguised as diligence, but is it really? What do you think it is really? Yeah, you've got it. It's fear and it's costing you momentum.

Maybe it's the fear of judgement, fear of failure, fear of just not being enough, of being too old, too young, whatever it is. And I say this to you with love, but also with a bit of challenge too, because this sneaky little bugger, this fear, is slowing down some of the most capable people I know. And I want you to really think about this. Is it slowing you down too? We've started to glamourise perfection like it's...

Speaker 1 (03:10.55)
you know, our true north that we should be aiming for, but it really isn't. It's a prison made of highlighters and high standards, and it's keeping you stuck. And there's a bigger danger too. A lot of workplaces are spoon feeding their people. They're saying, we'll develop you, but really they're just training you to obey, to follow the rules, to wait to be picked, to keep the slide decks on brand.

But the world really doesn't need more branded slide decks, does it? It needs progress, bold experiments. It needs you to move. It's game time. No points, no pressure. Just a playful nudge to notice what matters.

So I want to play a little game with you. It's called progress paralysis or power move. And I'm going to give you a few real life scenarios. You shout out or in your head, if you're on a train, are they stuck in perfectionism or are they making that bold move? Are you ready? Scenario one. You've been quietly reworking the Christmas rotor for three weeks without speaking to the team.

Hmm. Yeah, that's progress paralysis. You're not fixing it. You're avoiding having the conversation because you know it's going to be difficult. But what would happen if you pulled the team together for a 10 minute huddle and asked what considerations need to be thought of and rebuilt the schedule with them? That's so much more of a powerful move. You build it together and you own it together.

What about if you've been tweaking the forecast deck for so long that actually the quarter has changed while you were still in Excel? Hmm. Yep, that's paralysis. The numbers aren't strategy if no one's seeing them. You could have shared a rough version of the forecast early. Ask the leadership team what mattered most and tailored it from then. That would have been a power move. That is alignment over polish.

Speaker 1 (05:26.69)
You don't need to have all the answers. We keep saying this, remember it. You don't have to have all the answers. You just need to be asking better questions and putting your ideas forward. So here's another one. You're still working on the perfect internal comms plan before releasing that new tool that you've got coming. Hmm. Yeah. That's progress paralysis. Meanwhile, no one knows it's coming. And adoption will flop.

You could have shared a quick explainer video and booked a feedback call on Zoom. Now your pilot users feel heard before the rollout. That's powerful. It's messy and it potentially could cause some awkward conversations, but it's about visibility and that beats stealth perfection any day. What about you've been rewriting your LinkedIn posts for nine days to make sure it lands? It's still in your drafts?

Hmm. That's paralysis. Your impact can't go viral if it doesn't go live. What about if you just posted it anyway, engaged with the first few comments and use that real-time feedback to shape the next version, which will be even better. That's powerful. Progress by doing, not by overthinking. And you know what most of us know when we're stuck? We just don't like what it really says about us.

And this can make us even more entrenched. Time for brain food, the research bit. But make it cheeky. Because we all love evidence, especially when it supports our own experiences. So I want to talk to you a little bit about why perfectionism is the enemy of progress. And let's break this down. This isn't about shaming you for being careful or diligent.

but it is about naming the truth that's quietly holding so many great people back. And it's not just personal, it's cultural. A huge meta-analysis by Curran and Hill looked at 41,000 people over 30 years and found that socially prescribed perfectionism, you know, that sense that others expect you to be flawless has skyrocketed.

Speaker 1 (07:53.294)
Think social media, our hustle culture. No wonder we're constantly second guessing and over editing ourselves. And the research is clear, perfectionism doesn't fuel success. In fact, it often gets in the way of it. Hewitt and Flett found that perfectionism leads to procrastination, fear of feedback, endless tweaking instead of actually getting on with the shipping.

fragile relationships and work. It's actually a full-time job polishing things that never land is lots of effort and just not much progress. And it hits harder than we admit. A 2022 study by Limberg et al. Confirmed what many of us feel, but we rarely say out loud. Perfectionism is directly linked to anxiety, depression and burnout.

And actually here's the kicker from neuroscience that explains everything. Perfectionism activates the same part of your brain as a threat. Your nervous system literally can't tell the difference between failing a deadline and being chased by a bear. So if you're exhausted, it's not in your head, it's just in your wiring and you need to find a way to rewire. This isn't about lowering your standards, but it

is about raising your tolerance for uncertainty. Whilst perfectionism says, if it's not flawless, don't do it, progress on the other hand says, ship it, learn, improve and move. And guess which one actually gets you noticed? In every bold career story that I see, the person who moves first, tests fast and invites feedback is the one who ends up trusted, visible and ready. Not the person with the best plan.

the person with the most movement. So I want you to think about this. Start asking yourself a question if you feel you're hesitating. Am I actually improving this or am I just trying not to get it wrong? That question alone has saved many of my clients' sanity as well as their time and budget. And for you, it could unlock your career momentum too. So with this in mind, let's move on to explore.

Speaker 1 (10:18.988)
What this might look like in real life.

It's time for What Would Caro Do? Like a career agony aunt but with less cardigan and more fire. Because sometimes you don't need permission, you just need better advice. This week's dilemma is from Nervous from Newington.

got a big idea but I'm scared to share it. What if it falls flat? Here's what I'd say. Too many people sit on brilliant ideas. Not because they lack value, but because they fear being wrong, judged or told. We've already tried that. But ideas are the currency of careers and acting on them. Well, that's how you build influence, credibility and momentum. So what's your real job here?

It's not to have perfect ideas. It's not to wait for the right moment. But it is to be useful, curious and in motion. Your idea doesn't have to be fully formed. It just has to start something. Because when we start to share ideas with others, they start to take shape. They ignite others and momentum starts to build. Don't wait for the polish, wait for nothing.

Test, try, tweak, repeat. Go for it. So let's make this easy.

Speaker 1 (11:49.102)
Small shifts, sharp impact. These are quick fire career moves. Real things you can do before your next coffee refill.

Here's some really quick quick fire career moves for you to try out. Number one, share your idea early, add in draft and hit send. Just get it out there. It's no good having wonderful ideas that never get heard. Two, I love this. It's a great reframe, a great shift. Instead of asking, what's the plan? Start asking, what's the first step?

This is so much more manageable and it enables you to adjust as you go along. Number three, say I'm learning and ask questions instead of pretending or faking mastery. Four, celebrate trying, not just the triumph of completion. Carol Dweck in her research on growth mindset found that children who appraised for being smart,

were less likely to take on new challenges. While praising them for their effort or strategy made them much more likely to persist even after failure. This approach will build your resilience and leads us neatly onto the final point. Number five, ship it, do it, press it before you think it's ready. And then out loud, this podcast is a classic example of that.

I'd wanted to do a podcast for at least two years. I drafted and redrafted throughout this time and I kept telling myself when I have time. And of course that time never came. So this year I booked time in a studio to record and it gave me just four weeks to write the first season. Nine episodes. Also while I'm doing client work as well. Scary? Absolutely. Ready? No.

Speaker 1 (13:52.984)
but it galvanized me and I got it done. You know, I'm learning all the time, thanks to your feedback and to my ability to reflect. These are the moves that create motion. Emotion builds confidence, not the other way around. And this leads us neatly onto career quote, crime.

Speaker 1 (14:19.342)
This quote has the right vibe and the completely wrong advice. So let's fix that before someone puts it on a mug. OK, so for this episode, I am absolutely delighted to welcome Chris Mooney, someone that I've worked with for many years and I absolutely adore. Chris is a self-confessed introvert whose calm presence belies his fierce tenacity. Whether he's making the room light up with his dry humour, holding space in group settings or working one-to-one as a therapeutic counselor or coach. He brings genuine warmth, compassion and a clear sightedness. Welcome Chris to this episode.

Wow. Can I bring you everywhere with me? I can't. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for asking me to join you.

My pleasure. So Chris was the first person who rang me after he'd listened to the initial episode. You'd listened to it at the gym, you? I love that people are taking me to all sorts of places with them. It's quite exciting, that is. And in the conversation, Chris said to me, my God, I love career quote crime and I have a quote for you. So I think it would have been very remiss of me not to bring him in.

Yeah, that's right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:42.06)
So Chris, before we actually share the quote with them, would you tell me why you detest it so much?

Yes, okay. So this quote for me, first and foremost, it comes, we say it with huge positive intent. So it comes from a good place. We say it when we want to encourage others or we want to encourage ourselves. The thing is, my problem is with the word perfect, with the word perfection, because who wants to be perfect? Where's left to go from perfect? And there's so much pressure in that.

expectation. In my view perfect doesn't exist so much of the time no matter how much we try we're setting ourselves up to feel and that's why I hate this quote.

You said that with such feeling, Chris. I was thinking about why I hate it so much. And I realized that so much of what I do, I'm a starter, not a finisher. And my brain doesn't work to see the end result first. I have to kind of start the process, which is why I hate it. So Chris, without further ado, drum roll. What is the quote that we detest with passion?

Okay.

Speaker 2 (16:58.766)
The quote is, practice makes perfect. Practice makes perfect. And we hear it so much of the time, we say it to ourselves, we say it to other people without realizing the potentially damaging impact it can have on our confidence and the confidence of others around us.

Absolutely. And I think, I think it's actually the stuff that it's, we say it to ourselves so much. It affects, affects our thinking and because it's become such a habit, it leaks out unintentionally with other people as well, doesn't it? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it's got that again, it's that positive intent it's got behind it's coming from a good place. Yeah, so much of that we could talk all day on things like that that we do and say that comes from a good place that doesn't necessarily

That is an episode all on its own that we should do, Christa. Yes. So for you, what would be a better reframe for practice makes perfect then? Let's get this solid so that we can start changing our habits.

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:00.554)
Okay, so I have two more positive, powerful replacements for you, if I may, not just one, but two. The first is embrace your flaw-sum-ness. Embrace your flaw-sum-ness because we all have flaws, none of us are the finished article. So the whole concept of having a growth mindset is that we should be able to continually evolve and knowing that we're not perfect and owning the fact that we're not perfect. So

Embrace your flaws and be vulnerable enough to show them. That's the first one.

And I saw, I saw you, sorry, I saw that you put on LinkedIn, didn't you post last week about flaws and this and I went, that should be on a t-shirt. think that'd be lovely. I definitely think we should put that on a t-shirt.

It is a real word as well, just in case there's anyone thinking I just made that word up. A portmandoo I think it's called when you join two words up, flaw and awesome. Yeah, so that's the first one. The second one linked very much to Practice Makes Perfect is get rid of it and replace it with Practice Makes Progress. Practice Makes Progress and that

I should realize that.

Speaker 2 (19:11.576)
For me, it comes from a much less critical place. It helps us to develop our skill level, create new habits, and perhaps most importantly, to build our confidence rather than chip away from it when we don't achieve that impossible level of perfection.

Yeah, love it. And I would just add to it, practice makes possible. There is always opportunity if you start making those first little steps, first little steps towards it, isn't there? But I think if you're doing it with a growth mindset, you're looking at progress as learning, that is the way to go definitely in this crazy world in which we live.

Mmm. love it. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:49.42)
Yes, absolutely. Huge fan of little steps. Yeah.

Chris, thank you so much for joining us and I know that Chris will be back in future episodes, so watch out for him. thank you much. See you soon. Thank you, Chris. That was perfect. So remember this, you don't need more polish. You don't need more perfection. You just need more courage. Perfectionism won't protect you. Learning does that. Progress isn't neat. It's brave. It's messy. So go ahead.

Bye, goodbye.

Speaker 1 (20:22.998)
Say it rough, send it scrappy, move it forward. Because progress doesn't wait and neither should you.

Speaker 1 (20:39.609)
If you're loving the show, a quick rating or review makes a huge difference. It helps more bold, brilliant people just like you find us. And as for you, you'll find show notes, tools, and a team conversation starter over at inspireyourgenius.com forward slash podcast. To support this week's podcast, we've developed the perfectionist recovery kit for you. And if you're a team leader, a little bit frustrated that your team brings you problems, not solutions.

We have the team perfectionism detox workshop for you. And boy, next week we have a very special treat in store for you. We're talking all things blame, trust and psychological safety with Gary Keough. And I don't know about you, but I think that when someone has studied six decades of psychological safety and survived 27 years in footsie boardrooms, you shut up and listen. And Gary lets us in on his secrets. So get ready.

Until next time, make the move, even if it's tiny, especially if it's tiny.