The Perfectionism Trap

In this episode, Adam sits down with Steven to unpack the hidden cost of perfectionism and how it quietly holds us back from growth, creativity, and self-expression. They explore how perfectionism often stems from fear, external validation, and early conditioning, and why it can lead to procrastination, overwhelm, and missed opportunities.

Steven shares powerful insights on shifting from perfection to progress by embracing iteration, learning to trust yourself, and redefining what “good enough” really means. Through real-life examples and honest reflections, the conversation highlights the importance of taking action, celebrating mistakes, and letting go of rigid expectations.

If you’ve ever felt stuck trying to get things just right, this episode offers a practical and refreshing perspective on moving forward with more ease, confidence, and authenticity.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

• Getting Started
• What Is Perfectionism
• How Perfectionism Shows Up
• Childhood & Conditioning
• Fear and Creativity
• Real-Life Example
• Perfectionism in Teams
• Working Through Fear
• Iteration Mindset
• Progress Over Perfection
• The 70% Rule
• Mastery vs Perfectionism
• Social Media & Authenticity
• Perfectly Imperfect
• External Validation
• Trusting Yourself
• Recognizing Perfectionism
• The Graveyard Insight
• Practical Advice
• Learning From Mistakes

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Do you know what the richest place in the world is? Graveyard. Because that's where all the artwork died. That's where all the stories died. That's where all of the things that needed to get birthed into the world that people were too afraid were trying to make it too perfect, and it never saw the light time.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Yeah, there's graveyards filled with people who thought they had more time. It's such a balance with it because I like to take my time on things. It usually doesn't take time for me to create the thing, it takes enough time to connect to myself. This is the Mind Body Mentor podcast where we explore how to create a life where you are deeply connected to yourself and everything in it. I'm your host, Steven Jaggers, and we are joined by my co-host Adam Carberry. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Stephen, I'm really excited to dive into the conversation that we have in store for today. And it's something that we've talked out outside of the podcast and classes about many, many times, but that's the concept of perfectionism. And being a recovering perfectionist myself, I think we're going to have a lot to talk about on this subject today.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Oh, yeah. Same. It's been a journey. And it is going to tie in well to our last podcast on imposter syndrome, because there is a lot of overlay between the two of them.

unknown 1:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Which I mean, that that in and itself, I think, is a great starting point. Is how do you see them almost being like two sides of the same coin?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yeah, I think a lot of these um we could call them pathologies or uh uh blockages or sticking points that we all have faced, whether it's imposter syndrome or perfectionism, they're all uh basically they're all just chronic stress. They're all chronic stress that are that um most of the time we are we are putting on ourselves. And they could be based from childhood, they could be based from past experiences, and they're a um they're a coping mism uh coping mechanism that tries to keep us safe, but does a really bad job at it.

unknown 2:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

So for for me, like the perfectionism has in many ways forced me to kind of accept the fact that perfectionism to each person is going to show up differently, it's gonna look differently, it's going to in each and every one of us. Maybe for me, perfectionism has showed up as like procrastination, you know, where if I can't get something perfect from the very get-go, then I'm just gonna pause, I'm gonna wait, and I'm gonna try it again later. How has perfectionism shown up for you in your life?

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Oh man, it showed up in so many ways. And I lost you for one second. Let me pull you back here. Okay, we're good. Perfectionism has shown up for me in most of the times, it's my desire to control a situation because I'm actually overwhelmed and I'm not letting myself feel the emotions that I actually need to feel. Usually it's like, cool, I'm I'm I'm resorting to perfectionism because there's uh anger or frustration I don't want to feel, and I want to prove somebody wrong, or I want to like make sure it's perfect so you know nobody can get mad at me. Like it's it's these childhood patterns that come up later on in our life that um, you know, I think for me in the beginning of uh, you know, holding trainings and holding um uh sessions and holding a container, there is a desire for me to um make sure everything is perfect. Like I was so strict in the beginning of trainings, you can probably uh uh remember, you know, I didn't want anybody to leave and go to the bathroom when it wasn't time. I didn't want the um, you know, I wanted to make sure everyone was staying in the room, everyone was on time, uh like just all of the little nitpicky stuff that could be disguised as creating safety and creating a tight container, but it actually is control disguised as creating um, you know, whatever I whatever in my mind I thought was perfect at the time. But it was a way for me to flex control. And usually the more stressed I am or the more that I'm overwhelmed, the more that that perfectionism starts to come in because it it is the thing that I can flex control on whenever when there's absolute chaos outside of uh outside in other situations.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Yeah, man. So you you mentioned that you know perfectionism can like start out in childhood. Like, do you think that that's really where perfectionism starts from? Is is is this something that we learn at an early age, or is it something that kind of evolves over time?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

I think it's more complex than that. I think that it can come from childhood. You know, I had a I had a partner that had autoimmune issues, and she was a gymnast at a young age. Like, and you think about uh gymnastics and you could say dance or a lot of these um these sports or activities that we do that have that are you know, the way that you win is you you're judged and someone holds up a number, right? Yeah, so you know, from a young age, it's like cool, she was probably doing the best that she could, and then the judge is holding up like a seven, right? And you're like, oh my god, it wasn't absolutely perfect. So, you know, you learn you you there's a lot of different situations where we wanted to perform for our parents, or we wanted to perform in different ways. Like, and you know, I look at perfectionism actually as an it's an autoimmune issue, meaning that it's the self-attacking the self. And that's usually what it is, it's we're attacking ourselves. And you know, to be honest with you, perfectionism is actually very, very uh, it's actually pretty arrogant because who's to say that you know what being perfect actually is? And you asked me the question, how has it shown up in my life? And where has my mind been absolutely just blown by um like I think for a lot of us it takes certain situations that prove that like I did everything I possibly could to get this thing perfect and it and it it it actually wasn't right. And then here I did something that I thought was okay. Everybody loved it. In the beginning of my journey with social media and promoting myself, I remember that it was it was the videos that I tried to make the most perfect were the ones that never did well or I didn't get my message out. Versus when I hired a person to actually run my social media and I would just film all the videos and I would say, Hey, actually, you take the videos, you post them. I don't even want to see them before you post them. I just want you to start posting them. And it was always the videos that I thought were terrible because I was judging myself the hardest that did the best. So then in my mind, I'm like, who, how am I supposed to know what is actually valuable or what people are finding uh uh of value out in the world? And so I had enough of those experiences that blew my mind that allow me to start to break free from the perfectionism. And another aspect of for perfectionism is um it's it's very fear-based, where like whenever you're in fear, your your vision starts to narrow, your all of your um your inner critic inside of you starts to narrow and hone in on things, and there's less possibilities your creativity is sucked dry from you. And you start to move into like very black and white thinking. If it's not like this, then it's not good, right? And so it's very fear-based. And there's an aspect where it shows up in the mind, there's an aspect where it shows up in the body, an aspect where it shows up in the emotional and nervous system side of things. Um, but it's it it it it collapses your ability to see the holistic perspective of things, the global perspective of things.

unknown 9:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

It's it's interesting that that you're bringing this up because it's like I said in in the beginning of the conversation that like perfectionism shows up for everyone differently. But what's like inherently perfect for each person, that's also going to be different. And you know, that as you were saying, this example of the social media pieces, like in your mind, what was perfect wasn't perfect in other people's mind, and what was imperfect in your mind was actually perfect in other people's minds. So this is where it's like perfectionism isn't a total paradox because what we are applying, our definition of perfection, isn't inherently going to match what somebody else's definition of perfection, and yet we're trying to create things perfectly for other people most of the time.

SPEAKER_01 9:56

Yeah. Which is, and it's it's such a it's a paradox because there's there's that paradox where when we're in perfectionism, we're often only thinking about ourselves and we're not actually thinking about the, you know, who's actually going to receive the thing that we're creating. And we're not actually spending time connecting to them because they're gonna tell us what perfect is versus our own mind. We can't trust, you know, there's there's so many times where I'm like, okay, I can't trust my mind right now. And that's actually a good thing. I think it's we've talked about this before, but um, there's many times where I'm like, I am not trusting this voice in my head. Thank you, but I'm not trusting you. But beyond that piece of connecting to the people that are actually going to receive the thing that you're working on that you're stuck in because you're trying to make it perfect through your own lens and you're not actually thinking about the other people, it actually creates more chaos. And usually when we're in perfection, we're trying to um we're trying to mitigate the amount of of chaos or uncertainty that's going on. But we create more chaos by being in perfection. Because a lot of the times we end up procrastinating when we're in perfection, we end up not getting the thing done, we take way more time on it. Um and then it honestly causes a bunch of chaos on the other side of it because we actually didn't just we're not in flow, right? We didn't produce the thing and then receive the feedback on it. So it creates more chaos because we've lost ourselves in this one thing and have missed kind of the forest for the trees.

unknown 11:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

This honestly makes me think of just a couple of days ago when I was filming one of the new videos for um something new that's going to be coming down the pipeline. And I kept fumbling over my words, and then I finally was like in a flow, rolling with it. And then Draco, my dog, was on his bed right behind me, and he started making noises, and so I had to stop and I had to redo it. And then the next three takes were just like I kept fumbling and kept fumbling, and the frustration that I was feeling was just building and building and building. And I finally had to just stop, walk away. I went in my living room, I grabbed a pillow and I just like yelled in the pillow, like just let that frustration out. And the moment I let that expression move through me, it was like, okay, I could take that deep breath. I came back to the computer, and then as soon as I hit record, it was like that next one just flowed out just fine. No more stuttering over my words, no more movement or noises from the dog. And it's interesting at how, like, when we really put this pressure to get something perfect, to make sure that it is the best thing that we can possibly do, like that extra pressure in ourselves actually is I totally agree. It is the thing that keep creates that chaos both internally and externally, much of the time.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yeah, and you see it within um, you see it within teams, like in organizations, where the bigger the organization gets or the bigger the team gets, and the more pressure there is, the more fear there is for people to kind of lose their job if they don't get it right. The act and the um the performance of the entire team actually goes down. Versus when um I think a lot of the antidote to perfection for me is actually uh celebrating mistakes. Where it's like, you know, there's a whole thing in in like the tech world and the business side of things. It's like fail fast, right? Fail as fast as you can so that you can iterate and so that you can learn from the thing and continue to move like the people that are failing fast and just getting the thing out, and there's a there's a difference between putting out quality work and just kind of throwing some trash together, and like we can get into that, the difference between like high standards and perfectionism, but it's the people that aren't afraid to make mistakes that actually more creativity comes through and more productivity actually happens because they're not there's not as much fear inside of their nervous system to get it wrong. And when you can actually celebrate mistakes for yourself, but specifically, my example was inside of a team, um you can feel the lightness of everyone's nervous system and their performance is going to increase and their creativity is going to increase tremendously if they know that they're able to make mistakes and then they'll correct from there, you'll learn from there, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

So I I'm curious on this thread of fear, uh if we're going to really try and pursue letting go of this perfectionism, would you say that trying to find where the fear is coming from might be one of the first stepping stones to actually working through perfectionism?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Can you repeat that?

SPEAKER_00 15:19

Well, so if if perfectionism really stems from fear, from fear of getting it wrong or fear of judgment or fear of not being enough, you know, what whatever the fear is, would you say that actually working with that fear is going to be one of the stepping stones to help you work through the perfectionism itself? Almost as if like if you face that fear or you understand where that fear is coming from, then the perfectionism almost is like just a byproduct of that fear.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

I think it's one part of it. And for those of you that are that are resonating with this, it's probably a good idea to go listen to the episode that we did on fear. Um, but I think, yes, one thing is working through the the the fear inside of your body. And but also for me, the biggest thing that's helped with my perfectionism is working with that inner critic inside of my mind. And my inner critic always loosens up when there's actually less fear in my body too, because there's that that bottom-up under like that bottom-up understanding of when my body actually feels safe, then my inner critic is going to reflect that and it's going to be a lot less harsh. Versus when I am like if I'm in scarcity right now and I don't have any money and I need to create from that place, and I'm looking for my next meal, my inner critic is going hard at me. Like it's uh, it's it's coming in strong, and that actually furthers the pressure even more and more. And oftentimes the quality of my work actually is uh it it it diminishes significantly. Now there's there's another piece to that that I think that I've had to learn through my own journey is figuring out what the um the healthy fuel source for my creativity is as well. Because sometimes that hunger can be a tremendous fuel source to almost like those um, it's like those rocket boosters that are on a uh a spaceship in the beginning. They can get you into orbit, but they're not gonna sustain you over time, right? They're not gonna be a healthy, sustainable fuel source. So there's um you have to work with the inner critic in the mind and also fear in the body. And the only way to overcome it is to do the scary thing. Like it's just it's the same as imposter syndrome. You have to put the thing out because you need to learn what the what it's like to be a verb, what it's like to be a process. Perfectionism is really just its stasis. It's uh there's false endings involved where anytime you put something out, you always have the ability to recreate it and and create something new and learn from the last thing. It's a it's it's more circular in your mind than a straight line, if that makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:28

Yeah. I I mean somatic is is a perfect example of that. Like how many times have we gone through different iterations of the training because we learn what works, we learn what doesn't work, we learn different ways of doing things and how to continually improve. And that I think is is one of the most beautiful things about a company that if they're willing to continue to reiterate, they're willing to continue to revise, like that is sustained growth versus I've been parts of companies in the past where it was like, no, this is the way we've always done it, we're always gonna do it this way, we're never gonna change. And uh that company is now struggling because they're still trying to do things the same way that they've always done things when we're in a very different time, very different place. So it's interesting when we get so locked into something needing to be a certain way that that stemies the ability to grow to become that new iteration.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yeah, I like to look at it as like the cycles within nature. You know, everything is a circle. And when I'm in perfectionism, it's like there's one endpoint versus, you know, I know for myself, even the curriculum that we've used in a lot of our trainings. I have been in phases where I'm like, okay, when is it gonna be done? And we just can put it concrete in this, like in the and then we can set it and then forget it and move on to the next thing. And to be honest with you, it actually never ends. Yeah, there's always an iteration, there's always going to be changes that you're gonna want to make. Like, there is no level of perfection to it because it's a living, breathing entity and it's going to change and it's going to continue to grow. And so the perfectionism squeezes the life out of it because you think that there's an actual end to it when it's more of a circle and it's breathing, right? And there's times where it's going to contract and there's times where it's going to expand. And so there's a certain level of relaxation that happens when it's like, oh, this actually is never going to end. I'm going to have to work for the rest of my life. And can I relax into that? Because I actually love it.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

I'm not, it's not a means to an end. I think a lot of us get into perfectionism when we're um when we're trying to create something with an ending point versus it being an actual living, breathing thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

That that reminds me of a of a saying that a yoga teacher told me once in a yoga class of that this practice is about progress, not perfection. And and like I've I've carried that with me ever since I heard it because it it was a like deep breath moment, right? Of like, oh, okay. It isn't about me trying to be and hold this position perfectly or be able to do it exactly the way that the teacher is doing it. It's about actually just progressing practice after practice after practice, slowly getting a little bit better over time versus the pressure of like needing to go into a class the very first time and just nail it.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah. One of the most powerful principles that I've been sitting with, and a principle is like a pillar for my mind that helps me make decisions. Decisions because my mind is all over the place. And I need those principles. That way I'm not spending so much time to try to figure out the decisions that I'm that I'm making. But one of those principles is like everything is an iteration. Which, if you're listening to this right now, sitting with that is a uh it can it will fuck you up. Just excuse my language, it will fuck you up because if I look at everything in my life as an iteration, I would stop putting so much pressure on myself. Because what I'm creating right now is one iteration, then that's going to take me to the next iteration. And I wouldn't put so much pressure on myself to get it right, because one, I don't know what's right, but it's it's just one stepping stone to get me closer to the thing. Rick Rubin, uh, who talks a lot about creativity, I think he explains this very well. Is if you spend all your time on, you know, your first song that you're creating, well, you're never gonna get to the 20th one that actually becomes a hit, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

And so it takes and the process of completion and releasing the work is a big part of it as well, too, because that's the thing that's gonna give you the feedback that's gonna give you the breathing room from the critic of your mind to actually hear, let me give it to the world and let me see what they have back to me. And then to not take things too personal, because like feedback you have to take with a grain of salt in a way. Like learning how to receive just neutral feedback from life itself is a skill set in its own. I think a lot of us um can get easily in victim mindset where why didn't anybody like my post or why didn't anybody like my song or my book or anything that I put out? Well, maybe because it's just not the timing of it right now. Maybe it's because um, you know, you need to get to the next iteration. Maybe there's certain pieces of it that um didn't resonate. So and it's it's being able to take the feedback from face value and not let it affect you, but let yourself learn from it and continue to iterate. When we're in perfectionism, a lot of the times we uh we're so much more uh susceptible to judgment as well. And judgment that actually hits us from a place that affects our internal world.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

It makes me think of the 70% rule. Like it's it's better to put something out at 70% and just get it out there than to continue to revise and revise and revise, trying to get it to that hundred percent. When, like, if you just get it to 70%, you're probably gonna get that many more things done and put out there than if you're just continually focusing on that one project trying to nail it and get perfect.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yeah. I think that perfectionism and a path of mastery can be easily confused internally. It's been my own journey of it. Like I love to I love to push myself towards mastery, right? And mastery is gonna take us iteration and repetition and doing something over and over and over again. Um, and like both of those could be disguised as having high standards for something or like wanting a certain quality of work. But the subtle difference in it is that when I'm in a path of mastery, um it's the the energy that's moving through me is coming from the inside out. It's coming from me outwards. It's coming from me uh genuinely desiring to do the best job that I can and knowing when I've done the best job that I can, and not when it's the outside force telling me that if I don't get this right, then people are gonna judge me or people are gonna think this sort of thing. And when I'm in perfectionism, it's that pressure, it feels like this pressure around my head that's saying, like, if you don't do this, then they're gonna think this of you, or if you don't do this, then if you don't get it absolute perfect, then no one's gonna respect you. It's the that that voice, um, that that pressure from the outside pushing inwards, where you'll know if you're going the path of mastery, it's almost like this devotional feeling inside of you that it's only you versus you in a way. Like it's you. Um, and the fuel source is just driving you to like, how do I get just a little bit better with each repetition of it?

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Yeah. So earlier you mentioned, you know, that kind of this concept of having high standards versus perfectionism. I wonder if you can like expand upon that. Because like, how can we know whether or not we're just maybe placing just too high of a standard on ourselves or on another person or on a project versus feeding this like perfectionism?

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Well I mean, it's kind of like what I was just talking about, but the high standards for me are um they they they they are a living they're a living, breathing thing. They're not just a static position of like this is what high standards are. Um and oftentimes, you know, when I think of high standards, I think we were talking about this before was in a um, like if I have high standards for a relationship, right? And a lot of people have a hard time finding somebody because they're like, oh, maybe my standards are too high. But there's a difference of having those external high standards versus do I have those standards for myself? Because all you can really do is just live them for yourself, and then you're going to attract the people that are around you, right? For me, I um the high standards that I have might look different than someone else's high standards as well. And can I actually see the perfection in each of those? That's another way to frame perfectionism can I see the perfection in where I'm at right now or where this person's at right now, versus am I in a place of control? Am I trying to control this other person? Do I want them to be a certain way? You know, we talk a lot about romantic relationships because it's just like it's just chock full of so many easy examples. Where can I see the perfectionism? Can I see the perfection in this person's journey? And my like a state, a high standard would be like, is this person just committed to growing in general? Are they committed to their own development? Doesn't matter where they're, you know, all of us are gonna struggle, all of us are gonna make mistakes, can we celebrate the mistakes? But is there this movement forward, this process, right? I keep going back to this idea of iteration because it's really allowing yourself to be a verb. We talk about this a lot. Can you let yourself be a verb? It's a it's a deep one that you have to continue to sit with. Because if you did allow yourself to be a verb, you would you would put out whatever thing you're working with right now. You wouldn't stop yourself from expressing. You wouldn't care to pull up a camera and say whatever you're actually feeling right now and post it. And who cares what what whoever is saying about it, you know?

SPEAKER_00 30:34

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the this in in a way that's kind of like social media in general, right? It it goes through these cycles and phases where for a lot of times in the past, the algorithm was looking for these like perfect edits, and the video needs to be perfect and the audio needs to be perfect. Whereas like recently I've started to notice most of the videos that are really going viral are the ones where, like you said, someone's just picking up the camera and just talking into it. Yeah, it's it might not be perfectly edited, the color might not be perfect, the audio might not be perfect, but the message, the message is really the thing that lands.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

It's more about congruence and alignment, right? There's a um there's a there's a perfection when a human is just being vulnerable and being exactly where they are at right now in this moment without trying to curate things. Our eyes are starting to learn to pick up on the things that look perfect are actually not human. They're AI or their machine, right? We want, um, you know, and that's it really makes me think about art because art is just a representation of how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking, what's going on internally, and how do I make that external right now in the moment as a representation of where I'm at? And if I get to that place, then that is perfect. It's not an outside standard, it's an internal alignment, and that's where that high standard comes from. The high standard for me is am I just can I just be in alignment from where I'm actually at? I can always tell if it's like cool, I may have might have recorded this video and it's absolutely perfect, but it's not me. So I might have gotten to perfectionism, but I've weeded all of myself out of it on the journey to that. And so that's actually not it, and you'll feel it, right? You can feel it in the work that you do that comes from the pressure of needing it to needing to make sure it's up to the standards of how somebody else did it.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Yeah. I actually have tattooed on um my wrist perfectius imperfectus. Perfectly imperfect. And it was a message that I received in 2016 during a deep, deep meditation journey. And it was a time period where I was definitely putting a lot of pressure on myself to be this perfect iteration of myself. And it was the message that just kept coming through perfectly imperfect. You were perfectly imperfect, you're perfectly imperfect. And it was almost as if like actually accepting my imperfection and being okay with my imperfection is actually what led to everything being perfect.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Yeah, I can resonate with that. I mean, going down a path, I think we're we're seeing a lot of people um in this, I forget the word that people use, but it's like uh post-spirituality in a way, where so many people went down this route, including myself, of perfectionism with my diet, perfectionism with uh my practices. And if I'm not doing those perfectly, then I'm not spiritual, right? Or perfectionism with my uh, which is just what's all such a joke. Um, and I think a lot of us are seeing clearly nowadays with that, but um yeah, I think what's perfect is you. You are perfect, and if you are distilling yourself into the work, into whatever it is, and you're on a journey of how do I put more of myself into it as an honest representation of myself, that's perfection. That's the path of high standards, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:57

Yeah, yeah. It makes me think of the second half of a breathwork session, right? Like the the repatterning, or as I like to call it, the remembering. It's like remembering that version of you that was perfect the day that you were born, that just knew exactly how you wanted to express yourself in the world. That it's all the things that we experience in life, all the different ways that we observe others, that we start to either minimize ourselves or box ourselves up to try to achieve this perfectionist outlook when really like I think that's all of our journeys, right? Is to get back to that version of ourselves that was just ourselves from the very beginning, because that is actually the perfect version.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Yeah. I saw a comment that came through that was now, are we also sometimes looking at perfectionism because we are we're you know seeking external validation? And this speaks to the part that I was talking about in the beginning where a lot of this comes from childhood because we want the validation of our parents, we want the validation of school, we want, and there's a there is a safety of that because we need to be a part of the tribe, you know, we don't want to be um cast out from whatever it is, but the path of mastery and the path of being ourself sometimes requires us to uh individuate from groups of people. It requires us to be judged by other people. And I think a person who is filled up with internal validation doesn't go seeking as much external validation. You know, a person that's filled up with love for themselves doesn't go seeking love from the outside world and finds themselves in relationships where they're addicted to the love or the validation from other people and they're not actually filled up from themselves. I remember for myself, you know, there was a period of time after high school where I was, you know, I was going down the traditional route. I either wanted to be a psychologist or a physical therapist. And I ended up dropping out of school and going to school for um massage therapy at the time or body work. And I remember having so much judgment from both my friends' circle at that time, my family circle at that time, where they're like, Oh, you're gonna go to school to touch people? Like, what are you doing? Are you okay? Like, are you, is there something wrong with you? Um, you were gonna be so successful. Like, what are you doing? And at that moment in time, I noticed a just a fork in the road for me that was like, I'm gonna choose myself and what I believe, or I could continue to live my life for the validation of other people and what they thought was perfect. And I could live my life from the external pressures of that were being put on me. But I decided to go down the route that allowed me to fill myself up with validation. And over time, it allowed me to continue to develop the muscle of trusting myself because I went into body work. And then I'm like, oh wow, there's a whole other field here of emotional well-being and emotional intelligence side of here and how emotions are stuck in the body. And then, oh my God, that's actually affecting the mind. And now I'm seeing how that is showcased in all of my friends and my family and anxiety and depression and all of their repressed emotions. No wonder we weren't allowed to feel emotions when we were a kid, you know. And so it, it, it through that that through that journey of choosing, what do I believe? What is like what what are my thoughts and feelings around whatever this is? And can I just become an honest representation of that in the moment and choose myself? And then over time, it's like a lot of those people come back and they're like, oh my God, I'm so like you, you're like, how do I go down that path? It's it's a funny thing to have all those people that were judging me in the beginning come back and be like, you know, one, not really liking the direction of their life because they chose to go down the perfection, the route of perfectionism from the external world, from what their parents wanted from them, from what society wanted from them, and they haven't actually learned the skill set of listening to their own internal somatic intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

So hearing you say all of that, the the thing that stuck out for me the most was you talking about trusting yourself. Would you would you say that learning to trust yourself is one of the ways in which you can start to overcome that perfectionism?

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Learning to trust yourself as a process, as a verb. Learning to learning to trust that I'm just gonna take the the the next step forward. A lot of the perfectionism comes from trying to take shortcuts as well. Like trying to, you know, stress is, and this is an Eckhart Toll quote, stress is I'm actually here, but I want to be over there. So if I'm judging myself or I'm trying to create something based on this is where I want to be all the way over there, but I'm actually right here. What's the next step forward? Which requires one, you to be very honest with yourself. I think more than anything, it's actually a path of like honesty with yourself. And that over time becomes exponential. And the byproduct of that is trust.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Got it. Okay. That's that makes complete sense.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Yeah, it's a path of being really honest with yourself and where you're at and honest with yourself. Like, this is my this is the best I could possibly do right now without receiving, you know, external uh uh um feedback from the world. And then, cool, I create something, I put it out, I receive the feedback from the world, then I take the next step forward of cool, what did I learn from this? What did I learn both externally and what did I learn from the world? Because I think all of us are on a journey of finding our own expression that is both in alignment with us and also as what the world is asking for.

SPEAKER_02 41:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

We can be the starving artist that just creates something that's only for us and nobody actually wants it. It's not a value in the world, which is which is a beautiful self-practice, right? And I I highly encourage doing that. And then you could be the business commerce side of things where you're just trying to figure out what does the world want and how do I create it, but it's actually not an alignment for you. And that sweet spot is is finding like what is my authentic expression and my artistry that also is what the world is wanting and asking for and is of value to the world. And I think that just it's innate inside of us because we that we're on our own path of becoming the the best version of ourselves or the fully expressed version of ourselves, such as a plant or a tree, and also in relationship to our environment and living symbiotically within the in the environment as well.

unknown 42:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:52

You you bringing up like like nature in that way reminds me of Alan Watts did a lecture where he was talking somewhat about perfectionism. And he gave the example of how like you look at a tree and you don't judge a tree because its branch is crooked. You don't look at a flower and judge the flower because the colors don't match perfectly from one petal to another. You don't look at a stale and be like, oh man, that one's shell's pretty fat, or that one's shell is not perfect. Like you just look at nature in its imperfection, and that is what's perfect about it.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

Yeah, I'm gonna go down a completely other route of and give you another example from uh Alex Hermosy, who's kind of this business guy where he says the the purpose is just to work hard. The purpose is just to just to work. It's not to get to the certain thing, it's to fall in love with the work. And really what we're saying is you know, like, can I let myself Be in the journey of it instead of getting to the end destination. Yeah. Alan Watts, the purpose of playing music isn't to get to the end of the song, right? The purpose of dancing with your partner is not to get to some place on the dance floor. It's to be fully absorbed in the moment, alive in your own body and attuned to the things that are around you.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

So with that said, what what are some of the ways that people listening can start to recognize when they're stuck in the perfectionism versus when they're allowing themselves to just be that verb in the process?

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Yeah. Notice when you um for me, when I get to the point of um, let's see. So there's there's a there's a there's a head piece of this, there's a heart piece of this, and there's a body piece of this. Um when I get to the point where I'm not having fun anymore, that's a telltale sign of that my creativity has gone out the window and I'm in perfectionism. And that doesn't mean that things are difficult or I'm not having a hard time or I'm not challenged. Like there's a there's an aspect of having fun within the challenge. Um, but when my mind starts to go black and white, if it's not this way, then it's not gonna work. And I've seen that within the team here at Somatic. I've seen myself be on both sides of that. I've I've been the one implementing that. It's like gotta be this way. And anytime where I'm like, if it's not this way, then it's not okay. Then I know that I'm in some sort of perfectionism. Because there's many ways to the top of the mountain.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:50

Right. And from a from an emotional standpoint, I know that when I'm in um when I start to get frustrated or when I start to get overwhelmed. When I start to get overwhelmed with something, it's usually uh it's usually because I'm caught in perfectionism, but it's disguised, like it's overwhelm, disguised as there's anger I don't want to feel right now. It's overwhelmed, disguised as I'm actually really sad about this thing and I'm grieving something. It's overwhelmed, disguised as I'm not letting myself actually feel joy in this process. So there's an emotional component to it as well. And a lot of the times when I go let myself feel the motion, I come back and there's this levity to it, and I don't, I don't, it's not that I don't care as much, but there's less pressure. A lot of the times we think that okay, if um well, I just don't care about this anymore, you know, where it's it's actually um the care comes through when all of the other shit's out of the way. And then there's I mean, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

I I I felt that the other day when I yelled into the pillow. It was just like actually acknowledging that what was happening was pissing me off. That acknowledgement and then giving myself the permission to feel it was uh what allowed me to then take that deep breath, come back, sit in this chair, and just let it flow. Because it was like in that yelling into the pillow, in that expressing the frustration that I was feeling, actually allowed that pressure to dissipate and let me drop back into a flow state.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Yeah. The body side of things, when I notice myself in fear or contraction in my nervous system, when I'm stuck in kind of this like fight or flight in a way, or when I'm stuck in like scarcity, most of the time, that's kind of what it shows up as when I'm doing my work. Like, oh, I hope I make money from this, or I hope um I hope people are gonna think about me in a certain way so that I'm gonna get something from it. Um and the thing that helps me on that side is just remembering that I'm going to die. And and probably a hundred years from right from now, like no one's gonna care. So why am I stopping myself to begin with?

SPEAKER_00 48:36

That makes me think of the the story about um do you know what the richest place in the world is? A graveyard.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:47

Because that's where all the artwork died, that's where all the stories died, that's where all of the things that needed to get birthed into the world that people were too afraid or trying to make it too perfect, and it never saw the light of day.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Yeah, yeah. There's graveyards filled with people who thought they had more time.

unknown 49:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

Usually when I when I'm in a place of um it's such a balance with it because I like to take my time on things, and I think that's a part of um creating something of quality and not just putting shit out into the world that it's like not actually me. Sometimes it takes and it usually it usually doesn't take time for me to create the thing, it takes enough time to connect to myself to the work, right? It takes enough, it it you know. When I was filming a video for you know something that we have coming up here soon, um the longest part of it was wasn't me recording the video, it was writing the script for it, and it was you know, speaking the script out loud, and then it was like throwing the script away and figuring out how do I want to actually say it and then recording the video, right? So the time you the the amount of time it usually takes for me is is spending that time in the beginning connecting to myself and connecting myself to the thing that I'm doing, and then just fucking doing it and then putting it out.

unknown 50:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:25

So we had another question come in through our live audience. From your experience when perfectionism originally formed as a survival or protection strategy, what actually allows the body to recognize what is safe to loosen its grip and what tends to shift first when that happens?

SPEAKER_01 50:47

Yeah. I think the the one answer this question. Having most things are healed relational, right? We talk a lot about that through somatics. Uh the body keeps the score, but it's activated relationally and it's healed relationally. And most of the time, what's going to actually help us move out of those survival or or protection strategies is having an audience that is safe first. Creating something for um somebody or people or an audience that you know isn't they love you and they're going to be there for you. And they're going to actually like um support you in it. Now I it's interesting because I'm reading a lot of parenting books right now, and it reminds me of um there's so many different schools of thought when it comes to those beginning years with your child, as far as like uh, do I make this child feel like they're the most special thing in the world? And that like everything that they do, they're the star of the show, and they're like just giving all of the attention to them. Some people say, well, um, that person's going to turn into a spoiled brat and think that the world revolves around them. Some people say that actually doing that actually creates enough internal validation for themselves that they're not going to go seek that external validation out in the world. And I actually agree with that. I think that in those beginning phases of being a child, um, it's really important that the child feels that they're the most special thing, that they are the jewel in the eye of their parents, that whatever they create is absolutely incredible so that they can start to give themselves the validation. And I think as an adult, it's important to have those sort of people in your life that support everything that you do. Uh you know, it's amazing what happens when you have someone that believes in you.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

I can say for myself that in the beginning of this journey, I had one to two people that really, really believed in me when I didn't even believe in myself, when I judged myself. When, and, you know, they believed in me, even if there were aspects where they, you know, might have not actually believed in me. But that energy, I think, helped me kind of almost reparent myself in a way, and allowed me just a little bit more safety to start to poke my head out a little bit more and express a little bit more. And then like it's it different stages of the journey require different things. So I think if you're in the beginning of kind of just reparenting yourself, and if it's if it if you're feeling it more on a nervous system level and it's more fear, like that's deeply trapped in the body, it's probably a sign that it is, you know, something from like earlier, earlier childhood. So having a safe container that you're working with in the beginning that is just going to support you no matter what, that's going to build up your confidence. And then taking it a little bit further and just one step at a time, right? So hopefully that supports.

SPEAKER_00 54:32

Yeah. So as we wind down this conversation, what is one piece of advice that you could give to the listeners to help them take that step away from perfectionism?

SPEAKER_02 54:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

Looking at everything as an iteration is going to be like the the to really sit with that. Like, if I am looking at my life as everything is an iteration, well, you know, my partner and I talk about that a lot. Like, there's always fear that comes in around like, cool, we're gonna have a kid, we just got a house. Like, what happens if we like feel stuck in this life and we like we start to hate it, and then we start to get, you know, irritable with each other, and then we're in this life that neither one of us like. Well, don't forget that you can change it at any time. It's an iteration. Cool, we don't like it, let's do something different. So there's the piece of understanding that everything that you're doing is an iteration. And a lot of us think that if we go down a path, that that's the path for the rest of our life. And it's not. You can change it at any time. You can change it at any time. But the thing that has helped me actually apply this understanding of iteration is learning to run different experiments in my life. If you look at, and I think we've talked about this before, if I look at things as I'm just gonna run this experiment to actually test something up against the inner critic of my mind, really. Like the piece with social media is like, I'm gonna do an experiment of no matter what my inner critic says, I'm going to post for 30 days. I'm going to write this book and put it out. I'm going to go for a run each day. I'm going to run some sort of experiment and actually just see what happens. Because if we get caught up in the day-to-day roller coaster of our mind, it's going to throw us off the path of creating something or getting better at something. It takes time and it takes repetition to do something. So set an experiment for yourself. Set an experiment for yourself. I'm going to do this thing for 30 days and I'm going to test and I'm going to iterate along the way. And I'm just going to like, let's just see what happens. Let's take the answer that your mind has created, because it's really good at coming up with the answers for you. And usually never has my mind had the exact right answer as what life has actually shown me. There's been close times where I have, you know, an intuitive hit if of things, but when it comes to creating something, and it when it comes to something that I have perfectionism around, my mind is usually never right. I'm always surprised by the end of it. So I'm just going to do this thing. I'm going to do the best I possibly can for a certain amount of time. I'm going to see what happens. I have a hypothesis around it, but let's actually see what, what, what, what the actual results are. So for me, learning to learning to live life is an iteration. You can change it at any time. If you can learn from it and running these different experiments to test against my perfectionism and honestly prove the inner critic of my mind wrong.

SPEAKER_00 58:10

I love that. I love that. And and really just being okay with making mistakes, being okay with something not working out the way that you thought it was. And okay, that's version one. It, you know, this constant thought process of like being in iteration always makes me think back to Thomas Edison, right? Like, what if he stopped on the third light bulb failure?

SPEAKER_02 58:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:34

Would we would we even have lights today? Or would we all still be using candles and old school ways of doing it? It took him a thousand and one, I think it was the correct number before he finally created the one that lasted, the one that worked. Being okay with that failing, recognizing that failing, and this is where I think school really kind of sets us all up for that failure, is like we get judged on when we don't get a question right or when we don't get the answer perfect. But like we learn so much more through the mistakes that we make rather than the successes that we have.

SPEAKER_01 59:12

Yeah. The last piece in there was learn how to celebrate your mistakes. Because if you do that, you're going to learn from them so much more. Versus if you make a mistake and you just get harder on your harder on yourself, then you're furthering the pressure and you're sinking it deeper into your tissue. Versus when you celebrate the mistake, you're often able to see the all of the sides of it, like, wow, I just made this mistake, but wow, what did I learn through the process? What questions did I ask? Celebrating yourself for actually going down the path of asking the question and taking the action on it is going to create more success in your life than getting stuck in the first version of something and trying to make it perfect.

unknown 1:00:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Fantastic advice today, Jaggers. I really, really enjoyed breaking this one apart. And I'm definitely going to be re-listening to this podcast again because I know that there's some points in there that you gave that I maybe need to hear a few more times to really have it sink in.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Yeah. And I just want to say this for everyone like uh everything that I'm speaking about and I'm sharing is usually just the advice for myself. So it's always we need to be reminded more than we need to be taught. And so these are often just reminders for myself. So I hope they resonate with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:39

Well, on behalf of myself and the audience, thank you for the reminder.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

Yeah, thanks, Adam. I love these conversations. Let's keep them going.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

Let's do it. And I hope to see everybody on the next one.