6. Wanting To Be Perfect Is Holding You Back

think we that was all rooted in fear, because we sort of put it this barrier hadn't been like before we got a name we couldn't do anything else. Because you know what we didn't we weren't sure. If we're going to be moving in the right direction, you know that the name might change everything. So it stopped us, you know, starting to write episodes stopped us recording. It was just really a massive excuse to not get started because we couldn't think of a perfect name. Yeah. And we couldn't think of a perfect avatar, we

And I guess as well when we talk about perfectionism, we can talk about things like perfectionism, it can greatly diminish your self esteem, it can decrease your enjoyment of things, because if you're, if you're constantly just worrying about what actually are insignificant things, it makes you feel like you're stressed and you feel worried you feel inadequate. And also, it's important just to mention this as well, that we're not talking about the mental health condition, OCD here, which is which is a slightly different thing to be a perfectionist, isn't it? So I just wanted to point that out as well. We're talking about an unhealthy obsession with being perfect in your daily life

and from a science point of view, your brain is desperate to avoid failure. You know, back to our hunter gatherers in the wild failure could be life threatening, you know, mistakes out in the wild can cost you your life. Our brain is hardwired to avoid failure. And therefore perfectionism is a way of not failing because if you don't put yourself in that position, where you've stretched your boundaries, where you've accomplished something where you're prepared to be judged, then you can't fail at it because you never started it in the first place. And the real real downside of that is perfectionism kills creativity. So in striving to be perfect, what you end up doing is stifling the best parts about yourself.

And it turns out you know what, that is just so true, because I know that I felt like this as well. And I think what we need to remember as well is creativity is subjective to various different people like there's no perfect definition of what is good, what is bad. I mean, someone can look at one picture that say an artist is drawn, and think it's absolutely amazing. And then someone might just think that just looks like a bit of mess on a piece of paper. So, you know, perfectionism, creativity, it's not just a set boundary of what is and what isn't. It's totally I'm trying to think of the word that we're trying to use here. It's totally subjective. No,

on that subject, talking about why perfectionism isn't actually perfect. Is because one of the reasons you're actually less efficient because you're always trying to improve on something. And that actually takes a lot of time and mental energy. It also means you can be less effective as well because the need for it to be perfect. You can go over and over it but is it really really necessary to keep going over and over something can actually make you less effective because you're just wasting a lot of time at the same time as well. And the next one is obviously procrastination, which we will talk about in more detail in further episodes, but overthinking things and actually complicating things waiting for the perfect moment leads to you being overwhelmed, maybe you know, been actually been life something because even though you're trying to be perfect, because you're putting those obstacles in the way you end up even not finishing it and you would your life something so again, it may it's making you less effective is making you less efficient, and then it's causing you problems as well because you're stressing over problems that may not even exist. Maybe you've put extra work on yourself. Maybe it's causing unneeded stress, maybe even trying to which is what I know I do is trying to preempt problems for solutions that may not even arise. I look to

So with that in mind, we're going to go through a couple of different things that we do to avoid perfectionism. Well, to reduce it anyway. The first way to avoid perfectionism is to set SMART goals. Now, I know this is something that I hop on and on and on about and Sparky sick of hearing it. But it's so crucial if you've got wild and unachievable goals, and that's going to add to stress is going to feed your perfectionism because you're never going to get to a level where you're happy with your work. Whereas if you set a SMART goal, then you've got the confidence to move forward knowing that you can achieve your targets and then it's a sensible way for you to spend your energy. So if you've not listened to our first episode, second episode, which is all on goal setting, please go back and listen to that one. It is a little bit of a drier episode, but I promise you it's so worthwhile and we just keep coming back to it time and time again.

And the next one that I wanted to mention for me anyways just focusing on the positives because we mentioned this in our last episode, which is having gratitude towards life, and how we can focus on gratitude practising. But this is a really important one as well for perfectionism because wanting everything to be perfect actually means that we end up focusing on quite a lot of the negatives because that's what we see as our biggest challenge. So we go over the negatives in our mind. And we need to challenge ourselves to focus on things that we appreciate and allow ourselves to make those mistakes because mistakes are always going to be an opportunity to learn and grow and also mistakes are necessary to get to where we want to be.

Okay, so the next thing that I've got is to challenge your inner critic. So if you're like anything like me, you are your harshest critic, and I have a constant dialogue going on in my head, which I think is is fairly normal for most people. But actually, that dialogue is often not very kind. And so something that I have started to do is to imagine that that voice in my head is not talking to me, but it's talking to say my best friend and think about the kind of things that you say in your head. So you know our you'll never do it. You're not good enough. Everyone will laugh at you. You'd never say anything that cruel to a friend because they'd feel demotivated, embarrassed and they probably wouldn't want to keep being your friend if you were so negative to them all the time. So actually in a way, we become our own worst enemy. And I found that just changing my internal dialogue and speaking to myself, the way I would speak to someone else has been really powerful in stopping me from being a perfectionist.

if we died, however, however harsh you are, like you might say like little harsh things, like as a joke to someone, but the things that you say to yourself in your head. Do you never speak to somebody like that? You really wouldn't. Like literally I'll say things to myself like, What's What's the fucking point? Like? You're never gonna make anything of yourself like it's just a waste of your time. You're just gonna live this little person life and then die and nobody's gonna remember you in 10 years time after you've died. And I've never say that to someone else.

you might say those kinds of things. If you're really passionate and having a heated argument with someone Yeah, that but that's the voices in your head all the time saying those nasty angry words. Like it's no wonder it stops you from from doing things and moving forward. We are our own worst critics. And we need to be kind to ourselves and accept that making mistakes and even failures are part of being human. And lowering those unrealistic standards that we set ourselves is something that can really help us in the future. Also learning how to receive criticism a bit better as well. So when people do say things to you that you might take really personally try to think of them as ways that you can learn and grow from them so if you say to me you know, all Sparky this wasn't done right. Or you know, I don't like this instead of me taking it as though Oh my God. Everyone hates my work and instead thinking about okay, maybe shell doesn't like that. Maybe someone else would maybe the Silikal thing that could change about it. But you know, maybe I shouldn't take it so personally and put the emphasis on me that it's actually terrible because that's probably not what you mean. And as we stated before, there is no such thing as perfect.

We spent the whole last episode talking about how if you practice gratitude and positive thinking, how it will affect your mindset, and how that little change makes a positive impact on your life. Think about the reverse. If you've got this inner critic constantly telling you you're not good enough. Nothing you do will ever be good enough, you'll never achieve anything. Think about how damaging that is and how much more likely you are to fail when you've got that verbal dialogue going on. Another really important part of combating perfectionism is to learn to say no. So you need healthy boundaries, and they'll give you the space that you need to finish projects that you started. So this is a form of practising self care. To say no to take it on more when you're already struggling, is really hard to start with, especially if you're someone who's always used to people pleasing. It's hard to say no, but actually, when she get into the habit of it, it can be really liberating to just give yourself that time. And it's something that we've touched on in previous episodes, but I'm gonna say it again because it's so important. Time Off to recharge is not wasted time, you will come back more productive than if you just soldier on getting slower and less motivated. Yeah,

and a lot of people do this they see time as relaxing time have seen family even even sometimes just sitting there watching a TV show, having a bath relaxing, doing whatever it is that you feel, makes you feel more relaxed. They see that as wasting time. But as you've just said, that time is actually you recuperating, recharging your batteries to come back stronger, naturally you're more effective if you actually factor in all of those things. There was one thing that I did want to quickly mention here is a long time ago I added CBT it basically just means cognitive behavioural therapy. So it's a talking therapy that can help you manage your problems by basically changing the way that you think and behave. And it's it's usually used for things like you know, overthinking, anxiety, depression and things like that. And it can be really useful for other mental health problems too. And one of the things that I was told in in there is to quickly do a little diary of each week and put in the things that you enjoy doing, whether that's relaxing, or whether it's a hobby, so that could be going outside and looking up at the stars, or whether you do gardening or some form of hobby, those things are really important to factor into your life and they're not wasted time at all. I think

one for me is focusing on meaning over perfection and this is something that I think is totally worth it when it comes to perfectionism. Focus on finding the meaning in what you do, rather than trying to do it perfectly. If something brings us a purpose or something brings us joy, and it doesn't matter if it's done perfectly, because it's more fulfilling to actually find the meaning in it along the way. I try to think now to myself, because I'm a recovering perfectionist in a way. Do you know what? This might not even be perfect, but I enjoyed every single second of it. And I found a purpose in it. I've found some fulfilment in it. And that to me is always going to be better than doing it perfect.

I think our podcast is a really good example of that. So the meaning behind the podcast is to increase positivity to help as many people as we can. And actually all of the stuff that we've stressed about trying to get perfect. None of that matters. It really doesn't. And the final thing for me is to look at your negative influences. And I'm going to try and not make this another one of my social media rants. But social media promotes a hustle culture and perfectionism. And I think sometimes it's worth remembering that you don't need to be doing all the things all the time to be successful and happy. And you know, sure there are examples of people like Elon Musk who absolutely thrive in that environment, but we're not all the same. And forcing yourself to be something that you're not because you're copying someone or you're copying social media. Not only will it not make you happy, you will have a miserable journey getting to that realisation as well. Okay, so

we're gonna wrap this up here because we could talk about perfectionism for so long. I mean, we've probably dragged on in this podcast anyway. So that just goes to show that we are very much perfectionist, but we're trying to change and I think we're getting better show. I really do think we're getting there. Like show, podcast slow progress. This podcast is a great example of just striving not to be as perfect as we wanted it to be. And you know, as time goes on, we will get better in a way anyway without even realising it. So I guess we should talk about our little kicker this week as we did a challenge last episode, which keep you going for another month. We thought this episode will give you a quote.