[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Sudddhart here aka the focus b. And on this show I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.
[00:41] I'm really excited to announce that in the upcoming weeks I am launching my new program to help you to optimize your time and your energy to reach the results and impact you want in your business and in your life. If you want to find out more about my new program, check out thefocusbee.com program. Are you a perfectionist or hyperachiever? Maybe you're both. The chances are if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably a perfectionist or a hyperachiever. Why do I say this? My entire podcast is built on high performance, peak performance and leadership skills. People who are interested in being at a very high level of performance or in developing great leadership skills tend to be hyperachievers and or perfectionists. More likely though, hyperachievers. What does hyperachiever mean? You can also call it overachiever. hyperachievers are people who get a huge sense of pride and joy and validation from their achievements. So if you're the sort of person who seeks constant results and achievements and things that you can feel proud of, and awards and diplomas and high salaries and great titles in your job, all of these things are probably things that you derived happiness from because you're a hyperachiever. Being a hyperachiever isn't good or bad, so it's not something you should feel super proud about, but it's not something you should feel ashamed of either. It's just a fact. It's just a fact that you get satisfaction and validation from these external results. The plus sides of this are that you are likely to have ambition and to achieve great things in your life. The downside is that you become dependent on these external results and you often don't have the self validation. You lack that sort of self compassion with yourself. So that's the pros and cons. And with perfectionism though, it's different. It is quite related. Perfectionism really comes down to never feeling that it's quite right and always wanting to do it better and again. Plus side is though, you do do a thorough job. Downside is maybe you spend too long on it. What perfectionism and hyperachievers have in common is this feeling of not enough. hyperachievers get this from not enough results. So they might have one result, two result, this great client, this great thing, this great project. What's next? What's next? More. More. They want more. More projects to feel validated. More projects, more achievements, more whatever you want to call it. More goals, more results, more outcomes and perfectionists just want more. More and more. In terms of quality, it's never good enough. Quality. The document the paper, the book they're writing. And so even though it transfers in different ways, both hyperachiever and perfectionists have this feeling of not enough, which is linked to this belief that they are not enough. And the way it translates for hyperachievers is just lots of more results will make me be enough. And for perfectionists is loads more quality. It being even better and better and better and better will make me be enough. Sorry to break this to you, but more results or better quality document won't make you be enough. You are already enough. You do not need an extra diploma, you do not need an extra great status, you do not need the document to be reviewed another 50th time. You are already enough. You're hearing me say this won't be enough. You need to say it to yourself. You need to believe that you are enough. You are complete as it is. And notice how you are wasting time, energy, resources on trying to get that external and internal validation. And this is where time comes in. So you might be wondering, okay, I thought this episode was on time. It is on time related to perfectionism and hyperachiever. Because what happens is in this search of becoming enough, guess what? We waste a lot of time for perfectionists. Notice when good is good enough. How can you know when that's the case? Simple. Ask three people who are linked to you for a proposal, your book, a document, a post, and ask them what do you think? Do you think I should still improve it? What can I tweak that's one method? Ask people what they think instead of spending hours and hours and hours making it better. Then another option is give yourself an amount of time. Use Parkinson Law that we'll be talking about in one of the next episodes. Use Parkinson Law and think I'm giving myself 2 hours, I'll do the very best I can in these 2 hours and that's it. And then send and start to develop the habit, because it is a habit of either fixing yourself an amount of time or a deadline or whatever it is and sticking to it. Use that discipline and think I know I could do it better. Things can always be done better. But is it worth that extra time and energy when you've got a lot of other things that are also important? So instead aim to do the best that you can, but in a decent amount of time. And this takes practice, it's a balance because obviously you still want a good result, obviously you still want to be thorough, but you also don't want to spend too much of your time. And this is huge because many people that struggle with time are perfectionists. So I understand that having this discipline to stick at a fixed amount of time for a certain project can be very challenging, but it also can be done. And there's lots of ways to work on your perfectionism. So if you feel that this is holding you back from managing your time efficiently, start to analyze afterwards. Start to think where could I have saved time? Where did I spend an extra 1234 5 hours that weren't really needed, that didn't really make that much of a difference. If you spent 5 hours getting 90% of your document done and another 5 hours doing the last 10%, really? Did you need another 5 hours for that last 10%? Or could you have done it in 1 hour? This is what I mean. And yeah, just realize when you're just faffing and changing the font five times and doing lots of little things. So that's the important part for perfectionist have fixed time. Ask other people and review afterwards. So those three things, asking other people, have a fixed amount of time and review afterwards and analyze where you could have saved time. For hyperachievers it's slightly different. You might struggle with time because you take on too much, because you don't have boundaries and because you constantly want to prove yourself and so you want to do more and have more results. In a similar way to perfectionists. Just start to notice when you're saying yes to something that's not aligned just because you want the validation or that you are taking on a project just because you want another project or another diploma. I know that in my case I am more of a hyperachiever than a perfectionist. And so I would, for instance, always want to do more training. Like training for me it's the hardest thing to resist. It's a bit like a perfectionist who's redoing the fund 50 million times. I'm the bit the same. I would take on 20 million trainings. I really have to use a lot of discipline not to sign up to that Oxford leadership course or to go to this YouTube training course. The list goes on really pretty much every training I see within my field I want to do it. And this is sort of hyperachiever because it's great to do training, I'm all for it, I still do training. But now I evaluate is it worth my time? Is it worth the alternative cost? The cost can be time, money, energy, is it worth it? Do I have other things that I'm also doing and not just seeking constantly to do training? Because again, it comes from a place of I'm not enough and I need more. And although it's great to do training and to constantly learn, you can also learn through reading a book. You don't always have to take loads of diplomas and courses to learn things so very important. So start to notice how the perfectionist or the hyperachiever shows up in your behaviors, in your thoughts and how it impacts your relationship with time. What are some of the things that you're doing or not doing because of this perfectionist and this hyperachiever? And regulate. Like I explained with my training, I just regulated at one time. I said yes to everything and I thought, oh, I can't say yes to everything. I don't want to. And I have other priorities in my life. And I started saying no to pretty much most trainings. And I say one yes, yes once in a blue moon if it feels really aligned, but not every week. So start to notice. Notice when the perfectionist shows up, the hyperachiever and how this impacts your relationship with time. Hope this episode has been useful for you and that you will implement this in your daily life. The whole point of this podcast is for you to implement it. My aim is that at the end of this season you have learned to master your time, energy and attention so that you can have profit, impact and expertise in your business. Please let me know what was your takeaway? Write to me on social media. I am always happy to have feedback and to hear from my listeners. And please remember to leave a review if you haven't done yet. It helps other listeners to find this podcast and it means the world to me too. And I love to read your comments. So please don't hesitate to write on Apple podcasts or Spotify to let me know how this episode and this podcast is helping you. Thank you so much for tuning in today and wishing you a fantastic day.
[12:29] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Bee Show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback, so let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you, and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.