You're listening to. She said what with your host
Alyssa Harper? Hello sexy people.
Welcome back to. She said of what if you have not
been here before then I just want to welcome you and let you
know that you are welcome. Whoever you are.
This is a space for you to come and grow to become the best
version of yourself to work on that inner dialogue.
And to just have a laugh. So today we're going to be
talking about perfectionism, which is something that I have
absolutely struggled with and still do struggle with to this
day. But I'm going to be sharing the
things. That have helped me get through
perfectionism. If you are somebody who wants to
do something like, you have something on your heart like a
creative project or you want to start freelancing like writing
or art or music, or you just want to do something where
you're able to put yourself out there.
But you always find yourself procrastinating and putting
those things off. Then, this episode is absolutely
for you. And if you find yourself
second-guessing yourself, having a lot of anxiety around trying
new things, In this episode is for you.
If you struggle with feeling confident in your work, or you
are a bit of an anxious girly like myself, then, this episode
is absolutely for you. Let's get right into it as per
usual. Going to give you a quick update
on my week. Look this week.
I don't know how to say this without going on about it
forever and I'm not going to, but I to be completely honest
with you guys, I had a bit of a hard time mentally this week.
I don't know what it was specifically.
I think just not being as busy it like, forces me to slow down
and to like really reflect on what's going on in my life and
like, what I want to create and what the hell I'm doing and I
just feel like sometimes I can get very in my head if I'm being
completely honest. I have definitely struggled with
anxiety over the years, which I talked about all the time a
little bit of depression as well.
Diagnosed. So, you know, and it's just
something that is comes up in different seasons.
And this is a season where it's come up for me.
And I just want to be really open and honest with you guys
about that, and not try to hide it.
I think because I have a podcast where I talk about how to like
work on these things and how to grow and push yourself and
become that version of yourself. I can sometimes feel like, uh,
like, if I'm honest about how I'm feeling them, they're going
to think that I'm, like, not qualified to help them, but I
Personally, when I think about the people that I appreciate
different creators, like, influencers people who create
stuff online. What I like about social media
is people who are very open and honest and just say it as it is.
And so that's what I try to do, and that's what I'm doing.
Being honest with you guys and so, in the past week, I guess
highlights would be that yesterday.
I went down to the beach and I just had an amazing day with one
of my really good friends and we got coffee and like a little
breakfast in the morning and I just Time in the Sun and I was
like Wow who would have thought getting outside in the sun,
hanging out with a good friend, eating real food and not like
ubereats, chit and two minute noodles and all that you know
doing good things for your body, actually helps your mental
health who would have thought and so I've kind of revived
myself. I'm definitely feeling a lot
better now but this week was just a bit of a week where I
needed to like, figure out some things and so that's what my
week was like, but honestly, I'm really happy to be talking about
perfectionism because This is something like I said, in the
intro, I have struggled with a lot and I've noticed it come up
in random moments, like say when my hormones are a little bit
crazy, maybe I'm PMSing a little bit and I want to like pull it
out like a video talking about something and I'm sitting there
like editing it over and over and questioning myself and going
odd. You know, does that work?
Or is that is that good? What I said and I second-guess
like my work a lot you know I've had that and I've also had it in
Seasons where it's like big things like I put off wanting to
like go for a new job. You know, I've definitely had
Seasons where I've said to myself like genuinely for
probably a month or so like I need to quit this job every time
before I go into a shift I'm like I don't want to go, I don't
like this place, you know? But I would stop myself from
actually making that jump in, like making that choice.
Because I'm like, everything needs to be perfect, everything
needs to be aligned. I can't do anything without
knowing what's going to happen and what my fate is.
Going to be, you know, and so I think that's something that we
will talk about what that kind of thinking pattern actually is
and why it happens and how to break that down.
But I want to start today with just asking, are you a
perfectionist? And I'm going to go through some
tendencies that I have done a little research on sorry.
Who am I? I know I've researched some
Tendencies so that we can be very clear on what it looks like
to be a perfectionist. And of course, everything is
going to be linked below as a resource if you want to do like
further reading on these things. But Let's go through.
I'm going to start to list them off.
Number one is all-or-nothing, thinking now all-or-nothing
thinking is something that I've actually talked about on the
podcast before and it is one of the negative patterns of
thinking that is actually really commonly talked about within
cognitive behavioral therapy. So if you've ever done any form
of therapy, it's often cognitive behavioral therapy.
That therapist is following like you're you know or regular
run-of-the-mill therapist. And they usually will go
through. It's about 8, maybe 10 different
types of thinking that's really common.
And this is one that has been highlighted for me, absolutely
by a therapist and also through a journal that I was doing ages
ago that if you guys have been listening for a while, you will
remember me talking about this but it's actually a CBT Journal
cognitive behavioral therapy journal and I can link that
below for you guys as well. But basically what it does is it
asks you to write the negative thought that you're having I'm
recognize what way of thinking you're going through All or
Nothing. Of course, like I said, is one
of them and then figuring out how to, like change that thought
incorrect, that - automatic thought to become a positive
thought or at least to become like a neutral thought.
And so, of course all-or-nothing thinking is basically just when
you look at a situation and you're like it's all going to
shit or like I'm not going to throw a birthday party because
No One's Gonna Come, you know, or I'm not going to put this out
because nobody's going to care about it, nobody's going to read
it, nobody's gonna buy it, you know.
No, it's just that Assumption of like this is going to be really
good or this is going to be really bad and it's like that
black or white thinking. That's a really common tendency
of being a perfectionist. Okay.
Number two is being highly critical and this can be of
yourself, but this can also be of other people.
So if you have noticed that you are very like, you look at
something and be like, oh that's no good, or you'll just be very
like judgmental towards things that's a really common tendency
and it's okay if your brain does that Honestly.
Okay, I'm not labeling. You as judgmental nor my
labeling me as judgmental, but it's a common thing where you're
going to be highly critical and you're going to pick things
apart. That's usually going to come
along with this way of thinking. Number three is fear-based
choices. So of course, that just means
making choices out of this fear. Like I'm scared that it's not
going to work out. I'm scared that no one's going
to give a shit. You know, I'm scared that if I
go on a date with someone, they're not going to like me,
you know. It's that Assumption of these
negative things coming from a fear.
Number four is having unrealistic standards so maybe
you're a bit of a goal Setter like myself.
Maybe. You're not.
But if you are, maybe you sit down and you write these goals
and you say things like all right, I want to make ten
thousand dollars tomorrow, you know?
Or I want to be a millionaire by the end of the year and if
you're one of those people, then it's probably not gonna work out
with making goals that way because What you often do,
especially if they are like, short term, short term, hello,
short-term goals. Like by the end of this month, I
want to do this. If you don't do it, and it's
such a big goal, it is such a like, it really, it really tears
you down, you know, it really stops you from believing that
you can go after goals and reach the goals and then it stops you
from wanting to go after things in the future.
So it's like this toxic cycle of this self-belief being broken
down Cuz you're telling yourself, I should be able to do
this, right? Putting all this pressure on
yourself, sending these unrealistic expectations for you
and the people around you, including your relationships in,
all of the things, you know. And then when those things don't
come through it creates this disappointment, and then this
just belief that sits on you that is, I can't do the things
that I set out to do, which can obviously be really unhealthy.
Number five is focusing on the results.
So if you are somebody, where you get a really obvious,
Understanding of how well you're doing when it comes to like your
job or you know maybe you put yourself into a competition for
like art or music or something like that and you don't win,
right? You set this unrealistic goal
going back to the last point and then you don't actually meet
that thing and the result isn't what you wanted it to be.
You become so focused on the results that you don't enjoy the
process of it. And as much as you thought you
loved doing that thing, you start to not like that thing.
A lot of people talk about when you take something that is like
a hobby or something, you enjoy and you make it your job and how
that can be a really like slippery, slope because suddenly
you can go well, these need to be the results because they I
need to make money or be I want people to take me seriously, you
know, you go through all of these like loopholes that you're
trying to put yourself through to get to a point where you are,
like, I am this thing, you know, I am an artist, I am a musician,
I am whatever I am self for claiming that I am, and if
people Take it seriously or you don't get the results, like,
people aren't buying your artwork or hiring you for the
thing that you studied your degree for, then that can be
really like, disorientating, disorient disorienting, hello.
I don't know. It can be very like, it's not
encouraging and that can be really hurtful on what you
believe you can do in the future where we at number. 1 2 3 4 5 6
feeling depressed by unmet goals.
I kind of talked about this a little bit as well, but it's
like, it actually affects you emotionally.
Like it actually makes you feel really down and it makes you
feel blocked from moving forwards and it can be really
like isolating. And it can actually create this
sense of like fries for you, where you kind of like seized up
and you don't want to go forward because you feel like nothing is
coming of what you're doing. And a really big problem with
that one is that you never know. What's going to come of things
in the future. And I've seen this for sure in
my like career thus far, where you might, you know, meet
somebody, 34 years ago, think nothing of them and then they
can pop up in your life and be like, hey, I actually have this
really great opportunity for you or hey, we should reconnect and
they might be a really great friend for you, right?
You might have situations that you just, you didn't really
expect anything to come out of them, but then something might
come out of them. And when you are constantly
being this, Cool person where you're going.
Okay, this is the result I'm expecting and then you don't get
it. Then it might tear you down when
it actually shouldn't because you never know when something is
going to come of it. Like I've been repeating this a
lot recently in my life and I think saying this to a lot of
people because this is a conversation that have been
having with a lot of people recently, feeling like they are
perfectionists and a lot of people feel like stuck and like
nothing's going to come of it and I always say, you never know
when Is going to come up tomorrow could be the day that
you have a big breakthrough, right?
Tomorrow could be the day that you receive some email or a call
or someone reaches out. You never know when
opportunities are going to come into your life and I find that
life is very cyclical for me. I do mean cycle sinking of
course as we always talk about, but also like cyclical in the
sense of you go through like little flops.
You know what I mean? You cannot always be in this
like hot girls. Girl doing everything like
living your best life era, you cannot be.
Okay. First of all, it's just too
much. You can't be doing that all the
time. You need time to rest.
You need times to be like, having your ego check.
Do you know, you need to be knocked down here and there
because sometimes lessons need to be learned, we are all on a
journey of like growth and going through different processes and
like becoming these versions of ourselves that like we want to
be and that also needs to change season to season and that's why
I love the idea of looking Your life in different seasons.
And if right now, you're in bit of a, you're a wee bit of a bit
of a flop era, you know, as they say, then that's totally fine.
And I think it's important that you are okay with that.
And you step into like, all right, I'm in a bit of a, like,
a Down Season or quiet season. What can I do in this season to
come out? Even stronger.
And that might be because of internal things like your mental
health. Like I was talking about
struggling with at the start of this week or external.
This is like things going on in your relationships or in your
families or whatever moving forward procrastination.
Is one that comes up, which, of course, we've already talked
about, and I'm going to finish this list off quickly now, but
procrastination is one that comes up.
Of course if you are a perfectionist because you don't
feel like your work is ever done because you're a perfectionist.
So you're literally going, it's not quite there now, let's put
it off. You know, let's put it off till
next week and I've done this many times guys, I Almost Do
This Single week with episodes, okay?
Like I'll sit here and go, it is just not good enough.
Now they're gonna hate it, you know, if you do that yourself
constantly you're never going to get anything done.
You know? If you're writing essays for
uni, if your University for college, you know, sorry I'm
sorry in Sydney, we say uni and not University.
I don't know if that's like a worldwide thing.
But yeah, if you're writing an essay in your reading, it over a
million times, you know, are you that person that says there and
you read your email? Over and over and over before
you send it because I am you're wasting your time.
Okay, it's fine. It's fine.
Even if you have one spelling mistake in there, they're not
going to go. Oh, there's such an idiot.
They're not gonna do that. Okay, they're gonna go.
Oh yeah. Okay.
Got the message up it up and they're going to be thinking the
exact same thing in the back of their mind of reading their
emails. And everyone's more worried
about themselves. Then they're worried about other
people. So just focus on you.
Get that shit through, press, send and move on.
All right, last few defensiveness and this usually
Comes up in relation to constructive criticism.
So someone gives you like potentially really great
feedback and your automatic response is to be like, well,
the reason I didn't do that is bababababa, right?
Or will the reason I did it that way is because you automatically
want to defend, why you did something a certain way.
And the problem with that is you are not allowing yourself to
grow, and correct. Like constructive criticism is
actually so, so valuable. But if you are someone Who say
you have a project and you work through it, you you really like
fine comb through every single little detail, you you wait, you
procrastinate, you finally put it out and then someone has
something negative to say about it.
You're going to be like what the fuck I put in all this effort.
I did this as this as why is nothing ever good enough?
Nobody likes me. No, you know and then you go
into that all-or-nothing thinking it is this like toxic
fucking cycle that you just go through in your brain, in its
hectic. Okay?
I That this is like, this is me, this is why I'm doing this
episode, I get it and it sucks. And if you are procrastinating
and then not taking criticism and, you know, not feeling good
about anything that you're doing, then you're not going to
be able to keep doing that thing, and it's going to be very
detrimental to your growth, okay?
Last but not least is having low self-esteem often perfectionists
actually have very low self-esteem in the problem with
this one, for Affection assists is people don't often think that
you would have a low self-esteem because you probably put out
really good quality work or you show up to work in a good mood.
Often, you know, you want people to really believe in you and to
see you as a certain thing. Maybe you're a bit of a people
pleaser, which we talked about last week.
So if you are identifying with this, specifically, go listen,
the last week's episode, but if you become somebody, who is very
much, like, I, I want to be amazing, I want people to think
that I'm amazing. I want to put an amazing work.
I do you know I don't want to make my work be shit.
And then you have this low self-esteem going into it.
Then it's all just going to circle back and around and
people are going to go. Wow, they're so confident.
They're so amazing. Let's put them in this position.
Let's give them this work. Let's highlight this person and
you're going, oh, don't show anybody that it's horrible.
You know, you're embarrassed by your work.
What is that about? Don't be embarrassed.
Don't think that your work is shit.
You are creative. You are amazing.
You need to be confident in your work.
And we're going to talk about how you can actually do that
going forward. And of course, throughout this
whole episode, all right, now, why are you a perfectionist?
This is something that can come back to so many things.
I just want to give a few little reasons as to why you might be
this way? Just because I think it is so
worth trying to understand why certain Tendencies come up in
your life because on a big scale like on an overarching like
big-picture view, you can actually We start to go in and
he'll things specifically. I will say first off your
history is so important. If you grew up around somebody
who constantly had negative, self-talk and said things -
about themselves about themselves, maybe not about you
but even just about themselves it rubs off on you especially if
this is someone that you looked up to or you saw as being like a
superior to you like a parent, an older.
Sibling maybe a teacher like anybody that you looked up to,
when they say things about themselves, they're constantly
bringing themselves down saying that they look the wrong way, or
they sound the wrong way, or they're not good enough, or
they're not pushing hard enough, or they wish they did x y z.
When they were younger, all of those kinds of things that can
come up. Then you internalize it more
than you would probably want to. And we are such like sticky
beings. Like when we are around other
People, we really do reflect the people that are around us which
I talked about three weeks ago and an episode about creating
community and like building friendships is the people that
are around you. You really really pull from them
and that can be amazing if you're around amazing people.
But if you're not surrounding yourself with good people then
what's gonna happen, you know, you're going to pick up on those
negative Tendencies. And so definitely think about
your history. Think about the people that
raised you, you know, think about your childhood because Is
like therapy e. It is an annoying, it can be.
It actually is really important to go back and look at where
some of those things might have come from.
Of course, I can also come from somebody literally telling you
that you are not good enough or the results of the thing that
you've tried to do in the past, not being what you wanted it to
be. Like, when I was younger, for
example, I was a Pianist and I would play piano all the time
and I loved it to do and I did all the levels, you know, I got
up to like level 7 or something, you know?
That I still love it or playing piano this morning actually.
And I'm like, relearning songs that I used to play when I was
younger just to like reconnect and like have that like
excitement. So, so fun.
By the way, if you have passions from, when you were younger
that, you want to like re-explore as an adult, you
absolutely should because it is actually so good for your brain.
It just feels so good. Anyways, we need to learn to
play. I need to go back and play like
children, I'm going on a tangent point.
Is that if you Had things growing up like an art or a
skill or a sport or something and you never seem to win.
You never seemed to place. You never got that award.
You know, you had a parent who was like, you're just we're not
quite good at it or you had a sibling who seem to be better at
it. We're always Sue seemed to be
better than you. That's a really big trigger.
And that is something that can absolutely cause you in your
adult life, to start to make choices where you just assume
that your Going to be good enough.
You're not going to place, you're not going to be that top
employee. You know, you're not gonna even
bother applying for the job or applying for that next level up
in your workplace. Because you think, why would
they want me? Why would they pick me?
People have been here longer, right?
People are better. People are more confident.
People are more attractive. Like you you put yourself in the
space of being like well I'm not at that level.
So why would I even assume that someone else would put me at
that level and it's so much, it's just like a mind game, you
know. It's really a lot of it is all
in your head and I don't mean that in an insensitive way it's
because I relate to it like it's a thing you know you see
yourself as being here and if you always see yourself as being
here at this specific level, then you're never going to like
level up and go for more because you just don't think that you
deserve it. Like we accept the love that we
think we deserve you know it's literally that like it's a real
thing. Perfectionism also comes up a
lot when it comes to From mental health disorders, which I wanted
to mention today because like OCD anxiety, depression, they
all came up when I was researching the different mental
health disorders, that can be linked to perfectionism,
perfectionism, is actually the most common cognitive distortion
within adults with ADHD. And that's another really common
issue that a lot of people are dealing with.
And, you know, we could talk about the so long.
But even like ADHD OCD a lot of these things that a lot of
people feel as though they have, they're not getting diagnosed
with them because it's expensive.
It's hard to get diagnosed. Sometimes I know I have friends
in Canada who are on waitlist to be diagnosed with things like
ADHD and autism and it's like over a year wait.
Sometimes like it is really hard sometimes and I just want you to
know that if you are struggling with any of these things as much
as I don't think you should 100% self-diagnose And you know tell
people you have this then. Our tools online for you to go
and do these online tests and figure out, if you might have
something like that, because not everyone has the resources to be
able to go and spend all this money and go have access to all
these, like, psycho therapists and psychologists, and get the
help that they need. But just know that if you are
thinking, oh, you know, I think I might be a little narrow
spicy, might have some OCD, some eighty HD, some things going on
there, that might Be undiagnosed, then I absolutely
validate that and that might be very real for you.
But I just thought I would mention that this is a very
common overlap that you might see between perfectionists and
people with these kind of mental health disorders.
And another one with ADHD obviously is very common, that
procrastination is a big issue there.
So you could imagine how all these things start to cycle in
and you're a perfectionist and you're putting off your work and
then you think your work isn't any good.
And then Procrastinate and you push it off and it's just this
like Loop saying, all of that, you don't have to have a mental
health disorder at all for you to be a perfectionist.
I think all of us have a little bit of perfectionism in us and
it's something that we all need to work through but I want to
talk about what perfectionism is doing to you and why it's so
detrimental. And of course, as I've been
doing continue to Spice in little ways that you can not be
a perfectionist. East and you can work towards
believing in yourself and like the work that you do because
it's kind of the only way out of being a perfectionist.
There isn't some perfect pill. There isn't some perfect daily
morning evening routine. That's going to fix your brain.
Unfortunately, sometimes it just takes us recognizing that.
We are the way we are and actually choosing to be like,
okay I'm going to like bite the bullet and be okay with moving
forward without Every single box, ticked, every single time.
And the more comfortable we get with being like, okay, I can do
things and people think it's great and even if people don't
think it's great, I think it's great and that's enough then
we're going to work on that and we're going to move towards
that. Number one.
This is all of the things that perfectionism is doing to you.
Number one, it is blocking your creativity, before you even put
the pen to paper, you are thinking.
No. My idea shit.
Why would I write about it? You know, maybe you have this
dream that you want to start a blog or you want to write a
book, you know. And you're literally saying to
yourself. Oh I can't write.
I can't even write one page. I can't even write one paragraph
because that task is just too much and all it's too daunting
and I'm not going to be any good and I should probably wait for
maybe five years from now, maybe 10 years from now when I'm a
better writer or I have more experience or have more to write
about, if you constantly do that, you are Stopping yourself
from being creative and talking about the things that you can
talk about right now. Like this is the thing, you have
value right now, you have ideas, Amazing Ideas right now.
But if you are stopping yourself like literally like cock
blocking yourself from going and actually creating something then
you're actually kind of like wasting those ideas you're
wasting that creativity and rather than looking at yourself
as being like Oh one day, I'm going to be Be good enough to do
XYZ. You need to start going.
Whoa, right now. I have it like I have a really
interesting point of view, you know, maybe you are young,
that's amazing. Being able to come from a point
of view that is Young is so, so, so good.
I've even seen working in the industry that I'm in with, like,
PR agents and like different management.
And all of that them, realizing how important it is for them to
be like, okay, if I want to make content Write a book or sell a
product or whatever. You know all these like PR
people in like add marketing people, if they're thinking, I
want to do something for Gen Z who do they need to ask Jonesy,
you know what I mean? If I need to make something or
talk to people in their 20s, who am I talking to people in their
twenties? You are valuable.
Even if you are young and you are also super valuable.
If you are older people will go oh you know I'm too old.
I'm past that point you know I'm past that point in my life.
Like now I've kind of said Settled down now, who wants to
hear from me? Who A lot of people because you
have experienced, right? You can always look at where you
are in life and see the value in it, but if you don't actively
try to get into that head space and go, where is that value?
Like what do I have to offer? Then you're just going to assume
that you don't have anything and then you procrastinate and you
put it off. Then you go from being.
I'm too young to very quickly being like well I'm now I'm too
old and then you never do anything.
You're blocking your Activity. Number two is that you are
delaying your success, which I would say in.
A lot of cases means that you're actually delaying your happiness
as well. Because if you have something on
your heart that you're like, I want to create this, I want to
do this. You know, I hate the job that
I'm in. I want to quit my nine-to-five.
I want to Bubba, Bubba Bubba, you want to do something else.
And you are pushing it off and procrastinating, often.
Then you're sitting even longer in that space that you don't
want to be in, right? That job.
You don't want to do or that friend group that you're in that
you're like oh I hate these guys.
You know, these these are my real friends.
Like I just feel like I don't fit here like but you're not
going out and making new friends, you know, you're not
pushing yourself to go and be a new spaces or like join that
Facebook group or get around new people.
You're not pushing yourself, so then you're just going to be
stuck in that friend group for even longer, right?
It's the same with, like, romantic relationships.
I identify with this. Okay, guys?
When I was younger, I threw most of high school was in a
relationship. And I were together for like
three years. There was a point at like the
two-year Mark where I was like, I do not, I should not be with
this person. I should not be with this
person. Like we are the worst.
We are literally the worst and like we are toxic.
You know, we fight all the time. We like you know there's there's
redeeming factors but we shouldn't be together.
I procrastinated getting out of that relationship for like over
a year, literally over a year. And there's obviously it's very
complicated and I have Grace for myself and I can look back At
the situation and be like oh like empathetic, you know, like
this is why and like you were young and like you were attached
to this this like I can look at why I made the choices I made
but going back. I wish I could just shake myself
and be like, bro, what the fuck are you doing?
You know what you need to do? Like, you know, you're just not
doing it, you know? So if you know, if you were
sitting here right now and you're going, oh my God.
Like I know, I know, I need to quit that job or I know I need
to break off this relationship or I know I need to put myself.
Furthermore I know I need to go to that like workout class or I
need to like get on a bit of a routine.
I know the thing that I need to do then I want you right after
you listen to this episode to like, pull out your notes app.
Pull out a piece of paper and a pen, whatever?
Right down like a few actionable steps.
Just a few. It doesn't have to be okay in
the next year, I'm going to accomplish.
No, no, let's start small. What can you do today?
What can you do this week to work?
Towards that thing, if that means just scrolling on like a
job site and just seeing what jobs are out there.
Then do it, just do it. I saw something this week and I
thought was really interesting, it was talking about job
applications and I don't know the exact like statistic for it.
But it was saying that women who are looking at different like
job applications and they see all of the different
requirements. If they don't meet all of them,
it's like, 90% of something of women in this, like, study.
We're not able and to do the job and their brains so they didn't
apply for the jobs whereas men. It was like if they could do one
of the things on the list, there were like, yeah, I'll figure out
the rest and it's really interesting obviously the way
that women perceive their value versus how men perceive their
value, and we could get into the whole feminist version of this
conversation, but it is such a thing.
And if you do that, if you're sitting there scrolling, this is
the hot tip. And looking for a new job and
you go. Oh, but wait.
No, I actually don't have that thing.
Fuck it, fuck it. Go in there and convince them
that you can do it because I absolutely believe that you can
and we really need to start backing ourselves more,
especially women in this scenario and especially when it
comes to job and your work and your belief in what you can
produce and how much value you can add two different spaces.
Number three. Being a perfectionist is
triggering your want to compare comparison?
Is a really big issue and I've I feel like I've struggled with it
like on and off. Like I normally say that I don't
struggle with comparison but I think different seasons trigger
it and this is actually been a season where I've been somewhat
triggered with it if I'm being honest like being in a new
having a new like job like before when I was say working in
Hospitality, I didn't want Work in Hospitality for my whole
life. So I didn't compare myself to
other people in it because I was like well I don't want to be a
manager or whatever. I don't like that's something I
want to do. I mean sleigh if that's what you
want to do, that's great. You know, that I just didn't
want to do it. I didn't I didn't care about it
and so I would never be in that workplace thinking like, oh, I
just wish I was as good as like, my manager.
Be, I didn't give a fuck, you know, where is then I stepped
up, and I became a reformer pilates instructor then.
I was like, okay. Now I'm comparing myself to the
other instructors. And then I got more comfortable
in the job. And then I got to a point where
I was like, I don't care, whatever.
I think I'm good. I've been to other classes where
they're not so good, and I've been to some classes that are
probably a million times better than how I teach and it's fine.
I think I'm good enough. I'm having a good time.
You know. I'm happy with my work.
I know, I try my hardest and that's what matters.
And I got to a point where I wasn't very confident in my
work, and then I quit being a Pilates instructor, and now I'm
doing social media and the podcast and everything
full-time. And, like I said, at the start,
Today's episode, I want to be very honest with you guys that,
like, sometimes it's hard. Sometimes I'm like, fuck.
What am I doing? Do people give a shit, you know,
like in and I'm comparing myself to other people who then have
podcasts or, you know, work in the space.
And so it's interesting that when you push yourself, when you
get into that new space of kind of like leveling up if you will
in like becoming more. So what you really want to do,
that can actually be really scary and put you at like risk
of Of going back and struggling with these things that maybe you
haven't struggled with in a while.
And that's something that I kind of want to prepare you with is
like if you're choosing to step into something new and to put
yourself out there, of course, it's going to be a bit scary.
Of course you're going to be like like what am I doing?
Like when I first start teaching Pilates, I was shitting bricks.
I was like, I don't know what I'm doing.
I felt like huge imposter syndrome.
That's another thing that it can trigger, which I think
comparison and impostor syndrome is kind of like one in the same
in a way. It comes up and that's going to,
that's okay. If you're going to put yourself
out there, that's okay. Because would you rather be
someone who puts herself out there and for a season really
struggles with comparison and this, you know, like, oh I'm not
meant to be here. Do people think I'm good enough
for this? Those like, negative thoughts?
Would you rather be in that position for a little bit and
then grow your confidence and then become a person who's
confident in that area? Or would you rather be stuck
where you are right now? Knowing that you're potentially
unhappy in your job or your school, or your work or
whatever, you don't want to be stuck there you don't.
So let's choose together. Collectively, I'm here with you
to make that jump. And go do that research.
Go reach out to that person. Go after that job.
Go put yourself out there and who gives a fuck what people
think, because it's a new experience and even just doing
that shows, how courageous you are, How brave you are, and
that's a win in and of itself. Number for being a perfectionist
is causing you potentially to go into bit of a freeze response.
If you know the difference between like fight flight and
freeze, often freeze is what people are finding themselves
in. And it's actually been, like, a
newer finding people, never really used to use freeze.
It was just like fight or flight.
But freeze is actually really, really, really common.
And if you are someone that when something negative happens, you
almost don't even process it. You're just like Stone Cold,
like it's like it, you can't quit.
You don't know how to deal with your emotions and that moment
you kind of just want to move on quickly and then you realize
later on that if you didn't deal with it at that time, you have
to deal with it later and it kind of like creeps back up.
If you're one of those people, I wouldn't be surprised if you're
still listening and you're like this is me because that's me too
sometimes and it can cause you to freeze your work.
So you want to be a really great painter and you start painting
and you have a good time with it and you go.
Wow. I really love this or maybe I
could start selling this one. You get kind of excited you know
you like start to work on it, you think all want my business
model. Maybe you know you know you do
all this research, you like really get into it.
You're like all right. I'm gonna do this thing and then
it starts to become a reality that you could actually do that
thing. And suddenly it's like, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What am I going to paint?
What do I wait? What do I do?
Wait should I should I get brand colors?
And you start like freaking the fuck out about all the little
details and you're not even doing the thing yet because
you've actually Frozen that creativity and you frozen you're
like want to actually produce and it can become very scary and
just it can it's like to legitimate like it's too real.
You know, it's like people who want to be an artist and then
they finally booked their first. I mean like a music artist and
you finally booked your first show.
Your first gig you know and then suddenly you're like what the
fuck am I doing? Why did I do this to myself?
Like it's scary but it's important.
It's pushing yourself and it's getting to that next level.
I was watching. This is so funny.
I was watching. And actions this week LOL, I got
Disney Plus finally, I don't know what was stopping me before
but I got Disney plus and I've never actually really watch the
Kardashians. Don't know what I was doing
before but I've been fucking loving it.
And I watched the first season that's on there of like the new
version of the show, you know? And I've been watching the first
one and I'm about to move on to the second one but Kim.
She was talking about when she went on Saturday Night Live.
I don't know if you guys remember that and the whole
episode is just her being like fuck like I wonder if I can
still cancel it in, this is fucking Kim Kardashian.
You know, we look at people like that which you know regardless
of if you think she's a good role model or whatever, doesn't
matter the point is that she's fucking slaying her industry.
Okay. She's doing great.
No problems. No, you know, no issues when it
comes to resources, money family, all of it you know she's
a human. So she has things that come up
but like she's obviously done amazing for herself and I just
thought it was so encouraging to see someone at her level who in
my mind could do Ever the fuck they want and just succeed and
everyone's going to be like, wow, she's amazing.
Even her questioning herself and being like, Oh, like I'm not
funny enough for this. I'm not this enough for this,
but she just was like, but I'm still gonna do it.
You know, I'm still going to put myself in that position.
I'm still going to fight the nerves.
I'm still going to show up and she fucking did it, and she
fuckin slated. And so, I just, I want to
encourage you that, if you are someone who's like, oh, freeze
scared. Uh, what do I do?
It's okay to me. Move into things while you feel
that way like often anxiety and excitement coincide is not the
word. I don't know.
They like they live together and it's such a real thing where you
might be super anxious and like fuck.
I don't know if I'm good enough but also like, oh, but I'm
really excited. And like, this is a really great
opportunity and something that I absolutely believe that you can
step into even if you're experiencing that anxiety in
that stress in the moment. Because of course that thing
will only get easier over time. I'm the more you do it, that
anxiety and that presence of like am I good enough for this
will get easier and easier and will like break down more and
more because you are used to being in that position.
Whereas at one point, of course, it's going to be scary at the
start, but you know, you get their number five.
Is that being a perfectionist will cause you to have
unrealistically high standards unrealistically unrealistic.
I don't know. It will cause you to have really
high standards for yourself, which obviously we talked about
at the start of the episode. But if You have these really
high expectations for yourself and then you don't get the
results that you want then that can very quickly cut you off.
So if you want to start something and you do start
something, maybe you are actually in the first kind of
season of stepping out and trying something new.
If nobody seems to care if nobody is acting like what you
are doing is legitimate. Just keep going, just keep
going. That is like my genuine on the
spot. Like advice to you is don't Give
up on yourself because it can take time, people are going to
judge you. Regardless people are going to
look at you and go oh, here we go again.
They're trying another creative business or, you know, or oh,
here they go again, like trying this job that they didn't do
very well at before or whatever. You know, people will see, you
doing things and people are fucking judgmental sometimes.
Okay, people will definitely judge you and if you're scared
of being judged or things that you can do to work around it,
like I saw a Creator content creator this week.
I was chatting with her and then I saw one of her like, post that
came up and she was talking about how she started her
journey and she was literally, like I started it as a new
account. And I made sure that no one that
like, I went to high school with because like, follow me on there
and I just did it as like a new account.
And I just built it on my own and then I came back and post it
on my main account. Like, hey guys, I have this
business. Once you once it was like kind
of thriving and doing well. Then suddenly everybody, when at
first, they didn't seem to give a fuck when she tried to do it
on her own page, everybody was like wow, this is so amazing.
I'm so proud of you. This is so cool.
Like we were such good friends in high school.
She's like, Fuck you guys. You guys think of a shit about
me when I posted about it originally and I was suddenly
everyone cares and everybody wants to congratulate me.
Fuck you guys. Just because I've suddenly have
some success in it, it's a thing.
Okay, so if that helps you, if you are trying to create like a
business or build something, and you want to do that,
Anonymously, you can do that. If you guys remember, a few
weeks ago, maybe like five episodes or so ago, I
interviewed Millie from the sober Society.
She was saying that when she started the sober society, which
is a sober girl Society. Sorry this should we go society
when she started it, she posted it as a separate account and she
didn't even say that it was her until it got to over 10,000
followers because people were then suddenly asking like, who's
behind this account, like we want to hear your story.
And then she finally was like, fog, okay?
Now I got to be real about just being me, but there are ways to
do things where you don't have to make your name the name on
it, and you can try things on your own and then bring it out
into the world. But what I don't want you to do
is never get to that point of bringing it out in the world.
If you believe that, it's something that is valuable and
other people would enjoy it and you want to do it, then you need
to do it to last little points here before we go is what if I
fail. So what But you're going to
fail. You are, your will probably have
failures along the way and that is literally the beauty of it.
You have to learn. Like you literally have to learn
to your mistakes and if you keep pushing it off, if you keep
procrastinating it because you think, oh, I'm not good enough
yet. You're actually wasting time to
make mistakes like right now, you want to use as much as you
can to make as many mistakes as you can so that you can get
really good at the thing that you are wanting to do.
I've said this before on the podcast, but when I Made this
podcast. It wasn't the first thing that I
tried to do y'all. I tried to do Instagram shit for
ages. I tried to do I GTV, when that
was a thing, I tried to start a YouTube channel.
When I was in high school, I did a YouTube channel for like,
almost two years. Like, I was putting out like
weekly weekly videos. Like, I was going hard on it.
Like, well, I was doing music stuff so it was obviously
different what I'm doing now, but at the time I was literally
doing like music covers and all this stuff and I put so much
effort into it all this like love into it, like I really
Really cared about it, I bought this microphone, the one I'm
using right now for that channel, when I was like 15
trying to do shit in high school and now having a podcast I'm
able to like use what I know about say recording for what I
do now. And when I used to sit and write
these long ass like like what's the word captions to like
Instagram post when I thought I was like a little blogger, which
I wasn't, but I seem to think I was I taught myself how to like
right. Two things in like Point form
and just like, you know, give say things in a way that was
like, quick enough for people to be able to get something out of
it. And like, now, looking back when
I thought, oh, nobody reads my posts, everyone thinks this is
dumb. This is so embarrassing.
Why am I opening up about this thing?
Why am I posting these videos? Why am I doing bubba?
Bubba, blah. When I used to think all of that
now, literally, like how long is it 15?
So, like, literally seven years, eight years later, I'm going.
I'm so happy that I I didn't give a fuck what people thought.
And I just put myself out there because I actually use all of
those little skills. Now, in, what I do right now,
and this isn't to say that you want to do this shit, you know,
but if you want to do something like this, I do want to
encourage you like, every little bit of all the mistakes and all
of the little skills that you've learned along the way, are going
to serve you eventually. So, don't put off what you're
doing. And think that one day, you're
suddenly going to be ready to do this thing because you actually
won't be like you Actually have to build up to it and you have
to fail along the way. And lastly if you're asking
yourself what if people think I'm dumb, what are people going
to think? That's something that you really
need to break down. You really need to try to step
away from making choices for other people.
And last week's episode about people-pleasing was, where I
really talked about this, like, feeling worried about what other
people are going to think and judging you.
It's going to happen. It is going to happen.
There are going to be people that think that you are dumb.
I'm sure that people think that I'm dumb all the time or think
that shit that I do is cringy or things that I say, I shouldn't I
don't care, I don't care and you have to be able to not care as
you figure out what you are doing, because that's how you're
going to build your confidence in it.
Do you think that the people that you look up to like the
people in your field that you look up to who just have really
put themselves out? There may be like musicians
artists like people where you consume like their content,
their media, whatever on a regular basis.
Do you think that those people like I'm talking, you know?
Those people who are really up there.
Do you think that on a regular basis they're waking up and
going, should I wear this shirt? What if my mom thinks?
No, okay, they're way past that they are way, way past it.
And if you keep yourself small, you will stay small, right?
If you don't allow yourself to believe that you're meant to be
at a certain place, then you're not going to be there.
But if you believe it, if you step into it, if you challenge
yourself, even if it's in Little Bits every single day, one thing
that you can do, one thing you can do this week tomorrow, So
this month something to push towards your goals, you are
going to get there, you're going to build something and it might
not even be what you originally set out to do, but you're going
to be so happy because you started in the first place and
you created something. And eventually you got to a
place where it was exactly what it was meant to be, because you
just kept showing up for yourself, and that's what I
would encourage you to do is show up for yourself.
So, if that means doing what I mentioned earlier, sitting down,
writing down, a few actionable steps, you can actually move.
Forward in stepping into what you want to do and not allowing
this perfectionist, tendency to hold you back, then do it
because you are worth it. You are worth going after the
things that you want to do the things you want to create and
your ideas and everything that you are picturing in your head.
Is there for you. You just have to step into it.
I fucking believe in you guys so much and I'm so excited to chat
with you guys about this episode, please feel free to DM
me. Have a chat with Me at the
moment, I'm answering all my DMs, which I'm probably not
going to do for a lot longer just because we're growing which
is amazing. And I'm happy about that but I'm
going to be creating a website, which I mentioned in last week's
episode as well. The website is on its way.
We're putting some finishing touches on it and everything.
Making it look so beautiful for you guys, but you're gonna be
able to go through on there and ask specific questions and it's
going to be a new part of the podcast, where I regularly
answer your guys's questions and read off.
Maybe situations that you're going through in your life,
similar to the kind of dams that I get.
But it's just going to be a space where we can then talk it
through in the episodes, and it's going to be anonymous for
you as well. So, that's it, guys.
Thank you so much for listening. If you don't already follow the
podcast on Spotify or apple podcasts or wherever you listen,
then, please go ahead and do that.
It does help me and it helps other people to see the
episodes. If you think that this is an
episode that somebody needs to hear, then please feel free to
share it with them. You guys are really great with
sharing around the episodes and sharing it on your stories and
just know that I appreciate that.
So much. Anyway, that you support
anything that I do is like, it is great for me, it's great
feedback for me. And it just helps me to know
that what I'm doing is actually helping you guys because like
I've said, I need that encouragement to, you know, I'm
just as much of an anxious girly and I'm just as much of a person
who questions myself at times and so, thank you for doing
that. And if you want to follow me on
Instagram or Tick Tock or you know, come hang out, it's Alyssa
Taylor Harper, which I will link below for you and we also have a
Facebook group, that's the last thing.
Yep. We've got a Facebook group
called she said, what podcast group and you can join us over
there where I give regular updates to what is going on with
the podcast, asking you guys what you want to see going
forward and just having chats about what's going on in our
lives. So that's everything guys.
Thank you so much and I will see you in next week's episode.
Bye guys. Bye guys.