How To Get Your Passion Back For A Project Leave a comment
Did you start a project, all excited and full of ideas, only to lose your passion for it? If you’ve been procrastinating on finishing an important project because you’ve lost your fire, this episode will help you get your passion back so you can get it done.
I share why advice like “just remember why you started” or “give yourself a change of scenery” doesn’t help. And I share the practical advice that will actually help you. If you’re a perfectionist building a business, you want to listen to this episode today.
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FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Introduction
This is the Perfectionism Project, the only podcast created specifically for perfectionists who are building businesses. I’m your host, Sam Laura Brown, perfectionism expert and entrepreneur. I teach perfectionists how to plan properly, consistently follow through and rest without guilt so they can build profitable and fulfilling businesses without burning out.
I’ve helped over a thousand perfectionist entrepreneurs do exactly that inside my program, Perfectionist Getting Shit Done. If you’re tired of procrastinating, overthinking and half finishing your ideas, you’re in the right place. Now, let’s dive in.
Sam Laura Brown
Okay, I am really excited to be sharing this because we are at episode 600 of the Perfectionism Project and I am going to start sharing again on YouTube at the same time. So what I’m doing for those who are listening to the audio is I’m recording for YouTube again and if you see this on YouTube that much will be obvious. But what I wanted to do and I just want to share a bit about this before I get into the topic of the episode in case it’s helpful as it often is.
But what I wanted to do and what I have been doing business-wise is just allowing myself to do what I want to do instead of what I think I should do. And I was on YouTube, I think I started in 2017 and I had a daily vlog called 365 Days of Personal Growth. I also before that had done some Talking Head YouTube videos as well but I wanted to do a daily video series where I was just sharing behind the scenes stuff and just the personal growth that I was experiencing and creating and I wanted to have it be a daily video.
I used to do it as I was doing my makeup so it was tied to doing something that I did every day. I definitely wasn’t any kind of makeup tutorial I just wanted to tie it to something that was already a habit. With that series at some point I think I did maybe 130 of those videos.
I then transitioned to doing just the podcast because it just felt easier to do audio only and not need to do the video every time since so many people were commenting saying that they listened to it like a podcast like they weren’t really watching. So I did that, I’ve continued to do that. I have 600 episodes now of the podcast so I obviously have kept at that but I have just had for so long the desire to be on YouTube.
I watch so much YouTube. I’ve learned so much from YouTube and I particularly love watching vlogs, behind the stuff, people talking off the cuff, all of that kind of stuff which probably isn’t surprising if you’re familiar with what I create. So I have felt my perfectionism handbrake as I call it come up around being on YouTube.
I think particularly because of the thoughts I have about people on YouTube being so big and I think this is like a physical thing because I watch YouTube videos in our lounge room on the TV because that’s just the easiest way to watch them and I didn’t used to do this when I was on YouTube like I didn’t have that set up but now because I watch people like literally on a big TV when they’re on YouTube it started feeling like people on YouTube are so like big like big like larger than life people even though I’ve been a YouTuber before and even though I know people personally on YouTube I have clients on YouTube like all of that it just felt like well then people are really seeing me up close and so big and all this and I don’t know it just I had perfectionist thinking plus I think really being in a season of not wanting to be seen as much like I think just having kids having four kids within four years going through a lot of personal physical changes but also different times where if I hadn’t announced yet that I was pregnant I didn’t want to be showing up looking very pregnant.
Especially with my latest pregnancy that I had with Liam that I didn’t want to announce it it was a high-risk pregnancy I didn’t want to announce it until quite close to the end and so there’s just all these different reasons that it felt more comfortable to be a bit more hidden and to not be seen as much and now I just feel ready to be seen again and to be seen on YouTube and I had so many thoughts about that like kind of this thought you might have if you listened to past episodes heard me say like I don’t want to have to record video for YouTube I hadn’t I’d planned not to do this this year and just do audio only but really it felt like that decision to do audio only this year was me deciding that I want to keep hiding because really I do want to do this I’m not doing this because I think I should or because people say if you have a podcast you have to do video with it I genuinely want to even though it’s uncomfortable I genuinely want to do it and I’m giving myself permission to do it and it does feel uncomfortable to be doing it but it also doesn’t and I feel like I just kind of worked it up in my head to feel bigger than it actually is and like having this story of like I just share more on the podcast when I don’t feel seen at the same time.
Because I feel like it feels safer when like people aren’t looking at me at the same time as I’m sharing like real behind the scenes stuff but also I love being able to watch someone as they share real behind the scenes stuff and it also feels very connecting to me as well to be seen and to be witnessed as I’m sharing things so all of that to say that I am going to be and it might not be for every single episode because there are some times when I’m recording and I’m like driving or whatever but also I do have a little thing on my card that I probably could just record that as well but I don’t want to have to commit to and this is a thing I hear all the time of like I’m scared to be consistent because once I’m consistent I have to stay consistent like basically once I’m doing YouTube videos then I have to do them forever so what I’m doing is I’m saying I’m showing up on YouTube again I’m going to record most at least most of my episodes.
If there’s one I don’t want to record for whatever reason that’s okay I don’t have to record all of them but I do want to record them so that people can see this on YouTube because there’s lots of things I watch on YouTube that I wouldn’t listen to a podcast about it I just want to consume it in YouTube form so I want this to reach more people and to be an example of what YouTube can be like and it doesn’t have to be super polished and professional and have all the setup I’m just literally recording on my iPhone and I have a very simple setup I do have a ring light behind me because I already had a ring light but I definitely don’t need it I don’t know that it’s doing much but I want to be an example of doing things sufficiently and not having to do them optimally to be able to do them and I just feel like creating so I’m going to be doing this and I’m going to be doing vlogs I haven’t yet decided how often what format.
But I really love that’s probably the thing I loved most about being on Instagram was documenting stuff via stories but it would just take me so long to do that whereas I can I can document a lot more a lot more quickly in this kind of long form video so this this is a lot of preamble but I just wanted to share if you are not following me on YouTube I will leave a link I think my channel name is probably smart 20s I don’t know that I’ve updated it I probably will do that and if yes I don’t even know yet just what to say to search for me on YouTube to find me that will be figured out but I will link up in the show notes if you ask someone who is listening to this and watches YouTube and you want to see me there and I will be sharing more on YouTube and I will be sharing behind the scenes vlogs and stuff like that I’m excited to have comments because on a podcast you don’t get comments.
So it feels like no one’s listening even though you see the download numbers so that is my preamble to say that this is one in a series of decisions that I have been making to just reconnect with how I actually want to build my business and just allowing myself to do things and focusing on the thinking behind what I’m doing and because that’s how results are created rather than it’s the action that creates the result I won’t go into that in this episode but if you’re in PGSD, you’ll know what I’m talking about and I do want to do episodes more specifically about the self-coaching model and your thoughts and feelings creating your results and your self-image as well like that is really the core of what I teach but I haven’t done as many episodes like specifically on that so I have a whiteboard in my office and I’m thinking that I’m going to like I need to get a new pen because mine’s very faint but I’m going to do probably some videos on the whiteboard which is very exciting to me because I love doing that.
So this episode in particular what I want to do with this one is I want to share a question that I got via email that’s going to be really helpful for so many of you because this is such a common situation to be in and I have lots of wisdom to share about this and I haven’t got any notes sometimes I have notes sometimes I don’t I just feel like chatting and trusting that I’m going to say something really helpful because I know I will so I’m going to read out the email that I received there’s actually two emails because I asked some follow-up questions and then I want to talk about what’s causing this situation that relates to procrastination and how to get your passion back for a project that you’ve lost steam on like how to get your fire back because that’s what this is really about. So this is what the email says, Sam: I have been procrastinating on creating the remaining content for my beta program which I started last summer and this was in reply to an email where I asked what’s not you’ve been procrastinating on when it comes to your business and how long have you been procrastinating on it and why has it been hard to get it done?
By the way if you’re on my email list and you hear me say or see me say like reply to this email I will reply back like reply I love hearing from you and I know that it can feel like we don’t want to bother people unless we have the perfect thing to say or like there’s so many other people are replying to them that I don’t need to reply but I love hearing from you and anytime I get specific stuff like this it really helps me to create the most helpful content so please always share. So Sam I have been procrastinating on creating the remaining content for my beta program which I started last summer well I do feel like the universe has been testing me on each module’s topics and in some cases giving me even more wisdom to share over time I have lost a bit of my passion for the project it’s become more of an obligation than an obsession linked to my mission.
I don’t know how to get my fire back for it I’m also acutely aware that a big part of my procrastination has been for protection because if I don’t finish creating this and running the beta and getting feedback then I don’t have to stop hiding and launch the program. How do you reignite your passion for a project when perfectionism gets in the way?
And then I asked a few follow-up questions and I said if you’re open to sharing would you mind telling me about what you’ve done to try and help you take action and get your passion back do you sometimes feel motivated and passionate and then take a bit of action and stop or do you feel like you just what did I say or do you feel like you just feel such little passion for it currently that doing anything towards it feels like an uphill battle.
She replied and said I have started and stopped in spurts I’ve had some success in setting the vibe by either going to a cafe or sitting in a certain spot at home and lighting the candle but even then sometimes I’ve been distracted on one hand part of it may be shame around being so far behind that I become all or nothing and freeze and do nothing out of the discomfort from that shame.
On the other hand there has been a lot of procrastinator learning ahead of creating each module then I get overwhelmed with which information I want to share because I want to do it justice. This sounds really silly when I type it out and yet here I am just repasting those tasks on my to-do list every single week I even came up with a big goal for April that will lead into having this beta done so that I can get more clients in it and instead I’ve been focused on the low ticket workshop that will lead into it when I’m really excited about something there is no stopping me from working on it getting lost in creation mode this hasn’t been the case for a while though and I know I’ve been overthinking everything so if you can relate to this then you are most definitely not alone this is essentially such a beautiful summation of everything that the exact person I help would be experiencing and struggling with this is what it used to be like for me when I was building my business.
So I help perfectionist entrepreneurs with all different kinds of businesses and this is just such a common situation to be able to be excited about something when there’s so much hope and optimism about like the vision you have in your head will actually be able to come to fruition and then as we start working on stuff we tend to lose that steam and that motivation and it can feel like such a big deal like such a big deal which I want to talk about in this episode that it then becomes like this mountain this Mount Everest that feels impossible to climb and what’s the point of even trying to climb it because you’re never going to get to the top so what I want to do I want to have a sip of water and then I will share my thoughts okay so the first thing I want to talk about with this is when we feel like we lose our passion for a project or our fire for a project.
Especially if initially you were really excited about it and like you couldn’t stop thinking about it and you couldn’t stop researching about it and then at some point it started feeling really heavy what has happened is there has been a shift in thinking and so how I want you to be thinking about this kind of situation isn’t about like when people talk about how do I get my passion back and my motivation back and all of that they will say things like just remember why just remember why you started doing it in the first place like reconnect with your reason for doing it or things like change your location like go to a cafe or like light a candle all these things that this person has tried and it’s all about like trying to change like trying to change your essentially like I don’t even know how to word it like essentially jolt yourself into action and be able to like snap yourself out of it.
And sure it’s helpful to remember why you started doing something in the first place but oftentimes if you’re a perfectionist so say in this situation and like okay reconnect with your why like why did you want to do this beta program do you want to help people like for a perfectionist when you reconnect with a why around helping people that will often bring up more perfectionist thinking of the only helpful thing like it has to be perfect I have to do each topic justice each topic has to be fully complete it has to have the perfect title.
The title it has to be fully researched and absolutely flawless and impeccable for anyone to even be helped by it or for me to feel proud about it and it’s really important that I feel absolutely proud of everything that I create I only create high quality stuff like this is how we talk as perfectionists when we are really scared to publish stuff and put it out into the world we will point to I have really high standards for my work we will point to it’s actually only going to be helpful for someone if it’s perfect and all this perfectionist thinking that creates a lot of pressure and creates a lot of like when we have that pressure when something feels like a really big deal that we have to get it just right and if there’s all or nothing thinking then of if we don’t get it just right then it’s it’s not going to be well received at all or we’re not going to make any sales at all.
Everyone’s going to want a refund request of course it feels so so so hard to be able to get it done and to be able to work on it because it feels like the mount everest that you are trying to climb and what’s the point and then this is the thing we often go into when we have perfectionist all or nothing thinking is like it’s only worth doing if I can do it perfectly and it’s so damn hard to do it perfectly because of how we think about stuff so what’s the point in even trying because I know I’m not actually going to be able to do that or I don’t have enough time to do that I don’t have enough energy to do that I don’t have enough money to do that I don’t have enough resources to do that and what I will say with this and coming back like regrouping for a second. When it comes to looking like what is the thinking or like the thought patterns this person is having that are causing the problem like what’s the perfectionist thinking that is making this really hard to complete.
And that perfectionist thinking rather than us trying to go to a cafe you’re still going to take the perfectionist thinking with you to the cafe so what we want to do is actually start to shift how you were thinking not just so you intellectually understand done is better than perfect for example but you actually can shift into focusing on what is sufficient versus what is optimal. So we tend to lose our fire or our passion for a project when we have a perfectionist story that doing it optimally is the only way it should be done and then we have all of these perfectionist ideas particularly if you I think this is a general it’s safe to say that’s if you can relate to what I’m talking about that that you would have all these ideas of should so for example for this person for the beta program a beta program should for example have modules each module should be really well researched each module should talk to a very specific person and all of these shoulds around it.
And we can be in this mindset of like but that’s that just of course it needs to be like that that’s just actually like how it should be done and how like high quality work is created and what is so important to to shift into to as a perfectionist be able to get shit done and to complete what you start and to not just have ideas and then you work on it in spurts and it never gets finished and then you have another exciting idea and you work on that for a little bit and then you lose your steam and then you have another exciting idea and you work on that for a little bit and then you lose your steam because all the while this perfectionist thinking is causing so much pressure and it’s stopping you from being creative it’s stopping you from being able to take action so when it comes to this it’s being able to shift into what does it look like to sufficiently complete the beta program.
Like, what does sufficiency look like here? So, if you google the definition of sufficiency, it’s to meet the needs. And I’m just literally going to google it again to, I did recently, sufficient. So, the condition or quality of being adequate or sufficient, an adequate amount of something, especially if something essential.
And sufficiency is really about something, the state of being adequate and enough to meet the needs. So, when we’re talking about doing sufficient work or completing something sufficiently, it’s not about do imperfect work. And I know, like for me as a perfectionist, just speaking for myself, when people talk about just do it messy, like just do it imperfectly, there’s no part of my perfectionist brain that wants to do something imperfectly.
Because it feels like to my brain, if I’m doing something imperfectly, I’m doing it insufficiently. I’m doing it in an inadequate way. I’m not doing it perfectly because I love doing extra.
I’m doing it perfectly because that feels like the standard. That feels like the bare minimum of what’s possible. So, what we want to have you do is start shifting into thinking about sufficiency and sufficiently completing things, instead of thinking about optimally completing things.
Like having things be optimal or we could say perfect. And people say, but just remember, perfect doesn’t exist. If you talk to any perfectionist, they will say, I can’t describe it, but I know it when I see it.
I do know perfect when I see it. It is possible for it to exist. And that is literally just the bare minimum of what I should be doing.
So, that’s why I never, for perfectionists, I never am talking about just remember done is better than perfect. Instead, it’s what does sufficiency look like and how can you support yourself to be able to get it done sufficiently. And so, that’s why I teach tools like the Growth Goal, Power Planning, Clean Rest.
They all support you being able to sufficiently complete work. That’s how momentum is built. If you want to have momentum.
So, for example, for this person, if they want to have the momentum of having completed the beta program, it’s out there in the world. They get clients into the beta program. The clients go through the program.
They give feedback. Then they launch the program. They have clients paying more or like clients paying money.
Like that’s momentum. That’s how a business is built. That is contingent upon the beta program being sufficiently completed.
And so, as is the case here, if you’re getting stuck on sufficient completion because you only want to do optimal completion, that’s a problem. You’re not going to have momentum. You’re going to completely stall out.
You’re going to have this experience of not having your fire, not having your passion for it. And that can be such an uncomfortable thing to be with if you identify as a smart, successful person with a lot of potential to witness yourself not doing the basic things that need to be done to create momentum in your business. It feels physically painful to see yourself show up in a way that feels so inconsistent with who you are at your core.
And so, long-term, if you witness yourself not taking action for a long period of time and just kind of doing a bit of comfort work as I call it, doing comfort work here and comfort work there, checking emails, updating your website, tinkering with your branding, doing more research, all of that kind of thing, that you lose so much self-trust with yourself because at some point, every time I have an idea, I do nothing with it. So, what’s even the point of trying to have ideas? You have less good ideas and you just constantly then, because you’re creating less, there’s more and more pressure that when you finally do. So, for example, in this case, when I finally launched the beta program because I should have done it last summer and I didn’t and I’m so behind it.
Now, when I do it, it has to be so good to justify why it took me so long. Like we do this with ourselves. It’s not trying to justify it to others, but we’re like, if it was easy, then when I get it done, if I just sufficiently do it easily, I’m going to beat myself up from last summer for not having just done it then.
So, we make things so hard so that we can justify why we procrastinated on it for so long and why it took us so long because we don’t want to make our past selves wrong because we already feel so wrong and inadequate that we don’t want any extra shame on top of that. So, as perfectionists, we are experiencing shame from our perfectionist thinking. That’s why it’s so hard as a perfectionist to get feedback from others or to put yourself out there online to publish things because when we’re already giving ourselves the feedback that we’re not good enough, it feels pretty intolerable to get feedback from other people that it’s not good enough.
We’re already like at our limit, at our capacity for how inadequate we are willing to feel. So, we don’t want any extra inadequacy on top and so that will have us do things like procrastinate, delay launching things or never launch them at all, do the comfort work rather than the needle movers as they call them. And so, what we want to look at is having you identify what does having this beta program sufficiently complete look like? Not optimally perfectly but sufficiently.
What does it look like to sufficiently complete the beta program? What are the elements? It’ll just have maybe it’s also as you do this often it’s like okay well I really wanted to have this professionally recorded video and then I edit it and I have a transcript and I did like we add in so much complication when we’re scared to do stuff because if we’re busy with the complicatedness of it then then we don’t have to actually do it and we can delay publishing things and and putting it out into the world and getting feedback. So, it’s looking at what would it look like to have it be sufficiently complete?
When am I going to sufficiently complete it by? And like really breaking it down and this is where power planning comes in as well and having it be when it comes to that identifying okay if I’m going to sufficiently complete something and put it out there it’s knowing as a perfectionist that’s going to feel pretty shit because you are scared of people signing up and saying it’s bad. You’re scared of people not signing up and feeling like it’s all this effort has been wasted.
You’re scared of getting bad feedback. There’s so much that comes up so it’s like the act of publishing something as a perfectionist is a vulnerable act so you have to expect some level of discomfort when you sufficiently complete things and I think that’s part of it like when we’re trying to perfect stuff and polishing things and tweaking we’re trying to get rid of that feeling that we have that what we’re doing isn’t good enough and we also have this idea that if I feel good about it then it then it’s going to be good and it will perform well and if I feel bad about it then it won’t be good so I’ll know when it’s perfect because I’ll stop feeling those bad feelings and then once I stop feeling those bad feelings and I feel really confident about it then that’s a sign that it’s going to perform well or it’s going to be well received.
When in my experience that is literally just not how it works. I have recorded so many podcast episodes and the ones where my brain my perfectionist brain is the loudest are the ones that people have loved the most and it’s often because I’m just sharing in a very raw and real way that my perfectionist brain wants it to be more polished and wants me to sound better and have all of these different things.
And so if I was just to judge based on my internal feelings during the process of recording and creating how well it would perform I would think that the ones where I’m the most polished and put together and all of that I would think they would perform the best because I feel the best about them I feel the most confident in them but what actually connects especially for what I do and what so many people do is like actually connecting and connecting feels vulnerable because if you connect with someone then they might not want to connect back instead of what we do as perfectionists is like well I don’t want to fully connect or like have this wall up I’ll have this polish on.
So that if people don’t want to connect with me then we can like subconsciously say well they don’t really know the real me like that wasn’t me actually really connecting like when we have the wall up it’s less vulnerable to be rejected so part of it if you’re a creative if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re wanting to connect with ideas or with things that you create with the world it is going to feel uncomfortable to be publishing things and a high volume of things potentially or shipping them even when there’s no urgent due date if you’re the kind of person as I used to be that I could only do things with a deadline it was because at the last minute I finally dropped all the perfectionist pressure and my thought changed from I have lots of time to make it perfect so I should make it which created a lot of pressure which made it really hard to do anything and I just procrastinate and do stuff at the last minute to at the last minute I’d finally be thinking I just have to get this done no matter what and this shift in thinking allowed me to actually get it done especially when I was like I don’t want to disappoint anyone and that perfectionist people pleasing so we want to learn as an entrepreneur especially as such a good example again with this beta program.
There’s no deadline and like the most important things in business there’s no deadline from anyone else saying this has to be done by this day like in university or college or when you have a boss and you’re in a job that they will have like hey this reports to you by this deadline and you can get away with the perfectionist thinking and the perfectionist procrastination during the last minute.
It’s so so so hard to run a successful business if you can’t sufficiently complete your work within your own time frames that you set for yourself and I haven’t been out for years now and that’s because I’ve learned the skill of being able to sufficiently complete things instead of having to rely on this like perfectionist thinking of either thinking I have a lot of time so it has to be perfect and then not doing stuff and then at the last minute changing my thought and then I can finally get things done it has been so powerful to learn how to actually get things done without it being an urgent deadline and getting that sufficiently complete and moving on even when I could be spending more time perfecting it.
So, with this because there is no external deadline what we want to do is identify again what would sufficiently complete look like what is my plan to get this sufficiently complete and then there’s the the work on the emotional front of like how do I how might I expect to feel to sufficiently complete this work and publish it and if your answer is like you know it’s going to feel great to have it done no it’s not your brain has been avoiding having it done so you can avoid feelings so what are those feelings you’ve been trying to avoid. is it feeling judged you’re scared of feeling judged is it you’re scared of feeling unwanted Is it you’re scared of feeling unprofessional or reckless like what is the feeling that or mix of feelings that you have been trying to avoid and the procrastination has been aimed at avoiding.
And then you need to be willing to feel those feelings and you if you’re the kind of person I talked about and you do stuff at the last minute if there’s a deadline and someone you might let down if you don’t do the work you already know how to complete things while feeling those feelings because at the last minute when you go into the thinking of I have to get it done no matter what it will often feel very uncomfortable to still be doing that work and getting it complete but you get it complete because you have the thought I’m going to get this done and so we want to look at you already know how to complete things while not feeling great about it or if you’ve worked in a job for someone else like when I was working in accounting. I know what it feels like to have to work on something that I don’t really want to be working on and to get it done.
So you already have a level of skill around completing work while not feeling great and getting it sufficiently complete and so we want to translate that across and then continue developing that skill so that you can sufficiently complete in this case the beta program you know what done looks like instead of I’ll know it when I see it you want to use a tool like power planning to support you to actually be able to get it done so power planning is a flexible planning method I created it for me because I had such issues with actually following through with my clients and I teach it to my clients and you can also sign up I have a free video series to help you get started with power planning.
So I will link it so you can sign up for the planning series and get started with it but you need to have a tool like power planning because part of that as well is it builds in like a lot of specificity around what you’re doing and there’s a lot of pieces of power planning that really support you to be clear so this really helps to reduce overwhelm it’s flexible instead of like a rigid kind of planning that we go okay I’m finally going to motivate myself to do it and get it done and then we make a very all-or-nothing plan we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and then we just try and force our way through it and then it’s not actually feasible to do it and then so we disconnect from the plan altogether and forget to look at the calendar or forget what the due date even was.
So power planning was my answer to that because I really wanted to work from a calendar but I just kept doing it in such a rigid all-or-nothing way that it just did not work for me and created a lot of burnout and stress and going back to writing long to-do lists and that was overwhelming. So you want to have a practical tool that actually works for your perfectionist brain that helps you to follow through and part of power planning when you’re doing it is you will get clean rest clean rest is time that you are mentally switched off from your business and time that your brain can rest so that not only is it easier to do work with a well-rested brain like your brain actually just has more computing power when you’ve given it a chance to switch off.
Even if you’re the person who’s always had trouble switching off like that’s I teach people who’ve always had trouble resting and switching off how to actually do it and enjoy doing it and it’s a it’s part of productivity is resting your brain it’s not like the reward at the end the rest is the fuel for being able to do great work in the business time that you have particularly if you don’t have a lot of business time it’s extra important that you take great care of your brain and get clean rest.
So there’s that plus it’s way easier to do courageous things like launching a beta program when your brain knows that there is rest coming there is a reprieve from this feeling of discomfort coming but if you’re working 24/7 and constantly trying to squeeze in work or like you’re if you’re at your job or with your family you’re resenting that they’re taking time away from time that you could be working on your business and if you just feel like you’re guilty for like basically if your eyes are open you feel like you should be working on your business especially because you’re so far behind that you should have done this ages ago, then it’s extra important that you get clean rest because that will make it easier to access the courage required and the emotional capacity required to be able to sufficiently complete the beta program.
So that tool of power planning really incorporates in like all the elements of what I’ve been talking about in this episode but we want to start shifting from going okay what does optimal look like like that’s the question our perfectionist brain is always asking what does optimal look like what does flawless look like and we just see imperfection and go I just to have this complete means there are no imperfections we want to shift into what does it look like to have this be sufficiently complete with a beta program the goal of the beta program is for them to get x result it doesn’t really matter about how many models or any of that it’s all about helping to support a transformation for example in the case of a beta program okay what would it look like to sufficiently provide things that would help create that transformation, here’s my plan for sufficiently doing that and there might be shifting we do a lot of this inside perfectionist getting shit done on the coaching calls looking at those thoughts that then get in the way of like oh no I couldn’t just sit down and record a video it has to be I have to script it and then I have to make sure it covers absolutely everything.
And that there isn’t a professional person in the world who could look at my script and say that that they disagree with something I’m gonna have to record it then I have to edit it I have to make sure I sound um very smart and very polished I have to make sure I have a great background I probably have to get a new camera like there’s all of that and so part of the work too is is noticing that perfectionist thinking and unwinding that thinking and actually shifting to believing different things.
So for example with this hopefully it is clear that I actually believe that for this video and podcast recording having it sufficiently be complete is not requiring me to be super polished and as I’m recording it have thoughts of like I don’t think that’s making it like there’s all of this perfectionist chatter in my brain as I’m recording it but I know sufficiently complete is that I show up I share stuff I keep rolling with it so if I lose my train of thought I just keep going this is what’s going to be most helpful for you especially as a perfectionist to have the permission to witness me creating this way gives you so much permission as well but also it’s so much easier for me as a creator if I actually believe that it’s okay for me to just keep rolling with it.
I don’t have to go back rewatch this and edit anything out and make anything sound clearer and that I can just get better and better and better with each one that I’ve done or I do continue to do and I have a whole set of beliefs that allow me to just record on my phone with the like this is my literal normal background in my office I haven’t done anything to it. It’s been like this since 2022 I haven’t done anything fancy I’m not recording like I don’t have a microphone I haven’t gone and bought like a microphone for my phone I have one for my podcast I just record straight into quick time that’s sufficient I’ve been doing it that way forever I just go new audio recording completely sufficient to do that.
And I let myself speak from a place of self-trust and expertise I publish it I move on and that’s how I’ve been able to do 600 episodes that’s how I’ve been able to help so many people through what I create and also attracting so many clients is from sufficiently completing things and then sufficiently completing something else and then sufficiently completing something else and then sufficiently completing something else and having the tools to help with that like power planning and also the emotional capacity and tools like self-coaching as well that I teach having that to be able to reconcile like the perfectionist mental drama that comes up as I sufficiently complete and publish things and put them out into the world.
So that is what I have to share I’m just going to quickly or squiz over the email again to just see if there was anything else I wanted to mention about really I think that if you can relate to that email and just being like I have something really important I want to do but I’ve lost my passion for it it’s also looking at and this is something I talk about a lot with my clients just noticing like where are you making this a big deal and how can you make it a small deal and this also helps for you to sufficiently complete things as well that our perfectionist brains really make things into a big deal like for example it could be well this beta program is setting the tone for my whole business going forward and if they don’t like the beta program then they’re not going to sign up as a client and if people don’t sign up from that then I’m going to lose all hope that anyone’s going to sign up we put so much pressure and so much expectation and make things such a big deal instead of it’s just a beta program and being able to shift that thinking and sometimes it’s hard to spot ourselves that’s why getting coached and having someone like PGSD is so helpful.
It can be hard to spot when we’re like we’re making a big deal because it feels like no legitimately it’s such a big deal to say for example returning to youtube when that felt like a big deal I didn’t do it when it felt like it’s just me chatting on camera and I know how to do that and I’m just going to publish it it feels like a small deal I’m actually able to do it.
So just starting to notice too where are you making things a big deal and what are thoughts that are already believable to you that can help you shift into seeing how actually it’s not a big deal and this is something like that language of it being a small deal is something that came up with my daughter, Lydia so she’s nearly five and maybe about a year ago now there’d just be little things that would come up to say if like she had a water bottle and she knocked it over and it spilled water everywhere and she’s like oh my goodness like there’s water and I’ll be like oh it’s just a small deal we’ll just clean it up just water not a big deal just and she’ll go yeah it’s just a small deal like she said it’s a small deal because I didn’t have that language of small deal I was like it’s not a big deal and she’ll go yeah it’s a small deal and so looking at where can you make anything that feels like a big deal into a small deal.
And not in a dismissive like it doesn’t even matter anyway kind of way but say for example like knocking water over instead of being like oh my god if you knock the water over that means like you’re just someone who’s not even capable of like anywhere you go you make it like we can make it mean such a big thing of like what it means to knock water over what it means about you what it means like oh my god this is going to get wet and that like all of that instead of like it’s not a big deal we just clean it up we still we still address it we still solve it it’s not this like dismissive thing it’s just it isn’t actually a big deal it’s just a small deal and so anything that you’re feeling like you’ve lost your passion for a project or your spark for it and that you feel disconnected from it and it feels like mount everest how can you make it at least just be not the whole mount everest at least just be base camp but even then how can you make it like actually I could probably create a beta program in my sleep like I’m just sharing things that are top of mind like this is one of the thoughts I have like I’m sharing stuff top of mind I’m not like trying to like perfectly articulate every topic and have it be like this complete sermon on whatever it’s just like I’m just sharing the top of mind thoughts I have and the top of mind thoughts that I have are super helpful for my person to hear.
Super helpful and they’re not going to feel really exciting to me because they’re my top of mind thoughts I think that these are normal thoughts everyone has so I’m not going to really be impressed by what I’m sharing because it’s I’m just sharing my normal thinking so you could then shift into with this for this person how is it true that actually creating a sufficient beta program is going to be easy for me and what would it look like if it was easy what would it look like if it was simple and then allowing yourself to do that which again requires some emotional capacity because you might have all this thinking about like but if I actually do it what if this beta program especially because I’ve been procrastinating on it for so long.
What if it actually no one signs up and then I’m gonna make it mean this I’m like all of that but like okay what if it’s just not a big deal if no one signs up for the beta program or if no one gives good feedback like what’s your plan going to be okay I’ll just try again or I’ll do this differently or I’ll ask for feedback on this or whatever else it is like it’s looking at just such an important way to release our perfectionism handbrakes. Is to look at where am I making this a big deal and how can I make it a small deal so that I can actually do what’s needed because when we make things a big deal we kind of feel like if I make something a big deal like this it means I’m going to really take it seriously and I’m going to really do it well if it’s a big deal and I take it seriously it’s going to make sure it’s great when actually when we make it a big deal we don’t do it at all it doesn’t get launched out into the world at all and every day that goes by without progress with it feels more and more and more disheartening.
So instead we make it a small deal mentally by changing how we’re thinking about it so that we can actually get it done which is a big deal it’s very exciting it’s very and scary as well that’s okay but to be able to if you want momentum and to be building a business you’ve got to be able to sufficiently complete things and when we make things a big deal we don’t sufficiently complete things we just don’t complete things.
We just get so distracted by trying to find the idea trying to find the thing that we can perfectly complete without any emotional discomfort so impossible to do that so if you find like you’re jumping from idea to idea to idea and you’re having a hard time sticking with things then you’re making it a big deal and you’re trying to complete it perfectly optimally because of that and that feels responsible it feels smart to do that but ultimately it’s dumb because it’s not getting done and so I find it really helpful as well to look at like my perfectionist brain wants to be like the smart thing to do is do it perfectly the responsible thing to do is do it perfectly but that has me not doing things which isn’t actually smart and isn’t actually responsible so that can also help to start shifting like actually is not the smart thing to do to just complete it and get it out there and move on.
And if you need support with that join PGSD, perfectionist getting shit done and also learn power planning that’s you’ll learn that inside PGSD, but you can sign up for the video series to get started with power planning because being able to have a tool that actually allows you to make plans that you can follow through on and actually follow through on them if you can relate to everything I talked about in this you want to be power planning.
It’s going to make such a difference PGSD is always like they have a week of power like oh my god I felt it so much that I didn’t do my power planning this week because it allows you to go from feeling overwhelmed and procrastinating to feeling clear and calm and actually being able to follow through with things and get it sufficiently complete that’s why our PGSDers are able to create so much momentum when they had been stalled out for years months a very long period of time because they’re actually getting their perfectionist brain on their side so highly recommend signing up for that and if you go to samlaurabrown.com/planningseries. You will be able to sign up for that and get instant access and be able to get rolling with power planning so this has been really helpful make it a small deal get it sufficiently complete and yeah that is all for today I will talk to you in the next episode.
Outro
If you want to learn the basics of power planning, then I invite you to sign up for the video series that I’ve put together for you on how to plan properly as a perfectionist. By the end of this series, you’ll be in a position to start using power planning to get your perfectionist mindset on your side and get out of your own way. So to sign up, you can go to samlaurabrown.com/planningseries. The link will be available for you in the show notes as well.
