Balance & Beyond Podcast

Could your perfectionist tendencies be holding you back from real success and happiness?

Join us on Balance and Beyond as we dive into the hidden world of perfectionism, exploring how it silently influences our daily lives and prevents us from reaching our full potential. By understanding the subtleties of perfectionist behavior—like hesitating to share ideas in meetings, endlessly reviewing work, or constantly feeling inadequate—we can start to dismantle the 20-ton shield built from fear and shame. This episode is packed with insights on how to identify and address these behaviors, helping you break free from the cycle of shame and fear, and ultimately step into your true potential with confidence and self-compassion.

In this episode, we uncover the emotional toll perfectionism takes, particularly on women juggling multiple roles. We'll highlight real-life examples showing how perfectionist tendencies lead to burnout, procrastination, and self-sabotage, robbing us of joy and quality time with loved ones. By aligning our conscious and subconscious minds, we can set more realistic standards for ourselves and redefine what true balance and success look like. Don’t miss this enlightening discussion filled with actionable tools and strategies to help you achieve genuine balance and embrace a more fulfilling life.

Episode Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Balance and Beyond, the podcast for ambitious women who refuse to accept burnout as the price of success. Here, we’re committed to empowering you with the tools and strategies you need to achieve true balance, where your career, relationships and health all thrive, and where you have the power to define success on your own terms. I honour the space you’ve created for yourself today, so take a breath, and let's dive right in…

Why, hello there, perfectionist? Yes, that is you. The vast majority of people who listen to this podcast are perfectionists in some way, shape or form, and in today's episode, we're going to talk about the sneaky ways that perfectionism is actually showing up in your life that you may not be aware of. Now, whether or not you're a proud perfectionist, and wear it as a badge of honour, or someone who considers themselves perhaps a recovering perfectionist, like I do, there are many ways this insidious form of hiding is actually playing out. 

And it blows my mind when I'm getting feedback from clients, or when I notice it myself, because as you all know, I'm doing this work, too. So, if we talk about perfectionism for a second as what it is, we've done many episodes on perfectionism, and we're actually running a free two-part workshop on the 31st of July, which kicks off. And you can visit balanceinstitute.com/perfectionist and we'll put it all in the show notes, so come and register. 

What we are finding again and again, is that this issue has to be rectified, if you're going to have the life you want, if you're going to step up, if you're going to find all the joy and fulfilment. I love Brene Brown's definition of perfectionist. And that is that perfectionism is a 20-ton shield that we lug around, trying to protect ourselves. When ,in fact, it's actually preventing us from being seen. 

So perfectionism is a very, very heavy shield. And, ironically, while we think, “Well, perfectionism is about being perfect.” Actually, it's not. Perfectionism is all about avoiding shame. That is the 20-ton shield. And shame is an incredibly heavy emotion. When you come and work with me, you'll understand about the levels of consciousness, and that all emotions vibrate, and shame is one of the lowest vibrating emotions. It causes you to be paralyzed, it causes you to be stuck in indecision, and it can be very, very difficult to get out of. 

So, the more your perfectionist is raging, the more you are energetically swimming in shame, and we don't want that for anyone. So, I'm going to share with you three ways that this perhaps is being sneaky, that it's lurking in your life. Some, you may be aware of. But there's a pretty good chance that you've not. Because, one thing I want to say about perfectionism, is there are some people who are self-confessed perfectionists in every area of their life. 

Their hair always has to be perfect, their house has to be perfect, their kids have to be perfect. But, as awareness of perfectionism has changed, I'm seeing some women go, “Oh, I'm not a perfectionist, but my hair is always messy.” Yeah, but you're carrying the shield in different ways. So, first up, I want to talk about where your perfectionism is raging, in any place in your life that you are hiding. And I’ll say that again, anywhere that you are hiding.

This is something that is coming up a lot in my community, and this is where women are realising that part of the reason that they're not speaking up in the meeting, is because they're worried that they might say something wrong, or they're worried that they'll be judged. Or they don't send that email, or they check it 50,000 times. They feel like they need more qualifications, before they can take that promotion, or go for that new job, or start their own business, or start that side hustle. 

All of these are signs of perfectionism, because you feel like it's never enough. And that's often what perfectionism is. The shame says, “You're not good enough, just as you are.” “You don't have enough qualifications, just as you are.” “You can't speak, just as you are, because you need more information, or more stuff, or more letters after your name.” And not only does this make us swim in shame, it also makes us swim in fear. Because this is what hiding is. 

We're afraid of somebody seeing us make a mistake. We're afraid of being judged. We're afraid of them seeing the real us, because the real us has to be perfect. “Because, if they were to ever see a hint of the real me that's not perfect, well then, it's all going to fall apart.” “They're going to think that I don't know how to do my job.” “They're going to think that I don't know what I'm talking about.” “They're going to fire me, and when they fire me, then I'm going to have no money, and I'm going to lose my house.” “I'm going to be on the street, and I'm going to die.” 

I know it sounds dramatic, but this is a large part of what your brain is actually doing, and what is causing you to hide, and why that desire to hide is there when you really want to speak up, but you don't feel like you can. Why, that can feel so strong! And then what I find is that there's this seething resentment and anger and frustration, and you might project it at a spouse, or a boss, or a colleague, but usually that is your own self that you're angry at. That you couldn't speak up, that you couldn't say something, that it has to be perfect. 

So I encourage you to think about, “Is there anywhere in your life that you are hiding, that you're worried about making a mistake, that you're worried about judgement?” And the antidote seems to be, “Well, let me make it perfect.” “Let me get all the information.” “Let me be the smartest person in the room, and then I can't be called out for what I don't know.” 

So this holds you back in so many ways. It stops you being challenged, it stops you putting yourself in a room where you might actually learn, where you might actually grow, because you feel like you have to know everything, or be on top of everything, or couldn't possibly be surprised. So that is place number one, and it is a really big one at the moment that is lurking. 

The second place that your perfectionism may be lurking. This is where your perfectionist is being masked or is masquerading as high standards. All perfectionists have high standards. It is a characteristic of perfectionism. But there's a difference between having a high standard and being a perfectionist, and in this a high standard might be an attention to detail. It's celebrated in business as you're someone who's reliable. 

I was always known as the person who could look across the room at somebody else's PowerPoint slide and spot an errant font. I'd be like, “That A is in the wrong font.” And they go, “How can you see that?” “Because it's not perfect!” So as a marketer, I was trained in perfection. Lawyers are trained in perfection, because if they miss a full stop, or they miss a comma, or that one word is misinterpreted properly, it could cost so much. Same with accountants. 

There are so many professions that this perfectionism is literally trained into you, and it becomes very difficult to learn to turn this off. But the key distinction is that when you are more of a perfectionist, done is never enough. It's ruthlessly high standards. And the moment, the moment you get even just a little bit close to meeting that standard, the bar moves. “Oh well, if I did that, I could do more.” “If I did three things, I could do four things.” “If I did five things, I should have done eight things.” 

So, that's how you know that if you are proud in saying you have high standards, and maybe that's become a mark of your reputation, maybe that's become a mark of your identity, as to how you see yourself. I really encourage you to think, “Is this actually something that I'm hiding behind?” “Am I masquerading my ruthlessly high standards?” “Am I always moving the bar?” “Do I never actually celebrate that I met a standard?” Well then, that's a sign that your perfectionist is lurking in that area. 

I've been learning kinesiology lately. It's a modality and a skill set that I've been doing as a client for a number of years and I've just had the nudge to learn it myself, and it has been a game changer. And one piece that is brought to mind is, you can test energetically when something is done. “Is my best good enough?” And the amount of times with women the answer is “no” will blow your mind. 

And then what we've done is, I've actually tested, and in kinesiology if you say, “Okay, my best is 100%.” That 100% means like, that's the work of one person. And then the idea is, “Okay, my best is 100%” and the answer is, “No, okay, my best is 200%.” “No, okay.” “So, you mean two people's jobs are not my best?” “No, I have got to seven with somebody, which means that they have to do the work of seven people for it to be considered good enough.” And then the work of those seven people has to be perfect. Isn't that nuts? That's an absolutely impossible task. 

And it is no wonder this beautiful human says “yes” to everything, because in her mind, her subconscious mind, her best, because she's capable, because she's faster, because she's more intelligent, she should be able to do the work of seven people, even though her conscious brain's like, “What the hell?” “That is crazy!” “I can't do the work of seven people!” Her subconscious has been trained to say, “That's the benchmark, seven people's jobs.” 

She's like, no wonder she's the soccer coach, and she's on the soccer committee, and she's on the school committee, because her subconscious is saying, “More, more, more!” “It's not enough, it's not enough.” And so she keeps saying “yes” to everything. So you can see how this insidious, lurking shame, really is what this is, and this self-sabotage behaviour infiltrates everything. 

So, a standard is something that you can accept, that you can tick off, and you can measure, whereas when you're swaying into perfectionism, and this is where you need to do your own inner work, to work out, “All right, well, what is your best?” Is it six? Is it five people's roles? The moment you get that answer, so much starts to unravel, and you start to see, “Oh okay, actually, that's nuts.” How do we get your conscious mind, and your subconscious mind, in alignment? 

This takes off the focus from, “Well, I should have done more.” “I should have made it better, I should be further ahead, I should have spent more time on it.” And the beauty is, when you have a standard, versus being a perfectionist, the perfectionism, when it's not enough, not good enough, “you could have done better”. What that actually has behind it, which makes perfectionism so heavy, is a really big emotional charge that is riddled with shame. ‘I didn't do enough.” “Well, I'm lazy” or whatever other accusation you want to accuse yourself of. “I could have done better.”

All of these thoughts are full of shame, and it's making yourself wrong. Irony is that in wanting and believing that it has to be perfect, we're doing that to avoid shame. To protect us from shame. So, “If I send this out and it's perfect, then I won't be judged.” “I won't feel like I've made a mistake.” But in reality, we're shaming ourselves anyway, for not doing enough, or not doing it perfectly, or for the mistake that we made three months ago. 

So we're inflicting the thing on ourselves, that we've got these mass coping mechanisms of behaviour, to try to avoid. Isn't that bonkers? So, we are swimming in shame. We would rather inflict shame on ourselves, than risk it being inflicted by somebody else. That is crazy! The good news is you can actually stop it, when you're doing this to yourself. But you need to learn how you can see how so much of perfectionism is driven by this deep, subconscious behaviour. 

So, until you do the work, it is very, very difficult to shift. And the last place that your perfectionist is lurking, is in something that always comes with perfectionism. This is the wonderful other self-sabotage behaviour I talk a lot about, called procrastination. So, if you procrastinate, there's a pretty good chance that that procrastination is driven by your perfectionism, and that is driven by shame. 

Because it's a wonderful thing to avoid doing the hard things, if you set the bar at “perfect.” It's a great quote from Seth Godin, who says, “It's awfully hard to worry about getting something perfect, that you can never actually begin.” So, procrastination is typically an avoidance strategy. We're trying to avoid the shame of not getting it perfect. So, can you see how you're shaming yourself again? So then you shame yourself for procrastinating, and then you'll get angry at yourself, or you'll get angry at somebody else. You've projected it on the kids, you'll kick the dog, and then you'll wait until there's a deadline, which can kick you out of your shame. 

And then you might get angry and frustrated, and then you get an adrenaline and cortisol hit, and thus the cycle continues. So, a way that this procrastination and perfectionism are lining up, and something that's been coming out recently in some clients of mine, is that they're avoiding doing things with their family, or with their friends, saying they're too busy. They've got to do the dishes, they've got to do lunches, and when we've actually sat down and looked at it, realized that actually the reason that they haven't been doing the thing is, because they were worried it wasn't being done perfectly. 

I had a client who shared that she wasn't cooking with her kids, because she kept saying to herself, “Oh well, I don't have time”, and I don't have “X, Y, Z.” And in reality, when we sat down and looked under the hood, yeah, it was because it was going to be too messy, and the cakes that they made wouldn't be perfect, and there'd be a big mess to clean up. 

Now, I get it, right? There's more stuff to do. But she was missing out on those memories. And she loved cooking, by the way! This isn't someone like me, who doesn’t like cooking. So, that is not going to necessarily be an enjoyable memory for me. But, she loved cooking! And she wasn't doing it, because her kids would, you know, the cupcakes weren't perfect. And when she tried to pipe the icing with them, they chose the wrong colours. And so, she stopped doing an activity that would bring her joy, that would bring her fulfilment, all for the sake of her perfectionist raging. 

Somebody else was sharing how he wouldn't even attempt to put up a tent in the backyard with the kids who wanted to camp, because she realised she was worried that she couldn't put the tent up perfectly. “That she couldn't do it right”, was her language. And so, she didn't do it at all. “No, no, no, no, no, it's going to rain.” “It's too cold.” All these excuses as to why she couldn't do the thing. And when she sat back, and actually asked herself, “Why am I really avoiding putting up the tent?” It was because she couldn't do it right. It was her perfectionist. 

And then, she was annoyed at herself, because she wasn't putting up the tent. And she was getting angry at herself. And then she's getting angry at the kids for asking to put the tent up. So, all that anger that was being channelled into the children was actually her own anger and frustration, at herself. So, can you see how these perfectionistic tendencies, this shame, this deep judgement you have of yourself, “My gosh, this is everywhere!” 

It lurks everywhere, and it is having a far bigger impact on your life than you could ever possibly imagine, which is why everyone always says to me, “Jo, how do I tame it?” “I can stick a-done-is-better-than-perfect t-shirt on, and I can slap a magnet on my fridge.” But, until you do the inner work, this is where the freedom comes from. When you can understand the root cause of your perfectionism, if you can deal with how all the shame is pent up in your nervous system, only then can you actually start to overcome it. 

So, for this reason, this is exactly why I'm holding this free workshop on the 31st of July. We kick off, because so many women are impacted by this, and some wear it as a badge of honour. Some know that it's ruthless, that it's a tyrant, and it's time for them to get it under control. So, again, you can visit balanceinstitute.com/perfectionist. It's a free two-part series. We're going to go to the depths of where your perfectionist comes from. 

It's going to be really interactive, as I always like to do these things, and it’s a wonderful opportunity for you to actually see beyond. Where is this thing lurking? How do I tame it, so that you can unlock more joy, you can unlock more memories, you can speak up, you can do the thing. And, most importantly, we can drop the shield, and the emotional charge that so many women are holding. It's exhausting. It robs you of so much of what you deserve. So, if you're ready to put the shield down, come and join us. Otherwise, keep an eye out, and see where your perfectionist is lurking today.

OUTRO: Thank you for joining us today on the Balance and Beyond Podcast. We're so glad you carved out this time for yourself. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend who might need to hear this today. And if you're feeling extra generous, leaving us a review on your podcast platform of choice would mean the world. If you’re keen to dive deeper into our world, visit us at www.balanceinstitute.com to discover more about the toolkit that has helped thousands of women avoid burnout and create a life of balance, and beyond. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next time on the Balance & Beyond Podcast.