Be Freaking Awesome Podcast

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You don't think you have limiting beliefs. Most people don't. You're not walking around consciously telling yourself you're not enough, or that nobody can be trusted, or that you have to do everything alone. But ask what happens the second you make a mistake. What's the voice in your head? Is it kind? Or does it tear you apart? That's the tell.

This week Sami and Angela get into why the term "limiting beliefs" doesn't actually land with most people, even though the patterns underneath it are running the show for almost everyone. They talk about the reticular activating system, why the opposite of perfectionism isn't mediocrity, how a single moment in childhood can send two people down completely different paths, and why you can't force healing before you actually have the capacity for it. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to not recognize the term "limiting belief" and still have one quietly running the show
• A different way to hear the voice in your head after you mess something up
• Why the opposite of perfectionism isn't mediocrity, it's kindness at an appropriate standard
• Clarity on why you can't just will yourself to heal before you're actually ready
• Freedom from believing your current stress response is just "how life is"

Angela walks through her favorite example of how these patterns actually form: two kids get laughed at in seventh grade, and one decides never to raise a hand again while the other becomes a stand-up comic, same event, completely different meaning attached to it. She also breaks down how a simple missed carton of milk can spiral into a full blown fight depending on what belief is quietly running underneath it. And Sami gets vulnerable about a genuinely hard week in therapy, the difference between how she handled conflict nine years ago versus now, and the metaphor that's carried her through it, a canoe on the river of life, where you can only clear the log directly in front of you.

Here's the permission this episode hands you: you don't have to already believe you have limiting beliefs to have real freedom waiting for you. You just have to get curious about the voice in your head after a mistake. And if you're in a season where you're tired, short, or running on a low tank because you're finally doing the work, that's not falling behind. That's proof it's the right time.

If you've ever caught yourself "shoulding" on yourself, telling yourself you should have handled something sooner, or that you shouldn't feel the way you feel, this episode is for you. Press play now. You don't have to fix every log in the river today. Just the one in front of you.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Be Freaking Awesome by Angela Belford — https://bfreakingawesome.com/product/be-freaking-awesome/
• Traveling Light: Free Yourself from the Crap in Your Head by Angela Belford — https://www.amazon.com/Traveling-Light-Free-Yourself-Crap/dp/0999186221
• The Invisible Edge: What Fuels Your Success Might Be What Limits It by Angela Belford — https://bfreakingawesome.com/the-invisible-edge-preorder/

You've done the work. The retreats, the books, the coaching. And the pattern is still there. The Invisible Edge Foundation 1:1 Coaching is where that changes. Six sessions, one-on-one, body-based belief work that gets underneath what nothing else has touched. bfreakingawesome.com/podcast-coaching

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Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

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Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

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You know the feeling. Someone says one thing in a meeting and you're still pacing the hallway twenty minutes later. Your family leaves their socks on the floor for the hundredth time and suddenly it feels like a referendum on whether they respect you. You snap, you spiral, you rehearse the argument in the shower. And afterward you wonder, was any of that actually worth it?

This week Sami and Angela get into what emotional resilience actually looks like day to day, not the version where nothing ever bothers you, but the version where you know how to reset and how to tell which fights are actually yours to fight. They talk through the rule of five, a decision tool Sami taught at a Family Business Forum that people are still using months later (their spouses too), what it means to hold onto your own remote control, and the real difference between picking a battle and setting a boundary. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to stop treating every disagreement like it's life or death
• A simple filter for deciding if something is actually worth your energy
• Why letting go of a fight isn't the same as letting someone treat you badly
• A different way to think about who's really holding the remote control to your mood
• Clarity on the difference between boundaries you set with yourself and battles you pick with other people

Angela shares how she's evolved from needing everyone around her to meet her own standard of excellence to a hard-won "not my circus, not my monkeys," plus the sock-picking-up story from Loving What Is that reshaped how she thinks about arguing with reality. Sami gets vulnerable about a genuinely rocky year in her marriage, and how she turned a painful, high-stakes conversation with her husband into a plain math equation instead of a fight, here's what changed, here's what's fixed, here's the one thing that's actually still flexible. And Angela talks about the battles she does choose to pick, the ones tied to justice and to people who can't advocate for themselves yet.

Here's the permission this episode hands you: you don't have to fight everything to be strong, and letting something go doesn't mean you're a pushover. You get to decide what deserves twenty minutes of pacing and what doesn't. You get to hold a standard for how you're treated without raging at anyone to enforce it. That's not coldness. That's resilience.

If you've been exhausted by your own reactions lately, or you're standing at the edge of a conversation you've been avoiding because you're not sure it's worth the conflict, this episode gives you an actual filter to run it through. Press play now. You don't have to hand over your remote control to figure this out.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Loving What Is by Byron Katie — https://thework.com/loving-what-is-revised-edition/

You've done the work. The retreats, the books, the coaching. And the pattern is still there. The Invisible Edge Foundation 1:1 Coaching is where that changes. Six sessions, one-on-one, body-based belief work that gets underneath what nothing else has touched. bfreakingawesome.com/podcast-coaching

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

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Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You already know the feeling. The conversation you keep rehearsing in the shower. The ask you keep almost sending. The version of yourself you keep not quite showing. You tell yourself you're waiting until you know how it'll go. But you're not actually waiting for information. You're waiting to feel safe. And that's a very different thing.

This week Sami and Angela pull apart something they've been circling for years and finally have a name for: our brains aren't wired to make us happy, they're wired to make accurate predictions. Certainty isn't a personality quirk, it's a survival mechanism, and understanding that changes how you work with your own fear of the unknown, your resistance to hard conversations, and the risk you keep talking yourself out of taking. They get into conflict resilience, nervous system regulation, why courage only shows up when you're not certain, and a visualization technique that trains your brain the same way physical practice does. In this episode, we dig into:

• Why your body treats “I don't know what happens next” as a survival threat, not a character flaw
• Permission to feel terrified and call it courage anyway
• A simple reframe for worst-case-scenario thinking that actually calms your nervous system down
• Why the harshest voice in an uncertain moment is usually your own, not anyone else's
• A visualization practice Angela used to manifest a car at 23 that works on much bigger things too

Angela tells the story of a client who had to have a hard conversation with a family member about buying the family business, and how role-playing the worst version of that conversation in advance let his body learn it could survive it before he ever had it for real. Sami shares the moment they accidentally cracked open someone's whole self-worth question with one offhand question, and unpacks the “what's the most unrealistic worst case, now what's the realistic worst case” reframe they use with clients. And Angela gets specific about the visualization work that got her the Mary Kay car at 23, the same mental rehearsal she now teaches clients to use for conversations they're dreading, not just goals they're chasing.

Here's the permission this episode hands you: you don't have to feel certain you'll survive something to have the courage to do it. You just have to be willing to find out. Growth doesn't require you to already know the outcome, it requires you to trust that you've survived one hundred percent of everything you've faced so far, which, if you're listening to this right now, you have. Some growth is a gentle uphill walk. Some of it is scaling a wall. Both count.

If you've been sitting at the edge of a hard conversation, a big ask, or a version of yourself you haven't let anyone see yet, waiting to feel ready first, this is the episode that tells you why you're stuck and what to do about it. Press play now. Your nervous system doesn't need certainty. It just needs proof it can survive.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Be Freaking Awesome by Angela Belford — https://bfreakingawesome.com/product/be-freaking-awesome/

You've done the work. The retreats, the books, the coaching. And the pattern is still there. The Invisible Edge Foundation 1:1 Coaching is where that changes. Six sessions, one-on-one, body-based belief work that gets underneath what nothing else has touched. bfreakingawesome.com/podcast-coaching

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You know the feeling of finally setting a boundary and immediately regretting how good it feels, mixed with the guilt of knowing someone you love is annoyed with you over it. Or maybe you've never let yourself get there, because disappointing people you love has always felt like the one thing you're not allowed to do.

This week Sami brings a book to the table she hasn't been able to stop talking about since she read it, The Courage to Be Disliked, and it cracks open the difference between two schools of psychological thought that quietly shape how most of us explain our own lives. Freud's theory says you are who you are because of what happened to you. Adler's theory says you are who you are because of what you're moving toward, the goals underneath your behavior right now. It sounds academic until you feel how much weight it takes off, or how much responsibility it hands back to you, depending on the day. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to let your past explain you without letting it define what happens next
• A new way to think about why a hard childhood trained you instead of ruining you
• Clarity on the difference between the goal you think you're chasing and the one you're actually chasing
• Language for setting a boundary that will disappoint people who are used to you always saying yes
• A simple daily question that shifts you from chasing everyone's approval to chasing your own

Angela traces her own theory in real time, from living in four different family situations and attending eight schools by second grade, to deciding that becoming excellent at making friends, reading people, and living an unmistakably good life was the best answer she had for anyone who'd ever hurt her. She and Sami test Adler's harder claim, that every problem is fundamentally an interpersonal problem, against something as personal as feeling inferior and something as heavy as hunger. Angela also shares a conversation with a friend who grew up the way she did, about giving your own kids a safety net neither of you ever had, and why that deserves to feel good instead of guilty. And Sami gets honest about the moment she realized Be Freaking Awesome had technically already met her stated goal of bringing in income, without that goal actually being the real one, and how naming the true goal underneath it changed her motivation overnight. She also shares the very current example of finally telling her extended family she's done being the one who plans every trip, and choosing peace over everyone's approval.

If you've spent years explaining yourself by what happened to you, this conversation offers a gentler and more useful question: what are you actually trying to become? And if disappointing someone you love has felt like proof you did something wrong, this episode makes the case that it might just be proof you finally started living for your own approval instead of everyone else's.

Press play on this one, especially if you're in the middle of deciding whether to keep doing something out of habit, or to finally name what you actually want instead.

Related Episodes

• EP236 — When the People Who Loved the Old You Don't Like the New You: Angela references this one directly in the episode. Same throughline, continued: growing into a new version of yourself will cost you some relationships, and that's survivable.
• EP211 — Disappointing Met Expectations: The other side of Sami's realization this week. What happens when you technically hit your stated goal and it still feels hollow, because it was never actually the real goal.
• EP148 — Setting Personal Boundaries: The fuller toolkit behind Sami's decision to stop being the default planner for her family's trip.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga — https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Courage-to-Be-Disliked/Ichiro-Kishimi/9781668065969
• Bessel van der Kolk, quoted on trauma in this episode, author of The Body Keeps the Score — https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score
• Byron Katie, The Work and Loving What Is — https://thework.com/loving-what-is-revised-edition/
• Angela's book, The Invisible Edge, referenced as a comparable leadership fable — https://bfreakingawesome.com/the-invisible-edge-preorder/

You've done the work. The retreats, the books, the coaching. And the pattern is still there. The Invisible Edge Foundation 1:1 Coaching is where that changes. Six sessions, one-on-one, body-based belief work that gets underneath what nothing else has touched. bfreakingawesome.com/podcast-coaching

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You're tired of being the one who plans the get-together, sends the first text, remembers the birthday. Some weeks you wonder if anyone would even notice if you just stopped.

Sami and Angela almost didn't record this episode. They'd both been independently reading books this week, one on persuasion, one on ritual, and when they sat down to debrief with each other before the show, they realized both books had landed in the exact same place. So this week is a little different: a real-time debrief on what they're each thinking about right now, and how it all keeps circling back to one word. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to stop keeping score of who reached out last
• A new way to think about why shaming someone for their opinion rarely changes it
• Language for setting a boundary with a friend who wants more than you have to give
• Why unresolved abandonment can make “everyone eventually leaves” feel like proof instead of fear
• A simple decision that changes whether you walk into a room like a guest or a host

Angela shares the speech she gave as she stepped into the presidency of the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, built around joy as an act of rebellion, radical nonpartisanship, and belonging, and traces it back to a moment with Bob Goff around a fire pit, and to her own TED Talk on community as the solution to homelessness. Sami digs into the book How Minds Change and a conversation with a friend who believes people with the wrong opinions should be shamed until they come around, and shares research on why that approach almost never works, including the story of a 9/11 “truther” who only left the group once he found belonging somewhere else. Angela's own book, A Time to Gather, has her thinking about ritual and celebration as the original technology of community, and Kendra Adachi's opening and closing ceremonies for each season come up as a simple way to build more of that into ordinary life. And Sami tells the harder story underneath all of it: a friend who accused her of being a bad friend for not reaching out, during a season when Sami had two small kids, a miscarriage, a high-risk pregnancy, and COVID pneumonia, and had nothing left to give.

If you've ever been the one who's tired of initiating, or the one who got blamed for a friendship going quiet during the hardest season of your life, this conversation gives you permission to set that boundary without deciding you're a bad friend. And if belonging still feels like something other people hand out, Angela's host energy exercise is a simple, repeatable way to just decide it for yourself instead.

Press play on this one. Whether you're the initiator who's running low, or the one waiting to feel like you belong before you show up fully, there's something here for you.

Related Episodes

• EP208 — Guest Energy vs. Host Energy: The concept Angela revisits and deepens in this episode, now applied to walking into a room of strangers as the new League of Women Voters president instead of a networking event.
• EP104 — Abandonment and the “I Belong” Belief: The direct backstory for Angela's line that unresolved abandonment wounds make it harder to trust people and easier to believe you don't belong.
• EP63 — Why Friendship Matters for Longevity: The “five people you spend the most time with” episode Sami references directly in this one. Start here for the fuller take on proximity and friendship tiers.

Mentioned in this episode:

• How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney — https://www.davidmcraney.com/howmindschangehome
• A Time to Gather: How Ritual Created the World, and How It Can Save Us by Bruce Feiler — https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/738772/a-time-to-gather-by-bruce-feiler/
• The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon — https://sharonmcmahon.com/book
• The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi — https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/608850/the-lazy-genius-way-by-kendra-adachi/
• Angela's TED Talk, CommUNITY Is the Solution to Homelessness — https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_belford_community_is_the_solution_to_homelessness
• Angela's book, The Invisible Edge — https://bfreakingawesome.com/the-invisible-edge-preorder/

You've done the work. The retreats, the books, the coaching. And the pattern is still there. The Invisible Edge Foundation 1:1 Coaching is where that changes. Six sessions, one-on-one, body-based belief work that gets underneath what nothing else has touched. bfreakingawesome.com/podcast-coaching

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You've got a story you've been sitting on, the one that feels too small, too messy, or too “someone's already talked about this” to bother sharing. What if that's exactly the one worth telling?

Sami and Angela get into why storytelling matters this week, and it's not the pep talk you'd expect. The story you tell about what happened to you shapes who you become more than the event itself does. Sharing your story helps you actually notice your own growth instead of only fixating on how far you still have to go. And hearing that somebody else survived something similar can be the exact thing that breaks someone else's sense of being alone in it. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to tell a story even if you think everyone's already heard some version of it
• Why the story you tell about what happened to you matters more than the thing itself
• A simple weekly practice for noticing your own growth before you forget it happened
• Language for supporting a friend's hard day without turning it into a competition
• Why listening to your kid's tiny stories now is what earns you their big ones later

Angela and Sami debate Freudian versus Adlerian psychology by way of the book The Courage to Be Disliked, then unpack the “two-ounce cup, forty-four-ounce cup” metaphor for meeting people where their actual capacity is instead of turning pain into a contest. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Sami's four-year-old decides that lipstick means it's meeting time, and the logic somehow checks out.

If you've ever held a story back because you assumed it wasn't dramatic enough to matter, this episode makes the case that sharing it isn't bragging or oversharing. It's connection. And recognizing your own growth, instead of only measuring the gap between here and your goal, is its own reward.

Press play on this one, and then go tell somebody one of your stories. Even the small ones.

Related Episodes

• EP191 — Own Your Story, Build Your Brand (with Sara Losey): the episode Angela and Sami reference by name in this one, the deeper dive into storytelling as both a connection tool and a business skill.
• EP144 — Replacing Limiting Beliefs: for more on the idea that the story you tell yourself about what happened matters more than the event itself, this episode unpacks the mechanics behind it.
• EP64 — The Belonging Belief ("I Belong"): the flip side of this week's third reason for storytelling, why hearing that someone else survived something similar is often what breaks the feeling of being alone in it.

You've done the work. The retreats, the books, the coaching. And the pattern is still there. The Invisible Edge Foundation 1:1 Coaching is where that changes. Six sessions, one-on-one, body-based belief work that gets underneath what nothing else has touched. bfreakingawesome.com/podcast-coaching

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You've said what you need. You've been clear. And now you're just... waiting. Watching to see if anything actually changes. Sound familiar?

This week picks up where last week left off. If growth can make the people around you uncomfortable, what do you do when you're the one waiting on somebody else, a spouse, a business partner, a friend, to do their own growing? Sami and Angela dig into the messy, undefined stretch between naming a need and having it met, and what to actually do with yourself while you wait. In this episode, we dig into:

• Two questions to ask yourself when you're stuck in the “wait and see” phase (one of which isn't “what do you want”)
• Why the hardest part of change isn't the first apology, it's the eighteenth one
• A working definition of boundaries that has nothing to do with controlling anyone else's behavior
• Permission to take a break from a friendship without a dramatic goodbye
• A reminder that patience during this waiting period is doing more work than it feels like it is

Angela tells the real, thirteen-year-old story of telling her husband she had healed as far as she could inside their marriage, and how it took him months (and his first pair of bifocals) to actually decide to change for himself instead of for her. Sami brings in the “start, stop, continue” framework from her team-building workshops as a practical tool for anyone stuck on the question “what do you actually want.”

If you're in the middle of this waiting room right now, this episode gives you a way to track whether the gap between an old pattern showing up and someone catching themselves is actually shrinking, and permission to hang on a little longer if it is, or let a relationship go quiet without setting it on fire if it isn't.

Press play on this one if you're stuck watching to see whether someone else is actually going to change. You don't have to have the answer today, you just need to know what you're watching for.

Related Episodes

• EP236 — When the People Who Loved the Old You Don't Like the New You: last week's conversation on what happens once you start changing; this week picks up the other side, what to do while you're waiting on somebody else to.
• EP215 — The Let Them Theory (Mel Robbins): the episode this conversation directly builds on. That one is the “let them” half. This one is the “let me” half.
• EP56 — Marriage Advice & Conflict Resolution: for more on the day-to-day mechanics of navigating a strained marriage, this is the deeper dive.
• EP148 — Setting Personal Boundaries: the practical follow-up once you've figured out your own answer to “if this continues, what will I do.”

You've done the work. The retreats, the books, the coaching. And the pattern is still there. The Invisible Edge Foundation 1:1 Coaching is where that changes. Six sessions, one-on-one, body-based belief work that gets underneath what nothing else has touched. bfreakingawesome.com/podcast-coaching

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You started doing the work. Therapy, boundaries, actually feeling your feelings instead of stuffing them down. And somehow that's made things harder with the people who are supposed to love you.

Sami and Angela get into what happens in your relationships once you actually start healing, because here's the part nobody warns you about: some people liked the old version of you better. The one who people pleased, who never made anyone uncomfortable, who could be counted on to fold. When that version of you starts to change, it doesn't always go over well, even with people who love you. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to keep growing even when the people around you preferred your old coping mechanisms
• A way to tell the difference between someone who just needs a different pace and someone who needs a boundary
• Why repair, not perfection, is the number one relationship skill either of us has learned
• Language for grieving relationships that don't fit anymore without needing to end them dramatically
• Reassurance that the loneliness of growth is a normal part of the process, not a sign you took a wrong turn

Angela shares what happened this week when her nervous system “melted” in a meeting after years of only ever feeling anger or professional-normal, and what it took to say “I need a minute” out loud. Sami tells the story of a close friend whose dysfunctional family is threatened by her therapy and a new job in a new city, and reaches for the image of Indiana Jones' leap of faith to describe how lonely healing can feel once you take the step other people aren't ready to take.

If you're in the middle of becoming a new version of yourself and it's straining relationships you didn't expect it to strain, this episode gives you permission to keep going without needing to fix or cut off everyone around you. Growth costs something. You get to grieve that cost without treating it as proof you're doing it wrong.

Press play on this one if the people around you are struggling with who you're becoming. You're allowed to keep going anyway, and you're allowed to be kind to yourself while you do.

Related Episodes

• EP235 — Is People Pleasing Always a Bad Thing?: Last week's conversation on the fear driving people pleasing sets up this week's question directly: what happens to those relationships once the people pleasing stops.
• EP63 — Why Friendship Matters for Longevity: The “five people you spend the most time with” episode Sami references (and pushes back on) in this one. Start here for the fuller take.
• EP198 — Mom Guilt & Parenting Boundaries (with Dr. Juhi): The other side of the boundary Angela describes with her own adult kids, holding a boundary with someone who's used to you not having one.

You've done the work. The retreats, the books, the coaching. And the pattern is still there. The Invisible Edge Foundation 1:1 Coaching is where that changes. Six sessions, one-on-one, body-based belief work that gets underneath what nothing else has touched. bfreakingawesome.com/podcast-coaching

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You said yes again. And this time, instead of feeling good about it, you feel a little resentful, a little tired, and a little confused about why. Sound familiar?

We've been sitting with this question for weeks: is people pleasing always a bad thing? Turns out the answer isn't as clean as “yes, obviously.” Sami and Angela dig into the messy line between people pleasing, codependency, and genuine generosity, and why the exact same action (saying yes, showing up, cooking the meal, throwing the party) can be healthy in one moment and a warning sign in the next. It all comes down to motive: are you doing this because you're afraid of what happens if you don't, or because you actually want to? In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to stop assuming that saying yes automatically makes you a people pleaser
• A simple gut check for telling generosity apart from fear (does it fill you up, or leave you resentful?)
• Real language for negotiating the how of a request without abandoning the yes
• Why “let me check and get back to you” might be the most underused boundary phrase you have
• A different way to read your own “indicator lights” before you agree to something big

Angela walks through a friend whose parent is turning 90 and wants a very specific kind of celebration (think a six month memory book, not just cake and candles), and how her friend is learning to say yes to the celebration without saying yes to every single ask inside it. Sami brings it home with her own holidays, a women's retreat invitation she said yes to without hesitation, and the husband who somehow always knows the difference between “that's an honor, we'll make it work” and “are you sure you want to add that to your plate?”

If you've ever felt guilty for setting a boundary, or wondered whether the resentment building up in you means you need to say no more, this episode gives you a real framework instead of a guilt trip. You get to want to show up for people. You just get to be honest about why.

Press play on this one before you say yes to the next thing on your plate. You might find out you've been harder on yourself than you needed to be.

Related Episodes

• EP6 — Self-Awareness & People-Pleasing: The episode this conversation traces back to, on the gap between your internal self and the self you perform for other people.
• EP148 — Setting Personal Boundaries: The practical toolkit for holding a boundary out loud, once you've figured out which ones actually need holding.
• EP198 — Mom Guilt & Parenting Boundaries (with Dr. Juhi): A deeper dive into holding a boundary without the guilt spiral, especially relevant if the resentment you're noticing shows up most with your own kids.

You've done the work. The retreats, the books, the coaching. And the pattern is still there. The Invisible Edge Foundation 1:1 Coaching is where that changes. Six sessions, one-on-one, body-based belief work that gets underneath what nothing else has touched. bfreakingawesome.com/podcast-coaching

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

Your kid tells you the room is clean. Your intern tells you the project is finished. Your business partner tells you the email is ready to send. And then you look closer and it is very much not done. If you have ever stood over a pile of craft supplies that got shoved into the middle of a bedroom floor and been told, with total sincerity, that this counts as clean, you already know exactly what this episode is about.

This week Sami and Angela get into the messy space between perfectionism and excellence, and why so many of us confuse the two. We talk about what it actually means to set a standard of excellence, why that standard is not the same thing as chasing perfect, and how a seven-year-old’s version of "done" turned into a full parenting standoff over a pile of craft supplies. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to have a personal standard without turning it into judgment of everyone else's home
• A simple way to define "done" so people around you actually hit the mark the first time
• Relief for recovering perfectionists who think having any standard at all means the addiction is back
• A gut check for knowing when one more hour of effort is actually worth spending
• Freedom to say no to a volunteer ask without over-explaining yourself

Sami tells the story of her son Henry insisting a three-foot-wide pile of craft supplies in the middle of his bedroom floor was, in fact, clean. Angela admits to a recurring email mistake that has some longtime colleagues questioning her credibility, and talks about the intern who once said, out loud, that a client would have approved work Angela had sent back for a redo. They also get into the cart corral (Sami has feelings), the intern who spent 30 hours on a project budgeted for four, and the volunteer situation where Angela had to get honest about what she actually agreed to do.

By the end of this one you'll have a real answer to the question perfectionism never lets you settle: when is something actually finished. You'll hear why a standard of excellence, not perfectionism, is what lets you sleep at night, delegate without micromanaging, and let a hobby like embroidery just be a hobby. You don't have to be excellent at everything. You get to decide what excellent even means.

Press play on this one before you finish another task wondering if you did enough, or before you hand something off and brace for it to come back wrong. Sami and Angela are in your corner on this one, craft pile and all.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Brené Brown’s "painting done" concept, from her book Dare to Lead

You've done the work. The retreats, the books, the coaching. And the pattern is still there. The Invisible Edge Foundation 1:1 Coaching is where that changes. Six sessions, one-on-one, body-based belief work that gets underneath what nothing else has touched. bfreakingawesome.com/podcast-coaching

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