EXCITING NEWS: I've got a brand new free 3 part audio series for highly sensitive ambitious women over 40 who want to learn to Flip Your Anxiety "OFF" Switch"! SIGN UP FOR FREE HERE: https://www.megan-nolan.com/offswitch

Are you tired of constantly feeling the pressure to be perfect?  Whether it’s from the world, the weight of obligations, or the pressure to keep up the momentum in your work, perfectionism can feel like an endless cycle of stress and anxiety.

If you’ve ever felt trapped by these expectations—like you’re always pushing yourself harder just to stay afloat—this week's podcast episode is for YOU! 

In today’s episode, I’m getting real about breaking free from the pressure of perfectionism and how it’s impacting your mental and emotional well-being. You’re not alone in this.

I’ve been there too, navigating the demands of growing a movement and trying to follow every instruction—sometimes out of obligation, not inspiration. But here’s the truth: when we try to do everything “perfectly,” we disconnect from our true selves and only fuel the anxiety that’s been holding us back.

What you'll learn:

✨ The real cost of trying to do it all “perfectly” and why it’s keeping you stuck in a state of anxiety. ✨ How to break free from the weight of perfectionism without losing momentum in your life or business.

✨ Simple, actionable tools to help you stop feeling overwhelmed and start feeling more aligned, present, and connected to yourself.

Want to learn to mute the mental noise and regain control of your mind in just 6 minutes a day? Join us for the brand new free 3 part audio series to Flip Your Anxiety "OFF" Switch": https://www.megan-nolan.com/offswitch 

Please find the show notes below. Since it is a transcription there may be spelling errors and/or weird grammar. Ignore that and enjoy!

Breaking free from perfectionism

and pressure. An ongoing

practice for me and maybe for you too,

which is why that is the focus of

today's episode of the Movement,

Mind and Meaning Podcast,

Mind and Body Tools to help you to thrive

beyond anxiety and depression. I'm your

host, Megan Nolan, and I'm really

excited to. Get into this very

relevant, very personal, very

00:00:33,1000 --> 00:00:36,640
timely conversation that I hope

that is really supportive for you. I hope

you feel seen. I hope you feel

encouraged. I hope you learn something. I

hope you get inspired. And we're gonna

jump into this in a moment, but I wanted

to let you know. That I have a

brand new totally free

audio series that is just been

released, actually just a couple days ago

upon release of this episode called the

Anxiety Off Switch.

Do you want to learn how to flip your

anxiety off switch so that you can mute

the mental noise and gain control over

your mind in just six minutes every day

so that you can become a nervous system

ninja?You can become your own best

advisor because you can tap into your

inner wisdom and follow that truth and be

able to go from being a worn out woman,

the frantic and frazzled and vibe.

To being grounded and powerful and in

your leadership energy as your serene

queen self. Well, the Flip Your Anxiety

off switch mini audio series, 3

mini training sessions that are audio

based so you can listen to them anywhere,

anytime. Totally free, brand new. I'm

really excited to share it with you. So

they're bite sized, only 15 minutes each.

Perfect way for you to learn how.

To mute the mental noise and regain

control over your mind. So make sure to

join us for that, right?It's available

now. And when you sign up for free before

April 10th, you actually get a

bonus call inside the pop-up community.

So it's an incredible community of other

super ambitious, highly sensitive,

incredible beings up to big and beautiful

things. I mean, who knows who you'll meet

in there, but when you sign up for free

before the 10th, you actually get a bonus

call inside this pop-up community, so

make sure to grab that. And if you

are hearing this in the future, whenever

you are there, there's going to be

other things. So grab that as well. OK,

so let's talk about it. Let's

have some real talk here about

internalized pressure and the habit

of being highly attentive to detail,

a perfectionist. And I want

to start by saying, you know, before

I pressed record on this, I was like,

yeah. I kind of like

sometimes have regret about making this

both an audio and a video because I'm

not gonna lie, I just had. I just had a I

had a power pause. That was a full

cry. It was a full like,

oh man, I don't know, I was having a lot

of thoughts about what's

next. I was feeling a lot of pressure. We

just finished up. The anxiety and

stress reset in the power pause movement

just a couple weeks ago and there was a

lot of, you know, anticipation and build

up for that. And I'm excited to be

offering this anxiety off switch. And so

I feel for me, I feel

as though I put a lot of pressure

on myself and

maybe you can relate to this. My

accountability buddy and I were having a

chat. I would love to know

some of your DM. Are you an oldest child?

Both she and I are oldest children, I

feel, and many oldest children that I've

meet are very responsible, very driven.

I feel like we were almost groomed to be

leaders. But in my

family we were also conditioned

to be very high achieving

and performance driven, to

receive love and to feel

worthy in my case. And so a

lot of that in the past

was a real driving force for me

internally. And so this is interesting,

right?Like let's talk about how being

very driven, being very ambitious, being

very sensitive, being very goal focused,

high achiever if you will, high performer

oftentimes, there's a double-edged sword

to that, right?If we're doing that from a

place of dysregulation and. A

push energy of what's next. Let's go. Got

to keep the momentum going and feeling

like you're the one. Oh, I can feel that.

And you're the one that's driving

the bus. That starts to

feel like all of a sudden you're not

driving the bus forward, but instead

you're pulling the bus backwards up

Everest with no Sherpa, no team. You're

pulling it backwards up the hill, right?

It starts to feel really difficult if we

are. In that

energetic,

contracted state,

and it's important for us to

remember that

perfectionism is

actually a protective pattern, an

adaptive mechanism developed by the

subconscious mind in a response to

stress. Right. So when we have these

external pressures, whether it's in the

work scenario or in the

relationships or family scenario, we have

this event or thing

or part of our life that is activating

the stress response. If one of your

protective patterns and adaptive

mechanisms is to be a

perfectionist, to be very overly

attentive to making everything exactly

perfect and exactly as it should be. That

can be something that really begins to

consume a lot of

your energy, right?And so it's

an interesting thing because

is that authentic for you?

In a sense, this protective

pattern, because it's hardwired from when

you were a child and you were modeled

this behavior. This is something that you

00:06:22,1000 --> 00:06:25,200
learned a long time ago and you've been

practicing it for quite some time.

Perhaps enough to feel like it's part of

who you are, right?And this, this trait

isn't who you are. You're not a

perfectionist. You have perfectionist

tendencies, right?Maybe or maybe not.

And I also want to, you know, I want to

say that I also appreciate having high

standards, right?Especially when it's

your own business or you're very

concerned for the quality of your work,

which you should be regardless of if it

was your own business or not. We want

things to be up to a certain caliber.

Right. And so I'm not saying, you know,

you just like haphazardly slap things out

on the wherever. But what I'm saying is,

is that when we hold

ourselves to these extremely high

standards, it's very

difficult for us to achieve them and it

only gives fuel to that stress, worried

fire that's inside of us that's driving

the bus in the 1st place, so.

Is that pattern really who you are?

No. It's something that you've practiced

and it's hardwired in, but it allows you

to kind of default back to that and it

causes us to get tripped up by that. And

so trying to do things quote UN

00:07:35,1000 --> 00:07:37,440
quote perfectly

because it's activating even

more of a stress response in our body,

we're very much in our head. Right. And

we're not in that place of connected

self. We're not in that place of

embodiment. We're not in in that place of

flow and true self and the wisdom within

you, right. We're out of touch with with

the wisdom within us. We're out of touch

with the vibe of the vision that's

00:07:59,1000 --> 00:08:01,840
pulling you forward. That is the trilogy

of transformation. But we are being

really led by this old

pattern. Right. And so that

00:08:09,1000 --> 00:08:12,080
old pattern might be part of the younger

you inside of you. And because it's a

protective pattern and it's and it's a a

part of you, we want to acknowledge it

and we want to hold space for that. But

we want to recognize that we don't

necessarily need to have it run the show

anymore. But I also want to add to the

conversation is that

this level of.

Externalized stress, right, of

what's happening in the world currently

right now, it's March something 2025.

You might be listening to this in April,

something 2025 or maybe beyond. But right

now, especially here in the US and

00:08:46,1000 --> 00:08:49,1000
globally, life is very different,

right?And there's a lot of things

happening politically, systemically

that are for those of us that are

sensitive and empathetic.

And potentially neurodivergent that are

very sensitive and that have a high

standard and a a

deep intuitive sense of what feels

good to us and what is what we want to

see happen in the world and what is just

and what is right and what is fair and

democratic. We're seeing a lot that's

contrary to that right now and that's a

lot of external pressure and

so and that's a lot of potentially.

Stressful input, right?And so it's

really important to honor

that, knowing that if you are a highly

sensitive being, which many people

in this community relate to,

it's really important to even more

00:09:47,1000 --> 00:09:50,640
so slow down,

reflect on what feels good for you,

acknowledge that there are a lot of

stressors and a lot of pressure right

now, and acknowledge that.

If you're like me, a lot

of that pressure can originate

from inside of us, especially

00:10:09,1000 --> 00:10:12,840
if you feel very called to do the

work you do. And that's where I was

noticing some of that pressure

is because I'm so excited

that the power pause movement

is growing. And it's

making an impact in people's lives all

around the world to learn how to

cultivate calm on command and stay

focused and stay grounded and stay

centered amidst the chaos of life.

And it's growing. And I feel really

excited by that. And it's calling me

forth into a new version of myself and

really sitting into this anchored knowing

and embodiment of being a leader of

a global movement. And so

there's a lot that comes up with that,

right?There's a lot that comes up when

you are a big visionary, when you are a

leader, when you're a dreamer, when

you're living a purpose-driven life like

I would imagine you are.

There can be a lot that goes along with

that, right?And so of course, when we are

stretching ourselves, when you are

stepping into this next.

Level of identity within yourself. When

you are allowing yourself to recalibrate

to this expanded impact

that you are here to make, that your soul

is calling you forth into, your ego mind

will notice that you're getting close

to the edge of the boundary of the

comfort zone and it starts to do all

sorts of things. Alert.

They are getting close to the barrier.

What do we do?Remind them of all the

times they screwed up before. Why don't

we get them worried about everything?Why

don't we put them on social media and so

that they are like freaking out about the

world and, you know, stressed out and

totally going to freeze in shutdown mode?

Why don't we try that?Is that effective?

Maybe. Or what about

that perfectionism thing?We got to make

it perfect before we put it out again in

the world. Yeah, that works every time.

OK, here we go. What about overworking

themselves till they're exhausted?You

know, so here's the thing. Or what about

we remind them of that time when everyone

laughed at them in grade four?You know,

00:12:17,1000 --> 00:12:20,840
it's so it's your brain doing what it's

supposed to do. And so it's

really one of those things that.

You have these incredible qualities as a

perfectionist, if you can relate to that,

you're highly attentive to detail, right?

That's really what it means. So when

these protective patterns, we look at

them when they're getting tripped up and

tripped on or activated or you know what

I'm saying, we get to

witness them. Oh, isn't that

00:12:47,1000 --> 00:12:50,480
interesting?This is, this is happening

right here, right now. Wow. OK, here we

are again. But now you have a new level

of awareness. You are operating from a

new level of consciousness, right?And if

we get into that place where we're

getting looped back into that pattern of

perfectionism or feeling like we have to

have it perfect and we need to have it

done yesterday. And you're the good girl,

good boy, good person, and you you like

to do it right and follow the

instructions and and make sure that it's

done perfectly so you can, you know, get

the love, get the accolades, get the Gold

Star. Do you relate to that?

We internalize a lot of that pressure as

children and we carry that forth.

But that's why life is an opportunity for

us to begin to witness those things,

begin to honor those parts of

ourselves that are getting

activated as we

stretch and we go for bigger goals,

right?And so remember that these.

Patterns of self-sabotage, right?And

that's really what perfectionism and and

internalized pressure or

not wanting to delegate control or

procrastination or overdoing it, pushing

yourself too hard, overdoing,

overworking, overthinking, overgiving.

All of these patterns of

self-sabotage are actually

self-protective mechanisms.

Patterns of self-sabotage are

00:14:11,1000 --> 00:14:14,480
self-protective mechanisms because what

your brain is great at doing is

attempting to problem solve in the

moment. It doesn't really know how to

predict the future. It predicts the

future based on patterns of the past. And

so it's really important that we

recognize and we intentionally pause. Is

this working right?How does this feel?

Does this feel like something that I want

to continue?And so if you notice yourself

defaulting back to these patterns,

especially when you're in a process of

expansion and I don't love this

terminology, but you probably know it up

leveling yourself and and growing, right?

Growing is more accurate because you

know, if we're not growing, we're doing

the other thing. And so

the opportunity

is, can we begin to

recognize these patterns within

yourself as such, as a

gift or an opportunity?It's

either exactly what you need. Or

you either get the result that you're

looking for or the lesson that you

needed, as one of my coaches, James

Wedmore, says. So that's it, right?That's

it. It's a either we get

directly what we wanted or not,

and it becomes an opportunity to learn

and grow and witness and reflect and look

at it from a higher level of mind. A

higher level of perception when we're not

caught up in the old pattern, when we're

not treading that path down the forest,

right?Instead, you're choosing to go a

different way. You're choosing to learn

to pause.

And for those of us that

experience high functioning

anxiety. Which tends to

be a fight response when the stress

response get activated. So it's that go

do it now push should have been done

yesterday. Whereas with generalized

anxiety it tends to be a flight like get

me the hell out of here. And with

depression it tends to be more of a

freeze or a shutdown. We want to give

ourselves the opportunity to

activate and regulate the nervous system

to begin to shift up that

ladder. Right up that ladder. We

also want to begin to expand our

window of tolerance in that when we

recognize our self in this pattern of

defaulting back to perfectionism or

putting a lot of pressure on our self, we

get to pause and we get to

breathe into it and we get to see and we

get to realize that it's really an

opportunity. It's stretching you, it's

showing you what's there when you use

that skill and that gift. From that place

of regulation, from that place of heart,

from that place of wisdom, from that

place of truth, of who you really are,

it's so much more effective, it's so much

more powerful. And it allows us to

expand that a little bit and tolerate it

a little bit better without defaulting

into one of those patterned

reactive stress responses that I just

mentioned. So how can we move

ourselves?Up the ladder, back

to that place when we are in that stay

and play energy, when we have that

get up and go of the sympathetic aspect

of our nervous system. But we're also

centered and we're grounded and we're

ready and we're activated in that place

of connected awareness in the heart. And

we are very intentional with the energy

you're putting into things, the being

that you're being when you're doing the

doing and that's moving up to a

more of a ventral vagal state. Right. So

these are the different states of the

nervous system based on the polyvagal

theory that is really widely accepted and

very well understood to be the different

states of our nervous system that impact

us and especially relevant when we

are doing stressful things in

life, right. And we're experiencing a lot

of these external pressures and. You

know, admittedly it's it's a lot and

especially when we're very sensitive and

and over this last week or so, I've been

really noticing a lot of emotional

responses of of getting really tearful of

just, you know, obviously there's big

stuff that's happening that's very

emotionally intense, but even just also

the stuff that you see on social media,

like dogs doing cute things and it just

touches my soul and and admittedly, as

you may or may not know. Only in January.

So only like 2 and a two and a bit months

from where we are right now. We let our

sweet Bailey boy who was a 16 year old

cockapoo we he needed to go. It was time

for him to go over the Rainbow Bridge.

And you know those paw prints

they leave on your heart. They're deep

and they it's there,

right?It's doggies are special.

And he was my cowor and I spent a lot of

time with him and and I'm still

recalibrating to that and that's OK, you

know, it's OK And it and and

dogs are very special and so that's OK,

right. And so it's just,

I bring that up to tell you that, you

know, there's a lot in our life that we

sometimes just kind of hold underneath

the surface, right. And it's one of my

teachers, Kylie talks about how if we

don't allow emotions to be.

Expressed. It's like when you're in a

pool. Have you ever done this?It's like

when you're in a pool and you get one of

those beach balls and you're trying to

hold the beach ball underwater and you're

you got your arms on it and you're

holding on to it and you're trying to

pull it underwater and you're trying to

keep it underwater, keep it underwater.

And you can only do it for so long before

it goes like boing and it goes flying,

right. And so that's it is that it's so

important that we allow

ourselves to. Experience these feelings,

move through these energies, allow

ourselves to recognize. And that's a

level of like ninja status, awareness

of recognizing these patterns within

yourself, right?Because that's what this

is, is an emotional intelligence, an

emotional awareness and learning to

become a nervous system ninja, which is

something you'll learn how to do in the

anxiety off switch. It takes

practice. It takes practice and

so. One of the tools that we can do

to diffuse some of this energy

is a power pause, and I want you to

feel what it feels like to release

some of this intense energy in a

really healthy and safe way. So what

we're going to do is breathe in, and as

we breathe out, we're going to make a

fist and we're going to inhale, relax.

And I want you to make the fist, you

know, mind your shoulder, mind your

hands, mind your wrist. You might notice

if you can see the video. I got a little

something on my shoulder. So I'm. I'm

gentle with myself, but I'm still intense

with the squeeze. OK, so breathe in

and exhale. Squeeze your

butt while you do it. I know. What?

Yeah. You didn't know you were going to

get a booty workout too, did you?All

right, so breathe in. Ready.

Squeeze your fist. Squeeze your whole

body. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.

And then relax. Oh, it feels good.

Breathe in.

Feel yourself squeezing

your body, engaging your muscles. Try

again. Use your abs,

use your legs, squeeze your butt squeeze

your fist and relax.

One more time.

Squeeze, squeeze everything. Squeeze it,

squeeze it, squeeze it. And then relax.

Bring your arms down by your sides.

I'd love to know what you feel after

doing that power pause. I

feel

a settling. If you can't see the video, I

just took my hands and sweeped them

across an imaginary table and just .

It feels like everything just leveled

out. It

gives us a chance to express some of that

intensity safely.

It's cathartic because that energy needs

somewhere to go. And if it's

just stirring around inside of us,

then that's when it can cause

more challenges. It can cause more

protective patterns to be activated.

It can cause. More stress. It can

cause hormonal disruption. It can cause

sickness. It can cause immune weakening.

It can cause a lot of things. It's

so important that we learn to diffuse

some of this energy. Emotions. You've

heard me say this. Emotions are energy in

motion. But if we're holding it all in

and we're just trying to power through

and we have all this pressure and I want

to do it perfectly and I should do it

now, it's just

boiling inside of you. You know, I love

my analogies. It's just boiling inside of

you, right?Like the beach ball being held

underneath the surface of the pool.

Inevitably it's going to pop. It's like

the water boiling in a pot with and you

didn't slide a little bit of the lid off.

You know how you do that?But you left the

lid all the way on because you wanted it

to boil and the water's just boiling and

boiling and boiling. And then all of a

sudden it's boiling all over the stove

and then you have a big mess. It's so

important for us to learn to. Take

the lid off, right?To move the energy

through our body. And here's where we get

tripped up because we're like, yeah, but

I got things to do. I got, I got, I got

things to do. And that's I hear and I

hear that from myself and I hear that

from a lot of clients. I hear that from

people inside the power pause movement.

But here's the thing, when you learn to

flip your anxiety off switch, when you

learn what you're going to learn inside

that free audio series, you will learn

how to do this in a way that supports

your day. That doesn't take away from it

in a way that feels like you just went to

yoga and took a big time out, but

it literally only takes 2 minutes. That's

what this is for, is giving you something

that's usable, that's realistic, that

helps you to do what you're doing so

damn well, but in a way that's more

aligned because it's from the truth

of who you are. You're giving yourself a

chance to take the lid off, blow off a

little bit of steam. So that you can

keep that train a moving. Like, I

just love so many analogies and I hope

they make all make all the sense. So

that's what I wanted to share with you

today and just give you that, you know,

honest feedback and reflection that this

is a journey, right?And and it's a

rewiring process and it's an it's a

process of expansion and evolution. And

there will be times when you notice

yourself in the old patterns, but what

you're learning to do here and what

you'll learn to do in the anxiety off

switch. Is to recognize those patterns

so that when they come up,

you can navigate through them more

gracefully. You can operate from that

serene queen, serene being energy because

you know what to do

when it happens rather than just

getting on that hamster wheel and Oh my

God,

not sustainable. We

know that stress impacts the body on so

many levels, and we know that the most

powerful way that you have

to stay in that place that where you're

aligned with your vision, you stay in

your truth, stay grounded, stay centered,

is through these tools of nervous system

regulation. And I'm so excited to share

them with you inside the anxiety off

switch. So again, totally free, brand new

series, three-part series, 15 minutes

each. And that way you get to learn how

to make these tools part of your life so

that you. Can become a nervous system

ninja. You can give yourself what you

need in that moment. You're going to

learn more about yourself, your growth,

how you operate, what you get to do to be

able to become your own best advisor so

that you don't need to be operating with

that running on the fumes of three lattes

and two almonds cuz you haven't eaten all

day and you're just flying by on caffeine

and cortisol and cuz you got so much to

do. But you're actually in a state of

productivity and joy and flow and

energy and playfulness because you're

giving yourself what you

need on the deepest level of your

being, your nervous system.

So incredibly impactful. So make

sure to join us for the anxiety off

switch. It's totally free. And it's one

of those things you can listen to

whenever you want on the go, right?It's

designed for that. And if you join us

before April 10th, you actually get to

join inside this incredible pop-up

Facebook community where you will get a

other deeper dive into the training and

Q&A with me so that you can begin to

implement these tools right away. So

thank you so much for being part of this

incredible movement, right?That's what

this is. It's a movement of people.

Redefining success to prioritize your

health and happiness. Because how you

feel matters.

How you feel matters. It's

literally the driving force, your energy,

the being that you're being right. You're

a spiritual being, having a human

experience. You've probably heard me say

that, but we forget because we get so in

our head. So that's what I wanted to

share with you today. Sending you so much

love, so much Aloha. Make sure to join us

for that free series and share it with

your friends. If you know anybody that is

navigating these challenges or is, you

know, a very driven, passionate

entrepreneur or ambitious woman that's up

to big things in the world. And she talks

about or she doesn't. You know, she might

talk about these challenges, but not

everybody does, right?But you might hear

her saying things like, I'm just so busy,

I'm overwhelmed. I have so much to do.

There's never enough time. And she has

that vibe. Maybe gently suggest that

you've been listening to this podcast and

this crazy woman that lives in Hawaii has

some things to share that might be

helpful for her. Just start there, OK?

Thank you so much for helping to spread

the word. This is truly a passion of my

heart, and I believe that mental health

is part of the reality of being a human.

And when you have tools to navigate that

without the shame, without the stigma,

you get to be thriving. You get to be

witnessed and celebrated for all that you

are, because you deserve that. You

deserve that. You are not those

challenges. You're not anxiety. You're

not depression. You're not ADD. You're

not any of those things. You are the

loving awareness behind them. You are the

consciousness that holds that. You are

not your thoughts. You get to witness

those thoughts, right?You get to navigate

life through this beautiful body, this

vehicle that you get to experience. And

sometimes it comes with challenges, right?

It's a vehicle for your soul, but it's

also this beautiful sacred garment that

allows your soul to be expressed. So.

Learning to navigate with as much grace

and ease and fun and play and joy and

love as possible. And that's all I have

for you today. See you inside the anxiety

off Switch. Bye.