Perfectionism is a word that I generally haven’t identified with to a large extent. If somebody were to ask, "Are you a perfectionist?" I probably wouldn’t raise my hand immediately. Why? Because deep down I know that perfectionism is an illusion. Perfectionism is defined by other people and requires effort trying to reach some gold standard that quite frankly is unrealistic, not achievable and sometimes not even definable.

What’s actually going on behind perfectionism are behaviors of double checking, triple checking, and ruminating. All of these things are about self protection. It's about avoiding disappointment, ridicule, humiliation or perhaps even shame.

I share the story of when I received this label of ‘perfectionist’ as feedback from a boss early in my career, the impact it had on me, and also the opportunity she missed in providing helpful information and resources.

Tune in to learn why we need to ask ourselves, what's really important in this situation? It might just be time to let good be good enough, and use positive messages to motivate yourself from a place of being your own best friend.

Episode Highlights:

• Untangling the flawed conditioning from growing up in education systems where it felt like perfection was attainable, realistic, and made sense as a goal.
• Noticing how your behaviors behind perfectionism are really about avoiding disappointment, ridicule, humiliation and shame.
• See how to stop self sabotaging behaviors to have more impact.

Quotables:

• [01:15:55:23] "...net net, perfectionism is a form of self sabotage."
• [01:07:34:04] "...if we are looking at what does 100% look like, what it comes with is a huge opportunity cost."
• [01:21:26:00] "...if you were being your own best friend... you would say, 'Honey, you've done enough. It's good enough. Put it out there. Let it go.'"

Stop letting self-doubt dictate your decisions. Take back the power from your inner critic and, take the Inner Critic Compass today to see which one is running your show. As a gift, I’ll send you a toolkit to help you on your path to be your own best friend: https://www.toscadimatteo.com/innercritic-compass

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Props for:
Theme music by Adrian DiMatteo https://adriandimatteo.com