Happy New Year! It's intentional that the first episode I am releasing in 2023 is about perfectionism because I know many of you continue to struggle with it, and chances are it stole some of your joy this holiday season. I would love to give you some hope as you head into a new year!

Back on Season 3 (episode #35), I had my cousin Sara Waddel on the podcast to talk about her battle with perfectionism. That's when I began hearing some of your stories and realized we needed to have another conversation about it. So today I bring my husband Eric back on the podcast as a follow up to Sara's episode and a way to continue this important dialogue by allowing you to hear another perspective on this topic.

Perfectionism has played a huge role in Eric's life - negatively for so many years, and now positively as he has made so much headway, fighting these tendencies and therefore experiencing new levels of rest, peace, and joy. In order to have him share as much as possible, I did something different on this episode and didn't prepare any questions or notes. I just wanted to give Eric the mic and have him talk, teaching us what he has learned and how he has made progress and fought for joy through it all. I just wanted to listen in along with all of you. I told him there was no hurry and that he should talk for as long as he wanted to, knowing that I would most likely divide it into two episodes. So this is Part 1 where Eric shares a little bit about his personal struggle with perfectionism, his definition of it, and why he believes its crucial to fight against it. Then he begins going through his practical list of things that have helped him to make headway (I think he only gets through two in this first part so you'll have to stay tuned for the rest of the list in Part 2, coming out in 2 weeks)...things that have helped him to go from the discouragement of perfectionism to the joy of achievement. As always, I'd love to hear your feedback and have you share the things that resonated with you.

**Thank you for listening. Today's episode is sponsored by Faithful Counseling, an amazing online Christian counseling service. I'm excited to offer my listeners 10% off at: faithfulcounseling.com/fightingforjoy. Quality counseling is a worthy investment and can be such a powerful tool in the fight for joy!