Getting to Good Enough

Little by little, we can make big strides toward our goals. The trouble is sometimes it's hard to even notice the tiny progress that we make. In this episode, Janine and Shannon discuss incremental improvement and how it can make a huge difference in our lives.

Discussion topics include:

• The power of noticing small improvements

• How it can be hard to take a step back and look at how far you’ve come

• The incremental improvement that can come with practice and age

• Shannon’s metamorphosis from a shy person to an outgoing one

• A tip for feeling more comfortable at a party or event

• How making one small change can shift things

• The Mark Twain quote that inspired this episode, “Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection."

• Getting past the frustration of not getting everything you want right away by acknowledging the value of small improvements

• How Shannon is learning Portuguese by making small (very) consistent improvements

• Some of the unexpected Portuguese phrases that Shannon now knows

• The incremental improvement Janine’s seen in her daily yoga practice.

• How you can experience incremental improvement without even expecting (or seeking) improvement

• The 30-day plank challenge that took Janine from a twenty-second to a five-minute plank in 30 days

• Our challenge to you: Think about something that you have improved on that maybe you didn’t realize you have improved on

Visit the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links.

Shannon and Janine recorded this episode after experiencing some pretty significant unanticipated events on our September trips. Shannon's eastern Oregon RV trip was disrupted by heavy smoke from the wildfires and Janine, whose stay in Walla Walla was also affected by the smoke, had to grapple with her computer becoming inoperable during her big driving trip. This week we discuss how our careful preparation--and knowing what's important to us--allowed us to adapt with ease when faced with the unexpected.

Discussion topics include:

• The high levels of wildfire-related smoke that Shannon and Janine were experiencing at the time we recorded this episode

• How Shannon’s trip to eastern Oregon was affected by the smoke and the ways she and her husband adapted their itinerary to accommodate it

• The considerations they made to allow them to have a successful trip despite the disruptions

• Once again, the importance of knowing what is important to you

• Janine’s computer malfunction that threw her for a big loop

• The 90th birthday video gift for her father that was imperiled by her computer meltdown

• How Janine had to embrace good enough to be able to present her gift to her father (it turned out to be a wild success!)

• The hand-made thank-you note Shannon left for park rangers to thank them for the cleanliness of the pit toilets

• The silver linings of the adaptations

Janine’s decision not to visit Mount Rushmore, despite spending the night in Rapid City

Note: We delayed publishing this episode by a week because the Get Out the Vote episode felt more urgent. So Episode 123 was actually recorded before Episode 122.

Go to www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links.

Janine and Shannon agree that this November's election feels like the most important in our lifetime. We're committed to helping get out the vote and want to help you make sure you're able to vote. We also want to help you help others vote, so we've put together some resources to help make taking action easier.

We discuss the following steps with resources for each in the Links section below:

• Level 1: Make sure you’re able to vote

• Level 2: Promote voting among your friends, associates and neighbors

Level 3: Volunteer to help

• Level 4: Give money to candidates and causes

Links:

Level 1:

• One-stop voting registration and poll information: https://www.vote.org/

Level 3:

• Postcards to Voters (order postcards of your choice, completely handwritten): https://postcardstovoters.org/

• Blue Wave Postcard Movement (they provide postcards, part of which are preprinted) https://www.bluewavepostcards.org/

• Letters to Voters: https://votefwd.org/

• Send texts: https://resistancelabs.com/

• Volunteer at the polls https://www.workelections.com/

Level 4:

• Donate to the fund established by Shannon's friends (with matching funds!): https://secure.actblue.com/donate/takethesenate2020

We are sincere in our desire to help you figure out how to vote and how to help others vote. If you need any help, please reach out at [email protected] or give us a call at 413-424-GTGE (4843).

Shannon and Janine are both taking road trips the first week in September that require a good deal of preparation. This week we discuss how we've been trying to be plan productively without letting perfectionism hold us up.

Discussion topics include: 

* The paradox of 2020: How can it only be September and also how is it September already?

* How we're trying not to let perfectionism get in the of planning our upcoming trips

* Shannon's trip next week from Portland to eastern Oregon towing an RV behind her SUV

* Janine's upcoming 29-hour drive from St. Louis to eastern Washington for her father's 90th birthday

* How Janine is using Trello to help her plan what to pack for her journey

* How taking away the unknowns and breaking down the trip into days helped Janine get her arms around the long trip

* How it's so easy to spin your wheels while trying to prepare when there's uncertainty involved

* Shannon's Post-it note trip planning method

* Planning routes based on elevation (so smart!)

* Covering contingencies with a paper road map!

* The difference between worrying about things you can't control and thinking about those things you can control

* How one's perception of a situation can influence its reality

Visit the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links.

Sometimes perfectionism can hide from view so we don't even realize it's happening. In this episode, Janine and Shannon discuss that sneaky perfectionism, how it can show up and how "good enough" can be helpful.

Discussion topics include:

• Shannon’s flying her “recovering perfectionist” flag high in this episode!

• She discovered in a coaching session that perfectionism was lurking sneakily behind a reluctance to do something

• How something can feel perfect in your head before you start taking action but becomes imperfect when you start taking action, which can stop you from taking action

• The clue that perfectionism is at play: thinking you should (or even could) do something in a particular way

• How should can come up around the finished product, not necessarily around how to go about doing something

• The value of realizing that what you are already doing is good enough.

• The provocative question Shannon asked on Facebook: “If you knew you were going to be successful, what would you try?” 

• How Janine’s lack of perfectionism helps her pursue the things that she’s interested in

• The idea that came to Janine during the recording to help deaf people in Missouri vote

• The impact of combining your whys

• “All right is the new awesome!"

See the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for a link to Shannon's Facebook post!

For some people, the process of doing something is more important than the finished product and for other folks it's the other way around. This week, Shannon and Janine discuss process vs product and how it might be helpful to look at it from the other perspective.

Discussion topics include:

• The inspiration for this episode: a story about a ceramics teacher who graded half the class on quantity and the other half on quality

• The surprising result: The highest quality work came from the people who were graded on quantity

• How being on the process (quantity) side might get you where you want to go more easily than being on the product (quality) side.

• Process vs product in knitting

• The Mystery Knit Along project that Janine is knitting

• How sometimes the product is the process

• How it can be useful to engage in the process even if you are not sure of the product or sure that you can achieve the quality that you want

• Janine’s fervent love for You Need a Budget (YNAB) and how it took her awhile to get there

• The value of noticing whether you’re thinking about what you want to do as process vs product, then consider it the other way around

• How process vs product isn’t a matter of good or bad, it’s just a matter of what works for you

Visit the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for show notes and links.

Both Janine and Shannon have bounced around using various task-management systems over the years. But Janine's been using a specific Trello task-management  board every day now for the past four months and is bursting with excitement to talk about it. Shannon's using it too and in this episode we break down the benefits of the Daily Task Management Trello board.

Discussion topics include:

• Janine’s excitement over her Trello task management system and how she cajoled Shannon into trying it

• The importance of setting up the system so that it’s easy to use

• The secret sauce of this system: Trello’s Butler automation

• Janine’s description of her system and the automations involved

• Shannon’s favorite part of the system: It shoots confetti when you accomplish something!

• The power of the confetti

• Some of the automations that Janine uses

• The downside to the intense use of automations: Janine had to upgrade to Trello Business Class and now pays $10 a month (but she thinks it's worth it!)

• How perfectionism made Shannon reluctant to try out the system

• The visual nature of this system that has allowed Shannon to resist going back to pen and paper

• The power of getting credit for doing your daily tasks

• The iOS shortcut that allows for easy entry of new tasks from the phone, which make this system so viable

• How this system feels like one that will stick (though it’s completely reasonable if it doesn’t)

See the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for an update from Shannon and links.

Setting boundaries allows you to live a life based on your core values. This week, Shannon and Janine discuss getting in touch with what's important to you as a way to help you set boundaries that ensure you're doing the things that align with your why. They use a recent real-life example to illustrate how they recently benefited from boundary setting.

Discussion topics include:

• How it can be hard for people-pleasing perfectionists to set boundaries

• How boundaries can help ensure that you’re doing the thing that most aligns with your why

• The keystone of the getting-to-good-enough mentality: getting in touch with what’s important to you

• How Janine and Shannon harnessed our boundary-setting skills to make an invitation to present together work for us

• Our surprise that there were no objections from the program organizer to our request for an informal presentation

• How strange it feels sometimes to podcast without video

• The many ways it can be useful to get comfortable setting good-enough boundaries

• Getting in touch with what’s important to you as a guideline for setting boundaries

• Letting go of a fear of missing out or disappointing people with your boundaries

• How having boundaries can save you from committing to something you can’t follow through on

• Remembering that when you pass on something you don’t like to do, you’re giving an opportunity to someone who does like to do it

• Considering boundaries as gutter bumpers that keep you headed in the direction you want to go

• Shannon’s sweet spot in bowling (there’s beer involved)

Our lives these days are shrouded in uncertainty. This week Janine and Shannon discuss building in some margin to make life--and decision-making--a little easier.

Discussion topics include:

• Creating a margin in your life so you have some flexibility

• How this is particularly important during times of uncertainty (like now)

• What we mean by margin

• How things often don’t go as planned, even if (or especially if) they’re planned to the detail

• The value of building margins in travel

• The margin Shannon built into planning her low-stress wedding

• A great example of imperfection: Shannon and Mike celebrated their wedding anniversary on the wrong day this year

• Basing decisions on those things that you can be certain about

• How giving yourself margin provides flexibility to deal with circumstances that do arise

• Remember: Not making a decision is making a decision

• Janine’s challenge in trying to plan a trip to Washington state for her father’s 90th birthday in September

• The mental and emotional bandwidth taken up by living in a global pandemic during a time of social unrest and economic and political uncertainty—and the benefit of building in a margin for our own mental health

• An important reminder: Keep cutting yourself slack!

Visit www.gettingtogoodenough.com for show notes and links

Shannon attended protests in Portland in support of Black Lives Matter just a few days before we recorded this episode. This week, Shannon and Janine talk about the challenges of having difficult conversations around systemic racism and Shannon shares what she's learned in recent weeks of activism.

Discussion topics include:

• The reason Shannon’s throat is scratchy: She participated in Black Lives Matter protests in Portland and was pepper sprayed and tear gassed by federal agents

• How protesting has opened Shannon’s eyes to a lot of things that she’s never had to think about before

• A big lesson: Don’t get defensive in discussions about racism but rather take away the message for further thought

• How perfectionism can be a problem in these conversations because it can lead to paralysis or defensiveness

• How Shannon is trying to take what she’s learning and help other white women learn about ways they may unknowingly be behaving in a racist manner

• It doesn’t matter what your intention was if something you say is perceived as harmful. Learning that without getting defensive is valuable.

• A navigational tool: The Ring Theory that helps you not say the wrong thing: 

• Getting used to just saying, “Thank you for letting me know."

• How Shannon’s trying to navigate these discussions in social media

• The other big thing that happened in Shannon’s life on Saturday: She and her husband found a baby mouse in their car and had to figure out what to do for it.

• Supporting the BLM movement without being on the front lines

See the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links!