Getting to Good Enough

Overthinking anything--but especially our goals--is really easy to do. And those folks with perfectionistic tendencies are particularly susceptible. This week, Shannon and Janine discuss overthinking, particularly as it pertains to end-of-the-year goal setting, and share some of their goal-setting tools as well as techniques for avoiding overthinking.

Discussion topics include:

• Janine’s antidote to overthinking, her mantra, “Let it be easy.”

• The problem with overthinking: you don’t realize you’re doing it until it's too late (sometimes way too late)

• How Janine overthought her year-end planning last year and ended up with less-clear goals

• How perfectionism can make it easy to overthink

• Shannon’s bon vivant year

• How Janine tries to set herself up for success: Step away from overthinking and keep things as simple as possible

• The PowerSheets goal setting planner that Janine (and then Shannon!) purchased

• Starting out simple and making things (like goal planning and filing) only as complex as required

• The power of a Word of the Year

• How letting go of the idea that there’s a perfect way to do something can help you let go of overthinking

• The importance of taking action rather than pondering

• How Shannon tries not to overthink her daily cartooning practice (because it doesn’t help!)

Visit the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links and a peek at Shannon's cartooning!

Janine and Shannon are off on their own personal retreat days, so we thought it would be an excellent time to rerun our end-of-the-year post about goals and resolutions! In this episode, we talk about setting realistic, good enough goals. Way back in 2009, we created a teleclass and workbook about resolutions and we're revisiting it in this episode. (The messages of the teleclass will feel very familiar. They've stood the test of time!)

Discussion topics include:

• The details of Janine’s personal retreat day where she sets her goals for the coming year

• The perils of setting unrealistic goals and the alternative of good enough goals

• Flashback to a teleclass called “Why Resolutions Don’t Work and How to Get What You Want Anyway" that Shannon and Janine created in 2009. It's like a prequel to this podcast.

• The one element the teleclass has that this podcast lacks: Hypnosis!

• The three main problems that stop people from achieving their goals and how you can get past them to get what you want

• Janine's word for next year and how she plans to remind herself about it

• The hashtag we created: #goodenoughgoals

"Why Resolutions Don't Work and How to Get What You Want Anyway" had not been available for years, until last year when we took it out, dusted it off and renamed it "Good Enough Goal Setting." We've updated the 25-page workbook  and are making it available to you for $15. When you buy the workbook, you'll automatically get a download of the 2010 teleclass, complete with guided hypnosis exercises led by Shannon, who is a certified hypnotherapist. These exercises will aid you in setting--and achieving--your goals this year. Visit the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com to purchase.

In this Good Enough in Practice episode, Shannon shares some exciting news: She just bought a plane ticket to Portugal, where she will walk the Camino de Santiago in 2020! She'll walk 175 to 200 miles by herself over the course of ten to fourteen days. In this episode, Shannon and Janine talk about this personal challenge, how she's preparing for it and her advice for pursuing your own personal challenges.

Discussion topics include:

• Some of the logistics of the trip

• Why the heck Shannon wants to do this (it’s all about the challenge)

• How Shannon will train (physically and mentally) to walk 10 to 15 miles a day for two weeks

• Shannon’s concern about avoiding overtraining

• What Shannon’s husband, Mike, thinks about this personal challenge

• Deciding whether to book hotel rooms or be more spontaneous on this trip

• Paying attention to what you’re wondering about and whether that might be a good challenge to take on

• Making small commitments on the way to a larger challenge

• Shannon’s criteria for a personal challenge: for it to be doable but not easy

• Janine’s concerns for Shannon’s safety on this journey (and the precautions she’ll be taking)

• Advice for starting a personal challenge: Notice the ideas that pop up over and over again and commit to something small. Then increase the commitment as you get closer to the ultimate goal.

• The importance of taking some action on your personal challenge every day

• How Shannon’s cartooning fits into this

• The impact of Shannon’s trip on our podcast schedule (spoiler alert: there will be no disruption!)

Visit the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links to some pertinent blog posts.

Sometimes when you can't get started on something or you're dragging your feet making a decision, ambivalence is the culprit. It can be sneaky, lurking in the background without your even realizing it. In this episode, Janine and Shannon discuss ambivalence and provide some guidance on clearing it up, so you can make more conscious decisions. (Because not making a decision is actually making a decision.)

Discussion topics include:

• Our relief over NaNoWriMo being over and what we’ll do with our time

• The ambivalence we felt about the novels we wrote in November

• The dictionary definition of ambivalence

• The ambivalence Shannon used to feel about her goal of walking the Camino de Santiago

• How you can feel ambivalent without even realizing it

• A clue that you’re feeling ambivalent: You use the phrase, “On the one hand…"

• One way to clear up ambivalence: Dig into the positive intention of each side

• Shannon’s Boring Change tool (see link), which can help you discover underlying ambivalence

• Questions to ask yourself when clearing up ambivalence

• How Janine is going to apply this during her annual winter goal-setting retreat

• How you’re making a decision when you don't make a decision

• The relief of making a decision, even if it’s “no, for now,” rather than living with ambivalence

• The fact that “maybe” is a “no” until it’s a “yes.”

• Another clue that you’re feeling ambivalent: You’re trying to talk yourself into doing something

• Clearing the ambivalence so you can make a decision from a conscious place

• The importance of knowing what’s important to you in getting to the bottom of ambivalence

• Shannon’s verbing of the noun “surface"

• How identifying ambivalence takes away its power

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

It's hard enough when we expect perfection from ourselves, but when we expect others to be perfect, we're introducing stress into our (and their) lives. This week, Shannon and Janine talk about making life easier by modifying your expectations of perfection in others. (Spoiler alert: It involves assuming good intentions and cutting people some slack.)

Discussion topics include:

• Janine’s unrealistic expectations for how much crafting she’d get done on her crafting weekend

• How having high expectations for a technology updates is bound to disappoint you

• How managing clients’ expectations is so important for professional organizers, life coaches and other service providers

• How shifting your expectations of others can remove stress

• Adding kindness in your expectations of service people

• Shannon’s practice: Assume good intentions of others

• Living more peacefully by letting go of expectations of perfection

• Easing up on our expectations of our pets’ behavior

• Holding people to a high standard without stressing yourself out if they’re not perfect

• Thinking about the stress-inducing thought patterns that you’re putting on other people

• The power of our new refrain: Being aware of certain thoughts and behaviors

This week's episode topic was suggested by a reader who said she she gets distracted by little things when she's trying to accomplish bigger and more important goals. In this episode, Janine and Shannon take you through some strategies for keeping your eye prize and finding time for the things that are important to you.

Discussion topics include:

• How easy it is to avoid the important items on our task lists by getting distracted by the little things

• The sense of accomplishment we get from getting little things done

• Putting a time limit on important things to create some urgency

• Finding a buddy to help you work on important things (even if that buddy is an app)

• Setting low yourso that your accomplishments are easy to achieve (and count)

• How poorly defined success can be demotivating

• The importance of identifying what success looks like

• How Shannon is trying to create a practice (as well as cultivate a skill) with her cartooning class

• Understanding why a commitment or a project is important to help keep you on track

• How the Eisenhower Matrix can help you get the important (but not urgent) stuff done

• Waiting to commit to something before putting it on the front burner

•Letting go of the idea that the thing you’re trying to do has to be perfect

• Our suggestion to not wait until all your ducks are in a row before you can get started on the important, but not urgent things

• How working on rewarding things can make it easier to do the mundane things

Be sure to visit the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com to see the improved Eisenhower Matrix drawing--complete with a custom cartoon!

Words matter when we talk with other people and language is also important when we're talking to ourselves. This week, Shannon and Janine discuss how the words we use can reveal perfectionism and shifting that language can help us get past it.

Discussion topics include:

• How words can make a difference in your thinking about yourself

• The role of words in helping you let go of perfectionism

• Reframing “good enough” as something to strive for, not settle for

• The freedom of "good enough" vs "the best"

• Adding the phrase “for now” to make decisions feel less dire

• Paying attention to those words that end with “-est" to see when you’re applying pressure on yourself

• How the language that we use can imbue the wrong feeling in us

• The folly of seeking the best way to do something 

• Adventures in needle felting

• The phenomenon of “visible mending”

• Paying attention to our language as a way to move forward and as a way to recognize when we’re getting mired in perfectionism

• How making tiny shifts in wording in your self talk can help steer you away from perfectionism

• That changing words can change how you feel about something

Janine and Shannon are participating in National Novel Writing Month this month, in which we're trying to write a 50,000 novel in 30 days. This month, we thought we'd update you about how this fun adventure is going and what a wonderful time we're having embracing imperfection.

Discussion topics include:

• How great it feels to get our writing goal accomplished first thing in the morning

• What a lesson in embracing imperfection NaNoWriMo has been

• The “bad-off” Shannon did with a fellow one-month novelist sharing examples of how bad their novel writing has been

• That it would be impossible to write a perfect in a novel in a month, so the goal is just about getting the words done

• The first rule of NaNoWriMo: You don’t talk about you’re writing about

• The liberation of knowing that no one will read the book in its first draft

• The challenge of not being about to remember what was wrote the day before, even with daily writing

• A key to succeeding at this challenge (or any challenge): prioritizing it

• How NaNoWriMo has helped Shannon with her cartooning homework

• Strategies for keeping up with NaNoWriMo when traveling

• How the lessons from NaNoWriMo can be applied to so many things (virtually anything!)

• Shannon's joy in engaging in a challenge that approaches the edge of what she thinks she can do

• Janine’s love of tapping into her creativity by writing a novel in a month

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

The winter holiday season is underway and we want to help our listeners prepare for an easy one. This week, we're re-running Episode 28, which we originally recorded for the 2018 holiday season. We hope it will help make your holiday season less stressful and more joyful!

The holiday season can be really hard on perfectionists, who often want to do it all and do it right. This week Shannon and Janine talk about making it easier for perfectionists to let the holidays be easy.

Discussion topics include:

• How “shoulds” can get in the way of enjoying the holidays

• Janine’s truly simple holiday traditions

• Choosing the elements of the holidays that are doable

• The time-saving benefits of holiday cookie exchanges

• How the December holidays can be challenging for perfectionists

• How Shannon creates the holidays she wants (including this year’s Thanksgiving of giving)

• Embracing good enough to make holidays easier

• How giving clutter-free gifts helps the recipient and makes gift-giving easier

• A special clutter-free gift idea from special guest Miranda Adams, Janine’s niece

• Giving the gift of experiences or services, rather than stuff

• Choosing a theme word to capture the essence of what you want for the season to use as a guidepost to help you make choices

• Starting earlier on holiday tasks to avoid the stress of last-minute activities

We all experience fear. But some fear is sneaky and can really get us stuck, even if we're not aware of it. In this Halloween episode, Janine and Shannon discuss the way fear is often at the root of perfectionism. And we get into strategies for letting it go.

Discussion topics include:

• Janine’s antipathy for Halloween

• The St. Louis Halloween tradition (it involves jokes)!

• The fact that kids like to be scared

Shannon’s scary (and hilarious) haunted-house ride in Paris

• The physiology of fear

• How are brains can’t tell the difference between scary things we’re thinking or physically threatening things

• How fear figures into perfectionism

• One strategy for letting go of fear: Asking yourself “What’s the worse that can happen?”

• Another strategy: Allowing yourself to feel fear until it’s gone (it often lasts less than 90 seconds)

• Becoming conscious of your fears

• How fear enters into decluttering —and strategies for letting go of it

• How getting past fear is like running through an invisible dog fence

• Doing a deep dive to handle the fears that underlie perfectionism

• A key question about fear, “Is it true?”

• Looking at fear from a rational place to pull apart the threads that prevent you from taking action

• The question to ask yourself when you’re stuck (Shannon asks it regularly)

Visit the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com to see the video of Shannon and her kids after the haunted-house ride!