Getting to Good Enough

Perfectionists can be really hard on themselves. But there's an easier way to live. Being kind to yourself is not only more pleasant than being hard on yourself, it's more effective. This week, Shannon and Janine discuss the importance of being kind to yourself--and various ways to do it.

Discussion topics include:

• Janine’s overeating of potstickers on her recent trip

• How overeating something you enjoy may feel like a treat but actually isn’t a kind way to treat yourself

• Rewards versus punishment in motivating yourself

• The Stickk.com tool for motivating yourself with punishment

• How sometimes people think that the need to be mean to themselves to get anything done

• Some of the (many) ways Janine and Shannon are kind to themselves

• Talking kindly and encouragingly as a way to be kind to yourself

• Our advice: Talk as kindly to yourself as you talk to little kids

• Comparisons between positive dog training and being kind to ourselves

• Embracing the carrot instead of the stick 

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

Every day you're bombarded by choices, often from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. And that can add stress to your life. This week Janine and Shannon discuss how they make their lives easier by limiting the choices they have to make on a regular basis.

Discussion topics include:

• The joy of limitations

• How having fewer clothes makes getting dressed easier.

• Shannon’s strategy for limiting choices during a renovation (she recently built a house from scratch!)

• Harnessing the expertise of others to limit your choices

• Janine’s penchant for resale stores

• How we used the principle of limited choices to make aspects of launching the podcast easy.

• Creating limits when researching new purchases, even apps

• Finding ways to limit things and make the good-enough choice

• Optimizers vs satisficers

• The key to happiness: Getting comfortable with being satisfied with good-enough choices

• Learning to live with something vs fixing it

• How chasing perfection can mean you spend more time on something than it warrants

November is National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known as NaNoWriMo. In this month-long challenge, participants commit to writing a 50,000-word novel in a month. Shannon and Janine have participated in the past and in Episode 62 we decided to take it on agin this year. (Janine has done this every five years since 2004, so this is her fourth NaNoWriMo novel.) In this episode, we talk about our past NaNoWriMo challenges, how its lessons can apply to all sorts of things (like getting past perfectionistic tendencies) and encourage listeners to join us in writing a novel this November!

Discussion topics include:

• How Shannon is easing herself back into running after her ankle injury

• National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo): please join us!

• How participating in NaNoWriMo can help you let go of perfectionism

• Our NaNoWriMo origin story

• Our absolute lack of ideas around what we’ll be writing about next month

• Lessons from NaNoWriMo prep that can be applied to other projects

• Famous novels that started out as a NaNoWriMo project (like Fangirl and Water for Elephants)

• Janine’s husband Barry’s confusion about why she would want to do NaNoWriMo

• Shannon’s husband Mike’s confusion about the same thing. (They’re confused in different ways.)

• Alternative 30-day challenges

• Opportunities to share the fun with Shannon and Janine

Check out the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for lots of links, including links to alternative November challenges.

If you're feeling stuck or find yourself putting things off or resenting what others say, we have what might be a simple solution: Reframing! This week, Janine and Shannon discuss the power of changing the words you use to describe something.

Discussion topics include:

• Janine’s excitement over the American Ninja Warrior season finale

• Changing what words mean to change your experience with them

• “Have to” versus “Get to” or “Choose to”

• Reframing annoying or hurtful things people say to you by recognizing the positive intention behind the comments

• Renaming things that make us anxious or perfectionistic

• Using positive words to feel better about the items on your task list

• “Move your body” vs “exercise”

• The steps for reframing: Look at the situation, understand what your deeper intention is and find the language that reflects that

• Using reframing as an anti-procrastination tool

• “Procrastinator” versus “just-in-time producer” and how that reframing might have improved our lives when we were freelance writers

• Trusting yourself and your capabilities

• When to use reframing

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

Over the course of this podcast, Shannon and Janine have made some commitments to changing various things in their lives, inspired by insights in various episodes. In this episode, we update you on how (or whether) we've managed to do the things we thought we'd do.

Discussion topics include:

• A tornado in Portland!

• Our (new) commitment to keeping a list of these commitments so we don’t forget about them

• Janine’s re-energized knitting and Shannon’s happy t-shirt drawer

• How it’s okay to change our minds

• How the problem with a bad memory is not actually having a bad memory but rather worrying about having a bad memory

• The amazingly good memories both Shannon and Janine enjoyed when we were young

• What Shannon does when she can’t remember someone’s name

• A workshop Shannon’s planning to offer in Phoenix about embracing good enough in your writing or creative practices

• Our plea to let us know you’re a listener if we ever see you in person

• Shannon’s strategies for getting back to her morning routine

We gave updates on these commitments:

• Janine’s knitting, from Episode 65

• Shannon’s t-shirt drawer also, from Episode 65

• Janine’s desire to become more handy, from Episode 60

• Shannon’s desire to stop labeling herself as a person with a bad memory, also from Episode 60

• Both Shannon and Janine’s desire to become better at asking for help, from Episode 17

• How Janine practiced saying no (to Shannon!), from Episode 53

• Shannon’s progress on her genealogy and inherited items, from Episode 20

• Shannon’s struggles with her morning routine, from Episode 11 (among others)

Visit the show notes at www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links to the various episodes discussed, as well as a couple of photos!

For many people social media can be a source of stress (even depression), rather than enjoyment, when it triggers perfectionistic tendencies. But it's within your power to make your social media feed a source of happiness and fun, not feelings of inadequacy or envy. In this episode, Janine and Shannon discuss strategies for making social media more enjoyable and productive.

Discussion topics include:

• One of our superfans, Shannon’s husband Mike, and how he implemented one of our suggestions

• How we’d love to hear from listeners who have implemented any of our suggestions from the podcast

• How social media can trigger perfectionistic tendencies

• Some of social media’s good points: animal videos

• And some of social media’s bad points: How images of seemingly perfect lives can set up unrealistic expectations

• How much of the perfectionism we see on social media is deceptive

• The perils of comparing your insides to someone else’s outsides

• Ways to curate a healthier social media feed

• How there’s no right way to do social media

• How Shannon is using social media in a way that’s supporting her cartooning endeavors

• Janine’s low-key strategy for doing social media for her business

• Getting in touch with why social media is important to you to help you decide how to experience it

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

Why is that we're so passionate about helping you let go of perfectionism? In this episode Shannon and Janine talk about how perfectionism can get in the way of happiness--and how striving for good enough can lead to a happier existence.

Discussion topics include:

• Janine’s impromptu visit to Chicago to see the musical Hamilton

• Our working definition of perfectionism: Spending more time on something than it deserves

• The problem with the effort of it takes to go from good enough to perfect

• Shannon’s perfect week as an athlete (and how it’s not something to strive for)

• The problem with perfectionism: The emotions that go along with not being able to achieve what you perceive as perfection

• A couple of readings from a great article called The Case for Being Good Enough (link below)

• How people who tend toward perfectionism let “failures” affect their self worth

• Shannon’s 15-year journey (actually longer!) away from perfectionism

• How now is the perfect time for Shannon to be taking a cartooning class (along with some of the lessons about perfectionism the class is teaching her)

• The evolution in just a week of Shannon’s cartoons from sketchy circles to animals

• How the least perfect of Shannon's cartoon teddy bears is actually the most appealing one

• How inevitable imperfections can enliven things (like cartoons and hand-lettered postcards)

• Janine’s five-piece-at-a-time jigsaw-puzzle strategy

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

Every day, we're bombarded by constant distraction and it can really get in the way of productivity. This week, Janine and Shannon talk about the challenges presented by distraction and some strategies for dealing with it.

Discussion topics include:

• The toll distractions take on our productivity

• Janine’s distracting quest for birthday-gift suggestions

• Fun subscription boxes

• Open loops and how they can be distracting

• How to close those open loops

• Stopping mid-sentence to prompt yourself to go back to writing

• How stopping mid-sentence backfired for Shannon when she was participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

• The prospect of writing a graphic novel or an illustrated novel during NaNoWriMo

• Janine’s #1 tool in avoiding distraction: A timer

• Shannon’s technique for dealing with distractions: writing down the bright shiny object and moving on

• Shannon’s three-pronged task management system (Todoist, Trello & Bullet Journal)

• The value of knowing which tasks are important—and why

• How a good task management system can help you avoid succumbing to distraction

• Some strategies for minimizing distractions

• The easiest way to deal with distraction: eliminate the opportunities to be distracted (we’re talking to you, iPhone on the nightstand)

• Creating awareness of the things that distract you

• How just knowing you can get a notification reduces your IQ

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

Creating daily habits can be the most powerful way to make your life easier. But establishing them can sometimes be tricky. This week, Shannon and Janine discuss the value of daily habits, some strategies for creating them and the importance of cutting yourself some slack if you miss a day.

Discussions topics include:

• Our love of daily habits

• Shannon’s quest for a daily exercise routine now that she’s been cleared to exercise

• The benefits of starting small in creating a new habit

• Janine’s painful fortnight that caused her to interrupt her daily yoga habit

• How a habit is a habit, even if you don’t do it every day

• Shannon’s profound (to Janine) statement that it’s the coming back to something that makes it a habit

• How breaking a daily streak can be discouraging—but doesn’t have to be

• The beauty of daily habits: they’re easy to remember

• How not remembering does not mean that a habit is not important or worthwhile

• How a tiny disruption of routine can make you forget even an ingrained habit

• The time Janine went to Office Depot in her pajamas

• Getting right back to a habit if you do forget it (without beating yourself up about it)

• Shannon’s new daily practice: learning cartooning!

• The shortcut to establishing a daily habit: linking it to something that you’re already doing

• Shannon’s strategy for creating a habit of practicing cartooning (and perhaps other things!) three times a day

• The many potential side benefits of Shannon’s cartooning class

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

Sometimes it can be hard to restart a stalled or dropped project out of feelings of perfectionism or the pain of looking at past mistakes.

This week, Janine and Shannon discuss how Janine recently faced down her many abandoned knitting projects and how rejuvenated she was by the process. She's excited to get back to regular knitting after letting go of less-than-fulfilling works in progress liberated her to restart.

Discussion topics include:

• Janine’s adventure in revisiting her knitting projects

• How visiting dashed knitting dreams turned out to actually be enjoyable

• The benefit of actually facing down abandoned projects

• Letting go of perfectionism so that unfinished projects don’t feel like failures

• How this process of discovery rejuvenated Janine’s enthusiasm for knitting

• How American Ninja Warrior fits into all of this

• An imperfect explanation of Portuguese knitting

• Shannon’s recent decluttering of her t-shirt collection, which she accomplished after overcoming feelings of fruitlessness about the effort

• Shannon’s delight at her decluttered t-shirts (and her strategies for keeping the clutter at bay)

• How the notion of restarting can work in so many areas of our lives

• How restarting is an excellent time to get in touch with what’s important to you.

• Letting go of the things that keep you from loving what you want to do

• Allowing yourself to restart and to get back to why something is important to you rather than focusing on perceived mistakes

Visit www.gettingtogoodenough.com for links and pictures!