Overcoming Perfectionism

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:00  

Welcome to The Executive Coach for Moms Podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leanna Laskey McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:27  

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for being here today. Today I want to talk about perfectionism. I have been out and about lately, and this past weekend, I was at a women's retreat with a bunch of other moms, and last week, I was at a women's Chamber of Commerce event. And I don't know if maybe we're just like attracted to each other. We just like find each other in a crowd, but I met a lot of people who describe themselves as recovering perfectionists, and as you know from listening to this podcast and hearing my intro every week, I also consider myself a recovering perfectionist. And so you know, when I've been talking to women about this lately, they have asked kind of like, well, what's your secret, or what have you found? And I ask them too, because I love to learn. And so I just thought that I know a lot of my listeners are also recovering perfectionists, I thought it might be helpful to share, kind of like, what is my secret, or what have I done to overcome perfectionism? And of course, it's a work in progress, and I am not perfectly a non perfectionist. That would kind of be an oxymoron, right? But I am really working on it, and it's something that I've worked on over the past several years in my self development journey, and I want to share it with you, because maybe it'll be helpful for other people to hear too. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  1:57  

So I came up with four things. You know, when I like, when I brainstorm, I like to break it down and I broke it down into four things that have been helpful for me. So the first thing is recognizing that all humans feel negative emotions, that life is 50/50, the yin and the yang kind of the balance of life is that half the time it's great and half the time it's not so great. Half the time we're feeling positive emotions, about half the time we're feeling negative emotions. It's the balance of the universe. And for some reason, we seem to as a society, have this expectation that we're supposed to feel happy all the time, and when we don't feel happy, it's like something has gone wrong. And then we usually turn it inward and we say, you know, something's wrong with me. Why am I not feeling happy? I should be feeling happy. Why am I not what's going on? I've done something wrong, and the reality is that nothing has actually gone wrong. We are just humans having a human experience, which includes negative emotions. And then secondly, recognizing that I'm a normal human and that humans aren't perfect. So I'm a believer in God, and I believe that that's where we can find perfection, but it is, it is not here in the human experience. So anytime that my daughter messes up, makes a mistake and feels upset with herself, I'll ask her, are you supposed to be perfect? And she'll say no, and I'll say, is any human perfect? And she'll say, No, only God is perfect, and I think it's so important to remember that we are not supposed to be perfect. Because I think when we mess up, a lot of times, we tell ourselves that we're supposed to be and that we've fallen short, that we shouldn't have messed up. No, it's normal to mess up as part of the human experience. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  3:58  

The third thing is releasing the expectation that I should be super human or exceptional in every area of my life and every single thing I do. So I think that part of accepting my humanness is recognizing that I've kind of been told my whole life, or, you know, I don't, I don't even know if I've been told, or if I've somehow internalized the expectation that I should be above human, that I should be better than that, I should be more than that. And it's so interesting, because when we get to this part of the work in coaching with my clients, where someone is embracing their humanness, I almost always get kind of like a cringe when I present this idea and I did the same thing. I definitely felt it too. I realized that I just had this expectation of myself to be a superhuman. I expected that I should always be better than a human. I should be above average, exceptional, above normal, and so then anytime I fell short of that, you know, I would be really hard on myself, because I just expected that of myself. But, you know, I think that it took me some time to realize that I am a human. It sounds so silly whenever I say it, because it's like, yeah, of course. But the reality is, is that we have this belief as high achievers, as women, it's like we are hardwired and socialized, so we have, like, a double whammy, to believe that we are above the human experience, that we should be able to do more than what a human can do. And so I think that recognizing that and releasing that expectation, that I be above the human experience in every way. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  6:00  

And then the fourth thing, and I think this is kind of woven throughout, is exercising self compassion. Every woman I've coached, myself included, says something along the lines of, I have to be hard on myself or I'll just get lazy. Do you have that belief? If you stop and think about giving yourself compassion when you make a mistake or when you fall below your expectation of perfection, is that belief there something along the lines of, like, I have to be hard on myself, or I'm just going to get lazy? Here's what I want you to consider, if this is something that you believe, whether consciously or deep down. There are different ways to motivate. We know that as parents, we can motivate with love and encouragement on one end of the spectrum. On the other end of the spectrum, we can motivate with threats and punishment, and kind of anywhere in between on that spectrum. But I think for many of us, our tendency is to use what we would maybe describe as tough love, or really beating ourselves up when we fall short and we believe that we need that to be there, that it is imperative, it's crucial, in order for us to continue achieving. In the Positive Intelligence framework, which is a really interesting one, if you want to check it out, this is the Judge Saboteur who lies to us and it tells us that we can't live without it, that we'll just amount to a lazy couch potato if we don't listen to this voice and let it berate us every time we don't meet its impossible expectations. So of course, you have the option to continue operating that way and keep that voice there and continue listening to it. And you know, if you believe you can't live without it, that is certainly an option. And I think that there's a shift whenever we become conscious of it, and that it's a choice of whether or not we listen to it. And many of us will probably choose to keep it for a while, because we can't imagine life without it. We can't imagine continuing to achieve at the levels we want to achieve, and accomplishing the things we want to accomplish in this lifetime without that voice. But I just want you to consider the cost of it. When I became conscious of this, what I realized is that by kicking my own ass so hard all the time, I was really giving up a relationship with myself. I didn't have a high level of trust in myself, and just like a parent who tries to motivate with insults and putting you down when you mess up, rather than giving you love and encouragement to get back up whenever you're down, I I didn't like myself very much. No one really likes that parent, right? That voice was so critical, and it kept telling me it was necessary, its existence was necessary, and it was for my own good. Sound like a parent. But was it, was it for my own good? Is it really for our own good to talk to ourselves in such a negative way? Do we really believe that we were put on this earth to be mean to ourselves the whole way through it, to beat ourselves up all the time, to expect nothing less than perfection and then give ourselves a good ass kicking anytime we fallen in short? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  9:19  

What I want you to know is that it is possible to love yourself. You can give yourself understanding and compassion when you mess up. You can have a strong relationship with yourself. You can genuinely like yourself all while still continuing to achieve. You will not become a lazy couch potato, it's not in your DNA. It's not possible. You may actually let yourself rest sometimes, because you learn to start trusting yourself to take care of yourself, and you start to maybe listen to that voice when it says, I need to rest. And you can honor it, because you recognize that you're a human, and humans need rest. And, sometimes that rest is way more productive than pushing on and driving ourselves into the ground, and you can achieve everything you want to, but you can also start to actually enjoy the process. You can actually enjoy life instead of feeling like you're always beat down because you are when you're always beating yourself up. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  10:22  

So in summary, the keys to recovering from perfectionism: changing your expectations and practicing self compassion. And I want to be clear that when you practice loving compassion for yourself, it doesn't mean that you're going to just start messing up all the time and not caring about it and saying, oh, whatever, I'm an imperfect human. It's that you are still trying, that you're still working towards your goals, and that you expect that sometimes you'll fall short. You expect that sometimes you'll fall down. And when that happens, you're going to love yourself through it. You're going to have your own back instead of beating yourself up because you recognize that it is part of the process that sometimes we fall short, or we fall down we don't quite meet the mark, and we can accept that. And we can support ourselves and encourage ourselves look around with curiosity and figure out, how do I do it better next time, and not spend all that extra time and energy that we don't have, beating ourselves up and making ourselves feel horrible and piling on more guilt and shame when we already carry plenty of it already. So if this sounds like you, if it sounds like something that you'd love some support in to overcome your perfectionistic tendencies, please reach out. I'd love to chat with you and help support you in it. Thanks so much for listening today, and I hope that you have a wonderful, imperfect week. Bye.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  38:21  

If you're loving what you're learning on this podcast, I'd love to invite you to check out The Executive Mom Reset. It's my six month coaching program for ambitious, success driven, career focused women who are ready to stop surviving and start thriving. Together, we'll tackle the stress, guilt and overwhelm that come with being a high achieving executive mom. You'll learn how to set boundaries, prioritize what truly matters, and build the confidence to show up powerfully at work, at home, and for yourself. Head on over to coachleanna.com right now to schedule a free discovery call. We'll spend an hour talking about where you are now, what you want to create, and how I can help you get there, because every woman deserves to live the life of her dreams. Let's create yours together.