#325: Unraveling Perfectionism

Unraveling Perfectionism.

Here's a transcription of this episode:

(0:00) Hello, so today we're going to talk about how perfectionistic tendencies really block us (0:07) from creating the life that we want, creating the law practice that we want. And so today (0:12) I'm going to share with you five sneaky thoughts that pop up and they show us that we are in (0:20) perfectionism. So listen in, get what you need to begin changing how you think.

(0:28) Hello, my friend, welcome to another episode of Be A Better Lawyer podcast. I am so glad that (0:34) you are here today because this episode, if you're not already aware of how perfectionistic (0:42) tendencies can really impact negatively your life, this episode is going to show that to you. (0:49) So today I want to share with you five sneaky thoughts that can sink into your brain and they (0:55) feel true.

And I put true in quotation marks because they feel neutral because your brain (1:02) completely believes them. It has no doubt that they are absolutely 100% fact. And I want to (1:10) offer to you that they are not facts at all.

They are protective mechanisms preventing you (1:18) from doing what it is you really want to do. And I've talked about this before on the podcast, (1:24) but we really have two parts of ourselves. We have that part of us that is steeped in societal (1:32) structures and frameworks that have told us over the years what it means to be successful, (1:38) what it means to be a good student, a good lawyer, a good person, (1:43) how you're supposed to behave in the world.

And all of those include things like making lots and (1:50) money without any balance, right? Or doing lots and lots of things without giving yourself anything (1:58) in return, doing lots and lots of things for other people without giving yourself things in return. (2:04) And that's one way, that's one part of our brain. And then there's this other part of us, (2:09) there's this higher self, this part of us that has desires that call to us that say, Hey, (2:16) you know what? I want to do this thing.

And that other part of our brain that's weighed down so (2:21) heavily with all the old societal frameworks constantly tells us, no, no, no, you can't do (2:26) those things. Those aren't things that are meant for you. But there's this part of our soul that (2:32) says, Hey, I want this.

And it keeps arguing for us, right? It's advocating for us saying, Hey, (2:39) no, I want to do this thing. Even if it seems irrational, even if it seems illogical based on (2:44) how we grew up and what we were taught, there's a part of us that feels like we need to keep (2:50) gravitating towards it. And these perfectionistic tendencies that I'm going to share with you here (2:56) today, these thoughts that come into our brain are part of that old framework, that old structure (3:03) weighing us down, preventing us from living into the person we are meant to be, the person we're (3:09) meant to evolve into.

And these are all things that I've faced. In fact, as I was writing this (3:14) podcast, I felt like I was calling myself out in so many ways, because I was seeing how some of (3:21) these things still show up in my life. The good news is, is that you don't have to be perfect at (3:28) any of these.

That's great, right? You don't have to be a hundred percent every single day, (3:36) you know, clearing your brain of these thoughts, you could still become incredibly successful in (3:41) your life and in your practice, and still have some of these things happening. But what I will (3:48) share with you, and what my experience has been, and what I have seen with the lawyers that I work (3:55) with every single week, is that when they begin getting a handle on these little sneaky thoughts, (4:01) I'm going to share with you, they begin opening up their lives to so much more abundance, (4:07) so much more love, so much more enjoyment of their life. And it's something that, (4:15) you know, as I was thinking about this topic, I realized how impactful it had been in my life, (4:22) really getting a handle on these thoughts, and also noticing where there is still room for me (4:27) to grow.

So I want to jump into these, but before I do, I want to invite you to book a strategy (4:34) session with me. If you have ever considered working with me, if you resonate with what I (4:39) share on this podcast, and you're done living that old life, and you want something new, (4:45) you want a fresh start, you want to begin somewhere new, whether it's working on your (4:51) time management, or whether it is really deciding for yourself how you want to intentionally design (4:59) your life moving forward in your practice, in whether you want to grow a business, whatever (5:05) that is for you, I want to invite you to book a strategy session with me. Because what we're going (5:11) to do is we're going to talk about where you are right now, and we're going to start getting some (5:15) clarity on where you want to go.

And it's not always easy thinking to yourself where it is you (5:23) want to go. It's so helpful when you have that support, you have somebody who's there to pull (5:29) these things out of you in a way that maybe you've never experienced before. So I want to invite you (5:35) to do that.

You can book a call with me at dinacataldo.com forward slash strategy session. (5:41) That's dinacataldo.com forward slash strategy session. And if you want to learn more about (5:48) working with me, this is the place to do it.

You will get all of your questions answered, and you (5:54) and I will see if we're a good fit for one another. Alright, so let's jump into this episode. (6:00) Let's just start with the first thought here.

And I hear it so often with lawyers, it's so sneaky, (6:08) and it seems so true in the moment when we say it to ourselves. And that is, (6:14) I've never been able to do it before. So there's no reason to believe it'll be different in the (6:19) future.

This is a thought I hear so often. This will come up anytime you want to do something (6:26) new. In fact, all of these thoughts that I'm going to be sharing with you, they pop up when we want (6:31) to do something new, because that old structured framework brain, right, has all the old societal (6:38) constructs in it, wants to keep us where we feel most safe, even if that means it's keeping us (6:45) small, and it's preventing us from following that higher voice, that higher self that we feel drawn (6:51) to.

So the problem here is that the brain is focusing on what's happened in the past. It's (6:58) using every single fact in the book to tell you, hey, you can't do this. And doing that prevents (7:04) us from creating a new future.

We never want to create something new from our past results. We (7:12) always want to give ourself a fresh start. We always want to allow ourselves to keep trying.

(7:17) And this thought really blocks us from doing that. This is how you know this is impacting you, (7:24) if you're thinking this thought. You daydream about something being different in your life, (7:28) whether it's time, money, family, waking up earlier, eating healthier, a new workout routine, (7:34) whatever it is.

And then maybe you try something new for a little while, but then you give up on (7:39) it. You feel disappointed, and you tell yourself, you know what, I should be working harder, or (7:44) I should have more willpower. You tell yourself things like, I'm lazy, or I should know better.

(7:50) Your brain focuses on all those past failures. In fact, it wants to ruminate on them. (7:55) And you think about them so much, you begin to feel depleted in your body, really zaps the energy (8:01) from you.

So of course you don't want to take action on anything new. So here's the solution. (8:07) You want to look at any past failure as a building block, something that's very neutral, (8:11) that's just building the foundation for something new in the future.

It's simply a step you needed (8:17) to take to get up and try again. Release any judgment about your past performance. And here's (8:24) what that means.

You don't make any past performance mean anything about who you are (8:32) or what you're capable of. It means nothing about what you're capable of the future. That's why we (8:38) don't want to build from the past.

We want to create a new future. So we've got to just take (8:42) action and keep doing things differently. And the way we do that is we self-evaluate.

We've (8:49) got to self-evaluate. And it's very simple. We did learn this in school, in science class, (8:57) which of course, we became lawyers to avoid so much of that, except for the very few of you (9:03) who really love science, right? We got this tool, just evaluation, right? An experiment, (9:12) which is a hypothesis and an evaluation, and then a hypothesis and an evaluation.

And you continue (9:18) to take action. So you make a hypothesis, you evaluate the results, you decide to take different (9:24) actions. So that's what I want you to do whenever this thought comes up for you that I can't do it (9:28) because all of this evidence shows me I've never been able to do it in the past.

Say, okay, look, (9:32) that's fine. The past is the past. I'm not judging myself for any of that.

And now we're going to do (9:39) something differently. So let me give you an example of this. I did this when way back in (9:43) the day, I wanted to make myself into a morning person because I was tired of waking up last (9:48) minute, hitting the alarm, being late to work, feeling rushed, all those things.

So I said, okay, (9:54) this is what we're going to do. I am going to guess what I can do, and I'm going to write it (10:00) down. So I guessed, okay, if I wake up at this time, then I'll be able to get all the things (10:06) done that I want to get done.

And then that didn't work. And so I said, okay, well, I did get up, (10:12) but I was exhausted. And then, you know, I didn't get everything done because I was kind of (10:16) in a fog.

So then I said, okay, well, what might be the solution to this? Well, maybe a solution (10:22) to this is me going to bed a little bit earlier. Okay. And so I tried that.

And then when that (10:27) didn't give me the result I wanted, I did another tweak and then another tweak and so on. So instead (10:32) of judging myself for not getting it perfect right out of the gate, I just said, okay, well, (10:37) let's see what's next. Let's try something new.

But when we attach so much of our self-worth and so (10:45) much of our value to getting things right and doing it right the first time, we lose out on the ability (10:52) to learn and to create what we want intentionally. It might take longer than you thought initially, (10:59) but if you don't let that be okay, you won't be able to create what you want to create. (11:04) So here's the second thought, the second sneaky, perspectionistic thought.

I don't know if it's (11:10) going to work. Here's the problem with this thought. Okay.

This thought prevents us from (11:15) taking action and it definitely prevents us from taking consistent action, which we need to be doing (11:21) in order to collect data so we can do evaluations and improve, right? We want to improve the (11:27) opportunity for it to work, but we can't do it if we don't take action. And then we end up being (11:32) stuck in this really low energy emotion that does not allow us to take action. And I believe that we (11:40) can really get anything to work when we can get that objective perspective, that 10,000-foot view (11:46) of the problem, but we can't do that when we're telling ourselves, I don't know if this is going (11:52) to work.

So this is how you'll know this is you. You constantly second guess your decisions. You (11:58) wonder if you've made the right decision.

And because you're doubting yourself and your decision (12:03) making, you procrastinate on taking action on that decision, hoping that it will just resolve itself, (12:10) that somehow the decision will just kind of work itself out. For an example, if you want to grow (12:16) your business, you might come up with a plan, but then you worry, well, maybe this isn't the right (12:21) plan, or I should be doing something different, or this other person is doing this thing. Maybe I (12:25) should be doing that thing.

And your brain kind of goes into squirrel mode and you just kind of do (12:28) all, you want to do all the things, but you're not spending concentrated time on one plan. So you can (12:34) never get enough data for it to work. And you might be buffering your worry instead of taking action (12:41) on the plan by doing things like scrolling social media, overeating, over drinking, binging TV, (12:48) anything, cleaning besides doing what you had planned.

And because you're not taking action, (12:56) you start wondering, okay, is there something wrong with me? You tell yourself things like I'm lazy (13:01) and you feel disappointed in yourself. And this is the solution I want to offer to you. (13:06) I want you to just accept that you don't know the future.

None of us do, (13:11) but it will 100% not work. If you do nothing, make a plan and stick with it and be kind to yourself. (13:21) Even when you have setbacks, evaluate weekly, right? Ask yourself what worked, what didn't work? (13:28) What will I do differently? And check in on how you feel, really give yourself that support.

(13:33) That's one of the things that as lawyers, we lack in so many of the offices that I have seen. (13:41) I've just witnessed so many lawyers feeling unsupported. And because of that, they really (13:48) kind of stay stuck in this self-doubt mode, the second guessing mode, even if they start their (13:54) own practice, right? They might take that self-doubt and they do a great job, like they're getting work (14:00) done, but they decide, okay, well, I'm going to build my own practice.

And they take all those (14:04) same habits into their practice and they still keep spinning on this self-doubt. And it makes (14:10) everything take so much longer because you're never actually gathering data to see what works. (14:15) And then you can't make any of it work.

So that is what I want to offer to you there. (14:21) Here is the third secret, well, secret sneaky thought that might enter your head. (14:28) I'm not like X person.

I can't do this thing because of Y reason. And that reason could be, (14:36) I don't have time. I have kids.

The summer holiday is coming up. The winter holiday is coming up. (14:41) I'm not a people person.

I'm not the kind of person who likes to do Y. Like all of these (14:46) things are going to come up. Your brain is just going to say all of the reasons why you cannot (14:50) do something. And here's the problem.

Your brain is focused solely on the problem as it currently (14:57) sees it. And it's not able to get perspective. It's not able to get that 10,000 foot view of (15:03) what's going on.

And when we are in this place, we can't even begin to make a game plan for (15:09) ourselves. We're really stuck. And we're pretty much resigned that it's impossible to do what we (15:15) want to do.

And here's how you'll know if this is where you're at right now. You compare yourself (15:20) to other people and how well they're doing. You feel envious of people instead of feeling inspired (15:27) by them and their successes.

You find yourself resenting people when they're successful and (15:33) telling yourself things like, wow, look how good they have it. Like they just have it so easy. And (15:38) you come up with this whole story about how they're privileged in some way.

You tell yourself (15:43) that other people just generally have it easier than you, that you just have a hard knocks life. (15:49) And you feel angry a lot of the time. You beat yourself up for not doing more and being more, (15:55) and you procrastinate.

And before I move on and I tell you the solution here, I want to share with (16:01) you that every single thought that I'm sharing with you in this episode, I've had, I've experienced, (16:06) I worked through. So I want to share with you that if you are experiencing any of these things, (16:13) it doesn't mean that you're a bad person or that you can't change. All it means is that this is (16:18) where you are right now.

And we just want to get a shift for you. We just want to give you the (16:24) awareness so that you can begin implementing some of these solutions and making some changes so that (16:30) you can begin taking action towards whatever it is you want to create in your life. So here's the (16:35) solution to this one.

When you feel triggered by somebody else's success, I want you to take a (16:41) moment and pause. Ask yourself what you're feeling. Is it anger, resentment, annoyance, (16:48) frustration? And then ask yourself why you think you're feeling that way.

And don't let your brain (16:54) say, I don't know. Take your best guess, make it answer. And when we see something like this (17:00) happening in our brain, it's really an opportunity for us to see what it is that we want.

It's (17:05) also a great opportunity to see perspective. Oftentimes we think we have it so much harder (17:12) than other people and that other people have things so much easier, but those people actually (17:17) have it harder than we might be thinking. Because what we're doing is we are looking at their lives (17:23) through a very tiny lens.

We're getting this sliver of their lives and we're making judgments (17:29) based on that sliver. When really they have a much fuller life and we are all complex beings (17:36) and we all have something that is weighing on us. I want to also offer to you that this is (17:43) such a great time to give yourself the gift of inspiration because success leaves clues.

(17:49) So if you are seeing someone being successful in an area of life that you want for yourself to be (17:56) successful in, then ask yourself, what are they doing that you're not doing? What is it that you (18:02) can begin shifting in? And I hear this a lot with my clients when they start taking control of their (18:09) time, when they start really managing their practice in a way that feels in alignment with (18:16) them, people start taking notice and you can choose to notice in different ways. You can choose to (18:23) notice and feel resentful, which I've heard stories of office people saying to my clients, (18:30) like, wow, must be nice that you can leave early on a Friday. It's like, well, yeah, because I (18:34) intentionally designed my life so I could create it exactly like that so that my income continues (18:40) to grow even when I decide I want to take Friday afternoons off or take Fridays off entirely, (18:46) which I have clients doing.

So I want you to know that you're going to have those people in (18:52) some cases, they're going to see you're making improvements in your life and they're going to say, (18:56) whoa, what's that? That must be nice. Like you must have it so easy, right? So then the coin gets (19:01) flipped here. But what will also happen is there will be people who are curious.

There will be (19:06) people who come up to you and they ask you like, hey, what do you do differently? How is it that (19:11) you're able to do this? How are you hitting these numbers while taking this time off? Because they're (19:16) having a problem. And instead of going into resentment, what they're doing is they are (19:20) proactively going in and asking questions because they know success leaves clues. So I just want you (19:26) to know that there's different ways to approach this.

And one approach gets you so much closer (19:32) to what you want to create in your life. And one final thing I want to note here is to start talking (19:38) to yourself like you want to succeed. I have said this many times in this podcast because it is so (19:44) important.

Do not let your brain tell you that you cannot do things. Notice if your brain does do those (19:51) things. And then I want you to notice and flip it around and ask yourself how you can make that (19:57) thing happen.

Because when you start intentionally directing your brain with the questions that you (20:04) ask, you will get the results that you want. So the quality of our life, this is something Tony (20:11) Robbins says, the quality of our life is determined by the quality of our questions. So if we're not (20:17) asking ourselves quality questions, we're not going to get a higher quality life.

If we're (20:23) asking ourselves, why can't I do this? Why is that person so great? And I suck. (20:28) We're asking ourselves those kinds of questions. We're going to get low quality answers.

(20:32) What we want to do is we want to learn how to ask ourselves high quality questions. Like how can I (20:39) make this happen? What can I do to emulate that result? What can I begin implementing right now (20:45) that is going to help me? How can I make my life simpler right now? When you begin asking those (20:51) kinds of questions to yourself, you will see things change in your life. Here is the fourth (20:57) sneaky perfectionistic thought, which is, what if fill in the blank? What if they say no? What if (21:05) they don't like me? What if I make a mistake? What if somebody says something and finds a mistake (21:10) that I made? What if somebody rejects me? Here's the problem.

When we let our brain go down the (21:17) what if rabbit hole, we prevent ourselves from taking action. We waste time pondering all the (21:23) horrible things that could happen instead of looking at what we can do to move ourselves forward (21:30) and towards our goal. And this is how you'll know if this is where you're at right now.

(21:36) You don't send bills to some clients or you discount rates on your bills. You know it's past (21:42) time to raise your rates, but you don't do it. You want to promote within your practice or you want (21:49) to grow your business, but you put off making and implementing a plan to do so.

You don't promote (21:55) your practice on social media or put yourself out there on video or anything like that because (22:00) you're afraid you're going to say the wrong thing or someone's going to call you out and say that (22:04) you said something wrong. You avoid doing things that you know is going to grow your practice (22:10) that require you to interact with other people like networking, coffee dates, guesting on podcasts, (22:17) asking for help because you're afraid of the response you're going to get and how bad you're (22:22) going to feel if somebody rejects you. Here's the solution.

Practice allowing things to be (22:29) uncomfortable and do them anyway. That's really the solution because you're going to feel (22:34) uncomfortable if you are not doing the thing because you're going to be ruminating about it. (22:39) You're going to be beating yourself up.

You're going to be telling yourself, oh my gosh, I should be (22:42) working harder, all of these horrible things, which is uncomfortable. Then there's the other (22:47) discomfort, which is, okay, I'm going to go after the thing that I want. I might not feel great (22:55) about it.

I might feel a little nervous about it. I might want to kind of barf a little bit, but (23:00) I'm going to do it anyway. The great thing is that the more you practice it, the better you get at (23:08) it.

I was talking to Andrea on just a few episodes back. She's one of my clients. (23:14) She experienced this around networking.

She really didn't want to go to networking events. (23:22) She had a lot of thoughts about it. This was one of them.

It's just something that her brain had (23:28) said, nope, we're not doing that. As we worked through this and we started dissolving some of (23:33) the mindset that had accumulated that prevented her from going out and doing what she wanted to (23:39) do to grow her practice, she started to release all of that. She started to feel lighter.

She (23:45) started allowing herself to be comfortable in her own skin and doing things that were uncomfortable. (23:52) She started going to networking events and guess what? She started to enjoy them. She started to go (23:57) in with an open mind because she was no longer going in there worried about herself.

She was (24:03) just going in to have a good time, to keep it light, to just get to know people. As she got to (24:08) know people, she's been invited to speak for different events. Doing that opened up her (24:15) world.

When we allow ourselves to feel uncomfortable, when we allow ourselves to go in (24:20) knowing that, okay, I'm not going to walk in feeling 100% comfortable, but I'm going to go in and I'm (24:25) going to let it be okay that I'm uncomfortable and not make it mean anything about me, whether (24:30) somebody walks away from me or doesn't want to talk to me or anything like that, which she has (24:36) not experienced and I have never experienced, then I've won the battle. I've been able to (24:44) just show up for myself and then allow that discomfort. The more we do it, the better (24:50) practice we get at it, the more confident we get in our own skin, and the more we're able to do (24:55) those difficult things.

This is one for me, for sure, I feel called out on. When I was (25:02) writing this, I was like, oh, yeah, I see this is showing up right now in my business. I totally see (25:07) it.

I know what the solution is here. I just sit down and I give myself two choices. (25:15) I do the thing or I stare at the wall.

I do the thing or I watch paint dry. When I do that, (25:22) I'm giving myself the two choices of the two discomforts. One is the discomfort of me sitting (25:28) there not doing the thing for myself.

Then there's the discomfort of me doing the thing. (25:34) Which one is going to get me closer to my higher self, the part of me that really knows what it is (25:39) I want and what I want to create? Well, it's going to be me doing the thing. That's what I want to (25:46) share with you on that sneaky thought.

Here's the last one. I should know more before I ask for (25:55) help. This was one that I struggled with when I was a lawyer, specifically when I was a younger (26:00) lawyer.

But boy, this one was one that I really wish I had known when I was a new attorney because (26:10) it really prevented me from getting the help that I needed and creating the relationships that I (26:15) needed to be creating as a young attorney. Here's another part of that problem. We waste (26:22) a ton of time researching instead of just asking people for help.

We really play into this idea (26:29) that we should know everything. It's fascinating because when you look back at our elementary (26:34) school education, high school, higher education, it really all depended on us knowing the book (26:43) inside and out, knowing the notes that we took in class inside and out. It was very (26:49) research dependent and we had a closed book of research, right? There was only so much we needed (26:54) to know.

We were told exactly what we needed to know, but we needed to know it and we needed to (26:58) have it memorized. So it's really interesting to watch this pattern come into play with some (27:03) lawyers that I've worked with. And I see what they've done is they're taking this skill that (27:09) learned in school and they're trying to apply it to the legal profession.

And that is not going to (27:17) be beneficial at all. I mean, if you've ever stepped into a law school library, you walk in (27:23) and you see millions of books, right? You can't even count them. And so to think that you are going (27:32) to be able to memorize any area of the law and somehow that is going to help build your confidence, (27:39) you're opening yourself up to feeling overwhelmed for the rest of your life, to really not having (27:46) a life because you will not be able to do anything but research.

Okay? So the law is not a test. (27:53) It's not like we're studying for a test. And if you are researching everything, you are going to (28:00) be spinning your wheels because there are so many people that have access to information.

And if we (28:07) can tap into that even a little bit, it can get us focused in the right direction. (28:13) And even if you're like a solo practitioner and you're listening to this, you're not part of an (28:17) office, you have so many resources to ask people for help. You've got Google, you've got all these (28:24) different groups, you've got coaches, you've got all kinds of people to start helping you tap (28:29) into these resources so that you can focus your attention versus just trying to know everything.

(28:38) I would much rather invest my money in having a resource, somebody who I can go to versus saying, (28:45) okay, well, I just need to know all of the books. And I also want to offer to you that when we think (28:51) we need to know everything, that we are blocking us off from creating trusted relationships with (28:57) other people, which can lead to feeling more isolated and like we don't belong at our office, (29:02) which I've talked about in a recent episode. So here's how you will know that this is you.

(29:07) It takes a lot for you to ask for help. And in fact, you would be fine if you never had to ask 

(29:13) for help because it feels so uncomfortable admitting that you don't know something.

 (29:17) You find yourself spending hours researching a question you have before asking someone who (29:23) probably has the answer.

You're afraid of what people are going to think of you if you don't (29:29) know the answer to a question. You think the solution to feeling self-doubt about something (29:36) is always to research a topic more. And you feel overwhelmed trying to get your work done because (29:42) you spend so much time researching and reviewing your work that you're covering every single base (29:49) even if that base isn't even relevant.

So another thing that I want to offer to you here (29:55) to know that this is where you are at right now is that you don't have a life.