Do you battle with perfectionism when it comes to being visible?

When it comes to recording a video that you planned to be a 20 minute task, does it become a 2 hour task, with countless takes, after which…You’re still not happy with the end result?

OR…

Perhaps you’re prone to spending too much time working on a project, only to abandon it on completion.  Or maybe you don’t abandon it but you just never actually promote it, because you judge it as “just not good enough”

And maybe, you have a library of content and resources that you’ve created, that never sees the light of day!

If you’re constantly striving for perfection in your work, you’ll always feel frustrated, over-critical and disappointed with yourself.

Striving to be perfect, can also often result in frustrating bouts of procrastination.

The fear of NOT being perfect, and the need to avoid the bitter feelings of disappointment can be immobilizing, causing you to slam the brakes on your productivity.

It’s a no-win situation. Perfectionism is a saboteur. Period.

It’s also a false ideal. Especially in business.

In striving to be perfect, we labour under the false notion that, at some future point, we’ll be done.  That some day, we will achieve perfection.

This of course is a lie and leaves us no room for improvement and growth.

The truth is, we’re constantly growing and evolving. As the saying goes “If you’re not growing, you’re dying”.

And I know that as a coaching entrepreneur, you value personal development, growth and expansion.

So how can you overcome perfectionism, and actually enjoy the journey?

1. Practice presence.   Narrow your attention and awareness into whatever you’re doing in the moment. As you focus on the one activity in front of you, and you give it all your attention, you bring a higher quality of consciousness to the work. It’s very zen, and takes some practice but the more time you spend working from this still state of mind, you access more inspiration, more creativity and more JOY in the journey.
2. Focus on your ideal client.   Before you start any piece of work, tune in to your ideal client and consider how your work will positively impact them.  They need to hear from you, they need your wisdom.  What you share in your video, or your article, your lead-magnet or your email might just be “the thing they need to hear today”.  Remember, they’re dealing with their own shit so they don’t care about your hair being out of place, or about the background on your video.  They’re in pain and they need you to show up!
3. Celebrate EVERYTHING you do!!!  I love this practice and I often get clients, who struggle with perfectionism, or a chronic belief that “I’m not doing enough” to send me a list, every day of 10 things they accomplished that day to celebrate.  Celebrate getting up without hitting snooze once!  Celebrate writing a post on Social Media!  Celebrate cooking a meal! Celebrate writing an email to your list! Celebrate tidying your desk! Celebrate making a new connection on LinkedIn!  Celebrate EVERYTHING!!!

Celebrating everything trains your brain to get a bigger kick out of the “smaller” every day activities. You don’t need to chase perfection or major accomplishments to feel good. Life just starts to feel good anyway…and by virtue of the Law of Attraction…you attract more and more to feel good about. My clients who this daily, find that within 10 days they experience really profound and positive shifts.

4. Change your Stories.  Perfectionism isn’t a behaviour. It’s a way of thinking about yourself – Andrew Hill
Understand that you can change your internal critical programming through firstly raising awareness to your inner critics voice, and then replacing the negative ‘stories’ you tell yourself about yourself, with affirmative thoughts and beliefs. Know that you’re amazing, and fall in love with yourself exactly as you are!

5. Ship! Ship! Ship!  This simple shift in mindset was a game-changer for me personally.

“Shipping isn’t focused on producing a masterpiece…Picasso painted more that a thousand paintings, and you can probably name three of them” Seth Godin.

Focus on creating, and shipping your work with no attachment to the outcome. Whether shipping means for you selling your course, publishing an article or going live on social media. Do it, ship it and then come straight back to your desk to create the next piece of work.

The irony of perfectionism is that it’s ultimately self-defeating! Making mistakes, and learning from them, is part of being human. It’s how we grow and it’s how we get better at life, business and relationships.

A couple of months ago I joined a comedy improvisation group and we’ve done a couple of live shows, to real audiences! One of the many lessons I have taken from it is when you step out, onto the stage, commit to whatever you’re doing and follow through wholeheartedly.

That’s where the magic happens.

And if it fails? You fail forward. Always.  Tag me in your next livestream 😉

Peace and Love

Sanae x