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How to Stop Being a Perfectionist

“How do I stop being such a perfectionist?”

So many nights I laid in bed wondering if I would ever figure out how to stop being a perfectionist.

I had finally realized that maybe, just maybe, perfectionism was a big part of my anxiety and overwhelm.

Perfectionism is a false promise. 

I prayed at the alter of perfectionism, and boy did it lead me astray.

“Get it right. Make it perfect. Don’t mess up,” Perfectionism threatens, “and then you won’t experience criticism, judgment or failure. Then people will love and respect you.”

But there is no such thing as perfect, my friends.

I’ve been thinking a lot about my struggle as a perfectionist to create the latest podcast episode on it.  

Perfection is elusive at best. 

My old belief that made me want to keep my perfectionistic tendencies: Things can always be improved….what’s the harm in that?  

So I toiled away at it, obsessing about every detail mostly oblivious to the world around me. Surely more hours and working harder will lead to perfection.

Or I planned excessively, without ever actually doing any of the work. Accounting for every detail in advance will eliminate the chances of failure, I assumed.

Or some painful combination of the two that feels much more like spinning in doubt and confusion than meaningful progress.

Until the pressure or the impossibility of ever meeting the standard crushed my spirit and made me quit, settle, or change the goal’s deadline or deliverables.

It’s a Form of Self-Abuse

In trying to avoid criticism, judgment and failure it’s all I ended up experiencing.  I criticized and judged myself all the way to feeling like a failure or fraud. 

Wasted time.

Missed opportunities.

Unfulfilled potential.

And a portfolio of work that other people think is great but I didn’t think it was good enough for one reason or another (why can’t they see it?!).

It’s Beyond Time to Let it Go

In order to experience more freedom and enjoyment – to go ALL IN on our Yes Life – we must drop the painful pattern of perfectionism. 

I know it seems like a trap – that then we would settle for mediocrity, lower our standards, to become complacent.

But the belief in perfection actually makes us feel pressure, overwhelmed, humiliation, criticized, judged and shamed.

This emotional space is a mediocre trap that keeps us stuck.

There’s so much more freedom to move, to explore, to grow and achieve when you loosen the grip of perfectionism.

Being a perfectionist keeps us living small and constrained. It limits our results more than expands them. It slows us more than advances us.

Embracing “Flaws” + Mistakes

Perfectionism keeps us from embracing our humanity – the one thing that will set us free. 

You are imperfectly perfect, it’s your flaws that make you beautifully human.

It’s making more mistakes and having more failed attempts that help you succeed faster.

You are not your mistakes or your failures, and you never will be. 

You are so so so much more.

Let’s work on owning that.

This is something we work on all the time in my facebook group. Come on over and join us and drop this negative pattern quick.

The post How to Stop Being a Perfectionist appeared first on results based life coaching for mindset, accountability, habit upgrades.

from results based life coaching for mindset, accountability, habit upgrades https://myyeslife.com/stop-being-a-perfectionist/

[myyeslifeofficial]

Perfectionism [Podcast Episode 9]

Episode 9: Perfectionism

Perfectionism robs the air from the room, the sleep from our nights, the enjoyment from our efforts.

As a recovering perfectionist, this podcast episode is my love note to anyone struggling with perfectionism.

It’s impossible to be perfect, and I’m offering a compelling argument for why you should stop trying and an exercise to help you change this pattern that holds you back from the greatness you seek.

  ***

Join us for free Live Coaching.

Join the continued discussion in the facebook group. 

Interested in personalized 1:1 coaching support? Book a free consult. 

Full Episode Transcript

Hi, Goalies! How are you today?  Did you catch it? I decided that you guys are going to be called goalies because I know all of you are focused on achieving big, huge goals. And the power vested in me has declared “change approved!!!” So what is going on, goalies? How are things going in your world? I hope that you are having a fabulous day and that you know how incredible you are. I was talking to my husband this morning before he left for work and I told him I’m recording a podcast on perfectionism today. And Jason, my husband, jokingly said “it better be perfect.” And after I had a little laugh at it, I said, “actually, it doesn’t. And that’s what will make it perfect.” Oh, my gawd, you guys!! That was such a hard fought victory from this recovering perfectionist. I felt so much relief in that moment and so much pride in the work that I have done to change my perfectionist tendencies. And they’ve been there for as long as I can remember. Maybe it’s because I’m a Virgo, or maybe it’s because I’m the oldest child, or maybe because I was the product of the 80s self-esteem movement that excessively praised children for their accomplishments rather than their humanity. I don’t know. I don’t necessarily have to know exactly why it’s there, but I’ve been a raging perfectionist for as long as I can remember. I really, honestly don’t have a memory from childhood that doesn’t include me trying to live up to one impossible standard or another. Like even if you could earn a 4.0 or you did, then they go and add AP classes on top of it, and up the ante. And then all the high achieving perfectionist spin out. In that moment it feels like never good enough. It becomes a suffocating trap. Perfectionism, never being good enough, it’s totally and completely suffocating. And so I say I’m a recovering perfectionist because it’s a lifelong pattern that I will need to be aware of. I don’t think it’s ever going to go away. But the more I practice not leaning into perfectionistic tendencies and beliefs, the more I will reduce the frequency and the severity of my quote unquote relapses with perfectionism. And really, our work in changing this pattern – the goal – is to have awareness of this thought pattern, these thought errors that our brain offers up, without judging ourselves. And then redirect our focus and our mind and our beliefs to more helpful and effective areas that will help us make progress and move forward and an experience enjoyment in life. At the root of perfectionism, it’s this underlying belief that achievement is what makes us worthy. The more that we do, the more that we achieve means we have worth and the more perfectly we do things, the more perfectly we achieve things, only enhances how much more worthy we are. It’s this weird assumption that everything that we’re doing in life is graded and it’s a really big focus on earning the approval of others – people in our family, coworkers, supervisors, friends, complete strangers. It’s this lie that our brain loves to tell us – that once we achieve perfection, then and only then will we feel adequate, confident, successful or worthy. Ultimately, it is a fear of flaws. It’s a fear of mistakes. It’s a fear of failure. I talked about it last week – this fear of failure – and really you can never be a failure. We have failed attempts, but failure is not a personal characteristic. But our big, beautiful brain disagrees with that thought and tries to really teach us and convince us otherwise. And perfectionism becomes trying to over control everything in our life to prevent people from seeing our flaws or from making mistakes or failing. Perfectionism is really an attempt to not feel the quote unquote negative feelings of embarrassment, rejection, judgment, humiliation and shame. But you know, what’s really weird? It’s that when we are experiencing perfectionism, we are tormenting ourselves with those emotions already. We are embarrassed of everything. We reject ourselves. We judge ourselves. We feel humiliated over the smallest, silliest things, and then we shame ourselves for not being good enough. Perfectionism causes us to spin out. I know you know what I’m talking about. And we end up experiencing a ton of anxiety about anything and everything that we’re working on. I don’t know about you, but I tend to spend and in the past have done it. Obsessive planning and strategizing, trying to come up with the perfect plan, and then I rarely execute it or take the first steps and at the first step of it, not going perfect, of there being a mistake, of there being a hiccup, I would ditch the plan. You know, it’s like this false sense and belief that we can plan for everything. We can see it all out in advance. And we didn’t account for that or didn’t go the way we thought it should. So, of course, we should have. It’s not good enough. Perfectionism also causes us to keep learning more. That our knowledge, our skills, our abilities, our credentials, our experience, our achievements aren’t enough. So clearly, we need to pad on more before we take action. And so because of this pattern, we often fail to deliver, to launch, to hit send, to share, to put ourselves and our work out there in the world. Unless there’s somebody else that’s given us a deadline and forcing us to deliver the goods. Perfectionism also creates a whole host of other problems. Because of it, we often take inconsistent action and inconsistently create results. We’re doing more, spending more, worrying more, ruminating about things, more planning, more strategizing than doing the work. Perfectionism also often leads to imposter syndrome, which we talked about last week. But if we don’t think that it was perfect, then clearly we’re all wrong. We also tend to have an all in or all out mentality. It’s that, if it’s not perfect, I’m not doing it. If I didn’t follow the plan and execute it exactly as I had strategized, then I’m out. We often spend a lot of time abusing ourselves when we are in a perfectionist state of mind. There’s a whole lot of self judgment, criticism and punishing ourselves for not being perfect. There’s often obsessiveness, endless rumination about the past. We hide or we hold ourselves back. A lot of perfectionists are also struggling workaholics. The inability to turn off power off, to walk away from it, to take a break, to have some fun and play. Perfectionism also creates a huge disconnect in our relationships, because when we get deep into perfectionism, not only are we holding ourselves to perfectionistic standards, but we often try to apply those to the people closest to us spouses, family, friends. And the longer we stay in this high anxiety, this super charged pattern, we are more likely to experience massive stress related health issues. I mean, that’s a big part of my journey. You know, all of this mental chaos that my brain created led me to overwork myself and put myself last. And I ended up struggling with a chronic illness for ten years and, you know, obviously got worse and worse. And it finally got to the point where I had to put my entire life on hold to heal my physical space and heal my mental health and my emotional health. And so leaving this unchecked creates so many more problems than keeping it around. Another thing that perfectionists tend to do and what’s even more toxic is to look backwards and see how we weren’t perfect in the past and then punish ourselves for it as if there was anything that we can do right now in this moment to change it. A lot of times we don’t realize that we’re applying our current knowledge to a version of ourselves that didn’t know what we know now. The version of us in the past does not have the knowledge, the skills or the abilities to do better. She’s not the same person that you are now. And if you’re applying who you are now to who you were in the past and judging yourself and criticizing yourself for not doing it better, there’s zero benefit from that. I already know, you know, this feels like shit, but I just want to point it out. I know you’re doing it and I promise you want to stop. It’s not ever going to change the past and it’s not going to make you feel any better. I’ve worked with so many perfectionists and this is pretty much my rally cry: perfection is the enemy of progress. It is the enemy of greatness. Because when we are stuck in the perfectionistic loop of always trying to make it better, of it never being good enough, we don’t take enough action. We don’t put our work out in the world. We don’t go out and fail forward. We end up delaying our progress, thinking that if we perfected it, then we can prevent the pain of mistakes and failing forward. But the reality is, is the way we make progress is failing forward. it’s building on our failed attempts. And really, perfection is elusive at best. It’s not real. It’s always unattainable. The only real thing about perfectionism are the unrealistic expectations and standards that we’ve created for ourselves and other people in our lives. Impossible standards and expectations. That’s what perfectionism is. It’s a suffocating way to live. Imposter syndrome and anxiety are almost always riding shotgun. Pressure, overwhelm, stress, and spinning out are a given. The belief that we have to be perfect, that our work has to be perfect, creates those feelings. Friends! Progress is better than perfection. My coach says your B minus work is good enough. That set me free on so many different levels, you know, as high achieving people who are also perfectionists on top of it, our work, our B minus work is already better than most of our peers. My other coach set me free with this thought: “I can’t get this wrong.” How beautiful is that? If I’m not a failure, if it’s only a failed attempt. I’m either learning from it or I’m growing from it or I’m moving forward. It’s always a win. It’s never wrong. A few years ago, my husband and I were in Soldotna, Alaska, going salmon fishing. We’re on the Kenai River fishing for sockeye salmon and we’re driving through town. And there is this little hardware store that had a letter board sign. And they always put fun sayings up on it. And one day it said “pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.” And it stopped me in my tracks, guys. Our love for ourselves, our love for our work, the enjoyment we experience …Is what makes it perfect. But perfectionism blocks our love and compassion for ourselves and our work. It literally blocks perfection because there is no pleasure being experienced. I love this quote from Sheila Beloff: “messy, inconsistent action wins over sporadic, quote unquote, perfection.” Perfection is really striving to erase your humanity. I’m going to say that again, because that shit is so real. Perfection is really striving to erase your humanity. Your flaws, your imperfections, your mistakes and failures are what make you perfectly you you are so uniquely beautiful and special because of your imperfections. You are an original work of art, a masterpiece exactly as you are. AND an incredible work in progress. You are never intended to be perfect friends. Original works of art are imperfect. If you’ve ever gone to a museum and looked at them, you can see the cracks in the paint. The texture is often rough. It’s why collectors pay millions of dollars for original works of art. If you want perfect and something far less valuable and unique, buy the lithograph or the copy on a postcard print that’s missing all those imperfections. Humans are imperfect and that is perfect. So I want to give you an exercise to help you change this pattern. I want you to take out a journal, a piece of paper, and write down: “what beliefs are causing me to be a perfectionist” and then download all of that crap out of your brain. Keep writing until you can’t think of anything else. Don’t judge anything that you’re putting on that paper. I want you to recognize that everything that you put down there are only thoughts. And they aren’t true. They only feel true because you’ve practiced them a lot. And then once you have all of your default, regular, go to perfectionist thoughts in one place, I want you to make a list of thoughts you’d like to work on believing about yourself and your work instead. Throughout this podcast, I’ve offered a bunch that have helped to set me free. So by all means, please borrow those. You know, I borrowed quite a few from my mentors along the way. I’m going to read them off again now. And I want you to notice how these thoughts make your body feel when I read them aloud. Perfection is the enemy of progress. It’s the enemy of greatness. Perfection is elusive at best. It’s not real. It’s always unattainable and always a lie. Progress is better than perfection. Pleasure and the job puts perfection in the work. Humans are imperfect. I’m a human, so it’s OK to not be perfect. My B minus is good enough. I can’t get this wrong. I am enough. I’ve always been enough. I’m one hundred percent worthy exactly as I am right now, in this moment. I am perfectly imperfect. My imperfections are what make me me. Friends. It’s time to drop the unrealistic striving for perfection. I know it makes me feel like shit and it’s time to let it go. It’s not real. It’s just a lie that your brain is beating you up with. So let’s work on that. If you would like some help with perfectionism, if you’d like some coaching on this, I would love to help you. We’re going live on Thursday, next week for a live coaching session. It’s free. We’ll discuss perfectionism and all your questions. I can coach you on it if you’d like. Go to www.myyeslife.com/Live for more information and to register. And I hope that you have a beautiful week and you know how much I love you. I’ll talk to you again soon. Ciao ciao.

The post Perfectionism [Podcast Episode 9] appeared first on results based life coaching for mindset, accountability, habit upgrades.

from results based life coaching for mindset, accountability, habit upgrades https://myyeslife.com/perfectionism-podcast-episode-9/

[myyeslifeofficial]

Imposter Syndrome [Podcast Episode 8]

Episode 8: Imposter Syndrome

If you’ve ever felt like a fraud, like you don’t belong, or aren’t enough…This episode is for you.

I know this pattern well, and I’m sharing what helped me finally kick this awful feeling. 

Learn the 4 main reasons it happens and how to ditch it in 3 quick steps.

    Full Episode Transcript

Hello, friends, how are you today?

I have missed you, I’ve had some craziness happening for me.

My grandma passed away about a month ago, it’s birthday season around here, my birthday, my husband’s birthday.

So lots of highs and lots of lows.

And I just needed some time to do what I teach my clients to do, to allow and accept all of the big feelings that I was experiencing and to hold space for them and just allow myself to process those.

And I just needed to take some time for myself and, you know, walk in my talk. That how we treat ourselves should be our number one priority.

And emotional wellness, emotional health, feeling our feelings is really the secret to creating massive results and a joyful life. And so I took some time to do that. And I feel all the stronger, more ready, more capable and getting back to it.

So I’m glad to be here to hang out with you today and talk about imposter syndrome.

Maybe you’ve heard of it.

Maybe this is a new concept, a new term… And you’re like “Dee! What the crap is that?!?”

We’re going to get into it.

I think that this is something that most high achievers have experienced.

At least that’s what the research and the data shows.

This is a very common experience that high achieving, successful people have.

And before I found out that it was a thing, I really thought I was broken, that there was something wrong with me, that I was the only one who felt like this.

And so when I learned about imposter syndrome and that it had a name, I actually experienced some relief.

I mean, it didn’t get rid of it, just learning that it was a thing.

But just knowing that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way was so comforting for me. I felt just a little less neurotic in that moment and that I wasn’t broken, you know, as broken as my big, beautiful brain was trying to convince me otherwise.

So what is it? What is imposter syndrome?

The definition is “a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success, impostors suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence that override any feelings of success or external proof of their competence.”

I don’t know about you, but does that sound familiar at all?

So it really is this space where our external circumstances do not match our internal space.

I think that we’re pretty aware that there is a disconnect there, but it’s really hard to to get out of that pattern.

And the thoughts are so loud. The inner critic, the itty bitty shitty committee in our brain offers up all these crappy thoughts. For me, they were very, very loud.

So some of the thoughts that you experience with imposter syndrome are:

“I don’t belong here.”

“I’m not blank enough.” So maybe smart enough, talented enough, experienced enough, whatever that blank is for you.

“They’ll realize I’m in over my head.”

“It’s all going to fall apart or be taken away from me.”

“I don’t deserve this.”

“Who am I to think I deserve this?”

“It’s not enough. I need to do more.” Always chasing more.

“I can’t fail.”

“What if I make a mistake?”

“Oh my God. They’re going to find out I made a mistake.”

“What about those mistakes that I made all the way back in third grade? What if they find out?”

“I feel like a fake.”

“I was just lucky right place at the right time.”

“Anyone can do this. It’s not special.”

Have you ever heard that big, beautiful brain of yours offer up any of those garbage thoughts?

Those thoughts create a big mess for us.

They create so much mental chaos, it becomes loud and deafening. And this creates a lot of discomfort and pain.

Some of the effects of imposter syndrome include:

A lack of belief in ourselves or our abilities.

We start to distrust our own knowledge, expertise or authority.

We’ll downplay ourself in current roles and what we put ourselves out there for. You know, we play it safe and try to hide under the radar.

Maybe we don’t ask for more or seek new or bigger challenges.

Often, we spend a lot of time and excessive focus ruminating on our quote unquote failures in the past. As if running those through our heads over and over and over again is going to allow us to change that.

And man, our inner critic, is so very loud and highly judgmental when we are in the throes of impostor syndrome.

It feels a lot like and includes, you know, perfectionistic tendencies.

We fall into perfectionism often when we feel like we’re not good enough or we don’t belong, when we think that we’re going to make a mistake and that everything’s going to fall down around us.

And most people also are experiencing high levels of anxiety, monkey mind, and obsessiveness when this pattern is in effect.

And this is something that I spent, I don’t know, probably all of my 20s experiencing a better part of my early 30s until I really figured it out.

Like I said in the beginning, I didn’t know that it was a thing. I didn’t know it was something that other people struggled with. I didn’t know that there was a name or a label for it. I just thought that there was something wrong with me.

The underlying root of the problem that causes imposter syndrome is a feeling of unworthiness, and it’s really deeply rooted in feelings of inadequacy.

That we’re not good enough, that there’s something wrong with us, that there’s something that needs to be corrected, something that needs to be improved.

And heaven forbid, people find out that we’re not perfect. And that hey might find out just how crazy we are on the inside. Right.

And this is it’s like such a huge, massive craziness because this syndrome – imposter syndrome – is primarily experienced among very high achieving individuals who have created massive amounts of success.

The worst part of imposter syndrome is the cognitive dissonance that we experience between the knowing intellectually that on paper we’re more than qualified, that we’re accomplished, that we’re successful.

But yet we feel completely to the contrary, that it’s never good enough, that it was an accident, it was a fluke, that we just have to do more.

So the problem is not who you are, what you’ve accomplished or what you’re capable of.

The real problem here is how you see yourself. It’s an ownership problem.

It’s an identity and a self concept problem.

Who we think we are – how we see ourselves – has not caught up to the massive results and success and achievement that we have created.

And like I said, every time I started a new degree, I didn’t feel like I was smart enough to be there.

Every time I earned a new degree, even my doctorate, I thought that they’ll find out that I’m not that smart or that I don’t know what I’m talking about, that I’m not really an expert.

You know, when I was hired as a COO of my organization, sitting in the boardroom in my late 20s, I looked around and thought like I didn’t belong. They all think I’m too young, that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I wasn’t going to last.

Even when I started my coaching practice, even though I had worked as a coach, for an organization for five and a half years and had nearly 10000 hours of one on one coaching experience under my belt, I still felt like an imposter going out there and selling my services.

It’s crazy, right? Like it doesn’t make sense.

The internal experience doesn’t match the external achievements and skills and abilities and capabilities that you bring to the table.

So here are the four main reasons that imposter syndrome happens.

Number one is seeing success as ordinary, that it’s not a big deal. Everyone does this.

A really good example is earning a college degree. For an undergraduate degree. Only about 30 percent of Americans have one. But the belief that everyone has one makes it so that we feel like it’s not a big deal and it takes away from the significance of the achievement. But really, only a third of Americans, eligible Americans, hold an undergraduate degree and even less when you’ve got a master’s and a doctorate.

What success have you created in your life that you’re seeing as not a big deal, that you’re not celebrating, that you’re thinking is ordinary? That’s something that everyone does.

This second reason this happens is because of lack of celebration.

You haven’t slowed down long enough to celebrate each achievement that you have created, each success that you’ve had.

Often, you know, we’re working on these long term goals for so long that by the time it happens, we’re already on to the next conquest.

Our brain is already thinking about the next thing that we want to achieve. And we haven’t taken ownership of the success that we created right there in that moment.

The third reason is because we see success as an event. It’s something that happens rather than evidence of who you have become in the process to achieve that thing.

It’s this belief that “success happened to me” rather than “I am a successful person.”

And the fourth reason it happens is because we see our identity as static or fixed. That our personality, who we are, what we’re capable of, is unchanging.

Rather than it being something that is dynamic and that evolves with us as we grow, as we do new things, as we stretch ourselves to become a stronger, more capable version of ourselves.

So real quick, again, the four reasons that we experience imposter syndrome the most is: (1) seeing our success as ordinary or not a big deal; (2) not celebrating our success; (3) seeing success as an event rather than evidence of who we are; (4) and believing that our identity is fixed, not updating our self concept as we have created more success in our life, in our career.

So you’re probably wondering how to stop feeling like a fraud.

How do we ditch this imposter syndrome?

The first thing is to update your identity or your self concept.

You probably still see yourself as the person you were before you achieved all of the great things that you have achieved.

Do this exercise my coach had me do this, and it blew me away. And it was really uncomfortable when I did it. I’m not going to lie – like I felt actually pretty sick to my stomach putting all of this on paper.

But it really helped me to see myself differently and to stop feeling like such an imposter, such a fraud.

And so the exercise is: “I am the woman who…”

Put that on the top of a paper.

And then under that, I want you to list all of your previous accomplishments and successes and own them.

I am the woman who created this result. And celebrate each one.

List, all of your strengths that you’ve gained from the journey. It’s not just the achievement, but it’s who you have become along the way.

Is it your perseverance? Is it your tenacity? Is it your grit? Is it your intelligence?

All of these things we develop as we are on the journey to the accomplishment.

List, who you’ve become from your successes and to reflect on who you’ve become and take ownership of this new identity.

You are this person.

You have created all of this good. It didn’t happen to you.

It happened because you showed up and created that result.

So own it, my friend. Own it, celebrate it.

Give yourself a big, huge high five, pat on the back. Do a happy dance.

Own that shit.

All right.

The next thing that you can do to stop feeling like a fraud, moving forward – to make sure that this isn’t a pattern that continues to repeat itself – is to slow down and celebrate each new success that you have, to wire it into being, before moving on to the next thing.

Each time something good happens to you, no matter how small it is, celebrate it, own it, own how you’ve grown into a stronger, more capable version of yourself.

Own how you created that result that it didn’t just happen to you.

And then the third step to stop feeling like such a fraud is to change your story about failure.

I’ve talked about failure here before and it’s something I want to talk about a lot, because when we’re aiming for big, huge results and massive success, we’re going to fail a lot.

Failure is the currency for success.

We just need to tell different stories about quote unquote failure.

You are not a failure and you can never be a failure.

Failure is not a personal characteristic.

Failure. It’s failed attempts.

And so your success is built upon the failed attempts that you experience along the way.

Failed attempts are how we learn and grow. So you could never be a failure.

And the things that happened in the past, the lack of the result, the mistakes that you’ve made, the things that you ruminate over and lose sleep about, and that big, beautiful brain wakes you up at three o’clock in the morning to remind you the thing that you did in third grade.

Been there, done that. I see you.

Like that shit doesn’t matter.

It’s not a failure. It’s part of who you are.

It helped you become who you are now and it’s helped shape you into the person that you’ve become.

And that’s the same thing with failed attempt.

Like they’re opportunities to learn, to grow, to become stronger versions of ourself.

You know, just make sure that you are taking the failed attempt as an opportunity to learn the lesson.

And that’s how it has value and how we move forward from that.

Don’t have a failed attempt and just quit or throw in the towel, then it really is holding you back and keeping you stuck.

Imposter syndrome is just a collection of thought errors.

It’s not who you are.

You are not broken. You are not inadequate. You are not unworthy.

Your worthiness is inherent.

You are one hundred percent worthy exactly as you are right now in this moment without changing anything.

And you never have to change anything about yourself to be worthy. Because you just are.

Because you are a child of God, you are here on this planet, you are of maximum worth.

Start owning how damn fabulous you are, start owning the greatness that you have created, your list of achievements.

All of the amazing things that you have created.

All of the personality characteristics, the strengths that you have developed along the way.

And celebrate it.

You deserve to be celebrated.

Doesn’t matter how big or small.

Everything that you create, everything that you’re able to live through, everything you’re able to survive deserves a celebration.

So that, my friends, is a little bit about imposter syndrome and how to change those thoughts in your big, beautiful brain so that the achievements that you have on the outside start to match how you think and feel about yourself on the inside.

You do not need to go achieve more on the outside to fix this problem.

You never do.

You never had to.

I know I kept chasing achievements, trying to fix the inside problem, but it was once I finally slowed down and did this work to change my self concept, to see myself differently, to think different thoughts about who I am and what I’ve accomplished, then I stopped feeling like a fraud.

So you’ll never solve an internal problem with an external solution.

And this one is worth slowing down and doing the work over.

Because I know how crappy it feels to show up in life, feeling like you don’t belong, that you’re not good enough and someone’s going to figure that out.

It’s a really crappy way to exist.

And so please, please, please, like sit down with a journal and do that work.

Own your accomplishments and how amazing you are.

I hope that this helps.

Leave me a comment, a review.

If you want some more help with this, join me in my Facebook group.

We are diving deep next week and there will be a free live coaching session on Thursday.

So if you would like some more help with imposter syndrome, I would love to help you with that and give you a little bit of free coaching on it.

If you are listening to this episode much in the future after this has already happened, these live coaching sessions will be in the archives.

So you can get those to go to www.myyeslife.com/live for information on the live coaching session, and the archive, and how to join the group.

That is it.

That’s all I got for you, my friends.

Have a beautiful day.

Ciao ciao.

The post Imposter Syndrome [Podcast Episode 8] appeared first on results based life coaching for mindset, accountability, habit upgrades.

from results based life coaching for mindset, accountability, habit upgrades https://myyeslife.com/imposter-syndrome-podcast8/

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FAQ: How Do I Get Out of My Own Way?

FAQ: How Do I Get Out of My Own Way?

I hear this question all the time: “How do I get out of my own way?”

So many people come to me wanting to learn how to get out of their own way. 

The problem is that they aren’t in their own way. 

They aren’t IN themselves. 

They are lost in their own fear, doubts, anxiety, and worry. 

They’re lost in a shitty story of themselves, their insecurities, their short-comings, and limitations. 

What’s in their way is the farthest from who they truly are, what is possible, what could be. 

You are not in your way. Your fear, your shitty beliefs, your worry about the future is what is in the way. 

Because there is NOTHING wrong with you.  You are not broken.

Get Out of My Own Way

The quickest way to get out of your own way is to truly get in your own way – to go inward to what is real – to get to know the real you that isn’t tainted by all the shit that’s in the way. 

To spend less time judging, criticizing and belittling yourself. 

To spend less time focusing on everyone else before taking care of yourself.

To spend less time thinking that everything will magically change someday.  

To create a relationship with yourself that is founded in love, trust, kindness, communication, prioritization and awareness. 

To turn that illusive someday into today. 

To make the decision that you are worth it, that you deserve to feel better, that you can and should have more than this. 

The quickest way to get out of your own way is decide to get out of your mind drama and get into love with the real you. 

Do you feel like you’re in your own way?  What’s one thing you could do to get in touch with the real you? Comment Below. I want to know!

  I specialize in helping people get out of their own way. Removing the mind drama and bullshit that’s in the way of feeling good, finding enjoyment in life, and achieving big goals. The fastest way to get out of our own way – and create the change we seek – is to work with a coach. I’m ready to be your coach. Jump on a free consult to get the transformation started.  Book Now.  

  The post FAQ: How Do I Get Out of My Own Way? appeared first on life coaching for mental excellence, mindset, accountability .

from life coaching for mental excellence, mindset, accountability https://myyeslife.com/im-in-my-own-way/

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Does it Feel Like Home?

Does it Feel Like Home?

Do you feel at home?

A house is the structure we see from the outside.

It becomes a home when we look within and feel the warmth that it’s full of.

A home is full of love. 

Enjoyment.

Comfort.

Respect.

Caring.

It’s an inviting and safe space to live, laugh and learn.

Most of my clients come to me when they realize that they don’t feel at home inside themselves. 

They’ve gotten in a pattern of trying to fix the house to try, all the while hoping that it feel like home.

A new roof, coat of paint, and some fancy landscaping are about as likely as a new hair style, lash extensions and fake nails to help create that sense of home.

Sure it makes the house nicer to look at, but it doesn’t make the inside any more cozy.

Always Wanting More

But we’ve been conditioned to think that maybe we just need those granite countertops, the stainless steel appliances, the next new thing we saw on HGTV…

Just like we start chasing a promotion, more credentials and degrees, another achievement to fight off that unsettled, ‘now what’ feeling inside.

My high-achieving clients have followed THE path to success – on paper having done all the right things.

Their needs ARE met.

Life IS good.

Yet rather than feeling at home inside themselves, relishing in their accomplishments, and owning their awesomeness…

They keep setting more goals, doing more things, wondering when they will stop feeling empty and finally start feeling settled. 

When they will feel peace. Happiness. Freedom.

Feel at home inside themselves.

Their house is full of self-criticism and doubt, and that “never good enough” feeling.

There’s the lingering, seemingly unanswerable question, the deep ache inside: “there must be more than this, but what?”

This is the work I do with my clients.

To finally make their house (their mind) feel like home.

To trade the anxiety and unworthiness for enjoyment, fulfillment, peace.

I help them stop hustling for happiness and step off the hamster wheel of achievement – ending the cycle of do more, be more, achieve more that is losing its appeal.  

To end the mind chatter that their inner critic constantly offers louder and louder by each passing day.

To ditch that restless, what-else, empty feeling and trade it for a deep knowing of what you want and the courage to blaze your own path.

To feel connected, present and appreciated rather than resentful and frustrated in personal and professional relationships.

To crush goals for fun, the thrill of the challenge and for growth rather than to try and fill the empty void of imposter syndrome and unworthiness.

Do you feel at home inside yourself?  Comment below, I want to know!

  The post Does it Feel Like Home? appeared first on life coaching for mental excellence, mindset, accountability .

from life coaching for mental excellence, mindset, accountability https://myyeslife.com/does-it-feel-like-home/

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The Top Mindset Lessons I Learned as a Military Spouse

:…..

The Top Mindset Lessons I Learned as a Military Spouse

I became a military spouse at 24.

When I married my husband I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into.

I wasn’t raised around the military.

I had no idea what to expect from the lifestyle.

I just knew that I loved him and saw an incredible future with him by my side. 

My Unexpected Military Life…

But military life is hard.

Being a military spouse is hard.

Deployments, long work hours, weekend duty and all the stinking moves to new places far away from family and friends.

I could very easily get caught up on all of these challenges, the uncertainty…

…and wondering what the hell happened to to box with all the furniture hardware after the last move. (For real though, we really needed that box to reassemble everything!)

But I have learned not to.

I would say the first nine years and four duty stations as a military spouse were the most challenging. 

I created a lot of suffering for myself and my husband by fighting against the uncertainty, arguing with reality, giving my emotional power to external circumstances and refusing to ask for help.

(I’m not trying to say that the challenges I experienced as a military spouse are unique. It just seems that military life amplifies the challenge and uncertainties, often making them more frequent than civilian life).

Gave Me Unexpected Gifts.

Little did I know that through the greatest of struggles, I would also be blessed with the greatest of gifts.

Because I was open to learning, exploration, and growth through the challenge, I was able to learn these four mindset lessons as a military spouse: 

Surrender

Accepting What Is / Presence

How You Feel is a Choice

Asking For + Accepting Help

I realized that military spouse life gave me a crash course in figuring them out, long before many of my peers, and tons of opportunities to practice them along the way. 

Surrender

We trick ourselves into thinking that we control our lives.

We avoid uncertainty at all costs.

We think that if we can just plan for every detail, pick the safest and most secure option that we are in control and the outcome will be certain.

Thankfully, military life taught me that certainty and control are all but an illusion.

We never know when we are going to move next, let alone where it will be.

We rarely know with much advance notice when he will be deployed or on temporary duty, gone for months at a time.

So many aspects of family planning that most people take for granted are big, huge uncertainties in our lives.

Which makes planning more than a few months in advance a challenge. (We wanted to take a trip for our 15 year wedding anniversary but didn’t even feel secure enough for that…which is good because it fell during an international move!).

Which always makes you wonder if the couch you want to buy now will fit in the next place.

Which makes you question keeping the extra jackets or if you only be wearing flip flops at the next duty station. (No joke, we moved from Alaska to Arizona, thanks Air Force!).

We have always had to actively manage the uncertainty, or at least our emotions in reaction to not knowing or being in control of so many of the variables of our lives.

Even after 15 years my family still asks me if we know when we are going to move next, where we are moving, when he will be promoted to the next rank… and I always have to remind them that we just don’t know and won’t know until it happens.

But it’s from this place surrendering to radical uncertainty that I have realized just how much certainty is an illusion in life.

That secure job that you were downsized from?

That perfectly planned out career path that you ended up hating?

That perfectly healthy person who found out they have inoperable cancer?

That young mother who died in a car accident on her way home from the grocery store? 

There’s so many things in our lives that we take for granted that aren’t promised and are far from certain, no matter how much our brain tries to lie to us otherwise.

The best practice is to decide WHAT you want in life, WHY you want it and surrender the HOW.

Rarely does anything go according to plan, in the exact sequence you dream up.

But if you know what you want and why you want it you can start moving toward it and be flexible and adaptable along the way. 

Accepting What Is / Presence.

Byron Katie teaches “When I argue with reality, I lose—but only 100% of the time.”

There’s so many parts to military life that I could argue with (and did in the beginning!) only to create a ton of suffering in my mental and emotional space.

And it kept me from truly living in the present moment – I was arguing with the past and the future and all the ways I thought things should be.

We shouldn’t have to spend our first year of marriage in different countries.

Well, we did.

He was in Korea on an unaccompanied short tour and I was in the US.

We were honeymooners with a 17 hour time difference before there were so many free video and voice communication options on the internet.

It was hard, and I spent a lot of time arguing with how hard it was and how unfair it was when I saw other couples spending time together.

How dare he leave me, again, in a different continent than all my friends and family.

Well, he did, and not by choice, but because he was told to.

I was lonely. 

Yet I made it worse by resisting feeling sad and alone. 

I choose indignation and anger instead.

I was blaming him when he had absolutely no say in the decision. 

It’s not fair that I always have to give up my career aspirations to be the trailing spouse.

It seemed like every time I had a good thing going, making progress, we would get notice of another move.

Which often meant more than six months of lost wages and me feeling like an absolute loser because I wasn’t contributing and I had too much of my self-worth wrapped up in my career and job title. 

We spend so much time arguing with what is rather than accepting it.

It creates so much extra mental chaos and emotional drama.

Rarely do we argue with things that we can change or control, when the solution is to choose and control the thoughts and story we create about the circumstance.

Instead we play the victim and give away our emotional power, expecting everyone and everything outside of us to make us feel better. 

How You Feel is a Choice.

How we feel is a state of mind, not a destination.

So often I hear people say things like “I’ll be happy when…” followed by new cars, homes, jobs, relationships, income, and a whole mess of other external measures. 

Being stationed in Italy helped me realize that our emotional space has nothing to do with external circumstances.

Here we were in Europe, in the Italian countryside, where so many Americans save up often for their whole lives to visit, and fellow service members and their families were miserable.

Many of our friends we were stationed with still found plenty to complain about, would stay close to base and not adventure around Europe.

Here we were, given this incredible opportunity to see the world, and some people couldn’t even see what was right in front of them because they decided to be miserable instead.

Our emotions don’t happen to us, we choose them with the thoughts we think.

Happiness is an inside job.

This is replicated in so many research studies, where happiness isn’t correlated with income after basic subsistence level is reached.

Once people reach poverty level, happiness is no longer correlated with income.

It doesn’t matter what you achieve, what you earn, what you experience. It matters what you think and believe about those things, and the stories you make them mean.

A moment I felt the most achievement was when someone said to me “It doesn’t seem to matter where you and Jason live, you always find a way to have fun.”

I joke that if we get stationed in a few places he can have fun there without me. (I’ll leave them unnamed so as to not get hate mail from the locals LOL).

But in all reality I would follow him and we WOULD have fun.

We would be happy.

We would have a good time.

Because that’s what is important to us and we know that it’s an inside job and not contingent upon what our zip code happens to be. 

Asking For AND Accepting Help.

This was probably the hardest for me to learn…I am such an independent person.

I pride myself on being able to take care of myself.

To be the person who always gives and cares for others.

Until I found myself struggling with a once-debilitating chronic illness, my husband deployed, and being new to the base without any close friends to rely on.

I was accustomed to getting frequent headaches.

But one day I had the worst I had ever experienced, a migraine to end all migraines.

I left work after only an hour, went home and spent the next 8 hours on the bathroom floor.

Nauseated, confused, and completely disoriented.

I was too weak to know what was happening, let alone pick myself off the floor.

Luckily I had my cell phone with me.

The doggy day care place was about to close. My puppy needed to be picked up. And I was in no condition to drive.

I knew the only option I had was to ask for help. I called my neighbor, a new acquaintance, in a moment of complete vulnerability and weakness.

I told her I didn’t know what was wrong with me (because honestly in that moment I didn’t know).

She came over, picked me off the floor, got me to bed, and made sure I had what I needed before she left.

She picked my dog up, got him home, fed, and taken care of.

She checked in on me multiple times (and make sure that I didn’t need the hospital and to let the dog out).

I was embarrassed to ask, to be seen in that condition, to be perceived as weak or incapable.

But if anyone else had been in that situation I’d be the first to rush in.

I’d be happy to provide assistance and give comfort – without judgment.

To truly be good at giving, we must also be good at receiving.

To know and recognize that we all have hard moments.

To be grateful for those in the military community who are willing to help perfect strangers… 

Willing to pick us up in our most painful and weakest moments…

Knowing full well that they might need the same kindness in the future.

I will always be grateful to my neighbor, and now one of my closest friends.

She answered my call and graciously offered more help than I requested.

I now know there’s no shame in asking and receiving help, because giving is one of the very best experiences we can have.

If I fail to ask for help when I truly need it then I rob someone from being able to give with an open heart. 

Grateful for the Challenges

Now I’d even say that I’m grateful for our military life because of who I have become because of it.

I welcome each new move, each new deployment and all the uncertainty in between…

Because I know that these are the circumstances that help me grow mental excellence.

It’s not the circumstances that are the problem.

It’s my thoughts and beliefs about them, which create my emotional experience.

Now I know to check my thoughts about my circumstances.

Because that is what helps me surrender…

To accept what is…

To ask for help…

And choose how I want to feel. 

Being a military spouse isn’t easy, but I know I’m up for the challenge now.

  The post The Top Mindset Lessons I Learned as a Military Spouse appeared first on life coaching for mental excellence, mindset, accountability .

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