Break the Cycle of Perfectionism

Step into a transformative conversation that connects the dots between perfectionism and procrastination. While many of us strive for perfection, we often find that the very standards we set can lead to delays and avoidance. In today's lighthearted discussion, Michele points out how perfectionism and procrastination are linked in a vicious cycle, and then she offers two simple strategies to break that cycle.

Chapters

• 0:26 Good morning!
• 0:45 Happy birthday to Connie!
• 1:08 Text from Cheryl in Wisconsin
• 3:03 How perfectionism and procrastination are linked
• 6:15 Two easy ways to break the cycle

Transcript

Michele: 0:00

Good morning, it's Wednesday, March 5th and this is Rise and Reign. Welcome to the Rise and Reign podcast, your five minutes a day, five days a week, burst of morning inspiration. Join me, Michele Kus, every Monday through Friday as I bring you a piping hot, fresh-baked daily Kus word. Yeah, see what I did there, good morning. Or if you're my friend, Carmen, who told me the other day that she caught the show at 10 pm at night, good night. Instead of Rise and Reign, Carmen is going to Rest and Reign, which also starts with R, so we're good. Rest and rain, which also starts with R, so we're good. And happy birthday to my sister-in-law, Connie, who I hope is not listening to this because she's off on the adventure of a lifetime visiting Ho Chi Minh City and hiking trails and not climbing into tiny tunnels that have spikes in them. And yes, Connie, that is a good life choice. Thank you, we want you home in one piece. Also, I want to give a thanks to Cheryl from Neenah Wisconsin for texting in, so she sent this really cool text. It said wow, I have never correlated procrastination with perfectionism.

Michele: 1:24

You unlocked something for me, thank you. I have always beat myself up with the words lazy or sloth, talk about a double whammy. I'm neither of those things. Yet my procrastination was a glaring example to me that I must be those things, that I must be those things Smiling emoji with sweat drop. I so appreciate this word. Knowing procrastination is linked to my perfectionist tendencies has brought me so much joy because I know how to deal with those. Awesome yes, Cheryl, that has been such a helpful connection. When I first learned that too, I'm so glad that that little insight unlocked something in you, because, girl, we need you fully unlocked in this world, right? And isn't it so funny how we can call ourselves these words like she was beating herself up with the words lazy and sloth. We can be so hard on ourselves and take on these words almost as an identity, and once we start doing that, it gets really hard to shake that. So I have great news for you you are not lazy, you are not a sloth and you're not a perfectionist Not anymore, because one of the things I want to do on this podcast is get your words that you're speaking over yourself aligned with heaven, and if heaven's not saying that about you, then you're not saying that about you either.

Michele: 3:02

So I want to dive into this link a little bit deeper that Cheryl hit on this link between perfectionism and procrastination because they are often feeding into each other in this kind of vicious cycle that can be sometimes hard to break if that has become a habit in your life. So perfectionism sets these impossibly high standards and it can make tasks feel overwhelming because of the high standards, or it can make the task even feel paralyzing. So when you feel like you're not able to meet those standards, then procrastination is a way out. Right. It just becomes a way to avoid the potential failure that is inevitable, or the feelings of inadequacy that are inevitable when you don't meet the high standard. That's kind of how those two things are linked, and so here's how it works.

Michele: 4:08

You might have, like, a fear of failure, so perfectionists might delay starting a task because they fear they won't do it just right. I mean, the pressure that we put on ourselves to achieve flawless results can make even starting feel way too risky, right? So we don't even start, like this podcast. It took me so long to even start the podcast. I talked about doing a podcast for probably three years before I actually started, because I was so afraid that it was going to be overwhelming and I was going to fail and look like a fool. So it took me forever to start.

Michele: 4:53

And then there's this overwhelm and anxiety. So the thought, just the mere thought, of producing perfect work. You see how I'm not even editing this, guys? I have really overcome a lot of perfectionism. It can be so daunting that it leads to this mental exhaustion that can kick in before you even start the task.

Michele: 5:17

Procrastination can provide this temporary relief, like the psychological relief from this pressure, but it's kind of a false relief and it's short-lived, because you have that looming deadline or that unfinished task in the background that's creating this kind of underlying low-grade stress in your brain. And then you have this last-minute rush, with sometimes some self-criticism baked in, that eventually the task has to get done. So you do it in a frantic rush. The result might not meet your perfectionistic standards, and so that's where the self-criticism can come in. So you feel like you failed or you didn't quite meet up to it, and so that kind of feeds back into the perfectionistic mindset. So it's this vicious cycle.

Michele: 6:15

So I'm going to give you a couple things you can do right now, super easy, to help break the cycle, and the first one is you can set what I call good enough goals. I'm telling you no two words in the English language that have set me free more than the words good enough. Instead of aiming for perfection, set a goal to complete a task in a way that it's good enough. I'm going to write a rough draft. I'm going to clean my closet. I'm going to whatever it is, it'll be good enough, right.

Michele: 6:51

Cleaning the house is a big one, because you can clean and clean and it'll be spotless. But guess what? That sucker's getting dirty again. So just go for good enough, right. The other thing that you can do is use the five-minute rule and commit to just working on the task for five minutes and no more. Just set the timer, work on the task and once it hits five minutes, you're done.

Michele: 7:16

Go do something else. This is really helpful for kids, who have maybe a little bit of a chaotic bedroom, but they feel overwhelmed at the thought of cleaning the whole thing. Just have them set a timer five minutes. Whatever you can clean, throw away, declutter, whatever, do it for five minutes. When the timer goes off, you're done, okay. So there you go. Good enough, five-minute rule. Two quick things you can do today to hopefully help break the cycle of perfectionism. All right, that's what I got for you today. I hope you enjoyed today's Good Enough episode and if you did enjoy it, share it with a friend and you can send me a text message. You can send it right from your phone Just click the link in the show notes that says Text Michele, and send me your ideas on how you have overcome that perfectionism procrastination cycle. I would love to hear it. Thanks for joining me today on this good enough episode. Have an awesome day and I will see you again tomorrow.