The Perfectionism Trap (And How to Escape It)

Transcription

Do you ever feel like everything has to be perfect before you get it out to the world, that it’s never quite good enough?

Well, if so, we’re going to talk about that in this episode. I’m going to give you a couple insights to help you go from being a perfectionist to being somebody who seeks excellence and just gets stuff out there to really serve people and obviously serve yourself as well.

 

The perfectionism trap and why it stalls the progress of your business and clients

Let’s talk about the perfectionism trap.  Based on our client feedback, that that’s one of the biggest areas that’s holding people back. It’s really stalling their progress because they’re trying to get everything perfect. They’re trying to get their messaging perfect. They’re trying to get their websites perfect. They’re trying to get all this nonsense that they’re doing perfect, and at the end of the day, here’s the realization…

the more time you spend trying to get things perfect, the more time the people you’re trying to serve are suffering without your help.

That’s one thing I really want you to remember is that the longer it takes you to get something out there, the longer your potential clients are suffering without your help.

 

Working on your internal program; how we change during our journey

Why do we feel we need to be perfect? Well, if you think about it, it all stems back down to what’s going on inside of us, like with everything. Everything is all but between the ears. I mean, if you haven’t gotten this yet, it’s so important.

The reason we become obsessed with perfectionism is because nothing is ever good enough because inherently, we don’t feel good enough. That’s where perfectionism stems from. We don’t feel good enough about ourselves; therefore, if we put something out there that’s not 100% perfect, what might other people think, and if they don’t approve of us, then that’s something which you solidify our own belief that we’re not good enough, so we do whatever we can. We iron out all the details, cross the Ts, dot the Is to make sure that every single possible thing is perfect, it’s shiny, it’s polished, and there’s no cracks, there’s no way that anyone can see any problems with our programs or with our service or anything else.

The first thing to remember is that, like with many things, it’s not about making your program better, it’s about making your internal program better, which means going to work on yourself and understanding that you are good enough just as you are, and you really have to believe that.

Here’s a spiritual lesson for you.  You can only handle what you can handle. You only get what you can handle. What that means is that everything you have and who you are now is perfect because it has to be, but if you want bigger things in the future, who you are now is not good enough to get to that next level.

Now, don’t confuse that with not being good enough as a person. That’s where we’re constantly growing and so forth to meet up with our higher self, our better version of ourself, but in this moment, you’re perfect how you are, who you are, where you are because you have to be. That’s just the way it is. You couldn’t be anything less.

 

Getting things out there and improving upon them as you grow and evolve

If you’re working on something, if you’re putting out a program, if you’re putting out a coaching program or a product, what you are working on now can only be perfect based on who and where you are right now in your journey. What a lot of people do, and I’ll just include my wife in this, is that she’s working on a book, she’s an amazing writer, she has some amazing insights to help people, but she’s been working on this book for almost a year and a half. Why? I’m not sure. I don’t push her. I don’t coach her. If you have a spouse, it’s very tough to do that kind of stuff. You might resonate with that, but my feeling, based on what I’ve seen and what we’ve spoken about is that it’s never complete for her. It’s not perfect based on what she wants it to be, but the thing is that the book that she started writing a year and a half ago is no longer the same book as it is now because she’s a different person.

What, in my case, in my mind, should’ve happen is that she should’ve written a shorter book a year and a half ago, got it out there, help some people, and then as she evolved, she writes another book based on where she is in her journey now. That’s really, really important to remember is that you have to get out the minimum viable product, MVP, as they say in Silicon Valley, and yet improve it with market feedback or improve it as you evolve and learn more things.

That is the key because, again, this is, again, I’ll use my wife, Amy, as an example who has a year and a half now of this amazing knowledge sitting on her computer. Meanwhile, hundreds or potentially thousands of people that she could be helping are not being served because she’s trying to get everything perfect, she’s trying to get all of her ducks in a row. Please don’t share this with her. I speak very highly of her, but sometimes, I gotta call BS where I see BS, right?

Let me give you an example from our Health Business Accelerator Workshop. I started doing workshops even before I started Healthpreneur. I was doing my closed private behind-closed-doors masterminds almost, I believe the first one was almost six years ago. We started Healthpreneur two and a half years ago as of this recording, so I was doing workshops behind closed doors even before I started this. Over time, I was just kind of, initially, I just brought people together, and I was sharing some stuff that I was working in our business. I would do one or two of those a year. Then eventually, people are like, “Hey, why don’t you do something more formal with this?” and I was like, “Hey, you know what, maybe I’ll do that.”

Anyways, eventually, we started doing content, mastery workshops, teaching people our content marketing strategies. Then I realized, “You know what? This isn’t the best way to serve people. It’s taking them forever to see any kind of result with this, plus I don’t really believe it’s the best way for most people to build a business. It’s going to take them forever,” so then we kind of evolved into looking, “What are we with Healthpreneur, how are we building Healthpreneur, and let’s teach that,” and that’s kind of how our Health Business Accelerator Workshop morphed into what it is today.

But when we first started doing it, it was two-day, actually, most of the workshops that I’d done previously were two-day live workshops. It is kind of like, “All right, thanks for coming out. All the best,” and then I realized, “Well, if we really want to help our clients get results, how can we better serve them?” Now, when people engage in our workshops, they’re in it for life. Whether they come to two-day live, whether they do the online six module version of it, they get access to our coaching for as long as they need until they hit specific results, and then they can move to the next level.

The reason we did that is not out of the gates. I didn’t have that in my mind. It’s we just saw over time that the best way to serve people based on the feedback we were getting and seeing where people were stuck was just to continually coach them and give them specific deadlines and hold them accountable to achieving certain milestones.

We’ve always improved, like the workshop is always evolving. We’ve brought on coaches, we’ve brought in better ways of delivering it, and this has morphed over time, so the workshop we started with when we started at day zero, even though the content is kind of the same, we added in a couple tweaks here and there, the way it’s been delivered has evolved and improved based on market feedback. We put out our minimum viable product because we knew that that was good enough to help a lot of people, and we just said, “Listen, let’s see where people get stuck, what they like, what can be improved,” and we just made it better and better and better, and that’s a really cool place to be.

 

You are good enough and are exactly where you’re supposed to be

Here’s another way to think about this, is that the perfect anything does not exist: the perfect car, the perfect computer, the perfect workshop, the perfect hairstyle, the perfect gel, the perfect whatever it is, it doesn’t exist, and we can never get there. It’s almost like the pursuit of infinity. You can never reach the horizon. You can never reach infinity. What we’re doing as humans is we’re constantly evolving and improving and getting better. We can’t strive for perfection. I mean, we can strive for perfection, but that’s kind of like going towards the horizon. I like think, striving for excellence. How do we make things better, how do we make them more excellent, and constantly having that mindset of “what do we have to do to make things a little bit better every single day or every single week or every single time we deploy this?”

That’s something I really want you to think about because if you’re waiting for all of your ducks to be in a row, it’s just not going to happen. You’re never going to have all your ducks in a row. It’s not like when you hit a certain level of success, all of your problems go away. You get more problems. You get bigger problems. You just have to be a bigger version of yourself to be able to handle them, so just get it done, and get it out. Get it done, and get it out. Even if it’s 80% of where you want to be, it’s going to be good enough to help people get a result.

If it’s not, I’m not saying put crap out there, I’m not saying turn a Word Doc into a simple PDF and put it out to the world. I think those days are long gone. I’m assuming what you have to offer is high quality stuff. Remember that you don’t have to be this guru the top of the mountain. You just have to be a few steps ahead of the people you want to serve because if you think you have to get certifications and degrees and have all this experience and years of testimonials, you don’t have to. Even if it’s just worked for you, if your program, if you’re, the way you help people, even if that’s just worked for you, and you’re starting to look just to attract your first couple of clients, you don’t need tons of social proof because you are the social proof. You are good enough.

The right people will resonate with that, and you can get this in their hands, you can walk them through this process, and you can help them. In the process, you’re going to figure out what can be better, what can be changed, and that is how you improve upon what you’ve put out. Does that make sense?

That is how we overcome the perfectionism trap. We forget about trying to be perfect because it doesn’t exist. We focus on, first and foremost, ourselves and really understanding that we are good enough, you are good enough just as you are because where you are right now is exactly where you need to be in your journey, and tomorrow, you’ll be a bit better, and the next day will be a bit better, and then all you have to do is based on what you know, based on who you are now is put out what you can to serve the people you want to serve, and with their feedback, make it better over time. That’s the key. Do not let perfectionism hold you back from serving people and helping them because it’s a disservice to them. It really, really is, and it’s a disservice to you because think about all the money you could be making, all the people you’d be transforming. That’s not happening if you’re sitting on this and you’re waiting for it to be perfect.

That’s today’s message, perfectionism sucks. It’s not worth it. Don’t play the game.

If you need help with your business and crafting a good offer, really helping people at a high level, and getting out of that perfectionism trap, then, again, I’d strongly recommend you attend our free training, the 7-Figure Health Business Blueprint. If you like what you see, you could also book a call with us, and we could really help you a lot more specifically there.

What I’d like you to do right now is head on over to healthpreneurgroup.com/training.

Watch the training now if you haven’t already. Take notes, get some light bulb moments, and then book a call with us if it makes sense. Sound good?

All right, so thank you so much for joining me once again for another solo round. I will see you on Wednesday. We’ve got some really cool interviews coming up this week. Until then, continue to go out there, be great, do great, and I’ll see you soon.