Latest / The Wellness Esquire Podcast: Happy, Healthy, Successful Lawyers / Perfectionism Isn't a Flaw: Why I Stopped Being a "Recovering Perfectionist" | with Ariella Cohen Coleman

Transcript

Perfectionism Isn't a Flaw: Why I Stopped Being a "Recovering Perfectionist" | with Ariella Cohen Coleman · The Wellness Esquire Podcast: Happy, Healthy, Successful Lawyers

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I spent most of my life as uh a maladaptive perfectionist.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I just couldn't be the one in control of like pressing the final buttons.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: We are not good.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: But oh my god, is it fun?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Being a perfectionist and striving for like insane heights is just who I am.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it's nothing to apologize for.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello, and welcome to the Wellness Esquire podcast, where we are happy, healthy, and successful.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: It has been blowing my mind to get messages from so many of you who are saying that you're binging the Wellness Esquire podcast.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it blows my mind in a way that I'm sure many of you can relate to.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: It blows my mind because of the perfectionism or the perfectionist in me.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the main topic that I want to talk about today, perfectionism.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'd love to know if there's any lawyer on the planet that does not have a relationship of sort of subsort with perfectionism.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: I spent most of my life as uh a maladaptive perfectionist, which is a term that I am relatively new to and I learned from my all-time favorite book called The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And for those of you uh tuning in, I'm holding it up, and you can see that I have tabbed the hell out of it.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: And one day I've got to get the author, uh Catherine Morgan Schaefler, Schapler, um, on the podcast.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: When I was reading this book for the first time, I discovered that it wasn't really the best book for me to read at night in order to go to sleep because it really wound me up.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: My husband would note that I really involved him very much in reading the book because I would just suddenly start to exclaim some particular sentence or paragraph or three pages at a time that just really spoke to me.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've never felt more like an author was just like in my soul.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so, anyways, I'll I'll probably spend a lot more time talking about the book.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: But uh I mentioned maladaptive perfectionists, which is a term that I've found to really get a lot of value in understanding and also in understanding that the inverse of that is an adaptive perfectionist, a maladaptive perfectionist, which um is I think how so many of us spend our lives in that state, is that's the version of perfectionism where we just think that we are the absolute biggest moron for making any mistake and being imperfect in in even the tiniest ways.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, I I had, you know, of course, like I'm sure so many of us, most of us, um, all of us, just the highest expectations, still do.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: But with the maladaptive approach, I would just beat myself up for every tiny little thing, even if someone else wouldn't even notice it as an error.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, it wasn't reaching the level that I wanted to or that I knew I could.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, if something actually was a mistake, I just I was so mortified by it that I couldn't even face it.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can't face it, you can't learn from it.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that's, and it's crazy that I to think kind of how far I was able to get in that state, and how many of us I think do, because we learn from mistakes, and yet we're often so afraid of making mistakes and so embarrassed that we can't allow ourselves to see them and learn from them.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: So learning that term malu, maladaptive perfectionism, and then learning about adaptive perfectionism perfectionism, which is more aligned with a growth mindset and understanding that, yeah, we're reaching for the stars, and we're gonna learn from everything that we go through.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the little mistakes here and there, and even the big ones, they're okay.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: They don't identify, that's not the core of who we are.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: We are not a mistake.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: We still have value to offer even when we do make real mistakes, and that that's all okay, and that's not the core of our identity.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so bringing this back to the podcast and how much it blows my mind when I hear people saying that they binge the podcast.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I have very high expectations for the podcast.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have plans to revolutionize the legal industry.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I I now use that term revolutionize because Whitney Harper said it.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um Whitney Harper is at Advos Legal and Advust Pro, and I I love her.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I it just it keeps sticking out in my mind that that's what she said.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's true.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I am amongst this great group of lawyers and other thought leaders who are just like, no, we're done.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're done having the legal industry operate by, you know, just not recognizing our individuality and our authenticity and beating us into the ground and uh creating these rules and dynamics that just don't create environments for us to truly thrive for ourselves and for our families and our clients and um and just to live the way we really want to.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we we're we're changing the world, we're changing the industry.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the podcast is a big part of that.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have this um vision and expectation of the podcast being playing a really core role in developing our massive community of lawyers and others who share the views that we do around how we want our practices to thrive and for us to all come together with with um those shared uh views and I I have these huge expectations for the podcast, and I I feel like I've only just started and and I in certain ways still feel like I don't really know what I'm doing.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: So much of it is just figuring it out, and I uh, you know, still I I still feel like because it's true, like I'm figuring out how to market this thing.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So the every time that someone like that I don't know finds me randomly and says, like, I found your podcast, I'm like, you did?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the first time somebody uh found me through, or at least told me they had found me through Substack, and I was like, So that's working.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Substack is working, people are really finding me on there.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: And someone found me on uh, you know, when they the first person who told me they found the podcast through Instagram, and I'm like, it's working because I'm barely on Instagram, I'm trying to figure it out.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I've been much more on LinkedIn the last couple of years, so I it's not surprising to me when people find me and find the podcast through LinkedIn, because that that has been where I've been spending more time.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and yet even when I get messages on LinkedIn with people saying, you know, I found your podcast, and man, this is what I wish had existed when I was, you know, you name it, going through law school at the beginning of my career, going through a rough transition, like dealing with something with my health, um, you know, realizing that I hated what I did and I didn't know how to figure out what else to do.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And each time I get those messages, I'm like, okay, great.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm reaching the people.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: People are finding it.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's resonating.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Woohoo! And um, and even with all the work that I've done with my perfectionism and my relationship with perfectionism, because I'm I still have this, like, you know, I'm I'm figuring it out, like, oh, but I I want to reach millions, and I'm only just starting to really develop like the marketing plan and the clawed skills to be able to uh, you know, figure out how to do all of that without and have it feel like me, um, but still like have some tech help to make it actually happen because uh most of what I do, it's just me.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And there's I have a business that I have with my husband, I have a little bit of part-time help with some relatively small things, but most of what I do is me, and I'm I'm working on that because it has gotten to a point of being too much.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: But um so it's been an interesting thing for me to recognize that even when people are excited and thrilled about the podcast, this perfectionism perfectionism part of me like comes in and I'm like, oh my God, like so it's it's it's so far from where I want it to be because my my dream for it, my vision for it is so massive.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: But like that doesn't mean it's not working now.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: It just means it's at the beginning.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember when I was in my early phase of launch, actually, even before I was launching it.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is part of what led me to finally create the podcast, was I had to talk myself through understanding that, you know, any of the big podcasts that many of us listen to now, they didn't start out that way.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, they started out.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, some of course, maybe like had big budgets, and they started out with fancy producers from the start and you know, all sorts of things that I certainly do not have.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but so many of them started with just like a person and a laptop or a phone and maybe a microphone, and you know, and then it evolved into the thing.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I'm sure I'm not the only one who can relate to the feeling of like, you know, you see how good something is out there, you know, after it's they've it's been happening for years, and that's what we start to compare to.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I have to remind myself, all right, I just started and I'm doing a zillion other things.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so, anyways, this is also a way to say thank you to those of you who reach out and tell me that it's resonating with you, that that's the podcast, and that this whole the wellness esquire um vibe is resonating with you because that is, of course, the whole the point.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I love it's funny, I I have um I have this mixed experience of like loving to hear from people and also getting super overwhelmed by it.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And for those of you who have been following me for a while, you may have seen me talk about this.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Most of what I do is community-oriented and community building.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love and I love people.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a people person, and I love hearing from people, I love developing meaningful relationships, hate small talk.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I love hearing from people and connecting with people.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so hearing from you, I also get really overwhelmed by it because it's it can be a lot.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of messages is just a lot of messages.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I haven't figured out how to balance.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't really like that word, which I'll talk about, but I I don't really know how to process on the one hand, like wanting to tell all of you, like, hey, please send me all of the messages telling you like what you like, what you'd love to hear, what what you um you know want to hear more of, what what does resonate, what doesn't resonate, um, you know, business ideas, what you want the Wellness Esquire to turn into, and um how you would like to be involved.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the other side of me that's sort of like, hey, what if I could grow this thing to be massively impactful without anybody knowing who I am?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I recently saw someone post on Substack something delightful.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I wish I had saved it.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: The idea was like there's this one part of me that wants to be on the cover of Forbes, and there's this other part of me that wants to just like disappear to the mountains.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I've I really resonate with that.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: I really, really resonate with that.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I go back and forth all the time.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, it's not always back and forth, there's it's happening simultaneously in me at once.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: So um and you know, with this whole perfectionism challenge for a long time it really made starting new things hard because and sometimes it felt impossible, and sometimes it just didn't do it because I wasn't gonna be perfect immediately.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yikes, terabug.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the the the thing that started to really shift for me, um, and everything has so much more story around it, but one part of the nutshell of this story is when I the early phases of the Walness Esquire, I remember just talking so much about this with my husband and what I wanted to build.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember it really resonating with me what he would talk about with tech, because he's in tech.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he would talk about like a lot of product development is just throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that felt so nerve-wracking to me.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just the idea of like trying things, and some of it might fail, and some of it might be terrible, and you just won't know.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you just try and see.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, but I started doing it, and now it's what I spend really quite a substantial amount of my time doing because I now have multiple businesses, including my law firm, and of course, including the Wellness Esquire.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And oh my God, I love it.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's made me, not I think, it has for sure made me a better attorney as well, just being able to start things and have things not be perfect and just move stuff forward because I used to get so stuck with well, it's not perfect, so I can't, you know, I can't send it to whoever I need to send it to.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can't call this done because it's not perfect, whatever you know, perfect even means.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the combination of developing this startup mentality of like everything's is another thing I got have gotten from my husband is understanding startups as a lab.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Everything's a laboratory.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're working in a laboratory, you're experimenting, you're again throwing spaghetti spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And not everything's gonna stick.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean like you have a colossal failure.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: That means you learn something and you adjust.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I've gotten so much more comfortable with that, and that's gone along uh with my whole perfectionism journey.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I would not be nearly as happy and content and feel the success that I have now had I not started down these journeys around um just being able to try stuff even before I have any sense of what it's gonna look like and to not worry about perfectionism and having a plan.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, with the Wellness Esquire, I have I actually I have good frameworks around what I want, but I also allow things to evolve that just feel right.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I I start things before I really feel like I have a plan.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, with the podcast, for a while, I envisioned that I would have this perfect rollout plan for the first episode and like announce it very, I don't know, professionally, whatever that means.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd have like a very like thoughtful, pretty social media marketing hullabaloo.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I did not do that.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't care.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just don't, and I, you know, at the beginning, I felt a little I realized at some point that like if I didn't just get it out, it was never gonna get out.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I hired a friend of mine um to just help me get the podcast out because I was so afraid of the imperfection of it, of like, I am not a perfect communicator and I'm learning how to do this.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, what do you just how to do all of the things, which you know, all of which I'm still learning.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I specifically hired a friend of mine to basically just facilitate getting it out.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I left it up to me, it just wouldn't have happened.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was recording the episodes um and I had banged like a couple of dozen.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: I just needed, I just couldn't be the one in control of like pressing the final buttons because my perfectionism, I knew it was gonna hold me back because I was it was too new at that point.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I also knew like the lever that I needed to to um press to get me where I wanted to go.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And now I've taken back um a whole lot of, I mean, really all of the control around the podcast.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I it's not that I'm like I'm I've I've I've become comfortable with the discomfort of putting things out there where I don't think I'm always that smooth.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, there's something that I for sure could have done said differently, said better, said you know, more clearly with the thumbnails and the clips and whatever could have looked like all of that can always be better.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: But um I've just gotten so good at being like it's good enough, and it's just got to get out the door.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and I take those lessons and apply them to everything that I do, and um and it's just made me better at everything that I do.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I have also been really surprised about myself and that I experienced from my first uh solo episode was how much fun I had doing it, even though I knew it wasn't like the smoothest, most perfect episode.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what was interesting to me about it, well, here's how it went.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it felt super nerve-wracking to do.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: I had been, I've always planned to do solo episodes and just kept putting them off because there's so many amazing people to talk to.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so it just felt easier and also more fun in a way, um, to just do the episodes with guests because there's so many amazing people to talk to, and I want to get their voices out.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And also sometimes I forget that I also have my own value to offer and that people are interested in hearing from me, but I want to hear from other people.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: I want to share their thoughts and give them a platform.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it just felt nerve-wracking, you know, just the highlight on me figuring out how to do solo episodes, figuring out what's my vibe for doing that, how do I talk to an audience?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you, like, what's my communication style when I'm, you know, talking just to a camera, but I know that I'm talking to you, and how do I start doing that in a way that feels authentic?
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so it just felt nerve-wracking.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I was kind of allowing myself to delay it because I had this great reason of like, oh, there's plenty of people to talk to.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I I did that first episode, and it was a little nerve-wracking and um was also still coming off of like having been tired, which and and recovering, I was done being sick, but still kind of getting myself together.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I talk about that on that first episode.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and now I'm sitting out here in the dark because it's nice outside, and I just texted my husband for him to try to find the light switches out here for lights.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and because we're in gorgeous Costa Rican, I don't want to sit inside even though outside is very much inside.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Outside lights?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Outside lights.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's better, I think.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: So what was interest interesting about that solo episode, that first solo episode, was I felt ner it was nerve-wracking at the beginning and and leading up to actually doing it.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: While I was going, I was a little bit nervous and like got a little bit lost.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then for the first probably hour or so afterwards, I was like, that was fun.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: That felt great.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I got this, I can do this.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then afterwards, I was so aware of all of the ways that I wish I had done something differently.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that I said that like maybe wasn't super clear or could have been taken out of context or that come with someone else, someone could be like, that was weird, she's strange.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and just you know, was was really just thinking about like all the ways that I could have done better, all the things that I had thought about saying and didn't or meant to say in a certain way and didn't, and you know, going through that whole list and processing through like that's okay.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're, you know, we're we're we're doing things that aren't imperfect, and that's also part of the point of the podcast.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: So like put it out and be comfortably uncomfortable.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and then what I was thinking about was surfing.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: So my husband and I started learning how to surf this past year, and we are not good, but oh my god, is it fun?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's I think it's the first thing I've ever done that I'm just objectively not good at because and like I've you know barely even tried.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm not, I'm, I'm not good at it.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I've had so much fun doing it.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And learning to surf and having the best time being not good was a mind-blowing experience to learn that like you can be, you can enjoy doing something and not be good at it.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that that was a thing.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And doing this, uh, doing my first solo episode and realizing that I'm not amazing at it yet.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And certainly not, you know, my first one.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: And yet I had fun with it.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's something that I want to learn how to do more of, to enjoy doing things that I'm not good at.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I still want to be good at things, but I don't want to not do things and not and be unable to enjoy things just because I'm not excellent.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think I've also like shifted away from needing to just think about it all so differently now in general.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like so much of what I've spent the last couple of years doing with building my businesses, like I've had no, I just jump in and start doing things and have been having a blast.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so just I I've become much more comfortable and been able to have fun, like learning and and learning how to even make mistakes smoothly and recover from them smoothly and then like and quickly, like just recover learn and recover fast and move on.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually kind of a fun skill.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: So because I'm talking a whole bunch about perfectionism on this episode, um and I'll I'll just share with everybody again what all the tabs on this book.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I wanted to just pick out one or two of my favorite um quotes in The Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control because they're so my god, they're so meaningful to me.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And they they really shifted so much about how I thought about myself.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And before I've gone through phases of my relationship with perfectionism.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: As I mentioned, most of my life was spent as a maladaptive perfectionist.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have that language for it, but that's certainly where I spent, you know, decades.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then I shifted into my recovering perfectionist phase.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was I was in that phase for a couple years.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what that did for me was it it it came out of um or was in the same kind of time period as being in my self-compassion phase, which stemmed from my husband pointing out to me that I was like the most compassionate, empathetic person to everyone else uh under the sun and so mean to myself.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he had a point.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I uh spent a year focusing on self-compassion.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And every day I would write at the top of my paper planner self-compassion.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I that would be my reminder to self to, I mean, it started out with just being like not mean to myself, and then it was actively kind to myself, and my husband would certainly, even especially at the beginning, uh routinely say to me, Stop being so mean to my wife.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: That helped.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so the that that uh self-compassion phase is what led to the the uh recovering perfectionist phase.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was in that recovering perfectionist phase, a lot of my mindset in that time was really focused on striving for excellence and not being mean to myself when I didn't reach my expectations, and that was helpful.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that was a useful process for me at the time with the tools that I had.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: However, at some point I realized that the way that I was thinking about being a recovering perfectionist was actually dulling me.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt kind of I just like I felt like I didn't have my spark.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I now don't remember all of the kind of language I was using for myself in that recovering perfectionist phase, but there was something about it that uh just like the not like, oh yes, I'm striving for excellence, but and like I'm nice to myself when I don't like achieve everything I want to achieve.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was somehow like lowering the height that I wanted to reach.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I read The Perfectionist Guide to Losing Control, uh a path to power to peace and power, um, as I said, so much of it resonated.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this is this is one piece in particular that like really, really resonated.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Where she says, women operate under the assumption that once you achieve balance, you'll be ready to unleash your power into the world.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need balance to do that.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Balance is not a primer for being who you are.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: For most women, and damn sure for for perfectionists of every type, living authentically looks on the surface like the opposite of balance.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: The most fulfilled women I know are terrible at being balanced, and I mean it truly, iconically awful at it.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I just loved that.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that, you know, many of you who have uh followed me for a bit may have also heard me say that I don't believe in work-life balance, I believe in work-life integration.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Everything I I get so much thrill and excitement over the things that I want to achieve and the things that I do and the things that I'm building.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: This idea of balance to me feels inauthentic and also like there's needs to be a scale involved.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I integrate everything together with a focus on what I want my life to look like and I what I want to feel like myself.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then I build all the things that I want to do inside of that.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the things that I want to achieve, some I'm sure would would look at you know what I'm looking to do and think, that's crazy.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And uh to those people, I would say, well, then you don't have to try to do these things.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um what I love about this this approach to perfectionism is the recognition that you can strive for like for just like the insane heights and do it in a healthy uh way.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't mean it doesn't come with its challenges, it certainly does, but but it acknowledges what she acknowledges in this book that just resonates in such a deep way is perfectionism isn't a a flaw, it's it's part of who you are.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: But this idea of like recovering perfectionists makes it sound like you can un you can like remove that part of yourself.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And when I read this book and I replaced uh recovering perfectionist with adaptive perfectionist, um, and figured out which of the the different perfectionist styles that she talks about um aligned for me in different parts of my life.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Her approach aligns so much better for me because it acknowledges that being a perfectionist and striving for like insane heights is just who I am.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's nothing to apologize for, it's something to learn how to do in a healthy and sustainable and fulfilling way.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: And another uh bit that I love from this book is Catherine talks about the trick to effectively being uh having a healthy dose of perfectionism or having a healthy relationship with perfectionism, is she says that the trick is to figure out how to excel based on your values, not someone else's values.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's that's a really that's been a really key part for me of getting myself to the this place in my life and with my my businesses where I've arrived at this point.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's all based on me.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: I've I certainly I still sometimes get caught up in you know comparison and what are other people thinking and doing, but very rarely, and when I do, it's very brief.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've become so focused on who am I, what do I want, what feels good to me, what doesn't feel good to me, what does success for me feel like right now and in this phase of my life, and how do I achieve that?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm much quicker to recognizing when I'm starting to veer out of that, which again isn't even happening very often, but when it does, I'm able to catch myself quickly.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm I'm doing so much.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I do work a lot.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I I am assessing the amount of time and energy that I'm putting into that and what I need need and want to change about that.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a different challenge with um just thinking about how much to, you know, the idea of burnout when you love what you do, when you're inspired by it and when it's entirely your choice.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because you still can.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've I've heard people talk about like you can't burn out if you love what you do.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's false.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: I think you can you can run yourself into the ground doing anything.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you don't sleep, you're gonna fall apart.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't eat well, you're gonna fall apart.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't, you know, eat well and move your body, you're gonna fall apart, even if the work you do is stuff that you love.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, and that's that is actually my challenge, especially with the work-life integration, is I love to bring it all together.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so some of the things that I also incorporate with that in mind is like, what are the the exercises that I can do while I'm working?
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in other episodes, I'll I'll talk more about neuroperformance training, which I've mentioned a little bit on some of the episodes and I talk about on social media.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: In a nutshell, neuroperformance training completely changed my life.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it changed my life from a physical health standpoint.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's also something that I incorporate into, I mean, it's just part of my lifestyle now.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: And part of that is uh have these tools that enhance the way I'm able to show up and do my work and enhance the way I work and the amount that I work and the quality of my work and the stamina that I have and the focus that I have and um all that kind of stuff.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I, you know, will will do things and I'll set myself up in such a way with tools that allow me to best integrate my work with my life, um, and my life with my work.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and so much of where I've been able to get to with being so so satisfied and with my life and happy and healthy in ways that I really didn't know were possible, it stems in so many ways from improving my relationship with perfectionism and learning how to really be super focused on what's most important to me.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and being comfortable with embracing mistakes and learning from them.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and also learning, even I mentioned the neuroform performance training, learning nervous system tools to help me work through mistakes and challenges faster.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's so much more I could talk about about perfectionism.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I will end today with a community challenge and question for you, which is I want you to think about what is one thing that you have been wanting to do, but you've been scared because you haven't done it before, you don't know how to do it, maybe you don't know anyone who's done anything like it before, it seems totally wack-a-doodle for you to do because it's outside of your comfort zone.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: I I would never be where I am today if I didn't just start doing things that I didn't know how to do.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so much of what I want with the Wellness Esquire is to encourage all of us to really, really design the careers and the lives that really suit us as individuals in this current phase of life that we're in, and then to adjust as our lives evolve.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't we can't get there if we don't try new things.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want to challenge you to really sit with yourself and ask yourself, listen to your gut, and ask yourself, what is one hard thing?
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: What is one thing I've been scared to do that I am just gonna do?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're so inclined, let me know.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: Either shoot me an email at ariella at the wellnessesquire.com or find me on the various socials, and I will link all of the ways to find me in the show notes.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, please do all of that subscribing and following stuff.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is the the the the uh the promotion part that I now have to learn how to do.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Please do all of the following and the subscribing.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: I sort of paused because I realized like I'm not really on social media enough to know which things have the follow button and which things have a subscription button.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so I kind of froze because I realized that I don't know how to say it any better.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: But find the follow buttons and find the subscribe buttons and use them.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: And please, please share this podcast with all of the lawyers that you know, all of the law students, the law firm leaders, the law school leaders, the the coaches, all of the people who are part of our community.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and let's let's grow this thing.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for being on this journey with me.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I look forward to hearing from you all.