There’s a certain B word that you can say in front of kids, nuns, and on TV but makes perfectionists and people pleasers run screaming. What is this panic-inducing B word, you ask?
Boundaries. 😱
Uncertainty, unpredictability, ambiguity, doubt… More than the goriest horror movie, these gray area situations can strike fear in heart of many a recovering perfectionist. 😱 As perfectionists, we tend to gravitate toward structure and rules as a way to keep ourselves “safe,” and our preference for certainty can suck us deep into the trap of black and white thinking.
Perfectionism clearly gets a bad rap around here at Middle Finger to Perfection, and we tend to talk a lot about the struggles and downsides of perfectionism, people pleasing, and worthiness seeking, but are there good things about being a perfectionist? Today, Ashley and I shine some light on the positive side effects and hidden benefits of perfectionism. Welcome to the perfectionist hype hour! 🙌
Are confidence and humility mutually exclusive, or can they coexist peacefully? For many of us recovering perfectionists and people pleasers, humble is our default setting, maybe even too humble. What happens, though, when we start to notice the subtle and not-so-subtle downsides to making ourselves smaller and less important? How can we start to build confidence and -- gasp! -- maybe even step into some swagger? Turn your 🎧 up to find out.
It’s probably not news to you that one of our favorite mantras around here is imperfect and enough. So, it’s probably also not surprising that we love the quote, “Perfect is the enemy of good.” Today’s guest, Sarah Von Bargen, is all about saying yes to doing things imperfectly and letting that be good enough. Through her wildly popular blog, Yes and Yes, she spreads the word that things don’t have to be perfect, they just have to be something.
As recovering perfectionists, we’re so easily tempted by endless dreaming and scheming only to come up with every excuse not to take action.
‘My dream is too big. It’ll take too much time, too much work, too much money. I have no idea how to make it happen, and look at all the other people out there who are already doing it better than I ever could.’
No matter how much our rational brain knows that “perfect” relationships are a mythical unicorn (i.e., they don’t exist 🦄😭), our perfectionist brain inevitably tries to convince us that if we work really hard and do allllllll the right things, we’ll be able to ride that unicorn off into the sunset. But relationships are tough enough. We certainly don’t need toxic perfectionism creeping in and eating away at them.
Failure is such a freaking loaded term, and so many of us recovering perfectionists live in fear of it, desperately trying to avoid it at all costs. But in running from failure, we rob ourselves of so much goodness + joy along the way. Does failure really have to be such a bad thing? Is there a way for us to stop demonizing it...and maybe even start to embrace it? 😱 In this mini episode, we explore the concept of reframing failure (and success) and learning to see it as information, feedback, and maybe even a good thing.
With all the goodness of summer in full swing comes the familiar frenetic energy around bikinis and “beach bodies.” I’m sorry, what?? Ashley + I are so over all of this bikini body BS. It really brings down our summer vibes and completely conflicts with one of our favorite life mottos: Have body, wear bikini (or whatever the eff else you want).
As recovering perfectionists, we’re all too familiar with the other P, procrastination. We often think of procrastination as a bad thing and a major impediment to productivity, but is there such a thing as “healthy procrastination”? In today’s mini episode, we’re talking all about procrastination -- what it is, why we do it, and how it gets in the way of feeling good + getting what we really want in life.
Have you ever felt like you were the only one who didn’t have their sh*t together, or like a complete fraud about the life you were living? Hands raised. If you’ve ever felt like your work isn’t good enough, or doubted your ability to succeed, or felt like you needed to “be someone else” in order to please the people around you, this episode is for you. In today’s episode Naomi Alon walks us through the steps to overcoming Imposter Syndrome so you can show up as yourself and live the life you were meant to live.
You know those moments when you just feel... So. Freaking. Stuck. Frozen by fear of failure and paralyzed by self-doubt. We’ve all been there, and in today’s mini episode, Ashley + I are sharing our most recent stuck stories plus our favorite strategies for getting unstuck even when moving forward feels impossible.
Do you often find yourself living for the weekend and counting down to your next vacation? Does every week inevitably start with the Sunday Scaries followed by the worst case of the Mondays ever? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you probably know that is no way to live. So, let me ask you one other little (HUGE) question: What if you were able to create a life you don’t need a vacation from? A life where vacations are a bonus, not an escape or a necessity in order to function.
Are you and your to do list in a relationship that could best be described as, “It’s complicated?” Or perhaps you’re in a serious LTR…? As recovering perfectionists, it’s so easy for us to fall into the trap of equating our worthiness with how much stuff we can get done in a day. I mean, what could be more rewarding than checking tasks off our lists, right??
Being ourselves can be hard enough in real life, so what hope do we have of pulling off a concept as loaded as authenticity online? In a space where we’re able to construct every aspect of ourselves, how do we resist the pull to smooth out the rough edges, blur the blemishes, and try to look perfect?
Whether revealing a life-long dream to a loved one, launching an important project, or putting yourself out there on social media, sharing ourselves and our work with the world in an authentic (read: imperfect) way can be one of the pants-crappingly scary challenges we face in this life. In this episode, we talk with Kelly Elizabeth Scott, fitness trainer, transformational coach, and eating disorder + autoimmune disease warrior, about how she stepped out of the shadows of perfectionism to create her dream life, business, and passion project, The Wellness Boulevard.