Burnout Breakthrough Week 4
[00:00:00] Hello my friends, and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited to have you Here we are in the process of. Going through my Burnout breakthrough accelerator that I originally put on for my students in the Quitter Club, my paid membership, I figured I would bring it to the podcast. If you are listening to this episode, then you have missed a couple.
You can go back and listen to those. But we will continue every week to play one of the classes that will teach you a pillar of, getting out of burnout, right? A skill that you need in order to take back your life and have a little bit more time and joy and control. We'll go through all six weeks and you don't have to master all of them, you don't have to know all of them, you don't have to apply all of them, but you can pick up one or two skills that will help alleviate a lot of the pressure that we all tend to put on ourselves.
So I hope you enjoy this. We're gonna jump in and continue with our burnout Breakthrough [00:01:00] Accelerator.
Hello my friends, and welcome to week four of the Burnout Breakthrough Accelerator. If you are just joining us for this week, hello. Actually, like all of, I should have set this from probably from the beginning. All of these, um, assignments, all of these exercises, all of these, like every week's focus is standalone.
You don't have to go through all of 'em. Like the way I. Came up with this course is like. I sort of took all of the things that I've ever taught and all the stuff that I had tried to teach to help people with burnout. And I really thought about like, if I had to break it down to the least number of steps to like the most impactful things, it would be these six things that I would want people to do that I think fundamentally could change how you live your life.
, And so I put them in the, not in an order 'cause nothing is linear in your life, but in a way that I think can kind of build on each other and that can help you. That said, you don't have to [00:02:00] do 'em all. If you do one of them, it will significantly improve your life. It's not that you have to be, it's funny, you don't have to be perfectionist about it, because that's what we're gonna talk about today.
So we're not gonna be perfection perfectionistic about getting outta burnout. So I, I don't want you to think like, if I, haven't done it, then what's the point? I don't need to be here. I don't need to listen to this. It's just start here and if you get the chance to go back, great. I do think that they're really helpful, uh, lessons.
And if you don't, just keep it moving, keep it pushing forward. Do this week, try to do next week's. Really you can do each one of them is just kind of a standalone lesson. So today what we're gonna talk about in order to get out of burnout, up until now, what we talked about was
getting rid of the insane to-do list, like the purge, getting realistic about what it is that you can actually do. Week two, we talked about impossible standards. Holding yourself to this standard that you can only feel good in your life if you meet this [00:03:00] ridiculous, insane level that none of us operate at.
And so we re kind of reimagined that. And then last week was around letting go of guilt, right? Letting go of the guilt that society puts on you for not being everything to everybody. And how to start kind of figuring, like finding that and releasing that. Today is gonna be about B minus work, and what I mean by that is learning to let go of perfectionism in the every day.
This is sort of a, a, a piggyback on impossible standards that we did in week two. Impossible standards is more of like a general umbrella in your life, right? It's something that you might apply to everything. It's this idea that you hold yourself to all the time, right? So it's like at work I have to.
You know, always get through my to-dos and always be on time and never need help and never make a mistake and never get any bad feedback and always be seen as the star employee, whatever. Like if that's my [00:04:00] standard I have to live up to, that's sort of affecting and coloring everything I do, everything I say yes to how I show up.
What we're gonna talk about today is more of like in an everyday task. When I'm doing that one report, when I have to do a presentation, when I'm doing something as meaningless as sending like a two sentence email, am I obsessed with making it perfect? Am I obsessed with it being. A hundred percent the best it could be.
Am I revising my email for 15 minutes to make sure it has the right tone and I don't offend anybody and I put the correct number of exclamation marks not to make sure I like, don't look mean, but I also am not crazy or you know, whatever. It's like we just ruminate over stuff that does not matter and we waste so much time and we waste so much energy.
And so what I like to call this concept is like the concept of B minus work. Now, typically what happens is like you start [00:05:00] something, you even an email, a project, whatever it is. And you want it to be perfect because you don't want to quote unquote fail. And what that means is you don't want a negative feeling, that's all you are chasing, okay?
I want us to understand this. Everything we are doing and not doing is to either avoid an emotion or to get an emotion, right? So it's like I either wanna feel at peace, I wanna feel calm, I wanna feel happy, or I don't wanna feel stressed, I don't wanna feel anxious. So I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do, or, you know, that, that kind of dictates what I do in my life.
And so a lot of times when we talk about this fear of failure or like when we're, when we obsess over getting something perfect, you don't consciously understand this or think about it, but what you're doing is like. If I work on this enough, if I tweak this enough, if I make it perfect, then nobody will be able to criticize it.
Nobody will be able to find holes. I won't make a mistake. Everybody will love it. You know, like, and I won't have [00:06:00] to feel whatever it is I'm worried about feeling embarrassed, shame, sad, stressed, anxious, you know, like, um, whatever the, those emotions are that you're trying to avoid. So then you obsess over it in order, like, I don't wanna feel those things.
And that is a defense mechanism that has worked in your life. It has made you successful. It has got you where you you're gonna be, and so it has worked except for that. Now you feel like crap all the time because you're being a perfectionist, right? You're stressed all the time. You're anxious all the time.
You're bored all the time. Whatever it is, like you're obsessing over these things that you have to do in the hopes that you avoid a negative feeling. Then you're creating a bunch of negative feelings right now for yourself. You overwork, you, overstress you over worry, and you cause all this burnout because of this identity of like, I'm this person that always gets it right.
I always put my best foot forward. I always give 110%. I blah, blah, blah, whatever. And so we have to change that [00:07:00] identity a little bit. Okay. And so one of the things I want you to understand before we go into just like how you're gonna do this, is that. We are terrible judges of our own performance, of our own competence.
This has been studied. This is not something that I'm just like telling you. They've done study after study where we constantly underestimate how well we're gonna do, especially women. So they've done studies where they will ask, you know, groups of female students and they'll ask them to rate how they think they're gonna do on a test.
And the women consistently rate themselves so far below where they actually perform. Okay. You all have experienced this. You've all, I know for certain this group of people have gone through like, oh, I know I failed that test. I bombed it, or I did so terrible on that interview. I failed the interview.
There's no way they're gonna call me back. Or my boss is probably so pissed at me like, I'm gonna get [00:08:00] a bad review. And then come to find out I got an A on the test. Oh, I got the job. Apparently the interview went fine, or my boss gave me great feedback. But we've all had that situation where it's like in your mind you're just like, Nope, that was terrible.
And so the reason I say this is because a lot of times when I've taught this concept, like people have a problem with this whole B minus thing, where it's like, I can't get myself to do bad work or like. And what I want you to is know. Is that like what it, obviously, it's made up like how do, would we even know what B minus work is?
Like? Nobody's grading us. There's nobody to tell us what the job, you know, like where we're on a grading system, but typically your B minus work is gonna be someone else's A like they're gonna look at it, you're gonna send that two minute email and be like, oh my God, I didn't read over it 20 times. What if it was bad and someone else is gonna like, just answer it and not think about it again.
Right. Or you're gonna think that it's not great and then you're gonna turn it in and your boss is gonna be totally happy with it. And so the, this is more [00:09:00] of just like, obviously a concept. It's not as though you're, you're gonna know that it's B minus. We're gonna talk about how you're gonna kind of like evaluate this because, you know, how do we know it's not a work?
We don't, but I think that for a lot of us, we've sort of, equated like the more time I spend on it, the more I tweak it, somehow it's better. And that's just not true. Oftentimes that first thing you were doing was just fine and maybe, maybe you took it. Like, what's funny is that like you might get to like 90% and.
You could have been done and you spend, you know, 50% more time, you double the amount of time you spend it. And then you took it from maybe even a 90 to like a 92. And it's like, was it worth that extra time to make it a little bit better? Or is your time better spent moving on to the next project, not thinking about this anymore, moving on to the thing, the other tasks that you have to do.
Okay. And so I want you to really think about this concept of like. I don't, I'm really, I've become my [00:10:00] own worst critic. I'm the harshest on myself. I'm constantly trying to make sure that what I'm doing is, beyond reproach and nobody can ever have a problem with, which, by the way, is just a failing plan.
'cause you can make it as perfect as you want and someone's not gonna like it, or someone's gonna find something, some fault with it, or somebody's gonna have an opinion about it. So like, it doesn't even work. It's not like it, you're like, oh, if I, you know, if, if all of you were burning yourselves out being perfect and everything in your life was perfect and everybody loved it, I'd say, okay, continue on.
But like that, we all know that's not how it works. So we're sort of gonna just change, like, Hey, I don't need it to be perfect, to feel okay, to feel this feeling that I want, like the feeling I'm after. If it's peace, right? It's just my thought. It's my thought that once I've worked on it enough, then I give myself the belief.
Okay. We did all we could do, right? Or that was good enough or it's gonna be okay. And then I feel a little bit of peace. I can think those thoughts at B minus, I don't have to like have this perfect [00:11:00] n ironclad, whatever it is. Like, just like I've worked on every detail, I've looked at every possible outcome to feel this, I can still think like, this is a good enough job.
I'm happy with this. And if I have to feel some negative emotion later, I would rather do that. I know I can handle that. I've handled negative emotions before. If I make a mistake or if, you know, I'm not saying like you have to kind of be willy-nilly and like not care at all about your work product, but like there is a possibility I'm a human and I miss something or someone doesn't like part of it.
I will deal with that. I will feel that stress, I'll feel that embarrassment and be okay. I felt all these other emotions before I can feel this. I'm not gonna preemptively feel it. I'm not gonna make my whole life stress in the off chance that at some point I might. Do something wrong. Okay? So that's the entire concept of this, of how you approach everything in your life.
Okay? And so what I want you to start looking at, the way I want you to go after this is that [00:12:00] it's like three steps, okay? The first step is you just have to start noticing when you are doing this. So the f, the first step is just awareness because for the most part, you won't catch it. You'll catch it afterwards.
Like you'll notice, oh my God, I spent two hours on an email that was supposed to take me 10 minutes. I spent two hours on this project that I had on my to-do list as like a 30 minute project. What was, why did I spend my whole day? Doing something I wasn't even supposed to work on today. Right? And that's okay.
It's okay to catch it afterwards. Like this is sort of becoming your default for so long. You're not gonna all of a sudden notice it everywhere and be able to catch it. We don't need to catch it all again. We don't need to be a perfectionist about this perfectionism. Okay? We're gonna keep kind of like looking for it.
And a couple of really good signs. I'm gonna give you a couple arrows that you can just follow. When you notice these, you're like, huh, I'm likely being a perfectionist here. Okay. Is like, if you keep. Revising something. If you've [00:13:00] read it a couple of times and you keep having to read over it over and over again or keep tweaking it, that's one telltale sign.
Another one that maybe we don't notice as much is if you're really stuck in confusion. If you're constantly confused of like, is this the right way? Is this not the right way? Should I start it? I don't know what the right way is. What's the first step? Oftentimes that's just like your perfectionist, kind of like wanting the perfect plan.
Like you don't wanna get started until you know the whole thing. Like you start like sort of obsessing because you wanna make sure everything is right. Like that's kind of a time to be like, okay, what if I just started and did B minus? What if it's not the perfect plan and that's okay, right? Like you can sort of help yourself get out over this.
Paralyzation that a lot of us feel is overwhelm when we're like, I don't know where to, you know, what's the right thing or whatever. That's usually perfectionism. So I want you to just catch it and if you catch it afterwards, that's fine. Just examine that. Like why? Because you're gonna start to look at like, where does this really flare up?
[00:14:00] For a lot of us, it's gonna come up in a lot of things, but it likely is gonna be in some things more than others. And you wanna just catch those signs like, okay, if I have to send this out to anybody outside of our organization, that's when I really like obsess over things. Or when it's. You know, things that has to do with my boss and my boss is gonna see, like, that's when I get really scared and that's when I'm like hyper kind of vigilant.
You, you're gonna just wanna look at some of your patterns of like, what am I spending the most time on? Things that don't really require that much time, that's burning me out. Okay, so you're gonna like, step one is just find it, find like where am I being perfectionistic about this? Step two is gonna be to start doing B minus work.
This is the hardest step. It's not gonna feel good. It's gonna feel like crap. And the whole time your brain's gonna be like, no way. We can't just spread. Send on this. We are gonna die if you press send on this. This is not okay. Right. This is not good work. Like I know she said this, but this is not what she's talking about.
Right. You have to under like anticipate that [00:15:00] and you don't have to start with really big things. Okay. You don't have to start with like the big presentation you're gonna do in front of the entire office. That's not where we need to work on this B minus stuff in the beginning. You can start with small stuff again, like start with the email you're gonna send, like just tell yourself that like you're gonna work on this week, not obsessing over your replies to email.
So you're gonna take no more than five minutes to reply to people. And whatever it is, you're gonna send it. You are not gonna recheck all the grammar. You're not gonna recheck, you know, the exclamation for what's and the punctuation. You're not gonna check the tone. You're gonna reply with what you need to say, and you're gonna move on.
Okay? You're still gonna want to, you're still gonna like be called to do it, like pulled to do it. And it's gonna feel like crap again because you're so used to like, you have this like protective side of you that's screaming like, no, no, no, we're gonna die if this email goes out. And you have to prove to yourself you're not gonna die.
You have to prove to yourself that like nothing bad's gonna happen, that it's just gonna be an email, and that person's gonna reply and you're gonna have to keep emailing back and forth. [00:16:00] Till the end of time, apparently that is what our life has come to, and that's okay. We're gonna just move on with it a little bit.
And when you do that enough and you do see evidence, like you send a response and then that person sends a response and you're like, oh, nobody died. Nobody got upset. It starts creating more safety that like, maybe it doesn't always have to be perfect. Maybe I don't have to put on this act for everybody.
So you're gonna, you can start with like this 20, like start with the stuff that's. Smaller for you right now. Maybe start with stuff in the house. You know, like you don't even have to start at work. If work is too much of a psychological kind of like barrier, like you're too scared to do it there. Fine.
Figure out in other things. You know, like I would notice like when I was like planning my kids' birthday parties, how obsessive I would get about every detail being perfect and I was like, this is insane the amount of time I'm spending on this. Who cares? I remember like one time I was like in a panic.
About like people getting to the party before everything was like [00:17:00] set and like I really had to like, I mean I, you know, I don't wanna belittle, it wasn't gonna be a panic attack, but I was in a tizzy and I was yelling at everybody in my family and I was, and I literally was like, what is happening? , What is the worst thing that's gonna happen?
Someone's gonna walk in and the parties have set up, okay, who cares? What happens then? Uhoh, they don't think I'm the perfect mom. I'm gonna have to feel a little bit of embarrassment. I really was like, oh my God, this has taken over my life. Like how is this who I've become? I'm this monster who's like trying to throw a 33-year-old birthday party screaming at my entire family because the juice boxes aren't set up the way that I want them.
Like something's gotta give. And I mean, it truly was, I was ruining my own life. I was ruining everybody else's life around me as well. But like I was really realizing , oh, this is pervasive, this is everywhere. And so you can start looking at , okay, if I, I don't feel comfortable enough to do this at work.
Okay, where else is this coming up? Where do I feel this [00:18:00] stress and this anxiety and this worry and this overwhelm all the time? Where am I expecting things to be perfect? And you could just start there and just be like, okay, how do I reign it back? What does it look like for it to be B minus work? You know, maybe I, you start setting boundaries with yourself of I can only e read the email three times, reread it before I send it for me.
One of the things I started to do with work was like. I used to obsess over my Tuesday emails that I used to send out, like when I was first doing the podcast. And it would take me like an hour, hour and a half to write an email, two hours. Like it was just really becoming absurd 'cause I just sit with it and tweak with it and I just started putting a time limit and I was like, if 30 minutes, whatever is done, just sending after that.
I don't care how good it is, I don't care how terrible it's. Now it's like the emails take me less than 10 minutes because I'm like, what was I trying to be so perfectionist? I'm just trying to get my point across and I was worried that people were gonna get my emails and not like them and think I was dumb and not like me and all these things.
And I had to constantly look at like, you're trying to be perfect. Like you're trying to be perfect at this. You're [00:19:00] not going to be, what does it even mean to be perfect in an email? Someone's not gonna like it, right? Like better. I send out some like more stuff and I don't burn myself out and quit this podcast and then trying to send out the perfect email.
I just like gave myself a time limit. So like you could do that. Like if there's a task at work that you are obsessed over making, perfect, give yourself the time block and that's it. And start show. Like, the point of this is to give your brain evidence you're gonna do it. Nothing is gonna happen, no one's gonna die.
The world isn't gonna swallow you whole and then you're gonna be like, oh, I just wasted all this other time. This is just as good. Right. Then the last step always, always, always in all the work we do is that you have to have your back, own back. Regardless of what happens. It's very easy to have your own back when you're doing things all always the right way.
Right? So for a lot of us, it's like I can only have my own back. I can only be proud of myself if I get the pat on the back. If everybody gives [00:20:00] me like the stars, if I got the feedback. But that's an E. That's when everybody has our back. It's when you make a mistake, it's showing yourself like, okay, maybe I did send it and there's a typo, and that's when I wanna like the ugly part of my brain's gonna rear its head and say, I told you I was supposed to like read it again.
Like, now we look like an idiot. Now everybody's gonna hate us. That's the part where I have my own back. I was like, Hey, it's okay. It's okay. Yeah, there was a typo. I'm a human. I was writing quickly. If anybody's gonna have a problem with that, that's all right. They can be elitist about grammar. And so I get so funny, I used to get like people giving, sending me dms about like misspellings in my Instagram story, and I would just respond and be like, oh honey, you shouldn't follow me then.
Like if that's well, that I'm not the person for you because, uh, and that's okay. They can want somebody that makes no grammar mistakes. But I'm not gonna kill myself and like reread my Instagram story a million times to make sure I didn't misspell anything as I'm like typing with my thumbs while I'm, you know, with my kids or something, you know, whatever.
So [00:21:00] when I say like, have my own back was that somebody else can be upset about it. Somebody else can say something. But I was like, yeah, but this is how I'm gonna show up in my life. I'm ha I would rather put out more Instagram stories and podcasts and stuff and not do it perfectly. I would rather help more people and be less perfectionistic about it.
Right. And so for you, a lot of it you have to really figure out what would you rather, would you rather have more life? Would you rather have more space in your calendar? Would you rather have more? Because like this perfectionism is costing you. It's not as though you're just doing this and it doesn't cost anything.
Like if it was like free and you could, you know, have all the time in the world and you can make things fine, go with it. But that's not what's happening. It's a reason why so many of us are burned out. It's a reason why so many of us hate our jobs. It's a reason why so many of us are so stressed all the time.
It is costing you in a lot of ways. And so you have to really be clear about how it's costing you, how it's gonna affect other people, how it's gonna affect your [00:22:00] job, how it's gonna, you know, like if it's gonna cause you to quit, if it's going to affect your mental wellbeing. Is that worth maybe having a grammatical mistake once in a while?
Like, can you reconcile those and like, Hey, I'm a human that sometimes misspells a word or something like, can I love myself still? Can I have my own back? And be like, that's okay. That we did that and move on. If I can learn that skill, then it becomes a lot easier to do B minus work for a lot of us. The reason we can't do B minus work is because we know that our brain is gonna replay it over and over and over and over again.
And so we have to create that safety. Like even if I fail, I am safe. Even if this wasn't good enough, this project, I am good enough. Regardless of what happens with this email that I send, I love me, right? I mean, it sounds absurd, but like we really do like withhold love from ourselves. If, God forbid, we send the wrong email or something, we send [00:23:00] it to the wrong person or whatnot.
And so one of the, the tasks in doing this is that you have to create safety for yourself. To not be perfect, you have to create safety. That like my safety doesn't come from me. Doing everything right all the time. My safety comes from me loving myself regardless of what happens. And I can create that.
Like when I talk about you can have these thoughts and feelings regardless of what you're doing. When you create these thoughts of like, I'll have my own back, no matter what it, it lowers the stakes on it, everything. 'cause again, nobody's thinking about you as much as you are. Like even if you send a typo, most people won't catch it.
And even if they do, they'll think about it for half a second and they'll move on with their life. You are the one that's gonna like replay it in your head a million times and like call yourself the worst names ever. And so you are the one that has to change that relationship 'cause everyone else has already moved on.
And then this will like the doing, this is what's gonna allow you to move on. So [00:24:00] for this week, I just want you to practice, like, I just want you to have this concept of like, what would it look like to do this as a B and like B minus work because it will. Allow me to do so much more, it will allow me to rest.
It will allow me to move on. It will allow me to like, get other things done in my life. Okay. So I want you to think about you know, you can plan it ahead if you want, if you know projects that you're gonna work on. You know, like let's say like I have my week planned out and it's like if I'm gonna record a podcast episode, I can think about like, what would it mean to do a B minus episode?
Like, what would that look like for me? Is it that. I'm not gonna obsess over the outline and I'm just gonna start talking. Is it that I'm not gonna obsess over, you know, like how it sounds or if I make a mistake or whatnot? Like you can kind of think about it or you can just watch yourself as you go through.
Like, am I being perfectionistic about this? It's so funny how it shows up in everything. Like I realize like how perfectionistic I get, uh, in like. [00:25:00] Like, my kids wanna help with cooking in the, in the kitchen. And obviously that causes a lot of stress with children sometimes. But part of it is I'm like, it's so fascinating that I'm like, this is the way things are done and this is the way it has to be.
And it's just like, my brain goes back to that and I have to reign it in and like, it's fine if he doesn't cut it to the precise measurements that you wanted. It cut. He's 11 and he is learned. But like I have to literally have this conversation in my head of like, B minus, whatever. Some are big, some are small, it's gonna be fine.
We're all gonna learn, right? Like I have to constantly like have these like kind of, not affirmations, but these changes of thoughts, these like latter thoughts because my, the old me is like, no, there's a right way of doing it and there's a wrong way and nobody in my family knows how to do the right way, so I have to do everything.
They all do it wrong, right? That was not the most pleasant person to live with, as my husband liked to point out. And we're changing that, but it requires a lot of work. And so you're gonna have to do that work, my friends, if you wanna have healthy relationships, if you wanna have, um, a [00:26:00] break, if you want other people to help out, if you wanna delegate, if you wanna be able to, um, have more time, you have to learn to do BS work.
You have to learn to let go of the need for it to be perfect. So that's what I want you to focus on this week. I want you to find, start becoming aware of where this is popping up for you, where you're being really perfectionistic. I want you to ask yourself, how can I just do a B minus and let it go?
What would that look like? What kind of guardrails am I gonna put around myself? What kind of limitations? And then how can I have my own back? What's the thought I wanna have that is gonna calm me down? 'cause my brain is gonna say like, we're gonna die and you're gonna respond. It's like, no, we're not.
Even if this fails, I'll be okay. You know, like, what is that? Find a phrase that you're gonna keep repeating to yourself 'cause your brain is gonna go there. And then when you start seeing the evidence of it, like, oh, nobody died. You know, the, the food got cut the way, totally fine. And it was made and it was fine.
You start seeing like, it's okay to release some of that control. It's okay to let other people help me. It's safe to not do it perfectly. [00:27:00] And it's magical how much things can change. I've talked about this a lot, but I will say this. I struggled a lot with people pleasing and perfectionism as most of us do.
I think as most type A personalities in here that have been successful. You kind of need both those things, especially as women for the women in, in the group. And I can't explain to you why my people pleasing. I've had a very hard time even making a dent in it like I've done. I'm much better at, and we're gonna talk about boundaries next week.
I'm much better at it. But I'm still, I would still say I'm very much a people pleaser, like it is just something so deeply ingrained. But my perfectionism is like non-existent and it's so fascinating to me for to be, have been someone that was so obsessed with control to truly not care anymore. Like I just cannot find it within me to care about mistakes, things going out that weren't supposed to.
People's opinions about things that [00:28:00] aren't the right way. I say this only because I say like, oh, when you do thought work, it's hard to know. It's not. It's not like, it's like, do you know it's not an equation? Like do five models and then you're gonna feel better. Like it doesn't work like that. And as much as sometimes it's frustrating 'cause you will work on the same thing over and over again and it will keep popping up.
So like that happens and that's okay. It's like a gym. You just keep building that muscle. The other way happens too. And I've experienced this where it's like it didn't actually take as much as I thought it would for me to completely drop this habit. For me to like completely let go of this entire defense mechanism I used to have and be like, fuck it, I'm not doing this anymore.
And so I, I say that hopefully as a little bit of hope that like it is really it might be easier than you expect to kind of be able to get out of this perfectionist tendencies. Maybe not. And that's okay. And if it's not, we'll keep working on it. But it is something that like now I look back and I'm like, oh my God.
Like my life is so much simpler. It's so much easier. To than it used to be because I've been [00:29:00] able to really get to this point where like, I don't even have to do thought work on it. It's just like, all right, this is good enough. Get it out. Like that's just become the motto at this point for me.
So I hope that that helps. Benita says, yeah, so hopeful might be easier than I expect. I love that possibility. Yeah, I love that thought. Might be easier than I expect. 'cause I think there is so much room for it, and that's why, like with thought work, I will say like, you know, I, I tried to tell you as the I my own.
Struggles all the time. 'cause I want you to see that there's no like destination you arrive where all of a sudden you're this heal, healed human who never has negative thoughts and everything is like that doesn't exist ever, but it's okay because it's so worth it. Like even getting rid of a couple of negative,, patterns that you have or finding one thing that you can let go of can fundamentally change how you approach your life.
And, and so you don't need to become this robot that doesn't ever. Have anxiety or overwhelm or doesn't ever, like nobody's needing that. We just are like looking at like, where are [00:30:00] ways in which I can feel safe enough to show up? Like clearly my body still doesn't feel safe enough not being a people pleaser.
Like I still, it is like the core of my being of like what I created safety for myself when I was a kid and it will not let that shit go for whatever reason. And that's okay. We'll keep working on it. I've gotten better. I get stronger every year as I learn this, but then there's just so many other things that I'm like, okay, it's.
It still changed my life because I don't do these things anymore. And so I say all this to say like, just be open to that possibility that it might be easier than you expect. It might just click. And just making a little bit of a dent, making a little bit of change can fundamentally change how you feel in your day to day.
Um, so that's what I have for you for week four is B minus work. We're gonna go out there and try it. Do you guys have any questions or anything you know, that maybe you struggle with with B minus? We struggle thinking about doing B minus work with. I'm happy to help you before we jump off.
Working in the healthcare doesn't allow for B minus work. That is a [00:31:00] great obser. Um, thought I'm not, not a great thought, but it's a very common thought, .
But it's not true. Unfortunately, it is not true and we love to tell ourselves that story. And I actually, when I talked about it on the, um, episode last week, I think last week we did, yeah, no, two weeks ago when we did impossible standards, I talked about helping a doctor who. Thought that his standard was 10 outta 10, like he had to constantly be perfect and save everybody, and that just led him to burning out and quitting.
And so the reality is, is that constantly people are doing B minus work in healthcare. Here's the the concept that we don't understand. Humans want to think that we could do a plus work all the time, but you can't because you're human. So there will always be human error. I think we like to ignore it, and we think that if I like push myself and if I just try hard enough, then I can not make errors.
But that's not a possibility. And we all know, even in healthcare, tons of times, mistakes happen. They happen every single day because human [00:32:00] beings are the ones that are healthcare professionals. Now, I'm not saying that you go in LA like without a care and you just do whatever. Nobody's saying that. But it doesn't help us to deny this fact that like.
I'm gonna be human and I might make a mistake, and it the opposite actually happens. Again. There's been tons of studies that like if you have an unbelievable amount of stress on you, in order to be perfect, you're likely going to make more mistakes because you're so focused on not making a mistake that you're like not actually taking in everything that you need to be taking in.
And so it's not to say. Am I gonna just not carry it and I'm gonna mail it in. But it's simply like, can I calm myself down enough and be, and make peace with the fact that I might make a mistake. But if I don't wanna get burned out and I wanna keep showing up for my patients or for whoever it is that I'm showing up for in this healthcare industry, if I wanna make sure that I do as good enough work as I [00:33:00] can without being neurotic and like, making mistakes because I'm so.
Stressed about not making a mistake, then how can I show up? How can I allow certain parts of the job to be B minus? Now again, healthcare professionals do a ton of tasks. Nobody's saying that like when you're in surgery, you have to be like, nah, good enough. We'll just close it up. But you know, when I'm doing maybe my notes or depending on what it is, like the million of other tasks I have to do in my job, can I figure out ways to not make it as.
Perfect as I need it to be. And that can be in certain things that you feel comfortable doing at. That's what I'm saying is like we don't need to start with like really big things. We actually can start with a little bit like stuff that doesn't feel as high stakes for you. Um, can you share some other ways that you get yourself in the B minus headspace?
I'm thinking of something like asking myself, how can I make this easier? I love that question. It's the best question you can ever ask yourself. Any other [00:34:00] questions or thoughts that you use to help yourself find out other ways to do things that are less perfectionistic? That's a great question. Yes.
First of all, I love the question, how can I make it easier? One of the things that I always ask myself that just very cuts through a lot of the noise in my head is. When I notice myself again for me, so you, this is why I say like you have to look at your own signs for me. A really big sign, like a telltale sign, is that I don't start something, so I keep putting it off.
Okay. I keep not doing it even though it's on my list of things to do, it's on the agenda for the day. And I, I feel really overwhelmed or really resistant to the task for whatever reason. And I know, I always know that the re like now, that like, the reason that that is is because I don't think I'm gonna do a good enough job.
Like, I'm so worried that it's not gonna be good enough that I don't even wanna start it. Okay? I'm not consciously thinking about when I like sit and I'm like, why haven't I written this email? Or why didn't I do this launch plan? Or Why didn't I record this podcast? It's al it [00:35:00] always comes down to that.
So now, because I know that for myself, when I find myself resisting a task, I constantly ask, okay, what are you worried is gonna happen? Then I just answer that like, I'm worried it's not gonna be good enough and that nobody's gonna sign up for my program and everybody's gonna hate me. You know? Or I think that it's not gonna, it's gonna go out and it's gonna feel ruined and, and usually my thought is so outlandish that like, I can easily be like, okay, well goalie, it's just an email.
Like, it doesn't mean that the entire launch is, you know, I can sort of calm myself down enough to be like, you just have to write an email. Um, it doesn't have to be perfect. Everybody doesn't have to be moved to tears with this or whatever, you know? Sometimes it's more of like me really figuring out like, okay, well this is where this like wound is.
This is where I'm really worried about that. Like this isn't gonna work and I'm gonna feel shame and I'm gonna feel embarrassed. And I just sit with that. Like, okay, can we feel shame and embarrassment if this happens? You're right. Like only that might happen. It might not work. Sort of when I deal with just the emotion, it becomes easier for me to [00:36:00] just do the thing and not make it perfectionistic.
Because I think for me, it's not really even about tweaking it anymore. It's that like I don't wanna start it 'cause I know it's not gonna be perfect. And so then I don't even wanna go there. And so I just have to get myself more into action sometimes. And it's really like that thought for you, it might be different.
That's what I'm saying is that like you have to sort of get an understanding of where this pops up mostly. 'cause you're gonna have to get asked these questions of like, what, what feeling am I avoiding? Why am I resisting? Like, the reason I'm resisting this is because I'm avoiding something. And so for me, now, it's become, it's such a fast thing.
Like I'll sit down and I'll say like as soon as I don't wanna write an email, I'll think of okay, what are you, why are you avoiding this? What are you afraid you're gonna, like, what are you afraid is gonna happen? And I'm like, I'm afraid that the email's not gonna be good and no one's gonna take action.
I'm like, okay, can we deal with that? Like can I, what if that does happen? Like how am I gonna feel? Can I feel that? And then as soon as like I've kind of gone through it, I'm like, okay, that is a likely possibility. We're still gonna do it and I can get myself into [00:37:00] action. So you sort of just wanna see where you do this and like what question you wanna ask yourself.
Like I said, I think for me, those two questions, how can I make this easier? It's like, so I don't have to make it perfect, and what am I afraid is gonna happen with this? Can it kind of get me out of it? I'm trying to think of like if there's anything else. I think sometimes, um, if you start noticing yourself with certain things, instead of asking yourself a question, you might wanna just create like a ladder thought, right?
So like the ladder thought might be like. Yeah. Even if it's not perfect, like even if it doesn't turn out perfect, it's gonna be okay. Or either, even if it's not perfect, I will figure it out or something like that. And just like practice repeating that thought over and over to yourself to like, if that's, if that feels good to you, like if that thought feels good in your body and can calm you down, you're gonna wanna just keep bringing yourself back to that.
Says, I always think I'll feel peace and be able to rest once everything is perfect, but it never will be. So I'm going to have to intentionally choose to feel those things in the imperfection. Absolutely. 1000000%. This is the [00:38:00] problem. Is that the same thing we talked about with the to-do list? The perfectionism is that we sort of bought into this lie that like once I get there, as if there is a, there, as if it ever ends, as if there's ever a time when there's no to-dos or there's no tasks like your job, it will constantly have work for you.
So there's never a time where everything feels perfect and it's done right. And so we have to get good at feeling like, can I feel at peace with whatever is happening? And that that might be, you start with like just a moment, a piece. So I talked about this last time too, like I used to do, I felt overwhelmed every day and I wanted to feel satisfied at the end of the day.
So I really thought like, what do I have to think to feel satisfied every single day, regardless of how much I do? Some days I did a lot, some days I did nothing. But every day I got to like show myself. If I think the thought I, it's enough for today. I feel enough for today, whatever. I did enough, or, um, I'm proud of what I [00:39:00] did, or, I deserve rest regardless of how much I did.
I don't know what it, what it's gonna be for you. But for me it was more of like, I think I was like, I did enough for today. And I really sat with that feeling. That feeling started growing and I started realizing like, oh, I'm allowed to feel satisfied no matter how many things I cross off my to-do list.
And so for you, if it's gonna be I wanna feel at peace or I wanna rest. How do you get yourself to believe that you can rest, even if everything isn't done right? It might be the thought like, I deserve rest. No matter how much is on my to-do list. I deserve rest every single day. I deserve rest when my body needs rest.
Whatever it might be for you, you're gonna wanna like restructure that belief. If that belief was you only get to rest when everything is done, we wanna create a new belief because everything's never gonna be done. All says I feel like my B minus or C work is gonna impact someone else. Someone else probably will pay for my B minus work, which causes tons of shame.
That's a very common thought and a very common belief that keeps us in perfectionism. And it's not to say that you're wrong, that it may not impact [00:40:00] someone. You're right. It can. Right? The thing is, your a plus work can still impact someone. You may do something to the best of your ability and work on it to make it perfect.
And so this belief that we can somehow insulate ourselves is already false. Okay. We have to sit with that shame that sometimes I might impact people. Not on purpose, but because I make a mistake because I'm human. Okay. So part of it is unpacking that shame, right? Can I be a human and still be doing this work and know that I, I can make a mistake that I made a mistake, right?
And part of it is, like I said, , I don't think you have to start with the work that you're doing on other people or with other people. You can start with like, where is the my B minus work in, you know, some of the administrative stuff in the backend. Right. Where's the B minus work that I can do in cleaning up, in, you know, locking up in delegating certain tasks and having other people help me and letting go of tasks?
Like, I was just talking to someone that said, oh, I think it was, [00:41:00] uh, on the entrepreneurship call. I was talking to an entrepreneur who was talking about like, well, everybody else is posting three times a week. And it's like, okay, well that's not what I'm gonna do. If that's my standard, like this is perfectionistic.
Like, what if I just do it one time a week? Can I do it somewhere where it's not as high stakes for me at first? Because you don't wanna, for right now, your belief is gonna be really stuck in like, oh my God, if I don't do something, someone's gonna have a lot of like, it's gonna be really bad. And so we don't wanna start there that like, we don't need to start it on Mount Everest.
I always talk about this like with boundaries and stuff. Like you don't wanna start with your boundaries, the hardest person that you have a relationship with. It's just not the best place to start because there's gonna be a ton of emotions there. So like that's okay if you feel that. And it's okay to even keep that belief, start at other places and start showing yourself like, oh, it actually doesn't have as much of an impact.
And then just start questioning, like even when you are working with someone else, start questioning like, I'm still gonna do, you know? Dot my I's and cross my T's. But like if I was to like stop right now, or if I was to not do maybe this [00:42:00] extra, I don't know exactly what it is that you do, would it actually impact, impact someone?
I think a lot of times, I remember I say this as a lawyer, I used to think that if I didn't catch like one word in a contract, people's entire business was gonna fail and people were gonna like come after me and they were gonna sue. And I had these really insane things of like if I make one mistake. In this entire proceeding.
That's ye it takes years to go through and as thousands of pages and as all this stuff, like everything is going to, fall. Obviously that was not true. It likely never would've made a difference. Now again, it's not to say that it don't wanna put good work forward for clients, but I also have to think about like, am I making this bigger than it actually is?
Is it actually going to affect it? Not that I'm not gonna try to be thorough, but maybe I don't have to have the plan, like the pressure of like, I'm gonna get fired, there's gonna be a lawsuit, they're gonna lose everything. I'm gonna feel like, is that really what's happening when I'm [00:43:00] reading through this contract looking for a word?
You know? So you just wanna also question like, how realistic is this belief that I have, that it's going to cause a lot of problems? In what? In, in every scenario that I work with someone. In which scenarios, right? I wanna sort of just start discerning where can I be a little bit more, uh, you know, where can I release a little bit of that?
Um. You say I, I understand. I have a great difficulty with shame. I think it's not just you and I'm really glad that you bring that up. I think it's all of us. Shame, we talked about this on one of the other calls. Shame is the best tool for society to control populations. It is just known. It is like one of the most effective ways of getting people to.
To live within the, you know, lines that they set for us. And so it is a very popular tool of religion, of our culture, of capitalism, of, you know, everything that we have basically [00:44:00] ingested in our lives from when we were children. And like, it's funny 'cause now there's a lot more healing and there's a lot more talk of this stuff.
And I was talking about this with my cousin. And it's like great. And for our kids, we're doing a lot better, but like we grew up in a time where nobody cared if they shamed you. Like there was no like guilt about shaming you. So we got shamed a lot. We were talking about the craziest things we were shamed for when we were children.
And we had no ability to control ourselves, you know? And it was like things that like our body, like you, you know, we were talking about, this is like very aside, but he was talking about like, you know, it's like as a kid he like wet the bed and he would get physically punished for it. And he had so much shame growing up.
It's like his bladder just wasn't developed. But like that was a shame that followed him throughout his life. And I say all this to say that like most of us have so much unearned shame, like un what's the word? Like displaced shame that doesn't belong, but it just follows us around because we've been told that we're not good enough, that we're not, [00:45:00] that there's something we did was wrong or we're stupid or we're ungrateful or we're lazy, or whatever it was that got us to act the way we were supposed to act and do what we were supposed to do.
And so uns shaming is really, I feel like most of our work because that is what drives so many of us. To protect ourselves to people, please, to be a perfectionist, to seek other people's validation to constantly abandon ourselves is because there's so much shame. And when you, you know, Brene Brown talks a lot about how like, shame only survives in darkness.
And when you shine light on it, when you look at it. We all realize like there's nothing to be ashamed about. Like you are a human being and you made some mistakes or even if you've done things, you know, and so I appreciate that you noticed that. And I think that a lot of the work that we can do here is uns shaming, is looking at these thoughts and figuring out like, how can I start having my own back now?
How can I start really like unpacking a lot of this stuff and these thoughts I have about myself and these beliefs. So I think that that is something that we all really need to work on and we all struggle with. [00:46:00] Maybe I'll do a monthly theme on shame. Maybe I'll do that for one of the last months. Um, any tips for being okay with B minus work?
When you're well-intentioned, boss constantly points out tiny mistakes. Lucy says, I love that there's a typo in my question. I love it. B minus all the time. Yes. Other people will have problems with your B minus work. Okay. Like I said, like somebody is pointing out to me that I have a typo in my IG story.
Like apparently it offends people and part of it. For you is like when you, uh, change how you like, part of what we, everything we do in the club, everything I try to teach you is that like you cannot change the circumstance. You can only change your own thoughts. You cannot change how other people view it.
And so what's fascinating like in a situation like that, I would. I would make it a game. I am not saying that you have to in this, but I think for somebody that's like very nitpicky, that's an A them issue, right? That is something within them that makes them feel powerful or makes them feel better or whatever, about pointing out like certain tiny mistakes [00:47:00] and that's okay, but I can sort of realize like that's not mine to take on.
They may want it that way, or they may think that it's, and I can listen and be like, Uhhuh and not make myself feel bad. I control how I make myself feel. So before, if my thought was, oh my God, he saw this and it wasn't great, and I he's right and I'm dumb and I'm terrible and I should have blah, blah, that's what I'm gonna stop.
I'm not gonna stop him pointing it out, but I can't stop how I think about it and I can think like, yeah, I made a mistake. So what, I'm over it. You don't have to even say that, but in your own head, like when I say I'm making a game, like I'd be like, I wonder how many mistakes he is gonna find today.
I would try to change how I think about it instead of being super defensive to be like, well, let's see what he finds today, folks. It's gonna be interesting, right? Because it just changes my relation to it. It's not that he's gonna change, but it's going to be like, I don't have to take it on. I don't have to be like, oh my God, I'm terrible and there's something wrong with me.
It's like, yeah, I made a mistake. This guy loves to point that out. Great. [00:48:00] I'm gonna move on with my life. I say this again, not as like a, um, this is a little bit, I'm going all over the place, but like one of the things I decided to do that it's like my parents love to guilt me and they love to start every conversation.
They don't even know they're doing it, I swear. It's just like a language that they learned. And so like, it's just like, oh, well look who it is. Do you remember you have parents? I talked to them literally like two days ago. By the way, my mom will call me today and be like, oh, I thought you forgot you had a mother.
And in the beginning it used to drive me nuts, right? Like the beginning of most of my life. And now what's so funny is like I'll just, I just like know that it's gonna happen and I don't care and I don't change myself and I'm like, oh my God, I should call her every day. So my mom is not upset at me and I should be this perfect daughter.
You know? I just give it back and I'm like, you're lucky I didn't wait another week. Keep this up and we'll see what happens. Eva, I call her like by my first name when I try to be really cheeky 'cause she doesn't like it. But I just made it a banter thing. I was like, we're gonna, oh, this is what we're doing now.
Okay. You wanna do this, let's do it right. Or I'll be like, you know, however I take it, I just don't take it personally. I'm like, this is for [00:49:00] whatever reason how this woman communicates and I know she loves me and I know she's ribbing me and I know she does it because she wants more time with me and she's not gonna get it.
And that's okay. I don't have to feel guilty about that. I also don't have to take it on and be like, oh my God, I'm a terrible mother. Because like my sister calls her every day and she always likes to tell me that. And I'm like, great. Then go call your other daughter. Go call her. Whatcha calling me for?
She's the one that picks up. And then she laughs about it and it becomes this whole thing. But I'm like, I just change how I relate to you. I don't change you. I don't tell you that you're not allowed to guilt me. I could, I mean, I could set that boundary if I wanted to. I just don't want to. Something you mentioned often is that our B minus work is often what others think is a work, something like that.
Yeah, absolutely. , That's exactly what I mean is that I think what we are doing normally is probably far and above what other people think. And I, I say this to you guys. I feel like I do C work. Like I feel like at this point I'm mailing it in and so many people are like, what are you talking about?
I love your emails. I love what your podcast about. I think what you're doing is a work. And I'm like, that's [00:50:00] great. I'm so glad I'm telling you. Like I know my capacity and I could, and I don't even know if it would be things that you would notice, but I could make things, I could clean things up a lot. I can make things more organized.
I can make more systems in the backend. I can do a lot of stuff. I just don't wanna burn myself out. And so for me, this is like, all right, this is what, how do I make it easy? How do I get it out there? How do I keep pushing? How do I move the needle forward? And that's gonna be a lot of stuff that for me is like what I consider my B minus work.
Luckily, a lot of other people don't think that's B minus work. And so you have to understand that too, is that like other people are gonna be like, this is great. This was perfect and you're gonna be great. And then you're going to see that as evidence of like, oh, I don't need to make this perfect. Says, thank you.
That makes so much sense. I will try it. I'm so glad it makes sense. But easier said than done. Parents are great at it. It's difficult to not take it personally. How do you do that? Yeah, you're absolutely right. It is easier said than done, and it takes practice. And the thing is, is that the same way that we've developed beliefs, your beliefs didn't just like pop up last night.
It's been over [00:51:00] and over and over and over and over again, and you've created this neural pathway that becomes really strong, right? And so we react a certain way, and so you have to be really gentle with yourself that it's gonna take a while to rewire that. Okay? It's gonna take a while for you to create a new pathway.
When I say this about my mom, we didn't get here today. This has truly been over like 15 years of me changing our, like the first half of my life, more than the first half, the first 30, 35, some year, 30 years of my life. I reacted to her very differently. It was like when I found thought work literally in the last five, seven years, no more than that probably.
Yeah. Seven, eight years that I was like, okay, I wanna change this relationship. I wanna change how I feel. I wanna change how I react to her. And it's not all, sometimes I still get pissed off, sometimes I get, still get exacerbated sometimes I still get upset when she guilts me. It's a lot rarer now. But I built up that new muscle to be like, okay, here we go.
Okay, this is what's gonna happen. Right? It happens over time. So when I, when you say like. [00:52:00] I'm not saying that you have to like go out tomorrow and be like, you know what? I'm not gonna take what anybody says personally. I still take a ton of things personally, but I've just learned to sort of like change my own thought about it and realize I'm not gonna change that person, so I'm not gonna, like, what I used to do for the longest time was waste all of my energy thinking about how they should change, being angry about why are they like this?
Why didn't this per, why did my boss say this? He shouldn't have done that. This person, I don't do that anymore. I'm just like, they're gonna do this. This is what this person is. What am I gonna do? I can set a boundary, which we'll talk about, I guess again, next week. I can decide like, I'm not gonna have this person in my life, which sometimes I do decide that depending on how important that person is to me or I can decide how I'm gonna react to them.
That's the only thing I control. And so then I slowly practiced that. The same thing that we talked about. It's like finding one or two places where I wasn't gonna get upset anymore. I wasn't gonna allow that to like impact me. I sometimes I do it with like a game, like I say, like I just like try to change my [00:53:00] relationship to that relationship.
Like I, I'm like, okay, like I also have an uncle who's like, um. Curmudgeon was just always in a bad mood. And as a people pleaser, that's something that was always really hard for me. Like I felt very tense around him all the time. 'cause like I always want everyone to be happy. And I realized like, that's just never gonna happen.
And so I made it a game. I was like, let's see how many like snide comments this man makes at this family party. Right? Because I started realizing like, oh, I don't have to get upset about the fact that he's upset. I don't have to get stressed, that he's stressed. I can laugh about it 'cause this guy is just never gonna be happy.
And that's okay. This is what's gonna happen, right? Again, it, it doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen. And so I think that like, when the way that you wanna do it is start thinking like, just pick one thought that you're gonna practice, let's say around your parents. Pick one thought that is a step away from your where you are.
It, it's not gonna be like, you know, your thought might right now be like, why do they do, like they shouldn't talk to me like this. I hate being around them. And you don't wanna go to like, it's [00:54:00] totally fine. They can say whatever they want. To me, you wanna just go one step and be like, this is who they are.
I don't have to react. Let's say, let's say that's the thought you wanna practice. You're just gonna repeat that mantra every time you're around them a hundred times in your head. This is how they are. I don't have to react. This is how they are. I don't have to react. This is how they are, right? You're gonna build that up until that becomes the thought, and then you're gonna go to the next one and the next one.
I concentrate how I can change, but haven't figured out a practical, actionable plan. Yeah, I totally get that. I think that maybe let's let go of the idea of having a practical, actionable plan. Even that is kind of a perfectionist fantasy that like, you're gonna have a, a set plan that's gonna, you're gonna follow to a T and then you're gonna change your brain.
You don't need to do that. Just pick one thing that you wanna focus on. If you want to change. Maybe just listen to the private podcast feed. If you want to change, maybe just do the model videos and like, just start doing one model a week, right? Decide on one [00:55:00] step that you're gonna take right now so that you don't have to have a complete plan.
Know that even that will change you. Even just doing, like when I say listening to, to podcasts, because it will change how you start thinking about your thoughts. Like just think about how many more new thoughts you have listening to this today. Like, you made me never thought about B minus work, or you never thought that you could do B minus work in a healthcare professional It, it starts changing how you believe.
So you just wanna start doing little lightweight things that don't have to be perfect and it's gonna be two step forward, one step back, and we're all gonna work on it together. All right, my friends. That's what I got for you today. Go out there and do some B minus work slowly. Find things that you can let go of, that you can just not be perfect at and see what happens.
. All right, I'll see you all then. Bye friends.