155. Are You a Perfectionist?: The 3 Types of Perfectionism & How You Can Achieve Your Goals WITHOUT It feat. Nicole Baker

Aug 13

listen to this episode:

Today's guest is Nicole Baker—a life coach specializing in helping perfectionists, a Life Coach Baker podcast host, and a goal-setting specialist. We discuss why perfectionists tend to struggle with anxiety, differences between being a perfectionist and being a high-achiever, how perfectionists’ brains are wired differently than the typical brain, why certain people are proud to be perfectionists, how you can determine which type of perfectionist you are and the strengths and weaknesses of each type, steps you can take to heal from each type of perfectionism, and myths about perfectionism debunked. If you're looking to figure out how to keep reaching your goals without the pressures of perfectionism, this episode is a MUST-LISTEN!

Nicole's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifecoachbaker/

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ Nicole's Website

+ What Type of Perfectionist Are You? Quiz

+ Overcoming Perfectionism

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

🛋This week's episode is sponsored by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network offering support with depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via text, talk, and video counseling. Head to teencounseling.com/shepersisted to find a therapist today!

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: Welcome to She Persisted. I'm your host, Sadie Sutton, a 19 year old from the Bay Area studying psychology at the University of Penn. She Persisted is the Teen Mental Health Podcast made for teenagers by a teen. In each episode, I'll bring you authentic, accessible, and relatable conversations about every aspect of mental wellness.

You can expect evidence-based, teen approved resources, coping skills, including lots of D B T insights and education in. Each piece of content you consume, she persisted, Offers you a safe space to feel validated and understood in your struggle, while encouraging you to take ownership of your journey and build your life worth living.

So let's dive in this week on She persisted

Nicole: So my biggest thing that I want people to understand is that perfectionism is not about how you look. It's not about , a look at all.

It's truly about I need to be at this level. It doesn't need to be the best, but I need to be at 125%, let's say. And if I'm at 124, I wasn't enough. And if I'm at 60, I'm never gonna be enough. And the biggest thing that we can do to combat perfectionism is realizing that when I show up as 60%, I'm still enough.

Hello. Hello and welcome back to She Persisted. Guys, I'm not on my game. This is, we're back on it every other week. Cadence accidentally, but we're back on track.

We have episodes recorded and I'm really excited for today's conversation as well as the episodes that are coming up this month. Today's guest is Nicole Baker. . She's a life coach that specializes in working with perfectionists.

So we talk all about what exactly is a perfectionist, why perfectionism and anxiety can be so closely related. We talk about perfectionism versus high achievers. We talk about how your brain can be wired differently when you're a perfectionist.

We talk about why you can see being a perfectionist is like a really great trait that you're really proud of and why that can kind of reinforce that behavior and the different types of perfectionism, which I didn't realize there were different types of perfectionism.

And during this conversation I was like, okay, I'm being called out here. Like this is totally my type. And I think you'll have the same experience listening because if you're a perfectionist, you describes some things that I'm sure will describe you to a T. And then of course we talk about healing from these different ineffective waves of being a perfectionist,

especially when it's getting in the way of allowing yourself to take breaks or take rests or pull back from activities that aren't serving you. And so this is just a phenomenal conversation and something we've never talked about on the podcast before, but that is again, very mental health adjacent. And so I'm super excited for you to listen to this.

And as always, if you enjoy the episode, make sure to share with a friend or family member post about it on social media, and I'll give you a little shout out. And like I said, I'm so excited for the episodes that are coming up this month. I'm going back to school in a couple of weeks, so getting back in the routine of being at college.

So if you guys want to do another college episode, advice and as well, all the college check in, update all those things, let me know

and I hope you enjoy. Let's dive in.

Sadie: I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today, Nicole. I am really excited to talk about this topic because while we've talked a lot about anxiety and self sabotage and all these different things that are like perfectionism adjacent, we've never done a deep dive into what it means to be a perfectionist and how that shows up advice and skills that you can use.

To be more balanced in your approach to life. And I think it's really interesting because neuroticism, which is like, again, perfectionism adjacent is one of the underlying traits for both anxiety and depression. Yeah. Which you wouldn't necessarily think is true for depression. You'd say anxiety for sure.

You're, you're more neurotic. But for both it's a huge Predisposing factor, and it impacts how you think, it impacts how you express and feel your emotions. And so it's something to be aware of and something to have tools in your toolbox to be able to navigate. So I'm super excited to dive into this because.

Even if you might not be like, well that's not like a mental health challenge or that's not a mental illness. It does impact these things and it is a part

Nicole: of mental health. I wanna touch on that real quick. Yeah. 'cause a lot of people wonder, they're like, why am I so anxious As a perfectionist, perfectionism tends to be very future focused.

I wanna make sure I show up the best I absolutely can at this test. I wanna make sure I show up the absolutely best that I can. It's giving yourself this like very, all or nothing. I'm either the best or. Or I'm not. Yeah. And the, or I'm not, is like dun, dun, dun, like super failure zone. And that anxiety tends to come from the what if question.

What if I fail? What if it doesn't go right? What if this project isn't perfect? Like, what if I'm not the best in the group? And. Not to say that anxiety is only future-focused. There's a lot of like looking backwards, anxiety. It's one of the reasons why we lay up at night. We're like, oh my God, that stupid thing I said in second grade and I embarrassed myself in front of the entire class.

Like, I still have those moments. I'm 29. But when we look at perfectionism, it tends to be a lot more looking forward. So I think that that's a huge reason why they overlap this way. A

Sadie: hundred percent. And I think that is incredibly true and I, it makes me think of something that I learned in abnormal psychology and that I'm doing I work at a lab during the school year.

I'm a research assistant. And one of the things that they're researching is the difference between worry and rumination and worry is like anxiety and apprehension for the future. And rumination is the apprehension, and like really just stuck in your thoughts about the past.

Yeah. And both show up, but in very different ways. And you could be more rumination prone, or you could be more worry prone. And even just being able to differentiate those two can be really calming to be like, okay, I know what I'm experiencing. And I think we're gonna have a lot of those moments in this conversation because like being able to put labels to these different mental processes.

Yeah. And tendencies is really helpful when you are struggling. So, Going backwards. How did you get to the point where you now are specializing and working in this area of perfectionism and these different subtypes that we will get into, but tell me your story and how you started working within this area of the mental health field.

Nicole: I had a very weird upbringing, and I say that because I grew up in a family that was very heavily immersed in the personal growth and development world. Now this was like the growth and development world of the eighties and nineties. So it was mm-hmm. Go after your goals at no cost be the best in the room, always be working to be better and all these kinds of things.

And while I think at the core, I think that there's a lot of really good messages there. I really took that and said, I'm gonna be the best in the world. Like I, it was, it was, so going back to that all or nothing, I'm pretty sure that's gonna come up a lot today, but it was very all or nothing but there was a part of me that fell in love with, we'd, you know, be attending these seminars.

We'd be listening to the audio tapes, but if anyone here knows Tony Robbins, that's like who my parents worked for, for many, many years. It's a whole set of stories in itself, but the. I fell in love with the look of, oh my God, I can do it. I am capable. I am enough. And me and my little like five-year-old heart was just like staring up at these people like, oh my gosh, what a cool feeling.

Yeah. And then when I got into grade school, more middle school and high school. I started to be very severely bullied to the point where I was like shoved in a bathroom one day called names I will never repeat to another human soul. And something in me clicked that day that basically said, if you are not perfect and you're not who everyone else needs you to be, you're not only going to be hurt emotionally, you're gonna be hurt physically also.

And so this really. Pivoted, like almost like a dukes of hazard pivot, like 90 degrees the next 10 years of my life. I spent a lot of it in very small. I was taking up as little space as possible. I was always making sure everyone else liked me. I was trying to be the person in the group project that was the most dependable, the most, like I could do whatever, but I was also like, whatever you guys want, it's totally fine.

It, it was so, Disempowering. I think that's a really empowerment and whatever. It's kind of an overused word right now, but it was really disempowering. But there was that little part of me that was still like, The high achiever, right? And I ended up finding a lot more love and joy and voice in musical theater.

And so me being the high achiever that I am was like, Hmm. So you're not gonna only do musical theater, you're gonna be on Broadway. Obviously you need to go to the best school for musical theater in the entire world and goodbye. And while maybe it wasn't the entire world, it was definitely one of the best.

In the nation and I get there. I am having daily panic attacks. I am drinking myself to blackout every weekend just to numb the anxiety that I'm feeling. We were having weigh-ins every few weeks, so I was also starving myself. And it was just like, it was such a fucked up world that I was living in, and it was so much in my head.

A lot of it, maybe the weigh ins part that was not so much in my head. That was a fucked up thing in itself. Yeah. But I finally was sat down by my professor and he said, Hey, The way that you're going, because of all the stress and the anxiety and the perfectionism that you're holding on to yourself, you're not gonna be able to graduate.

And I just had this moment of, oh my God. This is rock bottom, this is my degree. The thing that I've wanted more than anything is on the line. And so I called my dad, who is the original life coach Baker, is what I like to call him. And I basically was like, I need coaching right now and I'll skip a few chapters.

'cause it was like six months of just like no holds barred coaching. A hundred percent. Yeah. And I ended up graduating cum laude, which I do a little hair toss for, but I started realizing how much the thoughts in our head, how much the way we talk to ourselves, the way we look at ourselves, the way we embrace the world around us, how much of it is self controlled.

And so it took me a few years. I was a performer for a while in Chicago, but finally I was just like, I need to do this. I need to embrace this sw. And here I am five years later and I, I truly could not imagine doing anything else with my time. I love what I do.

Sadie: What does the day-to-day look like now that you have kind of overcome this aspect of perfectionism and now you're supporting others in that journey?

What does that look like? Is it podcasting? Is it more social media content creation? Is it coaching individuals? For listeners that are like, okay, understanding this context, what does that look like in practice?

Nicole: It's often, it's kind of deal. All the above, I think is the best way to put it. I do have a podcast.

I love it. It's one of the my favorite things of the business. I coach individuals. I do group coaching, I do courses for people who wanna do things more passively. I have workshops I speak. I Do social media content and make silly videos of calling out the, like, just absolute crazy things that we do as perfectionists and high achievers.

Mm-hmm. And so it, it is a little bit of all of it, but I will say something that I do nowadays and a lot of people, Say that they're, they're surprised to hear this is I still have to remind myself every single day of things that old perfectionist me would've like slammed on the table. Like I still have to be very mindful not to overpack my schedule.

I still have to be very mindful not to Scroll through social media and feel like I'm worthless. 'cause I'm not in Italy right now. Like I have to be very, very mindful of these things that used to have a mind of its own. But now I feel like I have the reins on them, but they still come up. And I think that that's important to note that even people who study this still see this come into their life on a fairly regular basis.

Yeah.

Sadie: You said one thing there that I would love to ask about, which is the difference between being a perfectionist and being a high achiever. Because I feel like a lot of the times they're used synonymously, but there's almost like a difference between, and again, it's one of those like age old questions and that's at the core of mental health treatment, which is like what is normal and what's abnormal and it's a very.

Thin line. And a lot of the times it has to do with how it's interfering with your life and your emotional relationship to the behaviors and thoughts and actions. And so how do you define that difference between someone that is a high achiever and someone that's a perfectionist?

Nicole: I almost think about it like all Jasmine rice is rice, but not all rice is jasmine rice.

You know? Mm-hmm. That's the first thing that popped into my head for that kind of scenario. Yeah. But. I think about it this way, like perfectionism is such a broad stroke, and we'll get into this more in a moment, but there are so many different types of perfectionism and a lot of people, when they hear the word perfectionist, they're like, oh, you know, the immaculate to-do list.

The house is beautiful. My room is. Super clean. I look perfect every single day. And that is simply not the case. I've talked to people who literally will blur their background 'cause they're like, my apartment is such a hoard right now that I will not let you see it. But they're still perfectionists. And when it comes to the perfectionist, high achiever type, however, a lot of high achievers do fall into the type of perfectionist because they are constantly demanding more, more, more of themselves.

Now, is every high achiever a perfectionist? Not necessarily. But I do think the line between being a high achiever and being a high achiever who's also a perfectionist is self-compassion. Mm-hmm. If I am beating myself up and I see this time and time again shaming myself, getting really angry at myself for not being better, not working harder, I can work more, I can push harder, I can do more.

And we are, we as high achievers. 'cause I, I am definitely falling into that category. We are absolute jerks to ourselves and our brain. And that's where the perfectionism, especially the more unhealthy side of perfectionism with the high achiever, really digs its claws in. So it's almost like the antidote to that is that self-compassion.

It's that self again, I think self-love is a very overused word right now, but I mean it at its absolute core version, self-love. it's a practice and I think a lot of people forget that.

Sadie: A hundred percent. Before we dive into the subtypes that you mentioned of being a perfectionist, I'd love to kind of explain and give some people some clarity on what you see in the difference between like a normal brain and a normal person versus someone that struggles with perfectionism.

Like what thoughts take place, what behaviors take place? How do they, what relationship do they have with their goals and their relationships and all of those different things. And even asking for help is another one big thing that comes to mind. So what are those kind of differentiations that you see between like, almost like a typical brain and an atypical brain or even person you could say that falls into this perfectionism category.

Nicole: I know you like the Neurosciencey stuff, so I'm, I'm gonna dip my toe into that side of the category. Yeah. So We, we become a lot of, I'm gonna super blanket this term, but we become basically what we focus on, there's this thing in our brain called the reticular activating system, which lives almost like in the very front part of our brain, almost like it's a filter, not almost, it is a filter that is taking in the world around us.

There's 80 million bits of information happening around us. Give or take, you know, couple million at any given moment, anything from me staring at Sadie's, absolutely perfect fucking eyebrows, my blood pumping through my left ear. My vision board across the way. There's so many different things, the wind outside, and if I was consciously taking all of these things in, I would be in the fetal position on the ground because I would be so overwhelmed to the point of madness.

But we have this thing in our brain called the reticular activating system. That's this huge filter that's taking in, okay, what's important to Nicole? So, If what's important to Nicole is to be present here with Sadie while we're here on the on the call is I'm not gonna be focusing on the wind outside.

I'm not gonna be focusing on the blood pumping through my ear. I'm probably not gonna even be focusing on your freaking fierce eyebrows. I'm gonna be looking at your lips, I'm gonna be looking at your eye movement, so I'm more present with you as a human being. But all of this to say is that the way we talk to ourselves, the reticular activating system is still listening.

So if I'm going through my day saying, You didn't work hard enough. That person over there, she's better than you. I know I can push harder. I know that I didn't do my best on this work. I know I can practice harder, whatever it is. I know that there's all these goals that I wanna accomplish, but I'm not capable of achieving them 'cause I'm X, Y, or Z.

If I'm saying these over and over and over to myself and not even consciously, I'm talking subconsciously on autopilot. A lot of the times we are so. Mean to ourselves, the reticular activating system is listening. And so what it's basically doing is it's filtering through, you know, maybe you're scrolling through social media and it's filtering through, oh my gosh, that one girl, Jasmine, wow, she is off I'm gonna use the Italy example again.

She's off in Italy. She's having the most amazing time with her family or her friends, and she's doing this really, really cool thing. That means you suck. That means you're not doing enough. That means you should be doing that or X, Y, or Z. And it, it filters through the story of no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work, no matter how many goals I pursue, no matter how ambitious I am, I'm still not enough.

So I. There's a lot of other components to it, but I, and there's a lot around survival brain. A lot of perfectionism lives in that, like a Magdala five fight, freeze section of our brain. But the reticular activating system I do see tends to be the most prominent part because it is the core direction of what we are focusing on throughout the day.

A hundred

Sadie: percent. It's so interesting because a lot of these different things, in a sense, serve us, and I think that's true in a lot of mental health challenges, where it's like you develop these behaviors or these habits, or these thought patterns to get a need met, and a lot of these different. The thought patterns or behaviors that you engage in as a perfectionist, like you mentioned in your own story, is for acceptance and relationships and community, which is what we're wired for as humans.

Like we're not very strong predators. If we were out in the wilderness by ourselves, we'd be attacked within a day, so to survive and make it through hundreds of thousands of years. We stuck in groups and if you didn't fit in with your group, if you didn't connect with your peers, you were on the outs and literally , your life was at risk. And so that evolutionary part of our brains is still there. And we see that in in mental health rates and mental illness rates that. When you are isolated and when you're not connected, and when you're not engaged in a community, you're more likely to struggle with depression and anxiety, and even physical health challenges.

When you are isolated, your physical health struggles immensely, and so it's still something that's really important, and that's how some of these, almost like maladaptive coping mechanisms pop up to feel connected, to feel accepted, because it's one of those things that's so incredibly important to us.

In addition to eating and drinking water and getting enough sleep at night. Being accepted and feeling connected is really, and for better or for worse, at the core of being human. And so, Are there any other aspects of being a perfectionist that almost serve us? Because I've heard a lot of times, and I'm from the Bay Area, which is like perfectionism on steroids, it's quite a bubble of people that like work really hard and are high achievers and hold themselves to crazy standards.

And a lot of the times it's a positive, like, oh, I'm a perfectionist. Like that looks so great. And someone will be like, oh, it's 'cause I'm a perfectionist. It's almost like a. Great part of your personality that you care enough and have that attention to detail or are able to produce a certain quality of work.

And so I'd love to hear from you what you see clients and from your own experience, how people labels these different aspects of perfectionism and almost like. The what it gets you because there are positives there. Otherwise you wouldn't continue in that behavior. You wouldn't continue in that mindset.

So what are those aspects that people embrace and are, are almost proud of within their personality? Even if there can be an ineffective side of it,

Nicole: this might be a good time to get into the three different types. Yeah, because honestly there are many different positives. But I do think that different types of perfectionists experience them in different ways. . So there are three different types of perfectionists, and this is not an exhaustive list. These are just the three that I've seen mostly in my work. And that is the high achiever or the overachiever.

The, we've talked this one to death at this point, but I will talk about it a little bit more. The procrastinator. And the people pleaser. So these three types, now it's, I as people start self categorizing them. 'cause that's what we do when we listen to podcasts, especially around frameworks. Right. Oh, that's sweet.

I do want you to, I definitely have that problem, like when you were saying earlier about rumination versus, oh my gosh, what was

Sadie: the other word you used? Worry. Worry. I

Nicole: was like, I'm definitely the worrier, like as you're talking, me too. Me, me too. We just naturally do that. But so as you kind of start to self categorize, I do wanna put up a huge asterisk.

We are not sectioned into one type, and that's it. There is definitely one type that tends to be our home base, one that we visit a lot more, whether for better or for worse. But we do tend to dip into each different type depending on a situation we're in, depending on a chapter of life we're in, depending on, you know, I know that when I was in college, I was a mega procrastinator versus now in my life I definitely live into the high achiever more so.

So keep that in mind as you're going through, as I'm going through this list. So, Let's go with the positives. I, I like starting with this side 'cause that's, that's always nice. So the high achiever is definitely success driven and that's a great thing. Like, it's a great thing to want more and want to achieve and want to make a d a lot of.

High achievers tend to be people who wanna make a difference in the world. A lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of CEOs tend to be in the high achiever perfectionism category. So it does tend to live more into this, like, what can I do more with my life? How can I serve more people? How can I more and more and more and more and more?

And we are human beings, naturally program for growth. We naturally wanna see that progression. And so the high achiever is just like that on as you would put steroids, right? Yeah. So I do think that there's a lot of. Goodness with that. A lot of people in the world who are in that successful put air quotes around that '.

You can really only use your own self-definition. But in like the glamorous like success version those tend to be people who are high achiever types. But They wouldn't be where they were if they weren't constantly saying, how can I be better today? How can I be better today?

How can I be better today? And I think that is a freaking gift to be able to ask yourself that question on autopilot. Major Astros here with no shame, with no self rumination. The middle one, the procrastinator. I'm, I wanna just like put a little side note here. A lot of people hear the word procrastinator or they get procrastinator on the quiz that I have or anything like that, and they're like, ah, man, procrastinators are lazy.

They suck. They never amount to anything. They just sit on the couch and play video games. Men, and I'm, I literally have to like, flip a table and I'm like, no. That's not the case at all because procrastinators are not lazy. They're, in fact, some of the busiest people I know. Sorry to the high achievers in the room.

Yes, you're busy too. I know you are, but like they really are. The procrastinators are, and the only issue is that they're normally busy on things that are comfortable, are not raising their fight, fly, freeze muscles that are causing them to procrastinate. But I digress because they're big. Beautiful gift that they have as procrastinators is they have so many goals, they have so many dreams and they have those dreams, like normally crystal clear.

They're like, I wanna do this, I wanna do that, I wanna do this. And normally it's from this place of like, I just want, like, I can't even describe it. It's almost like their shoulders go back, they take up more space in the room and it's like this, beacon of light takes over them. That sounds so cheesy, but I really do mean it.

So, The procrastinator. They are really good at dreaming and staying busy. And unfortunately, we live in a world that really glorifies busyness. I actively wanna work against that. That's one of my missions on this planet is to rewrite that narrative. But. In a world that glorifies being busy, the procrastinator is really like hitting the nail on the head. They're like, Ooh, look at me being so busy. But there's this internal like, But I haven't made any progress.

And that frustration. Yeah. And that anger really weighs on them. And it, going back to it, it creates a lot of negative self-talk. Last but not least, a people pleaser. This one's pretty self-explanatory in my opinion, because what is wrong with helping other people? And I'm gonna be really honest with you.

I think we live in a world where we need more of the core. Of people pleasers. Not the I'm not enough, not the, I need them to like me for whatever the core of like I just wanna help people. We need more people like that, the way that this world is going. Yeah. That's my very like soapbox opinion, but the core of a people pleaser of, I want to show you that I love you, I care for you, I want you to be well, that is so.

Effing beautiful. Now, do boundaries need to be in place? Do self care and making sure that you are talking kindly to yourself and you're not leaving a social situation being like, God, I just said the most stupidest thing. I'm talking to Brian. He's gonna hate me forever. Obviously we wanna diminish those as much as possible, but the, I want to make sure everyone else feels good is a gorgeous trait.

And I think we shame that a lot right now because it is very, like, you need to empower yourself. You need to step into your full power. And I see a lot of people use that language , in relation to, quite frankly, being a little bit in the like, I'm more important than you. And I don't think that's, again, black and white.

I don't think it's that black and white. I really think that there's a gray here that we can live into and people pleasers have that massive advantage of already being halfway there. Mm-hmm.

today's episode is brought to you by Teen Counseling. If you haven't heard of teen counseling, it is better Helps branch of online therapy specifically for teens. They have over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network, and they offer support on things like depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and so much more.

As we talk about in this episode, things like neuroticism and perfectionism can. Be a precursor or a risk factor for mental health challenges, and especially if you have different belief systems or behaviors that are getting in the way of doing things. You enjoy showing up as your best self in your relationships, all of those different things, therapy can be super helpful.

If you've ever listened to this podcast, you know, therapy changed my life. It saved my life. We love therapy on She resisted, and so I wanted to share a resource with you, which is teen counseling. They offer talk, text, and video counseling, so depending on what level of support you're looking for, you are able to get met with those resources where you're at.

So if you want to check it out, you can go to teen counseling.com/she resisted. Again, that is teen counseling.com/she assisted to find a therapist that fits your needs today

Sadie: So interesting. And I think as you were, like, we categorize ourself, I'm like, I'm the procrastinator. I'm always doing like these random little things.

I'm posting something on social media, working on some random project. To avoid something that's more stress inducing or that I feel less comfortable doing. So I, I loved those description that I'm sure everyone listening is also categorizing themselves. I'd love to hear from you what the different, almost like thought patterns and behaviors in these three different types are.

I think that. You might understand like, okay, I have that drive that I'm never good enough or that I always wanna work harder. But it can be difficult to identify how that shows up and what emotions arise and what thought patterns are like reinforcing that belief system. So what kind of different thought processes do you see in clients and in your own experience?

And then how do you rewire those to be more balanced and more healthy and less all or nothing very restrictive.

Nicole: This is a really good question and I'm gonna start with the procrastinator. 'cause you really actually , hit very much home with it. A lot of it is to do with our phones 'cause they're just glued to us at all times.

I'm going to scroll through social, I'm gonna post on social, I'm gonna check my email. I'm gonna text this person. I'm gonna dah

Sadie: me all the time. I'm being called out right here constantly

Nicole: to, to avoid doing something that you know you need. Need air quotes, you know you want to do in order to achieve maybe a major goal, but it's outta your comfort zone.

But because going back to that amygdala, that five flight freeze button, basically what happens is whenever I think about. Sending that scary email. And whenever I think about applying for that really awesome job that I'm not quite qualified for, but I could be like, whenever we think about that, that fight flight freeze button in our brain just goes, eh, like pressed immediately as fast as possible.

And for procrastinators, it is not freeze. It's flight. It's, mm. You know, I'm not really feeling motivated today. I'm gonna do that tomorrow when I have more energy. I'm gonna do that tomorrow when I have more quote unquote time. I'm gonna do that tomorrow or next week or whatever, or I'll do that later, and it is solely from this.

I either don't feel good enough to do this task right now. I don't have enough information to do this task right now. I see a lot of people, oh man, I'm gonna get on such a soapbox for a second. I see a lot of people who for instance, I work with quite a number of entrepreneurs, a lot of them procrastinators.

A lot of people think a lot of them are high achievers. Most of them are, a lot of them do tend to be procrastinators though. And they write on their to-do list build website or finish website. And I, I look at their to-do list with them and I say, okay, if you were to think of what's the first thing I need to do for this?

Would you be able to think of it in three seconds? And they go, No, and I'm like, great, because those three seconds are basically all you have till that flight, takes over and they're like, oh man. So I created something with them called these one sitting tasks. Basically, it means if you cannot do this task in one sitting, if it is not clear enough where you know, you will be able to check it off a list in one sitting.

It is not gonna be clear and your fight flight freeze is gonna activate. So for example, that is so

Sadie: interesting because that is me, me, every single day. I have my Asana, I have my bold journal, and I have my Apple calendar because I'm crazy and well there with you like this is me too, a t. And there's like 10 items on the list for the day, and there's the one sitting task like post for this client, post the new she persisted clip.

Mm-hmm. Respond to this dmm like these edit this one video. Not a problem. It's getting checked off, it's getting done. Then it's the bigger tasks of like, Schedule this recording or like edit this entire episode and it just gets moved every single day down the road. Yes. And it's like what you talked about, you can't get into that thought pattern and probably is like a protective mechanism being like, I did nothing today because you did so many little things, Uhhuh.

But the big goal still was not achieved.

Nicole: And that's all your brain is gonna be focusing on. Yeah. Because that's what, you know, you quote unquote, again, need to do in order to achieve where you wanna go or in order to make the, do you know like the 80 20 principle? Does that ring bell? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So basically procrastinators live in the 80% tasks,

the people who tend to use perfectionism to their advantage in the way of, like, I have big goals and I know I'm capable of going after them live in the 20%. And so honestly, what I work with a lot of my clients on is not only the positive self-talk, 'cause that's huge, I cannot. Understate how incredibly important that is.

It's identifying what are the 20% tasks and doing those during something I call prime hours. So your prime hours are a set of three to four, sometimes two to four hours throughout the day that you tend to be the most on. You tend to be the most focused. It's easier to fall into flow state. And as a result, you're able to check off those bigger things.

Edit the podcast, send the scary email write the about me page for your website. You're able to finish those bigger, scarier tasks in an easier amount of time because you're able to tap into that flow state. Now, do not disturb. Needs to be on because if you get pulled outta that flow state, it takes 23 minutes and 16 seconds on average to get back into it.

And a lot of us just don't have that patience anymore because we're like, Hmm, I'm not feeling it anymore. Let me do this tomorrow. Avoid, yeah, exactly. And so do not disturb, having your phone in another room. I am very adamant with my husband where it's like if I am in flow state, he does not come in.

I am like very, very focused on that time. But not to, like, if there's an emergency, if the house burning down, he'll come in. Likes like, do not bother

Sadie: me. I'm in my flow state. It's really warm

Nicole: in here. I wonder why

Sadie: this is great. This is so conducive to my work environment. Like, just gonna keep

Nicole: going here.

I'm sweating. This is only making me have to work harder. That's a very high achiever thing. But so again, going back to the procrastinator mindset, it's chunking things down, making tasks smaller. Avoiding that overwhelm as much as you possibly can. Now we live in a world that constantly we're being pulled at our attention.

I don't think it's possible to fully overcome overwhelm. Yeah, it's gonna happen. We live in a world like that. But knowing how to deal with it. So for example, looking at your to-do list for the day, it would be, okay, what are my biggest tasks here? What are the 20% quote unquote, let me do those. During my prime hours, let's say it's first thing in the morning, let me do those first, and then when I'm less focused at three in the afternoon, I'm gonna knock out these, but I'm gonna make sure my stuff's on do not disturb so I can just fully focus and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Mm-hmm. That is really what it's about, but it's knowing how to prioritize. What should I do first in a way that will help my brain because it's already living into what it naturally does. Well, a k a prime hours.

Sadie: Yeah. What are those systems for the people pleasers and the overachievers, the ones that aren't necessarily like avoiding all of their tasks or avoiding those difficult emotions, what does that look like and how can they set themselves up for success?

Nicole: Well, I'll go ahead and say that overachievers are definitely doing this.

Overachievers tend to be very much like I, I see a lot of people cross into the overachiever and procrastinator pretty fluidly. Mm-hmm. Mainly because, They just wanna be busy. They just wanna feel important because they're busy and that's something. Sure. Yeah. But high achievers tend to work themselves, like freaking sea biscuit trying to get everything done.

So when it comes to high achievers, they tend to way pack their day. They tend to still lay in the bed at the end of the day and be like, oh man, I haven't achieved this. I haven't done this yet. I haven't da dah, dah, dah, dah, and beat themselves up for not being further ahead. Mm-hmm. High achievers are basically constantly Just self-loathing themselves into the next level saying, when I achieve this, when I, I'll be happy when I make X amount of money, then I'll be happy when I graduate, then I'll be happy.

I said that on loop over and over again when I graduate, then I'll be happy when I graduate and then I'll be happy. Guess what? I graduated and I, it was literally overcoming this huge, big thing and I still was saying, well, I'm not on Broadway yet. So like there was still a lot of that there. I just learned how to talk kinder to myself as a result of it and use a lot of other things like physicality and all that kinda stuff to, to naturally tap into motivation.

But I digress. When it comes to the high achiever, I think the number one thing that they can work on is identifying what their 80% is. 'cause it's never what they think it is. 80% is always the things that are like, Hmm, let me feel so important. But it takes up so much time and I'm really frantic and da da da da.

A lot of high achievers tend to multitask thinking that like, that's how my brain works. It's not, brains do not multitask. It's literally just shifting from one task to another. And it uses up our brain storage of glucose, which is. A lot of our energy and it drastically drains it. So it's why we're at the end of the day being like, oh my God, I literally can only crawl into bed because we're multitasking throughout the day.

So actually, what I would really say to high achievers is identify what your 20% are and when it comes to your goals, a lot. I'm really getting on a high horse here. But when it comes to their goals, a lot of high achievers tend to wanna drop into the end result of their goal. Let's say it's a hundred steps ahead.

They're here at step zero. They're normally not, they're at step like 59, but let's say for easy math, they're at step zero. And they're trying to drop into step 100. That's not how this works. That's how you work yourself. Like sea biscuit. That's how you feel frantic. That's how you get burned out really, really quickly.

And then even high achievers who I've met some high achievers who are so burned out and they're still saying, I can do more because I have that spare five minutes at 1205. And it's like, No. And a lot of them work themselves to exhaustion, to the point where they're hospitalized, where they have to be on.

I luckily, I have not worked with any severe cases like this, but I've heard stories of them where they have to be you know, in like absolute bedrest for three months. And so they're forced to slow down. So my goal is to always make sure that they don't get there. But instead of saying, how can you get to level 100?

How can you get to level 100? How can you get to level one? What is step one? And this is really for, for procrastinators too. What's step one and just focus on that. What are the 20% things that are going to launch you forward to step one, great step one's, then now it's step two, and so on and so forth.

And what's actually fascinating is a lot of high achievers tend to achieve their goals faster, feeling a lot more proud of themselves. 'cause they're focusing on the journey, not just the destination. But because they're feeling prouder of themselves along the way, they get to the end result and they're like, oh my God.

I actually like, was really kind to myself. Oh my goodness. I actually had fun. Yeah. I actually enjoyed the progress of growth and learning, and that's the goal here for high achievers. So I'd say a healthy mix of massive self-compassion. Massive self-compassion. Rest because a lot of high achievers do not rest.

I, I heard a quote the other day that was like, if you sleep, someone else is getting ahead of you. And I gagged, oh, I gagged, I I'm gagged.

Sadie: I was so annoyed. I'm not sleeping. Someone else is getting ahead of you. That's the actual truth there. It was

Nicole: disgusting and it's like, but also I grew up.

In the personal development world that was preaching that 24 7. So

Sadie: there was a little voice that was Yeah, that's true. I saw this crazy video on social media. Do you know who Ed Millet is? Another like crazy personal development person? Oh yeah. He has this video that always pops up on my for you page.

'cause people are like, what is going on? And he's like, I live three days every day. Everyone else is living one day every 24 hours. My day is eight hours. I'm like 5:00 AM to whatever it is, eight hours later. 'cause I don't do math. That's day one. It's next day. All the things are happening and I'm like, what is going on?

And a lot of people have the same question, but it's that same thing of like trying to force yourself to be superhuman and not taking those breaks and not having rest and holding yourself to that standard that's just completely unreasonable.

Nicole: That right there is the high achiever in a nutshell. Yeah.

And it makes me so sad because that is really glorified right now. It is really glorified, especially in the personal growth, the entrepreneur world, all that kind of stuff. Is this , Absolute super, like 75 hard, doing all these crazy things to prove to yourself that you can. And it's like just because you can doesn't mean you should all of the time.

Yeah. Yeah. Like what if you made massive leaps on your goals and took a nap or like, one of my big things right now is since it's so nice it's summer, I, I have all of Wednesday afternoon blocked off. 'cause that's my pool time. And I love, listen to nothing personal development related. I'm actually listening to a Cord of Thrones and Roses right now.

I'm fucking obsessed. It's so good. But like that's my time. And it's not just Wednesdays, that's just an example of a during the day thing. But that's my time to be like, I get to be a human. 'cause I'm always a human first. And actually this is a really good thing for high achievers to remember.

You are so much bigger than just an achiever. You are not just a high achiever, you're not just an overachiever. You're not just ambitious, determined, whatever. You're a human. Who's the human. And if you don't know who that is, it's time to do some exploring. And it doesn't have to come as a cost of your goals, but it does need to happen in tandem 'cause or else you're gonna get to that million dollars, you're gonna get to that degree, you're gonna get to that multiple degrees, whatever it is you want, and still say, wow, I don't feel like I'm enough 'cause I need that thing instead.

Sadie: What does that system and what those best practices to set yourself up for success, what does that look like for the people pleaser? Because I imagine it would be really different than someone who's so task focused or there's that 80 20 rule and, and not taking as much rest.

So what does that look like to put yourself in the best case scenario, to not burn out and, and have these mental health challenges creep in as a result of this almost like lifestyle?

Nicole: Yeah, you nailed it on the head. It is not as, Listen to the 80 20 principle. It's not as one sitting task. It's in fact start learning how to trust the voice in your fricking head because so often people pleasers are putting these other, other people in the room, other people online, other people in their heads, even on this massive pedestal saying, Oh my gosh, their word is God, or they get to make all the decisions.

I can't stand up to them, da dah, dah, dah. It's truly just learning how to trust the voice inside your head and know that it is on that same level of pedestal. It doesn't have to be above, it doesn't have to be just below. It's the same level, and that comes with really specific things. I think therapy is.

The first thing I would immediately think of, I'm a huge believer in therapy. I've been actually just started a therapy journey after many, many years of being like I did personal development. So that was therapy. Bullshit, Nicole? Yeah, it was not, it was actually the opposite. And my therapist is really like calling me out on a lot of those old personal development things I was taught growing up.

That's a whole other podcast though. My husband, who's a major perfectionist, a major people pleaser, I love him so much, but he's been on a therapy journey and he's a different person three years later, like in the best way. So I would say that is my first thing. If therapy is something that you can't afford right now or it's not something you can commit to,

books. Podcasts, they're fucking free. Like you're listening to one right now. Congratulations. If you are a people pleaser, you can go ahead and just like pat yourself on the back and say, wow, I'm doing this because I'm learning different ways of viewing myself, different ways that I can start thinking so that I can start trusting my voice now, yes.

Do I think boundaries are a big thing? Do I think learning how to say no is a big thing? Yes. But if you do not trust the voice that is inside your head and that is coming out of mouth. The boundaries are gonna fall through, they're gonna be built on quicksand, and the no is gonna come out like, no.

Well, because of this. And it's not gonna feel like a no because you're still trying to overexplain, and again, that person goes straight up on the pedestal. Mm-hmm. So I know that that one's very ambiguous in comparison to the procrastinator and the high achiever. And believe me, I'm working on some more tactical things, I promise you, but therapy books you can go to your local library.

Books are free. There's a great book called Overcoming Perfectionism. That book's great. Just any book that allows you to be like, oh, That's right.

I am important and starts the like using that muscle, going back to the particular activating system to do a huge, big, rewind back to earlier. You've been telling your r a s reticular activating system in your head. X, Y, and Z person are more important. They have a better vision, they have a better vocabulary.

They're more intelligent than I am. They're whatever you've been telling your R A ss that. So it is showing you all the reasons why you are not enough to be on the same pedestal as them when you start listening to stuff like this. When you start. Attending therapy, listening to books, reading books, whatever it is you wanna do.

Working with a coach, I really recommend that. Oh, if you're in that deep, deep people pleaser, please attend therapy. If you want to do coaching, you can do them alongside, but please do therapy. Please. Just please. Making sure that you are starting to tell your r a s How can I see myself as an equal right now?

Is huge. Mm-hmm. For starting to reshape how you interact with the world.

Sadie: A hundred percent. Because we are a perfectionist and love tasks and homework and things to do. What would your like first step, level one, whatever you want to call it, for each subtype, be after listening to this podcast just starting heal.

Start to heal that relationship, heal that mindset, heal that lifestyle approach, et cetera. Within each of those subtypes

Nicole: Oh God, that's such a good question. I'm gonna start with people pleaser . Okay. People pleaser. It is identify, how do you want to start trusting your own voice?

Is it listening to a podcast every day? Is it. Journaling I've even seen, is it reading a book that you have been really interested in? If you want send me a message on Instagram. I'm at Life Coach Baker. I have a full book reckless and a huge amount of those are also for people pleasers. So send me a dmm.

I'm happy to send that your way. I would just start to identify what it is and start doing it. That's the biggest thing. A lot of people pleasers are like, oh, well, I know I should attend therapy. I know I should read X book. But they don't follow through on it because everything in their core is like, no, stay safe, where you're putting everyone else on a pedestal and you're accommodating and you're flipping over backwards for everyone else, because that's where safety is.

It's not, and it's as simple as picking up the first page of a book and reading it. It does not have to be. Saying Absolutely not. I'm not gonna do that for you, you stupid human. Like, it's not being a jerk to someone, it's just starting the journey of how can I learn to trust my own voice.

So that would be number one. For procrastinators, I would actually really say stop looking at the 100. And here's the thing I didn't mention about procrastinators. They tend to have. Ford actually counted one time with a, with a client, 42 goals that they're trying to go after all in tandem. And they have to be the best in every single one of them.

Even though they're not the high achiever, they still have to be the best in all of them. They have to be at level 100 in all of them. I would say pick one. Yeah. And just start looking at what is step one for it? Not what is step 100? What is step one? And for everyone who's just like, but I have 45, I can't pick one.

You can't, 'cause right now you're not picking any 'cause you're procrastinating. Yeah. Pick one and start proving to yourself. 'cause you know you can, I know you can, but start proving to yourself that I can make progress in a scary way, but I can do it. So that would be my thing for the procrastinator.

The high achiever, I'm actually not gonna even go to any of the tactics. It is look yourself in the F and mirror and say, I love you. You're doing enough. Good job. Do that once, and I dare you. I dare you to not immediately change how you view your world that day. Yeah. Those are my three things.

Sadie: I love it.

And I love what you said about the procrastinator. I heard someone recently say that if it's your number one goal, you should be spending 60% of your time on it and thinking really big picture, like Yeah. Your education, building, family, a relationship self-love, like whatever it is. If you're really pursuing that goal, you probably are spending 60% of time on it.

Like if it's school Yes. How many hours a day you're spending on school and homework and studying and all these different things, or if it's your. Relationships all the time that you spend thinking about others or hanging out with people or doing the internal work to be able to show up as a better version of yourself in those relationships.

I think putting it in that perspective that 60% of your time is invested in that primary goal, makes it really difficult to balance all 40 of those number one

Nicole: goals. Yes. It's one of the biggest reasons why a lot of people, 'cause again, it hits that fight flight freeze button in our brain because we're overwhelmed.

Yeah. Yeah. 'cause how do I spend, like, you know, maybe I have a spare hour. Do I pick up the guitar? Do I learn how to be social media famous? Do I study for that one? Test, do I da da da da? And it's like our brain just goes, ah, scroll through Instagram. Yeah. And we go back to what's easiest. And so it's pick one.

It does not have to be the one for your rest of your life. It's actually definitely not going to be. But pick one and just start looking at what is my first step? Ideally, what's my first step and what are the 20% tasks that I can do to go after them? I love that. Make the one sitting tasks too, by the way.

Yes,

Sadie: yes. Not the big ones that just get passed along for six months at

Nicole: the time. No, and at the episode and is the first five

Sadie: minutes. Exactly. Exactly. What is one common misbelief or myth that you hear about perfectionists? S likely from people that aren't perfectionists themselves that you wanna debunk and kind of demystify.

Nicole: I think it goes back to that. Oh well I'm not a perfectionist 'cause I'm not, I hear this a lot not to make this a male female thing. I do hear this a lot from guys like I'm not a perfectionist 'cause I don't care about how my house looks. I'm not a perfectionist 'cause I don't feel like I need to be the best dressed in the room or whatever it is.

And it's like, no, that might be true. But you're constantly telling yourself that you're not enough for the woman that you're dating. That's a little bit perfectionistic. So my biggest thing that I want people to understand is that perfectionism is not about how you look. It's not about , a look at all.

It's truly about I need to be at this level. It doesn't need to be the best, but I need to be at 125%, let's say. And if I'm at 124, I wasn't enough. And if I'm at 60, I'm never gonna be enough. So what I want people to understand about perfectionism is that it is a sneaky mother and it shows up in ways that we don't even, I, I still feel like we're fully understanding.

And the biggest thing that we can do to combat perfectionism is realizing that when I show up as 60%, I'm still enough. If I show up as 39%, my husband and I. I actually started this a few months ago. I'm, I'm gonna give credit where credit is due. We sold this from Brene Brown. She's amazing. I love her.

This was her and her husband's thing. But at the end of every day, like before they start the end of the evening activities, cooking, dinner, hanging out, whatever it is they say, what's the percentage you have right now? So let's say like today, I'm feeling. Pretty dang good. It's five o'clock where I am.

I'm gonna go up to my husband and be like, you know, I've got 80%. And , if he's like, you know, I have. 20. I'm like, I got you. I got your, I got the rest. What we're trying to do is basically cover a full 100%, but if I come up to him and I'm like, I have maybe 19%, and he's like, you know what? I have 19% too.

It's having the grace with ourselves to say, okay, we're gonna do the easiest dinner humanly possible, whether that's takeout or heat up, or the salmon that's been in the back of our fridge and we've been like, oh, we'll eat healthy later. But it's easy to grill whatever it is. We're going to put on our favorite movie or play our favorite video game.

'cause we're big lovers of video games and we're just going to hang and be kind to ourselves. So kind of got off on a tangent there, but it's really just saying, I can love myself at 125%, but I don't love myself more at 125% versus 19%.

Sadie: I love that. Such a great note to end on. If people want to follow along or work with you or continue to consume your content, where can they find you?

Nicole: I am everywhere at Life. Coach Baker, website, all that kind of stuff. And if you wanna find out I. Like, I'm sure you guys are probably self categorizing as you're listening to this episode, like we mentioned, but if you wanna take the formal quiz, formal, that sounds, so like you grade, I'm taking, it's, I'm doing, it's not for a Grade I promise, but it is for more information.

So you can go to life coach baker.com/quiz quizzes totally free. You'll get all the information there.

Sadie: Amazing. All of that will be in the show notes. I'll be taking the quiz and reporting back in the intro what I got, but I already know I'm a procrastinator please, but I'll confirm it. Thank you so much for coming onto you for Ed.

This was so much fun. Thank you for having me, Sadie. This was awesome.

Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of she persisted. If you enjoyed, make sure to share with a friend or family member, it really helps out the podcast. And if you haven't already leave a review on apple podcasts or Spotify, you can also make sure to follow along at actually persisted podcast on both Instagram and Tik TOK, and check out all the bonus resources, content and information on my website.

She persisted podcast.com. Thanks for supporting. Keep persisting and I'll see you next week.

© 2020 She Persisted LLC. This podcast is copyrighted subject matter owned by She Persisted LLC and She Persisted LLC reserves all rights in and to the podcast. Any use without She Persisted LLC’s express prior written consent is prohibited.