Imperfect Action = Success

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence, first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. I want to start today with a question for you. Are you a perfectionist? Or do you notice that you have a really strong need to do it just right or perfectly in some area of your life? Maybe it shows up in your workplace, Maybe it shows up in projects you focus on, maybe in design or making things look a certain way, aesthetics, your appearance, how you need to be. Are you perfectionist? Socially, emotionally? I gotta be emotionally perfect. Most people I talk to have at least one area of their life where they have this demand to be perfect. And I want to address this because this just came up last night in a mastermind call that I was running where someone who runs his own business was noticing that he was getting hung up on producing things, creating things, testing things out for his marketing because there was this need to have it be perfect. So if we're going to get this referral card to these people, it's got to look perfectly. And he's stressing about that. And if so, and so is gonna post for our business and our team, it's gotta look perfect, and this post has gotta be perfect or else. And what came about when I was doing the hot seat coaching with him in the group is just how much this was blocking his progress in his business. And I wonder which areas of your life you might be blocking or slowing your progress out of this need to be perfect. So today we're going to be talking about that, where it comes from, why you're doing it, and what to do instead. That might just free you up to not only succeed a lot more, but feel a lot more confident along the way and enjoy yourself a lot more. So I'm excited to be with you today. If you're benefiting from this show, please take a moment either now or at the end of the show to go to itunes or the podcast app on your phone or however you're listening to this and give it a five star review or whatever number of stars you think it deserves, obviously, I mean, I think we can all agree it'd be a five, right? Anyway, you know, a little review, a little sentence or two about how it's benefiting you in your life that helps this show reach more people, which is the goal, the mission, which is called mass liberation. To help as many people as possible to rid themselves of insecurity and self doubt. To become the most confident, free, bold version of you. That's what we're doing here. So if you want to support me in that, it's free and easy to do. And then you're gonna help someone else. Cause there's someone out there just like you who has not discovered this show yet. Maybe they think there's something wrong with them. Maybe they think they're stuck like this. Maybe they just feel bad about who they are and freedom is possible. We're doing it. You're doing it. So here's another way we can get free is to drop this perfectionism pattern. Let's see what it is first. So what is perfectionism? Perfectionism in its simplest form is fear. That's all. Perfectionism equals fear. So anytime you feel that need to have it be perfect, you might think it's about high standards. You might think it's about, it reflects something positive about you. Like, hey, I hold myself for other people or I have a level of excellence. No, perfectionism is not about excellence. Perfectionism is, is about fear. Because if you just take, if you scratch off that thin little veneer of quote excellence or a high standard, what you find is there's a ton of fear there. A ton of it's unacceptable for it to be anything other than quote, perfect as you see it. And a way to look and see that it's fear. Well, one, you can just feel the fear, right? Just imagine getting something done that's not quite perfect. You probably feel a lot of anxiety or discomfort or it's just not even tolerable. But even then, if you look at what is the concern? What if it's not perfect? The idea is what? Well, people are going to judge me, people aren't going to like me, I'm going to be rejected, my reputation is going to be ruined, I'm going to be laughed at, I'm going to be ridiculed, I'm going to be disliked, I'm going to be fired, I'm going to be reprimanded, I'm going to be let go, I want to be dumped. There's some strong fear of loss of something. Loss of face or loss of connection, loss of love, loss of being valued. And you can just take one step back and see, you know, this might not be about the thing that I'm obsessing about right now. It just might go back a long, long time ago in my life to where I learned somewhere along the way that I gotta be perfect or else I'm gonna lose love. I'm gonna lose respect. And when I do this with clients, most of the time, people have a pretty good sense that that is how they felt when they were younger. Is that how you felt when you were younger? Where was a place you needed to perform better, do better, be better, be perfect? And you might not have needed to be perfect. That's a conclusion that we come to when we're young because we get pain for, you know, maybe we look different so we're made fun of at school, or you don't do well enough in your grades, and you get, you know, one of your parents gets upset with you or disappointed with you. And it doesn't even have to be extreme. It doesn't have to be them, like, you know, flipping over the table and yelling at you. If you're sensitive enough as a kid, which a lot of people with social anxiety and shyness are very sensitive as children, I certainly was. You just feel a lot. So even if the parent's just mildly disappointed, it's like, ugh, this feels so bad. And wherever it is, however you pick it up, a parent, directly, indirectly, other kids, school, community, whatever it is we learn, we make the conclusion somewhere in our mind, usually unconsciously. Wait a minute. If I'm better, I don't get yelled at. If I'm faster, then I get more praise. Wait a minute. So the best thing to do is to become perfect. Is to become the best. If I'm perfect, then I'll never get rejected. If I'm perfect, no one will ever dislike me. If I'm perfect, I'll never get yelled at. I'll never get made fun of. I'll never get left out. I'll be popular, I'll be liked. I'll be loved. I'll be approved of, I'll be admired. I'll get the connection that I so desperately want. If I am perfect, that's the template that we got in there. Then you flash forward to your workplace where you're not. Maybe you don't think you're there at work to get love and approval. You think you're there to Do a job or perform a task, or get paid or whatever it is. But just underneath the surface is this hunger for approval, the need to be liked and its flip side, which is the need to avoid being disliked or rejected. And your strategy is to be perfect. And the hope is that if I'm so perfect, I'll get to avoid the human experience, the human emotions that everyone else experiences, which is sometimes you're gonna get rejected. Some people are not gonna like your marketing materials, someone's not gonna like your appearance, someone's not gonna wanna date you just because based on how you look, or the color of your skin, or your religion or your beliefs or your philosophies or your hair or whatever. I mean, people don't want to be with someone for all kinds of reasons, you know. And so someone's not going to want to hire you because they have a certain image of what they're looking for and you're not that image. So you're going to get rejected, you're going to be disapproved of, you're going to be disliked. Some of your things that you do aren't going to work. In fact, a lot of the things that you do, especially for this client I was talking to in business, a lot of the things you do aren't going to work. So what happens when we get hung up on perfection, like I need to be perfect. What happens is we slow everything way down. Because if it's got to be perfect, I got to keep working on it. I remember I talked to a woman who's working on her book and she wanted help. She's like, she realized it was a confidence issue. You know, she was a good writer, she could do this stuff, but she wasn't able to do it. She was getting stalled out. I said, great, how long have you been working on the book? She said, three years. I was like, wow, that's a long time. I mean, I guess if someone's doing like super in depth research for a book and they're studying it again and again and again and they got to figure out all this research to synthesize, but it wasn't that kind of book. I mean, a year time frame would have been more than sufficient for her to write this kind of book based upon her background, her skill set. So three years is a long time. What's going on there? It's gotta be perfect. And so when it needs to be perfect, what we're gonna do is we often procrastinate and we delay producing the final result. So we're working on it, trying to make it perfect, but it never gets done. And what moves your life forward is things getting done. Especially in business and work career. But other areas of your life, you want to get your finances in order. You got to get stuff done. You want to. Even in like dating and relationships, you might not think sometimes it is about getting the job done. No, not really. That's not a very good model for sex at all. But you know, yeah, you need to put yourself out there. You need to interact with people, you need to ask people out, you need to have the conversations, you need to do things. And so if you're waiting until I am perfect before I ask somebody out, then you never do it. So you can even delay in this area of your life. I remember I had a client I worked with who had. He was very messy and disorganized in his house. And he's like, well, I gotta get organized and clean before I can date. I'm like, reasonable. I mean, I'd never seen his house, but I don't know if he's got like pizza boxes and shit everywhere. Maybe, you know, clean it up a little bit. I said, great, you know, let's talk about that. How long has it, you know, this been an issue for you? And he's like, oh, maybe five years. Like five years. This is not a matter of limited organization. This is. There's something going on here. This is serving a function. So it's a way of protecting ourselves. Perfectionism is a way of protecting ourselves from that rejection, that pain, that failure. So is this resonating with you? Are you seeing something about yourself right now? And look, we all do it. You might not use the word perfection or perfectionism, but we all do it in some way, shape or form in some area of our lives. Sometimes it's really obvious. Sometimes it's more subtle, sometimes it's this intense, like it's gotta be perfect. And sometimes it's just like a no. I just need to keep working on it. I just need to get a little bit better. I just need to do a little more research. I just need to get a little more feedback. I just need to do just a little bit more. And sometimes it's just like I don't want to work on it at all. I don't know. I should, but I don't. Behind that again is perfectionism. So how do we shift this? How do we be free of this? Well, there is what is effective and then there's what perfectionism. And that part tells us what to do so. Perfectionism says spend insane amounts of time on it until it's the most amazing thing in the world and then release it. And that is the part of you that wants to protect you from all rejection. I call the safety police, and your safety police loves that. I mean, ideally, your safety police would have you never put yourself out there, Never release your art or your music or your videos or your marketing materials or your you in terms of dating and relationships. It would never have have you put yourself out there in any way. Now, if you're listening to this show, if you're taking bold action to transform your confidence in your life, then it's not stopping you from doing everything. Its next strategy is to get you to slow down the action as much as possible. It's got a lot of tactics for that, but one of them is perfectionism. I remember I was talking to a client who would do these blog posts, and he said it would take me about 15 hours to make a blog post. And so part of our work together was to help him make a shift in this. And I'll talk about that in just a minute. What the shift might be. So just look for in your life. Where are you taking forever? What is the consequence or what is the cost? Now back to the beginning of this episode. Remember I was talking about the business owner. When it comes to running your own business, if you are really, the cost of the perfectionism is stuff is going to move really slow and he's kind of an early stage of his business and he needs to figure out what kind of marketing is going to work best for his business. So remember I said there's what's most effective and then there's what our safety police wants to do. What's most effective in early stage business? When you don't know what kind of marketing is going to be most effective for your business, what would you guess is the most effective thing to do? Well, you might say, well, learn what other people are doing. That's reasonable. Maybe find a mentor or a guide who's done what you want to do and see what they're doing that can narrow the field so you're not just throwing a dartboard at a, you know, dart at a, at a dart board or whatever. They could say throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks so you can have a little bit of guidance, you know, even still, though, no one can tell you exactly, like do ABC and then you're done. You still got to figure some stuff out, test it out for you. So what is the most effective way to test out what's going to work for you. That's right. Do it and do it as rapidly as possible. So he's looking at social media marketing, he's looking at referral marketing, he's looking at these other strategies and he hasn't really produced much of any of them because he's trying to make them perfect. And I was like, well, what's most effective is going to be to put out, test the social media, test the referral thing, test these three or four or five things and see what's most effective and try to do it as fast as possible. Can you figure out within a month or two and then just start putting more eggs in that one basket? That's working better for you. So where are you hesitating and trying to make it perfect versus could you just get an emotion right? Like I'm gonna craft the perfect dating profile and get it up there one day versus just get it up there and then just start putting yourself out there. Side note, by the way, about the dating profiles. This is a total random note. So if you're dating online, I had a friend of mine who was showing me his profile and he was, you know, getting some responses but not, you know, it's a little bit, not that much. And he made one tweak to his profile and all of a sudden his like response, the response he was getting, everything doubled, maybe even tripled. Do you want to know what the tweak was? What's your guess by the way? What's the one tweak he made? What would you guess? All right, I'll just tell you. So the tweak he made is he spent, I don't know, probably 150 bucks or something. Got a professional photographer to come take some photos of him. So he took these photos. He's kind of a dapper, well dressed sort of guy, right? That doesn't have to be your style. That's his style. And so he's like sitting one's on the park bench. This is in Portland, Oregon. So he's just in different nice looking places and he's just taking these shots and they're kind of like GQ esque where he's sort of like, you know, got a whatever business casual on, nice clothes. He's kind of looking off to the side, standing tall with his hands in his pockets or something like that. You know, one's sitting on a bench, most of them are, look, there's maybe there's one where he's looking at the camera. But a lot of them are like, kind of looking off to the side. He's looking off into the distance thinking about the mountain he's gonna climb, right? But I looked at him, I was like, damn, these are nice photos. And he's like, yeah, I'm telling you, that was the shift. So little fun factoid right there. But, you know, how did he figure that out? Well, he got into action. And so this is the solution to perfectionism is going to be to focus on exploration. Just in your mind, imagine the word perfection, scratch it out, and write in explore or exploration. This is how we learn. This is how we learn rapidly. This is how kids learn so quickly. You give them a new thing. Like, if you give a kid a phone, a smartphone now, you can have your own philosophies around that. We try to restrict that to some degree and kind of keep it pretty limited. But there's times where we let our kids watch stuff on the phone or do things like that. And if they were to close out of the watching window and then just start pressing on the phone, Especially my younger son, he's five, five and a half. He just presses a million things at once and figures a bunch of shit out. He probably knows how to do certain things on the phone that my wife doesn't even know how to do. You know, he's like. Because he's willing to just explore and muck around and test a bunch. And that's kind of what you want to bring to whatever area it is. You might say, oh, my gosh, that's so uncomfortable. That's why I'm avoiding it, because I don't want to make bad things that don't work. And it's awful. And oh, my gosh, you know, I would just say, like, dude, just drop that self obsession. People don't care that much. Like, that need to have it be perfect is not for others. You can be imperfect and loved. You can be imperfect and succeed. In fact, if you really want to succeed, you got to embrace being imperfect and just be real. Stop pretending, stop having this weird illusion that you are perfect or can be perfect or somehow better than the other 7 billion people on the planet. There's a level of humbleness to just say, yep, yep, I'm just one of the other people on the planet and I'm doing a bunch of stuff. We're all mucking around here. A lot of it's not going to work. Some of it does. Here we go. And you get into action. You get into the exploration phase, and Then once you explore a lot, you can get clarity on what's starting to work more. And then here's the magic word that trumps perfectionism every time, which is optimize optimization. That's what you're looking for. That's how you really grow, is you get into action. You're testing things out, and as it's going, you see what's working, what's not working, and then you optimize it, which means make little tweaks to improve it bit by bit. And that's so much more effective because perfectionism is. You're trying to make this whole thing perfect before release to avoid rejection. That woman that was stalled out on her book, when we got to the bottom of it, you know what it was? She was emotionally carrying a lot of pain about past negative responses to some of her earlier work, even though she got a lot of positive responses as well, more positive than negative. But the negative ones really psyched her out. She was emotionally hurting about them. And so here she is. She's not even fully aware of why, but she is trying to make her next book so perfect that it never doesn't get those negative criticisms. First of all, that's impossible. And I told her that, and I even showed her. We went through and looked at some of her favorite authors. We looked at some of the most popular authors in the world that millions of people love. Sure enough, you look at their reviews, and there's a bunch of five stars and four stars, and then there's that one star. This person's the stupid, stupidest idiot. And you're like, look at that. Look at that. Welcome to the human race. You're imperfect. I'm imperfect. People are gonna like you. Other people are gonna hate you. And the more you put yourself out there, the more people are gonna dislike you, by the way, because you're reaching more people. Hooray. So let it be imperfect. Get into action, and then optimize. Because when you're optimizing, you're not trying to create this whole perfect thing for five years and then release it and then probably never release it. What you're doing is you're just getting into there. You're releasing this imperfect thing or testing this imperfect thing out, and then you're improving with actual feedback, actual marketplace from other people from the world that helps you make better choices. So let's talk about how you can put this into action. Time for action. Action. Action. What is an area in your life right now where you want to start to apply this? Just think about that. That's not your action step. I just want you to think about it. Here is your action step. It's a little game. This is the game I invited the people in my mastermind to play, so you can play along too. And I made it a 10 day game and it's called the 10 Day Spontaneity Challenge. So what you're gonna do for 10 days, starting today or tomorrow, depends on what time of your day you're listening to this. Once a day, you're just gonna do something really small that's spontaneous, unplanned, uncontrolled, not perfect. And it could be in your workplace, it could be in your social life. It could be just something you just kind of. It's almost a little bit impulsive. You just do it, you know, like maybe the example I gave was, you know, when my kids ask me something, I just replied to him in a song. I sang him a little song. I'm not a singer, but I just sang a little song and put a big smile on his face. I was being silly. So being silly, doing something unpredictable, being spontaneous in some way. And the reason we're keeping it light and fun and not even relating it just to one area of your life is because we want to start to get into that pattern, that experience of just being more you and letting you come out without having to be so planned and so perfect. So let us know how that goes. Thank you for being with me today. Until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks, and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com it.