Finding Passion and Purpose for High Achievers By Overcoming Perfectionism with Self-Compassion

Rather than actually thinking about why I wanted to do that or whether it made sense, I was like, "All right, that's what I'm gonna do." So full steam ahead, and I checked all the boxes to get myself on that road. To an external observer, you would say, "Oh, well, Jordana's crushing it. She's so successful. She's on track to graduate with literally straight honors from Yale Law School," which I did. I don't think that what I did was actually setting me up to be most successful in any way that I define that term. And because in order to perform in the way that I did, I truly sacrificed literally everything else. Like, so much so that—

Welcome to the Mind Body Space podcast, where you can stress less and boost your performance and wellness down to the cellular level just by listening. Hi, I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD, a mom MD passionate about sharing evidence-based tips to keep you and your family well. For the past 10 years, I've been teaching the science of resilience to high-achieving individuals at many different schools and organizations. And currently I'm on faculty at the Juilliard School Pre-College Division, teaching gifted students how to stress less and perform at their best. I started this podcast because I wanted to share what I learned with my students, fellow parents, educators, and anyone who's interested. As I explore fascinating topics like neuroscience and meditation, with experts in education, medicine, and psychology. Your support makes this possible. Please subscribe and share with a family friend, anyone who needs to stress less, boost performance, and be happier. If you have questions for my guests or for me, or if you have a topic that you'd like us to cover, please head on over to mindbodyspace.com/podcast and ask away, and we will answer your questions on the podcast on the last Friday of every month. If you need a good night's sleep, head on over to my YouTube channel, Fall Asleep Easy, to drift off and sleep like a baby. Are you a perfectionist? Always pushing yourself to the edge, feeling somewhat overwhelmed, but at the same time feeling like you're not ever doing enough? Well, you're in the right place. Today's guest, Jordana Confino, is a recovering perfectionist. 7 years after graduating from Yale Law School, Jordana founded JC Coaching and Consulting to empower lawyers and other high-achieving professionals to to transform their lives and work for the better. Even if you're not a lawyer or consider yourself a high-achieving perfectionist, this episode is worth a listen because Jordana shares with us all of her trials and tribulations. Jordana also goes back to tell her high school self what she should have asked herself to stay true to her own interests and passions. She talks about the single most important question you can ask yourself at any given point in your life to really connect with what matters to you rather than trying to please other people and societal norms. Enjoy the conversation.

Hi Jordana, how are you? I'm so excited to have you here. I'm so grateful that you will spend your time with me today.

I am wonderful and I've been looking forward to this, so thank you for having me.

I love it. And you have a Yeti microphone, which is so exciting for me.

Actually, when I first joined a lawpreneur chat group, which is a thing. They were posting about it. It was like Amazon Prime Day was coming up and people were like, "What's your best microphone?" At this point I had no use for a microphone, but I was like, "You know what? I'm just going to get a microphone as a way, like put it on my vision board. Maybe one day I'll be on a fabulous podcast like this one." And so I've made it.

Oh my gosh.

So recording with a Yeti, that I can do. Taking a selfie video of myself speaking for social media, that is something I have I have not yet gotten the courage to do. I think of the videos as something that I would like to be able to try because I think the biggest thing right now is that I'm just so scared of it. And that was exactly how I felt about my blog before I started the blog, and I love the blog. And so I wanna get over the being afraid to do it, and then I can decide whether it's something I actually want to do or not. But I feel like the, ah, people will judge me if I go out and do this, something that I don't want to have control whether or not I do it.

So it's— oh, well, make a little promise here that you're gonna go live. Set a goal. You can just tell our audience and then you'll be there.

My goal is to post a reel within the next month.

Everybody look for her reel coming up in the next month because now she's going to get over her fear of doing the reel. And you know, I know exactly how you feel because when I started my podcast, I would think, why am I doing this? And what makes me think that I can talk on a podcast? It was so nerve-wracking. It was weird.

No, I completely understand it. And, and truly that was how I felt about the blog at first because it just felt so permanent. So people go back and look at it again. But I was posting regularly and I was on LinkedIn. So I've only been on Instagram for like a month now at the behest, at the behest of my students and clients that I had to get on. But I was posting on LinkedIn and that wasn't scary for me, but the blog felt like the I don't know, it just felt more important, more like the stakes were higher. But then I started— LinkedIn was telling me my posts were too long and I was like, okay, I think I'm writing blog posts on LinkedIn, so maybe I should just create a blog. And hence the blog was born. Um, but maybe it's the same thing.

Well, congratulations. And we just went right into conversation here and I love talking to you already. So Jordana, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you're doing? I know you went to the most prestigious law school. Yale Law School, and you're a super high achiever, you're a perfectionist, and I know that you kind of changed tracks at some point. So this is my favorite topic. Self-care only enhances your performance, you know, it doesn't deter it. So I'm so excited to hear about your story. Let's go back to how you got into Yale in the first place. What did you do in high school? What were you like?

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think actually speaking of my blog, the name of it, Chronicles of a Recovering Type A Plus Perfectionist, kind of says it all. In high school and college, I did all of the things because basically from early, early in high school, I was kind of flipped on into raging overachiever mode. And so just any gold star should thing that I thought that I should be doing because it was prestigious or competitive or, um, you know, looked good to other people, that was what I set my sights on doing. And so I, in college, I took— I actually majored in psychology with a focus on social psychology psychology because it fascinated me, but come the end of college when many of my friends were going into banking and consulting roles, being a psychologist or a teacher, which was the other thing that really appealed to me intrinsically, it just didn't feel big and shiny enough. And so what do a lot of high-achieving college students do when they don't know what they wanna do? They go to law school, which is a terrible reason to go to law school, but I did. And then once I got there, I had to have a reason for why I wanted to be there. And so basically for a variety of, um, half-baked concocted reasons, I decided, okay, I wanna be a federal criminal prosecutor, which is a very prestigious thing to do. And rather than actually thinking about why I wanted to do that or whether it made sense, I was like, all right, that's what I'm gonna do. And so full steam ahead, I need to check all of the boxes in order to get there and then some. And so I did. I, oh my goodness, I was probably more intense than anyone I've ever met. Now, having worked in law schools for many, many years in terms of the extent to which I threw myself into my work. Truly 150%. And I checked all the boxes to get myself on that road. And so I lined up two prestigious federal judicial clerkships during my first semester of my second year, the big law job offer, everything was kind of there. And to an external observer, you would say, oh, well, Jordana's crushing it. She's so successful. She's on track to graduate with literally straight honors from Yale Law School, which I did.

Congratulations.

With these amazing job prospects. No, it's ridiculous. Um, it's ridiculous because what does that get me? I mean, there's no special prize for doing that, right?

Well, you got a laundry machine. Huh? Yeah.

You got a laundry machine. I mean, you have that. You don't need to— so I mean, I had that. I didn't need to graduate with straight honors and kill myself in the process. Well, I'm just going to argue with you a little bit here.

Sure. But you were able to do it. So that means you have intrinsic talent or intelligence or the drive to work hard to be able to do it because a lot of people— maybe, I don't know, couldn't be at the top of their class even if they tried. So I just want to give you some credit. I want to give you a lot of credit for that.

Thank you for the credit. Clearly there's drive and talent, I will say, in order to be able to do that. But, and I think this is a really important lesson for anyone listening, but what I did was not sustainable. I don't think that what I did was actually setting me up to be most successful in any way that I define that term. And because in order to perform in the way that I did, I truly sacrificed literally everything else. Like so much so that—

So give us some details.

I mean, I was the loneliest person on the planet. I remember literally telling my— calling my parents and telling them that I was so lonely that it physically hurt. I had increasingly debilitating anxiety. I remember saying I felt like a hamster in a pressure cooker. And really, that is like exactly how it felt. But then also, I mean, my brain was sending me all of these anxiety signals. I didn't listen. And then the first year out of, out of law school, when I was in my first clerkship, my body started to send me really, really intense signals. And I didn't listen to my body when it spoke to me. And then my body started screaming. And I ended up having truly debilitating GI issues that landed me in the emergency room. Then when that wasn't— when that wasn't enough, when I got put on some medicine to kind of calm that down enough to keep going. Then I developed this mysterious chronic pain that could only be described as autoimmune, but there was no diagnosis and there was nothing anyone could do to help. I literally could barely walk. I was in so much pain for months.

Wow.

And all of this, I later found out when I started working with a mind-body medicine psychologist at a pain psychology center, was actually these patterns of chronic unexplainable pain. And later on I developed migraines and TMJ, all of these different things and ulcers. Oh my goodness. My doctor that the ulcers told me that, that he used my video for a teaching for his students cuz he hadn't seen things, ulcers that bad ever.

Oh my gosh.

Someone my age. It's like a comedy of errors. So all of these things led me to a breaking point where eventually the way that I discovered positive psychology, which led me into the work now, was literally Googling how to be happy when I had bottomed out and was like, I cannot do this anymore. So in that way, it's not sustainable because working in the way that I did, even if you can do it for a certain amount of time, you can't keep doing it. But also, once I took this course on positive psychology, once I got certified in positive psychology, I learned that wellbeing and a sense of connection and meaning and purpose and positive emotions and joy, all of those things actually drive performance. So if you take those things and you combine them with the— my work ethic and any natural talent or ability that I had, I would be so much more effective than I was when I was operating from this state of torturing and depriving myself. And I thought that whipping myself into submission was the way to drive me forward. And the thing was, like, it did push me forward a little bit, but actually, if I was just allowing myself to move forward unencumbered by the ruthless self-criticism and punishment and deprivation, I would've been going forward anyways, and I just would've had so much more energy and determination, mo— and intrinsic motivation to back that up. And so it was almost like all of these things that I thought were driving me forward were actually holding me back. And I've subsequently learned that, and it took a lot of— it, it took me hitting a breaking point to say, okay, well let me try another way because this is clearly not working. And then I realized, Oh my goodness, taking care of myself and cultivating these positive things are not making me weak, lazy, or complacent. They're actually making me far more effective than I ever was. And I just never gave myself the chance to realize that. Wow.

Well said. Thank you so much for sharing that. I mean, I have to take it back now. I didn't know that you've pushed yourself to the, you know, to ulcers and inflammatory disease. And so, I mean, that, Goes to show you, I'm a mind-body physician. Yeah. I specialize in that. So I'm glad that you found somebody who, um, talked to you about it, but stress can literally make you sick. I'm sorry you had to go through all that. I did not know that. So I take that back. I don't mean for you like push yourself, you know, nothing is worth that.

No, no, no.

Yeah.

And it's interesting and I'm glad in a way though, I'm glad that I did because the way that my brain was wired, I have such deep rooted imperfection and kind of self-doubt about my intrinsic self-worth that was so rooted that I don't think I would have ever snapped out of it or opened myself to the possibility of learning something different if I hadn't hit a breaking point bottom. And so I'm actually glad that I did because it brought me to what I'm doing now. And it's interesting.

So you have that whole post-traumatic growth.

Absolutely.

You needed to suffer, you feel like, to learn and change.

I think if I hadn't burned out, what I was doing, I mean, it was completely stripped of any joy, meaning, purpose, connection, any of those things. But if I hadn't broken— if I hadn't burned out, I think I would have just done what so many people do, is just kind of languishing or living a life where they're not in crisis and they're not breaking down, but they're not actually happy. And they don't expect, they don't believe that they could or should be happier or more fulfilled than they are. And especially, I mean, in the legal profession, there's so many lawyers that are like, oh, well, I'm miserable, but that's what lawyers are and that's what we do. And I remember the summer that I was at a big firm and I'm looking around, like, that's how people— like, it didn't— what disturbed me the most wasn't that people were unhappy. It's like no one seemed to care or think that it was a problem. And That, I think, especially for high-achieving perfectionists, that they're living from one kind of goal to the next of, well, if I— when I just get this, then I can enjoy my life. When I just get this, I can enjoy my life. But they push the goalposts further literally every single time that they get there. And I think that so many people spend their entire lives delaying joy and delaying life in until they get the next achievement, and then they never actually get to that point where they're like, actually living their lives. And so for me, I remember it was kind of like this, if not now, when moment, because I saw the writing on the wall and I was like, if I don't do something different now, when will I? And the truth is never, because the only thing that would change is me having the courage to say, all right, I'm gonna try something different, even though it feels like the scariest thing in the world right now, because I want something more for myself. And for me, I had to hit that point in order to get there. But my hope is that with my students and my clients, I can of course, you know, if anyone's in crisis, I can help them with that, but share this information with them before they get there so that they can avoid that crash and burn and just, you know, enjoy life a little bit more in the process.

Well, that's wonderful to hear. And, you know, I think that it's so important what you're doing with, um, especially with your work with lawyers, because I do think I found that lawyers were extremely curious about lifestyle medicine and how to optimize themselves because I used to teach lifestyle medicine and mind-body medicine for resilience at Columbia Law School, and they were some of the most interested people. Like, they would ask the most questions, maybe just because law students, I don't know, but they were really interested in it. Yeah, to details, like they wanted to know. So I think it would be really helpful.

That's why it's so funny. I, I used to work at Columbia Law School, but I love the reason that the positive psychology or the, the medicine perspective is so important, because lawyers are super, super skeptical. So they're not gonna believe you unless you show them the evidence. And that's why I'm so glad that there's droves and droves of research proving this stuff, like proving that when— that self-compassion is actually far more motivating than self-criticism. Like, no one will believe that unless you literally show them study after study backing it up, or even then how reframing a negative thought, even when they don't believe the more constructive thought they're telling themselves, can lead to them enjoying such benefits down the line and just reshaping their reality. I think it's a slow— I think it's a slow cultural thing. I mean, lawyers were not paying attention at all until fairly recently. It's only a new thing that I think that they're starting to pay attention. But I will tell you that, so when I first started— so obviously I teach in a law school, and when I first started coaching, I was just working with lawyers, but The truth is lawyers like to think that they're special, but there's nothing, there's nothing truly unique to the legal profession. And the things that I work on really would benefit any high achieving professional that needs to get out of their own way to enjoy the success and satisfaction that they want in their lives and work. And so I was talking about my work to my friends who were doctors and I'm like, wait, we need this. And similar, my friends in finance, I'm like, yeah, we all need this. Yeah, we all need this. Which is why I have kind of broadened my work from lawyer wellbeing to really High achieving perfectionists are now my target audience because I feel like that's really at the heart. Um, I feel like the people that I'm uniquely situated to really help because I really get are the ones who have spent their whole lives doing all of the shoulds and are just nowhere near as happy or as healthy as that they feel like they should be. And they're open to learning some ways that they could get what they actually want without all of this pain in the process.

I love it. I'm so curious about when you were younger, when you were in grade school, middle school, what were you doing that led you to this sort of perfectionism and high-achieving nature in high school?

Yeah, so it's, it's an interesting question. So when I was little, my parents described me as a creative spirit, which is wild because it's so far from who I became.

I was—

I wanted to be a movie star. Who worked part-time at SeaWorld. And I was obsessed with— I wasn't, I will say I was not really talented at all by way of musical theater, but I loved it. And I was creative. I was doing art projects. I was doing plays. I was making up imaginary things in my head. And like, that's what I was into. And then what happened actually, I remember my parents, even when I started high school, I got like a B on a test in geometry. And my dad was like, why don't we take you to see a learning specialist? Because they thought that I wasn't— I don't know, they thought that I wasn't picking things up quickly enough.

Are they professionals?

They are professionals. My father is a doctor and my mother is a lawyer, so there were expectations. There were expectations, and I think anyone who hears, "Daughter got B on test, they take her to learning specialist," you get a sense of, you know, the environment that we were in. They were very loving, they had expectations.

No, they were trying to help you.

Exactly. But the learning specialist did not do anything. But very shortly after that, so my father actually got really, really, really sick. Oh, I am so sorry. He is okay now. He is okay now. Thank you. And he got really sick and it was really scary. And it was like a switch flipped. And this is things that I have processed now, looking back with my therapist, that I see now, huh, Things were— started feeling like they were spiraling out of control in my personal life. And I doubled down on my schoolwork. And then looking back, I think that it was, you know, there was crisis and it was scary and my parents were dealing with all of this stuff. And so what could I do to help? I could be the good girl. I could do really well in school. And because it was like night and day, I just started really acing everything. And from that point forward, I was the valedictorian of my high school. I graduated. Top of my residential college at Yale and then straight through Yale Law School. And I just got super, super, super intense. And I— that kind of became my identity and my way of proving my worth and value within my family at that point. Wow. And then I thought that I couldn't get more intense. But actually, my freshman year of college, I had a lot of fun. And I had a boyfriend. And I had a bunch of friends. And then I actually, I got one B+ my freshman year of college. I joke that it would never have happened again after freshman year. And it didn't happen again after freshman year because I had a horrible breakup the beginning of my sophomore year that kind of in the same way that the whole thing with my dad unmoored me in high school, just completely shattered my universe and my sense of confidence and my sense of self and everything. And I responded to that. By doubling down even further on my work. And it was at that point that the anxiety really started for me for the first time. And as high achieving as I was before, it was just reached a new height at that point. And I'm looking back, I'm seeing that whenever something happened in my life that was scary for me, I doubled down on the one thing that I felt as long as I worked hard enough, I could make it perfect. Um, and that was my work.

So that's like a workaholic, right?

That's one of the things. And it's no, it's no surprise, right, that perfectionism actually goes hand in hand with workaholism, with exhaustion, with burnout, with eating disorders, with a lot of things that people, at least at first, look at all the behaviors and they're like, this is really good, how can I be like you? And actually, it's so— it ends up being so damaging because it's coming from this point of fear and shame, um, rather than actual intrinsic motivation.

Um, and you physically had issues. I mean, you physically ended up with illness.

It didn't, it didn't happen overnight, but it definitely led to it. And the problem too is that it's like a chicken and an egg thing with the workaholism because the more that you— so what I was doing was basically I wasn't— there were these things that were upsetting for me outside of the work. And so I said, okay, well, I am just going to throw myself into the work. I can make that perfect. But the more that I gave everything to that, the less I had going on outside of it. And so then it was like, okay, this is literally all that I have in my identity. And so then I wanted to work even harder to protect this one aspect of my identity, because if I do not have perfect grades, who am I? I do not have a social life at this point. I do not have hobbies. I do not have anything going on outside.

Wow.

And so then it kind of reinforces that.

Was that like that for you in high school as well?

High school, not as much. It was not to as great of a degree. It really kind of— it took— I feel like the perfectionism and the workaholism took root a little bit, like took root in high school, but then it doubled in college. And that was really what I did throughout law school.

And— but we were talking about way back, like when you were in middle school and high school. Did you do a lot of extracurriculars and did you—

Oh, I did because my parents pushed me to, but I had tons of— I had friends and I played. I loved doing all of those things.

So what were the extracurriculars that you did that you weren't interested in, but you thought maybe they were checking off boxes and that kind of got you into Yale, maybe?

The thing that probably got me into Yale was I co-founded a nonprofit organization with my mother. And it's interesting because— and it was an amazing organization. It was called Girls Learn International, and it was focused on promoting universal access to girls' education and human rights. And I got involved with anti-sex trafficking work and We did tons of fabulous things. But, and this is, I think, this is something that I wasn't willing to speak about openly until recently, but I think it's important. I objectively appreciated the importance of the work and I felt good about the fact that we were doing it. I wasn't passionate about it. My mom was passionate about it. I wasn't. And I kind of put it on as, I adopted it as my passion project and I did all the work because I knew that, you know, it was perceived as something that I should be passionate about. And I actually felt really fraudulent throughout that whole time because I was like, what's wrong with me? Why do I not feel compelled to be doing this work in the way that I knew that other people in the nonprofit or public interest sphere are?

And it's really— Or so you thought. So you think that other people are.

But I know that there are. And it's interesting. And I said, like, what is it? Do I not? I mean, do I not have a soul? No. But do I not— like, am I not capable of being intrinsically passionate about serving others in some way like that? It's only years, years, years later that I've realized that is how I feel about the work that I'm doing now. I am so passionate—

That's so interesting.

—about supporting other people who are struggling with perfectionism and all of these things that I have lived through and dealt with and continue to fight through.

Well, that's so interesting. Like, so when you're in high school, now that you know all this and you've done all this work, what would you have been doing if you could go back? Not to regret or anything. It sounds like you did amazing work, everything. But what would you have been doing that would have made you happier?

To let myself ask— to ask myself questions now that I ask my clients when I work with them, which is, what do you care about? What excites you? And to be listening to those things. Because the problem is, is that when you fill yourself up with all of these, you know, if you— when you assume other people's passions or other people's projects or all of the shoulds is what you're doing, there's no space to even figure out who you are and what you care about.

So what do you think you cared about? Would you have done like theater?

What would you— so I, I would've— I, I did theater then, but what I always loved and the things that I did throughout high school, college, and law school, the only things that I did not to put them on my resume but because I actually enjoyed them, involved mentorship and teaching, community building, and— which is what I'm doing— which is what I'm doing in my work now in a sort of a way. And then psychology. I was— I've always been fascinated by psychology. I've always read pop psychology as just for fun because I was interested in it, as opposed to, you know, my gosh, the law review articles that I could not even bring myself to deal with. Although, of course, I was on law review. I did major in psychology. I would—

So you did listen to yourself then. So it's interesting.

So I listened for purposes of my major, but not for— because everyone always said liberal arts, the beauty of liberal arts education is take whatever you want because you can then go on to do— basically, unless you want to be a doctor, you can do whatever you want in college and then decide what you want to do next afterwards. And I believe that. And I'm so glad that I did. And I'm now, you know, going— having that background has been really helpful for me. But if I— it's, so it's an interesting question though, because I, I so deeply love what I'm doing now and all of my best friends are from law school. So even though I was the loneliest person in the world, so my best friends, they all had full lives in law school. So I have like 4 friends who are such wonderful humans and I, I love them to death and they're my very closest friends. I managed to develop really deep connections with them. Through very limited interactions, like an hour a week in law school. And the problem, the difference between me and them was that aside from that hour in my week, I was just studying, whereas they had partners and other things going on in their lives. So between that and loving what I do now, I would never go back and not go to law school because it ended up working out in this roundabout way. And like you said, with the post-traumatic growth, I'm really happy where I am now. I would never have found my current husband if, you know, I had done a different path. And so I think that even knowing too about post-traumatic growth, because if I had stayed that path, let's say I hadn't burned out but I had just been on the— I mean, criminal prosecution could not have been more wrong for me. But if I had just kind of kept checking boxes and proceeding on that path because I could, that would be it would be such an unhappy life for me. And—

but I bet you learned some amazing things in criminal law.

Oh yeah, I learned, I learned amazing things. And I started— I learned, I learned more in my first 2 weeks working on the district court than I did in the next 4 years of my career. But if I hadn't finally been like, okay, wait, something is wrong, I need to figure out what's really right for me, it would have been such a shame. And I feel like people have such sunk costs, so they're like, oh, well, I I went to law school and it was so expensive, so now I have to be a lawyer. And it's like, no, you can— whatever your experience to date has been, you can derive such meaning and value from it and still say, and now I'm going to pivot to do something that feels more right for me now. And so if I could go back and change anything, I just would have started listening to myself earlier on because—

Yeah, so that's sunk cost fallacy, right? Where you feel like you committed so much time or energy into something that you just have to keep going. But also something like medicine or law, That's just like such a huge identity. You're just taking on a massive identity there, right? And yeah.

And in my second summer of law school, this was where I see as my real turning point where I finally started seeing a therapist. Oh, good for you. And because truly I had just committed to—

And you found a mind-body therapist.

How did you do that? So I didn't find the mind— that wasn't the mind-body therapist. Yeah. So I didn't find the mind-body therapist until I developed debilitating pain. And the way that I found that was Somehow I found the Curable app, which just anyone who is dealing with chronic pain, the Curable app, and it was created by the folks at the Mind Body Pain Psychology Center. And even doing the app itself, the work in the app was, moved the needle more than so many different traditional medicine approaches to addressing my chronic pain had. And then I was like, okay, but I need more help. And so then I found that therapist. So now, so then I, for many years I had two therapists. The mind-body therapist and the regular therapist. And then at one point I had the therapist, the two therapists and a coach. I feel like it's real, but I actually believe every— Well, I'm glad that you was able to find help for yourself.

And, you know, Yale has a very big history of mind-body medicine.

Interesting. Yeah. I went back to New York City for my therapist. But the thing that was so powerful for me was she had me do this super basic values discovery exercise that was like, I, you know, look at the list of 100 values, identify the ones that are most important to you, and then think about how what you're doing with your time— and at that point I was working, you know, 18 hours a day— is furthering those values. And all of my top values were like love, connection, authenticity, learning, and it had nothing— like everything that I was doing was completely counter to that. And that was the big wake-up call for me. It's like, what am I doing? I'm literally killing myself for something I don't care about or even want at all. How does this make sense? That— so for me, that workaholism is coming from a place of like, I want to feel worthy. I want to feel like— I want to feel loved. I want to feel valued. I want to feel like I'm doing enough. And then sometimes I literally have a bracelet on that says, "Remember love," which is my top value. And it's like, okay, wait, so my top value is love. I'm working myself into the ground and ignoring my husband so that I feel worthy and lovable. What if I just spend a little bit of time with him? Would that— might that make— help me How do I feel loved a little bit rather than chasing this feeling that I believe if I just work 100 more hours or if I just get these more accolades, then all of a sudden I'll feel good enough. The truth is, you will never, that will never work. You need to identify those feelings that you want and then figure out how to cultivate them for yourself, which is why I think, along with values alignment, self-compassion, I think the single most powerful and most counterintuitive tool for people that really want to enjoy greater satisfaction, sustainable success, and just kind of step into their power and take control of their lives. Because I feel like so many of us, and especially perfectionists, are living these lives dictated by our fears and our self-doubt and our desperate desire to feel worthy or good enough that keeps us in this state of constant anxiety and like flailing and hustling. And if we can cultivate those feelings of self-worth, then we can still pursue our goals. And like going back to what you said about like, oh, well, you were really, you had a really good drive and you were really talented. We can still retain all of that, but we're coming at it from a place of I'm pursuing this thing because I care about it and it'll make me feel pride to do a good job, not because I am so scared that I'm not good enough that I just need to work harder to prove that I am. Because that is how you end up on that just constant hamster wheel that really just leads to burnout.

Yeah, I mean, those are such wise words and sounds so simple, but it's true. Like, you have to constantly remind yourself, always. But the first step is awareness, because most people aren't even aware that they're doing that.

Mindful awareness so you can notice what are the— what are those really critical fear or or fearful thoughts that are popping into your head when you have the surge of anxiety that then pushes you to work compulsively or to double down even when, you know, an objective rational person would say like, maybe, like, maybe this isn't the best approach here. And then noticing those thoughts, and I actually, I have my clients literally draw their self-critics or their inner drill sergeants or whatever they call them and practice spotting them Just that's all you do at first is practice spotting it so then you can disentangle yourself from that fear and those negative thoughts. Awesome. Awesome. And start building that, you know, more compassionate narrative that actually, and this is going back to the skeptical lawyers, the science shows that that more compassionate narrative will make you so much more driven and so much more effective in literally every realm of life. And it is possible to rewire your brain in that way. It just takes some time because, you know, these old thoughts are really deep-seated.

So do you think you'll ever go to get your PsyD? So it's so funny.

It sounds like you're really into it. I'm obsessed. If I won the lottery, I would have like every degree. I just, I love, I love learning so much. Me too. I'm not sure. I would love to do it at some point. I think now I've got the certification in positive psychology and the coaching, and I'm realizing that I can just, I can do a lot a lot with that, and I'm, I'm in a space right now where I just, I want to be doing as much of that as I can. And I know that if I was to go back to school right now, I wouldn't be able to be working with people and helping people immediately as much as I want to. But I definitely don't rule it out for the future.

So cool. Let's just give the audience key advice takeaways to apply what you've learned.

Yes, key takeaways. I think the first thing that I'm just thinking about what I wish I could go back and share with myself earlier on. And the first, I think, and I'm speaking to the perfectionists out there, there are so many perfectionists out there who maybe recognize that the perfectionism is hurting them emotionally or personally, but they're not even considering doing anything about it because they think it's driving them forwards. And so the, the first thing that I just wanna say is perfectionism is not drive for excellence. It's not high standards. It's not attention to detail. It's actually distinct from all of those positive qualities, and you can keep all of those positive qualities. But what's really underlying perfectionism is this deep-rooted fear that you're not good enough that has you being motivated from this fearful place where you are motivating yourself with self-criticism and threat.

So that was profound what you just said. So you said perfectionism is not about doing an excellent job.

Exactly. Can you just go into a little more detail about that? Absolutely. So perfectionism, deep at its core, is fear of not being good enough, fear of not being worthy. And perfectionists will often set excellent standards as their goal because they want to reach those things so that they feel worthy. Someone that is not coming from this place of deep-rooted fear and self-criticism can set the exact same goal. I wanna do this excellent thing. I wanna achieve that thing. They just approach it in a different way.

They're just very curious about that topic. So they're curious or they're passionate.

And so they approach it in a different way. So, and there's a few different things that go into it. So deeply embedded in this distinction is growth versus fixed mindset. So perfectionists say, I wanna meet these really high standards and the only way to get there is the fastest, most direct way. I can't make any mistakes or detours along the way. And that's impossible. That is not how things work. Rather, someone else is like, I wanna get, reach this high goal. And I recognize that the path there isn't always linear. And there's things that I can learn along the way. And in fact, making mistakes, getting feedback on things is the way to develop myself even further and figure out how I can reach the outcome that I want. So that's one thing. But I think another huge one is just how they try to motivate themselves. So the perfectionist, just this ruthless self-criticism, trying to— you're not good enough, you're not good enough, what's wrong with you, try harder— the way that they try to motivate themselves to go further. Whereas someone who's not a perfectionist, who's taking a healthier approach to pursuing the same high goals, realize that it's not by beating themselves to a pulp, but by nurturing themselves that they can actually drive themselves forward. And this is, I mean, this is something that my very wise therapist from my 2L year said to me. And she said, Jordana, if you had a racehorse that had broken down from exhaustion and you wanted it to get up and keep running, would you just keep whipping it as it laid there on the ground broken down to try to get it to get up and run faster? And I was like, no. She's like, then why are, why do you think that's going to work on yourself? And I was like, I was like, huh, that is a really interesting question.

And so I use the racehorse metaphor also because it's like your racehorse is going to get you everything you want. Why are you beating that racehorse?

Yes, it's so true. And I think that people are so afraid that if they stop being so mean to themselves, or if they give themselves a break, or if they let themselves have the luxury of social connection and rest and doing something that just gives them joy, that everything is gonna go to hell. And It's— I get where they're coming from because I believe that too, but it's actually not true. And actually, if they can just take a baby step of faith, baby step forward of faith and give it a try, they'll see like, oh wow, I'm actually, you know, turbocharging everything I've got when I stop beating myself up the whole time. Yeah.

Oh my gosh, that's so great. And thank you so much for sharing that with us. And obviously it's not one or the other thing. I mean, everybody vacillates between those two things, being a perfectionist and enjoying the ride, because as humans, we're going to have moments when we're beating up on ourselves. So it's not like one or the other, it's both, right? So you're going to vacillate between two, and you want to lean more towards the healthier side. Again, you don't want to be perfect about not being a perfectionist, right? Hold yourself to that standard of—

I actually have a blog post about this, about beating myself up for not perfecting my perfectionism recovery homework. And it's like, So honestly, I think that just using self-compassion always. So even when you notice like, oh, that was being a really, I was being really perfectionistic there. I was beating up on myself. And then you could say, how human of me. There's not something wrong with me because I slipped back into that. That is part of the common human experience. And that's okay. Like, what can I, I'm clearly in a state of fear or anxiety right now and I'm reverting to these old patterns that made me feel kind of artificially secure. Mm-hmm.

And this is where neuroscience comes in so handy because you can really separate your brain from your mind. Yeah.

And knowing that your, your thoughts are not fact and they're not you. The important thing too is to notice how powerful our thoughts are in shaping our feelings, which shape our behavior, which shape our reality. Why, why it's worth changing your thoughts and reframing your thoughts because Literally, that is how you change your reality.

Sometimes it seems so silly, but it's so powerful. And I really appreciate your time being here.

It was, it was wonderful.

Thank you so much for sharing all those personal stories.

Let them know where they can find you.

Oh, well, you can find me. My website is JordanaConfino.com, and I'm also on LinkedIn and Instagram under those same names. And if you would like to subscribe to my blog Chronicles of a Recovering Type A+ Perfectionist. If anyone out there hears themselves in my stories, please do so at jordanmcinfino.com/subscribe. And I really look forward to connecting with you.

To get a good night's sleep, head on over to my YouTube channel, Fall Asleep Easy, to drift off and sleep like a baby. Please subscribe and share with a friend, family, anyone who needs to stress less, boost performance, and be happier. And soon enough, you'll be surrounded by Zen people. Until next time, this is Dr. Juna Bobby MD wishing you and your loved ones wellness.