152: Overcoming Perfectionism - #GrowYourLife

Hey everyone, thanks for listening to the Grow youw Life podcast. My name is Jeremiah Krakowski, and on this podcast we talk about ways for you to grow in your life and your business to make more money, reach your goals and accomplish your dreams. We've been helping a lot of course creators and coaches lately get more sales customers, leads and clients in their businesses, as well as people that want to build a business online. And this podcast is the best place to go for strategies as well as mindset to help you. Now, one of the things that I want to talk about today is perfectionism and overcoming perfectionism. I did a blog post on my website in the last couple of weeks on this topic, and this has been hugely valuable to people when I've done my trainings and these free training events that we're doing, as well as my coaching. You have to break past perfectionism to be able to be successful in an online business. And I think this is one of the number one things that holds people back. They might have a dream, they might have a desire. Desire, but they are afraid to make mistakes. They're afraid of doing anything less than perfect. And I understand where that comes from. I understand, listen, you want it to be excellent. You want to have a spirit of excellence. And I'm all for that. I'm all for high quality products and services, not putting out crap, putting out stuff that really impacts people on a powerful level. But did you know that perfectionism is actually the opposite of that? In fact, perfectionism is one of the most destructive strategies for life. And a lot of people live with this. To be honest, it's no fault of their own, though. What happens is perfectionism came usually because it was painful. You were either mistreated or something happened that really hurt you, that when you made a mistake and something was less than perfect, this painful event happened in your past at some time. And so now you've made a decision, I'm not going to do anything less than perfect so that I never experience that again. Now, you may have a hard time thinking back to that time, but that's the root of perfectionism. It's also tied to insecurity. And insecurity comes from the same thing as well, is that we're afraid of looking bad, we're afraid of appearing bad, we're afraid of not doing the right thing, we're afraid of making mistakes, when in fact those are the very things in business, in online business and marketing, that will make you the most success. And so the very thing that we end up doing with perfectionism goes opposite of what actually creates results in a business. And so I see people a lot, they have great ideas and they wonder, why am I not able to build my business? And perfectionism is one of the biggest reasons why. And so by overcoming perfectionism, you're actually able to accomplish a whole lot more. You're actually able to achieve a whole lot more in your life when you can break up with the habit of perfectionism. And I'm, I'm a recovering perfectionist myself. I used to think that perfectionism was one of the most important things growing up. It was not a safe place for me to make mistakes. Growing up, I struggled and felt afraid of what would happen if I did anything wrong or, or failed or sinned or did anything. And I grew up with these feelings of worry and fear that I must always do all the right things at all time the first time, never make mist. And I truly believe that I missed out on many of the things that I was supposed to enjoy in life. I missed out on a lot of the things that I know that I was born to do earlier in life because of this way of thinking. And I see a lot of business owners, specifically business owners, when they operate out of perfectionism, they miss out on the things that they want, they miss out on their desires coming to pass, they miss out on the business goals that they have. And perfectionism is the root cause of this. And so we gotta learn how to break past this. Perfectionism comes from we have some level of anxiety around making mistakes and we take longer than we should to accomplish something because we're constantly improving it. It's one of the most useless time wasting habits that we can have. Perfectionism is actually worse of a time wasting habit than watching television, than playing video games. In fact, you might see right here I have video game that I've been playing the last couple of days and been having some fun with it. It's a futuristic world that I get to go into and, and there's this technology. It's a sci fi game, but it's only set about 50 years in the future. So it's kind of freaky and a little, a little too close to home. Some of the, some of the stuff it's like, oh, I hope that doesn't really happen. Right? But like, perfectionism is more of a time waster than me spending time on that video game. Why is that? Because I could literally take months to finish one project in my business, whereas playing a video game for 30 minutes might actually help me clear my head and Come up with some of the things that I need to do in my business. But perfectionism will keep me stuck for years of inaction because I'm afraid of things not going perfectly how I want them to be. And listen, if that's you, I understand your pain. I understand the trouble. In fact, I understand the desire. You want things to be right, you want them to go well, you want them to be awesome and amazing and incredible. But you got to break up with perfectionism. You got to break up with that need for things to be perfect the first time. Because in business, the reason why most people are not millionaires, most people are not six figure earners. In fact. In fact, what are the numbers percentage in the United states, percentage of 6 figure earners? 2022 or 2021 income earning percentile. Here we go. This will be good right here. So of those that earn over a hundred thousand dollars, it's only 16% of the United States. They have a combined household income of that or that's a personal income. So a household income is a little bit, a little bit more. It's about 30%, six figures. So in the top 30%, that means that 70%, most people don't make over $100,000 in their household. And my wife and I were in the, in the top 4%. Our income is. We've been in the top 4% for years. And that only happens by breaking up with perfectionism. It really does. Especially as a business owner, you will keep yourself from making the kind of money that you want to make, accomplishing the goals that you have by being a perfectionist. You really will because you're not going to do any of the things that will actually move you forward because you'll always be tweaking and adjusting and making it just right. The people who are most successful in business. If you've been hitting a plateau in your business, look at. Am I being a bit too much of a perfectionist in this? You know, this morning I woke up and I was a bit of a perfectionist around my social media content. I was going to wait until after my shower to make any content. You might say, well, yeah, you don't want to look scuzzy. But you know what? I put a hat on and I made two pieces of content and they looked amazing. And I got past that perfectionism because I had some inspiration instead of putting it off until tomorrow because it's not quite the perfect situation, because it's not quite the perfect setup, because it's not quite perfectly how I want everything to be. I could have made that excuse. In fact, last year when I was making my best course that I've ever made, irresistible offers that sell. It took me six months to edit through it. Because of perfectionism, my friends, now I make courses in seven days and they're better because of it. When you can find the root cause of perfectionism, it really helps you. And we have to identify what is the root cause of perfectionism. Why can we not accept ourselves making mistakes? Why do we feel like we need to punish ourselves and speak negatively when we and be so critical of ourselves when we do anything less than perfect? Oh, and by the way, are you holding that same standard over other people as well? It'll make you a really un enjoyable person to be around. Not very enjoyable to be around if you're always criticizing everybody you meet for what they're doing wrong. I was that way. I was criticizing everybody in my life for what they were doing wrong because I was holding everybody else to the same level of perfectionism that I was for myself. Now, not everybody deals with that, but they hold themselves to a standard, right? I hold myself to a higher standard. These excuses that we come up with to justify and make our perfectionism seem like it's healthy and good, I'm just using wisdom. I'm just waiting until it's my time. I'm embracing the process. I have a spirit of excellence now understand those things aren't wrong. Wisdom is very important. Prudence is extremely important. Timing is important. Being patient through the process is important. All of those things. A spirit of excellence. It's important. But don't ever confuse perfectionism for any of those. Because perfectionism is only ever insecurity. It is only ever fear and worry and it is only ever unhealthy, unrealistic. It is not a good thing in your life. It is one of the most damaging standards that we can have. When you break up with it, when you find the root cause of it, your whole life starts to open up. And here's the thing, a lot of perfectionism, like I said, it's related to trauma. Some people may need to work with a professional trauma informed clinical therapist to help them break past some of this. So this isn't to diagnose or treat medically any trauma, but I'm going to share with you some of my experience. You see, if you're somebody that always got in trouble, anytime that you spoke up out of turn and, and, and you started to be silent and hold back your voice and you stopped speaking out or you Got made fun of when you did anything wrong or made a mistake, or, or you were never allowed to be a child and make mistakes as a child. Or, or maybe you would get yelled at or punished at your job for not doing everything right or, or, or any of these things. We make decisions to avoid that pain that, that we must always do everything perfect. And that's where it originates from. It originates from a standard that was held over us that we take on and hold over ourselves that's impossible to achieve. You see, perfectionism is impossible to achieve. It's a coping mechanism. It's a coping mechanism to justify, to put our brain in survival mode when others mistreat us based on the standards that they have for our lives. And so we say, well, to cope with that, I'm gonna always do everything perfect. I'm never gonna make mistakes. I'm never even gonna allow a possibility of somebody saying anything to me. And then we go out to build a business with this standard. And I promise you, you'll stay broken. You won't make the kind of money you want to make. You won't be able to reach your goals. You won't be able to take action, because there's always going to be a possibility. You see, you could do all the right things. You could essentially, and I know some people that, that, that do this, by the way, there's one way that you can make a lot of money with perfectionism. There's only one way. If you have a lot of money to begin with, okay, if you have millions of dollars, billions of dollars to begin with, you can afford perfectionism because you can hire other people to do stuff and you can hire down to that level. That's why a lot of things that can have that standard. When you're starting out, though, you can't have that standard over yourself. And you can't afford to because you don't have the money to afford that. And you don't have the time to sit on your butt to make everything perfect and to never do anything until it's perfect. So you gotta break up with that. And even if you have the money, it's not profitable. It's just not. You see, a lot of people, they'll even use perfectionism to argue, well, people over profit. Oh my gosh. Kill perfectionism in your life. If you want to accomplish anything great. Figure out the root cause of it, why you believe that you can't just try something and see what happens and learn and make mistakes, and why you must always do everything perfect and and who told you that? And why do you believe that? And what do you think would happen if you didn't get clear with yourself about your beliefs to start to identify those things? Now, listen, there's going to be some people that are going to listen to me today, and I know that this is not going to change your mind. This is not going to change anything in your life. In fact, it's going to more solidify that you need to be a perfectionist. And you will unfollow me and you will never listen to any of the content that I make because this is my core message of my content. I'm not your person. Okay? But for those of you that are willing to say maybe this perfectionism thing hasn't worked for me and are willing to start to break up with the toxic relationship you have just doing everything perfect and no longer paralyzing yourself and doing nothing until everything's perfect and never making mistakes. And, and, and you start to become willing to make mistakes to see just happens. You're my tribe. You're the type of person that I work with. You're the type of person that's actually going to change the world because you're crazy enough to do so. It's crazy in a good way. The crazy ones change the world. The crazy ones are willing to try stuff just to see what happens. Even if it fails, it's okay. Now, I'm not recommending that you do anything illegal. I'm not recommending that at all. You know, there's, there's standards with things. And, and, and that's why I speak to coaches and course creators the most. That's the niche that I've worked with the most in certain industries, let's say construction or automotive. If you don't do everything perfect, you could literally kill people. Right. I, I get that. So, so understand this within the context of that. Realize that I'm not talking about bringing harm to anybody, that I'm not talking about hurting somebody, that I'm not talking about doing something wrong or illegal. It may be wrong by some people's standards, that's fine. In fact, I have people all the time that come to me that tell me that I'm the most wrong, harmful, damaging person on planet Earth for this message. And they believe it, and they believe that, that it should be their mission. Mission to shut me down and destroy me. I've had people come to me and tell me that for this message, this message that I believe that you should break up with perfectionism, be okay with making Mistakes. Be okay with not doing the right thing all the time just to see what happens. Be okay with doing something that could possibly be wrong. You don't know yet, right? Once you know that it's wrong, don't do that. That's not what I'm talking about. If you know that committing a crime is wrong, don't do that. Right? Perfectionism is not about that at all. So get that little bug out of your head that perfectionism has to do with. And when I say to do things imperfectly that I mean to break the law. Psychotic. That's psychopathic behavior to do that. And I don't endorse that. I'm not okay with it. When you take action in your business and you're willing to put yourself out there and people will judge you and it might not work out and it's okay just to see what happens, it might be the wrong thing, but you don't know yet. You're testing it out. It's trial and error. Business is trial and error. That's why not everybody is a multi millionaire. Not everybody is a six figure earner because they're not willing to do this and they'd rather play it safe and go get a job. Great, go do that. But if you're a business owner that wants to build a business, you got to make the decision that perfectionism is no longer the way that you operate. And it'll change your life, it'll change how you do everything. And you will start to put things together in a way that you only dreamed was possible in your business. You'll start to launch things that good enough is better than perfect, that good enough is better than making everything perfect and that you can fix it as you go. I launched a course and then what I do is I tell people, give me feedback. If I'm hearing from a lot of people something that I missed in that course, I add it as an update. So I'm not afraid to launch a course that isn't fully done because I end up doing updates, by the way. That's why my social media ads course is one of the best social media ads courses out there because I covered every everything that people were asking me, everything that people wanted to know. I don't get any questions anymore from people that go through that course because literally I taught everything you need to know about social media ads in that course. It's awesome. It's incredible. It wasn't that way when it launched, but I added free updates and it eventually got there. Perfectionism is a Facade, my friends, it's a lie. You got to break up with it. And again, like I said, some of you might need clinical help. Some of you might need somebody to help you heal from your trauma for you to do this. But when you do and you start taking imperfect action to reach your goals and you stop being afraid of looking a certain way or sounding a certain way or, and you start liking yourself just for how you are, and you start accepting yourself just for how you are and you start taking imperfect action. You start to see the results start to come forward for you. Are you, are you ready to start doing that? Are you ready to start taking action and changing your life? Break up with perfectionism. Break up with the need for every action you do to always only ever be right and that you never, ever do anything that could possibly come even 1% close to not being perfect. And just start trying things out to see how they go. And that, my friends, is going to get you so much closer to your goals as a business owner than you ever imagined. Listen, if you're somebody that's building a business, you're a course creator, you're a coach, and you want to start to grow your business to make six figures and seven figures, I'd love to work with you. You can listen to over 150 episodes of this podcast right here for free. To help you on a number of topics as well, my website, Jeremiah Krakowski.com has a blog post and we have courses and so much that you can learn from at my website@jeremiah krakowski.com courses on offers and ads and website building and creating courses and social media content. And we have an upcoming one on how to become a world class coacheramichrakowski.com as well. If you want to take your business to the next level, I have one on one coaching that I offer people where I come alongside you and work with you one on one in your business to build a business that gets results, that makes money. And so if you're somebody that wants to do one on one coaching with me and you're serious about taking your business to the next level, you can schedule a free call with me, DM me, direct message me, send me an email, let's chat. This is only for those that are serious about one on one coaching. I'll do a free call with you before we sign you up with a package before you schedule your calls. You can find pricing at my website at the time of this recording. It's 500 an hour for one hour or $5,000 for 12 hours. Okay. You might have heard other rates before in older episodes. That's the rate that it is now. And it's. It's going to go up from there. So I'd love to chat with you. I'd love to help you. I'd love to work with you to build your business to the level that you want it to be at. Grow your life, everybody, and we'll talk soon.