From Self-Critique to Success: Dionne Nicholls’ Strategies for Overcoming Perfectionism

Hello, my friend, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. Thanks for joining us today. With over 10 million downloads and listeners from more than 180 different countries, it's dedicated listeners just like you who have made Negotiate Anything the number one negotiation podcast in the world. I'm your host, Kwame Christian. I'm a business lawyer, mediator, author, and the proud CEO of of the American Negotiation Institute. Now, before we get into today's insightful conversation, I have a golden opportunity for those of you who recognize the power of negotiation in your professional lives. Have you ever found yourself wishing that you could navigate those high stakes conversations with more confidence? Or perhaps you're looking to empower your team with the art of persuasion and conflict resolution? At the American Negotiation Institute, we've crafted specialized keynotes and workshops tailored for those very needs. We've transformed the negotiation skills of professionals worldwide, and we're eager to do the same for you. We believe the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And our goal is to help you improve your lives and the lives of those around you, one difficult conversation at a time. Don't let another challenging conversation leave you second guessing. Click the link in the description to discover how we can help you find confidence in conflict, negotiate better deals, and have stronger relationships. Because in the world of business, every conversation counts. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. So since we're here, Dion, how about you just tell the listeners about yourself and what you do?

Sure. So, Kwame, I am one, a mother. I'm a wife. I am actually living out my dream as a life and leadership coach and speaker, facilitator. And now I've added author to my name. So I just recently launched a journal called the 90 Day Conquering Unforgiveness Journal for high Performing high Achievers. So that's just in a nutshell, who I am.

I love this. And listeners, I know some people are saying, okay, well, what does forgiveness have to do with negotiation? Why are we doing this? And this is a crucial part of the internal negotiation because we often focus so much on those external conversations with other people, how can I persuade them, et cetera, et cetera. But a lot of times the performance gap between where we are and where we want to be is completely internal in nature. And being able to forgive yourself is one of the hardest things people can do, especially if you're a high performer, high achieving type of professional. So, Dion, can you just break this down? I want you to help the audience know why this is so important for them if they want to be successful not just in life, but also in their difficult conversations too.

Absolutely. So I can give you a little backstory on what inspired this journal in the first place and that'll probably help a lot. So I coach executives, whether it's in the C suite to, on the front lines, individual contributors across nations. So it doesn't matter if I'm coaching someone in Italy, the uk, New Zealand. I just kept hearing the same recurring themes. We're just generally hard on ourselves. We lack a lot of self compassion. And so we will go into a meeting and we're not going to say anything unless we are 120% right. Because if I'm wrong, I'm going to beat myself up for weeks on end or I'll get 99% of the project. Right. But now I'm going to ruminate on that 1% that didn't go so well for weeks. That's what I kept hearing. I'm playing small in meanings. I'm not taking that stretch project. And so that was part of what inspired this journal. I have my own story of perfectionism. I am a self proclaimed recovering perfectionist myself. So you know what they, as they say, when you spot it, you got it. So I said, how could I use my own personal testimony of forgiveness and working through that, working through my perfectionism, you know, from a professional standpoint as well. And then based on the experience that I'm hearing, how can I bring that all together with the coaching tools that I've acquired over the years? So that's how it all came together.

This is great. This is great. And listeners, if you're like me, you're saying, oh man, that's me. It is, it sounds so familiar. You're, you're absolutely right. And what's so interesting is that it seems like it's, it's almost easier for us to give compassion and forgiveness to other people than it is for us to give it to ourselves. What is it about that process that makes it so tough?

Well, I'll tell you this. There's a little thing called the inner critic. And it's a voice from the past that wants to manage our future. And it was more than likely someone that loved you way back when, you know, when you were six, seven years old, it was from a place of love and protection. But now in your adulthood, it's actually the very voice, whatever was said is now holding you back. So that's a big part of what's going on. And it's now seeing forgiveness as a way to mitigate that, because self compassion is an act of self forgiveness. So yes, noticing this is where the growth mindset concept comes in. Yes. Acknowledging the thing. Right. I messed up on that. That one, that one piece of the product. I messed up on that or that. Really, that particular, I don't know, presentation didn't go as well as I thought. Acknowledge it. I am saying process the emotions. That's the second step in that growth mindset process. Right. Of course I would feel this way. Right. Allow yourself to have your emotions or they will have you. So whatever that looks like for you, is it journaling, is it getting a coach or a therapist to talk through it, going for a workout? Whatever it is for you, have the self compassion, right. Whatever you might say to your colleague, what would you say in those moments? Turn that on to you and then find the wisdom. That's the next piece, that's the growth. Because there's always something we can learn from. Our most difficult person in our life. The most challenging person becomes our greatest teacher, usually. And the most difficult situations, that's where the growth actually lies. You don't build a warrior in a white room with pillows and white feathers. You got to go through some stuff. So what's the wisdom? What's the lesson I'm supposed to learn? And it's from that you get the innovation, the new ideas. Because guess what, you're able to be more compassionate with yourself. You're willing to put ideas out there. Right. You're shifting a whole culture. Now, the more there's a culture of that forgiveness, people are more willing to come authentically, to share without reprimand or being shame. So now innovation goes up, productivity goes up, Engagement. It's good business. By the way, forgiveness actually is good business. There's a bottom line to this. This is not just woo, woo. But that's why I'm talking about this. Forgiveness is so far reaching, it's good business.

Right. And I mean, let's think about it. The you would not be partnering with a bank on your book launch if it wasn't good business.

Yes, yes. Kwame's referring to my book launch today, where, yeah, they see the value internally as to what this can do for employees. And then if this is practiced not just within a small team, but then it grows into divisions, what that can do to shift a culture.

Absolutely. And think about this too, because when you dig deeply within, like under the surface of these high achievers and, and I can just speak from my own experience here, it's almost like we feel like we need that pain in order to progress and we don't feel like we deserve to feel good. Because if I feel good even though things didn't go perfectly, then am I accepting poor performance? And it's almost like a lie that we've taught ourselves, told ourselves so much that we believe it, but we haven't even given ourselves the opportunity to consider the alternative.

Wow. Yes. You can't actually have another experience. It doesn't have to be a drag down, beat down. And this is the thing I want to acknowledge also is just that it works. It does work, as you said. But at some point, what would be the exponential breakthrough if you could reinvent how you. You relate to performance success. So one from healthy striving right versus the other, which can learn to lead to burnout, depression, all the things that we know. So actually operating from grounded confidence instead, what would that look like?

Yes. And confidence, yeah, that's the word that resonates the most with me because I'm biased. The first book I wrote was Finding Confidence in Conflict. And the one of the lines was self compassion and self forgiveness are the unsung heroes of confidence. Because a lot of times if you go into these difficult conversations and then it doesn't go perfectly. By the way, there is no such thing as a perfect difficult conversation. If you look for something hard enough, you'll find it and you will find that imperfection. And so a lot of times what ends up happening is we have that conversation, it doesn't go perfectly, and then we beat ourselves up for it and we say, I'm not going to engage in another conversation like this until I feel certain that I can perform perfectly and that will never happen. And as a result, we become conflict avoidant. And so you, you have to recognize that as it relates to us as everyday negotiators, whatever that means for you as a deal maker, a leader, a parent, a spouse, whatever that means, you're having these tough conversations. And if you hold yourself up to this unrealistic standard and then you're unwilling or unable to forgive yourself, it is not going to be possible for you to get to that point of maximum efficiency and efficacy when it comes to your difficult conversations, you're always going to be held back by that mentality.

Yes, they say the root of all suffering is expectations, is living from that because you're constantly let down. However, if you're actually not living for perf, this was the game changer for me when I learned the distinction between perfectionism And a spirit of excellence. Because with perfectionism, it's all about me, believe it or not, putting the attention, making me so big and important in the thing that when it doesn't go wrong, it's about me. I am a failure, I am not good enough. But when you're working from that spirit of excellence, so when you're operating from a spirit of perfectionism, it's all about me. It's putting all the spotlight on me being perfect. So when something goes wrong, that means I am a failure, I'm not good enough. But when you are operating from that spirit of excellence, it's about the bigger vision and mission. It's about who am I becoming as I go through the journey of this process, for example, to learn and grow from it. So very different way of operating. So if something doesn't go right, it just means, hey, we need to tweak something here, or maybe there's something more I need to learn or ask a question to get the answer I need. But it doesn't mean I am a failure or there's something wrong or I should be shamed in some way. So it releases some of that pressure and the beat up and the lack of self compassion so you have more energy to be contributing and engaging and learning and growing instead.

Hello my friends. Before we get back to today's episode, I want to ask you a question. Have you ever wondered how to elevate your team's negotiation game and how you can help the folks on your team have better, difficult conversations? At the American Negotiation Institute, we offer transformative keynotes and workshops tailored to empower professionals with top tier negotiation and conflict resolution skills. Whether it's a keynote for your next event or hands on training for your team, we've got you covered. Don't just negotiate. Master the art with the American Negotiation Institute. Click the link in the description to find out more. Elevate, negotiate and succeed. Makes so much sense. I'm sure everybody listening can say, okay, I get it, doesn't make it easy to do. But this is the first step, understanding there is another way. And then we can start to explore that way too. And when you think about difficult conversations in general, we recognize a lot of times these conversations come about because of some kind of situation. Situation, some problem, some rift in a relationship, things like that. And this is just me hypothesizing, you're the expert here. I want to see what you think. It seems like if we find it difficult for us to forgive ourselves, it would then make it very difficult for us to forgive other people too.

Absolutely. So that's why I say the more we can forgive ourselves and start there, it allows us to give other people more grace. Because if we're holding people at the same high standard we hold for ourselves, well, guess what, they're. You're going to be constantly arguing and they're going to be constantly letting you down because they're not meeting that, that high level expectation. They have no room for error.

Yeah, yeah. There are certain instances I'm thinking of. I can't say this is a generality. I haven't done any study on this, but it seems as though there are certain times if somebody is a perfectionist and they're used to beating themselves up and they think that is a fundamental aspect of their high performing nature. I need to be in pain in order to perform at a high level. If they're confronted with somebody who makes a mistake and forgives themselves and does not wallow in emotional misery, they then feel the need to put that other person in emotional pain because they don't feel as though they're taking it as seriously. Is that. Have you seen that pattern before?

Oh, that sounds very familiar. Or it irks them so much that they can do it. It's almost like they wish they could do that. That's another reason why they want to actually put them. Give them some pain. So it could be a couple of reasons as to why they might go in like that. Yeah.

Hurt people. Hurt people. Right.

Yeah. I think I mentioned my last episode. I was so by doing this work, one of my graduates said the reason why she took my program is because she also knows healed people, heal people. Yeah.

That's powerful. That is powerful. I think this is so important. So important because again, for many people this isn't obvious. It wasn't obvious to me for a really long time. And there are a lot of people who are living lives of unnecessary suffering and living small lives because they're so afraid of taking risks because they know the big bad bully inside of them would cut them down if they take that risk, that they are living in pain and living small and they didn't know there's another way. So this is crucial.

Yeah. And just with all the studies now, you might have seen that KPMG study that was done on imposter syndrome and just how rampant it is. It's 75% higher for women to experience imposter syndrome. You are going to. People will experience posture syndrome at least once in their career, you know, more than likely more than that. And so, once again, forgiveness is an access point to mitigate that. The more we can give ourselves that. That grace, that self forgiveness, when the voice comes.

I haven't. I need to look at this study, but let me take an unsubstantiated shot in the dark here. I think one of the findings should be, like, men lie on those surveys.

We're all in this together.

Yes. Oh, man. This is really, really good. Dion, I appreciate this. This is a masterclass, as always. Before you go, I want to give you an opportunity. Shout out the book, tell us about your program and how people can get in touch with you.

Absolutely. So you can find The Conquering the 90 Day Conquering Unforgiveness Journal. It's available on Amazon right now. And if you really want to learn more about what I'm up to, I'm actually launching a community because what do we know? When we start a new habit, we're all hot on it. And then before you know it, that journal is collecting dust or that workout machine is now a, you know, a wash rag rack. So I'm launching a community so you can buy the journal and have the accountability, the support to complete it. I want people to get the benefit, the mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional benefits of practicing forgiveness. So sign up for the conqueringunforgivenessmovement.com.

Love it. Dionne, thank you again for coming on the show. Really appreciate it.

Oh, my pleasure. Thanks again.

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