139. Excellence over Perfection, 5 Truths That Set You Free

Well, hello, friends. Welcome back to the momset podcast. I'm your host, Tessa Romero. Today we're going to be diving into perfectionist tendencies. So, perfectionism, if you're someone listening that says, I'm a perfectionist, I've got some helpful tips for you. And this is something that we were recently talking about in my membership when I had showed a picture of my kitchen clean before bed. And it sparked this whole idea of perfection versus excellence and what it is that we're striving for and why we're striving for it. And I really believe that information is power and it fuels our perspective. So the more information you give your mind about what perfection is and how to strive for excellence over perfection, then the more successful you're going to be, the more free you're going to feel. And my overall objective here on the show is to help you figure out who you even want to be as a mom. Not to tell you the mom that you should be or need to be or anything like that. For you to finally sit down and ask yourself, who do I want to be as a mom? What does that look like? How does it feel to be that kind of mom? What would I be doing now or differently in the future? What does it all look like? Really just get you thinking on questions like that, because it is your choice who you're going to be as a mom, the way you're going to show up, what you're going to think and how you're supporting yourself through this journey. And we have a choice to make. We can choose to seek validation, justifications, and camaraderie right where we're at. Right? Like the Misery Loves Company idea, we can choose to do that, and we'll absolutely find it. If you want to find a friend to complain with about the tantrums your children are throwing, oh, you'll find that friend. And if you want to find someone that has a different perspective about tantrums, someone that maybe misses those phases and moments of connection with her kids, you'll find people like that, too. So where you choose to put your intention, your focus is going to make a big difference in the way you're perceiving motherhood. And I hope that I can be a positive voice in your mind, helping to challenge your perspective and just guide you towards understanding who you want to be as a mom and asking yourself those questions. So this episode, like I said, is about excellence over perfection. And we're going to go through these five truths that help me feel really free as a mom. And stay away from these spirals into perfection that erode my self esteem, my self worth, my integrity, and my focus. And I believe that it's disastrous to my faith as well. Anytime that I've taken the perfectionist route, oh boy, it was a big struggle. So the way that this came about, like I said, I shared a picture of my kitchen clean before bed. And every single night, every single night, I cleaned my kitchen before bed. I believe I deserve to wake up to a real fresh start. And that means I want my home to look like a fresh start. I don't want yesterday's hard moments and messes and difficulties that I faced to carry into the following day, as much as I can help it. So if there's something I can do to help myself feel like every morning I wake up, I really do have a fresh start, I'm gonna do that because I believe I deserve it. And I've done episodes previously and we can do more on this whole mentality of what it is that you deserve. Because if you tell yourself you deserve to leave the mess, you deserve to binge watch your show, to just zone out, I deserve to turn off my brain and, and escape all of this, then that's exactly what you're going to do. So that I deserve it mentality is really so powerful. It's such a key piece here. So anyway, I almost didn't clean my kitchen though. My mind, it had this velvety voice of temptation saying, oh, I'll just do it in the morning. There's only a little bit left. It'll only take me, Take me a few minutes in the morning. I'll just do it then. It's not a big deal. It's just one night. Um, you know, I'll. I'll feel more up to this in the morning. I just don't feel like doing it right now. And this velvety voice didn't sound like I was being mean to myself. I was talking myself down or beating myself up for not getting enough done. It was like coaxing me into choosing what is easy over what I know to be right. And this is where I believe. My vision of my life and my identity of who I believe I am and what I deserve comes in very strong because like I said, if the voice in my head isn't obviously negative and hurtful and just like picking on me like a real bully, sometimes it's harder to recognize it as being destructive and being disastrous to what I want my life to look like. And I did catch the velvety smooth voice I did catch it that night. And, and that's why I shared about it in my membership. And I said, you know, I almost skipped this and I had these thoughts that I just told you guys, and I decided to do it anyway because it only takes a minute and I might as well do it right now. And what my mind was really doing was trying to talk me out of waking up to a fresh start. And in that perspective versus the other one, if I say, oh, I deserve to just, like, leave the mess and go relax on my couch or on my porch thing, whatever, I deserve that. What I'm really telling myself is I deserve to wake up to a mess. And when you say it like that, it sounds insane. You're like, what do you mean I deserve to wake up to a mess? We tell ourselves, oh, I don't. I don't deserve to wake up to that fresh start. And we're like, huh? Like, when you rephrase things, it brings so much truth and value to the bigger picture of what it is that we're actually saying. So no matter if that negative voice, that bully voice in your head is velvety and it's very coaxing and tempting and it sounds so delightful, or if it's just flat out mean and belittles you and it picks on you and it judges you, we all have a voice that's tempting us to do what's easy over what's right. And it. When I did this post and I, I shared my perspectives, one of the members in my membership in our community commented a really excellent question that inspired this whole podcast episode. So thank you, Danielle. She said, I know perfectionism is so much more than getting everything perfect. I'm wondering how you don't spiral into it. How would you feel if you didn't do the kitchen one time? Would you spiral into self loathing? Or would you have at one point, or would you have at one point in your journey? I'm more prepared for my housekeeper to come today than I think I have been since she started coming. So that feels so exciting. And just her question, though, about, is this. Basically what she's asking is, is this desire to clean your kitchen every single night before you go to bed a perfectionist tendency? And I appreciated this question so much because that that's what it could appear to be from the outside. Like, as soon as she asked that question, like, oh, it could totally look like that. Like, I absolutely see where she's coming from. And my response is to focus on what perfectionism perfectionism is. Perfectionism is Our coping strategy to try and avoid the emotion of shame, we. Shame is a powerful human emotion. We've all experienced it, and some of us learned like, okay, I never want to feel this way again, so how do I do things perfectly enough that I don't feel ashamed of who I am, that I don't feel like I'm not good enough? How do I do things just perfectly enough that I'll be enough? That is what perfectionism is based on. That's why. That's why we do it. We're not born with the desire to do things perfectly. Look at any child. There's a very messy process to their learning, and they actually enjoy it. They learn very quickly from their mistakes. They're very willing to make mistakes, which makes them more adventurous and creative and curious. And they. Here's the key piece. They're not attaching their self worth to an outcome. They're not attaching their self worth to what things look like and what other people are thinking about what they look like. That's not where their self worth is coming from. And when we still, as adults are using perfectionism to try and avoid the motion of shame, that's exactly what we're doing. We're trying to make things look aesthetically look perfect enough that other people will think that we're good enough. And that's not why I clean my kitchen before bed. That's not why I work really, really hard. That's not why I strive for excellence. So in my. I'm just gonna read my answer, and then we're gonna get into our five. Five truths that I know help me tremendously. So I said, perfectionism is the avoidance of the emotion of shame. We think if I do things perfectly enough, then I'll be enough. We connect the perception of what we do to the value and worth of who we are. I. I strive for excellence every day. I want to hold myself to high standards and execute my goals and keep my word, especially when I don't feel like it, because that shows my character. Not a clean kitchen. Sure, there have been a handful of times I went to bed with a messy kitchen. Maybe we went out with the kids, stayed out longer than planned, got back way late, and I left the kitchen. While this is rare, I still committed to excellence that day. So it's not about the kitchen. Um, I don't clean my kitchen before bed to avoid feeling unworthy or not good enough. Shame driven, which leads to perfectionism and fear. I clean my kitchen before bed because I know my worth and value. I Know what I deserve. And then I'm the first person that sets the tone for all of that. Integrity driven, leading to more energy. So that's how I answered her question, and now I just wanna break it into this podcast episode. What does it look like to strive for excellence rather than spiraling into this perfectionist tendency, which will result in the emotion of shame? And then we have a whole shame spiral, and that is the attack of self. You're attacking who you are through that emotion of shame, which creates more of it. And then we're striving for perfectionism all over again. And it's a really nasty cycle that we actually can step out of. So, number one, a key difference between excellence and perfectionism is the source of motivation. Excellence is rooted in purpose and integrity. Perfectionism is rooted in fear, shame, and external validation. So we're looking at it as, okay, what are other people gonna think about me when I do this? So our motivation is not in the purpose of our vision for life and the integrity of. Of keeping our word as good as gold. Seeing to that we are giving our best effort, and only you know what your best effort is. So I know I can clean my kitchen before bed. I have the energy, I have the time, I have the capacity. I have the vision, I have the will. I've got everything I need to clean my kitchen before bed. And while anyone on the outside can look at that and be like, oh, she. She puts way too much on her plate. She needs to take some time off. She needs to just let it go this time. Like, no one can sustain all that. They can say all that they want. And I'm the only person that knows what I'm actually capable of. And I refuse to let that be defined by other people's limitations and projected fears that they have for their own life. And again, that's a. That's a key difference. So our source of motivation. So an empowering shift that you can take here is just to ask yourself, am I doing this because it matters to me or because I'm afraid of what others will think if I don't? Am I cleaning my kitchen before bed because it matters to me or because I'm afraid of what others will think if I don't? Am I waking up early, having this morning routine, spending time in my Bible journaling? Am I in the momset community because it matters to me or because I'm afraid of what others will think if I don't? The way you. I mean, seriously, just the way we do everything, the way you Celebrate your kids birthdays. Is it because it matters to you or because you're afraid of what others will think if you don't start asking yourself that more frequently? Key difference number two, the way we view mistakes in a mentality of excellence. We view mistakes as teachers and tools for growth. In a mentality of perfectionism, we view mistakes as evidence of failure and unworthiness. So if you're in perfectionist tendencies, your mind is conditioned to look for evidence that proves you're not good enough. You suck. You always fail. You will never figure things out. You've been like this your whole life and you're never going to change. Like your mind is conditioned to look for those things and you are responsible for breaking that pattern too. So a good shift for you to make is to view mistakes as teachers and tools for growth. And you get to decide what a mistake is and what it means too. If you feel off put by the word mistake, there's nothing wrong with that. You could use a different word instead. Like we could use decision. We view decisions as teachers and tools for growth. And maybe using the word decision helps you feel more comfortable to sit with that and allow your mind to open up and explore what that means and what it looks like for you. And there. I just want us all to be on the same page that there are no good or bad words. Words are just a collection of letters that spell something. And then they have a definition. Sure. And then we actually get to decide how they feel for us. What we think about that word, what we think that word means. The dictionary can say whatever it wants to. Webster can say whatever it wants to about the definition of a term. And you will still define it in your own way. And that creates the emotion behind it. So if the word mistakes feels very triggering for you, replace it with. With decisions. View decisions as teachers and tools for growth. And perfectionism views decisions as evidence of failure and unworthiness. Which is, when you phrase it that way, it's even more true, I believe, than the word mistakes in that phrasing. Viewing decisions as evidence of failure and unworthiness. Because one of your decisions you may consider to be a failure and just proving your unworthiness. And someone else could look at that same decision. And it's proving your growth, it's proving your integrity, it's proving your creativity, it's proving your curiosity. It would, it would mean something completely different to someone else that has a stronger mentality than you do or that sees you in a better light than you do. It's so Powerful. So in order for us to view mistakes through a mentality of excellence rather than perfectionism, we're going to use this shift. And I learn faster and lead stronger when I allow space for imperfect effort. And that's so true. Look at every area of your life if you allow yourself to take messy action. I've called it messy action for years. So I learn faster and lead stronger when I allow space for messy action or imperfect effort. I want you to use language that resonates with you and it feels empowering. Messy action for sure. Is that for me? Key difference number three between a mentality of excellence and a mentality of perfectionism is our relationship with ourself. Remember, shame is an attack on self. It's a powerful human emotion and it's evoked when we attack ourselves. So when you attack your character, your integrity, your I am statements are attacking you. You are creating a shame spiral. You will feel the emotion of shame. That's. That's where it comes from. So through the perspective of excellence, we are leaning into self trust and self compassion. You are your own best friend in this relationship with yourself. You've always got your back. You're able to see the best in yourself. And it's not about justifying what you've done. It's a compassionate view to recognize there's a lot of pieces at play here. Like there's. There's a lot more going on than just this moment. A lot of time has passed for us to accumulate these behaviors and mentalities and emotions and tendencies. Like so much has happened in our life that while we've grown so much over time, we still have our downfalls. Because in the pursuit of me messy action, we are agreeing that it will be imperfect. And again, we learn faster and we lead stronger that way. So in our perspective of perfectionism, this is going to lead to self punishment and harsh inner talk. So look at it through the lens of, with the differences between striving for excellence and using perfectionism. If you want to stay out of perfectionism, basically what you need to do is protect your I am statements. Refuse, refuse to use negative I am statements. That's a key behavior of mine is I refuse to use negative I am statements. If you could be in my head, you would know I only only allow positive I am statements. I will only entertain positive I am statements. I will only use positive I am statements. I will only use positive you are statements. Any language surrounding who I am or who others are, I have conditioned myself to protect it in the sense of it's always going to reflect who I want to be and who I want others to be as well. It's not going to reflect, you know, oh, I made this choice and that makes me a screw up. Like, no, absolutely not. That makes me courageous. Like, I am courageous. And I did this and I learned this. And now I see that this is the next best decision for me to make. That's going to be that mentality of excellence. It protects the relationship with myself. So it's an empowering shift for you to make is to protect every I am statement that you use. Talk to yourself as if you're always being heard. Like someone can always hear what you're, what you're saying to yourself. My faith is very important to me. I think if you've been around on the episode for any stretch of time, you know, my faith is so important to me. And I do look at it as like God is listening. He can hear what, what I say about myself. And as his child, as his daughter, what does he want to hear me say about myself? I'm his creation. That's that it's so powerful for me to sit with and remember I am his creation. And it is so, it's so hurtful. It must be so painful, disheartening and disrespectful for his own creations to think that they're not good enough. Like, if we really value God that much and we, we put all of our faith in him and our love in him and we trust him the way that Scripture guides us to, and then at the same time, we're simultaneously belittling ourselves, degrading ourselves, saying that we're awful, we're terrible, we're never gonna change, what does that say about his creation? And that, that level of accountability, it helps me so much. So if you're someone that's like, oh man, I could use more, I could use a better perspective around my self talk, Just think of it as, okay, what would I say to myself right now if I knew I. Everyone could hear me. My kids can hear me, my husband could hear me, my parents could hear me, my heavenly father can hear me, my neighbor, my girlfriend, my best friend, my sister, my niece, my cousin, my nephew. If I knew anyone could listen in on this thought, what would I be saying to myself? And you start to condition your mind to have a filter. And that's actually more authentic than saying things like, well, I should be able to just like speak without a filter. No, you should not be able to speak without a filter because that's the number one way for our words to truly destroy our lives and for negative influences to infiltrate the vision that we are striving for in our lives. So it's actually a really amazing thing to hold yourself to a standard of excellence and in what you're choosing to think and say, first and foremost about yourself and then about others and then about circumstances and everything else. Um, okay, so that's number three. Number three, we're using this empowered shift of, what would I say to myself right now if anyone and everyone could hear me and the way I talk to myself? Number four, key difference between a pers. Mentality of excellence versus a mentality of perfectionism. A mentality of excellence is focused on the process and the progress, and a mentality of perfectionism is focused on the appearance and the outcome. So, again, this kind of relates really strongly with number one. Am I doing this because it aligns with my values, or am I doing this because I feel afraid of what others will think if I don't do it? What are others gonna think of me if I don't do this? This is our focus of attention. Where am I choosing to put my focus? So maybe setting up some process wins for yourself in the day. Like, I stayed present during bedtime, and that would be, like, this process of excellence, this mentality of excellence, holding ourselves to these high standards, not perfection of, okay, everything on my checklist is crossed off. My house is spotless. I paid that bill. I did this thing, like, putting so much of our actions into putting our actions on this pedestal of, like, okay, this will prove my worth. Instead of looking at our. Our behaviors in a sense of our presence, how attentive we are, how engaged we can stay, the quality of questions that we ask our kids during bedtime, like, really paying attention to our people more than our things, is when we're going to be striving for excellence over this idea of perfectionism. Because, again, perfectionism is this facade, like, oh, I need to keep up this appearance. I need other people to approve of me. I need this validation and acceptance and approval from them. And you quickly lose who you are. If that is where you put your attention. You're going to forget who you are. You're going to lose who you are. And you guys, if you've listened to previous episodes, you know that I'm a big believer that we don't lose ourselves in motherhood. We lost ourselves long before motherhood. If you don't know who you are today, that didn't happen as soon as you became a mom. It happened long before you became a mom. And then motherhood just made it obvious that you don't know who you are. And that's painful, that's difficult. It's painful. That first time you realize, oh my God, goodness, like I, I don't know who I am anymore. Yeah, that's gonna sting for sure. And the only way to start realizing who you are, crafting who you are, shaping it, giving yourself permission to explore who it is that you want to be and to redefine yourself is to put that empowerment back into you and to practice more of the characteristics that who you want to be would have. Not just to accumulate these materials and keep a, keep up a facade and an appearance of things, but really being able to display the quality of your character needs to be the focus. So key difference number five. This is our last one. Key difference number five between a mentality of excellence versus a mentality of perfectionism is the effect on our identity. So a mentality of excellence reinforces a resilient identity. I am growing, I am equipped, I am God fearing, I am selfless. I am surrendered, accepting, resilient and peaceful. I am patient, I am playful, I am creative, I'm curious, I'm observant. All of that is building up our identity. And when our mentality is rooted in perfectionism, we're actually tearing down our identity. We use those, I am a fail. Like if I fail, then I am a failure. And oh man, I, I totally screwed up the way I said that to my kids. I am a screw up. So we look at what we've done and we use it again as evidence to, to further this narrative and build up this narrative that we're not enough. So all, all five of these points, these key differences between excellence and perfectionism come back to a heart of who you believe you are. That's really important for you to spend more time considering who do I want to be, especially in motherhood? And as much as we think like, oh, I've got all the time in the world to figure these things out, it's okay if I spend one day wallowing away in self pity and attacking myself and thinking I'm not good enough, that one day is so potent to like undermine any amount of progress that you were making, any amount of effort you were putting into building yourself up, that one day is so destructive if you let it go on. Don't give yourself a day to attack yourself. Sure you can give yourself a day to feel sad, like it's okay to feel certain ways for as Many days as you want. It's also important to recognize that there's no reason to attack who you are while you feel sad, while you feel angry, while you feel disappointed or upset or ashamed. Like, it's important for us to constantly and relentlessly protect that sense of self. And if you're someone that struggles with perfectionism, I really want you to understand where it's coming from. You experienced a feeling of shame. And in order to try and avoid that because your, Your character, your integrity was attacked, like, oh, you are always in the way. You're a screw up. You, you are annoying. Like, you are so insecure, you're so selfish. Think about the way you were talked to and about all of those you are statements were interpreted as I am statements. And growing up hearing those things, and we all did, to some capacity growing up hearing those things starts to wire our internal narrative of who we believe we are. And it's usually as adults that we figure out, oh, I've actually been in control of this narrative all along. I could have much sooner decided that what was said about me is so far off. And it was just a reflection of the people that said it, not a definition of myself. It's not something that determines who I am. It was something that reflects who they were choosing to be, what they were choosing to think, how they felt at the time, what they thought was possible. It has nothing to do with me. I was just conveniently in front of them when they lost their crap, when they flipped their lid, right? So for. For my friends that struggle with perfectionist tendencies, we have our key differences here between a mentality of excellence versus a mentality of perfection. I want you to strive for excellence. What better way to live your life than to spend a lifetime striving for excellence? To do everything to the best of your ability because you can. Because you can. Do you want to look back on your life and say, oh, man, I wish I would have had. I wish I would have put more effort into my health. When I was younger, when I had the energy, when I had the resources, when I had the time, when I had that friend in my life that was doing it too, when that person invited me, like, oh, man, I really wish I would have paid more attention to that then. I think about that now. I go for runs. I'm 30 years old, I go for runs. And yesterday I ran a little over six miles. And I just. I could feel it in my bones. One day that's probably gonna happen sooner than I'd like it to. One day Running six miles is just like, maybe it's truly going to be extremely difficult, if not something that I've convinced myself I just can't do anymore. Feels impossible. I'm too old for it. Like, I'm. I had an injury and I'm not able to do that anymore. I lost a leg. Like, I am bedridden. Like, we just don't know what the future holds. So I think it's really powerful to give ourselves permission to give all that we can while we can. And that is not perfectionism. That's excellence. And I feel excited to strive for excellence each day. I feel really accomplished. I feel fulfilled. I feel like anything else I want to work on, I've proven to myself that I can work on those things because I have strived for excellence in so many other areas that I know well. I can just carry that over into this area, too. And maybe. Maybe that's what you need a little bit more of. More time thinking of in what areas of my life have I been striving for excellence? And I do hold myself to higher standards, and I can use that evidence and that energy and that effort to carry over into this area, too. I so strongly believe that anything you want to accomplish, you can accomplish it. Anything you want to do, you can do it. Anything you want to think, you can think it. Anything you want to feel, you can feel it. You're boundless. You're untethered. You're. You can be unbothered, right? You're. You're so incredible. You're. I mean, we're humans, right? Like, there's just so much I could say. There's so much I could say. We really are walking miracles. It's so fascinating that we're even here, that we even have this opportunity. And while I refuse to waste it, I refuse to be someone that watches, like, sits back and watches other people, especially mothers, waste the opportunity when I know how much it means to me. So regardless what you choose to do next, I want to know that I'm someone that speaks up for this and gives you encouragement around this, where maybe you haven't received any encouragement. If I just do my part, I will allow you to do what you want with it. And I hope it makes a difference. I really, really hope it makes a difference. I've seen the difference it's made in my life, and I. I just want to see it make the same type of difference in your life, too. So get to your journal, my sweet friends. I want you to really consider some of these reflection pieces that we've been through. And some of these empowering shifts, especially that first one that we went through, was I trying to give my best or was I trying to be flawless so no one could judge me? And am I doing this because it matters to me or because I'm afraid of what others will think if I don't? And giving yourself permission to spend more time in messy action, the way we view our decisions or the way you view your mistakes, depending how you want to phrase it, protecting that view of yourself, the relationship with yourself, really put yourself on high alert of every I am statement that you choose to use. And yes, I do say choose. Every I am statement you use matters. So put yourself on high alert. Use a standard of excellence when it comes to your self talk, because you can. And what harm is going to come from that? And then being able to make sure that your attention is being put on your character and obviously the reasons why you're doing things more than just the outcome of doing them. I hope this episode was extremely helpful for you. If you're someone that has been trying really hard to overcome perfectionist tendencies, I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear from you. I would love to do more episodes for you and see you grow along the way. Because trust me, friend, I'm still growing too. And it helps me to have you to talk to. So let's talk to each other. Okay, I'll see you guys later.