Solocast: Perfection?

In this episode, Dawn Baker talks about the illusion of perfection, and the trappings of impossible standards and comparison. She uses her many homesteading fails as examples and offers tips for overcoming perfectionism.

Relevant links mentioned in this episode:
Solocast: What it's like to live off grid in the mountains
Solocast: all about confidence
Self-compassion exercises by Dr. Kristin Neff

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Get in touch with Dawn: 

• On the web practicebalance.com
• On Instagram @practicebalance
• On Facebook Dawn Baker
• On LinkedIn Dawn L Baker MD
• Buy the book Lean Out

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Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the lean out podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Don baker. Are you looking for a new approach to finding authentic and sustainable work-life balance? You've come to the right. Place. For inspiration. information. and a community. community. of like-minded. Professionals. Let's get to the show. Hello? Hello. Thanks for being here. It's officially November and we're heading into the holiday season. I thought it'd be a good time to talk about perfection and comparison, especially at this time of year, when there can be a lot of pressure at work. And at home to, well, basically be perfect. But before I do that, I want to remind you that my one-on-one coaching services will be 20% off this month and next month. That's like getting an entire session for free. If you feel seen by what I'm talking about in this episode? It might be a really good time to book a call and get some support. Go to practice balance.com to get on the schedule and we'll talk. Okay. If you've been listening for any period of time, you know, that I live on an off-grid homestead in the mountains of Utah. We bought this property over three years ago and I must confess coming from being true city slickers. Assuming the mantle of homesteader has really been slow going. Growing up, we hardly ever even went camping. My dad always joked that my mom's idea of camping was ordering room service at the resort. We didn't have a garden or anything like that. And we didn't have any animals other than a dog. And the same is pretty much true for my husband, except for the camping part. I love posting photos of our beautiful property on my blog and my newsletter and on Instagram. And you as a follower might look at those photos and think, ah, perfection. Beautiful trees. Amazing landscape, the family, holding hands, walking on their own hiking trails together. Uh, flack of free range chickens. Enjoying pastured, eggs and farm, fresh veggies, right from our land every day. Well, the reality is not quite like this. Maybe sometimes, but not all the time. Truly living off your land and being self-sufficient is far different from what we're doing. We are not even close to that. So today, I thought I'd talk in detail about the trappings of perfectionism and comparison using myself and my pseudo homestead as an example. This is a reality check on how things have gone on our farm so far. The first is the reason that I actually thought of doing this solo cast, which is that we. I have 20 chickens and not one of them has laid an egg yet. For reference, typically chicken start laying eggs when they're about five to six months old. But ours are more than seven months old and we have gotten not one egg. A few chickens have actually died for dumb reasons, like getting stuck under the watering bucket as well. And I feel really bad about these things. Our greenhouse is this awesome geodesic dome that we bill ourselves. And you may have seen some pictures. But the build took forever because in the harsh seasons here, One season, we got a huge snowstorm and the top of the dome caved in and we had to rebuild it. And then finally this most recent growing season in the spring and summer of 20, 24, we started growing stuff. And I literally know nothing about gardening. I managed to grow a few things from seed and I was really proud of myself when those seeds started sprouting. But we got some mixed up because at one point they spilled and then we tried to put them back in. And it turns out that basically everything I planted ended up being tomatoes. And so like, all we got this whole year was tomatoes. And we did get a fair amount, but we don't even eat that money tomatoes. So none of the other stuff really grew at all. We planted some berries and we literally got one strawberry and two raspberries off of our multiple bushes. Our greenhouse also has a pond and you're supposed to grow water plants and have fish in there, but our pond is empty. I bought a hundred dollars worth of plants, which have all died. And I spent$200 on some goldfish, which also died. So a little while ago when we first bought the property, also just some monetary failures. We got ripped off by a guy when we first moved here, who sold us a backhoe for a huge sum of money. And it turned out that the backhoe is a complete lemon. It never was able to work. We could barely start it and it would leak all of this engine fluid and stuff, like all over the ground where it was parked. The same guy also didn't finish a job that we really needed done. So we lost a fair bit of money there. And speaking about money. Another big financial fail. The second winter. There was that huge snow storm. And we have 2000 gallon tanks of propane. That help us to live off grid. And we lost thousands of dollars of propane because the snow load turned one of the valves and emptied one of our thousand gallon tanks. So, yes, these are fun times. There are probably other fails that I'm just not remembering right now. Here's some stuff about me personally, too, that might be different than what you expect. I may look like I'm a mountain minimalist kind of girl who loves to get her hands dirty, but really. Number one, I go for one week, a month to a city where I have a city experience in warmer weather. And I admit that it's a bit of an escape valve for me when this homestead stuff feels like too much. And number two, even when we're on the mountain, I ordered too much stuff from Amazon. We have a mailbox down in our town and I will able to get prime there too. And so I'm not very minimal for someone who lives in a tiny house and I really should be better about that. Number three, personal confession. I basically made my husband buy a property in our nearby town so that we could split our time because the winters up here. Or just kinda too hard for me. I start to shut down and go inside because the temperatures are just too cold. And there are other practical reasons for having a house down there that he agrees with, but I'm definitely the forest behind this new wrinkle in our living situation. And we're currently building a house there that'll be ready in the spring. So I share with you these realities, because I know there's a certain picture you might have of my life. Anyone's life. Even the richest, most powerful, most beautiful people in the world has ups and downs. They have beauty in turmoil. And I want to say this. We all have things we're working towards and things. About our lives that we want to improve. If you didn't feel that way, you probably not be listening to this personal development theme podcast. But perfectionism is not the same thing as healthy striving, or doing things with a value of excellence and integrity. So let's talk a little bit about perfectionism. Bernay brown defines perfectionism as an avoidant defensive behavior. It's born out of the belief that if you do things perfectly, if you appear perfect, you will avoid shame, blame, and judgment. But here's why perfectionism is a poor goalpost. Perfectionism is externally focused. It's about comparison and measuring up. It's about what other people think of you, as opposed to how you see yourself? It also keeps you from trying new things and growing, and it puts you in a vicious cycle that keeps you unconfident and holds you back from leaning out or anything else that you want in life. So, how do you know if you're suffering from perfectionism? And a disease of comparison rather than just desiring healthy improvement. Here's some questions you can ask yourself. Do you suffer from all or nothing? Thinking like, if it's not perfect, it's a failure. And we'll talk more about failure in a minute. Second thing is, are you fixated on achieving outcomes or appearances rather than the process of what you're actually doing? Also do you compare yourself to other people who appear to be meeting crazy high standards? It's so easy these days to compare with the multiple avenues of social media. That's why I shared some of the realities of my life in the beginning of this episode. So you got a real sense of what it's like. And lastly, are you afraid to fail? And if you feel like you have failed, do you have a difficult time getting over it? Not only will fixating on perfection, limit your confidence and your abilities to lean out and find your unique work-life balance. It can also affect your relationships and your ability to get things done at work or at home. Perfectionist are often highly anxious and their master procrastinators. Here are some things you can do to shift your mindset of comparison and perfection. To one of abundance and celebrating yourself for who you are. Number one. Become more self-focused. This sounds kind of bad because we're trained to put others before ourselves. It's ingrained in us as hard driving professionals, especially in the medical field. And those of us that are parents. But if you want to stop comparing yourself so much to other people spend some time building a relationship with yourself. This sounds weird, but fall in love with yourself. Relearn or learn. What gives you joy makes you angry, depletes your energy or fills you up with energy. Number two practice. Self-compassion. This is a go-to for me. Sometimes I think about my homestead fails. I told you about in the beginning of this podcast and I just cringe. But then I remember that I'm human and I'm learning how to do all this. How would I have known otherwise? It's okay. We all start somewhere. There are many ways to practice self compassion, but the simplest thing you can do right now is whenever you're feeling down, because you're not perfect. Ask yourself. What would you say to a friend or a loved one in this situation? And then say it to yourself while you place your hand. On your heart. I'm telling you the feeling of the warmth of your hand on your own heart. And you saying something kind to yourself is magical. Number three. Question your rules. Where have your high standards come from? Who made these rules? What would happen if you broke them? At the essence of this is the idea that we can stop, be mindful and question our own thoughts. They aren't always true. Just like constraints we place on ourselves. About how we look or perform. Number four. Try some exposure therapy. Have you heard of exposure therapy where like, for instance, someone's afraid of elevators. So maybe they start their exposure therapy by watching videos of elevators going up and down. And then they watch a video from the perspective of being in the elevator. And then they do a virtual reality where they're stepping into the elevator. And they go to an office building and they actually step in and out of an elevator. And then over time they figure out how they can ride the elevator. Well for perfectionism. The way that you can do exposure therapy is to try not meeting one of your standards. Something that isn't that important? Like let an email go out with some typos in it. Or gasp if you're a physician, finish your patient notes without every single tidbit of information that you would normally include and having a perfect note. Basically do B minus work instead of A-plus work. Leave a small but visible area in your house, messy for a period of time. If you're a clean freak. Or just play it by ear and go to a restaurant without reading any reviews and optimizing the experience. Ironically, these elements that I've shared with you are quite similar to the elements of competence that I discussed in my podcast episode, all about confidence, which was a few episodes back. And I will link to it in the show notes. They're also in my upcoming lean out confidence course. So if these tips seem like something you needed to hear today, make sure you get on the interest list for the course which can be found@practicebalanced.com slash L O C C. Okay. That's all I have for you today. I hope you found this helpful or at the very least you're entertained by my homestead Follies. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast. If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them easier. If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practice balanced.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, speaking, engagements, and coaching services. You can also support my work by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker. Have a great day and we'll see you next time