328: Breaking Through Perfectionism | Live Coaching Session

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 328.

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PR's. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife and mom of four. Each week my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise, mindset, personal development and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in. Now, let's jump into today's episode.

Hey, hey, hey! Welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke. And today I have a coaching conversation from our last round of MACROS 101. And I thought it was going to be such a great conversation to bring on to the podcast because we deal with the issue that I see a lot of women struggling with and that is perfectionism or this fear of getting it wrong or thinking that you have to do everything right. And if you don't do it right, then you might as well not do it at all. And I see this manifest in tracking, right? If I can't, if I can't track it exactly, then I might as well not track it all. We see it show up in like workouts. Well, if I can't get my full workout in then I might as well, you know well, not all a lot of this all or nothing thinking, but it's rooted in this perfectionism, this, this perfectionism that doing it right is required. And if I can't do it right then I might as well not, you know, I might as well not do it at all.  

And so I coached one of our clients, Susan, through this exact struggle. And I thought it would be a great conversation to be able to bring on to the podcast because I know that a lot of you struggle with perfectionism and and learning to move past it and you'll hear Susan talk about how, you know, this isn't something she struggled with and identified with for 60 plus years in her life. And it can feel challenging to, to retrain your brain that has been, you know, doing, thinking the same thought patterns for so long. But you'll see how I work with Susan in this call to be able to get her to start to open up and, you know, create some new thought patterns that are going to be much more beneficial for her moving forward in her life.  

How to become a macro scientist 02:28 

If you are interested in receiving this kind of coaching and being able to dive deep into your journey and be able to uncover some of those blocks that are keeping you stuck from getting the health and fitness goals and reaching the physical goals that you have set for yourself, I highly recommend getting on the wait list for MACROS 101. You can go to bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist but that is where I do all of my coaching where I help you to figure out how to become a macro scientist. And we, you know, we do a lot of things with macros and learning how to adjust your macros and set your macros and understanding nutrition and what your body needs, and then we do a whole lot of this work that you see here in this call as well because this kind of stuff matters when it comes to you being consistent with your macros. You're not self-sabotaging. And so that program is such a beautiful mix of the science, that of nutrition alongside the inner work that we do, you know that you'll see in in this call where we really dive into why are you not seeking with things, what's causing you self-sabotage and how can we really get to the root of that behavior, so that you can have that transformation start from the inside and you know travel to the outside exterior to the results that you physically are able to see in your body. So, get on the wait list at bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist. And without further ado, let's jump into that coaching conversation with Susan.  

Amber B 03:53 

Hi, Susan.  

Susan 03:54 

Hi.  

Amber B 03:55 

How can I help? 

Susan 04:00 

I think my fear is not getting it right. I'm not sure if that's kind of similar to perfectionist, but I tend to see that in my work also, that I don't want to move forward because what if I get it wrong and then anyway, so I think that I've I when you talked about not tracking because you don't know exactly what it is, that's totally me.  

Amber B 04:31 

Yeah, yeah. What? What? So when I went through that example of like how we would rewrite that, what came up for you during that, that part of it? 

Susan 04:40 

That I just need to be better at not stressing about it and when you said putting something down is better than not doing anything at all and I could resonate with that, you know, we go out to dinner and you know, I choose fish tacos or something. You, you know, I can just guesstimate, you know what I think the ounces of the fish are and there's two tortillas. OK, I can do that, you know. And if I don't get it right then. I guess that's. I guess that's OK. It it it almost makes me start hyperventilating, but. 

Amber B 05:22 

Yeah. Where does your brain go in that moment of like, OK, so I'm estimating all this stuff and then your brain starts to go, like, talk to me through it, talk me through it. 

Susan 05:32 

It's going to put me over and I don't want to know that I'm going to be over or I'm not going to get the little star or, you know, something like that. 

Amber B 05:39

Yeah, OK. So if I'm over, then what?

Susan 05:47 

Then. 

Amber B 05:48 

I don't want to be over because if I'm over. 

Susan 05:55 

That's a that's a good question. I don't know. I guess I haven't thought that far through. 

Amber B 06:00 

You have. You just weren't aware of it. Your brain has gone through because that's why you do this behavior. So do it again. So if I track all this stuff and it's not, you know, it's not right and it puts me over then. 

Susan 06:02

OK. Then. I then I I guess I didn't do it right. I I failed for the day. It's almost kind of like a, you know, as you were going through all the different fears. I feel like there was a little bit of everything involved in the not getting it right. Yeah, I'm. I'm afraid that then that means I failed for the day or I'm just never going to get this right.

Amber B 06:45 

Yeah. OK, good. So something that I want to highlight and we do this a lot, which is why it's kind of tricky for us to sometimes look at our own brain because a lot of times there are parts of the belief or parts of the way that we're thinking that we aren't even consciously aware of. So yes, and you tell me if I'm wrong. Like if I was going to finish out that sentence the way that your brain is probably finishing out that sentence, it's like if I'm over, then I didn't do it right. And doing it right is required. Is doing it right required to get results?  

Susan 07:19 

Yes.  

Amber B 07:20

OK. So do you notice, I think it's this is a really important point is that do you notice that that you didn't say that because so often we're not aware of how our brain is finishing the sentences and once we become aware of it now we can start to look at it critically and start to pull holes in it, right. So now we can look at that, that idea of like this idea really resonates with you doing it right is required, but we can take a step back and say is that, is that really true? Like do we have to do it exactly right to to get success?

Susan 07:53 

I know that's true. I really do know that's true.  

Amber B 07:57 

Up here?  

Susan 07:58 

Yeah.  

Amber B 07:59

OK. So this is beautiful. This is beautiful Susan because this is the conflict and this is what we're working through. What we have identified for you is that subconsciously you believe that it has to, you have to get it right. Doing it right is required for results. That is your subconscious brain’s belief right now, consciously you can see the fallacy in that like consciously, you're like, no, no, no. Like I know that that's not actually true, but what you have now is a disconnect. You the disconnect between what your programming is running on and your conscious awareness. So this is what we're talking about is that work that needs to happen. What can we when this when your subconscious brain goes on that wagon wheel that it always goes on, and this idea that it has to be perfect in order for me to get it right or doing it right is required for results, now your conscious brain can kick in and say, hey, we're not believing that anymore. Instead, we're believing XY and Z. So I want to work with you. If you, if you're up for this, I want to work with you to be able to create that thought pattern that we're going to replace it with OK and you said something so beautiful earlier that I want to land on. I said something to you. And you said I can I I resonate with that. You said that earlier, that's where I want you to get to is like as we work together to be able to create this new thought pattern, I want you to feel like, OK, yeah I can resonate with that. I can get on board with that and that's what we're going to practice moving on in the future. So if we can look at this and say I didn't do it right and doing it right is required. That's what our subconscious is thinking right now. What? How would we rewrite that in a way that is more supportive of the results and more accurate too, more truthful as to what is actually required to get results. What do you think? We'll kind of we'll workshop this together.

Susan 09:41 

Yeah, that’s a lot for my brain to comprehend.  

Amber B 09:46 

You're doing great. What is? Let's start with the thought is if I didn't do it right, I didn't. If I'm over, I didn't do it right and doing it right is required. How can your? What does your conscious brain? How can it poke holes in that? Where is the fallacy in that? 

Susan 10:05 

Well, I know that that's not true because just the fact that I'm tracking period is good and so that. That in and of itself for me is a total success because I have always hated writing down what I eat because I don't want to take the time, I'm afraid I'm not going to do it right. And so the fact that I actually started using the app and tracking for me is a huge win. 

Amber B 10:44 

OK, this is great. So there are two ways that we can go about this and I see you going towards one way, which is great. We're going to roll with that. But I just want to highlight the other way just so that we kind of have the information and knowledge. So when we have something like I didn't do it right and doing it right as required, we can either continue to hold on to that belief and just redefine some of the words and that can be a way that we can shift it. So then that's kind of where you're going to cause basically what you're saying is like cracking to the best of my ability is me doing it right. Right? so this idea like I need to do it right, doing it right is required. It's like yeah, it is. And tracking to my best ability is me doing it right. So we're we're holding it. We're keeping the same belief, but we're redefining the words to be more conducive to the result that we want. That makes sense?  

Susan 11:36 

Yeah.  

Amber B 11:37 

Right. So that's one way we can go with it is we can. You don't have to change the belief. We just have to change how the words are interpreted and how we're, they're utilized and like we can redefine the words or we can actually challenge the core belief of this idea of like actually doing it right is that's not even required like we don't have to do it right. We have to just do it better than we did yesterday or we just have to do you know what I mean. 

Susan 11:59 

Yeah. 

Amber B 12:00 

So I'm not. I'm not saying either. 

Susan 12:01 

I think they want to go down that road. 

Amber B 12:03 

Okay, okay. 

Susan 12:04 

Because that's right.  

Amber B 12:05 

OK, good. And that's why I'm kind of highlighting it because one of these isn't better than the other, but you may know personally that, hey, if I keep holding on to this, I got to do it right. It's still going to show up in a bunch of different ways, and that's not gonna be very helpful. But for some people, that can be a softer transition. If you find it way too hard to shift to like no, that's not actually true, I don't have to do it right at all. That may feel really hard for your brain. And so we can start with like the redefining it, you know, doing tracking to the best of my ability is me doing it right. Does that make sense? 

Susan 12:36 

Right. Yeah. And and I'm reminded of a phrase that my husband uses a lot, and that is just fail fast in other words, just. Just do it anyway, and if you don't do it right, you know, you wake up in the morning and you just start again. And and I have to remind myself that that's OK. But at 60 years old, I I I kind of tell myself, gosh, why can't I get this right? I get emotional and I want to start crying about it. 

Amber B 13:10 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and this has been something. This isn't something that just happened yesterday. Right. And so we can give ourselves some compassion and understanding, like, you're changing something that has been a thought process. It's been a thought habit for you for a lot of a lot of years. But how beautiful it is that you're waking up in in your 60s to realizing I'm ready to, even though I've worn these wagon wheels for 60 years, I'm ready to change it. And your brain is malleable. I don't care how old you are, we haven't. Research has never found a point where your brain is like, that's it. You can't change it. The brain is what's called neuroplastic. We are able to change the the the functioning of our brain. Now it's true that as at a young age, there is much more neuroplasticity, that is, that is true. However, there is not a point where you you become unable to change the way that you think and so we can either say we can mourn the fact that it's taken 60 years, or we can celebrate the fact that you've woken up and moving forward. We're going to change this. This is something that you can change. 

Susan 14:14 

Yeah. 

Amber B 14:15 

And when you do this, Susan. When you change this and you let go of this belief that it has to be perfect and it has to, you have to get it right every single time. What will change in your life. Where will you be in six months from now? If you really can let this go. 

Susan 14:38 

I love myself. And I guess I can give myself that grace that I never seem to do. 

Amber B 14:56 

And when you're able to give yourself grace. What is possible for you in your life that hasn't been possible to this point? 

Susan 15:18 

I I can. I can be OK with not being not winning every day, I I can. It gets my thought off of myself and gives me time to serve other people. 

Amber B 15:42 

And do you think if you can get to the place of being OK, not winning every day that, paradoxically you might actually win? 

Susan 15:53 

I know that's true. Like you said, deep in my self-conscious, I know that's true. 

Amber B 16:00 

Yeah, yeah. 

Susan 16:01 

I feel like I have tried it this for so long I've lost weight, gained weight, lost weight, gained weight. I feel like I've done that ever since I was for the last 30 years. 

Amber B 16:12 

Yeah. Yeah. And that's why so much of what I focus on with you is not even just like, what are your macros? But it's like. Can we can we help you be OK with not winning? Can we can we do that internal work that is going to manifest externally? Absolutely. Because like I said, paradoxically, I know it's a paradox, but if you can be OK not winning, you will actually win more. You will actually have more results. You will actually have better results if you can get to the place where you can give your, it's again, it's paradoxical because our brain thinks no. If I give myself grace and I don't hold myself to the standard, I won't be successful and it's the exact freaking opposite. It's like when you're able to give yourself grace for some of you now, I can't speak broadly like I actually just run a podcast episode that's coming out on Tuesday where I make this point that there are there are definitely. I see two camps of people, the people who really struggle to give themselves grace, and I put you in that camp, Susan, and then people who let themselves off the hook way too easily and whatever it feels harder for you is the one you probably need to work at. So I would put you on the the side of, like, it's hard for you to give yourself grace. That's what we need to focus on. Now, somebody may be listening who's like, No, I let myself off the hook all day, every day. Like I'm always giving myself excuses and they may need to not get. They need to give themselves a little less grace, so I I don't ever want to speak like everybody needs the same thing. But for you this is definitely a truism that the more grace that you give yourself Susan, the more successful you're going to be. So I wonder, does that resonate with you like again, we're looking for something to replace this? 

Susan 17:39 

Yeah. 

Amber B 17:51 

Like the more I give myself, the more successful I will be. 

Susan 17:52 

Yes, because I have heard so many times when people decided to love their body. No matter, you know what shape or size or weight or whatever it was then that they could finally just relax and take baby steps instead of feeling like I needed to take that you know big, huge leap. And the baby steps I always say, OK, I've got two months, I can lose 15 lbs in two months and two weeks goes by and I haven't lost anything. And I and then I get mad at myself. But how am I ever going to get there? I'm not going to get there and and then I just. Sometimes I just say oh, forget it. It's not. I can't do this. 

Amber B 18:39 

Right. Yep, that's right. Yep. And so when you can give yourself that grace, when you can sink into the process, when you can accept yourself the way that you are, you stop putting that pressure on yourself, that inevitably causes you to quit. Yeah, so so I want to go back to the more grace I give myself, the more successful I am. How does that sound? How does that feel? 

Susan 19:04 

I'm going to write that down. 

Amber B 19:07 

Because I think this could be a really great mantra for you that you practice, right? Like on a daily basis, repeating it to yourself like this is where affirmations come in. We talk about affirmations in module 3, but the more grace I give myself, the more successful I am. Or Grace, I give myself the more successful I am, the more grace I give myself, the more successful I am and and being able to start repeating that in these scenarios where. And I think externalizing it can be a little bit can be helpful as well as like in a place where you would offer someone else grace. 

Susan 19:41 

I know we have a problem doing that. 

Amber B 19:44 

Right, so let's use that to your advantage, right? We can. Can you look at the situations and put it on to somebody else? And think about what grace would I extend to my sister, my friend, my spouse or whatever. And then your job is to extend that same grace to yourself. And you can do that. Repeat, by repeating that the more grace I give myself, the more successful I am. So what kind of grace do I need to give myself? Now, I want you to be on the lookout here, Susan, as you do this, that you don't swing too far to the other side. Because this will sometimes happen and it's normal and natural if it does. But again, I talked about that continuum of like being too hard on yourself and then being too LAX on yourself. I don't, most people are afraid that that's going to happen. I don't see it happen as often as people are afraid that's going to happen. So I mean, I do think it's something to be aware of as like. So I put myself in a position where I'm like, not holding myself to any standard now, like I'm giving myself so much grace that I don't ever hold myself to the fire. That's not the goal. The goal is to give yourself grace, to allow you to be more successful. And so that's the byproduct we're looking for is the is the success. 

Susan 20:52 

Well, maybe what I need to do is define what what the success is like you know in that continuing from zero to 10 if if success maybe I need to redefine success as that I did the best I could depending on what the circumstance was for the day. In other words, I couldn't go to the gym because, you know, I had a 7:00 meeting. And normally I'm at the gym at 6:30. Maybe instead of going to the gym, maybe I just walk around the block once and at least I did that. Or, you know, I chose to. I chose to do something with a friend instead or I I don't know, but I can see just defining what success it really makes a difference. 

Amber B 21:58 

Yes. Absolutely, 100%. What I would recommend that you do with this, Susan. So like how do we make this implementable and how do we make this actionable? I would love to see you implement. Like a daily check in with yourself at the end of the day, and this is where you can sit down and be really honest with yourself, of looking back over the day. If if if our metric is I did the best I could kind of giving yourself a grade today on a scale of 0 to 10, how well do I feel like I felt that out? Did I do the best that I could now what I was so happy to hear in your, the way that you just spoke was that you gave a really great example of you saying, you know, if I had a meeting at 7:00 AM and I'm normally the gym at 6:30 and so then I didn't go to the gym that day. What I didn't hear you say was like, so then I would, if I'm doing the check in with myself, I'll be like, well, I I gave myself grace. I love myself off the hook because I had a meeting at at 7:00 PM or 7:00 AM. Right. I didn't hear you say that. I heard you say so instead of that, I defaulted to going for a walk outside or I did something else. Right. There's a difference between giving yourself an out or justifying or having so much grace for yourself that you don't require anything of yourself. But I didn't hear that. What I heard was you saying because I couldn't do that, I did this instead, and that was me doing the best I could so that's where being really honest with ourselves. Self-deception is a is a big deal. We're we're real. We're really good at it. We're really good at self-deception of being like I couldn't work out today because I had a meeting and like I'm giving myself grace. Right. But you and I would both know if we got really honest. But that's not giving yourself grace. That's just letting yourself off the hook. Giving yourself grace looks like I couldn't do that, but I didn't let that hold me back from doing at least something that I could do. That's giving yourself grace and not letting without letting yourself off the hook. Do you see that? 

Susan 23:50 

I have done the other we have. 

Amber B 23:55 

We're we're really good at it, we're really good at justifying self justification, OK? Tell me as we wrap this up, Susan. Like what? What was the, what are you taking away from this conversation? 

Susan 24:07 

Well, that I don't have to. I don't have to be perfect in order to be successful and to really define for myself what that success is and when it all comes down to it you know, I've. I've always been so hard on myself. That it it doesn't matter what I do, I don't feel like I've succeeded. 

Amber B 42:42 

So yeah, I wonder. So you said I don't have to be perfect. I want to finish that out because I think it could be a really good mantra for you. I don't have to be perfect, I just have to be what? 

Susan 24:59 

Well, I have to be mindful of the small successes and not focus on the big success because all the small successes will eventually lead to a big success and and maybe not, maybe only a medium success, but I I think really in the long run the doing the little successes is success. 

Amber B 25:35 

Bingo. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't have to be perfect. I just have to be mindful of the small successes I'm having. That can be something that can be something you can practice as well. When your brain starts screaming, you have to be perfect. You have to be. You have to get it right. You can't get it wrong. It's you can remind yourself I don't have to be perfect. I just have to be mindful of the small successes I'm having. So good, so good.  

Susan 25:58 

Yeah, wonderful. Thank you so much. 

Amber B 26:00 

You're welcome. 

Amber B 26:04 

I hope you learned a lot from that coaching interaction. I know a lot of women that I talked to struggle with perfectionism and feeling like they have to get it right and they have to do it right. And I hope that as you listen to Susan get coached that you were able to take some of that information and really start to apply it to your life and to your journey because that's really when it can start to make the difference.  

If you haven't gotten the wait list for MACROS 101, I highly recommend it bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist you will be the first to know whenever the door is open to a MACROS 101, my signature program that helps you to become your own macro scientist in your own journey. That wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm Amber, now go out and be strong because remember, my friend, you can do anything. 

Outro

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