What's your Method of Hiding? Part 1: Perfectionism

As I was preparing and planning for what I wanted to cover in this next season of 2022, I started thinking about some of the common things that are keeping us from building courage and being brave.

Through my work coaching women running businesses I’ve had a pretty good front row seat to all of the sneaky ways that I see fear showing up and keeping us from sharing our work, our ideas and our thoughts.

So I thought it would be a good time to dig into some of these common methods of hiding that maybe you can identify with. Some of them are pretty obvious, but today I want to start with one that I know all too well – it’s one of my most common methods of hiding that I use to protect me from vulnerability and it’s also a really sneaky one for women (I’ll explain in a bit) and that, my friends, is perfectionism.

I know are women listening to this podcast who have important messages to share but whose self-doubt and fear is keeping them quiet or hidden. I know there are women listening to this podcast who think maybe think that perfectionism doesn’t relate to them. 

I know that so many of us are caught up in the myth that we needs to be more something – more qualified, more prepared, more expert, more influential, more polished – than we are in order to share our ideas or work or to try and develop something that we really want to....

SO BEFORE WE TALK SPECIFICALLY ABOUT PERFECTIONISM AS A METHOD OF HIDING, LET’S GET INTO A LITTLE BIT OF BACKGROUND.

In historical patriarchal culture, down through the centuries: women have been excluded from political, public, and professional life. We have not (and continue to not be) considered in legislation/voting, policies, pay discrepancies, lack of legal protections, and the denial of women’s basic rights.

All of these external exclusions through the years has absolutely had internal effects in women. It has shaped how we think of ourselves and what we see as possible for our lives and work. It shaped our fears – fears of speaking up, of rocking the boat, of not pleasing others because often our livelihoods and safety actually did depend on us being small and quiet and keeping the status quo.

One of the mechanisms of actual protection for us has been hiding; whether we recognise it or not. We have hidden ourselves, our ideas, our talents for survival instincts. To avoid conflict, or criticism or any kind of emotional exposure that might cost us, we have hidden.

The result is we people-please, use language that is softer to avoid being singled out and essentially we have not felt fully free to take action in our own lives. The cost of doing this is really high.

So along with some of the more obvious ways we continue to hide in that hangover of exclusion and desire for safety, I want to also address some of the more evolved ways that we are hiding, the ones that don’t necessarily risk our physical safety any more, but that absolutely do risk our emotional safety.

I want to try to expose some of the ways that we might not realise we are hiding so we can start to think a little bit about how that is manifesting in our own lives so we can begin to come out of hiding and live a bit more freely and fully.

Perfectionism is the sneakiest of these – because on the surface, it actually shows up as productive. And productivity feels proactive. But often that acute sense of overcorrecting, overplanning, over editing, over attentive work is actually keeping us from letting our ideas or products or services out there into the wild to be seen, noticed and to breathe.

Adding on, overcomplicating and endless polishing perfecting can really be avoidance. Instead of putting something out there that is good enough; maybe it’s a website that we think needs all the bells and whistles. Maybe it’s a product we are making that we think needs professional photography before we share about it. Maybe it’s a business idea we think we need 3 offerings within before we launch it to people.

We can build as we go, start somewhere and take a small leap that can propel you into action. Beginning is better than perfect. Perfect never comes so we need to start somewhere and keep having a learning attitude, an evolving attitude to whatever it is we are doing.

Brene Brown talks about perfectionism being a 20 ton shield we lug around trying to protect us when in fact it’s really preventing us from being seen.

Perfectionism is an guise we often use to guard ourselves from all angles – covering all of the bases extra extra carefully by busying ourselves over minutiae, spending endless time agonising over how things look or sound and trying to combat any potential criticism before it comes.

It also leads us into a vicious cycle of shame, because it is positioned as a noble quality, something to strive for when actually it’s not only impossible to achieve, but if we fixate on it and inevitably find that no matter how much effort we put in, we are met with any kind of criticism or judgement, we tell ourselves it’s because it wasn’t perfect enough – and so the cycle of shame starts to swirl around. “I could have done more, made it better etc”

When really, the logic of perfectionism is actually the thing that is faulty and not one single person who is out there, doing the work, sharing their ideas is actually immune from criticism or judgement – no matter what the level of perfectionism they think might protect them.

What we can do instead of hiding by way of perfectionism is try to do our best. What we can do is be proud of how we show up for ourselves and our idea, despite any flaws that might appear or any judgement that may follow.

What we can do is put down the armour of perfectionism and allow our ideas to be seen and heard so that we can learn about them and go through the unavoidable process of our ideas becoming, rather than hoping they come out perfect the first time out the gate.

When it comes down to it, trying and having a go is really self-supportive and offers you compassion and curiosity. Perfectionism is centred around others and what they think, how they might respond and really takes you out of the equation of the thing you are working on – which isn’t a supportive or sustainable way to approach things.

Within all of this, I want you to know that it’s so understandable that we want to hide in this way. Risking being seen or judged is so viscerally scary, and our body knows it. So if you’re listening to this and thinking “this is me” please don’t double down into shame – but let it be a call to freedom for you to know that perfect isn’t really going to protect you and that you are more resilient than you realise.

And ultimately know that your hiding is a huge loss for the rest of the world - that so many incredible ideas/thoughts/wisdom/talents are not being seen, not heard, not shared because we are hiding or fixated on perfection as a form of protection.

When amazing women hide their ideas, thoughts, creations then the world misses out on expressions of goodness, of insight, of beauty, of honesty, of empathy and innovation. And we need you – we need your imperfect thoughts, ideas and creations to be out there in the world so we can find them and so you can enjoy the fulfilment of creating something of your own that feels important and true.

THE FOUR STAGES OF BUSINESS EVOLUTION

The Business Evolution Tool and accompanying workbook is intended to do three main things for you and your business to help you work out

1. Where your business currently sits in the lifecycle evolution of a business.

2. What might be disrupting your business evolution and keeping you from moving into the next stage.

3. The key elements of action you can take to help shift you into the next stage of evolution.

This is a tool that I’ve been developing over the last little while. It’s one that I use with my clients in my group programmes, so I thought I’d share it here in part and link to the full tool so you can download it and use it for free!

I’m calling it the Business Evolution Tool. I wanted to create something that clearly helped female business owners identify where they were in their business evolution or development and maybe notice some of the common issues that come up in these stages and give you some relevant action to take to help move along, to deepen your work and see it develop.

I’ve grouped them into four stages of evolution: Infancy, Growing Pains, Adolescence and Maturing.

GET ACCESS TO THE FULL TOOL HERE: https://melwiggins.ck.page/3236b51b2d

Listen to the episode on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3Beb8XuGaxXXeDNy4ChIpJ?si=csrDSV7DQCunuBYoWDNinA

THE MYTH OF AFFORDABILITY

Today I want to talk about pricing.

If we were all in a room and I asked how many of you struggle with pricing in your business, I imagine a whole sea of hands would go up in front of me.

Pricing our work, our services or products is super tricky.

It’s safe to say that so much of the struggle to price what we do or offer comes down to our feelings. OUR BIG BIG FEELINGS! The emotion that we are attaching to money and prices and other peoples perception and our worthiness etc.

Our feelings tend to come first when we think about how to price: What does setting this price mean about me? Can I deliver on this price? Will I be good enough to live up to that price? Who am I to ask for this?

What I want to suggest is not that we leave our feelings at the door when it comes to pricing, because we know that a) it’s not possible and b) we want to include our humanity, our empathy and care in our business in lots of ways.

What I want to suggest is maybe that we need to tackle some of the particular mindset stuff that comes up that can sometimes be clouded by our feelings. So today I want to start with the idea of pricing to be affordable.

I want you to imagine that every time I say the word affordable that you can see me doing air quotes, ok?

I know that many of you want to be inclusive in your business, and that desire to show kindness and inclusion has you thinking about how to price your work or aspects of your work to be affordable.

AFFORDABILITY IS A MYTH:

• We all have our own view of affordability that may or may not be relevant to anyone else at all. What you deem expensive may cause someone else not to blink an eyelid. What you find cheap may be expensive for someone else. Trying to cater for everyone is going to tie us up in knots. There are people who will think that your work is really cheap and some who will think its expensive and NOTHING of those thoughts actually has any bearing on the true value of your work!

Let me say that again!

• We can care a whole lot, be super empathic and kind and also not agonise over catering to everyone and that be OK. It does not change your goodness and kindness.

• What is imperative is that we do not leave ourselves out of the affordability equation. What kind of price do YOU need to charge so that you can continue working in your business in a sustainable way? What price makes this right for you and your business or income?

• Ask yourself this: Can your customers/clients afford to lose your impact, your service, your products or your voice in their lives if you price things lower in the name of ‘affordability’ and end up with a business you can’t sustain?

• You are allowed to raise your prices so you can afford to build a sustainable business that works for you.

Why is it important that we price well?

·      So you can offer your best and maintain your integrity in the exchange.

·        Because women need to be more integrated into economic spheres – you getting paid moves us towards that.

·        If you don’t have money coming through your business, there will be no business to enjoy and serve.

·        We need to give people the opportunity to invest in things that will solve their problems and help them. Someone out there really needs and is ready to invest in you and what you have to offer.

 I appreciate you being here – and before I go – can I tell you about my leadership accelerator programme? It’s beginning again in September and I am starting to rally together the women who want to be part of this next group. Over 30 women have been through this 8 month business and leadership development programme with me. Women running their own businesses, women running teams, solo entrepreneurs and freelancers. If you are a female business owner and you want to develop stronger business skills, healthier boundaries, deeper self-trust and have a locked down support system full of wisdom – this is the programme for you. You can send me a message hello@melwiggins.com to get an info pack or check the show notes for the link to grab a free call with me to see if it’s the right fit!

MANAGING FEAR WHEN YOU'RE MAKING BRAVE MOVES

Today, I want to talk about what to do when we need to make a brave move and we are feeling the fear. 

The reason I talk about fear so much is that I think that we have such a limited and maybe even negative attachment to it. And when we have that kind of view of something, and it shows up in our emotions or in our body, our associations can really view how we respond. And there are good reasons for that.

The fight, flight, freeze or fawn instinct is innate. It’s what we have become used to as humans to survive in the world – in a context of danger, in primitive years, that instinct would have protected us from harm around us. But it has moved in more modern contexts, where physical danger isn’t as common for survival, into emotionally dangerous situations.

Where it used to be that people associated fear with more physical danger, people now list their biggest fears as combination of both the physical things – snakes, spiders, planes etc to public speaking, failure – things that absolutely won’t kill us but that we feel with the exact same amount of intensity.

But this adrenaline filled emotion that comes with fight, flight, freeze or fawn doesn’t actually help us make decisions more clearly at all and so as the world has evolved from those responses being necessary to survival we need to adopt some new skills and tools to help us with the new fear triggers that come up for us. The ones that are highly conflated with potential fulfilment.

So we’ll notice that fear shows up loud and protective when we are moving towards something that is very precious to us. A dream we are moving in on, a piece of work we are excited about trying out, a deeply felt desire that we really long to pursue, a cause we believe we can maybe have an impact in.

It’s often these things that we feel most vulnerable about because they are often the things that really reflect our true desires. They come from a really true and aligned place in our body and soul and so to put them out there into the world where they can be criticised or judged feels as terrifying to us as if we are confronted with a sabre toothed tiger.

So we can see that fear triggers our inner protector or our inner guard and as long as we don’t venture to near the door of our desires then it stays at bay. But when we decide to edge out of our comfort zone, contemplate change or stretch ourselves a bit bigger, the guard or protector shows up and it can be pretty hysterical.

One of the misconceptions of moving towards our truest selves or our most honest, aligned desires that I think is important for us to know is that it will feel good or exciting when we’re on the right track when actually we are more likely to feel the discomfort or vulnerability of being honest and aligned.

And so we can expect that if we’re going to make some bold or brave moves in our lives or businesses or ideas, that we shouldn’t hold out for a sense of confidence. It’s likely not going to show up in the way you think it is. If you are waiting to feel confident about doing something brave before you do it – you might be waiting forever. Because the inner protector or inner guard is built within you to show up.

So we need to adopt some tools and skills to teach our brain that it is ready to evolve past the freeze, flight, flight and fawn.

The good news is that adopting some of these tools actually isn’t all that hard. So even the act of acknowledging that the fear showing up, being irrational and persistent and catastrophising can be enough for us to sooth its hysteria.

And there are a few other techniques I want you to feel free to check out as well.

+ GET CURIOUS

The miracle drug for treating fear. Curiosity simply wants to discover what is true. What about this situation that is bringing up fear could you get curious about? Ask yourself why this particular situation is making you feel fearful – dig deep and bring the questions further. Curiosity suffocates fear because they are different states of being and you can’t be in two states at one time. Curiosity can energise us, make us more playful and less intense about the situation. Be curious about what is causing you to stall, hide or be fearful about this next move. Even just the act of thinking with curiosity could loosen things up for you.

+ RECONNECT WITH YOUR DESIRE TO SERVE

When fear or scarcity shows up in your personal life, work or creative life – bring yourself back to why you wanted to do the thing you want to do – who you think will benefit from it, enjoy it and get something out of it, or who is it going to positively impact? Even if that person is you or your family – because you are doing something you enjoy you’ll be a more contented mother or partner. Focusing on those people or the bigger intent or purpose of your idea can bring you out of your fear and into action.

+ ANALYZE TRUTH, POSSIBILITY, PROBABILITY

Often we fear a really non-specific outcome. Get specific about the outcome you are worried about. Go into it and analyse if there is any truth to it. What evidence do you have that it is going to happen? You may find you can actually rationalise yourself out of that non specific fear. Is this fear a possibility? What do I know to be true about this thing I want to do and my capability to do it? Write out the truth about those things. Arm yourself with evidence in your favour.

+ FOLLOW THE FEAR TO THE END 

Probably not the most popular advice, but it really works. Play it out – play your fear realised out. What would actually happen if x or y failed. What are the implications. And then what. Often fear paralyses us by THREATENING the worse case scenario, without us thinking about what we would do if it was realised and when we do we actually can surprise ourselves with how resilient our thinking is about what we would do. We’d ultimately be OK. We would survive our fears. We would find a road through.

These are just a few tools that have hugely helped me when I’ve been feeling the fear about my next brave move. I hope they bring you some comfort and support so we can have more of your brilliant ideas out here in the world with us.

Also a quick reminder about my leadership accelerator programme.

It’s beginning again in September and I am starting to rally together the women who want to be part of this next group. Over 30 women have been through this 8 month business and leadership development programme with me.

Women running their own businesses, women running teams, solo entrepreneurs and freelancers. If you are a female business owner and you want to develop stronger business skills, healthier boundaries, deeper self-trust and have a locked down support system full of wisdom – this is the programme for you.

You can send me a message hello@melwiggins.com to get an info pack or check the show notes for the link to grab it.