Are you ditching the driver's seat and leaving too much of it on your tools? After giving a shoutout to the podcast's listeners—who aren't clients yet—and the Happster of the Week, Coach Jess raises the questions that will keep you away from self-sabotaging. Here, Coach Jess reinforces how you can safeguard yourself from analysis paralysis, where perfectionist tendencies come from, and the type of high-quality question that pulls out your real priorities.
Full Transcript Below
In this episode you will learn:
How to antidote having too many resources and not enough time
Everyone can use the same tool and end up with very different results
Are you putting the responsibility on the tool?
The 'all or nothing' type of questions
Catch up with Coach Jess and Sincerely, Future You on:
Website: https://www.whatshappyning.com/
Get business and life coaching by Coach Jess through:
https://www.whatshappyning.com/workwithjess Book your FREE Mini Session now:
The Life Coach School Podcast by Brooke Castillo:
The Perfectionism Project Podcast by Sam Laura Brown:
Full Transcript:
sometimes I just have the thought like do I want to make this work it's a better higher quality question like do I want to show up and make this work it'll really pull out of you whether the work that it might take to get the result if that is a priority for you or not welcome to sincerely future you a podcast for female entrepreneurs looking to scale their business by mastering their time money and drama I'm your host Jessica McKinley founder of what's happening coaching a life coaching program that helps ambitious women like you make decisions today with the future you in mind
hi happters it's April are you feeling really spring in my spring floral um moo moo if you will looks cuter when you're sitting than when you're standing honestly but i have so many things to shout out today so i'm just gonna immediately dive in first of all of course we have a hapster of the week but i'm gonna let you hang on in build anticipation for that one while i shout out a couple of listeners who are not clients yet maybe they aspire to be clients or maybe they don't even maybe they just love to listen to the podcast maybe they're not quite my ideal client maybe they don't own a business yet or they're just a professional and they're using the tools but i've gotten so many many messages specifically this weekend last week from listeners giving me real tangible results that they got from listening to the podcast over the last couple of months so i couldn't let them this go by without sharing this so number one just a couple of shout out loves for the podcast uh wow episode 101 is fire listening to it now you're inspiring me to relook at my goals and dream bigger that is from natalie so excited for you natalie for those of you who listen to episode 101 we were talking about all of the like zooming out and i shared with you a lot of my bigger goals of wanting to have a birthday party at an art gallery where and to record a music album and to think about your life more holistically in a way that just lights you up um so i got a lot of love on that episode i also recently got a text from denise saying thanks so much from for our chat last week by the way for those of you guys who don't know you can dm me on instagram at what's happening wjest i love to connect with my listeners i always complain about how this platform just doesn't have a great way for me to connect with you guys you guys get to connect with me every week and i feel like i'm missing out on a relationship so connect with me over there let me know what your what you're struggling with what you're trying to uh pursue and i love to give any any insights that i have during that time and just cheerlead you um so denise said uh thanks for our chat last week i've been doing a deep dive of your podcast it is fire firefighter emoji so glad you're loving it denise and then i'm so excited for this shout out of lizzy fox lizzy is a longtime listener who has been sharing her desire to get better with time management and money mindset for a long time she has now become a masterful scheduler and goal setter just from applying specific episodes she sits down she listens she takes notes and she has screenshoted me screenshots of her schedule and i'm like this is pretty advanced it looks advanced it has deadlines it's results oriented it is specific and measurable and thoughtful and she shared jess we must be psychically connected because i just got into my top choice grad school for creative writing and i've been thinking of you so much and wanted to reach out because i truly got here with the tools i learned on the podcast so i'm just so proud of you lizzy i know that that has been something that has felt like a separate part of your persona right this other part that just felt so impossible and out of reach or just distant in the future maybe and connecting and chatting with your future self has just brought her closer and i want all of you guys to experience this of shortening the gap between your future self and your present self right let's meet her tomorrow be her today so that you can meet her okay so awesome way to go i keep the feedback coming i love it even if it's constructive i'm open but uh okay let's do the hapster of the week shout out to this week's hapster of the week christa ferreira krista is in happening sessions so happening sessions is underway we are only one week into the calls and already so many of them are sharing their little wins throughout the week we have our second call um this week well actually when you guys are listening to it it'll be like fourth call and so i wanted to share that krista said that she had been struggling with creating policies around customizations that people were asking for if people were asking for travel she didn't really have a clear policy for what she would charge and she always found herself showing up to the conversation feeling bad for the client pity for the client in some way having lots of thoughts that she was projecting onto them about it being too expensive if she charged for travel which i know a lot of you guys suffer with this thought and we said create the policy what do you want it to be what would it be worth it for you to travel this distance xyz do the math have it ahead of time and give your client potential client the opportunity to say no but have your own back on the decision and she did she offered the price that she felt was too expensive for them that they were going to probably say no but that it was what it was worth for her time and they said yes so i think that this is actually way more common than you guys think i know when i first was in the process of raising my own prices i felt the same way i was constantly like well people say no at this price so who's gonna nobody's gonna say yes if i raise my prices we often think that because we don't yet have evidence to support that someone will buy at this price but the more we're willing to believe in the possibility of our future with zero evidence that it can happen the more it just happens right the more we get to reinforce that skill of believing in possibility and taking action in our business based on possibility not based on evidence so way to go krista way to apply what we're talking about within week one and get what you came for shout out can't wait to see if you're getting these types of results in week one stay on and you stay uncomfortable the next at the end of these six months your business is going to be unrecognizable so really pumped for you okay let's talk about the topic today which is are you using your tools or really all-or-nothing thinking against you aka are you self-sabotaging i have done a whole another episode on self-sabotage but it was from a completely different angle and it was really more just a very real example of me going through my own self-sabotage when i was guest speaking on the life coach school podcast and i shared with you what what my experience was of witnessing my own thoughts coming in that were like really aggressive towards me and now i just this morning gave a live q a for a workshop for girls that are uh looking to get results in improving their their gut health or they have some autoimmune diseases and they're working with a dietitian who's a client of mine and i wanted to speak to them on the mindset piece so that they can combine the tools that they were using with the healthy mindset of pursuing a goal and understanding how to go through that emotional process without giving up and i felt so inspired by the end of this call these girls were just asking such incredible questions that i know you guys must be having that also apply to business so these are some of the tools that you might be investing in right now that you can put this into context this into context so if you are currently in a coaching program or any kind of training program for your business or you are signed up for a workshop or a training or you have a educational or business focused podcast that you're listening to even if it's just this podcast or you're in a facebook group for networking for business or you are any real business investment like for me you can use this these type of thought errors that i'm gonna outline for you against yourself for anything and i'll give you some real examples for me and for some of these clients i was just working with thought error number one is that there's just too many resources and not enough time so this is where i see people approaching a program coming in really excited about getting a result and then indulging in overwhelm seeing a bunch of modules and feeling like they need to listen to all of the modules before they take action or they see that this has a bunch of extra bonus tools or i didn't really know but i could also learn how to do webinars that wasn't exactly my plan but i see other people getting results with these webinars should i do that and then they spin and spin in overwhelm and confusion and they think there's just not enough time and too many resources i can't i'm not doing this program right and then they choose to fail ahead of time they start to get really discouraged within the program they feel like they're looking for evidence within their personal life that they don't have enough time to show up to this and listen it's tempting for all of us to do this i've experienced it myself i know you know in my mastermind i've done it now i'm in my second round so going on a year of being in it and i have all sorts of personal stuff happening you guys know i went through the hyperemesis where i was down for the count for several months and i paid good money for this mess right now so watching in the group as other people were getting results were able to apply these tools in ways that i physically could not and i could have stayed there and indulged in i'm not like there's just not enough time for me to get the results that i wanted but that thought stops me from getting any results so i quickly saw it and i decided okay the antidote thought to that is really what are the results that i do want to get and how can i use this program for me and not against me so anytime i looked at something that really wasn't the priority right now i just thought oh that's not for me that would be against me if i put that on my plate in terms of a resource so notice we can even use resources and tools and access just tons of information and training against ourselves if we we know it's not a priority but we feel like we that danger word should be utilizing it or applying it or getting results from it no you only you get to choose you get to stay in the driver's seat of the results and what is your priority right then so i just decided the only thing that i wanted to come and get from that mastermind was clean brain every week i just wanted to come and clean up whatever was taking up the most space in my brain that was going to be worth 25k in six months and i also knew if i can clean up my brain once a week for six months money is inevitable so i held on to that thought as well so i just quickly tabled anything that i was planning to do that no longer was a priority or made sense for me in my new circumstances and just decided how can i still get the results that i want to come for what do i want to build right now and it was like resilience i want to learn from this i want to be able to turn what i'm going through into curriculum for my clients i want to do evaluations on my thought i want to get really good at experiencing negative emotion those are all skills right so figure out what you can and do want to do and don't worry about all of the other resources thought error number two is it needs to go exactly the way i plan or no not at all these are the perfectionist tendencies so if you identify as a perfectionist you want to listen up right now if you are approaching a tool whether it's a paid tool or a free tool understand that everybody uses a tool to create something different just think about the magic of a hammer like someone can take a ham or a paintbrush michelangelo can use a paintbrush and my son can use a paintbrush and create two wildly different results right and a lot of that is the way that you approach the tool what you think about the tool what how you show up to the tool and now we don't want to compare ourselves but we do want to understand if you are if you are a perfectionist that how the future of your results is all that matters what's happened up until this point if you picked up a paintbrush or you listen to a podcast and you just weren't quite in the right mind frame for it or let's say you know i do these podcasts all the time there's sometimes i finish press like stop recording and i'm like that wasn't my best i don't give another second of like that was a waste of my time maybe i should consider quitting podcasting maybe i should take a break or maybe i should go watch more modules on how to podcast i'm like all right what do i want to do a little bit differently next time or how do i want to approach this perfectionist tendencies is rooted in the thought error that i'm unwilling to feel the negative emotion that comes with not getting the result that i want the first time you can handle it this is a safety mechanism being a perfectionist is about your belief that if you don't get a result it means something about you it doesn't it's just data it's just the one dot on a plot of a graph of your entire life and if you continue to make it mean something about you those dots continue to go in a line and that is what stagnation is but if you just look at that dot and you're just like oh data on to the next then it is more free-flowing and you're way more likely to get through that low value cycle as my my coach stacy calls it a low value cycle where you're just like thinking a negative thought and then you make it mean something and you feel and then you indulge in that feeling you stay there i just can get through those cycles quicker now because i don't attach the result to my self-concept to who i am okay so watch out for the thought error that you it needs to be all or nothing that it needs to be perfect or not at all are you willing to put out into the world b minus work and not make it mean that you're a b minus level business owner or b minus level person are you willing to suck are you willing to feel the feelings that go along with sucking and then in the pursuit of mastery in the pursuit of getting better okay number three thought error is just the thought it's not working i see my clients do this in happening sessions and it's like let's just stop everything right there they'll be like scheduling it's just not working for me or budgeting it's just budging not for me it's like the throw your hands up in the air energy of like it's me and the thing there's just we're not meant to be together this is not who i am as a person a scheduler right you must when you approach any tool whether it's a coaching program a workshop a podcast anything you just get to decide it's working regardless of the results that you see in the present moment and that can be very difficult depending on how your brain is wired especially if you're a good student i find this for my clients who are really good students they're trained to think uh like a grade is reflection of whether what they're doing is working or not and i actually think that that is horrible for applying it to the real life like the way that school works is not the way real life works when you get a grade it doesn't mean in general it's not working it just means that there's a gap somewhere right it doesn't mean it's not working so i just always think whenever i'm doing a launch sometimes i'll do a post and it'll get like 10 likes and my thought isn't like oh instagram's not working or my branding isn't working or my message isn't working it's like oh it's working but this something here there's a gap right it's like i and i think that what i mean i is not like this is more of like a zoomed out concept like you need to believe that a program is gonna work for you that a tool is going to work for you you need to be committed for a certain amount of time right it's like people that have these thought about relationships they could be like uh this isn't working like i never really have that thought about a relationship sometimes i just have the thought like do i want to make this work it's a better higher quality question like do i want to show up and make this work it'll really pull out of you whether the work that it might take to get the result if that is a priority for you or not but is it working or not is way too all or nothing it it takes you out of the driver's seat and makes it about puts like all of the responsibility on the tool or the resource of the program it's like oh it's just not working for me right now you can make anyone can make anything work for themselves it's like i don't actually believe in the concept of the one i believe that anyone could be with anyone and could fall in love now some relationships are gonna take a lot more work and effort that's a fact but some people are just willing to put in more work and effort and that's fine for them right and in certain cultures and arranged marriages like they just think of effort and work as a part of the part of the process i actually had a roommate in college who had an arranged marriage and i thought it was so fascinating and such a beautiful thing because the way that she thought about love was something that she had control over and i was like what a beautiful thing like she had such control and access over her thoughts about this person about their relationship because her thought was oh we're getting marriage this is a commitment it's gonna work and i was just like wow i love it right so can we put that's an extreme example but can we put that in that level of ownership over our results by just believing with any tool that we approach it's gonna work and drop the i thought it's not working instead if you want to reevaluate you get to say like okay i've been doing this for a year do i want to continue to put in the effort in this why yes or no and for me that's been very telling often times the answer is just like i'll keep putting an effort until i die with certain results and in other results i'm like no this is just not worth it this is not worth my time and the final thought error that has people self-sabotaging and using their tools against themselves instead for themselves is i need to get my bang for my book this is slightly tied to this idea of showing up to a program that has all sorts of resources all sorts of tools all sorts of ways that you can apply it and all sorts of benefits and you thinking that if you don't get all of them or spread yourself so thin or get all of the results within the first round of a program or the first month that you start doing something that you're not getting your bang for your buck so for example i uh just in this workshop this girl was gonna be going on vacation in the six-month program that she had signed up for she was going to be going on vacation for a bit so she wanted to make sure that she didn't quote unquote fall behind so she wanted all of the materials set to her in in advance so that she could do it in advance of leaving so that she didn't miss out on anything and i was like oh it's so interesting because to her she thinks that time equals results and that thought error right is is rooted in thinking like oh i need to follow this program exactly as it was outlined and i cannot miss a day and it would block her from really showing up and becoming more efficient within a program which is a totally different skill which is so worth your time so right now a real example that i want to leave you with and how i make these advanced decisions in my business as personal things come up are not in these all or thinking ways so here's an example i am going to be going on maternity leave in july and august when the baby comes for eight weeks i will not uh my happening sessions will be continuing through there will be guest coaches in there and that will be running just like normal but my one-on-one clients that they will be on a pause for eight weeks and i am trying to decide what i want to do with the podcast right i wanna i know that my my revenue is going to be like a little bit tighter during those months again it's planned because i have the two group launches and not until october so i know exactly what my revenue really will be uh during those months and i'm like okay what is the best thing for me so if i was in all or nothing thinking if i had some of these i'd be like well i can't get the most bang for my buck from my podcast production team like i can't like meet with them every week i can't be checking in on the trello boards i can't be i don't really want to be recording i'd have to do things in advance so like i should just stop it but i don't think all or nothing i said hey i want to have a meeting together let's talk about what the overall goal is for the podcast for the year do we think it would stop momentum to take a little break can we batch record some things do we take a four week break out of eight weeks or you know what what is the results that i want to get and what is the math of it so what would it cost me are there certain things that we can kind of offload and have it be like half of the service that they're providing for me um if it's half of the work anyway i mean i don't know so i have to have these conversations but i'm open to it not from a scarcity well i gotta get my most bang for my buck or it's not gonna happen right to me what does that mean like bang for my buck means i came and i got the best results that i could within the context of my life like i don't look at what other people are doing and think like well they're getting more because they don't have a baby right now so it doesn't make sense for me now the answer might be to freeze it but you won't know if and you're gonna start to make very emotional decisions in your business with these types of all or nothing another all or nothing question is oh can i afford it oh i can't afford it yes or no can i afford it's a horrible low quality question a better question there is is this something i want to invest in yes or no the answer is yes what does it cost what would need to happen in order for me to do this by when that gets your brain into movement into creativity versus stopping it in its tracks right so anytime you feel your brain getting into that all or nothing thinking i want you to think about this podcast episode come back re-listen to it and offer yourself a higher quality question if you're really feeling stuck or you feel like this is exactly you come and dm me on instagram give me your specific example i would love to do another whole episode on this if this is possible with more examples because i know they are out there those thought errors that are stopping you from getting everything you want from a tool or a resource because the tool or resource is just there are you showing up with michelangelo level capabilities to these tools are you showing up like my five-year-olds and giving up really quick all right you beautiful people have a gorgeous spring weekend and i will see you next week hey happsters if you want to learn more about today's topic head over to whatshappening.com forward slash podcast that's what's happening w-h-a-t-s-h-a-p-p-y-n-i-n-g
dot com forward slash podcast if you're a business owner and you're resonating with what we talk about here what are you even doing come hang out with me over where the party's at on Instagram at what's happening w jets again that's happy h-a-p-p-y-n-i-n-g and book a discovery call to see if coaching is your next best step