Perfectionism is something a lot of us experience. It's something many of us OVER-IDENTIFY with. It's something we sometimes see as a 'positive' thing despite it causing a lot of stress, procrastination, unfinished projects, self-criticism, over-analysing, personal/professional dissatisfaction.
In this episode I break down what perfectionism is, where it stems from, how to move away from it, what you can start to cultivate instead - and I also give you some practical steps you can start to integrate into your daily life.
I appreciate your time and attention, if you found this valuable - be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share this podcast with your loved ones, family, and community - let's not withhold transformation from each other. You can also connect with me directly over on Instagram, I'd love to continue the conversation with you - @africabrooke or you can email me at hello@africabrooke.com with subject line 'Beyond the Self'. I can't wait to hear from you!
PLEASE NOTE: I do not give advice in DM's, emails, or comments, but I'd love to hear what your lightbulb moments and breakthroughs were!
Perfectionism is something a lot of us experience. It's something many of us OVER-IDENTIFY with. It's something we sometimes see as a 'positive' thing despite it causing a lot of stress, procrastination, unfinished projects, self-criticism, over-analysing, personal/professional dissatisfaction.
In this episode I break down what perfectionism is, where it stems from, how to move away from it, what you can start to cultivate instead - and I also give you some practical steps you can start to integrate into your daily life.
I appreciate your time and attention, if you found this valuable - be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and share this podcast with your loved ones, family, and community - let's not withhold transformation from each other. You can also connect with me directly over on Instagram, I'd love to continue the conversation with you - @africabrooke or you can email me at hello@africabrooke.com with subject line 'Beyond the Self'. I can't wait to hear from you!
PLEASE NOTE: I do not give advice in DM's, emails, or comments, but I'd love to hear what your lightbulb moments and breakthroughs were!
Welcome to episode six of the beyond the self podcast. I am your host Afrika brick, and I want to know how you're doing, how are you doing? And she listened to this. You don't have to share it with me if you don't want to. I just want you to touch me, take a moment and ask yourself that question. How am I doing? We don't really ask ourselves that. And you know, when someone else says, how are you, which sound fine? And it's like a tennis match. We'll like, throw the question back, but I want to know how you are doing as I record this. It is Sunday evening. I am in my laundry room slash closet ish situation. I'm in the process of settling into my new place, which I kind of have to settle out of very soon. Cause I'm going to be moving again very long story, but I am moving into my dream place next week and I am so freaking excited. But what that means is that I have been in a limbo for the past month as I've been getting ready to move again. And most of the rooms in my current apartment are empty, which means that it's not the best recording space ever. So right now I've created this really cool situation in my laundry room and I've taken the cushions and the padding from my sofa and kind of put it onto the sides and it's, it's great. It's great. But you know, it's going to be good for me and good for my editor, right. But yeah, that's what I'm doing. And I feel really calm right now. I've had a beautiful weekend. I celebrated my 28th birthday two days ago and it was just the most glorious day I could have asked for, ah, I was fully amassed in relaxation. I spoiled myself from beginning to end. I allowed myself to receive attention, which is something that I have to really train myself to be able to do fully, without wanting to kind of give the other person attention straight away to just be like, no Africa, you are going to receive and receive. I did. From the beginning of my day in the morning, I went to get a beautiful facial. And then I took myself shopping. I bought my favorite perfume, Gucci bloom, if you ever want to give me. And then I walked around for a bit, the weather was beautiful. It was supposed to be raining. And then it didn't, the weather was just gorgeous. Then I went for a massage. It was an hour and a half. Oh my goodness. Thank you April. She was fantastic. My entire body was pruned and primed and oiled and stroked. Ah, it was sensational. It was so fucking good. And then I walked around for a bit as well. I went to look for a vase because my beautiful friend Roxanne bought with some gorgeous flowers, had them sent from Italy. So it was like, you know what? I need to get a beautiful vase for these. So I walked around Bloomsbury, it's a part of London and bought myself a beautiful vase. And then I was like, you know what, let me, I want to get touched some more. So I booked myself in for a luxurious manicure and pedicure and it was just perfect. It was perfect. Then after that, I made myself a beautiful dinner and that was my day. And then I finished the evening off by watching Veep, which I absolutely loved. So that was that kind of set the tone for the 20th chapter of my life. That's pretty much what my weekend was like full of relaxation. It was beautiful. I hope that you found time to rest as well. The mood that I'm in right now is really good because the conversation that we are going to be having, it's the kind of conversation pretty much like all of the ones I have where you need to be gentle with yourself, you need to be slow. You need to be compassionate and you need to be in the right space to receive. What we're going to be talking about today is so the theme of this podcast episode is how to release perfectionism. Okay? And this is actually a training that I did on my Instagram a few months ago now. And you all loved it so much about 8,000 of you could not get enough affair. And I'm one of those 8,000, even though I'm the one that fucking did the training, I thought, you know what, let me turn this into a podcast episode so that you can have this episode on the go so that you can easily share it with other people. And just so we can sit here because each of my episodes, they really do build on each other. So if this is your first time listening to this podcast, I would highly recommend that you create some time to start from episode one because they really do build beautifully on top of each other. So today we're talking about how you can release perfectionism and how you can start to really change your relationship with the concept of perfection. So I'm going to start by giving a definition, all right, because when I do these things, I like us to be very clear about what we're talking about. Some going to give a definition of perfectionism that I found on good therapy, and I really liked it. And it goes like this perfectionism is often defined as the needs to be or appear to be perfect, or even to believe that it's possible to achieve perfection. It is typically viewed as a positive trait rather than a flu people may use the term healthy perfectionism to describe or justify perfectionistic behavior. And the main thing that I want to pull out of all of is this idea that such a thing as healthy perfectionism exist. And I do not believe that it does. First of all, I think it's important to acknowledge that the concept of perfection in itself does not exist. It's a very subjective thing. There's no universe. So I did of what perfection is. So the thing is you will always find yourself at a dead end and when it comes to this idea of being perfect. And instead of trying to flip this and call it healthy perfectionism, I want to introduce you to something that I call healthy, striving and healthy. Striving is something that actually allows you to move forward. It is not rigid. It's something that actually serves you and doesn't keep you trapped in something that is not fulfilling in any shape or form. So I really want to have this conversation by first understanding and first kind of sharing with you that we need to release the label perfectionist in general. And if you feel like you want to hold on tightly to it, it's okay. I still ask you to listen to this episode, listen to this episode because by the end you might have changed your mind. I think language is a very powerful thing and I, the labels that we choose to wear a very powerful. So by over identifying this idea of perfectionism, you can find yourself in cycles that do not serve you. Okay. So one thing about perfectionism is that it's driven by the core belief of I am not good enough. I am not good enough. Therefore, nothing I do is good enough. So I need to striving for good enough. And the thing is when you have this idea that you are not good enough, this is cool core belief because of how strong it is because of how rooted and embedded it is, right? When you have that belief. That means even when you are doing your very best, even if you're doing exceptional work or you're doing something that is fucking incredible, you just will not be able to see it. Why? Because you are fiercely holding onto the belief that you are not good enough. So for people that identify as perfectionist or just the nature of perfectionism, it's driven by that idea of not being good enough, whether you realize that consciously or not, it's neither here or there. It's driven by the belief that you, you are not good enough. And you know, when we talk about releasing perfectionism, I want you to know that you do not have to give up your high standards by any means. It's just that we need to shift that energy towards them, healthy, striving. Yeah. Instead of perfectionism. Okay. And another thing that I want you to know about this work and my work in general and everything that I live, breathe and speak about. That is no quick fix. If you're looking for a quick fix at three top tips, although I am going to be sharing three steps, there is no three top tips and then you're done. No, it doesn't fucking work like that. You have to be committed to doing the work. I'm sure you've had do the work many times, especially if you hang out online, you have had do the work, do the work, do the work. What the fuck does do the work mean? It means you need to be committed to the process just from listening to this episode, just from buying a certain book, it's not going to eradicate what your programming looks like, but it does mean that you can start to take the steps towards reprogramming yourself. All right. So there is no quick fix when it comes to perfectionism. I think it's important for us to kind of understand the roots of it and to start talking about how it shows up. You might know intrinsically how it shows up for you intuitively how it shows up for you, but we need to really start putting words to it so that you can, as I speak, you can start to see if you resonate with this, where this shows up for you. Okay. So perfectionism is usually something that comes out of an experience that you had and experience that you had in your childhood, probably in your most formative years. So between the ages of zero to seven, something happened in that time, right? And incident that made be, you don't even remember on a conscious level, but it's right there in your subconscious, because it's driving who you are as an adult. Now, this could have been a situation where you realized at a very young age, that in order to get love in order to get affection in order to get attention, maybe even in order to be fed, to be looked after you had to be a certain way, you were given this idea that who you are isn't enough, right? It doesn't mean that someone explicitly said to you, you are not enough, but that is what you picked up from your environment. That is what you picked up from your messaging. That is what you picked up from your caregivers, from your parents, whoever was most influential in your life at that time. And whoever your survival depended on, you internalize this idea and you made a decision that I am not enough. I have to be perfect in order to be loved. Right? So it usually, it's very much rooted in wanting love from a parent, a caregiver or someone that had influence over you. All right? So there's a lot of childhood wounds that, that a lot of adults who identify perfectionist now don't even realize that they have that wounding. And it's really important that before we put bandages on top of things, before we kind of just deal with the behavior and the symptoms, we actually look at the root of everything. And for a lot of us, it usually comes back to fucking childhood, right? Gosh, everybody does. It's very annoying. And I wish it wasn't the case, but it usually is something that happened in childhood. So an incident happened, situation happened, and you made a decision that you need to be perfect. You need to be a certain way in order to get the love, that attention, the validation that you need. So perfectionism is a coping mechanism that creates a false sense of safety. And the thing is this false sense of safety then turns into debilitating self criticism. And my goodness, I work with a lot of high achievers. I work with very ambitious people. I work with very driven people. And these are people that do identify as perfectionist. And because of the society that we live in perfectionism is kind of framed as if it's this positive thing. I always, yeah. You used the example of job interviews, right? So they might say, okay, so what is your weakest strength or one of those questions? And someone will say the weakest thing about me, if you will, is that I'm a perfectionist. And it's almost like I have this idea that when we wear this label of perfectionism, like it draws people in. It makes people think we will do the very best. It makes people think that we have very high standards and yeah, all of those things can be true, but there's also a shadow to that. Because on some level we will always feel like what we do is not enough. Or even one, we get the success. It never feels fulfilled because we have that core belief that I am not good enough. And if you haven't listened to episode two of this podcast, how to release limiting beliefs, please, please. I RG to go through that episode and go through the very practical process that I took you through. Because again, it's all tied into this. You have to know what your belief system looks like. So you don't have to walk through the world wearing these fucking labels. They don't really mean anything. Okay. So perfectionism is a coping mechanism that creates a false of safety, which then turns into debilitating. Self-criticism. So people that identify as perfectionist, or if you've experienced perfectionistic behavior, you will find that your self criticism is, Oh my goodness, it's awful. Your inner critic as a fucking beast, right? Because again, nothing is never good enough, even right? When you do your very best or what you feel is your very best, it's never good enough. That's why we need to stop wearing this label of perfectionist as if it's a part of us, right. It's really not. And I'm going to give you a beautiful reframe about that. Stop, stop over. Identifying with these labels, actually questioning them and looking at the roots of where they come from. And perfectionism is often a MOSFET. Yeah, security. It causes anxiety and stress. And the voice of perfectionism also goes a little, something like this. If I can control everything around me, then maybe bad things won't happen to me. And it always makes me a little bit emotional when I say that, because again, that's the inner child that is the wounded child. It's not the adult. We think that we live our lives and we make our decisions just from the lens of adult. But that is just not true. We have a lot of subconscious shit, which is why I love walking with the subconscious, because it takes you much deeper to start really understanding where things come from. But that voice of being perfect is about having control, wanting to control everything around you. Because at one point in your life, you felt powerless. You felt like you didn't have any control. And now as an adult, you were trying to control everything around you, your own behavior, other people's behavior, the work that you do, the standards that you set for yourself and other people, because the underlying thing, the underlying voice that in a child is saying, if I get controlling this way, then maybe bad things won't happen to us. Right? And another thing about perfectionism is that it will literally, I mean, literally Rob you of joy and it will block you from receiving and being abundant. I have to say that again, perfectionism will literally Rob you of joy and block you from receiving and being
Speaker 2:Abandon abundant. Okay.
Speaker 1:And you will always feel empty no matter how well you're doing. I know a lot of you listening to this will probably resonate. You will continue to feel empty no matter how well you're doing, because that means you find it difficult to acknowledge yourself. You find it difficult to actually say, you know what? I did that very well. You know what? I didn't get the results I expected, but it wasn't so bad. Now maybe it's about you. You know, learning how to point out the things that you have done. Well, instead of just saying, this is what can be better. I should have done this better. This is not good enough. I am not good enough. Instead, start to recognize the things that are going well. The things that you're really great at the things that you attempt once and they walk out or the things that you have to do a few more times than it will work out. Right? But as long as you over identify with being a perfectionist, you will literally Rob yourself from enjoy. And those feelings of abundance, you won't allow yourself to receive praise because again, it will never be good enough. So even if you were to receive it externally and say, and have the smile on your face, it will never feel good enough. Right? So it manifests also as procrastination, not actually starting something, because you mull it over in your head so much, you're waiting for everything to be perfect. Before you can begin before you can finally share that project before you can step out as the coach, as the entrepreneur, as the expert, you obsess over the tiniest details because in your mind, it needs to be perfect before it's out in the world. And that's just not true. There's just a way that you keep yourself in the cycle of self sabotage. So it can also manifest as quitting when something doesn't go as expected. So you try something once and then you didn't get the roaring results that you thought you would. And you'd just quit instead of actually looking at what happened objectively and seeing what went well and what didn't work so well, what could I do differently? Next time you just shut everything down instantly and you'll be rate yourself and you say, see, I'm not good enough. I don't know how to do anything. So then it becomes this self fulfilling prophecy again. Self-sabotage Oh my goodness. And there are so many ways in which your manifests, it's also a case of never starting projects that you've always wanted to start. As I said, it can also be starting something, but not actually finishing it, telling yourself that I can't do these things. Not even attempting, not even attempting, because you've told yourself that you're not able to do it or that you will never be good at it, or everyone is much better at it than you see. That is the voice of perfectionism. That is the reality of what, the day to day life of someone who identifies as a perfectionist is. And because you over identify with this label, that means you keep yourself in that cycle, whether you realize it or not. That's why I want you to fucking abandon this word, abandon this word. Okay. It does not exist to you anymore. You can now focus on healthy striving, and let's talk about healthy striving. So how does striving the voice of healthy striving is a little bit like this. I'm excited to learn how to do new things. I can give myself a chance to do something once. And if it doesn't work out in the way I expect it's okay, because that's just feedback. Now I know what to do differently. Next time, that's already a very different energy than saying I can't do those things, or I can't begin unless it's perfect. And healthy. Striving is about still being motivated by high standards, but you don't hold yourself to an impossibly high standard. And you know what that is. You know what that impossibly high standard fucking is a standard that no one else can reach a standard. That is so ridiculous because you do have to do something for the first time once, right? Everyone has a first time. And that first time is not going to be perfect. That's impossible. So you need to be very aware of what the impossibly high standards are and understand that you still can't have high standards. No, one's saying that you have to release everything and just not give a shit about what you're doing. Yes. You can still give a shit, but you can give yourself that grace that you need as a human being and help you striving allows you to do that. Healthy striving is also about defining success on your own terms, because a lot of us are chasing someone else's definition of success. Maybe you're chasing your caregivers, definition of success, whatever your parents' definition of success was, maybe for your parent, it was going to college and then university, and then getting a corporate job and, you know, working for at least 20 years and then getting your pension and then retiring and then buying a home and then having a partner, whatever it is, that's someone else's idea of success. Maybe that's not even fucking close to what your idea of success is. Maybe what you want to do is not even go to college. And you want to have a little business where you sell beads. I don't know, but that can be your definition of success, right? And healthy striving allows you that space healthy striving says I still am motivated by high standards, but I'm going to define what these standards look like. I am still motivated by personal and or professional success, right? I'm still motivated by personal and or professional success, but I get to define what that looks like for me. So it's very important that we move away from perfectionism and we shift towards healthy striving. And it can seem like it's just a language change. Like it's just semantics, but it's not. Language is so powerful. Beyond words and language bypasses the conscious mind and seeps right into the subconscious. And then it determines how we feel about ourselves, what we think, which then determines the actions that we take or the actions that we choose to not take. So language is a very important thing. And just by disidentifying as a perfectionist, Oh, I'm such a perfectionist stop saying shit like that. Don't even put that onto your identity anymore. Shift that energy say I have experienced perfectionism, but now I'm moving towards healthiest driving. I've experienced perfectionism, not I am a perfectionist. You don't have to over identify with anything. All right. And what I'm going to do now, I'm just going to share some six steps that I use personally. And I share these with my clients. And these are just brilliant because they allow you to start thinking about things in a different way. They allow you to open up more space for yourself. Give yourself more room, more room to experience failure, right? I think it's very healthy to experience failure. And in what I believe anyway, there is no such thing as failure. Everything is feedback. Everything is information. Now, you know what to do different. Now, you know what to leave now, you know what to focus on failure is so fucking important. It's healthy. For example, whenever relationship, quote, unquote fails. Now, you know what you need in a partner. Maybe now, you know how to communicate. I know that's how it was for me. When my three year relationship ended, even though at the time I could have seen it as a failure. I realized that actually, now I know how to communicate with my partner. If I get into a relationship again, now I know how to express my sexual needs. Now I know how to show up for the other person. Now I know that it's not okay to be passive aggressive. It's actually important for me to speak, even when I'm uncomfortable. Now I know, right? So give yourself that space and these things that I want to share with. You can allow you to start really doing that for yourself. All right. So number one, when it comes to releasing perfectionism is decide that you will no longer over identify with that label. I've said this throughout, but I'm going to say it again. Perfectionism is something you experience. It's not who you are decide, right? Fucking, now that you will never say that about yourself again, Oh, I'm a perfectionist. I'm such a perfectionist because you're reinforcing that onto your identity. Your that's an imprint that you're putting onto your identity, which means that if you keep on pressing that in enough, that will become a farm belief and chances are, it's already a belief for you. All right? So as long as something is a belief, that means your actions will continue to align with that belief. Does this make sense? What I'm saying? I really hope it does. You need to decide right now that you will no longer over identify with that label. Perfectionism is something you experience. It is not who you are. Number two. I love this one. Give yourself permission to not be at the top of your game when you're at the beginning of your game. Ah, gosh, this one is so powerful and it's one that I use for myself. I use it as an affirmation. I use it as a reminder, I use it as a tool for shifting my identity. I use it as motivation to do new things. Give yourself permission to not be at the top of your game when you're at the beginning of your game, give yourself time and repeated efforts because repeated efforts are the only thing that will help you to actually improve. Right? You only have to do something for the first time once. And it's going to be a little bit shaky when you do it. I love using the example of a baby before a baby learns to walk. They fall over so many fucking times and they do that little cute model, such a cute little model that babies do. And they do that and they get up. They don't over intellectualize before. Of course they can't because they're not developed enough to do so, but just use that as inspiration. They don't over intellectualize the form and be like, Oh my God, how embarrassing everyone's looking at me? What? Oh my goodness, I failed. I fucked up. No, they just get up and what'll again, fall over again. Get up, keep doing it, keep doing it. And through repetition, through repeated efforts, they do it enough times that they become confident, right? And this is what you need to realize about your own journey. This is what you need to accept about your own journey. Give yourself permission to not be at the top of your game. When you, at the beginning of your game, number three, allow yourself to be in process and ditch the all or nothing. Thinking. This is so important. Being in process is so fucking important to many of us say, Oh yeah, the process, the protest, but not a lot of people actually want to be in the process. A lot of people, especially those that identify as perfectionist. They want the all or nothing. You know, they don't want to keep showing up for something because just by keeping, showing up, they make themselves think that, Oh, this means I'm failing because I'm doing this too many times. Is this normal? Is this, you know, or am I just fucking up? No, it's normal. You're in process. You are in process. It's like people that start a business. And because they're not making that illusive six figures within six months or a year or even two years, or even three years, they tell themselves they're a failure. No, you're in fucking process. Right? Even being on video, you're going to be a little bit shaky when you do it. The first time, you're going to be very aware that you're the only person in the room and you're talking to a phone or you're talking to a camera or to a laptop, whatever the fuck you're using, right. You're going to be very aware of that. But the more that you do it, the more that it becomes normal, right? The more that it becomes your new normal. So what you need to do is to allow yourself to be in process and ditch the all or nothing thinking, and really give yourself that space to create a simple list of what you need to get good at. Right. If it's going to be a video thing, let's use the video example. Is it sounding natural? Do you want to work on sounding natural a little bit more? So maybe you start to put it into your mind that you're just speaking to a friend that it's a really casual conversation that it doesn't need to be too serious. Is it being passionate? Is your voice a little bit monotone? So maybe you can put a little bit more passion, a little bit more energy, be a little bit more excited. Maybe before you get on video record, you dance around a little bit. So you can get your energy moving, right. Is that opening each video that you do in a very compelling way, in a way that actually draws people in you say your hellos, you kind of talk about how your weekend was or how your day was so that it's really natural for you, right? Create a list of what you need to become good at and give yourself that space to do it. Give yourself room to be in process. Number four, lower the significance of any one thing you give yourself to do this one is about giving yourself that grace again, if it's your first time doing something or even your second or third or 10th or hundred, it doesn't need to have so much weight change your perspective, lower the significance of any one thing you give yourself to do. Don't make it a life or death thing. Even if you're going on video for the first time you're recording your first podcast, you're putting out your first product. You're about to have a difficult conversation. You want to try out new things with your partners. So you're going to have to be a little bit vulnerable in invoicing those things, or you're doing a project for the first time. Even if it's something that it's super important. Again, you don't have to release your standards, but lower the significance because if you're a perfectionist or you use to identify as one right used to use do cause now you're a healthy striver, no other significance, because chances are the significance that you've placed on. This thing is so fucking high. Again, those impossibly high standards. So lower the significance of any one thing you give yourself to do. Okay. Number five, regard yourself far and above performance. Ah, this is huge. Okay? You are more than being productive. You are more than being quote unquote successful. You are more than being an academic. You're more than being smart or intelligent, whatever, whatever it is, regard yourself far and above performance, you are worthy and enough even without the performance, even without getting everything fucking right. Okay. And I know miss telling you that you are worthy and enough, it's just going to slide into your conscious mind and it might sound nice. And then you just forget it. But this is not for you. I'm speaking to that wounded child that we spoke about in the beginning, because that is your subconscious. You are worthy and enough, even when you are not creating, even when you are not producing, even when you are not doing anything impressive or chasing excellence in the grand scheme of things, all of those things don't fucking matter. I promise you what matters is how you feel about yourself. So you need to make it a priority to regard yourself and above performance. Okay, good. And that's also tied into you changing your self talk, change your self. Talk the way that you can do this, which is what I always suggest. And I do this myself is stop making yourself talk, be in third person. All right. So instead of, I think about it as if you're speaking to someone that you love, all right, you're speaking to someone else and you could do something like that's how you do a, you do a video. Let's keep using that example of you doing a video for the first time going on live, something like that. Okay. After you've done it, think about how you would speak to someone that you love. Someone you appreciate. You can start with something like I love that you showed up on video like that. I love that you created that artwork. I love that you did your best today. I love that you actually had that conversation. I love when you made that little joke, I love the fact that you were confident in your interview, even though you were nervous at the same. I love that you woke up today and you followed through with what you were going to do. I love that you're giving yourself a chance to actually share your project with people. I love that. You're letting people know that you're now a coach and you're ready to take new clients. I love that. You're willing to put your work out there, even though it's a little bit vulnerable. That's what you need to start doing. And that's a beautiful way to start training yourself to regard yourself far and above performance. Alright. And the last thing that I want to share with you is that if you feel silly doing this, it's fine. As I always say, you will get over it. You're not going to die by feeling silly, by feeling embarrassed, by feeding a little bit ashamed of me like, Oh my goodness, what am I doing? Speaking to myself in this way, ask yourself why it's okay for you to call yourself a piece of shit. Call yourself useless to say, Oh, I told you that we couldn't do it. Why is that? Okay? But it makes you cringe to say, I love that you showed up in this way. I love your smile. I love the way you handled that conversation. I love the way you stood up for yourself. I love those boundaries that you're placing. Why does that make you cringe? That's a better question to ask yourself. So if you feel silly doing any of this, you will get over it. It's fine. I'm okay with you cringing. I'm okay with you cringing what I'm not okay with. Is you talking to yourself like you're worthless is you experiencing a deep level of dissatisfaction, even though you're doing all the things that you want to be doing, right? So if you feel that crunch is fine, it's fine. And you know what? I hope that something in this podcast has really stuck with you. What I'm going to do. I'm just going to run through those steps again. So number one decide that you will no longer over identify with the label of perfectionism. Perfectionism is something that you experience. It's not who you are to give yourself permission to not be at the top of your game. When you're at the beginning of your game, that's fucking beautiful. Three, allow yourself to be in process and ditch the all or nothing, thinking for lower, the significance of any one thing you give yourself to do. All right. Five regard yourself far and above performance. And this ties into your self talk. All right. So start speaking to yourself as if you love yourself as if you appreciate yourself as if you actually want to break these fucking patterns and cycles as if you are committed, committed to reprogramming yourself. So instead of I speak as if you're speaking seminars, okay? So I love that you showed up. I love that you did this. I love that you et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and so on. And lastly, if you feel silly doing any of this, you will fucking get over it. The work is much bigger than this, do this on a daily basis. And what am I talking about? I mean that I love the way you do this. I love the way you et cetera, et cetera, because there's something that you do every single day. That means acknowledgement. It's very rare for people that identify as perfectionist to actually acknowledge themselves for something. So every single day there has to be at least one thing that you acknowledge yourself, or before you go to bed, before you shut your eyes, just look up at the ceiling and say, I love that you did XYZ ed. Even if it's just one thing, even if you just say it in your mind, what do you have to lose? You have so much to gain so fucking much to gain. Okay? So I really hope that this episode has helped you to just change your perspective on something, to just realize that, you know, you don't have to over identify with these labels. You really don't. You are worth so much more than that. If it's something that you have been identifying with since childhood, you can absolutely decide right now today to release that and focus on healthy striving, you can decide that you are going to define what success looks like to you. You are going to define what good enough looks like for you, because a lot of us told us that we're not good enough, but we've never defined what enough even looks like to begin with. It's madness. It's fucking madness. And when we're not having it, I'm not having it. I won't allow you to do that. So I hope that this episode has really helped you. And as always, if it has, please do share it with someone, let us not withhold transformation from each other. We all know someone who needs this message. I know I do. This is a conversation that is so important. It's so important. We need to stop wearing perfectionism as a badge of honor, because a lot of us are suffering behind closed doors because of it, which means that even when we are successful in wildly terms, we kind of an enjoy it. We kind of would fucking enjoy it because it never feels like it's good enough. So hopefully something here has helped you. And if it has, please do share it. Okay. I would love to hear from you. So if something has resonated with you in this episode, or you've had an aha or you've had a breakthrough, I do encourage you to reach out as always. I don't give advice. I do not give advice, but I'm always here to receive something that you want to share with me, something that has come up. So you can send me an email@helloatafricanbrik.com, just put beyond the self in the subject. And just something else that might help me kind of have an idea of what your email is about in there as well. When I can reply. I always well, but even if I do not reply, I want you to know that I do see everything and it allows me as well to kind of see what the common threads are, because then I can create another podcast episode or I can do another Instagram training on it for you. So I always love hearing from you and voice notes. If you do have me on Instagram and you're connected with me there, I always love a voice note. If you've never done one before, it's quite fun. And when I can respond with a voice note, I always do. But again, if an, if I don't, I want you to know that I hear everything and it really, it really does warm my heart. Okay. And you can also leave me a review on Apple podcasts because it helps spread the word. We need more of these fucking conversations. We need more of them. They should be accessible, right? I don't think conversations like this should be behind a paywall. I don't think conversations like this should be for a certain group of people or for a certain demographic. I think we should all have access to these conversations wherever we can. And that's why I speak in the way that I do on the platforms that I do. All right. So thank you very much for your time for your attention. I love you as always, and I will see you in the next.