217. The All Or Nothing Trap (Overcoming Perfectionism)

Have you ever letting that all-or-nothing mindset sabotage your goals? I get candid about personal experience with the all or nothing trap, the traps of setting unrealistic standards, and why embracing self-compassion is critical. 
I talk about that perfection is not the path to success and allowing ourselves the grace to be happy with a "B minus" is what actually gets us out of procrastination and brings us forward. Once we're moving we can start improving on what we have already which is how my saying "a few minutes a day keep the chaos away" came to be. 

At the end of this episode I am unveiling a special opportunity for you, I am working on a 21-day jumpstart program to help you organize your physical & digital workspace. and your finances and I am looking for 7 founding members. 

From Chaos to Peace Consulting Inc - https://connygraf.com

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Transcript

Conny Graf: 0:01

Welcome to the Chaos to Peace with Conny podcast. I am Conny Graf, your host. I am here to explore with you how a few minutes a day can keep the chaos away, and with chaos I'm talking about the physical, digital, social, financial, mental, emotional and spiritual clutter that can accumulate in our life and business and our finances. Clutter is so much more than you think. I created this podcast to inspire you to do something about it. It's my deep desire to help you understand that you, too, can create and maintain an organized and supportive environment spending only a few minutes a day.

Conny Graf: 0:45

Thanks for being here and enjoy the episode. Well, hello, my friend, welcome to the podcast and thank you so much for allowing me back into your ears. I want to talk with you about the all or nothing trap today, something I struggle with myself and struggle with right now. So please listen to the end, where I share a bit more about my all or nothing trap struggle and how you can help me, help you with that. But so what is the all or nothing trap?

Conny Graf: 1:22

So how I define it is we want to do something and we expect it to go smooth and perfectly from the beginning. We want it to be perfect from the beginning and if it's not perfect, we either scrap everything and start from scratch from the beginning that's kind of level one or when we did that enough times, we are then getting so frustrated and possibly angry and so upset with ourselves that we give up altogether. That would be, then, the level two. And this all or nothing trap also creates a lot of procrastination, because we know already that we will trying to be perfect and everything has to be perfect around us and we feel like we have to have enough time and the perfect day and whatever. It's like this creates so much procrastination before we even start, and then, when we are starting again, we're expecting it to go smooth and we want it to make perfect from the beginning, and if it doesn't work that way, then we're getting really upset and it can also create a lot of mental and emotional clutter, because what goes along with it and follows a burst of falling into the all or nothing trap is a beating, of beating ourselves up really badly and saying negative stuff to ourselves, always, or almost or oftentimes that's the word I was looking for Oftentimes all the way to. I just can't do it. I'm, I'm stupid, I'm not cut out for this or whatever else your version is of beating yourselves up. Don't want to put words in your mouth that's usually what comes up for me, so I want to give you some.

Conny Graf: 3:15

I want to give you an example from my younger life where I fell into this all or nothing trap and I talked about my perfectionistic streaks that I had, and sometimes still have, in other podcast episodes. But this is one of the examples that I remember really well and that I have to be careful to not fall back into, and that is kind of like my obsession with journals or agendas or diaries. And when I was younger, every beginning of a new year, like every January 1st, I would start a new paper journal or a diary you could call it and I would swear to myself that I write in it every single day and that I make it really pretty and that it would it really pretty and that it would be so useful and that it would be so perfect and whatever else. And then I would either miss a day because life got busy, school got busy, I had a lot of other stuff on my mind, or I misspelled a word while writing, or I didn't write in a really pretty handwriting, or whatever the reason was, I would get upset with myself because it wasn't perfect anymore. It wasn't the way I felt it needed to be, and so then I would either abandon the whole journal altogether or I would try to fix it with liquid. We called it tip X, so that was kind of like a white little liquid that we could blank out or white out writing and then write prettier over top of it. But you would always see that there was a flaw and that would really bug me.

Conny Graf: 4:59

And in the end I would just abandon the whole project because it wasn't perfect, and I would wait to the next January 1st and start from scratch, and then, after doing that for a few years and never being perfect, like I mean so crazy right. I would think like, oh, I can't deal with journals that I buy, I have to create my own journal. So I would start creating my own journal, and again then I would do something wrong or would misspell something, or my handwriting wasn't pretty enough, or I would miss a day or don't remember what happened on that day, or whatever. I just couldn't do it perfectly to whatever that perfect standard was at the time, and I would start all over again. I would possibly print all these pages out again and going back and writing everything in new and trying to make it perfect. And it was never. I was never able to keep it up. I mean literally. I was never able to keep it up, and so I would abandon the whole. After several trials, I would abandon the whole project again, and so this is an example of the all or nothing trap that I had to overcome and that you might suffer from in a way too.

Conny Graf: 6:26

And, like I said, the bad part is that we then start beating ourselves up and telling ourselves that we can't do certain things, when that is not true at all. Because who says that we have to be perfect from the beginning? Who says that we have to be perfect? Ever Is there even something like being perfect. So, for example, I have another example, like when we try to eat healthier or stick to an exercise schedule, we create this great plan on paper. We swear and promise ourselves that we're exercising every day for so for so many minutes, like half an hour a day, or whatever, or every morning at five the alarm goes off and we're exercising or we're only eating vegetables and healthy things and no chocolate anymore. I mean all these crazy plans that we then try to perfectly stick to and we can't, and then we beat ourselves up.

Conny Graf: 7:25

So that is also another one of these all or nothing traps which is so, so much wasted energy, wasted time, being not nice to yourself, being not compassionate with yourself, setting yourself up for failure, basically. So we're telling ourselves it's either a win or it's all terrible. Either I do it perfectly or I'm not doing it at all. It's all either good or it's bad. It's either perfect or useless. It's very black and white looking at things, no nuance, no gray area, no compassion for yourself. It's just this and it's not that. And our brain looks for evidence then to support that all or nothing trap. And then we create entire realities and belief systems using this confirmation bias. That's what our brain is trained to do. It finds information or confirmation better for the bias that we have. And if we do this over and over and over a long period of time, we create a life that feels very concrete and circumstantial, where we think it's the truth and nothing but the truth, when it's all just a lie and it could be all very different.

Conny Graf: 8:54

What we do need to do is to find a balance between this perfectionistic all or nothing approach. But also, what's not working is this airy-fairy approach, and with airy-fairy I mean the unserious, insufficiently committed approach. It's not ideal and for sure not practical or sustainable to go to any of these extremes. What we want to find is a middle ground and, again, more compassion for ourselves and that we're not machines, that we're human, that not everything always works perfect and that we can still move on without it being perfect. And, yes, we need to stay consistent in our approach and actually actually consistently do a specific thing if we want our desired outcome, but we want to avoid becoming perfectionistic, strict and falling into the all or nothing every day or I failed trap.

Conny Graf: 9:57

But then it can really be hard to let go of that grip a bit and let things be messy or imperfect. When you have lived in this all or nothing trap for a while. Letting go of that grip a bit and let things be messy or imperfect when you have lived in this all or nothing trap for a while, letting go of that grip a bit and letting things be messy is actually how we can stay on track and make progress instead of spinning in circles. But it's also hard because, if you like me, you have heard before if you do it, you do it right the first time. But this is a dream killer and leads to procrastination and beating ourselves up. Ask me how I know it. I just show.

Conny Graf: 10:32

I just told you a few of the examples and I heard this sentence a lot from my grandmother or from my parents. If you do it, do it right the first time. No, that's not always working. I can rant here for a bit. Sometimes it works to do it messy, to just get it done somehow and then go back and make it better. But at least you did something, you got out of procrastination, you got out of beating yourself up. And so, yeah, don't believe these all or nothing sentences, these extremes, this polarization.

Conny Graf: 11:08

It's either this or that. It's nothing in between. Yes, it is in between. Yes, let's. Let's go for the in between. Let's go for how my coach, brooke Castillo, says for the b minus instead of for the straight a, go for the b minus. We can. For the straight A, go for the B minus. We can make it better afterwards, but we will never make it perfect, because there is no such thing as perfect.

Conny Graf: 11:32

And I'm telling you all this because I'm thinking you might fall into this all or nothing trap when you're trying to get organized and clear your clutter. I've said many times here on the podcast getting organized is not an event, it's a journey, often a very messy journey, and I want to help you with this because I know so well how bad it feels to run in circles and being trapped in perfectionism and thinking that if we can't do it perfect, it's not for us, or we can't do it and we're too stupid, or whatever. Your inner gremlin tells you and whispers these negative things in your ear. This is what I was hinting at at the beginning of the episode. I'm actually right now in the middle of putting together a 21-day jumpstart program for you to move from chaos to peace in a few minutes a day. For the first time ever, I'm going to be delivering a free week life training, breaking down my best practices and strategies for getting and staying organized in your workspace, files and finances, and this is a product that I plan on selling in the future, probably for a little bit higher price point. But, however, right now I'm looking for just seven founding members, seven people, and these seven people, these seven first founding members, are going to hop on, live with me every single week for three weeks and I'm going to break down the three components and all the ingredients to an organized business.

Conny Graf: 13:11

Week one we start with peace of mind, the mindset that we need to get into and what mental and emotional clutter to let go of, and you're also figuring out how you tick, what works for you, what systems work for you and what don't, and we practice awareness, boundaries and authenticity. Then, in week two, you'll be setting up your physical space for success your desk and the immediate area around it, as well as your digital space, like your computer, desktop and filing system and your phone. And then, in week three, you'll be setting up your finances for success. We will focus on what is way more important than getting your numbers to your accountant to prepare the taxes. This is a training based on my 30 years of being organized in a few minutes a day and living the lifestyle I want without having to work myself into the ground and by intentionally spending money and making sure I'm not spending it on things that become clutter or that I feel like is a waste later. And trust me, I also hear I'm not perfect. We're not aiming for perfect. We're just aiming for more intentionality and going by what works for us, not by what society tells us what has to work for us.

Conny Graf: 14:40

And again, like I said, I'm planning on building this program out to something much bigger and more expensive and extensive. But my first seven founding members will be paying just a minimal amount per person. So I'm I'm charging because you may have heard the saying if you pay, you pay attention. So that's why it's not completely free, but it will be probably around $77 per person, which is less than $25 per week for a total of three live calls, continuous support in between the calls, learning my a few minutes a day approach to getting organized and staying organized, and when I have my seven members together, I will be closing this down and we're getting to work.

Conny Graf: 15:28

So if you tried several times to get organized in your business only to slide back into chaos, and are interested to be one of the seven founding members, let me know here. I want to give you some indication if this is for you. So what I'm looking for is somebody who has a business and is mission driven, you care about yourself and you want to grow as a person. It's kind of like self-development the way I explain becoming and staying organized. You are, or want to be, at least an action taker and are willing to take action in these three weeks. You are willing to try new things and you value getting help over the trial and error or staying stuck in chaos that you are experiencing so far. The other thing is you also understand that this is not an overnight fix or a magic wand, a one-time event and then it's done in these three weeks. This is more setting and putting the foundations in place and it's a jumpstart. That's what I want to help you with Jumpstarting your journey to go from chaos to peace and, lastly, you will consider going from chaos to peace as a big win for you and your business.

Conny Graf: 16:54

I really want you to get excited to have more peace in your environment, in your files and in your finances, which will ripple into the rest of your business and into the rest of your life.

Conny Graf: 17:11

So I want people that are interested and excited to go on that journey with me and by the end of these three weeks, together, you're going to walk away with a foundation and knowledge of how to have your physical, digital and financial space organized, and we will do this without falling into the all or nothing trap, this sabotaging mindset, by helping you push through with imperfect actions, rather than you doing it alone, restarting from zero, over and over and beating yourself up.

Conny Graf: 17:49

This is new, as I said, and I'm in the middle of putting it together and I have never done it before, and I will be starting with it in June and if you choose to be part of it, live with me. Again, it will be limited to seven people, so it will be a very intimate and safe space and if you're interested to be part of it, to be part of this very first iteration of the jumpstart from chaos to peace and these 21 days with me. Then let me know, send me a DM on Instagram. My handle is @I am Conny Graf and I will give you more information, and you can also talk with me and chat with me to make sure it's right for you. Okay, my friend, that's it for today. Thanks for listening all the way to the end. Have a beautiful week. Talk to you next time, take good care and spread peace, thank you.