Episode 75: Something is Better than Nothing

Today I’m sharing my thoughts on ditching perfectionism, and finding a way to do the bare minimum. It’s not what you think, and it’s gonna release a lot of stress and a lot of pressure.

In this episode:

Jessie discusses the toxic messaging of “all or nothing”

Releasing pressure from rules and doing things “right”

Perfectionism

Things mentioned or links you need:

Follow me on Instagram
Join the Positively You Book Club
Make Your Bed Episode

Can’t listen? Check out the typed version:

Welcome, welcome!  I'm happy to hang out today.  Let's get to this, so I want to talk about a message that we hear and that we see a lot of.  While I think it's well-meaning,  I don't love it.

I really don't and it's not just one message it's kind of like a whole..there's a lot of it. One that popped up as I was scrolling through social media yesterday in stories and people pop up their little quotes and stuff.  It was something about like 

“anything worth doing is worth doing your best.”
“give it your all” 
“always 100%”
just like that whole idea right there:  if you're going to do something do your best give it your all always 100%.

And I say NO. 

Let's get rid of that idea. 

Okay, on the flip side I saw different quote that said

“anything worth doing is worth doing poorly” 

and I love that because here's the thing,  raise your hand if you have ever struggled with perfectionism,  with All or Nothing,  with “if I can't do it perfectly I'm not going to do it at all”. 

Right?  I’m just going to avoid it and procrastinate.  I don't know how to do it perfectly, I'm not going to do it.  Right? My hand is up really high. 

So that is why I love so much that message that anything worth doing is worth doing is worth doing the crappiest version.  That you can really like let those expectations fall. I’m gonna go ahead and give you an example to kind of like break this down a little bit: 

So as parents of young children in elementary school, reading is very important.  Daily reading and like the quota that they're supposed to do and it's 20 minutes a night or 30 minutes a day or whatever. 

There would be nights when I would be tucking my kids into bed and doing the bedtime routine and my daughter would say “we need to read tonight.” I would look at my watch and be like “ugh I don't have 20 minutes,  it's already late,  we already got to bed just…NO,  we can't do it goodnight.”  Kiss, shut the door, and leave.  

But it was starting to get to the point of like every night because you know we have the holidays we had a lot of things like my life was just kind of not in a really organized place the last little bit and I all the sudden like “oh my gosh when was the last time we read? And that's not good.  So I decided that we were going to read every single day.  

I said, “okay we have to read every single day but that was it.”  I didn't have a time limit.  I didn't say we're going to read a chapter every day or we're going to read 20 minutes every day.  we are going to read everyday.

Sometimes that looks like a sentence. 

When I say we are throwing perfection out, I mean we're tossing it out the window..like chucking it out the window.  Okay we do better than that most nights.  But the baseline I wanted to hit was everyday. We have to read everyday, that way we can get consistent.  We can mark it off,  we can say, did we read today?  Yes we did.  We let go of some of those rules and the things that were making it seem like we couldn't get it done. 

Think about how many other things that we do in our life.  I can’t cook dinner every night because blah blah blah blah blah, I can’t  go running every single day,  I can't run a mile every single day. But I can make sure to move my body everyday. 

Take the perfection out of it. It's about taking those expectations and coming up with a like bottom base line, like the lowest common denominator kind of thing. What is the lowest thing I can do? 

And not to sound like a broken record but I'm going to bring it up again because it was the thing that switched everything for me. It was making my bed every day. Did I want my house clean everyday? Yes I did. Did I want everything flowing and routines and systems and everything going smooth?  Yes that was the goal.

The baseline, the very least I could do is so important. Can make that that everyday? Yes. Can read with my daughter every day? Yes, even just a  sentence or a paragraph,  and slowly but surely we will get through the book  that she's got. 

And she will improve because we have that consistency. Its the same thing with my bed. It’s that consistency. Working out,  we got that consistency.  I show up every day.  I put my gym shoes on.Sometimes it's full-blown,  balls to the wall,  super intense, and sometimes it's 7:30 at night and I need to get out for a walk.

So if you struggle with perfectionism, which is so funny, I did not think that I was someone who struggled perfectionism and that's been a very eye-opening process for me to come to terms with. I never thought that I was being a perfectionist. Even if it's just procrastination or I just lack the motivation, and all of these like little things that we can like label it as. Motivations a big one. 

So what is it in your life that you can think of that could be that lowest common denominator? Here is an example:  I really need to be better at my skin care routine. It's where I struggle  because I think I have all these rules around it.  Like okay well I have to  exfoliate and do a toner and do all these things. And before I do that,  I have to research the best thing and figure out what I need to get or buy and then I just get decision fatigue and paralysis and then I just don't do anything.  

Instead I could literally have my lowest common denominator be to  just wipe off my makeup. I can use a makeup wipe like those little ones that come in a plastic package and put on some lotion. 

Is it more ideal for me to take care of my skin in a much more intricate way with a couple of steps, a couple more products?  Absolutely!  But is wiping off my makeup and putting on some moisturizer better than nothing? Yes. Is reading a quick sentence or paragraph with my daughter better than nothing? Yes. 

There are all of these things and situations that something is better than nothing. and it's just about determining what that small baseline is. So think about the things that you could lower the steps for or the expectations for, and instead of being overwhelmed, just do something small.