4. How Perfectionism Stops You from Leading
Over the past few episodes, I’ve been talking about the three dragons that new female leaders encounter on their transition from expert to leader. We’ve already talked about overworking and people-pleasing, so this week we’re taking a deep dive into challenge number three: perfectionism, how it shows up, and why it’s holding you back on your leadership journey.
If you frequently think you don’t know enough, you feel constant pressure to get everything right, and your sense of self-worth comes from what you know, you’re a perfectionist. Because of how women are socialized, we are more vulnerable to the desire to be perfect and the belief that, if we aren’t perfect, we’re unworthy, and it leads to some incredibly undesirable situations on your leadership adventure.
Tune in this week to discover why you’re overthinking every email, questioning your abilities, feeling like an imposter, and possibly even regretting accepting a leadership position at all. I’m discussing why all of these things are a result of perfectionism, how to see where this habitual thought pattern is coming from, and most importantly, how to start breaking the cycle of perfectionism as you grow into a confident female leader.
To thank you for being a listener and supporter of The Confident Female Leader, I am sharing a free guided meditation with you! Download your meditation here.
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
The two types of perfectionism and how they show up for new leaders and how women are socialized from a young age to be vulnerable to perfectionism.
Why you can’t learn something new without a certain degree of failure along the way.
How to see the ways that perfectionism has you constantly questioning your abilities
Why perfectionism develops a fixed mindset, believing that we should get everything right from the get-go.
How perfectionism may have served you earlier in your career, but it will always impede you in a leadership position.
What’s going on in your perfectionist brain and the importance of how you talk to yourself every single day.
A simple exercise to help you get out of perfectionism mode as you learn new leadership skills.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
To thank you for being a listener and supporter of The Confident Female Leader, I am sharing a free guided meditation with you! Download your meditation here.
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
3. Stop People-Pleasing: The Ultimate Guide for New Female Leaders
Full Episode Transcript:
Leadership is an adventure. On this adventure, women commonly face three struggles or dragons; overworking, people pleasing, and perfectionism. Today, we take a deeper look into dragon number three; perfectionism, where it comes from and how to slay it.
Welcome to The Confident Female Leader podcast. A space for ambitious women stepping into leadership, who are ready to take control of their circumstances and own their magic. If you're ready to start shedding your self-doubt, come into your new identity as a leader, and stop consistently undervaluing yourself so you can feel more confident in your role, this show’s for you. I'm Annie Framand; Psychologist, Certified Feminist Coach and Master Trainer. And I'm on a mission to help women just like you stop overworking, overthinking, and overpleasing, so you can start creating success on your terms. Ready to create your dream life? Let's go.
Hola amigas, how are you? I am doing amazing. A year ago today, on the day I'm recording this podcast, I landed in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, expecting to spend the winter. And four months later, I realized I just didn't want to leave. So, I moved from Montreal to Mexico. If you would have told me a year ago that this would be my home, and for sure, I would have not believed you. Yet now, I couldn't see myself anywhere else. Crazy, right?
Okay, let's dive into our episode. Today, we're going to be talking about dragon number three. Now, this is a reminder of what dragon number three is. So, you face this dragon, if you frequently think, “I don't know enough,” or “I don't know how.” If you feel the pressure to know more, to be right, to get it right. And, if your sense of self-worth is derived from what you know.
Now, what is perfectionism? There are so many definitions out there, I'm going to tell you the one that I like to run with, which is the one from dictionary.com: Perfectionism is a personal standard, attitude, or philosophy that demands flawlessness and rejects anything less. Now, women are more vulnerable to the desire to be perfect. And the belief that if we're not perfect we're somehow unworthy, because of how we're socialized in our family and at school. And of course, those expectations are reinforced in the workplace.
Generally, girls tend to be rewarded for being obedient daughters and excellent students, which leads them to seek approval by striving to get everything right and avoiding mistakes. It's not that boys don't get rewarded for good grades, but the boys usually receive the most praise when they are sports stars.
According to Psychology Today, perfectionism is a trait that makes life an endless report card on accomplishments or looks. There are two types of perfectionism. The first one, is self-oriented perfectionism. Which is, basically imposing an unrealistic expectation on ourself. Now, we have other oriented perfectionism, which is imposing unrealistic standards of perfection on others.
Speaking of the report card, there's a study, called The Confidence Gap, that shows that many women consistently underestimate their performance on tests. So, how many times have you taken an exam, and before seeing your actual score you assume you got, for example, 60% of the answers right, but you actually got 80%?
Women do that frequently. Our knee jerk reaction is to assume that we did poorly, when this is not the case. And it's interesting, and not surprising of course, that men tend to do the opposite. So, they're actually going to tend to overestimate their scores, and assume that they did better than they actually did.
I've personally seen this reflected in my experience, as well with 360 results. Now, most of you probably know what a 360 is. But for those who don't, it's a questionnaire that's administered to a leader’s boss, employees, and colleagues. The premise behind it is that perceptions are subjective, of course. And while one employee might think that their boss gives them a lot of latitude to do their work, another, for example, might think that that same boss is a micromanager. Right?
Because we all have different perceptions based on who we are, how we view the world, how we've been raised, conditioned, etcetera. So, the 360 is a composite report that paints the picture of the perceptions of the people in the leader’s sphere of influence. The actual comments and ratings are anonymous. We really look at kind of that overall picture of the raters around the leader.
Now, once the leader knows what the trends are, they can decide if they want to do anything about them. And so, in a 360, the leader rates themselves also, and their self-assessment is compared to the perception of all of their other raters. In my experience, many women's self-perception is lower than that of their other raters, while men's is higher, in general.
So, for example, a woman would rate herself 3.5 out of 5 on delegation, while the average of her responders, or people in her sphere of influence, might rate her a 4 out of 5. Conversely, a man might rate himself 4 or 4.5 on delegation, while the average of his responders might rate him a 3 or 3.5. So, you see how our perception of ourself really is subjective, and women will tend to undervalue themselves.
You know that you're caught in the perfectionist trap, when you try not to make any mistakes, so that you're not judged by your perceived failures. Because you're already judging yourself so harshly that you don't want to layer that judgment of others on top of that. And we tend, therefore, to develop a fixed mindset. Which is, basically the belief that you should get it right from the get go, which I see in so many of my clients, and is also what I experienced, as well.
If you find yourself having trouble falling asleep, or waking up, because you have work on your mind; Having trouble getting out of bed in the morning, because you dread your workday, coming up; Constantly questioning your abilities; Feeling like an impostor; Thinking thoughts like, “I'm not cut out for this.”; Regretting taking the promotion; Having difficulty prioritizing because you're only comfortable when everything is right; Fearing that you're going to be fired, because you're not doing a good enough job;
Overthinking every email or presentation, treating it like it's a make-it-or-break-it moment so it takes you twice as long to produce something. And sometimes, you don't even produce anything; Sending voicemails or emails that are twice as long as your colleagues’ because you want to make sure you don't forget any details; Thinking in black-or-white. Either thinking you excel at leadership or you suck, for example; Focusing on the gaps at everything that you still need to learn, versus looking at the progress that you've already made.
If any of that is true, and most of it, of course, you're in perfectionism mode. And while the need to get everything right might serve you earlier in your career, when you're an expert it will impede you as you move higher. Because you're spending so much of your time finalizing each task; if you're a self-oriented perfectionist, or double checking your employees work if you're an other-oriented perfectionist, right?
So, you're spending so much time doing all that work that you're not actually leading, because you're doing most of the work yourself and you're gonna burn yourself out in the process. Now, it's not easy, I get it. You go from mastering your job and being comfortable in your role to learning a whole new set of skills; it is so uncomfortable.
The key, is becoming comfortable with discomfort. You want to be going from a fixed mindset, which is trying to get it all right the first time. Which, by the way, is impossible. To a growth mindset, which is learning from your mistakes as you go. This is a concept that was coined by Carol Dweck, in her excellent book, mindset. If you want to know more about that, I really encourage you to check that out.
Now, the only way to learn a new task, is to fail. Okay, so I'm learning Spanish now. And the number of times that I've made mistakes, it is mind-blowing. There's not one day that I don't make a mistake, not one. And for a recovering perfectionist like me, it was tough at first, I'm not gonna lie. But now, I'm used to it, right? I've been on Duolingo 15 minutes a day, every day, for 400 days now.
And that's the thing, right? It's consistency that pays. I'm a lot better now. And I can say that my Spanish has improved tremendously in a year. The only way to progress is to keep showing up every single day, making mistakes and learning from them. And, that's it. Leadership is like that. It's an adventure, and the road is paved with missteps.
Sometimes, there's road closures on your path and you need to take a detour, that's okay. You just need to keep your eye on the road. You walk one step at a time and you move forward. You're not expected to master everything on day one. Sometimes, it's two steps forward and one step back. But ultimately, you're advancing. And, that's what counts.
If you're anything like me and my clients, you're gonna put pressure on yourself to master what you're learning right away. And you're gonna beat yourself up when you're not learning fast enough, right? You're gonna say things like, “Why did I do that? That was so stupid.” And, you might not even notice that you are talking to yourself like that.
So, you need to keep in mind that learning is a process, right? You want to give yourself the time. And really, the key is to be nicer to yourself as you embark on this leadership adventure. I know it’s easier said than done. I get it. We don't realize how ingrained our habitual thought patterns are. So, what you want to try to do, is monitor your self-talk as you're learning, right?
If I spent every evening telling myself how much I suck, because I'm making mistakes as I'm learning Spanish, that would probably not be very helpful. I don't know any Olympic athlete that wins medals by talking shit to themselves as they're on their path to becoming an elite athlete. Right? They're not sitting there going, “Oh my God, I can't believe I missed that shot.” So, your self-talk is really important.
And this is the thing that I learned, when I first got coached three years ago, is how to talk to myself. I really learned to be a lot nicer to myself as I was learning new skills. So, this week, I invite you to conduct an experiment. First, notice how you talk to yourself as you learn new leadership skills. And most women, really talk to themselves like a drill sergeant. They listen to that voice, like as if it was the truth.
It's gonna sound like, “I don't know how. I should have, said or done, something. I should know this by now.” Notice when these kinds of thought patterns pop up in your mind, without beating yourself up about it. Just notice them at first, and then start to practice talking to yourself with more compassion. Like you would speak to a child who's learning a new skill at school, right?
You want to start saying things like, “I'm learning how to lead. I'm practicing how to be a better leader. I'm getting better every day at leading my team.” So, you want to start practicing this skill of talking to yourself with more compassion.
Now, I'm learning to dance salsa, as well as, I'm learning Spanish. And last week, my dance partner and I kept stepping on each other's feet on this one turn. So, he starts mansplaining to me, in Spanish, telling me what I was doing wrong. And, I felt really bad. So, I tried to correct myself, and it didn't work. We call the teacher to help me figure out what I was doing wrong, and it turns out that my partner was the one doing it wrong.
How many times has that happened to you? Blaming yourself for someone else's mistake, and assuming it was your fault. For example, your colleague reminds you that you have to prepare something for the team meeting. So, you blame yourself for being too overwhelmed to remember. You thank her and prepare it, only to find out later, that it was actually her responsibility. And then, you beat yourself again, for not having read the memo before doing the work.
Or, your boss asks you where that report is, that you were supposed to turn in today. You work overtime to finish it, only to find out that she messed up and it was actually due next week. Now, perfectionists tend to criticize themselves mercilessly, feeling that what they do isn't quite right.
In the excellent book, The Artist’s Way, the author describes that inner critic as, “The Sensor”. Now, I love that word. The Sensor lives in the left part of our brain, which is our logical side. This left hemisphere tends to be more valued in the current patriarchal society. It's basically the land of the “shoulds”. Whereas, the right hemisphere is more creative and intuitive in nature. Now, both hemispheres, of course, are important. But in a patriarchal society, the left hemisphere is more valued. So, we've been taught to dull our intuition or our internal authority.
Let's say that you've been asked by your boss to implement a new process in your team. You know that you're going to have pushback from your employees, right? You used to be one of them, you know what's on their mind. But instead of listening to your intuition, you do what you think you should do, right? You asked your team to implement the process like you've been asked by your boss. And of course, you get pushback.
You don't know what to do, because your employees are disgruntled. And your boss is faulting you for having dissatisfied employees. Don't you feel like you're caught between a rock and a hard place? Now, one alternative could have been to listen to your intuition and run the process by your employees, gathering their concerns, and then letting your boss know that the process would benefit from being tweaked slightly before implementation. And in that case, everyone wins; your employees feel heard and the company gets a better process.
Now, I get it. It's not always easy. The “shoulds” are sometimes so loud, that we don't even hear our inner voice. Or, we hear it, but we don't listen to it because it doesn't make sense. We don't trust ourselves. Right? So, in order to access our intuition, or that right side of our brain, what we want to do is to lower the volume of the left side. Which, when is it is turned up way high, is overactive, overthinking, and over analytical. And, it judges everything.
It seems kind of like Aunt Martha, who looks you up and down at the Christmas party, and tells you your dress is too short, your earrings are too bold. And asks you if you're really going to go out dressed like that. Okay, so we're not taught to follow our intuition, especially not as women. Like we saw in episode one, we're taught to listen to an authority outside of ourselves who has the “answers”; our parents or teachers or bosses or government etc. And so, we internalize it.
That's how patriarchy fucks us up. So, one way to lower the volume of the left side of our brain, is to do something that the author, in The Artist’s Way, describes as, “the morning pages”. That's basically, a thought download. So, that's one of the ways that you can lower the voice of The Sensor in your mind.
You jot down whatever comes to your mind as it surfaces, without solving for it or without judging it, you just let the words hit the page. And I encourage you to play with it, to experiment with this practice every day. Now, this is something I've been doing for a couple of years. And this practice is one that has changed my life. Just spending, honestly, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, it's really not that long, writing down a couple of pages in the morning.
And sometimes, it sounds like, “I'm really stressed out today. I have a lot to do.” You just write it down. You don't start solving for the fact that you're feeling stressed and you've got a lot to do. You just write it down, you know, and then it's just stream of consciousness. Once your two pages are done, now you've emptied your brain. And after just 30 days of consistently emptying the trash from your brain, daily, with your morning pages, you're going to start to quiet that inner Sensor, and you're going to have more direct access to your inner wisdom.
I encourage you to use this practice to surface the leader within, and if you need some help grounding yourself before you start your morning pages, I recorded a free 5-minute meditation that you can download.
The first series of podcasts took you on a journey to start deconditioning from systemic oppression, also known as “the dragons”, of overworking, people pleasing, and perfectionism, or OPP for short. So, that you can start trusting your own internal compass and surface The Confident Female Leader within, or CFL, by choosing what you do, facing the discomfort that comes with having honest conversations, and learning from your mistakes.
Now, it's a process. As we journey together on this podcast, we'll keep breaking down the barriers keeping you stuck and remove the faulty programming that's not serving you anymore on your leadership adventure. The only way to fight oppressive structures and patriarchy, is to start doing it from within.
And to control what we can control, which is ourselves. One belief at a time, you're going to start to shed your self-doubt and trust yourself more, instead of following the “rules” that you were taught to follow, that weren't made for you. So, that you can show up confidently and powerfully as a leader.
Join me on the next episode, where we'll be taking a deeper dive into navigating workplace relationships now that you're the boss. Have a great week everyone.
To celebrate the launch of the show, I'm going to be giving away a free five-minute meditation to everyone who subscribes, rates, and reviews the show, before December 31, 2022, to thank you for your feedback. This meditation will help you chill out, in real time, when your brain goes in overdrive.
I want your honest feedback on the podcast, so I can create an awesome show that resonates with you and provides tons of value. Visit annieframand.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the giveaway and how to enter. And if you found this episode useful, I'd love for you to spread the word and share it with a woman you know who's also a new leader.
Thanks for listening to The Confident Female Leader podcast. Ready to dismantle the patriarchy with me? Come say “Hi” at annieframand.com to learn more about how you can take this work deeper and apply what you're learning.
Welcome to The Confident Female Leader podcast. A space for ambitious women stepping into leadership, who are ready to take control of their circumstances and own their magic. If you're ready to start shedding your self-doubt, come into your new identity as a leader, and stop consistently undervaluing yourself so you can feel more confident in your role, this show’s for you. I'm Annie Framand; Psychologist, Certified Feminist Coach and Master Trainer. And I'm on a mission to help women just like you stop overworking, overthinking, and overpleasing, so you can start creating success on your terms. Ready to create your dream life? Let's go.
Hola amigas, how are you? I am doing amazing. A year ago today, on the day I'm recording this podcast, I landed in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, expecting to spend the winter. And four months later, I realized I just didn't want to leave. So, I moved from Montreal to Mexico. If you would have told me a year ago that this would be my home, and for sure, I would have not believed you. Yet now, I couldn't see myself anywhere else. Crazy, right?
Okay, let's dive into our episode. Today, we're going to be talking about dragon number three. Now, this is a reminder of what dragon number three is. So, you face this dragon, if you frequently think, “I don't know enough,” or “I don't know how.” If you feel the pressure to know more, to be right, to get it right. And, if your sense of self-worth is derived from what you know.
Now, what is perfectionism? There are so many definitions out there, I'm going to tell you the one that I like to run with, which is the one from dictionary.com: Perfectionism is a personal standard, attitude, or philosophy that demands flawlessness and rejects anything less. Now, women are more vulnerable to the desire to be perfect. And the belief that if we're not perfect we're somehow unworthy, because of how we're socialized in our family and at school. And of course, those expectations are reinforced in the workplace.
Generally, girls tend to be rewarded for being obedient daughters and excellent students, which leads them to seek approval by striving to get everything right and avoiding mistakes. It's not that boys don't get rewarded for good grades, but the boys usually receive the most praise when they are sports stars.
According to Psychology Today, perfectionism is a trait that makes life an endless report card on accomplishments or looks. There are two types of perfectionism. The first one, is self-oriented perfectionism. Which is, basically imposing an unrealistic expectation on ourself. Now, we have other oriented perfectionism, which is imposing unrealistic standards of perfection on others.
Speaking of the report card, there's a study, called The Confidence Gap, that shows that many women consistently underestimate their performance on tests. So, how many times have you taken an exam, and before seeing your actual score you assume you got, for example, 60% of the answers right, but you actually got 80%?
Women do that frequently. Our knee jerk reaction is to assume that we did poorly, when this is not the case. And it's interesting, and not surprising of course, that men tend to do the opposite. So, they're actually going to tend to overestimate their scores, and assume that they did better than they actually did.
I've personally seen this reflected in my experience, as well with 360 results. Now, most of you probably know what a 360 is. But for those who don't, it's a questionnaire that's administered to a leader’s boss, employees, and colleagues. The premise behind it is that perceptions are subjective, of course. And while one employee might think that their boss gives them a lot of latitude to do their work, another, for example, might think that that same boss is a micromanager. Right?
Because we all have different perceptions based on who we are, how we view the world, how we've been raised, conditioned, etcetera. So, the 360 is a composite report that paints the picture of the perceptions of the people in the leader’s sphere of influence. The actual comments and ratings are anonymous. We really look at kind of that overall picture of the raters around the leader.
Now, once the leader knows what the trends are, they can decide if they want to do anything about them. And so, in a 360, the leader rates themselves also, and their self-assessment is compared to the perception of all of their other raters. In my experience, many women's self-perception is lower than that of their other raters, while men's is higher, in general.
So, for example, a woman would rate herself 3.5 out of 5 on delegation, while the average of her responders, or people in her sphere of influence, might rate her a 4 out of 5. Conversely, a man might rate himself 4 or 4.5 on delegation, while the average of his responders might rate him a 3 or 3.5. So, you see how our perception of ourself really is subjective, and women will tend to undervalue themselves.
You know that you're caught in the perfectionist trap, when you try not to make any mistakes, so that you're not judged by your perceived failures. Because you're already judging yourself so harshly that you don't want to layer that judgment of others on top of that. And we tend, therefore, to develop a fixed mindset. Which is, basically the belief that you should get it right from the get go, which I see in so many of my clients, and is also what I experienced, as well.
If you find yourself having trouble falling asleep, or waking up, because you have work on your mind; Having trouble getting out of bed in the morning, because you dread your workday, coming up; Constantly questioning your abilities; Feeling like an impostor; Thinking thoughts like, “I'm not cut out for this.”; Regretting taking the promotion; Having difficulty prioritizing because you're only comfortable when everything is right; Fearing that you're going to be fired, because you're not doing a good enough job;
Overthinking every email or presentation, treating it like it's a make-it-or-break-it moment so it takes you twice as long to produce something. And sometimes, you don't even produce anything; Sending voicemails or emails that are twice as long as your colleagues’ because you want to make sure you don't forget any details; Thinking in black-or-white. Either thinking you excel at leadership or you suck, for example; Focusing on the gaps at everything that you still need to learn, versus looking at the progress that you've already made.
If any of that is true, and most of it, of course, you're in perfectionism mode. And while the need to get everything right might serve you earlier in your career, when you're an expert it will impede you as you move higher. Because you're spending so much of your time finalizing each task; if you're a self-oriented perfectionist, or double checking your employees work if you're an other-oriented perfectionist, right?
So, you're spending so much time doing all that work that you're not actually leading, because you're doing most of the work yourself and you're gonna burn yourself out in the process. Now, it's not easy, I get it. You go from mastering your job and being comfortable in your role to learning a whole new set of skills; it is so uncomfortable.
The key, is becoming comfortable with discomfort. You want to be going from a fixed mindset, which is trying to get it all right the first time. Which, by the way, is impossible. To a growth mindset, which is learning from your mistakes as you go. This is a concept that was coined by Carol Dweck, in her excellent book, mindset. If you want to know more about that, I really encourage you to check that out.
Now, the only way to learn a new task, is to fail. Okay, so I'm learning Spanish now. And the number of times that I've made mistakes, it is mind-blowing. There's not one day that I don't make a mistake, not one. And for a recovering perfectionist like me, it was tough at first, I'm not gonna lie. But now, I'm used to it, right? I've been on Duolingo 15 minutes a day, every day, for 400 days now.
And that's the thing, right? It's consistency that pays. I'm a lot better now. And I can say that my Spanish has improved tremendously in a year. The only way to progress is to keep showing up every single day, making mistakes and learning from them. And, that's it. Leadership is like that. It's an adventure, and the road is paved with missteps.
Sometimes, there's road closures on your path and you need to take a detour, that's okay. You just need to keep your eye on the road. You walk one step at a time and you move forward. You're not expected to master everything on day one. Sometimes, it's two steps forward and one step back. But ultimately, you're advancing. And, that's what counts.
If you're anything like me and my clients, you're gonna put pressure on yourself to master what you're learning right away. And you're gonna beat yourself up when you're not learning fast enough, right? You're gonna say things like, “Why did I do that? That was so stupid.” And, you might not even notice that you are talking to yourself like that.
So, you need to keep in mind that learning is a process, right? You want to give yourself the time. And really, the key is to be nicer to yourself as you embark on this leadership adventure. I know it’s easier said than done. I get it. We don't realize how ingrained our habitual thought patterns are. So, what you want to try to do, is monitor your self-talk as you're learning, right?
If I spent every evening telling myself how much I suck, because I'm making mistakes as I'm learning Spanish, that would probably not be very helpful. I don't know any Olympic athlete that wins medals by talking shit to themselves as they're on their path to becoming an elite athlete. Right? They're not sitting there going, “Oh my God, I can't believe I missed that shot.” So, your self-talk is really important.
And this is the thing that I learned, when I first got coached three years ago, is how to talk to myself. I really learned to be a lot nicer to myself as I was learning new skills. So, this week, I invite you to conduct an experiment. First, notice how you talk to yourself as you learn new leadership skills. And most women, really talk to themselves like a drill sergeant. They listen to that voice, like as if it was the truth.
It's gonna sound like, “I don't know how. I should have, said or done, something. I should know this by now.” Notice when these kinds of thought patterns pop up in your mind, without beating yourself up about it. Just notice them at first, and then start to practice talking to yourself with more compassion. Like you would speak to a child who's learning a new skill at school, right?
You want to start saying things like, “I'm learning how to lead. I'm practicing how to be a better leader. I'm getting better every day at leading my team.” So, you want to start practicing this skill of talking to yourself with more compassion.
Now, I'm learning to dance salsa, as well as, I'm learning Spanish. And last week, my dance partner and I kept stepping on each other's feet on this one turn. So, he starts mansplaining to me, in Spanish, telling me what I was doing wrong. And, I felt really bad. So, I tried to correct myself, and it didn't work. We call the teacher to help me figure out what I was doing wrong, and it turns out that my partner was the one doing it wrong.
How many times has that happened to you? Blaming yourself for someone else's mistake, and assuming it was your fault. For example, your colleague reminds you that you have to prepare something for the team meeting. So, you blame yourself for being too overwhelmed to remember. You thank her and prepare it, only to find out later, that it was actually her responsibility. And then, you beat yourself again, for not having read the memo before doing the work.
Or, your boss asks you where that report is, that you were supposed to turn in today. You work overtime to finish it, only to find out that she messed up and it was actually due next week. Now, perfectionists tend to criticize themselves mercilessly, feeling that what they do isn't quite right.
In the excellent book, The Artist’s Way, the author describes that inner critic as, “The Sensor”. Now, I love that word. The Sensor lives in the left part of our brain, which is our logical side. This left hemisphere tends to be more valued in the current patriarchal society. It's basically the land of the “shoulds”. Whereas, the right hemisphere is more creative and intuitive in nature. Now, both hemispheres, of course, are important. But in a patriarchal society, the left hemisphere is more valued. So, we've been taught to dull our intuition or our internal authority.
Let's say that you've been asked by your boss to implement a new process in your team. You know that you're going to have pushback from your employees, right? You used to be one of them, you know what's on their mind. But instead of listening to your intuition, you do what you think you should do, right? You asked your team to implement the process like you've been asked by your boss. And of course, you get pushback.
You don't know what to do, because your employees are disgruntled. And your boss is faulting you for having dissatisfied employees. Don't you feel like you're caught between a rock and a hard place? Now, one alternative could have been to listen to your intuition and run the process by your employees, gathering their concerns, and then letting your boss know that the process would benefit from being tweaked slightly before implementation. And in that case, everyone wins; your employees feel heard and the company gets a better process.
Now, I get it. It's not always easy. The “shoulds” are sometimes so loud, that we don't even hear our inner voice. Or, we hear it, but we don't listen to it because it doesn't make sense. We don't trust ourselves. Right? So, in order to access our intuition, or that right side of our brain, what we want to do is to lower the volume of the left side. Which, when is it is turned up way high, is overactive, overthinking, and over analytical. And, it judges everything.
It seems kind of like Aunt Martha, who looks you up and down at the Christmas party, and tells you your dress is too short, your earrings are too bold. And asks you if you're really going to go out dressed like that. Okay, so we're not taught to follow our intuition, especially not as women. Like we saw in episode one, we're taught to listen to an authority outside of ourselves who has the “answers”; our parents or teachers or bosses or government etc. And so, we internalize it.
That's how patriarchy fucks us up. So, one way to lower the volume of the left side of our brain, is to do something that the author, in The Artist’s Way, describes as, “the morning pages”. That's basically, a thought download. So, that's one of the ways that you can lower the voice of The Sensor in your mind.
You jot down whatever comes to your mind as it surfaces, without solving for it or without judging it, you just let the words hit the page. And I encourage you to play with it, to experiment with this practice every day. Now, this is something I've been doing for a couple of years. And this practice is one that has changed my life. Just spending, honestly, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, it's really not that long, writing down a couple of pages in the morning.
And sometimes, it sounds like, “I'm really stressed out today. I have a lot to do.” You just write it down. You don't start solving for the fact that you're feeling stressed and you've got a lot to do. You just write it down, you know, and then it's just stream of consciousness. Once your two pages are done, now you've emptied your brain. And after just 30 days of consistently emptying the trash from your brain, daily, with your morning pages, you're going to start to quiet that inner Sensor, and you're going to have more direct access to your inner wisdom.
I encourage you to use this practice to surface the leader within, and if you need some help grounding yourself before you start your morning pages, I recorded a free 5-minute meditation that you can download.
The first series of podcasts took you on a journey to start deconditioning from systemic oppression, also known as “the dragons”, of overworking, people pleasing, and perfectionism, or OPP for short. So, that you can start trusting your own internal compass and surface The Confident Female Leader within, or CFL, by choosing what you do, facing the discomfort that comes with having honest conversations, and learning from your mistakes.
Now, it's a process. As we journey together on this podcast, we'll keep breaking down the barriers keeping you stuck and remove the faulty programming that's not serving you anymore on your leadership adventure. The only way to fight oppressive structures and patriarchy, is to start doing it from within.
And to control what we can control, which is ourselves. One belief at a time, you're going to start to shed your self-doubt and trust yourself more, instead of following the “rules” that you were taught to follow, that weren't made for you. So, that you can show up confidently and powerfully as a leader.
Join me on the next episode, where we'll be taking a deeper dive into navigating workplace relationships now that you're the boss. Have a great week everyone.
To celebrate the launch of the show, I'm going to be giving away a free five-minute meditation to everyone who subscribes, rates, and reviews the show, before December 31, 2022, to thank you for your feedback. This meditation will help you chill out, in real time, when your brain goes in overdrive.
I want your honest feedback on the podcast, so I can create an awesome show that resonates with you and provides tons of value. Visit annieframand.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the giveaway and how to enter. And if you found this episode useful, I'd love for you to spread the word and share it with a woman you know who's also a new leader.
Thanks for listening to The Confident Female Leader podcast. Ready to dismantle the patriarchy with me? Come say “Hi” at annieframand.com to learn more about how you can take this work deeper and apply what you're learning.
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