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Natalie: Unlocking the layers of perfectionism and procrastination, insights and tips to get out of the perfectionism rutt.

Natalie: Hi everyone. It's Natalie. How are you? Back to school time for me, and I've been so busy with the podcast, but also as a teacher. I'm teaching three classes this year, multimedia journalism, two sections of that, and podcasting. I love my high schoolers and this second career, I call it my retirement career.

So many people find teenagers difficult, but. I find them life-giving. I'm sure I will have topics related to teaching and parenting coming up here in the next few months, but let me know if you have any ideas. I'm always open to your ideas on topics for this podcast for today, and this could be the teenager in your life, but more than likely it's, you we're talking about perfectionism.

It holds so many people back from success. Nicole Baker Holman is my guest today. She's a leading voice in the realm of personal growth and self-improvement, and today she's going to guide us through the landscape of perfectionism and procrastination. Nicole unravels the complexities behind traits like high achievers.

Procrastinators and people pleasing perfectionists. You're gonna learn some strategies to navigate decision making, goal setting, and time management, as Nicole shares her expertise on boosting productivity and also embracing our imperfection. I know how hard that is. So it's a really important topic today because in today's world where so many people are struggling with not feeling enough, and often, and I know you relate to this as well, just feeling overwhelmed.

So sit back or go on that walk and let's get started today. Oh, and by the way, thank you for being here. I appreciate you and I hope that you feel empowered after this interview.

Nicole, thank you so much for joining. This is a topic that so many of us I know relate to, and sometimes we don't even realize that that's us. Mm-hmm. Until you start hearing the stories and you say, oh, that's totally me. I, I, I am a perfectionist when I shouldn't be.

Nicole: You know, it's funny you said that 'cause I, I go on, you know, some shows or I talk to people and they're like, ah, I don't really think I'm a perfectionist.

Mm-hmm. And I ask them, I'm like, what do you think a perfectionist is? Like, how would you define it? And they're like, oh, someone who has an immaculate house. Someone who is so put together, very Type A. And I'm like, that's definitely. A type of perfectionist.

However, perfectionism is so broad, especially nowadays where people don't understand what perfectionism is until they hear, at least I'll, I'll say my definition of it, it is if my standards are, let's say 125%, I have to be at 125% every single day.

If I came in at 124, I'm not enough. I didn't push hard enough, I didn't do enough. I didn't achieve whatever enough. And so it's always from the place of, no matter what I do, I never meet my expectations. And when I say it like that, they're like, oh, that's, that's me.

Natalie: Yeah. I find I'm the type of perfectionist I I'm, sometimes I'm a little bit type A, like I just need things to be organized.

Mm-hmm. But I wouldn't say like super type A, but I find my perfectionism is procrastination like that. I don't do it because I can't do it perfectly and then I don't do it. Yeah. And then I like push it down the road and then I kind, I just don't wanna start it until I can do it perfectly.

Nicole: So it's funny you mentioned that, 'cause I have a quiz that is what type of perfectionist are you? And per procrastinator is one of the types and it is by far the most. populated type of the people who've taken this quiz. And I've had almost 3000 people take this quiz by now, and I think it's 56% come out procrastinator.

And people often respond to me and they're like, I am so sad. I don't wanna be a procrastinator. Procrastinators are lazy. They don't do anything, da da, da, da. And I'm like, Halt who goes there. That is not what a procrastinator is. In fact, I think procrastinators are some of the hardest workers. Mm-hmm.

They're just always working on things that are not helping them move forward in their goals, move forward in projects, things that feel overwhelming to them. They instead see that overwhelm and they're like, Ooh, you know what? Scrolling through TikTok sounds a lot more fun or, Cleaning my kitchen sounds a lot more fun.

That's, or whatever it is. That's more, I'm definitely, I have a lot of the

Natalie: procrastinator in me. So much more fun. Yeah. Than that. Than that thing that I just wanna do perfectly and I can't do

Nicole: Absolutely. Cleaning out my email is a big one for me. Like I do not need to be cleaning out my email at nine in the morning 'cause I'm overwhelmed to, it's all the busy work and.

A lot of people hear that in when it comes to perfectionism and they're like, oh, it's definitely because I feel overwhelmed. I feel like I have to do it all. I feel like I have to do it all perfectly. And so it's almost like they're trying to jump to level 100 in their goal in their project without doing steps one through 99.

Because our brain just deleted it and because we deleted it, they get overwhelmed. The fight, flight freeze mechanism gets set off in our brain and they'll flight, they'll flight to another thing that's more numbing, that's more easy that they know how to do. So that's a really common sign that perfectionism is in the driver's seat.

Natalie: Okay, so let's unravel it a little bit. And let's get to some ways that we can move past that.

Nicole: So when it comes to the procrastinator type of perfectionism, moving past, it is truly just looking at those steps one through 99, instead of dropping straight into level 100, what's step one? So let's say for instance, this is, I work with a lot of like new business owners, so this is what I hear often.

I want to make my website. And on their to-do list for like three weeks has been build website, which is just cruel to your brain because you can't do that in one sitting. Your brain can't just like check off build website. So I say, okay, like let's say build website or have completed website is level 100 here.

What is the next step? What's step one in this scenario, I call these milestone goals and they say, oh, maybe it's pick a website platform. And I go, absolutely, yes. Is that overwhelming? And they're like, no, I just Google it. And when it comes to that, it's breaking things down, chunking them down so that overwhelmed button doesn't get set off in our brain, which is truly the reason we procrastinate a lot of the time.

Now, when it comes to, I. Okay, but I have to do it perfectly. I have to pick the perfect website platform. I think that boils down to two things. One, give yourself a time limit. If you're gonna, if you're the type of person, I used to be like this a lot, who's gonna research for like 45 hours and try to find the perfect one, have the ProCon list, all that kinda stuff.

I'm a very type A person in that way. That's just not a good use of your time, and by the end you're like, oh my God, I could have been doing so many more productive things, quote unquote. Mm-hmm. So instead, giving yourself a time limit, I'm gonna give myself 30 minutes to look at three different platforms that I could host my website on.

Boom. So I think having that is really important. And also remembering over and over and over again, I can change. If I don't like this mm-hmm. Down the road, I'm at step 50, I can change it. I can change it, I can change it. Nothing is permanent.

Natalie: Yeah, that's so important. I, I was talking to my 13 year old son the other day and he was trying to make a simple decision and he said, I just can't decide.

And I said, you know, there are some things where no decision is really a bad decision. You can have a hamburger or you can have a hot dog for lunch. There's no harm in that and you, it's no big deal. Nothing's really gonna change. And then there are some other decisions that are harder, but you can always go back.

You can change it later. Yes. But we just freeze in that, as you were mentioning that, that I just can't make the decision. I should do more research. And sometimes we go down the rabbit hole of research and boy, You, you end up full days and days and days of just getting into research.

Nicole: You know, there's a naval officer, I'm totally escaping his name right now, I apologize, but he says, in order to make a decision, you need 60% of the information.

If you get more, you're in analysis paralysis. If you have two less. You're not able to make a full form decision. So he always, I mean, and he works with, you know, people who are going into battle to make battles decision and in very needy quick decisions moments. So do you have 60% of the information? Yes.

Awesome. Now, obviously I say that to perfectionists and they're like, but what's 60% of the information? Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And it's not enough. And really and truly it just boils down to it is enough. You have to trust yourself to know. You can course correct if needed to. Yeah. One of the biggest things I see in a lot of perfectionists is a lack of internal trust.

So a lot of my clients, my one-on-one clients and I, we work on that pretty consistently, and just like, how can you trust yourself in this situation? What would it be like to trust yourself in this situation? And immediately like this light bulb turns on of like, oh, I've got this. I can make a decision that's different in six months and it doesn't hinder me in a life-altering way.

Natalie: Yeah. Well, let's, you talked about the

procrastinator, the type A person. Are there other types of perfectionists?

Nicole: There are, there's two others. The other one I'm sure all of the listeners are gonna be like, oh God, it's me, is the high achiever. So the high achieving perfectionist are the people who are constantly saying, what's next?

What can I achieve next? This is gonna make me happy when I achieve X level of income. When I have this partner when I x like this big achievement that will finally equal success and happiness. But a lot of high achievers will know. That when we get to that level, it's not that. It's actually the next thing that we decided when we were at 99% away from achieving that goal.

It's actually the next level of income that's gonna make me happy, so on and so forth. They're very forward thinkers in the way that, yes, growth mindset. Growth mindset is huge in high achieving perfectionist, which I think is a really great superpower. However, when you're always living in the future, and more importantly, always looking at all the things you haven't achieved yet, all the ways you're not measuring up, you are never gonna be able to be a grateful for what you are.

I. And B, you're never gonna be able to be present in the life that you are currently working so hard for. So I always say to high achievers, enjoy the life you're working so hard for 'cause you've only got this moment once.

Natalie: Yeah. Isn't that so true? Can you be a mix? Because I'm, I'm relating to that in the

Nicole: procrastinator.

Yes. I thank you for, thank you for reminding me. Absolutely. And I, I think it's important to note before we even get into the third one, you can be a conglomeration of all three of these. I like to say you're a nice cocktail of all three types of perfectionist. However, one tends to be more home base and.

You tend to bring out a different side of perfectionism in different chapters or different areas of your life. So for instance, for me, in my family, I'm very much a recovering third type of perfectionist was just the people pleaser. But in work I am very much a recovering, high achieving perfectionist.

Mm-hmm. In school, I was a perf procrastinator, perfectionist. I just really like to, you know, paint a wide brush across these scopes. Yeah. But I see this a lot in my clients and people in my community is that they. Tend to lean into, depending on what project or what category of life they're in at the moment, they tend to lean into a different type.

The purpose of this is less so from like, you know, Enneagram or Myers-Briggs of like, what is my type, what is my psychology? It's more to say, Ooh, when I'm experiencing X, Y, and Z symptoms, here's X, Y, and Z strategies to get out of it.

Natalie: Hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

So give me some of

Nicole: those strategies. You got it. So for the procrastinator, it's going like, it's going back to that.

What's step one? What's step two? Diminishing That overwhelm, chunking things down. Mm-hmm. When it comes to the high achiever, this is that, oh, high achievers hate it when I say this, but it, it has to be said, the line of still being a high achiever, still striving for more, still being that growth mindset and enjoying your life right now.

Comes from self-compassion. It comes from saying to yourself, I'm great. I'm doing enough. I can still do more, but I'm also still doing enough. Yeah, it's acknowledging that you don't have to self-flagellate or self or push yourself into the next level in order to be enough. It's saying, I am enough right now.

Does that immediately take away your striving? This? Absolutely not, and a lot of high achievers think that the second they start to be grateful, or the second they start to show self-love, which I think is a very overused term right now, I'm meaning that in the true sense of the word. they think that they're gonna be complacent or, oh my gosh, then I'll be mediocre.

And the opposite could not be more true. The successes taste so much sweeter when you've been talking kindly to yourself along the way. Yeah, so that's kind of like the secret hidden superpower there. For the people pleaser. However, people pleaser is a phrase we all know. And I, I'm not gonna say know and love.

We all know and tolerate right now. Yeah. We know it all too well, especially us women. When it comes to people pleasing, it's going back to that I. Capital T word trust. When I see a lot of people pleasing perfectionists, it's them putting other people on a pedestal above themselves saying they're smarter than me.

They have a higher opinion than me. they know what's right and I don't. It's lack of trust within what's my own voice and do I deserve a seat at the table and more of a I need to make sure everyone else is taken care of and I need to make sure everyone else knows that. I'm putting them higher than me.

And when it comes to people pleasing perfectionists, honestly, congratulations. You are all doing the steps right now. Start exploring ways to get that inner trust. Listening to podcasts is a great way to dive into that personal love, that personal self trust. Therapy. I'm a big, big, big proponent for therapy.

I've seen it work wonders with my husband. I've seen it work wonders with me and my friends. Coaching is another really great way. But if that's not in your wheelhouse right now, go to the library and pick up a book. Go to the what is it, the Libby Library, and listen to an audio book if that's more your jam.

There's so many resources for perfe or for people pleasing perfectionists right now, but it's just you gotta put in the work to start thinking in a new way that's going to lower their pedestal and raise yours at the same time. Yeah. Now I wanna put a small disclaimer. Because a lot of people hear that and they're like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna be the higher pedestal.

That's selfish, that's ba da da. Which for people pleasing perfectionist is like, I'd rather die. It's not about putting yourself on a higher pedestal than others. It's not about being selfish. It's about bringing yourself up to de like, feel like you're deserving a seat at the table and not apologizing for being there is putting yourself on that same pedestal level, not higher, not lower, same level.

Natalie: Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more. Mm-hmm.

Do you think that most of the, these three types of perfectionism you're talking about are developed over time and family structure? Mm-hmm. And how we were nurtured or do you think it's nature? Do you think we're born this way?

Nicole: I do think it's a lot of nurture, maybe nature.

I haven't done a whole lot of research on that because I've just seen so much in nurture. For the high achieving perfectionist especially, they tend to be in families where they were praised for being the best, where they were punished if they didn't get good grades, where they were always asked what's next?

What's next? Like I have a friend who graduated from college and she went out to lunch with her family, like right after graduation, still in her cap and gown. Her parents sat down at the table. They said, okay, what's next for you? That's a very like nurture style of high achieving perfectionist. It tends to always be future focused.

When it comes to the procrastinator, I think it is very much. Societal nurture because we are constantly being berated with information, with social media, with our emails being attached to our phones, with our phones being attached to us. I mean I also think with. Children, especially right now. Like, there's always this push for like, okay, how many extracurricular curriculars can you do?

Mm-hmm. How many acts or not acts AP classes, can you take, like there's this push for like, how much can you do? And overloading schedules, just like we're overloading our own as adults. So I think that that's very like societal nurture when it comes to people pleasing. I do think it goes back to that fam familial nurture, because normally it's, you know, a.

Child that they were the emotional stability of the family. They tended to be someone who maybe mom and dad were fighting and whenever they were in the room and pleasing them, the fighting stopped. Mm-hmm. So that's obviously a very dramatic example. There can be less dramatic and less capital t traumas, but that tends to be in the same boat when it comes to the people pleasing perfectionist.

Natalie: Yeah. Yeah. It has to be a mix of both, but mm-hmm. Do you think. Well, I'm, I'm sure you're gonna say yes to this because I, I, I see it all the time. you have to identify it. I mean, just like any addiction or anything else, you have to identify what your problem, if you wanna call it a problem, is before you can start taking steps, I.

That's why I love podcasts and I love books, and I love the research is like you start to hear other people's stories and you say, oh, I completely relate to that. I, I never thought of myself that way. I just thought that I was, like you said, lazy and I, I procrastinate when actually it's a form of perfectionism and here's what I can do to work on it.

But the number one step is to identify it.

Nicole: I could not agree more, and I'm actually gonna, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say, this is one of the things that I think social media right now is doing right? Because there is so much information on here's what anxiety is, here's what perfectionism is, here's what high achieving is, here's what hustle culture is, and so on and so forth.

What I do, I'm gonna put a major asterisk there, what I don't think it's doing fully, Is saying, okay, now you know what's next. Right. And instead just saying, here's the issue, it's a problem, period. Yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. So I do think a whole bunch of that is, is in a good way, it's able to help a self self di I don't wanna say self-diagnose 'cause that could be really slippery, but it's able to give us an opportunity to say, oh, I'm not alone in this thinking.

Right. And that's really special now. I think that there's a period of time and high achievers don't really like this, and us all who live into the busy culture don't really like this. But I do think that there's a period of time where we need to just sit with the, oh. This is how I am. And just start, no.

Or not how I am. 'cause that sounds fixed, but this is a pattern that I've had. Lemme say that instead. Mm-hmm. And just start noticing when it comes up and noticing when it comes up and noticing when it comes up. This is actually something in our brain called the reticular activating system at work here.

And basically what the reticular activating system is, is this huge filter in the front of our brain. That at any given moment is taking in 80 million bits of information from like the blood pumping through my right ear to your blinking eyes, to the wind outside. And if we were consciously aware of all of these 80 million bits of information, we would be in the fetal position on the ground, not okay.

Basically. So what the reticular activating system does is said. It says, okay, what's important to Nicole? I'm gonna filter that through. What's not important to Nicole, I'm gonna delete it. And for the longest time, the people pleasing or the overwhelm or the numbing out or the high achieving is so autopilot that our brain is just like, okay, I'm gonna save energy and just delete it.

You know what? I'm just not even gonna let you notice it anymore. It's just gonna happen and just not even notice it. But when we say, Hey, reticular activating system, I wanna start noticing this. I wanna start paying attention to this. It's gonna say, great. I'm gonna start filtering it through so it's in your conscious mind.

So for instance when I was really noticing that I was deep in hustle culture due to some things from my childhood due, some things that I was doing in my business, I was, I. Very much like, okay, I do not wanna be a part of this world anymore. It is not making me happy. I'm, I'm burning out, I'm working myself to death.

And I started saying, okay, like I wanna start catching myself on this. I didn't even know about the reticular activating system at this point, but when my r I s started doing was saying, okay, anytime you feel like you need to overload your plate, I'm gonna send an alarm bell, basically. And I would get an email saying, Hey Nicole, can you take this on?

And I'd immediately be like, oh yeah, I can. Because I told my r a s, Hey, start catching this. It would be like, Hey, remember you stop. You wanna stop doing this? Mm-hmm. And it was, it was so much easier for me to catch on this. That was a huge, long-winded neuroscience explanation. But there's a, there's a scientific reason's.

Yeah.

Natalie: Yeah. It's that whole, I have to know I'm doing it before I can do the hard work. Have to be aware of it. Yes, I do. The same thing with, I've had a couple of big, I'm, I'm pretty good at short projects. I worked in the news business for so long. I lived in a daily news grind. I could do it on my feet quickly.

I could write quickly. I could all of these things quickly. But then long projects, big projects, talk about procrastination. It's like, oh, you, you mentioned chunking things down 25 years in the news, news business. I never really had to do that. It was more in the moment. So I started seeing a pattern of.

Long projects being so hard for me and I, I, I have to do the hard work now. I have to stop and make short projects out of those big. Really big projects. Yeah. But I think what's important to note that I love the neuroscience because what's important is that I'm noticing it. I'm very aware of it, and I stop and go, why am I procrastinating that?

Why am I, yeah, why it's driving. And then I become a perfectionist about not perfect procrastinating. Why I can't, you know, that's so hard. But yeah, being aware of it and then having a strategy. So you gave me a couple of strategies. For each of the different types of perfectionists,

are there other things and other pieces of advice that you can give my listeners that will help with this overall process?

In procrastination? Mm-hmm. Or any of the three forms of perfectionism.

Nicole: Stop trying to do it all, you're gonna lose that battle first and foremost because who here hasn't laid in bed? You know right about to go to sleep? Thinking of all the things on your to-do list that you didn't get done that day, and beating yourself up and totally forgetting about the 40,000 things that you did.

'cause you were a chicken running around with your head cut off with an of a house fire all afternoon trying to do your to-do list. When we let go of this idea of doing it all, it is so releasing. There's an amazing book, actually, I don't know if you've read it, called Essentialism by Greg McGowan. Have you read it?

No.

Natalie: No. Tell me.

Nicole: Life-Changing. It is a life-changing book. But basically what he talks about is how when we are trying to do, let's say 42 different projects at once, we're not. Focusing on 42 different things. We are multitasking and using our brain supply of energy, of focus, of flow, state of all these different things and we're vastly depleting it really quickly.

Yeah. Versus if we take one project and say, I'm gonna focus on this first, not forever first. I'm gonna focus on one project first. I'm able to get into flow state first and foremost. 'cause you can't get into flow flow state when you're multitasking ever. Yeah. But you're able to focus on one thing at a time.

You're able to see your progress. It's much more journey based, and you're able to look back and be like, oh, wow. Like I actually completed something. Look at me, go like, look how amazing this is. Yeah. And I started doing this with one business goal and one perf or. Personal goal at any given moment.

So at, like, for instance, right now, a pers or a business goal for me is growing my podcast and really making that a larger part of the business 'cause it's one of my favorite parts of the business. And because that is my main focus right now, I did have to release some other things that were. You know, lingering in the back of my mind, oh, Nicole, you should be doing this, you should be doing that.

But I was like, that's not the focus right now. It will be the focus someday, but it's not right now. And by doing so, not only is my podcast moving way, way, way, way, way faster than I thought it would, but it's also giving me space to be a human outside of my goals, which I think is so important and not talked about enough, but it's also giving me the opportunity to rest, to relax to.

Feel like I'm not grasping at straws and instead I'm taking very intentional, deliberate action, which feels as a type a very good to be in that kind of control. I'll be honest with you. Yeah, yeah. But that's, that, that is kind of a hard pivot, but I do think that's really important to talk about, especially when it comes to just like the, the echo chamber of busyness that we're in right now.

Yeah.

Natalie: How often do you change? I,

I love that idea of one professional and one personal goal at a time, but how often do you reanalyze that? Is it every week, every month, every quarter

Nicole: month is probably the, the best time of duration, I'd say. I. I have, like, you know, my quarters planned out and each of those months in each quarter have like a, a focus of the month basically.

But I will say every Monday morning I have a sliver of, it used to be 30 minutes, now it's just 15, where I choose my milestone goal. Going back to that procrastinator, I choose my milestone goal for the week, which is just that tiny, tiny, tiny goal. I always make sure it is something I am feasibly able to do.

In a week, I choose my milestone goal. I break it down into something I call one sitting task. Which is exactly what it sounds like tasks that I can do in one sitting that will help me accomplish this milestone goal and I plug it into my week and that just helps me stay on track. Yeah. I've, I've shared this a few times and people are like, Jesus Christ, that's so organized.

That's too, like I could never be that organized. And to them, I say bss. You can, 'cause I used to be someone who's frantic and all over the place. Yeah. But you, it's the discipline that it takes to sit down and fulfill those 30 minutes. But it has changed my life. Those 30 minutes. Yeah. A week.

Natalie: Those simple things, you're just giving yourself parameters and allowing yourself to succeed within them.

Versus feeling this great big world of not achieving because it's too big. I love that. Mm-hmm. That's fantastic. Some great tips and, and just identifying our types of perfectionism alone that's going to start us down the path of fixing, at least helping ourselves. It might not ever be fixed, but maybe that's a bad word, but we certainly can help ourselves and give ourselves some grace and work on these things.

Yeah. So tell us more about your podcast, though. I wanna hear more about where people can find you and learn more.

Nicole: Thank you very much. My, my podcast is called Imperfect Success. You can find it literally anywhere you're listening to podcast. Probably the platform you're listening on right now if you just type in imperfect success.

But we just hit the milestone of being a top 2.5% globally ranked show, which was a really cool moment. I freaked out very much and called my mom, but, that is the bread and butter of what I do. I also am on Instagram at Life Coach Baker. You can find me there. I'm primarily on that platform, but I also do coaching.

I also do discovery calls. If you are ever interested in hopping on a call with me for free, 30 minutes, it is you and me actively coaching together for those 30 minutes. And no matter what people leave with tactical takeaways and I've had people, you know, not sign up for a program, we. Barely speak for like six months.

And I hear back, I hear back from them after those calls and they're like, oh my God, I went full-time in my business because of the things we talked about on this call. So they're, they're really, really powerful and you can find those@lifecoachbaker.com slash discovery call.

Natalie: Fantastic. Well, we'll put some links in the show notes here, so make it easy for people to find you and connect and listen to you.

Nicole. Thank you so much. Thank you. And uh, all the best to you. Let's connect again soon. Yes,

Nicole: please. Thank you.