Get Out Of Your Own Way!

Jo & JJ Go Mental

Are you getting in your own way, and sabotaging and preventing yourself from getting what you really want or feeling as good as you can?

This week, we tackle Sam’s situation — who is nervous about an upcoming speaking gig — and discuss different methods in which he can ease the fear and feel more confident. Then, Joanna talks about her own experience of when precision turned into perfectionism, and it led her to counterproductive feelings of exhaustion and burnout. We invite you to ask yourself, at what point does the need to be precise (because your job requires it) become an unhelpful and exhausting need to be perfect (because you think that is the only way to be accepted)? What things are you doing that you think are helpful, but are actually getting in your own way? Tune in to find out!

Takeaway:

[9:02] Sam writes about a speaking engagement coming up that is bringing him a ton of anxiety. He is appearing on a panel after another colleague couldn’t do it, and having nightmares about freezing up and everyone laughing at him.

[9:51] Worrying about an event that hasn’t even happened yet, is very common, especially when it comes to public speaking, and there is no need to feel shame about having it.

[13:02] Public speaking is scary and if you can get through it without vomiting (or even just vomiting a little) that’s a win! There is nothing to prove, you are already an expert just delivering information. We talk about some visualization techniques to try to picture it going well and giving the presentation of your dreams.

[15:05] There is power in realizing that our worries and fearful thoughts are not always facts or what is happening in reality. A foundational practice you can start using is to take three deep breaths to help regulate your nervous system a little more before you try your mindfulness and visualization techniques.

[19:04] Good preparation is a great foundation to feeling prepared when it comes to speaking, and also gives you a solid footing in case something out of the expected does arise.

[21:00] The more you perform, the more you get used to that feeling of just being in the moment rather than worrying about what may come next.

[23:40] However, there can be dangers when we prepare too much. Joanna shares her experience in corporate life and how the desire to be well prepared became almost obsessive. The need to be precise and accurate is vital when you are working in a tax career, but the challenge came when that need for control bled into every other part of her life. Her anxiety turned into panic attacks and OCD behaviour. Sometimes that meant finishing the draft of an email and then spending two hours checking bullet points and semicolons - as though this was what was needed to make the content of the document correct. The more time spent on those kinds of details, the more exhausted she became. The more exhausted she became, the more anxious she was, and the more she needed to check the details.

[25:03] JJ points out that it was clear that this kind of behaviour was not helpful to Jo. Should Jo not have been able to see that, and stop the behaviour before it went too far? When we get honest and real about willful ways (ie doing things over and over even when they don’t help), we can start to see the signs and get ahead of it before we become too out of balance . As Jo points out, however, sometimes it is only with hindsight, and a lot of rest, that we can see how we were getting in our way in the past and move towards being more effective in the future.

[29:32] What are the ways you consistently behave that are ineffective?

[31:58] Adult versions of willfulness can be perfection, defensiveness, and the “yeah buts”.

Connect With Us:

Joanna Denton | Dr. JJ Kelly