Stop The Shame Spiral!
Hi There,
I continue to marinate on a workshop I delivered last week at a financial services firm. I titled it, “Recognize and Manage Your Relationship to Stress”. In hindsight, it’s easy to see the humor, but I was practically paralyzed by my self-imposed stress while preparing. My dear colleague, Lenka Wiles, would say that I had “analysis paralysis”. You see, I found myself trapped in a perfectionist cycle teetering on a shame spiral.
The pressure was on. More than 300 people signed up for this “virtual experience” after the first announcement was sent! 600 people ultimately registered.
I felt I had to do everything humanly possible to “come to their rescue”. This is how stress lied to me. I already had the facts, the case studies, the tools, and the resources in both my brain and my cloud storage to provide great value to the participants. And yet, I kept looping from perfectionist to self-doubt to procrastination to screaming inner critic to temporary hyper-focus. And, repeat.
The percolation was due to a question asked by a CPA about perfectionism and over-achieving. “In our profession, don’t we have to be perfectionists and over-achievers to succeed?”
While it’s true that debits and credits need to balance, there are plenty of places in a CPA’s life where they need not have everything in perfect alignment. And, as we driven professionals reflexively raise our hands, thanks to our over-achieving tendencies, we are prone to lose sight of what our bodies are telling us. And that detachment can become dangerous. Over-achievers tend to continue saying, “I can handle one more thing”, until they realize that they aren’t managing things at all.
Sometimes, showing up as your best self in the moment, and nothing more, is most realistic. Not necessarily at “your best”, but at “your best for this moment”. This sort of self-compassion will allow your brain to settle down and exceed your expectations, even if that STILL isn’t THE best. The mental deterioration, a.k.a.: your ability to think straight when your perfectionist tendencies are running amuck, results in underachievement, against your best intentions.
So, how can you acknowledge all you do, be satisfied with your efforts, and walk into situations recognizing that you are doing the best you can given the circumstances, and trust that your presence, expertise and self-acceptance will all serve you well? Now THAT’s something to steep in!
Cheers!
-Deborah
Deborah Goldstein
DRIVEN Professionals / Forbes / Linkedin
info@drivenpros.com | LinkedIn
DRIVEN Professionals, 35 Adrienne Lane, Garrison, NY 10524