Career & Business Coaching Blog.
Inspiration and tips for multi-passionate creatives & entrepreneurs.
How procrastination masks perfectionism
I’ve wanted to be an author for as long as I can remember. When I started writing a few years ago, I would spend most of the session editing. I would go back and forth, adding words and deleting or rearranging them. It was such a frustrating and cumbersome process. When my articles were done and I finally hit publish, I would go back through and find all the mistakes I had made. I’d ruminate on that for months until the next book idea took hold and I vowed that this time it will be perfect.
With this new book, I have had to stop myself from editing because if I give myself more time to edit, it won’t ever get published. My perfectionism is so pervasive that I have to set clear boundaries or it will take me over.
Are you like that? Do you feel like you have a great idea and then avoid doing it because you want everything about the end result perfect? If you nodded your head yes, then you need to know that this procrastination is simply masking your perfectionism. You can’t just hide and wait till all of the settings and stimuli are perfect before starting, because if you wait, you’ll never start.
Most people who know they are procrastinating on starting or completing a task, know that they’re doing it because going deeper than the surface doesn’t seem to work. They haven’t lost their interest in the work, they just stop because they don’t believe they can fully achieve the end product them have in mind. Sometimes this comes down to the fact that they’re afraid of putting a crappy product out there, and other times (most of the time) it’s because they know how much work (!) has to be done to get that “perfect” end product. Essentially, they’ve set the bar so high, they (unconsciously realize they) can’t reach it at all.
The good news is, you can overcome these tendencies so that you can get unstuck and fulfill the goals you’ve set for yourself without worrying about your inner perfectionist getting in the way.
Set reasonable goals. The first step to ignoring your inner perfectionist is to get clear on what your goals are. If you’re trying to launch a new tennis racket onto the market for people with arthritis, you have to come up with realistic milestones and goals. For instance, a first goal might be hiring an occupational therapist to consult on how arthritis affects the hands and help you identify what an arthritic person would need in a tennis racket. Another goal could be getting that racket to market in the next two or three years. But if you give yourself goals like getting the racket to market in the next six months, you’ll be overwhelmed by the idea of working that hard for that long and end up not doing anything. Your procrastination will be masking your perfectionism.
Stop focusing on other people. They say comparison is the worst form of rejection, and they're right. When you have a good business idea, you can’t focus on what other people are doing. Sure, it helps to know your competitors and how your ideal market sees them, but if you fixate on what they’re doing and compare how you’re fairing, you can set off your perfectionism. Instead of getting things done, meeting deadlines, and achieving goals, you’ll end up stalling, waiting for some way to beat the competition.
Question your fears. If you’re afraid to work hard for a long period of time, or are afraid to put your product into the world, ask yourself why? What is it about this work that is so scary? Maybe you had a parent who told you you weren’t good enough. Maybe you had a boss ridicule you and make you feel small. Whatever it is, once you can identify how and why it’s stopping you, you can overcome it and push through.
It’s okay to make mistakes. If nothing is good enough unless it’s perfect, then nothing is worth doing. Right? Wrong. When you’re gifted with the insight of a great idea, nothing should stand in your way from bringing it to fruition - especially not yourself and the idea that it needs to be perfect. The simple fact that you’ve been given the idea is proof that it needs to be created. In the book Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert talks about how if you ignore these sparks of creativity, the muses just bring them to someone else. And if you ignore them long enough, the muse stops offering you anything at all. Thus, if you don’t embrace making mistakes, and nothing is good enough unless it’s perfect, your idea will not be solidified. Your work will never see the light of day and the muses will offer the idea to someone else.
Have self-compassion. We have so much compassion for other people, and yet we are our own harshest critics. Why is that? We need to start fostering self-compassion so that we can overcome our perfectionism. If we’re constantly worried that we’ve done something wrong, we won’t be able to get anything done. When we can accept that mistakes happen and there’s nothing wrong with that, we can finally follow your creativity.
Perfectionism is a tough trait to overcome, but it is possible, especially when we can identify what fuels it. We have to learn how to break the chain, create reasonable goals, focus on ourselves, and question our fears. If we don’t, we won’t ever learn to be free.
Ready to trade in your perfectionism for productivity?
It can be so hard to overcome our perfectionism as it’s usually a product of our upbringing and response to our experiences throughout life.
But it can - and should - be done! Certainly with the help of an experienced coach.
Now vs. the future: how to do one thing now vs. wanting to do all the things
Most people overestimate what they can do in short periods but underestimate what they can do in long periods of time.
Think about it, when you decide to do something, you always think you can get a dozen things done in a really short period of time. Take the new entrepreneur who wants to start a lifestyle blog. They’ll give themselves some sort of short deadline and think they can put a whole website together, start a TikTok and Instagram, get a few pieces of content out on a few platforms, and start marketing themselves. But then if they have a six-month deadline, they’ll think it’s too far into the future, that they have plenty of time, procrastinate on getting things done, and end up wasting time or even not getting things done at all.
Neither is a particularly good way of working and both styles can end up crashing and burning - the blog never starting, the entrepreneur getting bored, and something else “more” interesting catching their interest.
Obviously, this isn’t a great way to start, or do, anything, especially not for an entrepreneur as it leaves us open to missed opportunities and simultaneous burnout and boredom. The best, most successful entrepreneurs are the ones who know how to do more than one thing without wanting to do everything (right now), and can give themselves realistic timelines and tasks to get things done.
1. Never choose forever, just what’s in the moment. When you have an idea for a business or a way to change your life, you have to give yourself a realistic timeline and action list.
In the case of the new blogger, doing a small amount of research on website building and digital marketing techniques could help them identify just how long it takes to get a cohesive, working, and aesthetic website together, while also getting their name out there and drumming up buzz for their work. If they chose a deadline farther in the future - or decided on some arbitrary deadline - it may make them lose interest.
The goal is to keep interest high and get the necessary work done as quickly as possible and without forgetting anything.
2. You can do everything, but you can’t do everything right now. Another aspect of staying engaged is recognizing that you can do everything. Every idea that pops into your head comes from some sort of intuition and guidance. They should be followed, even if just to see how they wouldn’t work in this business or new reality. However, there is a time and place for each. You can do everything, but you can’t do everything all at once.
For the blogger in our example, they may want to set up the website, get out a new blog, create a few social media posts, set up a LinkedIn referral program, design a reel cover on Canva, and organize Quickbooks for the inevitable UGC or influencer partnerships she believes are coming their way. While all those things are great and necessary to the success of their new business, there is no need to do them all at once. Instead, the entrepreneur should decide on a timeline and figure out what steps need to be taken on day one. If it were me, I’d focus on getting the website and social media set up, as well as social media teezer and my first blog. Once that’s gone out, I’d start a content calendar, and decide on branding, and my main message. From there, I’d work on the administrative things or wait until my first partnership before getting them created so that I knew exactly what to create. Of course, the main focus I would always have is to sell and make sure I reach my ideal clients or users.
There is a time and place for everything, but if we get caught up in getting everything done, we’ll never get anything done. Instead, we have to focus on what to do now, in this moment, and then move forward from there.
Constantly worried about all the things you have to do?
It can be difficult to identify what needs to be done now, versus what can be done later - especially when we’re excited about a new idea or business.
As a career and business coach, I’ve started working with entrepreneurs who are looking to excel in their target market space. If you have a business idea, don’t know where to start, and need someone to chat with, I’d love to help.
How to Tell if You're a Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur. And Why it Matters.
Do you enjoy multitasking and can't stand to be bored? Do you have an insatiable hunger for knowledge? Do you see challenges or solutions where everyone else sees problems? Does it feel like you always have a million business ideas or things you're passionate about? If so, you might be a multi-passionate creative entrepreneur. Being multi-passionate is not always easy; after all, we still live in a world of specialists. To make the most of your unusual but incredible gifts requires patience, tolerance, curiosity, discipline, and creativity.
In this article, I'll help explain who multi-passionate creative entrepreneurs are, how they can make the best of their gifts and talents, and the benefits of their unique traits for multi-passionate entrepreneurship.
How to know if you are multi-passionate?
Multi-passionate creatives are individuals who have multiple passions and talents. It may not sound that extraordinary, but in a world that focuses on specialists and wants people to choose one thing and stick to it, being someone with a wide range of interests can be tricky, even painful. Especially if you don't know whether this fits into what society calls "normal."
Multi-passionate creatives are usually talented and interested in many things, not just one-off activities like marketing, writing, and dancing. They often are curious and want to know how things work and why. Exploring different areas of interest is probably what defines them the most. They love to expose themselves to new ideas, cultures, music, and so on. Thinking outside the box comes naturally to them.
In other words, a multi-passionate creative is someone who learns fast, is interested, connects dots, and thus can produce high-quality work in multiple fields of choice. If you're reading this article, my guess is you might be part of the family!
Why does it matter?
Multi-passionate creatives have a distinct advantage while pursuing their dream career paths: If you're an entrepreneur, you know that your business is only as good as the people who work for it. And if you're looking to hire someone or to turn an employee into an entrepreneur, multi-passionate creatives are the cream of the crop.
The ability to see the obvious answer is why multi-passionate creatives are in such high demand in today's competitive job market. Multi-passionate creatives like us can do their job well because we have a lot of different experiences to draw on. We're flexible and can deal with changes well. And we excel at problem-solving or coming up with creative solutions to challenges. Because we think differently from others, we can come up with fresh ways to look at issues or problems that others may overlook because it seems like the obvious solution.
Paradoxically, all these abilities and qualities that make us invaluable to employers also challenge finding or even creating our dream career. Multi-passionate people don't easily fit into the classic 9 to 5 work equation because we tend to be interested in more than one (many!) thing. Because of this, many of us might have opted out of a standard job or career path to pursue our dreams, but it takes practice and time before we learn how to manage all our projects well enough so that none of them suffer neglect.
The benefits of being a multi-passionate entrepreneur
We have multiple passions. Multi-passionate creatives have a hunger for knowledge and creativity. We're always exploring new interests and talents, which keeps us from getting bored. And this is important because boredom is our kryptonite!
We're multi-talented. We usually have a particular knack for a wide range of interests and crafts. This makes us incredibly resourceful! A multi-passionate creative is often a master in their craft, but that's not all.
We're curious. Multi-passionate creatives can access different knowledge and experiences that others don't have. This makes us a valuable asset to any team.
We're intuitive. And pick up quickly on different things. People with multiple passions can easily spot connections and patterns, enabling us to solve problems faster. Multi-passionate creatives can understand many subjects rapidly, as our broad range of interests allows us to learn from others and life.
We're flexible. Multi-passionate creatives are known for their ability to work in many different environments and with various people comfortably. We thrive when we have the opportunity to express ourselves creatively. This makes multi-passionate entrepreneurs an excellent fit for self-employment and consulting, as we don't rely on one particular kind of environment or people.
We're open-minded. Multi-passionate creatives usually have an interest in other cultures and backgrounds. We learn from other people's experiences and viewpoints, making it easy to connect with others. And that makes us great team members and networkers.
We love learning. Multi-passionate creatives love to learn from each other and life in general! As mentioned above, we often understand new subject matter quickly, which is a huge asset in today's fast-moving world. That's why most multi-passionate creatives have a natural ability to understand and integrate a lot of information from many different fields.
If you feel like you identify with some of the traits of a multi-passionate creative entrepreneur, then it's important to embrace those qualities! Own your multi-faceted personality and use it to your advantage. Be patient when it comes to exploring new passions and be willing to put in the hard work to make your dreams a reality.
Embrace your multi-passionate creative side and go out and change the world!
Do you have multiple passions?
We are all born with multiple passions, but many of us lose touch with them as we grow up. We start to think that it’s not possible to have more than one passion at a time. But the truth is, if you want to be successful in business and life, you need to embrace your multi-passions. It will help you become happier and more fulfilled in every aspect of your life.
But what if you're not sure what your passions are? Or if you're afraid of pursuing them because you don't want to fail? That's where private coaching can help. I can help you figure out what your passions are and how to use them to create a successful business.
Ambitious and creative? Entrepreneurship might be a good fit for you.
Admit it, you’re a passionate, life long learner person. You’re thorough, and a bit of a perfectionist at times. Now, what does that have to do with entrepreneurship?
You’re open to new experiences and you’re never bored learning something new. You’re conscientious too. After all, you want to read and review a report or email at least three times before sending (guilty :)), help others on different teams when you already have four projects on the go, or clean every nook in the house and run 5 errands in one day before calling it quits. You’re ambitious and creative.
But these qualities can work for you or against you. If you feel like you’re hitting a dead end where you are in your life and career right now, here’s something to ponder…
From my coaching experience, more often than not, my clients have a hidden itch and talent for entrepreneurship – actually most of them eventually follow that path. They work with me and uncover what their deepest dreams and goals are. Let’s see if that’s what you want to do also…
1. Was that child curiously leader-driven?
Revisit your younger self, when you were your most passionate and imaginative. What were you doing in unrestrained happiness? Check out the photo albums and speak with family and friends. Was that child hustling and trying to sell things to unsuspecting family members? (Guilty) Was that child in charge, curious and a little, okay, quite bossy? (Yep, that too!) Did you have a stronger feeling of wanting to problem solve or fix everything when you were younger?
2. Do you have an idea?
You probably have an endless supply of ideas and hundreds of notes in your phone. (Hello multi-passionate mind!) Things you quash or forget easily because, well, you’re busy! Go back and review those notes. Go back to certain years in your life when you had an aha! moment. Go back to those conferences, events or people you learned from that left you in awe. What ideas are you brewing now?
3. What does your dream life look like?
You might keep a journal, a mood board, or a vision board on Pinterest of all you want to do in your life. If you have none of those, now’s the time to do so. Grab some magazines, or just put on your favorite playlist and meditate. Centre yourself on what you’ve been thinking about.
If money and resources were not an issue, what would you do?
4. Who inspires you?
When getting to know your entrepreneurial spirit, listening is more important than speaking. Listen to yourself and to others. If you’re networking, pause and get to know everyone, and find out from the people around you, what entrepreneurship is like and what their favorite part is. Hey, maybe you’ll end up with a mentor! What entrepreneurs are you instantly feeling connected with? Are their success stories inspiring you to start your own thing?
5. What’s holding you back?
When was the last time you faced uncertainty, but you were in control? That’s kind of like considering being your own boss. You learn the skills as you go, yes (hello, Google), but you also have to get inspired by your inner child, ideas, dreams and professional desires. What types of problems or issues get your juices flowing? Is it fashion, accessories, education, injustice, animals, housing affordability – what’s a problem you face that you would love to fix?
Many preliminary and seemingly impossible daydreams have lead to a lot of creative – and successful businesses today.
Answering these questions got you excited, and inspired to start your own project but you feel stuck where you are, and not quite ready to take a leap (even to start with a little side hustle)? Self-doubt and fear might be holding you back from expressing your true entrepreneurial nature. As will the “stuff” you carry (we all do) that you keep pushing in front of you.
Reflect and review the activities above and get back to me to tell me all about what came up for you in your free coaching session.
It’s never too late to step into the entrepreneurial life.
Admitting you’re bored or uninspired is the first step! Get off the couch after work (and on the weekends), change out of your PJs and start getting inspired. If you journal and seize the moments outlined above you will soon uncover if entrepreneurship is for you and how. I promise!