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.
Generalist Wisdom Part 1: Specialists Learn Everything,Generalists Learn Everything That Is Useful
As early as our teens, we’re expected to pick a particular career path. Careers days start as early as 4th grade nowadays, with many kids exclamating the classics that they’ll be nurses, teachers, or firefighters, or not knowing what they want to do at all! Still, we insist on starting the decision game at that young age. And for generalists and creative types, it’s all downhill from there.
In the past, like our parents’ generations, you picked one career and you kept going your entire working life. Every class you took in college or post-graduate certification was meant to further that career, help you climb the corporate ladder, and set you up for an easy retirement.
There have always been outliers to this, of course. People who followed one path and then jumped to the next when they decided to learn something new. But it really wasn’t until the last decade - when being a generalist became super popular - that hiring managers are finally seeing the benefit to having generalists on the team.
The difference between a specialist and a generalist is that specialists want to know everything about a single subject, but generalists want to know everything that is USEFUL about a particular subject. For instance, this can be seen clearly in the medical field. The neurosurgeon learns everything there is to know about the brain, nervous systems, and the spine. But a general surgeon must learn about several different areas of the body. Their “specialized” knowledge is specific to be useful for them to perform surgery in that particular area. They won’t know everything there is to know about neurosurgery, but they’ll know enough to help if needed.
Another great example of this is the music teacher vs. violin professor. A music teacher has a generalized understanding of musical instruments, music theory, and maybe plays a few instruments well - not spectacularly, but good enough to teach students about music. The violin professor, on the other hand, has spent years learning everything there is to know about their instrument, how to play a vast amount of music, how to teach others to play the violin, and while they might know how to play another instrument, they’d never sacrifice their violin technique for it.
There are definite pros and cons to being either a specialist or a generalist. Generalists are open to challenges, usually end up in leadership roles, and enjoy thinking outside the box. Specialists, though, usually have less competition for jobs, are better equipped for changes in their field, and sometimes receive higher salaries.
I know I might be biased, but I definitely think the pros tip toward the generalists just a little bit more 🤓. So, what can you learn from generalists to help your career and businesses?
Increased skill sets. Because generalists tend to learn everything useful about a particular subject, and end up doing this with a lot of subjects, they have various skill sets. Specialists, on the other hand, usually have advanced knowledge in their area of expertise, but they don’t have wide-ranging experience in other areas. Instead of only learning about your particular field, you should become familiar with tangential areas of your field, expanding your skill sets in the process, which can make you both indispensable for your current role but also broaden your skills and knowledge in future ones.
Learn to multiproject™ better. Generalists usually have an easier time multiprojecting™ (not in the moment, but with interests!) because of their ability to hop from one thing to the next. They aren’t limited by the box of a specialized field, which gives them a level of comfort when transitioning from topic to topic. Now, usually, I caution my clients on multitasking projects too much. The sweet spot for most generalists is between 3 to 5 at any given time. You shouldn’t burn yourself out trying to do too much at once (projects and ideas have a way of nagging at you until you do something with them anyway, so they’re not about to go anywhere). But if you notice you’re a bit uncomfortable switching gears or meeting various goals, learning to multitask - or habit stack as some researchers have called it - you can get more done without overwhelming yourself.
Develop critical thinking and collaborative skills. In most companies, specialists tend to either work with other specialists or in solitary environments. This robs specialists of the ability to work as a team with people who have different viewpoints, which can impede their ability to foster critical thinking. Alternatively, generalists usually work in big groups of people from all sorts of different fields and roles. This gives them the ability to talk to different people, hear different ideas, and incorporate various voices into the work, which can provide better, more sophisticated problem-solving to a project.
Whether you are a specialist or a generalist, there is so much we can learn from one another to improve our current role or help us bring a new business to fruition. By incorporating more of the generalist’s traits into your work, though, you’ll explore and grow necessary skills that can help you positively impact your workplace.
Not sure if you’re a specialist or a generalist?
We’ve been so conditioned to follow the specialist route that it can be confusing to discover you might be a generalist.
By working together, we can figure out which category you fall into and how to leverage that style to improve your career.
How Yamille used art therapy to recover from burnout and decided to create spaces for other women to make art
When I met Yamille, she had just gone through severe burnout from her corporate role. She had realized she wanted a different professional life filled with creativity, but wasn’t sure how to make it happen and was paralyzed by a fear of failure. Together, we worked through those blocks and Yamille learned that even if she stumbled on the path to the life she really wanted, she was still learning and getting one step closer to her goals. Since then, she’s started her own business in a field she loves, became a certified art therapy coach, healed her burnout, and squashed her fear of failure. Here’s how she did it.
What was your big dream, and what inspired you to go after it?
My big dream was to be an artist who facilitates and promotes the use of creative expression (art making) as a well-being tool for women to prevent burnout and live a life full of energy and enthusiasm. I would love to have several "ateliers" where women can make art on a regular basis and are helped by a community of experts in the field of art therapy.
I got inspired to go after this dream when I experienced firsthand the well-being power of art, especially to recover from burnout.
Did you always have this dream?
Not always, but I've certainly been thinking about it for a long time but I never dared to change until my burn-out kind of forced me to.
I never thought I was good enough at painting, drawing, dancing, ... or that I could make a living out of it. Moreover, I didn't find it that meaningful to create something "pretty" to be liked and judged by others. These paradigms made me give up on my artistic talents until I discovered and experienced doing art in a completely different way following a Swedish painting methodology that helped me let go of my "logic brain" and let my "artist child" express itself. I learned to enjoy the creative process and not become fixated on my performance or the result.
Over the years I have experienced the many benefits of art, especially during my recovery from burn-out, I was amazed by how much it helped me. This further convinced me to go for my big dream!
What was one of the first things you did to get you started?
I looked for guidance to "put the pieces of the puzzle" together that is how I started the coaching sessions with Murielle, to get clarity, gain confidence and have a sparring partner that could understand and guide a creative person like me in my situation.
What were the biggest challenges you faced in working toward achieving your dream?
The fear of failing was my biggest challenge. I grew up in a culture where failing is not well received, I was afraid of being a "loser", and on top of that my confidence was severely undermined by my burn-out where my body "failed" and I just couldn't perform anymore. I realized that this fear was pulling me back, that things that I wanted to do or test would take longer or won't happen, it was auto-sabotage. It was a process to learn again to trust myself and gain confidence in my abilities, and the coaching sessions with Murielle helped me to acknowledge this and other paradigms I had to overcome to move forward.
What do you wish you would have done differently? What would you warn others about?
I could have wished to start earlier, but I wasn't ready. So I wouldn't have done anything differently, because every experience thought me something and helped me in a certain way, it was a growth process (it is still).
I will warn people about rushing things up, and about not taking the proper time to build their vision and learn from each step of their journey. Of course, dreams only come true when we act, so this is not an excuse for procrastination.
Would you say you’ve achieved your big dream yet?
I'm living my life dream during this journey towards my vision. My "Energy-boosting painting workshop for moms" is a big milestone! I'm so proud of myself, I will be doing many more milestones, trying, succeeding, failing, and learning, all worth it because it's all part of my big dream.
What do you think helped you achieve it?
My burnout experience actually helped to make big changes in my life, including my profession. It drove me to ask for guidance to get clarity about my dream and gain confidence that I could make it happen, this was one of the biggest gifts I received during my coaching sessions with Murielle.
What’s the best advice you have for others who want to follow their big dreams?
An inspiring vision is crucial to clarify the meaning and purpose of our lives and give us the energy and motivation to follow our dreams and persist. Articulating your big dream (your vision) is the first step in your journey!
More about Yamille and her Energy Boosting Painting for Workshop for Moms –www.yamillemelendez.art
“I kindly invite all moms that feel frequently tired, stressed, and/or overwhelmed to my energy-boosting painting workshop where they will learn tools based on proven creative methodologies to help them tap into their vast inner energy and avoid burn-out.” - Yamille
Yamille Melendez is a multi-passionate artist, creative, and coach. She helps moms unlock the well-being power of art so they can live a life full of energy, creativity, and enthusiasm.
She made the decision to transition from a life that was full of burnout and overwhelm to one filled with art, which she uses to process her emotions and thoughts so she can better understand herself. While recovering from burnout, Yamille tried, tested, and studied several different creative tools and methodologies that not only helped her get her energy back, but also helped her discover a better, stronger version of herself. Healing herslef with art made her see how much she wanted to help other tired moms gain energy and avoid burnout using art. Now she is living her dream while continuing to pursue it and hopes to share her message with the world.
Yamille’s favourite quote is:
“Creativity is intelligence having fun!”
- Albert Einstein
Yamille’s big dream for the world is:
A world where love, creativity, well-being, and happiness are more sought after than performance, prizes, or money.
If you want more inspiring stories, I’ve got great news for you! This story is part of an interview series, you can find all entries here.
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.
Are you perpetually learning and never doing - aka hiding in the learning stage?
Have you ever gone on vacation and not actually been on vacation? Do you know what I mean?
As entrepreneurs, it can be really easy to fall into a trap of taking a holiday and instead of relaxing on the beach or fully immersing yourself in the culture around you, your mind wanders back to work and before you know it you’re spending your free time reading up on work documents, doom scrolling social media, and hyperfixating on what you are forgetting.
What’s the point of taking a holiday then?
Yes, maybe sometimes we come back feeling a little more relaxed, but not really. More often than not we come back completely neutral, if not a tad more frazzled because of how much time we “took off.”
That’s got to change. And not only on holidays! We have to start putting boundaries around our holidays - and our time - and sticking to them. We have to recognize that these boundaries are important to our mental health, our stamina, and even our work because a burned out entrepreneur is not a healthy, productive entrepreneur. If we are constantly pressuring ourselves to get in extra work, we are more than likely going to jump ship for something new a minute later (#creativegeneralist). But to stay focused on our current goal, we have to take time to be off the clock and truly relax.
Say it with me: vacations are for relaxing, not for overproduction.
Another common trait we share as creative entrepreneurs is falling into the trap of perpetually learning and never actually doing. I’ve had countless clients say they have to learn something new before they can do XYZ. When that happens, you know what most of us end up doing? That’s right: working while we are on holiday or having a day off. Which is frustrating, overwhelming, and can easily lead to burnout.
I had a client that always thought she had to do one more thing before she could get the first thing done. One time she messaged me saying she would be getting an Instagram post up ASAP. I knew it was a big step for her. But then I waited and the post never showed up. I messaged her asking what happened and she told me she decided it would be better as a blog post but before she could write the blog post, she had to update her website. She gave herself more work instead of just posting an graphic and caption!
She was hiding in the learning stage.
I think that’s true for all of us: when something is particularly scary or big, we hide in the learning stage so we don’t have to actually do the thing. When I did improv, it was so much fun to learn theories and techniques, but actually getting on stage to practice my “yes, ands” was terrifying. I was much more comfortable learning - about improv, myself, my classmates, etc. - than I was actually doing a show.
When we remain in the learning stage of a project, we get to sit in our comfort zone. No one can expect anything from us because hey, “we’re still learning!”. But once we decide to go for it - and do the thing - suddenly there are expectations, restrictions, and requirements for the quality of our work. This can be terrifying. Especially for the new entrepreneur or creative generalist who is just deciding to step out on their own and do what they’ve been dreaming of their whole lives.
So, how do we get to the doing part? How do we learn what we need to learn and then get unstuck and get going?
Stop yourself. When you’re learning something, give yourself a deadline for when you have to be done. By September 1st, I will be done learning about cybersecurity tools and start putting them into my websites. Giving yourself a deadline is a great way to force yourself out of the learning stage and into the doing stage.
Give yourself guidelines. Learning new things can be intoxicating and addicting, but you can prevent yourself from always staying in the learning stage by giving yourself explicit guidelines for your research. For example, if you’re trying to learn about car engines, you probably will need to know about other parts of a car, but you should limit your research to just the car. Don’t start looking at the history of the automobile, how GMC started, and why Ford was fired from his jobs (yes, I see you!). Stick to the research you need to do and then move on when it’s done.
Keep a log. Having a research log where you write down what you’ve done and how much time you’ve spent doing it can really help you see the amount of time you’ve spent learning. It will also remind you that to get the thing done on your timeline, you have to move on and start doing.
Set clear goals. If there’s something you want to do - whether in work or life - having clear goals about what it is and what research needs to be done will help it come to fruition faster.
Trust yourself. Yes, getting stuck perpetually learning can be disastrous and an amazing way to procrastinate forever, but sometimes the best thing you can do is trust yourself. Why are you still learning? What are you trying to accomplish by continuing to research? There might be something that your gut is telling you that your mind can’t understand and the only way to get to the doing stage is to complete the learning stage. By trusting yourself, you’re giving yourself permission to learn for as long as you need because you know that you will start the doing stage when the time is right. And that’s okay too.
Being a perpetual learner can completely hinder your ability to get unstuck and get work done or achieve the things in your life that you want. By creating boundaries for yourself and your learning, you can stop when you need to and shift into doing. That being said, its also important to remember that sometimes the doing can’t happen till your gut feels content with the learning. So trust yourself. You’ve got this!
Want to take a break?
"Taking a break" doesn't always mean you have to spend a fortune traveling the world. It can be as simple as shutting down your laptop for an extended period and immersing yourself in activities that truly fulfill you.
But if the mere thought of taking a break leaves you anxious, you’re fears are over – I'm here to assist! My creative and entrepreneurial clients come from all walks of life and all corners of the world. And all of them need support in finding the right work-life balance. Together, we'll help you get out of procrastination and “always learning mode”, so you can finally take action - and enjoy your holidays!
Are you suffering from generalist syndrome?
There’s this pervasive character trait for generalists - always wanting to know more, never feeling like you know enough, but letting that desire to learn get you stuck, preventing you from doing the things you want.
I call it generalist syndrome. Do you have it?
It’s pretty common, nevertheless, it’s incredibly detrimental to our work and life goals. I had a client once who was setting up an event for artists. She seemed to be stuck and I asked her what piece of her work was making her uncomfortable. She told me she wanted to find a new way to get people to gather and work together. She wanted to create a new type of community setting. But instead of doing it, she was focused on the learning part. She wanted to go take a course, become fully knowledgeable in this area, and only then have the event where she would “roll out the brand new meeting style”.
I asked her if there was an easier way to get what she wanted. This client was confused and stuck to her idea that this was the only way. But then I pointed out that there was actually a shortcut - one that would get the event back on track and allow her to create something new without having to go back to school to do it – she could talk to an expert (aka, a specialist, a creative generalists arch nemesis - just kidding!).
As generalists, we’re always focusing on learning. And that’s an amazing superpower we have! But we learn so many different things that we forget their are people out there who specialize in specific areas and they’re usually more than happy to let us pick their brains. For my client, the clear shortcut was to set up a coffee chat with someone who already specialized in the type of event she wanted to learn to create. Rather than go to school or take a course, she could pick the specialist’s brain and get her event off the ground!
That idea you’re currently munching over, the one you’ve been thinking about for a while now? You do not need to learn anything first in order to make it happen. In fact, one might argue that being an entrepreneur is all about learning on the fly. It’s like that famous saying - being an entrepreneur is like jumping off a cliff and assembling a parachute on the way down. We have to think on our toes. There isn’t always going to be a class to take or a course to finish before our brilliant business ideas become successfulr. Sometimes - most of the time - you have to just jump and figure out shortcuts to get that parachute made so you can fly even higher.
But how do you jump? How do you put aside your generalist syndrome and embrace the shortcuts specialist can offer? Here are three steps I follow every day to shift my focus from learning to networking and doing:
Don’t think, just jump. When we get stuck thinking about how much more we have to learn about a subject, or where we can learn the material, we get stuck. It’s like the college student who can’t decide what major they want to follow. They like writing about different characters, but they misinterpret that as wanting to learn the same material as their characters. Instead of just reading research about those positions, they decide to jump from Biology to Anthropology to Chemistry and Physics to English Literature majors. If they had just sat back and realized they wanted to write about a biologist, anthropologist, and astrophysicist, they could have saved themselves a lot of time and effort. Being in business or going after the life we want is similar. Just go after the end goal and don’t worry about all the things you have to learn first. I promise you will learn them on the way and save yourself a ton of time and effort in the long run.
Try and fail. “Fail” is the four letter word that evokes fear in most entrepreneurs, but really, there’s nothing quite like failure to teach you what you should be doing instead. The key to getting unstuck and going after what you want out of life is accepting that failure can happen and, if it does, you will be okay - probably better than okay. There is no shortage of businesses that have thrived because of failure. So, don’t be afraid to fail. Be afraid to never start. Instead of perpetually learning, take a step back, a deep breath, and just start.
Track your goals. Having clear goals for your work and life can be super helpful in moving your through the learning to doing pipeline. For example, if your goal is to start a copywriting business out of your kitchen so you can spend more time with your kids, you don’t have to take copywriting classes. You don’t have to learn anything before you start. You can, instead, just start looking for work and building your website. Sure, you may have to learn a little bit as you go on, but you don’t have to learn everything before you get your first client. In fact, the best entrepreneurs tend to start working in a business before they even have a chance to create it. When you have clear goals and expectations, you’ll be better motivated to stay on task and get to the doing stage.
Letting the need to learn rule our lives can only negatively impact us, holding us back from the great things we are trying to accomplish. Instead of staying stuck in the learning stage, let go of the fear of doing, track your goals, and make the leap. You never know what successes wait for you on the other side of the cliff.
Ready to jump?
Working together, I will help you build a personalized parachute filled with expert knowledge and a plan of attack for your business’s next steps.
Having a preplanned parachute is overrated. The best part of being an entrepreneur is thinking on your feet.
Why do fast learners feel like imposters, and how to turn it into a superpower instead
Have you ever felt like that thing you know how to do isn’t special or unique because if you know how to do it, everybody else must know how to do it too? Does this cycle sound familiar?
Get excited about new thing.
Research new thing.
Fall into a rabbit hole about new thing.
Learn more.
Rabbit hole some more.
Fix the thing.
Excited to tell everyone about the new stuff you know.
Get bored (nobody seems to care).
Move on.
Maybe somewhere in there, you think you can offer this service to other people, get excited about doing so, and then start believing everyone else must already know how to do it and why would they want to learn from you anyways…right?
I can honestly say that I spent a lot of my life feeling the same way. Well, at least until I debunked this idea and started recognizing that this just isn’t true. Most people aren’t like that. Most people see a problem and maybe get excited to learn about it for a little while but then ultimately decide they can’t do it on their own. So they give up. Or they never get excited to begin with and let their lack of knowledge stop them from pushing forward until they find someone else to help them navigate the problem.
That is, there are people who see a problem and learn ten different ways to fix it, and there are people who call the problem solvers for help. And you know this because your phone or DMs are piping hot with calls and messages!? Even in corporate roles, you might be the one asked by someone in a completely different department to help them with something that isn’t even in your job description. Why? Because they know you know how to solve it. Duh!
And yet - we still think this skill isn’t worth something? The part of me that has been healing my inner child for 20+ years believes it probably came from my parents, but in reality, it could have come from anywhere. I think we are programmed to feel this way by our environment. You know that saying, “You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with,” well, it’s true. If the five people closest to you are telling you that what you know how to do isn’t that special and no one will care - you’re going to believe it. You’re going to feel like an impostor.
Unfortunately, I’m sure it bears repeating, it’s not true. It’s not only about all the stuff you know, it’s deeper than that: it’s about your capacity to learn new things and your insatiable hunger for knowledge. If you’re anything like me, you believe that is common to all people too! So why would you be any more capable to understand complex things or learn yourself a new skill than the next person? Well… because you’re a creative, a generalist, an entrepreneur. You are special and unique for knowing how to do it, and people will want to use those [your] skills in their life and business. You are worthy.
This ability is how our brain is structured. It’s literally a superpower!
So, what sets creatives and entrepreneurs apart from other people? Why is it our default to learn and find solutions to things? I’ve narrowed it down to three things:
We’re self-starters. We have this intrinsic motivation and confidence to begin projects on our own. We also have the resilience to navigate challenges and find alternative routes to the information and skills we are trying to learn.
We have a hunger for knowledge. We literally want to learn the thing and until we learn it, nothing will get in our way. Think about all the times you were interested in something and the rest of the world started to fall away until you’d finished learning about it. That hunger to learn is what keeps our motivation moving.
We have an incredible capacity to learn new things. It is easier to become a self-starter and cultivate a hunger for knowledge - these are learned traits - but the capacity to learn new things is something we are born with.
Moreover, we have never met a problem we couldn’t solve. We know deep down that we can learn and do anything we set our minds to. This knowledge is so ingrained in us that it can be jarring to think that other people don’t possess these traits. Of course, they must have them; how could they not? Right? But they don’t. And that’s okay. This difference in brain structure is something completely unique to us and something that can greatly impact not only your life and work but the life and work of others.
Now that we understand this, how can we truly accept it? Because really, it’s one thing to understand, and it’s another thing to accept a new reality. Understanding is easy to argue with. Acceptance is deeply rooted and helps challenge our past perceptions so we can hold firm to what actually is.
To accept that we are uniquely capable of learning things and doing things when others are not - and that others will, and do, need our help with these things - we must:
Stop negating it. Stop correcting people when they praise you for knowing how to do something. Stop pretending that they could do it too. Stop telling them they can. Take the compliment, let it swell in your heart, and replace the old ideas that everyone is capable of this.
Let that initial praise grow into confidence, but keep cultivating confidence on your own. When you start to feel like an imposter, work through those feelings. Try and figure out where they come from and then treat them like an episode of Myth Busters - prove why you’re wrong. And if you can’t, check out my blog on how to overcome imposter syndrome.
Debunk your doubts. Instead of believing every negative thought that pops into your head or the voice of your third-grade teacher who told you you weren’t capable of something, start listening to that other voice in your mind that says you are capable. The one thing people don’t talk about is how when we hear a doubt pop up in our mind, we also hear another voice saying, “That’s not true.” The problem is that the other voice is so quiet, we tend to believe it less. But if you can find the strength to listen to that small voice, you’ll give it the courage to get louder. The more you listen, the more it will call to you over the roar of your doubts until one day, your doubts are the quiet voice, and the little voice is the big one.
You are innately capable of doing so many incredible things. You have to stop thinking that just because you can do something, everyone else must be able to do it, and therefore your work or thoughts on the matter are not worthwhile. Stop getting in your own way with these thoughts. I promise that not only are you special for being able to do that thing, but there’s also someone waiting for you to help them with that knowledge.
Want to learn how to debunk your doubts?
We all have them - doubts. But the really successful people don’t believe in them. They hear them and let them go.
This is a skill that can be learned and grown. It just takes time, attention, and some coaching. That’s where I come in. With my help, we can isolate your doubts and watch them crumble so you can finally go after the career or business that you want!