Huge heads up, the Digital Course Academy is closing September 26th. This is the course that changed my life and taught me virtually everything I know about online courses, how to create them, how to launch them, and how to help people get results with them. When you join Amy Porterfield's Digital Course Academy, you'll get everything you need to turn your expertise into a profitable online course from idea to launch. You'll gain the confidence to build a business that gives you more time, more freedom, and more impact, all while helping others with what you know and love. Visit jenakuture.com/dca before it's too late. I believe in this course so much I've partnered up with Amy to ensure a fast route to success for you. When you enroll in the Digital Course Academy before the doors close, you'll also get my strategically built implementation suite of bonuses that's worth nearly $2,000, yours for free. Seriously, you do not want to miss this. This course won't be available again until next year, which means a heck of a lot of time between you and your online course dreams. As someone whose life has changed when she started teaching and creating digital courses, I personally cannot wait to help you get there too. Enroll now at jenakuture.com/dca before the doors close on September 26th. That's jenakuture.com/dca. And so I have very much learned the power of small and consistent actions. And I have learned that both in my personal health journey, but also in business. What does it look like to consistently show up? I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Gold Digger Podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a $300 camera from Craigslist and a dream. Now I'm running a 7-figure online business that feels even better than it looks all from my house in small town, Minnesota with my family. Here, we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain. Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no-fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired and empowered. This is the gold digger podcast. Have you ever found yourself waiting for the perfect moment to do something? Only to realize that that moment might never come. Maybe it's launching a new product, sharing content online, creating a podcast or even starting a new habit in your life. Now I have been there so many times before, stuck in the all or nothing mindset. I've been there where I think if I can't give 100% why even do it? Let me tell you that mindset has held me back at so many different stages and phases in my life. Whether it's in your business or your personal life, the pressure to do everything perfectly can be daunting and overwhelming. We convince ourselves that if we're not going all in, it's not worth doing but here's the truth. Perfection isn't the key to success, it's also not the requirement. Consistency is. Today we're talking about how the all or nothing mindset is probably doing more harm than good and how breaking free from it can open up doors that you didn't even know were closed. I'm going to share a bit of my own story throughout this episode, how I've tried to let go of perfectionism, how I've started focusing on small consistent improvements instead. And let me tell you, these shifts have been life changing for both my business and my personal life. Plus, I'll give you actionable tips that you can start implementing today to help you break free from that mindset. Get ready for an honest conversation about perfectionism, progress and how to finally move forward without waiting to be perfect. Let's go. Super quick question. How many tabs do you have open right now? Like actually go to your browser and check if you have ADHD like me, it's a lot. And when you throw a business into the mix, it's even more. You might have a tab for your email marketing system, one for your payment software, one for your CRM content tools, email tools. And with all those tabs, you're spending more time searching through data and less time, you know, growing your business. But with HubSpot's customer platform, you can close all those tabs and access all your tools in one convenient place. With HubSpot, you'll get everyone's eyes on the same work, boost data analysis with AI, optimize workflows for marketing, improve pipeline management for sales, and keep track of every customer question big or small. So close those tabs, it's business growing time. Visit HubSpot.com to get started today. That's HubSpot.com. Here are my fellow perfectionist at. I feel like so many of us in this community likely struggle with the trap of perfectionism. And I feel like I've been really reflective lately on like, where does that come from? Why am I this way? And I feel like my five year old is a huge mirror to me the other day. She was like, mom, it doesn't have to be perfect. And I was like, okay, she's saying to me what I constantly say to her, like it doesn't have to be perfect to be good. And yet I think innately, deep down, if I'm really being honest, I am still very wired to try and do things perfectly. And so even thinking about this episode, I'm like, I still actively struggle with a lot of this. I am unpacking so much in therapy. I've been doing therapy for over a year now. And it's so interesting to me just how so many different beliefs and mindsets are formed when you're so young, which is also slightly terrifying as a parent because you're like, what mindsets and beliefs am I giving my children? I don't know if any other parents feel that way, but you know, I even think back to my days as a really competitive gymnast. And I'm not talking about just like you go and like tumble a couple days a week. Like, I mean, we practiced during the school year from 430 to 845, four nights a week. And in the summer from noon to 845, four nights a week. So you can do the math. Like I was at the gym more than I was home oftentimes. And I loved gymnastics and I feel like watching the Paris Olympics just brought so many emotions back of like being in that chalky gym and the pressure of competition and saluting and all these different things. But I think that while I was so crazy passionate about gymnastics, I do think it ingrained this deep desire to be perfect, to look perfect, to not show that you're nervous, to hold it all together and all these different things. And so much of that poise has helped position me to where I am today. And I actually don't regret any of it. But when we think about some of the roadblocks we face and some of the ways that we block our own selves from success, I think perfectionism is a huge one. I think that oftentimes perfectionism leads us to procrastination, right? If I can't do it perfectly, I won't do it at all. And that procrastination can have us really be mean to ourselves. I saw a really cute reel the other day. And it was like, I recognize that I couldn't have even dreamt of this version of myself when I was younger. And I still have the audacity to be mean to her. How rude. And I was like, oh, that's so many of us like so many of us have achieved things even beyond what we had even dreamt. And yet we're still berating ourselves for not doing things perfectly or things like that. So I just want to kind of talk about how first perfectionism is likely leading to your procrastination. And so if you are somebody listening to this show and you're like, I thought I would be further by now, I thought I would have launched that thing. I thought the business would be successful. I thought my side hustle would be making more, whatever that is, you might be able to trace some of that dismay back to the idea of perfectionism and having it all be perfect. One of the things that I adopted actually really early on as an entrepreneur and looking back was probably one of the best mindset shifts that I adopted was done is better than perfect. And I've had to recognize that so many times over the years because I run with a very small team for the size of our business. We have a really small team. There are so many things that I did all by myself for so many years because I was reluctant to get help. And in that stage, it was kind of survival mode in so many ways. It was definitely the hustle phase of my business and I couldn't do it all perfectly. And so I really had to adopt this idea that done is better than perfect and I have seen that reflected in so many of my endeavors, like even starting this very podcast. I recorded the first episodes of my podcast in my parked car in my garage in Wisconsin in the winter using iPhone headphones because I couldn't even figure out a plug a USB mic into my computer. That's where we were at. Okay. And I have just recognized so often that like it's so much more about the message and the intention than the method. And I laugh because even to this day, I am a hundred percent certain there are still typos in my posts. There's probably typos on my website. I don't get it all right. And that's not what I'm trying to do. I want to show you that showing up imperfectly is better than sitting and waiting for things to be perfect. And ask what you're never going to show up if you do that perfectionism is the core of your procrastination. That's what I believe. But here's the good news. You're not alone in this. The Harding group conducted research in partnership with the social research lab at the University of Northern Colorado. They found that 86 percent of respondents believed perfectionistic expectations impact their work. It can manifest in our lives and our businesses in so many different ways. But specifically in our business, like waiting for the perfect time to start something or obsessing over details that don't actually matter in the bigger picture. I've said this before on the podcast, but I think oftentimes so many people are so concerned about looking like a business that they aren't actually doing the things required to make them a business, which ultimately at the end of the day is having an offer and getting something in exchange for the offer. We get so focused on the perfect website, the perfect social media feed, the perfect business plan, all of these things and they will all come and do time. But at the same point too, it threatens to hold us back from launching the thing in the first place. And I will tell you time and time again, nobody is obsessing over what you are doing or posting or saying or sharing as much as you are. Everyone has their microscope down on themselves in their own lives and they have their own tunnel vision. And so do not wait to be perfect in order to get your dreams off the ground. I think that I have found a really good balance of having a company with a company culture where we have really high standards for ourselves and our work, but we've also found that this idea of progress over perfection, that's been a game changer for our business. It helps us see the bigger picture and not get bogged down with all the small and insignificant details. I feel like, especially lately, just as my kids are getting older and I feel pulled in more directions, there have been so many times where I'm like, if something feels too complicated that we're not even doing it, how can we simplify it to just get it done? And so we have to recognize the trap of perfectionism and where it's showing up, adopt this, done is better than perfect mentality and really look at maybe some of the places that this perfectionism might stem from, thank it for the ways that it's helped us because, undoubtedly, it has, but also release it so that we can start to move forward and make progress. The next thing we need to talk about is why the all or nothing approach does not work. When you think about it, the all or nothing mindset can totally strike us both in business and in personal life. It could be with your health goals or your fitness schools, it could be in your relationships and having this outlook can totally set you up for failure. And I have seen this so many times in my own life. Here's a funny story. So years and years and years ago, one of my dearest friends, Meg, she has been gluten-free for years and she was just noticing things in my life that may be suggested that gluten wasn't a great thing for me and my body. And guess what? She was totally right, which I found out years later. So she took me grocery shopping and we bought all this gluten-free stuff. And I was like, all right, I'm just going to eliminate gluten. And guess what happened? I felt so overwhelmed. I wanted to do it perfectly. And as soon as I messed up, as soon as I took a bite of that pizza or had soy sauce or something like that, I was done. And it was so interesting because I didn't recognize it then, but I had let that perfectionism side come in. And so then a few years later, we're in the throes of my miscarriages. We're starting to do medical tests and blood work. I discover that I am really, really incredibly sensitive to gluten. And all of a sudden, I have a much stronger why, but now I have that past experience and that past knowledge to lean on. And so all of a sudden, it's so much easier for me to go gluten-free. And I recognize like, hey, I'm not going to do this all perfectly, but I'm going to get there slowly. And at that time, it's stuck and it worked. And so I have recognized in so many places in my life, I have had this tendency, these blind spots of like, I see things in black and white, like that is naturally how I see the world. There's a right way and a wrong way. And lately, I have been learning so much more and leaning so much more into the gray. I am a person who loves the all or nothing, because again, when you are a perfectionist, you want to go all in, right? Like you want to do it perfectly. And so learning how to accept and welcome in this middle approach is a challenge for me. And I have been kind of leaning into it, like, what does this look like? Like, maybe I don't work out every single day, but what if I get in the gym five days this week? Or, you know, even there are times in my life and there's so many times I can think of, but here are two examples. When I first started my business, I had a free WordPress blog. I told myself for no reason other than just telling myself, I'm going to blog Monday through Friday every single day. I did that for years and years and years. And looking back, it taught me consistency. It taught me how to show up imperfectly, but I like would never miss a day. Never miss a day. Like I would wake up at like five AM just to publish a post. I don't even know who was reading it. I don't think anybody was reading it, but it taught me consistency. And then finally, I got burnt out. Like I was like, I have nothing more say. I don't even know if anyone besides my mom is actually reading this. What is the point of this? And then I just wanted to stop. But I found a middle approach and I was like, what if I blog two to three times a week when I have something to say, when I'm excited about what I'm saying. Another example of this is when I used to do CrossFit. I went Monday through Friday at 815. I never missed a single day. I get really addicted and obsessed with things. And again, while that can be helpful in a lot of scenarios, it doesn't leave a lot of room for the great. It doesn't leave a lot of room for life or recovery or change. And so motherhood, I think has really forced me to look myself in the eye and to see the areas of my life where I think about all or nothing or I approach things in that manner. Because motherhood is humble me in so many ways. It has slowed me down and it has shown me that I have to stay nimble and flexible to keep moving forward. And so we need to understand that if you are someone that is approaching business or your next dream or the next big project with this all or nothing mindset, you have to welcome in shades of gray and more moments for flexibility. Success comes from building sustainable habits and small incremental actions lead to greater long term results. And so when you shift from the all or nothing to something is better than nothing, that is when you are able to make progress. When you recognize that a five minute workout is better than no workout at all and that you don't have to get super sweaty or be in a gym for an hour to count that, you start to see that like, Hey, this is actually still moving me closer to the dream. It might be slower. It might be imperfectly, but I'm still moving. And so if you are someone who is in this all or nothing mindset, I want for you to challenge yourself and see where you can invite in great. And I also want to challenge you in the way that you are setting yourself up for failure. In the way that you're saying, you know, I'm not going to eat any processed food for the next 30 days and then three days in you fail and you just give up on that goal. How can you invite in small bits of progress and more shades of gray so that you stay flexible and you stay active in the engagement of your goals so that you can continue to move forward? Number three is the power of small and consistent actions. If you can get 1% better each day for one year, you'll end up 37 times better by the time you're done. That is one of my favorite quotes from the legendary book that I'm sure all of you have read, Tommy Cappets by James Clear, 1% better each day. You'll end up 37 times better. That is crazy. So here's what I want for you to think about, consistency beats intensity, small daily actions compound over time to create significant results. If you are known for the drama, for the big things, the other day, I was in a text thread with a group of really close friends and they were like, for the next 30 days, here's what we're doing. And it was like a lot of stuff, like it was not eating junk food, not drinking, reading this many pages in a book, it was just like a lot of things, it was like 10 things. And I was laughing because they were already like one day in, we're like, how's it going? And they're like, well, so and so failed on this and I didn't do that. And I was like, okay, we're likely setting ourselves up for failure. What if we just picked one of those things and did that for the next 30 days? And then the next 30 days, you pick another one of those things. And so consistency beats intensity. And so how can we bring more consistency in our lives? One of the things that I love, my friend, Jay Shetty said, we were at a mastermind and he was talking about how we don't talk enough about doing the reps. You think about athletes and like how many times they stand at the free throw line and throw shot after shot after shot to get better or a golfer, how many times do you hit that golf ball to learn? And we think about doing the reps as athletes, but we don't necessarily translate that over to entrepreneurship. I have done over 800 reps when it comes to this podcast. Guess what? I've gotten better every single time. I have written thousands of blog posts over the years. The blog gets better every single time. And so we need to think about areas of our life where we can do the reps. What does that look like showing up imperfectly showing up even if we're not doing it every single day? How do we put in the reps? Every day, if you could just focus on one action to move the needle forward, that is going to get you further than waiting for the perfect time or the perfect moment or the perfect website or the perfect social media feed. I notice this a lot with my health journey and a lot of times people ask me like, what do you do? And how did you get into this and all this stuff? And I have changed things very slowly over a significant period of time. I am talking about seven years. Seven years ago was when we had our second miscarriage when I really started digging into my health. And it's so interesting because this last year I was diagnosed with PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome. A lot of women have it. And it was crazy to me because this diagnosis came out of the blue after my childbearing days are over after having two children and two miscarriages. And it was so interesting because one, I wasn't super emotional about the diagnosis. I was more intrigued, but too, when I googled the things you should be doing for PCOS, I realized that I actually started my journey of healing that aspect of my life years and years ago without even knowing that I had it from eliminating gluten to focusing on my blood sugar to more mindful movement and less intensity to focusing on my sleep. There are so many different areas where I was following the protocol and honestly, going backwards a little bit. I think it was a blessing in disguise that I didn't get that diagnosis when I was in the throes of loss and so overwhelmed because with my all or nothing tendency, I would not have been able to follow through and integrate all of these things where now my PCOS does not really impact my life. I don't feel the impacts of it because I've done so many different things to heal it over seven years that now have gotten me to the point where I am today. And so I have very much learned the power of small and consistent actions. And I have learned that both in my personal health journey, but also in business. What does it look like to consistently show up? Yes, I can laugh that I blogged every single day for years without really having any strategy, without really having any readership. But I learned how to consistently show up, how to write, how to think of things to say, how to say things in different ways, how to create content. Whether it is posting content consistently or chipping away at a big project in small bursts or committing to bite size goals or digging your biggest goals in life or business, it's all in the little things. I think our moms are right with those like weird little boards that have those cute little quotes on them in our houses of like, life is all the little things. It's actually true. Something that changes the game for me is that when perfection isn't the goal, momentum becomes the goal. And when you do something consistently, it becomes a habit and that habit becomes second nature and you start to see the progress and that progress gets so exciting. And that is when the magic happens. So let go of the need for everything to be perfect for you to think of these grandiose things that you want to do and start committing to small consistent actions. If I could, you know what, after this episode, I'm going to text my friends who came up with that crazy 30 day thing that they're going to do and say, pick one, pick one or two things that you're going to do for the next 30 days and fully commit to them. Stop with y'all or nothing. Stop with the overwhelming. We literally set ourselves up for failure so often and we don't even recognize that we self sabotage before we even begin. And so what are some small consistent actions you can take? Maybe it is going to bed 20 minutes earlier. Maybe it is sleeping with your phone out of your bedroom so that you read more or sleep better. Maybe it is creating a post and introducing yourself to your audience. Maybe it is pitching yourself to be a guest on a show, whatever that thing is, what is an action that you can take consistently so that you can do the reps and build the muscle and build the confidence that you can follow through. And then lastly, here are some actionable tips. So like, how do we do this? This is all super great, but like, what does this actually look like? So first, whenever I think of mindset, because it is such a huge piece of entrepreneurship, I think a lot of times we don't even take a moment to reflect on what our mindset is and where did it come from and who gave it to us and what was their intention. And so we need to first focus on what our mindsets are around perfectionism, around all or nothing, and around consistency. What do you believe to be true about yourself? Do you believe that you are never capable of actually following through? Do you believe that you will never be perfect enough to put it out there? Do you believe that you have to do the big things and that the small things don't matter? What are those mindsets that you are clinging to that are so deeply ingrained in who you are? They help you to show up in the way that you've been showing up that hasn't really moved you forward in the way that you want to. So one of the things that I've really, really taught over the years, because I've noticed this with so many women entrepreneurs specifically, is that you have to start before you're ready and you have to just let people in. You have to be willing to be a beginner and to show up as a beginner. And that's hard in these days of perfect and polished, right? But it's relatable. And that's how I got my start is saying, hey, come along and they have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm doing it. And guess what? To this day, I still feel like that a lot of the time. And so start before you're ready. Be comfortable with launching a little messy without all the pieces figured out. You know, recently we did this where we had to kind of look at a big project, a massive project, which was launching our new brand. And we had to figure out, okay, we're just going to put this out there. It's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be fully done. We knew that every single page on my website and every single graphic template was not going to be ready on the day that we launched. But we had already been sitting on this for a couple of months trying to line up all the different contractors. And so I was like, you know what, let's just put it out there and we are going to continue to update things over time. It's probably going to take another year or maybe even two to get everything up to the standard that I want it to be. But what good was that new brand and that new website and those new images doing, just sitting on my computer and not being out in the world? And so how can you start before you're ready? How can you set realistic, small goals that actually feel doable, that feel easy, even on your worst days? Don't look at your best days. Look at your worst days. What can you commit to micro goals keep you moving forward without feeling overwhelming? So how can you eliminate the overwhelm and start introducing new daily habits so that you can do the reps? And then celebrate, celebrate your progress, celebrate progress and not perfection. Just last night I texted one of my dearest friends and I said, Hey, I know you're in a really big launch. I know you've been working super hard on it. I have a question for you. How are you going to celebrate this? What does that look like? How are you going to finish this with pride and pause long enough to celebrate? And I challenge her. I ask my friends this all the time, like when I see them doing a big project, whether it's launching a book or putting a new podcast out into the world or launching a course or whatever that is, I will text them and say, how are you going to celebrate this? And I'm going to hold you to that because life moves so fast. And for so many of us, we're already on to the next thing before we finish the current thing. And so celebrate your progress, recognize it, document it, acknowledging even the smallest wins will keep you motivated and help you see that like, yeah, a little bit goes a long way. One of the best things that you can do is figure out and map out celebrating, put it in your calendar, schedule a reservation at your favorite place, give yourself an hour to do whatever the heck you want, whatever that celebration looks like, but put it on your calendar or it's not going to happen. The next thing is one of the best things you can do is to stop labeling things as successes and failures and look at it all as experiments and learning. Every single setback is a stepping stone to improvement. And let me tell you, nobody that is successful, nobody had it easy. Nobody did it without making mistakes along the way. The difference is that people were willing to show up and make those mistakes sometimes even publicly in order to learn and grow and evolve and do. And lastly, surround yourself with people who embrace and celebrate your progress, who do not expect perfect from you, nor do they want it, whether it is a mastermind, an online community, whether it is peers, friends, your partner, your children, make sure that you hold yourself to the standard that you hold your loved ones to, which is you don't have to be perfect to be good. And the world needs what you have. And so you've got to just start showing up and offering it. All right. I hope today's episode gave you some powerful insight into this all or nothing mindset. And how it might be holding you back perfectionism isn't your path to success, consistent and small, actionable steps are, whether it's your business, your health, relationships, or any other area of your life focusing on progress over perfection will get you so much further in the long run. So my question for you is we close this out. What is one small step or commitment you can make today? Maybe it's launching the project you've been sitting on posting the content you've been holding back or just taking a few minutes to move your body. Whatever it is, just start no matter how small every single step counts. And as always, gold digger, keep on digging your biggest goals because you are more than capable of making progress one imperfect step at a time. Thanks for pulling up a seat for another episode of the gold digger podcast. I hope today's episode fueled you with inspiration gave you information that you can turn into action and realigned you with your true north in life and business. If you've enjoyed today's episode, head on over to golddiggerpodcast.com for today's show notes, discount codes for our sponsors, freebies to fuel your results, and so much more. And if you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed so that you never miss a future show. We'll see you next time, gold diggers. [MUSIC]
