[Ep 90] my mind was BLOWN with this way to release perfectionism

So, I'm reading this book called The 80/80 Marriage, and in it they shared this exercise called the "Life Report Card". I can tell you, that within the last 10 years of doing this coaching thing and working with clients and reading tons of books...I have NEVER heard of something as brilliant as this. 

It was liberating. 

If you get stuck on perfectionism, or if you feel like you're wearing ALL the hats and are doing a half-assed job at them you need to listen to this episode ASAP. I share with you step by step how to practically release perfectionism and give yourself permission to NOT be the best at everything. 

Enjoy! 

Chapters

• 0:02 Liberating Life Report Card Concept
• 10:09 Letting Go of Perfectionism in Business
• 23:53 Exciting Podcast Announcement Coming Soon

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Money and Miracles podcast with me, emily King. We call ourselves Rich Women over here because we are all about living the rich woman life inside and out. We take the taboo out of talking money and we say yes to our desires. And each week I'll be bringing you a dose of money, mindset and relatable life stories so you can go out into the world and live your best freaking life. Let's do this. Rich woman. Hey, hey, welcome back. What's up? How we doing? What's all the news? Well, I tell ya what I'm about to share with you.

Speaker 1: 0:44

My jaw dropped when I read it and it was like instantly liberating. So what I'm going to share with you in just a second may be one of the most liberating exercises and concepts that you'll have heard in a very long time, and it can possibly set you free and give you such a sense of ease and joy and freedom in your life and or business. So what is it that I'm talking about? So I'm reading this book called the 80-80 Marriage, like 8-0 slash 8-0. And it came from inspiration earlier this year. I was like, okay, what are things that I want to improve? And my husband and I we've been together 16 years now. Yeah, 16 years, no, 17 years. And I was like you know we have a great relationship, but I'm like I want to make it it even better. Like what? What can we do to make it even better? So, anyhow, I do a quick google search like marriage books, something like that, like something very basic or like improving relationship, like something like that. Anyways, and this came to the top of the search, which was the 8080 marriage, and the subtitle is a new model for a happier, stronger relationship, and the authors are nate klemp and kaylee klemp, and I think they're married. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they're married.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Um, anyhow, and just to give you a little background not that we're gonna get, this is not a book review, but just give you a little background. It's their whole concept, is? It takes you kind of through the generations of you. You know you had the generation of the 80-20 marriage, where the women were doing 80% of the domestic work, the mental load work, the kids, the cooking, the cleaning, and you know most women didn't work back in the day. Right, it was, the men went to the work, went to work, and it was comical Like they shared some old articles from books and magazines and that kind of stuff, of kind of the rules, if you will, for men and women. And it was comical. It was like when the men come home from work, like women you should put all your issues aside, like don't say anything about your day, listen to them. Like it was just comical, the old mentality and way of being in relationships. So that was the 80-20 model. And then, you know, in newer times we've come to the more 50-50 model. Women are working, men are taking on some of the load, from the house chores to the kids stuff, and so we've got more 50-50 model.

Speaker 1: 3:22

But this book comes up with this idea that the 50-50 model, yes, it came from a good place, but it's based on fairness and who's doing what, and I did this and you didn't do that. And it inevitably leaves someone feeling gypped right or this whole fairness model kind of has the underlying undertone of like, if I win, you lose. You know, if I have to do the dishes, I'm losing and you're winning because you don't right. And then their whole premise of this book is to share their model, which is the 80-80 model, where each partner gives beyond 50% and goes into the space of thinking of their marriage as a team effort and a team sport and this whole idea of radical generosity. And it's a win-win model where it's not if I do the dishes I'm losing and you're winning because you get to sit and like do whatever, but it's I'm doing the dishes to help us, you know, to support us, and it's not this tit for tat I did this, you gotta do that. It's this radical generosity mindset and anyways, I won't get into it because I mean it's a whole book on it but that's the Coles Notes version of it. But why I share this book is because throughout the whole book and I'm three quarters of the way through now, I'm just about done is they give different exercises of things you can do by yourself with your partner to strengthen the relationship.

Speaker 1: 5:01

And I got to this spot in the book and if any of you guys are going to get the book, it's on page 118 and it's called the life report card. Now I've done the life wheel before, or the wheel of life, where you have all these different areas of life could be finances, health, career, relationships, family, etc, etc. And you give yourself a score from one to 10. And I've done that many times and the whole premise of you know the wheel of life is. You want it to have kind of a nice even wheel Like. You don't want like clunky spots in it. You want it to be as even as possible, right? So if you have something that's a nine out of 10 and something that's a two out of 10, well, what can we do to improve the two out of 10, to bring it up more closely to the others? And that's all good, that's all wonderful and it has served me well. It has served probably tens of thousands of people well in this world.

Speaker 1: 5:55

But when I opened up this book and came to the part where they were talking about the life report card, it completely blew my mind and had me go holy shit, this is so liberating. Let me explain it to you. So part of it I'll read and then part of it I'll just kind of paraphrase. It says the goal of this practice is to give you a chance to candidly assess your grades in subjects that span the full spectrum of activities in life and in marriage. Now I'm going to pause for a moment and just say you can apply this to business and I'm going to give some business examples afterwards, but for now we're going to stick to the life and marriage thing, and then we're going to get into how it applies to entrepreneurship, business and life.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Okay, so it says you will first fill out your actual grades, which reflect your current level of effort in each of these areas. Be brutally honest here. You will then fill out your ideal grades, those that reflect your highest priorities. Be realistic here. Most important, as you fill out your ideal grades, make sure your priorities reflect your shared values of success as a couple. So let me explain that for a second. If you have now one of the subjects that they have here is career. If you have an ideal grade of an A in it, but yet family time and I don't know, spending more like family time in general, like with the whole family, and then having more couples time like date night and stuff, is your top value of a successful marriage, well then, maybe career shouldn't be an A that you desire to have in it. Maybe you can give yourself permission to have a B, because it's not truly your top value and the values that lead to your definition of a successful marriage and or life Right Make sense.

Speaker 1: 7:59

So here was the jaw-dropping thing that they get into. Two things things one. It says give up on perfection. Remember, don't try to quote-unquote. Have it all by bit. By being a life valley victorian, it's hopeless. Limit yourself now, this is key. Limit yourself to one to three a's. What now for those of you listening? Probably all of us are like but I need to be a's. What Now for those of you listening? Probably all of us are like but I need to be A's in all the things. Right, you only give me one to three A's. I'm allowed to give myself. Yes, now I'm going to carry on.

Speaker 1: 8:34

Tip two, they say, is to look forward to failure. What, as you consider your ideal grades? Don't be afraid to fail. C's, d's and F's are a good thing in this practice. By failing in some subjects, you free up more energy to do well in the one or two that matter most to you. Now, that was the most liberating thing I could have heard, because for so long we have been trying to do it all, have it all, be it all, be the A's in every subject.

Speaker 1: 9:13

And in this or these authors, I should say giving us permission and saying look forward to failure, because in fact, when you're failing in certain subjects, it means you're putting your energy and attention towards the other subjects that are aligned with your values. It's like, oh, so let me give you I guess I'll give you the full list of subjects that they give. Okay, so here we go Housework, parenting, career, personal growth, friend slash, family time, couple time, community involvement, family time, couple time, community involvement, spirituality, travel, exercise, political activism, learning, rest time, life logistics, right. And then they have at the bottom total number of A's no more than one to three. So if you were to go through that list, like what would you give yourself?

Speaker 1: 10:09

And there's some things in there that I'm totally okay with giving myself an F, a failure, or a D, which they equate to being poor, like political activism, or a D, which they equate to being poor, like political activism. I mean, maybe I'd give myself a D just for the sake that I actually vote, but I could give myself an F because I have zero political activism. Actually, I guess there's certain things that I'm passionate about when it comes to things. So, yeah, I give myself a D, okay, but the liberating thing was, for example, housework. I would probably give myself a B like a good.

Speaker 1: 10:45

And then I realized who does this belong to? Like, that's not my value, not that I want to have a house that is a complete disaster. But here's the thing and this is not to shit on my mom or this is not to shit on anyone involved in your life, if you can relate but here's the thing my mom is like OCD when it comes to cleaning. Right, has an immaculately clean house, like probably washes her floors every other day I'm not even joking and I'm almost certain she vacuums every single day. So like this is like cleaning to the extreme. So that's what I grew up with as a mom, parent, wife, human adult.

Speaker 1: 11:29

That programming is kind of in my head of like you have to have a clean house, needs to be tidy for that sense of like value and worth. And uh, you know when people come over and how often do we as women especially go, oh, my God, don't mind the messy house. If someone comes over and there's like a dirty dish on the counter, we apologize for these things. And what I love about this is it's like F that stop trying to live up to someone else's value system. That doesn't even matter to you. So I've been fighting myself and I know this might sound a little silly, but like on the housework, my brain, my perfectionism, my growing up. You got to have a clean house and spotless.

Speaker 1: 12:12

All that kind of stuff wants me to be an A. It wants me to be an A in housework and for years I've been a B, if not maybe a C, which is satisfactory Right Right now the house is probably a C and I've been fighting myself and then having to step back and having these authors go wait a minute. You only get one to three A's out of all those subjects and you get to fail at certain things. You get to get c's, d's, f's at. Stuff is so liberating of like right. This is my life. This is my life, not my mom's, not my sister's, not my cousins, not my daughters. It's my life and I get to choose my values in it.

Speaker 1: 12:54

And I can't have, I can't try to be in a at everything Housework, parenting, career, personal growth, friends, couple time, community involvement, right, political activism. What were the other things here? Exercise, travel, spirituality, learning, rest time, life logistics. I cannot be an A and the more I fight myself and trying to be an A in everything, the more I'm going to get frustrated and I will never get there. So I'm I am. I'm fighting a losing battle where it is impossible for me to win. So how does this relate to you and your life and finances and your money and perhaps even your business? Well, here's something that I'm really proud of as a business owner is that and I, from probably day one, I've given myself permission to not be perfect at all the things.

Speaker 1: 13:51

Like I remember early on I was in a peer mastermind with a few friends of mine and they had already had established businesses, or at least like I don't know, maybe at least a year or so, and they had the websites and they had the fancy opt-ins and they had the fancy opt-ins and they had the nice sales pages and they had the podcast, some of them. And I kind of showed up, like kind of like. I almost felt like I was like showing up for a trip, like travel vacation, with like just like my purse, like nothing packed, no sneakers, no change of underwear. It's just like, yeah, here I am, I'm here for the party, and I really love that naive aspect of underwear. It was just like, yeah, here I am, I'm here for the party, and I really love that naive aspect of me. That's just like I'm just here to have fun. I'm like let's do this thing.

Speaker 1: 14:34

And in another mastermind I was in with Laura Belgray, we called it slapping shit up. Like you slap shit up when you have this inspired idea and you just like, screw perfectionism, screw the perfect website page and all the marketing, advertising and posts and all that kind of stuff. You just slap that shit up and you let it be messy and you do the thing that you're called to do and trust to know that people are going to show up. Now, that's not to say you don't do any marketing or any sharing or anything like that, but really letting go of needing to be the A grade in all the categories in the social media posts like Instagram or TikTok or Twitter. And then you need to be an A in blogging and you need to have an A plus website and you need to have an A in I don't know your emails that you do every week. And you need to have a podcast, okay, and you need to be investing in ads every week.

Speaker 1: 15:22

Like there's so many layers of business and even money. Like we just apply this to money. You got debt, you got savings. You have your income from your business. You have sales, you have your spending habits, you have your retirement savings, you have maybe even your children's money is in there. There's so many categories and just taking that step back and going wait a minute whose values am I blindly following and what are my values? And then, knowing my values, how can I then adjust my map, if you will for me, adjust my blueprint so that I'm not trying to get an A in all the things but I'm giving myself permission to even get an F in some of the things, knowing that I don't give a shit? Yes, I know, you know someone like I would probably give myself a D.

Speaker 1: 16:22

I would say, when it comes to actually posting on Instagram, I'm best kind like I'm great with stories, I love doing stories, but actually doing a post on Instagram, I give myself a D. Like I'm, I don't like doing it. I don't like, I don't like posting on Instagram. I'm okay with that right now. Right, because I'm still doing my podcast, I'm doing emails. I just hopped off a workshop today, a vision board workshop. That was phenomenal. I'm doing my prosperity program with a group of people there's 50 odd people in that group Like I'm okay with letting some of the other things go.

Speaker 1: 16:56

So all this to say, where can you give yourself permission to release your grip on some of the things and give yourself a C or less grade. So come up with your own categories, because everyone's going to be different, and you could even do maybe even a Google search of, like, different aspects of business, different categories of business, and give yourself some categories and then reflect on what would I give myself a grade of right now as it is and what's my ideal. So, for example, let me just I'll just give you real transparency right here is my podcast. I'm fairly like I missed last week and I gave myself permission to miss last week, but pretty much every single week I post a podcast. I'm very consistent with it. Rarely do I miss a weekly podcast. So because of that, I probably give myself at least a C, if not a B. Now let me just see I'm just going to open up their ratings again, see what they said. Okay, so a C is satisfactory and a B is good. Okay, so I would give myself a, probably a, a B minus. Okay, cause I like how I'm consistent.

Speaker 1: 18:15

I'm enjoying the topics that I'm doing, but I am not sharing about it very much. I don't talk about my podcast a whole lot. I even forget to even mention to people when I introduced myself that I'm a podcast host. Um, I don't talk about my podcast a whole lot. I even forget to even mention to people when I introduce myself that I'm a podcast host. I don't I get lazy for the advertising behind it. Behind it for like sharing on Instagram or sharing in my emails or whatever about my podcast. I'm not doing any ads behind my podcast.

Speaker 1: 18:42

Now there could be a version of me and a values part of me. That is totally okay with that. That just loves doing the podcast for the sake of the value that it gives to people organically, and so be it. But the business owner and the values that I have and the kind of vision I see for my business, I would like to be an A in my podcast, which means that version of me is doing Facebook ads or some sort of paid ads to generate traffic to her podcast. She is talking about it more. She probably has a content plan behind her podcast, like right now I don't have. I pretty much week to week go.

Speaker 1: 19:20

Okay, what do I feel compelled to talk about? Right, sometimes I have a bit of a content plan, most times not, right, it's just me being totally transparent with you guys, and so I would like to be an A. I'm satisfied and happy with being a B minus, but I would like to be an A, if not A minus. Right, I would like to improve my rating there. Now let's just use Instagram posting. Once again, I said I give myself what was it? A D, I'm okay with that being a D. Right now. I have no desire to improve it to a C, a, b, an A I'm okay with it being a D. And so where can you give yourself those permission slips that you need, instead of trying to be an A at everything? Comparing yourself with Sally over there, who's got, I don't know, 500 likes on her last post and what are you going to go? That's cool. I'm happy for Sally and I love that. I'm focused on what lights me up and what I value, and I'm happy to improve the things that I want to improve.

Speaker 1: 20:21

So, coming back to just the 80-80 marriage and their examples they give when it comes to marriage and couples. So, for example, my husband and I were going to do this, but I know right off the bat, like couple time, I would give us C satisfactory Every now, and then we make the effort to like. Like we were at an Airbnb the other weekend for our anniversary. Like we were at an Airbnb the other weekend for our anniversary we went to a movie by ourselves. Like we had we dropped Zoe off at my parents' house for a night a few weeks before that. Like we do have some couple time.

Speaker 1: 20:57

But it's probably, like I said, a C. Right, it's satisfactory, it's not poor, it's not non-existent, it's a C. I would like it to be a B. I don't need to be excellent, I don't need to be on a date with him every single night, but I would like it to be a bit better. I would like to be good, because I really value my husband, I really value having a relationship with him and I know that that, at least for me, having that foundation, that core that connection is, is such a strong pillar that trickles out into all other areas right, business, obviously, our family as a whole with our daughter, our relationships with other people. If we're, if we're happy together, then you know that's going to make our relationships with other people happy, you know, and not like, oh God, justin did this or whatever you know, like so yeah, that's just an example of how that relates back to the 80-80 marriage book. So, anyways, that's all I got for you today.

Speaker 1: 21:55

Like I said that, that whole exercise blew my mind and I knew I had to bring it on the podcast today to share it with you guys, to maybe you apply it to your marriage as well and practice that exercise with your partner, do that exercise with your partner and maybe you reflect on it around your business, around your money. And actually, real quick, like with money, maybe you've been, I don't know, trying to put an A effort into your retirement savings because, I don't know, maybe somebody told you you should be saving for retirement but in reality you're like, hey, I got this debt over here, and if I just got rid of that debt, if I paid off that debt, whoo, that would be liberating, right. So maybe you need to evaluate your different areas in money and give yourself permission around that. And actually, as I'm saying this out loud, I have a money wheel exercise. I'm going to modify it for this. So, basically, my money wheel has eight different categories of your money and you rate yourself from one to ten in it, and it can be things like savings, debt, even your expectation around money.

Speaker 1: 23:01

What do you expect around your money? Are you expecting it just to stay the same old ho-hum, whatever, or are you expecting it to grow? Do you feel really good about it? So I have eight different categories around money in a money wheel and I approached it like the wheel of life exercise, where you rate yourself one to 10. Okay, what are some areas you'd like to improve?

Speaker 1: 23:19

But, as I'm saying this out loud, stay tuned because I'm going to modify it to be more of this grading scale like A to F, so it's more liberating and not like all right, we got to be perfect in all the things, but like what can we just focus on and give ourselves permission to release for the other stuff? Right? Anyhow, you're getting me in real time sharing with you inspiration. Okie, dokie. Now that's really it for now. We'll leave it at that. Hope you enjoyed.

Speaker 1: 23:53

If you're enjoying this podcast, subscribe, leave a review. I would love you so much if you left a positive review. It means the world to me. And stay tuned because I got some exciting things coming. We got some exciting things coming. We got some exciting things coming I. It will be starting in June. I can't tell you what it is yet, partially because it's not fully solidified in my head, but I have the concept and the idea already. But it's going to be big, it's going to be amazing. It's going to start in June. You're going to love it. So that's it. Have an amazing day. Thank you for being here and bye for now.