Breaking Free From Perfectionism & Pressure
EXCITING NEWS: I've got a brand new free 3 part audio series for highly sensitive ambitious women over 40 who want to learn to Flip Your Anxiety "OFF" Switch"! SIGN UP FOR FREE HERE: https://www.megan-nolan.com/offswitch
Are you tired of constantly feeling the pressure to be perfect? Whether it’s from the world, the weight of obligations, or the pressure to keep up the momentum in your work, perfectionism can feel like an endless cycle of stress and anxiety.
If you’ve ever felt trapped by these expectations—like you’re always pushing yourself harder just to stay afloat—this week's podcast episode is for YOU!
In today’s episode, I’m getting real about breaking free from the pressure of perfectionism and how it’s impacting your mental and emotional well-being. You’re not alone in this.
I’ve been there too, navigating the demands of growing a movement and trying to follow every instruction—sometimes out of obligation, not inspiration. But here’s the truth: when we try to do everything “perfectly,” we disconnect from our true selves and only fuel the anxiety that’s been holding us back.
What you'll learn:
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✨ The real cost of trying to do it all “perfectly” and why it’s keeping you stuck in a state of anxiety. ✨ How to break free from the weight of perfectionism without losing momentum in your life or business.
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✨ Simple, actionable tools to help you stop feeling overwhelmed and start feeling more aligned, present, and connected to yourself.
Want to learn to mute the mental noise and regain control of your mind in just 6 minutes a day? Join us for the brand new free 3 part audio series to Flip Your Anxiety "OFF" Switch": https://www.megan-nolan.com/offswitch
Please find the show notes below. Since it is a transcription there may be spelling errors and/or weird grammar. Ignore that and enjoy!
Breaking free from perfectionism
and pressure. An ongoing
practice for me and maybe for you too,
which is why that is the focus of
today's episode of the Movement,
Mind and Meaning Podcast,
Mind and Body Tools to help you to thrive
beyond anxiety and depression. I'm your
host, Megan Nolan, and I'm really
excited to. Get into this very
relevant, very personal, very
00:00:33,1000 --> 00:00:36,640
timely conversation that I hope
that is really supportive for you. I hope
you feel seen. I hope you feel
encouraged. I hope you learn something. I
hope you get inspired. And we're gonna
jump into this in a moment, but I wanted
to let you know. That I have a
brand new totally free
audio series that is just been
released, actually just a couple days ago
upon release of this episode called the
Anxiety Off Switch.
Do you want to learn how to flip your
anxiety off switch so that you can mute
the mental noise and gain control over
your mind in just six minutes every day
so that you can become a nervous system
ninja?You can become your own best
advisor because you can tap into your
inner wisdom and follow that truth and be
able to go from being a worn out woman,
the frantic and frazzled and vibe.
To being grounded and powerful and in
your leadership energy as your serene
queen self. Well, the Flip Your Anxiety
off switch mini audio series, 3
mini training sessions that are audio
based so you can listen to them anywhere,
anytime. Totally free, brand new. I'm
really excited to share it with you. So
they're bite sized, only 15 minutes each.
Perfect way for you to learn how.
To mute the mental noise and regain
control over your mind. So make sure to
join us for that, right?It's available
now. And when you sign up for free before
April 10th, you actually get a
bonus call inside the pop-up community.
So it's an incredible community of other
super ambitious, highly sensitive,
incredible beings up to big and beautiful
things. I mean, who knows who you'll meet
in there, but when you sign up for free
before the 10th, you actually get a bonus
call inside this pop-up community, so
make sure to grab that. And if you
are hearing this in the future, whenever
you are there, there's going to be
other things. So grab that as well. OK,
so let's talk about it. Let's
have some real talk here about
internalized pressure and the habit
of being highly attentive to detail,
a perfectionist. And I want
to start by saying, you know, before
I pressed record on this, I was like,
yeah. I kind of like
sometimes have regret about making this
both an audio and a video because I'm
not gonna lie, I just had. I just had a I
had a power pause. That was a full
cry. It was a full like,
oh man, I don't know, I was having a lot
of thoughts about what's
next. I was feeling a lot of pressure. We
just finished up. The anxiety and
stress reset in the power pause movement
just a couple weeks ago and there was a
lot of, you know, anticipation and build
up for that. And I'm excited to be
offering this anxiety off switch. And so
I feel for me, I feel
as though I put a lot of pressure
on myself and
maybe you can relate to this. My
accountability buddy and I were having a
chat. I would love to know
some of your DM. Are you an oldest child?
Both she and I are oldest children, I
feel, and many oldest children that I've
meet are very responsible, very driven.
I feel like we were almost groomed to be
leaders. But in my
family we were also conditioned
to be very high achieving
and performance driven, to
receive love and to feel
worthy in my case. And so a
lot of that in the past
was a real driving force for me
internally. And so this is interesting,
right?Like let's talk about how being
very driven, being very ambitious, being
very sensitive, being very goal focused,
high achiever if you will, high performer
oftentimes, there's a double-edged sword
to that, right?If we're doing that from a
place of dysregulation and. A
push energy of what's next. Let's go. Got
to keep the momentum going and feeling
like you're the one. Oh, I can feel that.
And you're the one that's driving
the bus. That starts to
feel like all of a sudden you're not
driving the bus forward, but instead
you're pulling the bus backwards up
Everest with no Sherpa, no team. You're
pulling it backwards up the hill, right?
It starts to feel really difficult if we
are. In that
energetic,
contracted state,
and it's important for us to
remember that
perfectionism is
actually a protective pattern, an
adaptive mechanism developed by the
subconscious mind in a response to
stress. Right. So when we have these
external pressures, whether it's in the
work scenario or in the
relationships or family scenario, we have
this event or thing
or part of our life that is activating
the stress response. If one of your
protective patterns and adaptive
mechanisms is to be a
perfectionist, to be very overly
attentive to making everything exactly
perfect and exactly as it should be. That
can be something that really begins to
consume a lot of
your energy, right?And so it's
an interesting thing because
is that authentic for you?
In a sense, this protective
pattern, because it's hardwired from when
you were a child and you were modeled
this behavior. This is something that you
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learned a long time ago and you've been
practicing it for quite some time.
Perhaps enough to feel like it's part of
who you are, right?And this, this trait
isn't who you are. You're not a
perfectionist. You have perfectionist
tendencies, right?Maybe or maybe not.
And I also want to, you know, I want to
say that I also appreciate having high
standards, right?Especially when it's
your own business or you're very
concerned for the quality of your work,
which you should be regardless of if it
was your own business or not. We want
things to be up to a certain caliber.
Right. And so I'm not saying, you know,
you just like haphazardly slap things out
on the wherever. But what I'm saying is,
is that when we hold
ourselves to these extremely high
standards, it's very
difficult for us to achieve them and it
only gives fuel to that stress, worried
fire that's inside of us that's driving
the bus in the 1st place, so.
Is that pattern really who you are?
No. It's something that you've practiced
and it's hardwired in, but it allows you
to kind of default back to that and it
causes us to get tripped up by that. And
so trying to do things quote UN
00:07:35,1000 --> 00:07:37,440
quote perfectly
because it's activating even
more of a stress response in our body,
we're very much in our head. Right. And
we're not in that place of connected
self. We're not in that place of
embodiment. We're not in in that place of
flow and true self and the wisdom within
you, right. We're out of touch with with
the wisdom within us. We're out of touch
with the vibe of the vision that's
00:07:59,1000 --> 00:08:01,840
pulling you forward. That is the trilogy
of transformation. But we are being
really led by this old
pattern. Right. And so that
00:08:09,1000 --> 00:08:12,080
old pattern might be part of the younger
you inside of you. And because it's a
protective pattern and it's and it's a a
part of you, we want to acknowledge it
and we want to hold space for that. But
we want to recognize that we don't
necessarily need to have it run the show
anymore. But I also want to add to the
conversation is that
this level of.
Externalized stress, right, of
what's happening in the world currently
right now, it's March something 2025.
You might be listening to this in April,
something 2025 or maybe beyond. But right
now, especially here in the US and
00:08:46,1000 --> 00:08:49,1000
globally, life is very different,
right?And there's a lot of things
happening politically, systemically
that are for those of us that are
sensitive and empathetic.
And potentially neurodivergent that are
very sensitive and that have a high
standard and a a
deep intuitive sense of what feels
good to us and what is what we want to
see happen in the world and what is just
and what is right and what is fair and
democratic. We're seeing a lot that's
contrary to that right now and that's a
lot of external pressure and
so and that's a lot of potentially.
Stressful input, right?And so it's
really important to honor
that, knowing that if you are a highly
sensitive being, which many people
in this community relate to,
it's really important to even more
00:09:47,1000 --> 00:09:50,640
so slow down,
reflect on what feels good for you,
acknowledge that there are a lot of
stressors and a lot of pressure right
now, and acknowledge that.
If you're like me, a lot
of that pressure can originate
from inside of us, especially
00:10:09,1000 --> 00:10:12,840
if you feel very called to do the
work you do. And that's where I was
noticing some of that pressure
is because I'm so excited
that the power pause movement
is growing. And it's
making an impact in people's lives all
around the world to learn how to
cultivate calm on command and stay
focused and stay grounded and stay
centered amidst the chaos of life.
And it's growing. And I feel really
excited by that. And it's calling me
forth into a new version of myself and
really sitting into this anchored knowing
and embodiment of being a leader of
a global movement. And so
there's a lot that comes up with that,
right?There's a lot that comes up when
you are a big visionary, when you are a
leader, when you're a dreamer, when
you're living a purpose-driven life like
I would imagine you are.
There can be a lot that goes along with
that, right?And so of course, when we are
stretching ourselves, when you are
stepping into this next.
Level of identity within yourself. When
you are allowing yourself to recalibrate
to this expanded impact
that you are here to make, that your soul
is calling you forth into, your ego mind
will notice that you're getting close
to the edge of the boundary of the
comfort zone and it starts to do all
sorts of things. Alert.
They are getting close to the barrier.
What do we do?Remind them of all the
times they screwed up before. Why don't
we get them worried about everything?Why
don't we put them on social media and so
that they are like freaking out about the
world and, you know, stressed out and
totally going to freeze in shutdown mode?
Why don't we try that?Is that effective?
Maybe. Or what about
that perfectionism thing?We got to make
it perfect before we put it out again in
the world. Yeah, that works every time.
OK, here we go. What about overworking
themselves till they're exhausted?You
know, so here's the thing. Or what about
we remind them of that time when everyone
laughed at them in grade four?You know,
00:12:17,1000 --> 00:12:20,840
it's so it's your brain doing what it's
supposed to do. And so it's
really one of those things that.
You have these incredible qualities as a
perfectionist, if you can relate to that,
you're highly attentive to detail, right?
That's really what it means. So when
these protective patterns, we look at
them when they're getting tripped up and
tripped on or activated or you know what
I'm saying, we get to
witness them. Oh, isn't that
00:12:47,1000 --> 00:12:50,480
interesting?This is, this is happening
right here, right now. Wow. OK, here we
are again. But now you have a new level
of awareness. You are operating from a
new level of consciousness, right?And if
we get into that place where we're
getting looped back into that pattern of
perfectionism or feeling like we have to
have it perfect and we need to have it
done yesterday. And you're the good girl,
good boy, good person, and you you like
to do it right and follow the
instructions and and make sure that it's
done perfectly so you can, you know, get
the love, get the accolades, get the Gold
Star. Do you relate to that?
We internalize a lot of that pressure as
children and we carry that forth.
But that's why life is an opportunity for
us to begin to witness those things,
begin to honor those parts of
ourselves that are getting
activated as we
stretch and we go for bigger goals,
right?And so remember that these.
Patterns of self-sabotage, right?And
that's really what perfectionism and and
internalized pressure or
not wanting to delegate control or
procrastination or overdoing it, pushing
yourself too hard, overdoing,
overworking, overthinking, overgiving.
All of these patterns of
self-sabotage are actually
self-protective mechanisms.
Patterns of self-sabotage are
00:14:11,1000 --> 00:14:14,480
self-protective mechanisms because what
your brain is great at doing is
attempting to problem solve in the
moment. It doesn't really know how to
predict the future. It predicts the
future based on patterns of the past. And
so it's really important that we
recognize and we intentionally pause. Is
this working right?How does this feel?
Does this feel like something that I want
to continue?And so if you notice yourself
defaulting back to these patterns,
especially when you're in a process of
expansion and I don't love this
terminology, but you probably know it up
leveling yourself and and growing, right?
Growing is more accurate because you
know, if we're not growing, we're doing
the other thing. And so
the opportunity
is, can we begin to
recognize these patterns within
yourself as such, as a
gift or an opportunity?It's
either exactly what you need. Or
you either get the result that you're
looking for or the lesson that you
needed, as one of my coaches, James
Wedmore, says. So that's it, right?That's
it. It's a either we get
directly what we wanted or not,
and it becomes an opportunity to learn
and grow and witness and reflect and look
at it from a higher level of mind. A
higher level of perception when we're not
caught up in the old pattern, when we're
not treading that path down the forest,
right?Instead, you're choosing to go a
different way. You're choosing to learn
to pause.
And for those of us that
experience high functioning
anxiety. Which tends to
be a fight response when the stress
response get activated. So it's that go
do it now push should have been done
yesterday. Whereas with generalized
anxiety it tends to be a flight like get
me the hell out of here. And with
depression it tends to be more of a
freeze or a shutdown. We want to give
ourselves the opportunity to
activate and regulate the nervous system
to begin to shift up that
ladder. Right up that ladder. We
also want to begin to expand our
window of tolerance in that when we
recognize our self in this pattern of
defaulting back to perfectionism or
putting a lot of pressure on our self, we
get to pause and we get to
breathe into it and we get to see and we
get to realize that it's really an
opportunity. It's stretching you, it's
showing you what's there when you use
that skill and that gift. From that place
of regulation, from that place of heart,
from that place of wisdom, from that
place of truth, of who you really are,
it's so much more effective, it's so much
more powerful. And it allows us to
expand that a little bit and tolerate it
a little bit better without defaulting
into one of those patterned
reactive stress responses that I just
mentioned. So how can we move
ourselves?Up the ladder, back
to that place when we are in that stay
and play energy, when we have that
get up and go of the sympathetic aspect
of our nervous system. But we're also
centered and we're grounded and we're
ready and we're activated in that place
of connected awareness in the heart. And
we are very intentional with the energy
you're putting into things, the being
that you're being when you're doing the
doing and that's moving up to a
more of a ventral vagal state. Right. So
these are the different states of the
nervous system based on the polyvagal
theory that is really widely accepted and
very well understood to be the different
states of our nervous system that impact
us and especially relevant when we
are doing stressful things in
life, right. And we're experiencing a lot
of these external pressures and. You
know, admittedly it's it's a lot and
especially when we're very sensitive and
and over this last week or so, I've been
really noticing a lot of emotional
responses of of getting really tearful of
just, you know, obviously there's big
stuff that's happening that's very
emotionally intense, but even just also
the stuff that you see on social media,
like dogs doing cute things and it just
touches my soul and and admittedly, as
you may or may not know. Only in January.
So only like 2 and a two and a bit months
from where we are right now. We let our
sweet Bailey boy who was a 16 year old
cockapoo we he needed to go. It was time
for him to go over the Rainbow Bridge.
And you know those paw prints
they leave on your heart. They're deep
and they it's there,
right?It's doggies are special.
And he was my cowor and I spent a lot of
time with him and and I'm still
recalibrating to that and that's OK, you
know, it's OK And it and and
dogs are very special and so that's OK,
right. And so it's just,
I bring that up to tell you that, you
know, there's a lot in our life that we
sometimes just kind of hold underneath
the surface, right. And it's one of my
teachers, Kylie talks about how if we
don't allow emotions to be.
Expressed. It's like when you're in a
pool. Have you ever done this?It's like
when you're in a pool and you get one of
those beach balls and you're trying to
hold the beach ball underwater and you're
you got your arms on it and you're
holding on to it and you're trying to
pull it underwater and you're trying to
keep it underwater, keep it underwater.
And you can only do it for so long before
it goes like boing and it goes flying,
right. And so that's it is that it's so
important that we allow
ourselves to. Experience these feelings,
move through these energies, allow
ourselves to recognize. And that's a
level of like ninja status, awareness
of recognizing these patterns within
yourself, right?Because that's what this
is, is an emotional intelligence, an
emotional awareness and learning to
become a nervous system ninja, which is
something you'll learn how to do in the
anxiety off switch. It takes
practice. It takes practice and
so. One of the tools that we can do
to diffuse some of this energy
is a power pause, and I want you to
feel what it feels like to release
some of this intense energy in a
really healthy and safe way. So what
we're going to do is breathe in, and as
we breathe out, we're going to make a
fist and we're going to inhale, relax.
And I want you to make the fist, you
know, mind your shoulder, mind your
hands, mind your wrist. You might notice
if you can see the video. I got a little
something on my shoulder. So I'm. I'm
gentle with myself, but I'm still intense
with the squeeze. OK, so breathe in
and exhale. Squeeze your
butt while you do it. I know. What?
Yeah. You didn't know you were going to
get a booty workout too, did you?All
right, so breathe in. Ready.
Squeeze your fist. Squeeze your whole
body. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
And then relax. Oh, it feels good.
Breathe in.
Feel yourself squeezing
your body, engaging your muscles. Try
again. Use your abs,
use your legs, squeeze your butt squeeze
your fist and relax.
One more time.
Squeeze, squeeze everything. Squeeze it,
squeeze it, squeeze it. And then relax.
Bring your arms down by your sides.
I'd love to know what you feel after
doing that power pause. I
feel
a settling. If you can't see the video, I
just took my hands and sweeped them
across an imaginary table and just .
It feels like everything just leveled
out. It
gives us a chance to express some of that
intensity safely.
It's cathartic because that energy needs
somewhere to go. And if it's
just stirring around inside of us,
then that's when it can cause
more challenges. It can cause more
protective patterns to be activated.
It can cause. More stress. It can
cause hormonal disruption. It can cause
sickness. It can cause immune weakening.
It can cause a lot of things. It's
so important that we learn to diffuse
some of this energy. Emotions. You've
heard me say this. Emotions are energy in
motion. But if we're holding it all in
and we're just trying to power through
and we have all this pressure and I want
to do it perfectly and I should do it
now, it's just
boiling inside of you. You know, I love
my analogies. It's just boiling inside of
you, right?Like the beach ball being held
underneath the surface of the pool.
Inevitably it's going to pop. It's like
the water boiling in a pot with and you
didn't slide a little bit of the lid off.
You know how you do that?But you left the
lid all the way on because you wanted it
to boil and the water's just boiling and
boiling and boiling. And then all of a
sudden it's boiling all over the stove
and then you have a big mess. It's so
important for us to learn to. Take
the lid off, right?To move the energy
through our body. And here's where we get
tripped up because we're like, yeah, but
I got things to do. I got, I got, I got
things to do. And that's I hear and I
hear that from myself and I hear that
from a lot of clients. I hear that from
people inside the power pause movement.
But here's the thing, when you learn to
flip your anxiety off switch, when you
learn what you're going to learn inside
that free audio series, you will learn
how to do this in a way that supports
your day. That doesn't take away from it
in a way that feels like you just went to
yoga and took a big time out, but
it literally only takes 2 minutes. That's
what this is for, is giving you something
that's usable, that's realistic, that
helps you to do what you're doing so
damn well, but in a way that's more
aligned because it's from the truth
of who you are. You're giving yourself a
chance to take the lid off, blow off a
little bit of steam. So that you can
keep that train a moving. Like, I
just love so many analogies and I hope
they make all make all the sense. So
that's what I wanted to share with you
today and just give you that, you know,
honest feedback and reflection that this
is a journey, right?And and it's a
rewiring process and it's an it's a
process of expansion and evolution. And
there will be times when you notice
yourself in the old patterns, but what
you're learning to do here and what
you'll learn to do in the anxiety off
switch. Is to recognize those patterns
so that when they come up,
you can navigate through them more
gracefully. You can operate from that
serene queen, serene being energy because
you know what to do
when it happens rather than just
getting on that hamster wheel and Oh my
God,
not sustainable. We
know that stress impacts the body on so
many levels, and we know that the most
powerful way that you have
to stay in that place that where you're
aligned with your vision, you stay in
your truth, stay grounded, stay centered,
is through these tools of nervous system
regulation. And I'm so excited to share
them with you inside the anxiety off
switch. So again, totally free, brand new
series, three-part series, 15 minutes
each. And that way you get to learn how
to make these tools part of your life so
that you. Can become a nervous system
ninja. You can give yourself what you
need in that moment. You're going to
learn more about yourself, your growth,
how you operate, what you get to do to be
able to become your own best advisor so
that you don't need to be operating with
that running on the fumes of three lattes
and two almonds cuz you haven't eaten all
day and you're just flying by on caffeine
and cortisol and cuz you got so much to
do. But you're actually in a state of
productivity and joy and flow and
energy and playfulness because you're
giving yourself what you
need on the deepest level of your
being, your nervous system.
So incredibly impactful. So make
sure to join us for the anxiety off
switch. It's totally free. And it's one
of those things you can listen to
whenever you want on the go, right?It's
designed for that. And if you join us
before April 10th, you actually get to
join inside this incredible pop-up
Facebook community where you will get a
other deeper dive into the training and
Q&A with me so that you can begin to
implement these tools right away. So
thank you so much for being part of this
incredible movement, right?That's what
this is. It's a movement of people.
Redefining success to prioritize your
health and happiness. Because how you
feel matters.
How you feel matters. It's
literally the driving force, your energy,
the being that you're being right. You're
a spiritual being, having a human
experience. You've probably heard me say
that, but we forget because we get so in
our head. So that's what I wanted to
share with you today. Sending you so much
love, so much Aloha. Make sure to join us
for that free series and share it with
your friends. If you know anybody that is
navigating these challenges or is, you
know, a very driven, passionate
entrepreneur or ambitious woman that's up
to big things in the world. And she talks
about or she doesn't. You know, she might
talk about these challenges, but not
everybody does, right?But you might hear
her saying things like, I'm just so busy,
I'm overwhelmed. I have so much to do.
There's never enough time. And she has
that vibe. Maybe gently suggest that
you've been listening to this podcast and
this crazy woman that lives in Hawaii has
some things to share that might be
helpful for her. Just start there, OK?
Thank you so much for helping to spread
the word. This is truly a passion of my
heart, and I believe that mental health
is part of the reality of being a human.
And when you have tools to navigate that
without the shame, without the stigma,
you get to be thriving. You get to be
witnessed and celebrated for all that you
are, because you deserve that. You
deserve that. You are not those
challenges. You're not anxiety. You're
not depression. You're not ADD. You're
not any of those things. You are the
loving awareness behind them. You are the
consciousness that holds that. You are
not your thoughts. You get to witness
those thoughts, right?You get to navigate
life through this beautiful body, this
vehicle that you get to experience. And
sometimes it comes with challenges, right?
It's a vehicle for your soul, but it's
also this beautiful sacred garment that
allows your soul to be expressed. So.
Learning to navigate with as much grace
and ease and fun and play and joy and
love as possible. And that's all I have
for you today. See you inside the anxiety
off Switch. Bye.
