In this episode we discuss how to deal with never feeling like you’re “enough,” show you how to overcome the insidious trap of "people pleasing,” look at the most effective treatments for OCD, panic attacks, anxiety and stress, discover the dangers of “toxic perfectionism” and how it might be holding you back, tell you why “should” is a dangerous word, and much more with our guest Taylor Newendorp. 

Taylor Newendorp is the founder and president of Chicago Counseling Center and specializes in the treatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Perfectionism, and Anxiety Disorders. He was worked as a practicing therapist for many years and completed the International OCD Foundation's Behavioral Therapy Training Institute Taylor is the author of The Perfectionism Workbook: Proven Strategies to Break Free from Perfectionism and Achieve Your Goals.

• What is the myth of perfection and how does it impact your life?

• Hiding weaknesses and mistakes is very dangerous and contra to personal growth

• You are more likely to grow, thrive, and succeed once you acknowledge and accept your weaknesses

• The Five Tendencies of Toxic Perfectionism

• “People Pleasing” perfectionism

• Expectations placed on you by by your family or the environment you grew up in

  1. Every action you take is designed to please other people and you constantly need external approval to feel good about yourself

  2. Everyone liking you is an impossible and unachievable goal. No matter what you do there is no way to please everyone. 

• What is the root cause behind the “people pleasing” tendency? 

• Perfectionism can often be genetically pre-disposed if your family has a history of OCD or anxiety

• People pleasing is rooted in the idea that for you to be loved you have to achieve and be successful

• How do you overcome the fear that if you give up your perfectionist expectations and the desire to please others that you will flip to the opposite and be unproductive and unliked?

• How much of what you’re doing is is because you WANT to or because you feel like you HAVE TO in order to have other people like you?

• What activities are you doing that you do solely for the approval of others? Would you do them for their own sake?

• One of the biggest roots of perfectionism is your own expectations of yourself and others 

• Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset and how that impacts perfectionist tendencies 

• The danger of being a “procrastinating perfectionist"

• Put off doing something because you’re worried it’s not perfect

• Do you feel a feeling of discontent? No matter what you do, no matter what you achieve, do you feel like it’s never enough? Do you keep pushing yourself harder and harder causing stress and anxiety for yourself?

• How do you deal with self criticism and negative self talk?

• What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and how does it work?

• How do your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors all impact each other?

  1. The way we think about things has a direct impact on our emotions and feelings

  2. Looking at your thought process

  3. Looking at your expectations of others

  4. Looking at what you’ve been telling yourself

• Examining your own thought processes is a HUGE key to solving this

• Exposure and response prevention is a highly effective solution to OCD, panic attacks, anxiety disorders, etc 

• Purposely exposing yourself to something that produces an amount of anxiety, stress, and discomfort, and then preventing your usual response 

• The more you face what causes you distress and tolerate it, your stress and discomfort around it starts to fade 

• The danger of using the word “Should”

• Learn and familiarize yourself with the cognitive distortions that are out there and see how they are playing out in your head 

• Understand the connection between thoughts and feelings and how that might be influencing how you’re behaving

• One question you can use to challenge your negative thoughts - if you had to stand up in a court of law and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that this thought is 100% true would it hold up? 

• Often you have NO evidence to back this thought up 

• Expectations are often at the root of our “shoulds” and your perfectionist tendencies 

• When you feel something uncomfortable - avoidance and distraction are the two most common strategies for avoiding discomfort

• The more you avoid something the more you increase your anxiety around that fear. The fear grows larger and larger in your brain. The more you face and spend time with your fears, your anxiety dissipates. 

• Dig into and understand the triggers that make you uncomfortable and continually face them to build tolerance and resistance to them 

• Exposure and response therapy creates new neural pathways that reduce anxiety over time

• What is the relationship between perfectionism and OCD?

• A lot of people with OCD engage in compulsive behaviors to get a sense that things feel “just right"

• Being enough and achieving your goals without fear

• You should make your goals specific, measurable, and meaningful 

• Mindfulness at its core is about observing yourself, observing others, without attaching judgement to it 

Thank you so much for listening!

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Show Notes, Links, & Research

• [SoS Episode] Research Reveals How You Can Create The Mindset of a Champion with Dr. Carol Dweck

• [SoS Episode] Your Secret Weapon to Becoming Fearless with Jia Jiang

• [Website] Chicago Counseling Center

• [Book] The Perfectionism Workbook: Proven Strategies to End Procrastination, Accept Yourself, and Achieve Your Goals by Taylor Newendorp MA LCPC

• [Website] Rejection Therapy with Jia Jiang

Episode Transcript