Episode Transcript
Hi, everybody, and welcome to The Arm Coach podcast, episode
#9.
Hello everyone. How are you? How are you doing? How’s your
day going?
I want to tell you how my day is going – actually, I want to tell you
how my day started off. I woke up this morning at 5:30, that’s
when my alarm went off. I actually set it for 5:30. I like to wake up
early, I find that I’m really much more productive in the morning
than I am in the afternoon or the evening, so I try to wake up
early. But I woke up right when my alarm went off and I looked at
the clock and I thought to myself, I should have gotten up earlier.
5:30 was already really early but I thought to myself, I should
have gotten up earlier, and I’ve noticed the past couple weeks, I
notice that no matter how early I wake up, my brain still tells me
you should have gotten up earlier. I have this sense of feeling
behind, feeling like I haven’t done what I need to do before my
feet even hit the floor in the morning, and I wonder if that is
familiar for any of you.
Do any of you have that sense like I do, that sometimes from the
moment that your eyes open in the morning, your brain is already
on overdrive? You’re already running through a never ending to
do list, and it’s not just about what needs to get done. For a lot of
people, it’s also about what you want to improve, what you want
to do better. Eating better, exercising more, finally signing up for
that class, improving something. There’s so much to do and so
much to fix and for many of us, we haven’t even stepped out of the
door.
And on top of that, so many people will tell me on top of
everything that they’re trying to do and trying to accomplish,
there’s all the needs that they’re trying to meet. Your partner’s
needs, your children’s needs, your boss’ needs, your friends’
needs, trying to make sure that everyone around you has what
they need to be happy while what you need takes a backseat.
I know a lot of you out there can relate to this and this has a lot to
do with today’s topic because today we are talking about
perfectionism and people pleasing. Which I’ll say, I more and
more see articles about these two mentalities, and actually really
they’re coping mechanisms but I’ll get into that a little bit later.
I see articles and blogs and experts talking about perfectionism
and people pleasing. Perfectionism being that do perfect, be
perfect mentality, never let yourself make a mistake, never cut
yourself slack. And people pleasing, that idea that you need to
make sure that everyone is happy, everyone’s needs are met, often
at the expense of your own happiness and your own needs.
So not a week goes by without seeing a new article talking about
how these two mentalities really hold people back and if you pay
attention to this at all, you’ll see that a lot of experts talk about
these two mentalities as potential reasons why women in
particular hold themselves back. Why they hesitate to apply for
the job that seems like a stretch or they fail to negotiate higher
salaries or they keep quiet when they have something to say. It’s
not just that they infect the workplace, but that they infect our
personal lives as well.
But listen. I want to talk about something a little bit different. I
want to talk about how perfectionism and people pleasing are
connected to sculpting your arms and overeating. And they are.
Because I believe – and I have seen in myself and in the many
people that I work with, how we find things in our life to hide
from our perfectionism and our people pleasing. To cover up the
underlying emotions that are driving these two mentalities.
I think it’s really both interesting and important to explore this in
terms of vegging out and eating. Now, if you’re listening and
you’re thinking, “Okay, that doesn’t apply to me, I’m not dealing
with perfectionism or people pleasing”, I want you to hang on. I
want you to keep listening because I have not encountered a
single person who does not use something in their life to hide
from uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.
All of us, no matter what it is, have developed what I kind of think
of as an unconscious toolbox. It’s this toolbox that we have
unconsciously developed to try to cope and distract and cover up
from the things that we don’t like to feel. And if you’re not sure of
what that unconscious toolbox is for you, all you have to do is ask
yourself how do you take the edge off? How do you muffle your
inner critic? How do you distract yourself from the thoughts that
tell you you’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough, you
haven’t accomplished enough in life?
For many people, perfectionism and people pleasing become part
of that unconscious toolbox. They become part of the ways that we
try to deal with those feelings, deal with the need to take the edge
off, deal with the need to muffle our inner critic or distract
ourselves from the thoughts that frankly, are pretty painful. So the
question is, how then does eating and watching TV fit into this?
Vegging out and Eating fits into this because perfectionism and
people pleasing, they are coping mechanisms, but they are rooted
in the same emotion. They are rooted in the emotion of insecurity,
not feeling confident, feeling deficient about something. And
when you feel that way, when you feel insecure, when you feel
deficient, one thing that often can happen is you start to tell
yourself, “Well, I need to try to be perfect. I need to try and
compensate for everything that’s wrong with me” or, I need to try
and make sure that everybody is happy and everybody likes me
and gets along with me and I don’t disappoint anyone. We think
that if we can master these two things, that that will be what helps
us feel less insecure.
Now, it’s an impossible task and you know this. It’s impossible to
do everything perfectly. It is impossible to make sure that
everyone in your life is happy and their needs are met and they
are never upset with you. But even though it’s not possible, we
still run around in this frenzied state, trying to do it, trying to be
perfect, trying not to make mistakes, trying never to fail, trying to
make sure that everyone is happy and no one is ever disappointed
in us. I will tell you that it is exhausting. It doesn’t work and it
wears you out.
So, you start with that feeling of insecurity, you start with that
feeling of not measuring up, you unconsciously start trying to
compensate and deal with it through perfectionism, through
people pleasing. It’s an impossible task, it’s impossible to do, you
run around crazy, you exhaust yourself, and then what happens?
Now you feel even worse. You have that sense of at the end of the
day, just needing a break from your life, like you cannot deal with
anything because you are so frazzled. You are so frazzled trying to
hold up all the things in your life that you’re trying to do perfectly
and everyone’s needs except for your own.
So now here comes that quick and easy fix, and I talk about this all
the time. Food, TV, your phone, is such a quick and easy fix to feel
differently. And for so many people, when it comes to the
exhaustion that they feel at the end of the day, eating ice cream
from the container and ordering a pizza, plopping on the couch,
not only seems like a really easy way to feel a little bit better, but –
and here’s the thing. This piece is so important. For many people,
when they do that, it feels like you are putting your needs first
finally. This always blows my mind. It really does, because we
have it so backwards.
We feel like we are putting our needs first because we are finally
saying, “No, I need a break, time out, I’m going to take the edge
off, I need to escape a little, this is for me.” But the crazy thing is
that what you’re doing is just covering up how you actually feel.
And how you’re actually feeling is usually exhausted from trying
to cover up the original feeling of insecurity. And guess what? This
cycle does not look good and it does not result in anything good.
So you’re starting off with a negative emotion that you try to get
out of through perfectionism and people pleasing and you exhaust
yourself doing that because frankly, both of those things are
impossible. So you exhaust yourself and you turn to something
outside of yourself to try and feel better. You turn to something
like pizza, ice cream, Netflix, your phone, that can quickly change
how you feel. But here’s the thing. It does not resolve the root
issue. It does not magically make your exhaustion or your
insecurity go away.
Then you start this cycle where you start making this a habit and
looking forward to it, right? You train your brain unknowingly,
“Well, you’re exhausted, you’re trying to juggle all these balls, you
can’t keep everything up in the air, but at least you’ll get a break,
at least you’ll get a reward at the end of the day.” So then your
brain starts to anticipate that you’re going to reward yourself. But
now here’s what happens with that reward for most people. When
it becomes their go-to solution to try and make themselves feel
better, what will happen is that they’ll start feeling worse.
You might feel better in that moment when you have that first bite
or plop on the couch, but for a lot of people they find that they
physically start not feeling great. Maybe they’re not feeling great
later on in the evening, maybe during the night when they find
that their sleep is disturbed, maybe when they wake up the next
day and they feel so tired and so exhausted but they’re already
feeling exhausted the night before. And now on top of that they’re
emotionally not feeling great because they’re saying, “Why did I
do this? I shouldn’t have had that much to eat last night. What did
I waste time? Why do I keep doing this? Why is this habit so hard
to break?” So you start having an emotional toll as well.
Many people will find that there are all sorts of repercussions
when they start vegging out and eating more than they want.
Maybe their mindless eating turns into mindless drinking. Maybe
they notice that they are quick to get in a fight with their partner
because the things that they really want to say in their
relationship, that they feel that they’re holding in all the time,
seem to bubble up once you’ve had two or three glasses to drink.
Maybe you’re feeling less productive. So many people that I work
with will tell me that they have such limited time. They’re
stretched really thin. They have busy jobs, they have families and
they have very little time for themselves at the end of the day. And
there are things that they actually want to work on, things that
they are actually interested in and they want to pursue like
sculpting their arms, but they find themselves not pursuing these
things, they find themselves just plopping down on the couch and
mindlessly shoving food in their mouth and that’s their evening.
Now again, not every person who struggles with perfectionism
and people pleasing turns to vegging out or eating, but we all have
our distractions of choice. There are a lot of people that are
overdrinking, for others it’s overworking, right? The idea that you
make yourself so busy – and I know a lot of you out there can
relate to this. You’re so busy that you don’t have a moment to
really look and see what’s going on in your mind or how you’re
feeling.
Those are two of the most common that I see. And what will
happen is that when we decide that we want to change our
lifestyle, our eating, when we decide, “Okay, I don’t like how my
arms look, I don’t like how I’m feeling, I don’t like the
repercussions I’m getting” the focus tends to be just on changing
habits.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, but here’s the thing. If you
only focus on changing habits, if you only focus on saying,
“Alright, I’m not going to veg out and mindlessly eat anymore in
the evenings” or “I’m never going to have more than one serving”.
If you only focus on that, you’re going to be missing something
really important. You’re going to be missing what made you feel
like you needed to take the edge off in the first place. What made
you feel like you just needed to muffle what was going on in your
head? What made you feel like you just needed a break from the
thoughts that you were having?
You have to go to that. You have to look at what is fueling the
perfectionism and the people pleasing. You have to look at that
initial feeling that is fuelling it, which for so many people is
insecurity and understand that anything that you are ever feeling,
any emotion is always created by your thoughts. It’s created by
thoughts of I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not
pretty enough, I’m not accomplished enough, so I just need to fix
everything about me. I just need to do everything perfectly. Or,
thoughts like they don’t like me, I need to keep people happy, I
can’t let anybody down, it’s my responsibility to meet everyone’s
needs – thoughts like this that just fuel people pleasing.
And it’s too much. It is the weight of so much pressure that people
say I can’t do it. I just need a way to forget about how I feel for a
while. I just need a break. Enter couch and ice cream.
The truth is, and this is the thing that I tell all the people that I
work with. It is really difficult to truly make any progress on these
areas without consciously understanding how you moderate your
own self-criticism and how you cope with the thoughts that make
you feel like you aren’t good enough and like everyone else’s needs
are your responsibility.
In my case, I needed to stop looking for a distraction for the way I
felt inside and the way that I seem to feel every evening at the
bottom of a pint of ice cream and figure out new ways to deal with
the thoughts that were fueling my perfectionism and fueling my
people pleasing. Otherwise, I was always going to be running from
them.
So, what does this mean for your arms and eating? Look, if you
are grabbing yourself something to eat, it does not mean that you
are always doing it as a result of perfectionism or people pleasing.
It does not mean that, that’s not what I’m suggesting. But what I
am suggesting is that when you do, if this is a habit that you want
to change, you have to get really, really good at asking yourself
why. Why am I going to the couch and grabbing myself a snack
right now? What do I feel like I need a break from? What do I feel
like I need to take the edge off of? And if your answer is that you
need a break from the relentless pressure of doing everything
right and trying to keep everyone happy, then that’s where you
need to focus. And focusing there is going to make all the
difference because I will tell you this: you can stop eating on the
couch. You can, and this is what will happen with so many people.
They will stop eating on the couch. They can stop overeating. It’s
not hard for them to stop, but then they stop and they don’t
understand when they don’t feel better.
They feel better physical but they don’t understand why the desire
to plop on the couch and eat is so strong and a lot of times, that
reason is because they have not found other ways to deal with the
discomfort that they feel from trying to cope with these negative
thoughts.
If you don’t have ways to change these thoughts, if you don’t have
ways to change how you’re thinking is generating your insecurity
and ultimately fueling the perfectionism and people pleasing that
wears you out and exhausts you, you will stay stuck in this cycle.
And it may not be through eating, you may turn to other coping
mechanisms to deal with how you feel. You might stop overeating
and start overdrinking. You might stop overeating and start
working around the clock. You might stop overeating and start
spending a lot of money.
Whatever it is, because if you don’t understand that your thoughts
create your feelings or how your thoughts and your feelings are
fueling these twin problems of perfectionism and people pleasing
and how it’s exhausting you, then you will keep trying to find
things outside of yourself to feel better.
This is the awareness that you need to bring to this issue if you
want to make sustained long-lasting change. And this is why I
think it is so important to understand how things like
perfectionism and people pleasing are connected to our lifestyle
and eating. How these things actually fuel our overeating. Because
when we feel like we are running around crazed, when we are
waking up in the morning and already having thoughts of how
we’re behind before we even get out of bed, this is what we need to
pay attention to. This is the real work and it makes all the
difference.
So that’s it. I would really love to hear what you think, especially
on this topic because I know so many of you out there already
know that you’re dealing with perfectionism and people pleasing
and you may not have made that connection before of how it
connects potentially to your arms and overall fitness.
I love hearing from you guys, I love hearing from my listeners,
and so if you want to reach out to me, if you have ideas for
lessons, if you have questions that you would like me to answer,
you can always message me. That’s it! Thanks for listening
everyone, I’ll see you next week.
