Perfectionism, Identity, and Comparison...Oh My!

In this episode, we explore the struggles of perfectionism, identity, and comparison, and how they can keep us feeling stuck and inadequate as leaders and in our personal lives. The speaker shares a personal journey of overcoming these challenges, focusing on the importance of building momentum through small, consistent actions, maintaining a positive atmosphere, and celebrating accomplishments. Additionally, the speaker emphasizes the power of understanding one's identity and leveraging comparison as a tool for growth rather than defeat. Real-life examples and experiences are used to illustrate these points, culminating in the launch of a new leadership course designed to inspire and equip new leaders in their journey.

00:00 Introduction: The Struggle of Falling Behind
01:05 Understanding Momentum: The Key to Progress
03:56 The Momentum Formula: Actions, Atmosphere, and Accomplishments
12:37 The Role of Identity in Building Momentum
16:32 Comparison: A Double-Edged Sword
29:38 Personal Story: Overcoming Vulnerability and Imperfection
39:33 Conclusion: Embrace the Messy Middle

Learn more about the The New EDs Playbook: Creating an Impactful Community Culture course here: The New EDs Playbook: Creating an Impactful Community Culture

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Transcript

0:36

Have you ever felt like you were falling behind while everyone else was winning? Like their success was proof that you, that I am not doing enough or even worse being enough. I have been there, not once, not twice, maybe 12 dozen times in my life, and especially in these last few years. today we're gonna talk about perfectionism, identity and comparison, and how these invisible forces keep us stuck, silent and small as leaders and in our life. Come on, join me in this vulnerable, transparent, and hopefully inspiring episode to help you see you are not alone, and that probably your biggest enemy is you and no one else. We are gonna start talking about. Momentum here in this moment, and I want to introduce you to my momentum formula. And I have to say in most presentations that I do, I try to have a formula or a framework or something that helps me decide or helps me help you take something away that's like tangible for you and. One of the things that I hope that I give you in every single episode is real experience for you to draw upon. And so when you are like in that really uncomfortable part of learning and growing or in that really messy middle part of, is it worth it? Is it not worth it? That you have something to take away that you have my experience that. And in this episode, I hope it's that you take away from it. The messy middle is where the magic is, and that messy middle is where we can build momentum to get us out because I think that it requires that messy middle, that really rough time. For us to build resiliency, confidence, strength, and to realize we cannot give up. We cannot give up at the dip, right? The dip, which is that really messy middle, that really bottom rock, bottom place is not the point to give up because you don't know what's gonna happen. Never give up. At the rock bottom place because there's a lot of gold. there's a, at the end of the rainbow, right? When you rise up from the ashes, there is beauty. Golden nuggets of treasure at the bottom of every failure, every opportunity comes in a form of a problem. And sometimes the biggest feel like failures we have give us the biggest opportunities to rise. So if you are in that really uncomfortable point where you're not knowing what to do, or it doesn't feel very good where you are. Don't quit. Keep going. Actually, find support, find a podcast. Find people who can help you in that area because it's not a time for you to quit. It's a time for you to buckle up and keep going because you can create momentum in the messy middle you can, and that's where momentum is created. Honestly, it is in these moments because momentum is not just one big push. It is the little consistent habits. Here's the formula. Momentum equals actions. Atmosphere and accomplishments, right? Actions are those little consistent habits. If you're a new leader inside of a community, there are a lot of people who are going to figure out where you stand. Where are your boundaries? What are you gonna tolerate? What are you not? That is an uncomfortable place to be. But your actions are gonna be communicating to them that their actions stop or gain power, right? Actions can build momentum in a positive way, and actions can build momentum in a negative way. And you, as a leader have the ability to who help or hurt, right? Whichever way the momentum flows. So actions, your consistent actions. Having standup every day, being able to connect the dots, giving value to everybody inside those 15, 20 minutes, that's action. That's also creating an atmosphere. It is an atmosphere that the culture that you build and the attitude that you create every day inside of your community or inside of your company, that builds momentum. Now, is it momentum that is hurting you or is it momentum that is helping you? That's what you have to pay attention to because your actions and your atmosphere. Are creating momentum, either negative or positive, up to you. And then you have to look at your accomplishments. What are you tracking and celebrating and using fuel to add progress, to keep progress moving. So a lot of us fall into the trap of not. Keeping track of every small win of really honoring the wins that we've done. If you don't keep track of your small wins, you're not gonna feel any momentum. But if you do keep track, if you see a smile on somebody's face that normally doesn't have a smile on their face, if somebody solves a problem that they normally. Give to you if you have five move-ins instead of three move-ins. All of these are wins, and it doesn't really matter how small or how big these winds are. They are still wins. Are you acknowledging them or are you allowing yourself to believe all the things that you haven't done yet? That gets into comparison, which is later on in this episode, but momentum, which is what we're talking about now, you need to know what you are winning at, not your sales director, not your director of nursing, and not the community that you're being compared to on all the calls or a competitor down the street. What are you winning at? Because when you can create momentum for yourself, comparison doesn't matter. What are you winning? What are you tracking? More importantly, what are you celebrating and what are you using to fuel your progress? What do you use to fuel the energy that's needed to fulfill the task? What do you use to motivate yourself? It's really important. Is it a chip on your shoulder? Is it a desire to prove somebody to something? Is a desire to prove your worth, or is it a desire to make a community that brings life to the people that we serve? Because too much negative fuel, too much negative energy will get you a long way, but then you will. Cease to exist because it's not healthy. Comparison is a good tool for momentum in creating momentum, but it's not a consistent, sustainable tool. I said in a presentation recently about the chip on the shoulder, which is something that I used on a consistent basis. Sports teams use it and coaches use it for a game or two, right? Or maybe for a season. But it's not something that can be used all the time because it creates such negative emotion. Think about it, sometimes if you have teams who hate each other or last season said something negative about a team, and they create so much negative emotion that when they get on the field you can see fights happening. And then potentially an all out. Brawl that's on the field or on the court, that's too much negative emotion. And when you have too much negative emotion, defensiveness comes in, ready to defend somebody at the drop of a hat, and you just have to release all that negative emotion. Momentum starts in a positive way when you celebrate your wins, when you keep track of what you're doing right, the growth. Of what you're doing right and allowing that feeling to be what fuels your progress. You need a little negative emotion, okay? You need a little bit of, I'm gonna prove you wrong and here's why you do need that. You don't want that to be the only fuel that you use, okay? So remember, actions, your consistent actions, the atmosphere that you create with your actions, with your attitude, with your culture, what you decide to let go and what you decide to really focus on, what you decide to allow and what you decide not to allow. It's very important because that's the culture that you create inside of your community. And then really being aware of the accomplishments you need to be telling somebody. Tying your care team, your housekeeping team, your management team, actions into their results. Look what you did here. You really made this residence or this family's day because you did this. You are creating an identity, a dopamine hit, a connection point for you and a team. It's a momentum starter. You're tying in actions. You're creating a positive atmosphere in that moment, and you are highlighting an accomplishment. You just created momentum in that person's life and in yours. Momentum doesn't come from one big push. You're not gonna create momentum because you had six move-ins. Now that's an excellent month for most people, but it's not gonna move you over into the next month. Momentum is. The force is the energy of a lot of compounding efforts. Little tiny actions, small pushes, repeated consistently over and over again. I liken it to having a sales director that I say, you're going to have to call every past due, every lead, every everything inside, every person inside of your. Database because that's important for you to know. I heard Tony Robbins say once that the rocket doesn't come, shoot up to the sky with one press of the button, it builds a lot of momentum while it's staying in place. And that's what it's like building momentum inside of your community. Success has to happen. All these moving parts has to happen for a long time before influence and momentum is earned. It feels like you're sitting still. But really you are just getting all the parts going. So when it's ready, that your success can skyrocket your success and your influence, because success and influence, it's not always flashy. There are moments of flashiness, but it's a cumulative effort. Of your actions, your atmosphere, and the honoring of the accomplishments that you do as a leader and your team does inside of a community. And why we talk about momentum first is because sometimes we allow outside forces and invisible forces to keep us stuck. And being aware of what those forces are is really important. And then also being aware that those forces start screaming to us, like our thoughts and the stories that we tell ourself as to why we may not be where everybody wants us to be or where we even wanna be can cause momentum to stall because we lost the identity of who we are. Because we're circling around this thought of I'm not enough because we're comparing ourself to others and we're losing sight of the things that we can control, right? Which is our cumulative actions, the atmosphere that we are creating and the accomplishments. This is how momentum and magic. Are created in that messy, middle parts. And we're gonna talk about lots of examples that I can give you in the last few weeks, months, and years, as well as inside the community. I think one of the things that's most important is that what I have learned, honestly, what I believe now more than ever, is. We gain momentum or the first stages of momentum and leadership, legacy and building culture inside of our community is really understanding our identity. And it's not identity politics or titles. It is literally what is. My values, what is my purpose? What makes me feel strong, smart, capable, and consistent. when we get tired, when we get too hungry, too lonely, too tired, too angry, resentful, we lose identity. There was a time, I lost identity and I think I was so resentful and tired, that, that kind of became my identity in some regards. I used to say high shoe, high heel, Aaron and Tennis Shoe, Aaron. I'm just going to say it, inside the senior living profession, there's a lot of opportunity to compare ourselves. I know that most of us have been on these calls where we're all talking about our move-ins and our move outs and what we're doing, and somebody's being highlighted for something amazing that's going on, and you're struggling that month. Right, and we can get lost when we forget who we are, right? When comparison creeps in, when results don't come as fast as we want, when we forget our story, everything we've overcome, everything that we have accomplished, the culture that we've created, because for this month or this stretch, we have lost momentum. But we lose momentum when we forget our story and when we start trying to live someone else's or when we stop the tiny pushes that it took to get the most amazing month we had, right? When we forget our own story, we allow other people to create a story'cause we're not true to who we are. Comparison, yes, it's the thief of joy, but I also believe comparison is. A gift if we allow it to be used in an appropriate way. I was listening recently to, Mel Robbins book, the Let Them Theory and there's a chapter about comparison. And I just wanna say it really hit home for me and we, she said, Mel said that we can allow comparison to be a teacher. Or to torture us and that someone else's success is not your failure, and that their gifts are not your deficit and their journey is not your timeline. We need to let them be successful and we need to see what is possible. Because what is possible is built on what you are willing to do. Many years ago, I was in a counseling session with a therapist and I was talking about, control issues. I didn't think I was that big of a control freak. I'm sure people will laugh. But I was just talking about how I am not that controlling because I'm not the best housekeeper in the world and I can ignore certain things when I am highly hyper-focused on something else. And I don't care if things in my refrigerator don't face a certain way. I was comparing myself. To somebody who had obsessive compulsive controlling needs, not normal, run of the mill control issues. I also don't care about the little things that some people do care about, but, and I do. Control or try to control outcomes of other people to help control timelines and different things in my life. And what I was focusing on were things that I could not control. And that was a really eye-opening experience for me because. When we lose our identity and we forget our story, and we start comparing other people to our situations, and you're comparing people's gifts or natural tendencies or amenities inside of communities or comparing things that we don't even know the facts about office, all of a sudden we are stuck and the energy that we have to fuel ourselves. Now is being spun and focused on areas that we can't control. What is it that you are comparing in your life right now to other people that you can't control? we can go into why some people can lose weight and other people can't. Why some people don't like chocolate and won't eat sweets and other people do. All of these things could be gifts that they have that you don't have, but then you have gifts that they don't have. And when you spend your time focusing on things that you cannot control, that you cannot affect change over, like apartment sizes, location of your community, any other uncontrollable thing that you may be having a problem with, you are losing necessary energy for sustainability of long time leadership legacy. This is where burnout happens. This is where all that negative energy and resentment happens. This is when you lose your identity because you compare to others, you lose momentum. Just because somebody else is comparing you or your community doesn't mean that you are failing and they are winning, and it doesn't mean that you won't win. It just means that there's something to look at that maybe you're not seeing, or maybe you're focusing on all the things that you can't control, but what are the things that you can, that question changes everything. I say this a lot. I worked in a memory care community that was a 64 apartment memory care community. We had a 57 state survey on the wall, and our apartments were 290 square feet. Now, all those things I could not control because I was not the community leader at that time of the survey. I did not build that community and those apartment sizes, I could not expand, and I heard the same complaint over and over again. Every time I toured and I saw the family's reaction when they saw the apartment size. And when I focused on that, I said, we're never going to fill this community. We're 55%. We have a 57 on the wall. It's never going to happen. If I stayed there, it would've never been filled, but instead What I saw was there was 35 people that chose to stay, that appreciated living there and why I can focus on those people, and then I figured out the story of why we were built and who helped build the community. And so all of a sudden, my identity as a leader of this community shifted from all the things that were wrong with it, to all the things that were right for the right people. That was the area that I could control. I expected the awe and the shock of a family member looking at the apartment, but I knew what was valuable about it. And that was my talking points. And it was true. It was all true. So when you are lost in your identity as a human being or as a leader inside of a community because you are stuck in that messy middle, you have lost momentum and you don't know what to do, focus on your identity, not what you cannot control, but on who you are as a community. Or as a leader, what are your strengths? Don't compare up and allow it to torture you. Compare up and allow it to teach you what's possible and to be really focused in on doing the boring work so you can do the big work later. And remember that someone else's success is not your failure. Their gifts are not your deficits because your gifts could be different, right? And their journey is not your timeline. It's really important. Now, believe me, I wish success could happen faster for me in several different areas, but when I look back at my life, every success and every failure. Led me to the next level of my life. Every single one I could give you a book about how each failure, huge failure in my life, one that I carried shame and burden with for a long time, actually led me to the next phase of my life. And if you really wanna know, like what I believe now more than anything, is I never knew how to let go of things that did not serve me because my identity was to make it happen no matter what. And I just want you to know that is a brutal way to live. And now that I know my worth and I know that it's okay to let go of things that don't serve me. I understand how to identify what serves me and what doesn't, and why I need to stay or why I need to go. And that quitting is not always failing. It's actually, it can be succeeding in the bigger picture. But until you learn that lesson, you realize, looking back in life is the only way to connect the dots. Of the future at the present really, and what you learned through all those failures of losing your identity and then getting it back, and then losing again, and then getting it back and getting back on track is, are we in the comparison trap? There's a lot of opportunity to do that inside senior living. Don't make it torture. You help. Let it help you and teach you of what's possible if you keep trying. Let them be successful and let you learn from it. That is the Let Them theory right here. Comparison is, a big deal when we talk about these community calls. I really want you to go into these management calls. and being aware, when we go into these operations calls or these sales calls and we're being called out for the numbers and the metrics and all the things that happen, are you shrinking or are you going into it knowing what happened in the month and going into it with, here's what happened, here's what we learned, here's what we're doing. Because if you shrink, you can't answer those questions. Perceptions are being made that you can't control. And if you're going into a meeting and you're shrinking due to comparison or questioning your own success and your experience, then you are not focusing on what you can control. But you can control the story, which is, here's what I learned, here's what we've done, and here's what we're going to do because of what we learned. You cannot compare your reality to someone else's highlight reel, like social media has taught us that if it's taught us anything, But their occupancy, their team, their amenities, or even their regulations, and they are the ones that you're comparing yourself to are different. They're different from yours, different regs, if they're in different states, different communities, even when people try to compare a community of mine and another community that was nine miles down the road, we were completely different. There was no comparison. Absolutely none. So don't shrink, don't compare. Do not question your own success. Take action. Focus on the accomplishments. What we did do, what we could have done better, what we are going to do better. And focus on creating an atmosphere that allows you to learn and grow and lead. Into the next month, you teach people how to respond to you. Your story that you communicate tells people what to think about situations. Do not go into a meeting shrinking and allowing somebody else to narrate your story. Know your story. Don't get lost in your identity, and learn how to answer the questions. This is what we did. Here's what we learned, and here's what we're doing moving forward and learn from other people's successes, it's not what's missing, it's what's possible when you focus on the things that you can control. It's really important. Comparison gets us in all these real shady areas that mess with us, and the more we can control that, the better it is. For everyone, especially in creating an atmosphere of growth and learning. So let me get real with you for a few minutes. For the recent story actually, and not just a community story. I have just recently launched my new executive director's playbook, a course in creating an impactful culture. Of course, yes. I want everybody to buy it. But it is a course for new leaders inside of a community, and I think leaders probably within their first three years, and I think there's a lot of good nuggets that every leader can take away from this course. And I'm very proud of it. and it almost didn't happen. If you really want my honest truth, I've had this idea of creating a course for a very long time, and actually my bigger idea is to create these leadership accelerators and to have this community of new leaders and a leader in every phase of leadership and really creating community that keeps people rooted in their identity and their purpose. It gives'em perspective, which I think is a huge gift, but making that dream a reality, was a lot harder than I could have realized. There's a lot of vulnerability and work that has to be done, honestly, just when you make a social media post, let alone. Making a course and wanting it to be successful. you hear singers and artists that get very vulnerable about when they put their workout, like a music artist or a movie, there is something really vulnerable about creating art, about creating a podcast, about creating a course, about a social media post. That when you put yourself out there for the world to judge, it does make you shrink a little bit. at least it did. Me and I finally got the nerve. To move forward with the project with my partner, Erin, and we started writing it, which takes a very long time. And then you start thinking to yourself, who am I to create this course? Or how do I know if anybody's going to this or maybe this perspective is wrong? And I really went through this phase where it was right versus wrong until I realized it's not about right and wrong. It's about perspective. And that maybe some people already know and do this, but it gives them a perspective. But if these people are already doing this and they're probably, five, six years in and they might not even want the course, right? And so I'm just letting you in through all of my stories that I tell myself. So I finally got the nerve with my partner Aaron Fish, to record the course. And I just want you to know if I didn't have a partner. I probably would've never recorded it. I could have written it and I did, and I would have, but recording it is a different beast. I had to rerecord it three times due to some tech issues. There are people out there that invest a lot of money in tech companies to do the editing, the lighting, all the things. I did that all myself, and I just want you to know I'm not good at it. I'm not good at it. And so I had to record this thing three times. After the first time, I don't think if I didn't have a partner, I would've ever rerecorded it. And then the second time I was so mad that I'd recorded it just to get it over with. That is the messy middle. That is the discomfort of freaking figuring it out. That's it. I wish I could tell you the thoughts that were in my mind, all the negative things that I was thinking, all the reasons why I should not be doing this, but I would've walked away never knowing what it was like to succeed at it, to just finishing it. And I want you to know that even though I'm so proud of it, it's not perfect. I have a lot more maturing to go in this area, but of the people who are watching it, it's giving them a perspective, a positive one. They really enjoy the content. It's not about right versus wrong because leadership is very authentic, but it is giving people the space and the conversation. And the ability to think about how they would do it their way, but I almost let my lack of experience dictate my future. But I knew that I have big plans, that this industry needs big support, and that if I wanna get to where I wanna go, I have to lean in to the messy middle. And I am more proud of me Overcoming such frustration and discomfort and that I didn't take the easy way out. Now, I don't plan on spending a lot of time on tech stuff. I hope to one day to be able to go to a place and have people do that, but I know that I can, and there's value in that. that messy middle. This is what I want you to hear. The magic, the confidence, the resiliency, the influence, the success, the pride lies in the messy middle. It lies in not quitting, in the dip and letting you move forward. Creating momentum with actions, atmosphere, and accomplishments. To get to the top, the messy middle is where you need to lean into. You cannot outrun negative emotion. You cannot outwork negative emotion. You have to feel it, you have to assess it, and you have to reframe it. Most of the successful people that you are consistently comparing yourself to are better or more willing in the boring work. The unglamorous things that you may not be willing to do or that you might not even know that you have to do, right? Don't let the discomfort stop you. Lean into it. Get to doing the boring work. The boring work is where success lies. When you know your story, your strengths and your purpose, you will stop chasing and running in the wrong race. And you will say to yourself that I will do the boring work so I can get better, so I can understand what's going on in that department so I can better support somebody when they come into that department. So I can see at operation at every level in my community. And when you do that, when you become good at the boring work, when you know your story, when you get back on track with your identity and your strengths and your purpose. You attract the people and the success that was meant for you. But when you stay stuck in comparing yourself to other people and you use it to torture yourself, you're running in a race that was never meant for you and you will never win because it wasn't your race. Your race is against you old, you present you and knew you and that relationship. Between all different versions of you is very important. When we compete with others, we lose, but when we enhance our own gifts and celebrate others, everyone wins. Let people win and let you feel their wins and the hope. For your wins in the future, I really want you to think about three strengths that you have, that you bring to your community, that people have thanked you for, that people have said over and over again how grateful they are for you. Write those three things down. Focus on those three things, and then, go celebrate someone else's wins this week without it turning into self-judgment. So if you have a community that you're competing against or that you're comparing yourself against, write down your three strengths, your three wins, and then send that ed and email and congratulate them on theirs. And you realize we're in this together. When we celebrate others, everyone wins. And when we compete with others, we all lose. Let people successes teach us rather than torture us. So as we end this, what story are you telling yourself that keeps you small? What are you shrinking? What about you? Are you shrinking? What successes are you overlooking? And what failures do you need to turn into? Learnings. Lessons learned, not failures. What story are you telling yourself that is keeping you small? What action have you been avoiding out of fear that it won't be perfect like my course, right? What are you avoiding? Because perfection is standing in the way, and what would be different if you believed that momentum comes from many small pushes. Not one big push. If this episode helped you in any way, I hope that you pay it forward, and give it to somebody to listen to somebody on your team, somebody within your community. Because the more we learn and grow together, the better that we are. So if you know somebody who is struggling, give them this episode. And let them hear my story and how perfection is what keeps us all small and what are we scared of losing if we actually don't try? Or what are we scared of losing if we do try and it doesn't work out because honestly experience is the only way we're going to get better. And if failure is out of the question, so is success, period. Here's my final thought to you. You are not behind. You are not too late. You are just potentially in the messy middle. And my friend, that is where the action, and that is where the magic happens. So get comfortable in the discomfort and as always. Aspire for more for you. And if you want to learn more information about my coaching, my leadership accelerators and the course that just came out, click the link in the show notes or message me or email me. I value your time. I thank you for being here and as always, aspire for more for you.