Popping Perfectionism

When we think of great leaders, we usually think of the people who check all the boxes: Inspiring, organized, well-liked, charming, influential, etc. What we don't think about are how these checkboxes can actually get in the way of a great leader doing their job well.

Failure is inevitable. Flaw is unavoidable. Success? Never guaranteed, but especially hard to achieve when perfect is the only path there - or so perfectionism would like us to believe. In this episode, we talk about how to achieve workplace success ADMIST failure, not while avoiding it.

Failure is an unavoidable part of creativity. Flaw is an inevitable part of creativity. Messiness, chaos, and doubt are all part of the creative process.

So how can we be perfectionists and keep being creative? Tune in.

If you want to advance in your career, perfectionism is gonna get in your way. If you want to develop professionally, perfectionism is gonna hold you back. Trying to be perfect and develop yourself at the same time cannot co-exist. Tune in to hear more!

Join us for an episode with Maria Blevins, Ph.D and research extraordinaire on the real-life negative impacts of perfectionism in the workplace, including on our nation's rivers!

If you think you can be a perfectionist and have work-life balance, think again.

In this episode, we dive into modern research on the impossibility of having a healthy split between your work and your life while still aiming for perfection.

Think you can do the impossible? Tune in and find out.

Perfectionism demands it all - the relationship with yourself, with romantic partners, with spirituality, and now, you're about to learn how it demands your professional relationships as well.

From work-life balance to imposter syndrome to just getting through the full-time grind, this season has it all. We can't wait for you to listen!

The long-awaited season finale of our romantic relationships series is HERE! In this episode, we gather all of our best thoughts, research, and insights about perfectionism and romantic relationships to give you the ultimate recap to our 3rd season.

You also get a sneak peek at how our own romantic lives have been the last few months. Brace yourselves.

Perfectionism loves to pollute many things, including our romantic relationships. All three forms of perfectionism fuel comparison and unrealistic expectations, resulting in shattered fantasies of relationships and loneliness. Tune in to hear Alysha and Anna dig into how comparison and expectations taint connection and cultivate romantic relationships.

View our Instagram for more details @poppingperfectionism.

Anna & Alysha let you in on their personal recent breakdowns and practice vulnerability. 

It's true, folks. Perfectionism is the ultimate spicy time killer. If you want the juicy details on how, tune in! 

In this episode, we talk about something almost every perfectionist relationship goes through: expecting you, your partner, or both of you to fill every single role and need for each other. Perfectionism loves painting things black and white, especially when its comes to romance and needs. Tune in to hear how to recognize these patterns and what to do about them! 

Rejection and feedback can sometimes feel DEADLY for perfectionists, especially in romantic relationships. Even though honestly and candor is critical to a healthy relationship, it is also the very thing that can cause perfectionists to retreat, overthink, ruminate, and save face, hindering connection even more. 

Tune in to hear how to combat this and learn to embrace feedback rather than let it sabotage connection.

We are coming in HOT in this episode with research, theories, and practices all centered on how perfectionism plays into attachment styles. Attachment styles are a HUGE part of romantic relationships and, as it always does, perfectionism loves to find its way into the spotlight with each style. 

This episode will help you resonate with your own personal attachment style, identify ways perfectionism shows up in that style, and how to effectively combat some of the unhealthy habits that can come when perfectionism and attachment get together. Tune in! 

So much of perfectionism hinges on the belief that life is a series of events, not experiences. And relationships are no exception - in fact, they may be the poster child for this mindset. 

This episode talks about how having an event-based mentality can sabotage relationships and how adjusting to focus on experiences rather than events and outcomes, you can improve your romantic relationships and interactions. Tune in!! 

Do you find yourself people-pleasing, blending in, or only showing specific versions of yourself in order to maintain others' opinion of you? Do you do this especially in dating? Well then, this episode is for you. We lose a lot of connections in dating because we don't allow others to see who we really are - because of perfectionism. Should we show our whole selves to everyone all the time? Of course not. But knowing when to be vulnerable and how to be okay if people's opinions of you change when that happens, can be a game-changer. 

Are you READY for this next series?? We talk about ALL things relationships and perfectionism. Relationships are the BREEDING GROUND for perfectionism. They put our insecurities in the limelight and make our egos absolutely squirm. From dating to divorce to marriage to singlehood, this series will cover it all. 

Be sure to tune in and let us know what you think!! And as always, follow us at @poppingperfectionism. 

We've made it people! The last episode of this series. After everything we've covered with perfectionism within the LDS culture, this episode contains our final, juiciest, most emphasized thoughts. Everything we want you to remember how perfectionism and God, yourself, and your relationship with the church and others in it, is in this episode. Be sure to tune in and be on the lookout for our next series! 

If you're a member of the church, you already know about the plethora of "gray areas" within the church that each member chooses to approach differently. These gray areas range from R-rated movies to modesty to Sunday activities and more. 

Perfectionism plays a large part in how we view ourselves and other people when it comes to these "gray areas". We often talk about outward facing benchmarks and these topics/areas are often what we use to establish those harmful benchmarks for others. 

We don't hold back in this episode! Give it a listen and let us know what you think! 

One of the most magnified environments for perfectionism to fester is missions. If we're talking about people-pleasing, image maintaining, unrealistic expectations, and self-criticism, missions are the perfect storm. 

And it's a storm we don't talk about enough. 

Tune in to hear how perfectionism affects current missionaries, return missionaries, people who didn't serve missions, and the stigma behind the whole concept of missions. 

We keep teasing you with these surprise off-weeks, but we are back now with another episode - and one of our best yet! We just got done hashing out repentance and perfectionism and now we are talking about one of the most beautiful concepts in the church: Grace. 

Grace is a gift from God. We don't do anything to earn it or deserve it. No one is more deserving or less deserving of grace than anyone else. Perfectionism loves to make us believe that our worth and value is hinged on what we can do by ourselves and this directly affects our relationship with God, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and how we utilize (or more often don't utilize) grace in our lives. 

As this series comes to a soon close, we hope this topic helps dispel some of the myths about grace and God! 

WE'RE BACK! Did you miss us?? Thought we'd give everyone a week off to catch up on this season - but now we're back with (as always) one of our favorite episodes: Repentance and Perfectionism. 

Perfectionism is one of the leading culprits in why repentance has gained such a negative connotation within all religions, but specifically within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Repentance is good news. Repentance is joyful. Repentance is a relief. But perfectionism has us convinced that repentance is shameful and should only be viewed as a last resort. 

Tune in to hear how perfectionism might be disrupting your repentance process and how you can combat it! 

We've had tons of people dm-ing us questions about our episodes and perfectionism in general and we wanted to take an entire episode to address them! We didn't get to all of them, but we will do more of these in the future. Tune in to hear how we answer questions such as the following:

Where did perfectionism begin within church culture?

How does perfectionism manifest itself in dating?

What's the difference between toxic and productive perfectionism?

How can you accept yourself but strive to be better at the same time?

Perfectionism can be used as a weapon - sometimes we use it against ourselves, sometimes we use it against others, but it is very often used by Satan to isolate and sever us from our true selves, others, and God. 

Some of our best outside resources and analogies are used in this episode to paint the picture of how Satan has used perfectionism to tear down Zion, destroy relationships, and ultimately damage our personal relationships with God. Tune in to hear more! 

Perfectionism bleeds onto everything, including God's character! And once God's character has been colored in a perfectionist light, it warps everything else about the church, its culture, and how its members view themselves and others. 

In this episode, we talk about WHY God is not a perfectionist, how He never could be, and how us thinking He is has negatively impacted the church, church culture, and our identities. Tune in to learn more! 

*DISCLAIMER* We say this is Episode 4 in the beginning of this episode, it's Episode 3. :) 

Perfectionism seems to find its way into everything, and Zion is no exception. Zion is a place where everyone has a place, unconditionally. Perfectionism convinces us that others need to meet certain benchmarks before they can be accepted and loved. Zion is about keeping baptismal covenants and lifting others. Perfectionism says that we don't need help and we're supposed to do it on our own. Zion is about love. Perfectionism is about unrighteous judgment. 

Tune in to hear more about how to identify the dangers of perfectionism and how we can build Zion instead! 

We're BACK with a brand new series and loads of new content! 

In this series, we talk about something no one really seems to address: Perfectionism and the LDS culture. LDS is short for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (also known around the world as Mormons or Latter Day Saints). 

In this first episode, we talk about how we got here as a church and community. In a religion so focused on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and embracing flaws within ourselves and others, how did its culture become one of the most perfectionist environments out there? How do the symptoms of perfectionism manifest themselves within the culture and how do those symptoms clash with the doctrine? How and why has perfectionism taken the front seat while vulnerability, Connectionism, and acceptance shudder in the shadows?

Tune in and follow along this series to hear how we can change this perfectionist culture to one of Connectionism. 

We made it!! We are at the final episode of this series. We decided to use this episode to share our full personal stories with perfectionism and some final thoughts that we weren't able to touch on in the previous episodes. Some of our best nuggets of wisdom are packed into these 45 minutes, so be sure to tune in! 

Thank you to our listeners for sticking with us and relating to our content. We are so excited for our next series to come out! 

In this episode, we cover our last form of perfectionism. Socially-Prescribed perfectionism derives itself from pressures set by a culture, society, or other external groups. A lot of elements play into this from of perfectionism including social media and social circles. 

Tune in to hear ways to recognize, identify, and combat this form of perfectionism! 

In this episode, we explore the relationship-killing form of perfectionism: other-oriented. Being an other-oriented perfectionist has a double-edged sword. It can be a very lonely way to live in addition to being really toxic for yourself and others. Often, other-oriented perfectionism is born from self-oriented perfectionism. You're only as hard on others as you are on yourself! 

Tune in to hear symptoms of this form, long-term impacts, and most importantly, how to combat it! 

Welcome back to Popping Perfectionism! Today we dive into the inner-workings of one of our most familiar and dreaded topics: self-oriented perfectionism. This form of perfectionism packs quite a punch and is where the other forms of perfectionism (to be discussed in coming episodes) typically stem from. 

Join us on this episode as we talk about the symptoms of this type of perfectionism, its impacts on relationships and self-esteem, and most importantly - ways to combat it. 

In this episode, we talk about the two foundational dimensions of perfectionism as well as a common side effect of perfectionism: The Chameleon Syndrome. 

By participating in the two perfectionism dimensions of unrealistic goals and self-criticism, we train our minds to constantly beat down on our self-esteem, worth, and identity. This often causes us to then take on Chameleon Syndrome as a defense mechanism. Chameleon Syndrome allows us to blend in with our environments, consistently displaying other people's ideal versions of ourselves. This prevents us from being our authentic selves which then inevitably ruins any chance of connection. 

By instead practicing Connectionism, we can combat this mindset and move more freely in the world as our true, honest selves. 

In this episode, we explore the "what" behind perfectionism, Connectionism, and how this podcast came to be. The world has perfectionism all wrong: it's not a virtue - it's a vice. We talk about ways to recognize a perfectionist mindset and even more importantly, ways to combat it - through Connectionism.

Popping Perfectionism - Official Trailer