MINDSET TRAPS OF THE EMPTY NEST - TRAP #5 - PERFECTIONISM
Welcome to the Small Jar Podcast, where we moms of teens find the power to step off the emotional rollercoaster between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Episode number 147.
Hello, friends, and welcome back to Small Jar's Mindset Tribe series. I am so glad you're here as we continue this journey of uncovering the hidden patterns of thinking that make raising and launching our kids feel way harder than it has to be. I was talking with a client the other day and she said something so profound.
We've been working together for a while and she has grown so deeply in this work. But what she's realized is that understanding your mind and learning how to create peace and emotional well-being intentionally, it's a process. It's also not a magic pill, something where once you get it, you're never going to feel sad or anxious again.
Life is going to continue to bring us challenges. That's just the reality of life. And as humans, we're going to have feelings about all of that.
When you really think about it, you wouldn't want it any other way. We don't want to be so inoculated to the experience of life that we don't feel. The example I always think of is when we love someone deeply, losing them will bring us pain.
I can't imagine a world in which that wouldn't be true. In signing up for love, we are automatically signing up for that risk of loss and grief. But it's worth it.
We would sign up to feel love again and again, even if it means it will end in heartbreak. It's the contract we signed when we became moms. We knew intellectually that we were going to love these little people and it's been our life's work to raise them.
And there are times when it hurts a lot, but we're never going to give up or tell ourselves it's not worth it. On the other hand, what I've learned over the past 10 years of self-discovery and mastering the tools of self-coaching is that we so often make the experience of our life so much harder than it has to be. But that's also not our fault.
We're not broken or doing it wrong. It's simply a function of how our brains work on autopilot. The way our minds default to desperately trying to keep us safe and comfortable.
Only there are times when these default thought patterns actually create the opposite experience. Where they actually create pain and make our lives more complicated and hard. And so this is why I'm spending so much time on these mindset traps in this series.
Because understanding these default patterns of thinking, these mindset traps, frees you to have a much more intentional and peaceful experience of life. An experience where you no longer feel at the mercy of life, hoping everything will go according to plan or that everything will meet your expectations. You start to see how making your emotional well-being dependent on all of those things that are utterly out of your control is a recipe for disaster and a lot of pain.
When you discover how to take your power back over your emotional experience, you learn how you create your own peace, confidence, and connection. But as my client so beautifully said, it's a process. Because even when your higher, more intentional mind takes charge of your primitive mind, think of it as your fight-or-flight instinct, it's still going to fight like hell to keep you safe.
So learning how to be intentional with your emotions and the way you show up in your life is a constant process of self-compassion, curiosity, and developing self-trust. These are the skills I teach my clients in my one-on-one coaching program and with this series, I'm sharing with you why this work is so important. So these default patterns of our mind, these mindset traps, aren't a sign that there's anything wrong with you.
They're simply deeply ingrained mental habits, ways our brains try to protect us from uncertainty, discomfort, and change. But while our primitive brains really think that these ways of thinking are helping us in the moment, they often do the opposite, keeping us stuck in stress, frustration, and anxiety. So far in this series, I've explored four mindset traps.
The first was emotional reasoning, what I call the emotional roller coaster. This is when we believe that our emotions define reality. We think, I feel anxious, so something must be wrong.
The second trap I explored was all-or-nothing thinking. This is the habit of seeing everything in extremes, either success and failure or good and bad. The third trap I explored was the comparison trap.
When we fall into this trap as moms, we tend to measure our worth and our kids' success against other people, and this often leaves us feeling inadequate or not good enough. The most recent trap I covered was the illusion of control, the belief that if we just do everything right, we can control outcomes for our kids and ourselves. The problem is we can't control our kids and many other circumstances of our lives, so this trap keeps us stuck in powerlessness, frustration, and anxiety.
If you haven't had a chance to listen to those past episodes, don't worry. You can listen to these episodes in any order. I also did a whole introductory series on the reasons we fall into these traps, so please feel free to listen in any order that resonates with you.
And if you're interested in taking this work deeper, make sure to grab my Mindset Trap Detector Worksheet, which gives you a series of questions to explore for yourself as you discover how these hidden traps are impacting you and your life. So all of that said, let's dive into today's mindset trap, perfectionism. This is a particularly sneaky mindset trap because it feels like a good thing.
The truth is, we don't ever really think that we're striving for perfection. Instead, we tell ourselves that we're just doing our best, holding ourselves and our kids accountable, holding us to high standards. This is a trap I've struggled with all my life, my friends.
I've always believed that success is a function of working hard and trying your best. My parents modeled a strong work ethic and instilled in me a belief that hard work translated into achievement. I think it's a great thing, actually, and I've probably instilled the same set of values in my own kids.
The problem I've realized over time is that when it comes to success, in whatever way you define it, whether it's academic success, financial success, success in relationships, or being a mom, whatever the context, the definition of success is all relative. For each of us, in every area of our lives, we have an idea of what we think success looks like. Maybe that bar is relative to other people.
Maybe it's just what we think we want in order to feel happy and content. Whatever the reasons, we have this picture of what success looks like, and it's actually amazing that even this bar that we actually set for ourselves, this measure of success, can feel like it's unattainable, always out of reach. But here's the thing, perfectionism isn't actually about being perfect at all.
It's about fear. Fear of making mistakes, fear of falling short, fear that if we don't get everything just right, that we'll regret it, feel guilty or ashamed. There's so many ways this shows up for us as moms, and many of them are surprising, because they don't seem to relate to this concept of being perfect at all.
So today I'm going to explore why our brains cling to perfectionism, how it keeps us stuck in stress and self-doubt, and most importantly, how to step out of this trap so we can experience more peace, confidence, and joy in our lives, not just as moms, but as women stepping into our next chapter. So let's get started by getting really clear about what perfectionism is. Perfectionism starts with a conscious, or more often an unconscious belief, that anything less than perfect is a failure.
But again, we often don't really consciously choose to strive to be perfect, but in reality we're putting constant pressure on ourselves to meet these impossibly high standards, whether in parenting, relationships, or even how we take care of ourselves. It's that voice in your head that says, if I just try harder, do more, or get everything exactly right, then I can avoid mistakes, regret, or disappointment. And this is where the fear comes in, because while we tell ourselves we're not trying to be perfect, we're so afraid that our failure will result in regret or disappointment.
It can sound noble to try so hard to do more and get everything right, but the problem is this goal, this possibility of perfection, is an illusion. It's not a real destination, it's a moving target, and when we chase it, we exhaust ourselves trying to meet this unrealistic standard that no one, literally no one, ever reaches. For us moms, perfectionism can show up in many ways.
Sometimes it's obvious. We hold ourselves or our kids to these high expectations and feel like we've failed when we or they don't meet them. But other times this tendency to seek perfection is more subtle, showing up as self-doubt, overthinking, or even procrastination, because we're afraid of doing something imperfectly.
So let's talk first about the pressure to be a perfect mom. You may not use those exact words, but perfectionism often disguises itself as the feeling that you should always be doing more, that there's some right way to be a mom, or to parent your kids, and if you don't figure it out, you're falling short. If you're the mom of a teenager, this could look like worrying that every parenting decision you make right now will impact your child's future.
You question whether you're being too lenient or too strict, whether you're being supportive enough, whether you should be checking their grades more or giving them independence, and when you do make a decision, you second-guess yourself. Did I do the right thing? Or what if this backfires? For those of us on the brink of a child leaving home, perfectionism shows up as the belief that you need to get it all right before they leave. You want to make sure they have every life skill, every piece of wisdom, that they've learned enough, that they're ready.
I feel this so deeply in my experience with my son right now, but how can you know if your big kid is truly ready? The hard reality is you can't. So you keep trying harder to fix things before time runs out. And for those of us already in the empty nest, perfectionism shows up as self-judgment.
Did I do enough? Was I a good enough mom? Did I set them up for success? If you see your kid struggling, you replay moments from their childhood, wondering if you should have been more patient, been more involved, given more or expected less. It's so tempting to believe that there is a right way to parent, but notice how believing this sets us up for failure before we even start. Because how can we know for certain what is right and what the impact of our decisions will be? Perfectionism doesn't just impact how we see ourselves and how we're doing in our role as a mom.
It also affects how we view our kids. If your teen struggles in school or doesn't seem motivated, you might ask yourself, what if they don't have a successful future? So you feel responsible for pushing them, trying to get them to be motivated. In your heart, you want to believe in them and their potential to succeed, but you're also afraid of what will happen if they don't.
In all aspects of our kids' lives, we're constantly on the lookout for danger, for signs that they're struggling, or possibly making choices we believe are going to result in bad outcomes. It can be hard to make space for the possibility that our kids are just navigating their own messy, imperfect journey like we all have. So many moms have said to me, I just want to help my kid avoid the mistakes I made, to save them from the pain that I experienced.
Again, it sounds so noble and worthwhile. Of course we want to save our kids from pain, but sometimes we're fighting a battle against a danger that's only a reality in our minds. Let's be honest, perfectionism isn't just about wanting things with our kids to go well.
It's also about control. And if you haven't listened to the last episode in this series on the illusion of control, it's worth a listen. Again, there's this underlying belief that if we just work hard enough, just convince our kids to do the right thing, encourage them in the right way, set the right boundaries, if we can just do all of this right, we can prevent pain, both for ourselves and our kids.
But notice the we, the I, in there. That I have the power to prevent my kids' pain. My friend, I wish that were true.
I really do. If it were true, sign me up. Because I personally love having control.
I love the certainty of it. I love the ability to do something that feels important and like it matters. And if my hard work and effort could make my boys avoid pain and failure, I would work 24 hours a day to make that happen.
But this just isn't possible. There is no guarantee that our effort will impact our kids at all, certainly not anymore as they stand on the brink of adulthood. It's also worth touching on how perfectionism shows up in the way we view and treat ourselves as women, separate from our role as a mom.
Some of us approach the empty nest and feel pressure to find the thing, new purpose, that next passion, the next career, whatever that next step could be, a way to find fulfillment, or possibly just to fill the time we used to spend invested in our kids. But it can be easy to use this thought that there's a right answer against ourselves. Sometimes instead of taking action, we then feel paralyzed, afraid of choosing the wrong thing or failing, wasting time going down the wrong path.
And it's not just about purpose in the empty nest. Perfectionism shows up in the way we take care of ourselves, how much we exercise or how much we eat, how productive we are with our time, the quality of our marriage or other relationships. We judge ourselves for not having figured all this out yet.
Have you ever said to yourself, I'm 50 plus or minus years old, I should know this by now? As if these arbitrary standards of what our lives should look like mean something about who we are or what we're capable of. My friend, the underlying self-judgment part of perfectionism is honestly soul-sucking. It feels terrible and it feels like there's no way out other than to keep working harder, staying on that hamster wheel and running faster and faster to nowhere because the finish line is always out of reach.
So perfectionism, quite frankly, feels exhausting. Thinking this way, that we have to get it right, that there is a right answer, makes us feel anxious and guilty. We judge ourselves constantly.
This way of thinking also has the potential to strain the relationship we have with our kids because our actions put pressure on them, make them feel judged. It opens the door to them thinking that we think they're not good enough, which is the last thing we would ever want. So if all of this is true, why do we keep doing it? Why do we hold ourselves and our kids to these impossible standards, even when we know deep down that perfection isn't possible? The answer gets back to the fundamental way our brains are wired.
Believe it or not, perfectionism is a survival mechanism. Our brains are constantly trying to protect us from pain, and this includes failure, disappointment, and regret. Our brains on this primitive level want to protect us from not only physical pain, but also emotional pain.
And perfectionist thinking is one way our brain tries to do this. So let's break this down by going back to the motivational triad, those three core human instincts to avoid pain, seek pleasure, and conserve energy. So first, let's tackle avoiding pain.
I mean, this one is obvious, and I've been touching on this throughout this episode already. Of course we want to avoid our kids' pain. We've been doing it for decades.
It's a basic instinct. From the time they were babies, our role as moms has been to protect our kid. We soothed them when they cried, caught them before they fell.
We made sure they were fed, warm, and safe. With every scraped knee or hurt feeling, our kids came to us, and we were there to make it better. It's such a privilege to have played this role for our kids as we look back on it now.
But the other thing is, for so long, we actually could protect them from a lot of pain, or at least it felt like we could. Notice how our ability to succeed in doing this is also why it's become such a deeply ingrained habit. Because we felt grateful and relieved to be able to do this.
We felt pleasure when we were able to save our kids from their pain. But now that they're older, the pain they experience, whether it's rejection, failure, loneliness, or sadness, or anxiety, none of this is something we can just fix with a hug or a band-aid. Of course, that doesn't mean we don't try.
We try to comfort them, we give them advice, try to guide them toward better choices. At the heart of it, it's not even necessarily that we don't think they can handle their feelings or figure it out. The truth is that we're not comfortable sitting with the fear of watching them struggle.
This is the ultimate truth that we need to come to terms with as moms. So often, we're not actually doing anything that helps our kids avoid pain now that they're older. But what we're doing is trying to avoid our own pain.
And let's be honest here, we can't feel our kids' pain. No matter how much we love them, no matter how deeply connected we are, we can't actually feel the emotions that they're feeling, those sensations in their body. They are living their own experience.
They're navigating their own emotions. And yet when they struggle, we do hurt. We experience our emotions as we witness theirs.
And because we don't want to sit with those uncomfortable emotions, we try to prevent them by trying to guide them in the right way so they won't experience failure. We try to make sure they have the right friends so they won't feel lonely. We push them to make good choices so they won't make mistakes or feel regret.
But when it comes down to it, what we're really doing is trying desperately to get everything right so we won't have to feel the pain of watching them struggle. Perfectionism reinforces the illusion that we can control our kids' pain. But no matter what we do, we can't keep them from struggling.
We can't avoid their pain, so then it feels like there's nothing we can do to avoid ours. And yet we keep trying. Okay, so let's look at the second part of the motivational triad, our desire to seek pleasure.
That validation that comes from being seen as successful feels so good. I touched on this briefly before. We have gotten validation in our role as a mom in those moments when we were able to help our kids avoid pain as they've grown up.
This feeling of validation has been driven by our own perception that it's our job to keep our kids safe. So when we've done that, we felt successful. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with this.
It's simply a function of how our brains have processed our role and responsibility on autopilot for decades. This is something I explored more in the introductory part of this Mindset Trap series, really, how our biological system reinforces our sense of validation, how our body actually releases hormones like dopamine and oxytocin that reward us physically for taking care of our children. Think about how powerful that is from the standpoint of the survival of the human species.
You know, I think I saw on some nature channel that there are species of animals that actually eat their young. But in contrast, we are designed biologically to protect our children until they're old enough to take care of themselves. It's really fascinating when you think about this.
But the long-term impact of this biological system of rewards is that over time, we've been conditioned to believe that our worth, our value as moms, is measured by how well we raise our kids. And the result of that is that we've developed belief systems about what success looks like. And we look to our kids for evidence of that success.
In essence, we're looking for that external validation. When my kids are okay, then I'm okay. But my friend, when you really, truly stop to think about this, your worth as a mom is not measured by your child's achievements.
Their success isn't actually your success. And in the same way, their failure isn't your failure. Your job was never to create a perfect child.
It's been to love and guide the development of a human being. I heard someone in a talk once say, as we raise our kids, we are not designing the perfect sheep. We are simply the shepherd.
Think about what that means in terms of how you define your success as a mom. Okay, the last part of the motivational triad is conserving energy. My friend, our brains love simplicity.
The idea that there are right choices and wrong choices makes things feel so much easier. But perfectionism offers a false sense of certainty and safety. As if, if you just do this, then everything will turn out fine.
But life doesn't actually work that way. In fact, this binary or black and white thinking, approaching the world as if they're right answers and wrong answers, makes decision-making harder because we're so afraid of making the wrong choice that we freeze or overthink and then end up paralyzed and stuck. Perfectionism isn't just a habit.
It's our brain's attempt to solve a problem. It's a solution. It feels like a way to keep us safe, even to help us be successful.
But in reality, it just keeps us stuck in pain. It tricks us into believing that we can avoid mistakes and more pain. It tricks us into believing we can avoid mistakes and the pain of failure.
But perfectionism provides a false sense of control and creates only an illusion of safety. But it's all a lie. Perfectionism is your brain's way of telling you that if you try hard enough and do everything just right, you'll avoid pain, failure, and regret.
But life is messy. Parenting is messy. Our kids' lives will be messy.
And the truth is, our lives are messy too. That's actually exactly as it should be. It's how we learn.
It's how we grow. As you look back on your own life, you probably see how even the wrong choices or paths had purpose. Whatever that journey looked like, it brought you your children.
The failures made you stronger in some ways, taught you something about yourself, forced you to keep trying and growing. It's not pretty, but as you look back on your life, is there really anything you would change if it meant you'd also have to sacrifice the beautiful parts of your life? Sacrifice the growth that you've experienced in your life? So what could be possible for you if you learn to let go of perfectionism? Imagine what life would feel like if you could stop chasing these impossible standards. When you could stop believing that you have to get everything right as a mom.
Well, there are four major things that transform when you let go of this mindset trap. The first is that you gain the ability to be present in your life. When you're caught up in fixing and worrying and second-guessing, you miss the beauty of what's actually happening in your life right now.
The beauty of what's happening in your kid's life. I experienced this recently when my son got deferred from his top choice college in December. At first, my instinct was to feel terrible, to think that I should have done something differently to support him so this outcome that isn't in anyone's control by the way, but my brain wanted to tell me that I could have somehow avoided this.
But then I stopped. I saw my son's deep disappointment and I was willing to hold space for that because of course he felt disappointed. And then, because I was able to pull myself out of beating myself up and holding onto regret, I was able to watch him pick himself up the very next day and get to work on the rest of his applications.
It was like a phoenix rising from the ashes. Truly so beautiful. Like, here's my kid who is so strong and resilient and committed to his goals that he's not going to use disappointment as a reason to give up.
When I saw this, when I was actually able to be present for this, I felt so proud. I felt so immeasurably grateful. And even though we all still felt the pang of disappointment and the continued stress of the college process, I have been able to be present in all of that because I let go of the thought that there was one right way for the story to go.
The second beautiful impact of letting go of perfectionism is that you transform your relationship with your child. Perfectionism creates pressure, not only for you but for your kids. When we expect ourselves to get everything right, we unintentionally project that expectation onto our kids.
But when we release that pressure, our kids feel that too. Instead of seeing us as someone they need to impress or avoid disappointing, they see us as a safe place. A place where they don't have to be perfect.
And isn't that what we really want? Not for our kids to be perfect, but for them to feel loved exactly as they are. Letting go of perfectionism also means that you stop holding yourself hostage to what-if thinking. Perfectionism keeps you stuck in doubt and anxiety.
But when you let go of it, you open the door to trust. Trusting yourself and your kid. You can't predict or control the future.
And when you truly accept this, you get to focus on how you show up today. You get to show up from a place of intention, rather than from a need to control and get things right. You have power over the decision you make right now.
Can you trust yourself to make the best decision you can in this moment? Ultimately, my friend, you get to give yourself permission to be human. You are always doing your best. And motherhood is messy.
There are truly no right answers. There's only you, always doing your best with the information you have right now. Can you let that be enough? Consider this.
What if you already are exactly the mom your child needs? What if you're already enough without having to prove it? But I know it's one thing to hear these words and to understand them intellectually. But it's truly another to believe them in your heart. And this is why I created my coaching program, Mom 2.0. Mom 2.0 isn't about making you a better mom because you're already enough.
It's not about fixing you because you're not broken. It's about helping you finally feel free of the pressure, the anxiety and the frustration and the guilt and the doubt of always trying your best but feeling like it's never quite enough. Mom 2.0 is about trusting yourself to be the mom you want to be as your kids grow up.
And it's about being the woman you want to be as you head into your next chapter. It's not about settling or about giving up. It's about releasing these impossible standards and stepping into the confidence that comes from truly trusting yourself.
This is the work we do in Mom 2.0. And if you're ready to get started, just reach out and set up a call with me. Imagine parenting from a place of calm confidence instead of constant worry. Imagine stepping into your own future with excitement instead of fear.
That is what we do in Mom 2.0.
Letting go of these mindset traps doesn't mean losing control. It means gaining the freedom to fully enjoy your life, trust yourself, and create deeper, more meaningful connections with your child and your future. Let’s get started, my friend.
And if this series resonates with you, I invite you to share it with another mom who needs to hear it.
Until next time, my friend.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review and check out our coaching program, Mom 2.0 at www.thesmalljar.com. You have more power than you think, my friend.
