People-Pleasing & Perfectionism on Your Self-Love Journey

On this episode of Small Steps to Self-Love, mental health and self-love advocate Shelby Leigh sits down with Kristy Pask, a marketing and mindset coach for small business owners, to discuss the impact of perfectionism on mental health and how to overcome it. Kristy shares her personal experiences with perfectionism, burnout, and mindset blocks. They explore the importance of identifying personal values, prioritizing self-care, and speaking to oneself with kindness.

Tune in to this insightful discussion on mental health, self-love, and overcoming perfectionism!

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About Kristy:
Kristy Pask is a Business, Marketing and Mindset Coach. With over 15 years’ experience in Marketing, Kristy has worked with more than 50 brands to develop and execute global, national and local marketing, social media, PR and sale strategies. Kristy is now on a mission to bring together everything she has learned about business and marketing (and continues to learn) to help small businesses owners.

A self confessed marketing nerd and recovering perfectionist, Kristy’s goal is to simplify marketing and help small business owners ditch the overwhelm and stop procrastinating, and instead focus on building momentum while gaining clarity and confidence as they grow their business.

kristypask.com
instagram.com/kristypask

JOIN THE POETRY CLUB:
Want to join a supportive community of poets learning to write and publish their poetry book? Hosted by Shelby Leigh, bestselling poet, you'll get all the support and resources you need, with multiple live events featuring award-winning poets every month. Head to https://jointhepoetryclub.com to learn more!

ABOUT SHELBY:
Shelby is a mental health author, who has grown an audience of more than 500,000 on social media who resonate with her work. She is the author of 3 poetry books, including her latest release, girl made of glass and her bestselling book, changing with the tides. Shelby also runs an online poetry community, and helps authors market themselves and their books for more sales.

resources from shelby:

·        check out Shelby’s mental health poetry books

·        Free self-love poetry print

·        Join the poetry club

·        Get help with marketing as a writer

connect with shelby:

·        Instagram: @shelbyleighpoetry

·        YouTube: Shelby Leigh Poetry

·        TikTok: @shelbyleighpoetry

Transcript

Shelby Leigh [00:00:00]:

Hello and welcome to another episode of Small Steps to Self Love. I'm Shelby Leigh, your host, mental health and self love advocate. And today I am joined by guest Kristy Pask. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know about Jointhepoetryclub.com, which is my online poetry community for poets to learn about writing and publishing and marketing a book. We are 100 plus members strong. It is a beautiful and supportive community and if you are interested in learning more, you can head to join the poetryclub.com to get on the waitlist for when we open to new members. Welcome Christy. Thanks so much for being here today. I would love to pass it over to you to just tell us a little bit more about you and what you do.

Kristy Park [00:00:36]:

Yeah, absolutely. Hi and thank you so much for having me. So, my name is Kristy and I am a marketing and mindset coach for creative small business owners. So I have been working in the field of marketing for just over 15 years now and my focus now is really on helping small business owners really uncover the strategies and the tactics and the platforms that best suit them, their business and their personality. Rather just conforming to one way of doing everything. Like, I really like to work with people to sort of work out what works best for them based on who they are and where they're at with everything. I am also a recovering perfectionist and I work with my clients to help them identify and overcome their own mindset blocks so that they can move forward and really begin to take action and control of their business and their marketing. On a personal note, as you can probably tell, as you know too, I am Australian. I am based in a regional town, sort of halfway between Sydney and Melbourne. I am a mum of two little people and at the moment I'm really working hard to find the balance between being a mum, a business owner and also just finding the time to be me as well.

Shelby Leigh [00:01:58]:

I love that and we met in a Mastermind that we're in together. So I love connecting with other marketers because I am super passionate about marketing, what I studied in college and then as some listeners may know, I help other authors with their marketing and their book marketing too. So really passionate and excited to chat about you. I don't think I've had another marketer on this podcast actually. Awesome. Yeah. I'm excited to chat today about mental health and self love and the perfectionism piece. I feel like I wouldn't even call myself recovering. I think I still very much am a perfectionist and it's really hard to overcome that. I don't even know how to. I'm excited to see how you have started that. So I'd love to just hear a little bit more about your mental health and self love journey, especially as it pertains to the work you do now?

Kristy Park [00:02:55]:

Absolutely. So this is such an interesting question. If you had asked me this ten years ago, my answer would have been completely different, I think. I never considered myself someone who had struggled with any kind of mental health issues growing up or anything like that. I really considered myself quite a happy person. I would have told you that I was really easy going and I didn't let too much bother me. However, it was actually almost exactly ten years ago that I was introduced to the world of personal development. And having done a lot of work on myself over that time and sort of diving into that and having that time to reflect, I think that version of me does exist. However, I think it existed for a very long time to protect me. So looking back now, even right throughout my childhood, I was such a people pleaser. It was probably my biggest thing. I never broke the rules. I always had to be a good girl. I hated getting in trouble, I never wanted to be a bother. And I did a lot of things that would make other people happy. I have this one really vivid memory growing up, and my mom said to me, stop letting people walk all over you. And I was quite offended. I was quite shocked because I was like, I did not let people walk all over me. But I really like, I did so many things that I didn't want to do to keep other people happy. And often that was at the detriment to my own happiness. So I had this public persona. People on the outside would probably see me as really easy going, as really laid back, as someone that didn't let anything get to her. However, underneath it all, I was overthinking and overanalyzing absolutely everything. I was stressed and I was anxious all the time and I was almost trying to control everything around me by if I can keep everyone happy and I can keep things moving, I can keep myself safe. And this is something that I've sort of only really uncovered in more of these recent years. And I took that with me into adulthood, into university, into working, and then into my business as well. And I think it was in my business that I really sort of began to see what was going on. I was incredibly insecure and just so full of self doubt. I hated showing my face on Instagram and social media. I hated sharing my opinion because what if someone else's opinion was different to mine? Or what if someone challenged me? So it was this real like, I lived in quite a lot of fear and at the time I didn't really realize what it was and what was going on for me. And it wasn't until 2020 that I actually came across perfectionism. And obviously I'd heard of perfectionism before, but it was always I don't know if it was the same for you growing up. It was such it was almost like a good thing. Like, I remember being told in job interviews, when someone would say, what's your biggest weakness? You'd say, oh, like, I'm a bit of a perfectionist. It was such a thing that we were taught that it seemed, and I was like, I'm not a perfectionist. I am so far from perfecting because I had this real ball of self doubt that lived inside of me. I thought that perfectionists were there's. People that have really clean houses and their lives are together and they're so organized and that's what I thought being a perfectionist was. But it's this, like it's this, you know, this need or the I guess it's more. I love I think it's Brene Brown that says it and I love the way she says it. Perfectionists aren't perfect people. They're people who feel shame because they're not perfect. So it's a real sort of fixed mindset. It's this belief that you're either good at something or you're not, that you can't learn things. It's this feeling of insecurity, of this overthinking. They're not necessarily high achievers because they're living in this world of real overthinking that they don't often take a lot of action and they don't like to learn and grow and do all those sorts of things. So, yeah, that's kind of like, really where it's been for me. And I say recovering perfectionist because I know I've come a long way, but I know I've still got a long way to go. I actually haven't told anyone this yet, but a couple of weeks ago I was trolled on TikTok. So I made a mistake. I actually released a TikTok. So it was a real and a TikTok and in it I said it was about Chat GPT and in the opening I said Chat GTP. So I had the T and the P around the wrong way in the intro of this video. And so funny, no one on Instagram noticed. No one said anything. I had someone share it. I had a couple of great people comment. And then I jumped over to TikTok, and all these people were telling me how stupid I was, how AI needed to replace me and that I was irrelevant and I'm part of the problem and all these really horrible comments. And I could feel like, the heat rising in me from my stomach. It just comes right up to my face. And I was like, oh, my goodness. Like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that this is happening. Oh, my God, I can't believe this is happening. But when I say recovering perfectionist as well, like the me two years ago, I reckon I would have shut down business and deleted all evidence that I ever existed. Like, no way was I going to go through that. Whereas this time I was like I really sort of coached myself through it. I was like, what would I tell someone if you did this? What would I tell you? I'd be like, It's totally fine. It's just a slip of the tongue. It doesn't matter. It doesn't define your intelligence or your ability to be able to do what you do. Like, you made a mistake and got two letters around the wrong way in the opening of this video, which was kind of embarrassing. I sort of sat with it for the day, but I really moved through that and I was like, I really decided at that moment that I wasn't going to let this define me and I wasn't going to let this be the thing that sort of stopped me in my tracks and stopped me from moving forward. So I really have come a long way, but I know I've got a long way to go. So, yeah, that's kind of my journey with it, like you said. I feel like I wish that there was just, like some easy cure or some quick fix, but yeah, we just keep moving through it and growing and learning with it. Yeah, absolutely.

Shelby Leigh [00:09:37]:

Thank you for sharing that story and walking through that journey. That was amazing to listen to. And the whole time you were talking on the inside, I was like, that's me. That's me.

Kristy Park [00:09:46]:

That's me.

Shelby Leigh [00:09:47]:

With everything you said I was relating to so much. Yeah, I appreciate that, man. TikTok can be scary sometimes. I actually got more trolls on Instagram than TikTok, usually. Yeah, but I think that I really related to that story because I think a few years ago, especially when I first started publishing books, I remember getting my first negative review, which isn't even a troll, it's just their honest opinion, and that's fine. But I was so upset by getting anything like negative, and now it just rolls off my back. It's fine. Which is a good progress to make, for sure. And there are still things that bother me, but we definitely can grow and move past that and try to lessen the perfectionism tendencies, I guess I would say. Absolutely, yeah. And I really like the point you made about if you were coaching me or talking to someone else. I always like to think, if a friend of mine or my partner was going through this issue, what would I say to them? And try to say that to myself because I think we're our harshest critics. And with something like that where you made such a silly mistake, of course you would tell a friend, like, it's nothing. It's just a little mistake and it's going to be over in a day or whatever. It's not going to ruin your business or anything like that. But when it happens to us, it seems so much more detrimental and embarrassing and all of that. So I can definitely relate to that as well. And I also with the showing your face on Instagram and everything, that was like a huge fear for me for years. I actually started off anonymous, completely on social media because I was like, nobody needs to know anything. Like, I can't too much too much self doubt to move past, but definitely glad I have. Well, thank you for sharing all of that about perfectionism. I think it's so important to just try to move past it a little bit is all we can do. Absolutely.

Kristy Park [00:11:45]:

I think if you can identify what's going on for you, and then you can sort of begin to pick up. Hang on. Like, this is what I'm doing here, and this is what I'm doing here. And you can sort of, I guess, recoach yourself or train yourself or go, okay, like, what what advice would I give to someone else to help them get through this? Or, you know, what's the worst that could really happen? And yeah, I think identifying it really sort of in my mind, as soon as I identified what was going on, it was almost just like it was a light bulb moment. Something clicked. I sort of got why I was thinking the way that I was. So it definitely just that helped in itself.

Shelby Leigh [00:12:22]:

So whenever we were talking about doing this episode together, burnout came up because I feel like it's so prevalent for everybody. So I love to switch gears to talk a little bit about that and your experience with Burnout and hopefully recovering some from it, at least for now. But can you tell us a little bit about what that looks like for you?

Kristy Park [00:12:42]:

Yeah, sure. So I think, unfortunately for me, the recovery from Burnout has taken, I'm going to say longer than I would really have liked it to take. But I also think that that's because I didn't give myself the time that I needed to recover from it. So I think for me, how I sort of got into Burnout was actually through so many people COVID and I remember I was obviously working for myself and I was also freelancing for this marketing agency two to three days a week going into 2020. And overnight we lost 80% of our clients because the wedding industry shut down, fitness industry shut down, like all these things shut down. So all these businesses were like, I have to pause, I have to hold, I have to cancel. We can't keep going because no one knew what was going to happen. And then as business sort of started to come back a few months later, I think that we were all like, the agency and me, perhaps in a bit of like this scarcity mode, like, here comes the work. It doesn't matter what it is, you just have to take it. So again, I guess a bit of perfectionism in there, doing things that I didn't want to do, like really not wanting to let people down by saying no. So just taking it because you want to be helpful. And I think I kind of got into this situation where I was doing a lot of work. I was working really hard. I was dropping the kids off at daycare at like 08:00 a.m., picking them up at around 430 in the afternoon, coming home, doing dinner, bath, all that nighttime stuff. Then I was sitting back down at my desk every night and I was working till sort of around 11:00 before going to bed. And it was just rinse and repeat every single day. And I didn't do anything else but that. I didn't do anything that I enjoyed, I didn't do anything for myself, nothing like that. It was just this real like I was so busy, I had taken on so much work and then we ended up moving interstate as well at the start at the end of 2021. So just a lot going on. So I entered the year in Burnout and I recognized that I was Burnout. That looked like for me, like complete apathy towards my business. I was really unmotivated, I was really fatigued, I was really lost with it. I knew that I had to keep going, I had clients, but at the same time I was really, really lost with it. So I tried to really pull back on the work that I was taking also because all these things were going on, I just felt like my productivity was so low, whereas previously it had been so high. So I tried to pull back on the work that I was doing and things like that, but at the same time, this is a perfectionist thing as well. Like needing to feel productive all the time is something that perfectionists are very guilty of. So because I had this need to be productive and to be contributing and helping people and making money and doing all these things, even though I needed to pull back and slow down, I just didn't. So I just kept pushing through. And that's why I think that it took me a really long time. I didn't allow myself the time to rest and to recover and to reflect and to seek the help that I needed. And it was probably really only late last year, sort of October, when we sort of first met that again, sort of even though I'd recognize that I'd gone through Burnout now, I recognized that I actually wasn't helping myself and I was still kind of lingering in this burnout. So for me, that really looked like I'm still working with someone. Now I work with an NLP coach who just focuses on mindset and her business. Like the program that she is doing is called the Health and Happiness Formula, which I really love. And it's really about taking care of myself, finding the things that I enjoy doing that make me happy, like learning to love myself again, giving myself that time, that grace, that space to actually just be me and to find the things that I love to do and I guess just like really connect back in with that. Really looking at we looked at things like this is something that I realized my values and I had to define what my values were. And I realized that all of the things that I'd sort of written down and picked were for other people. Like it was to be helpful and to be kindness and all those things. Like even though they are all really good values, they weren't values for me, they were values to make other people happy. So there's been a lot there. So for me, it looks like really like I've started meditating again, moving my body. Most days I've gotten back into reading, which is something that I love doing, that I really just kind of left to the side because I kind of felt if I'm sitting down reading, I'm not being productive. Right. There's dishes to wash or there's clothes to put away or there's work to do. So it's been this almost unlearning of so many things that I taught myself that I needed to do and I needed to be to be worthy and to exist in this world. It's really this unlearning of all of that and this really this new learning of yeah, coming back to that and finding the things that I enjoy and then bringing more of that into my life. And it's really, really helped me. Eating well, all of those sorts of things. Because I feel like when I'm tired and when I'm fatigued, the first thing to go out the window is healthy eating. You're looking for things that are really quick and easy and carby and things that give you energy at the time. So that's probably been for me what it's looked like. But it's been such a long journey because I didn't deal with it straight away. So if anyone's going through burnout and you recognize that you're going through burnout absolutely. Take the time, give yourself the space that you need to recover because otherwise it just keeps going and it's such a horrible place to be. It's such a horrible feeling to live with day to day.

Shelby Leigh [00:19:04]:

Definitely. Yeah, I love that. And I feel like for a lot of us, we don't realize that it's happening until we're too deep into burnout and then we start making the change, whereas focusing on yourself, bringing in some of those values and passions and hobbies like you talked about earlier on before it actually hits, is really important. But I'm curious because I think a lot of us are one of our mindset blockers is like, I don't have time for those sorts of things for self care and things that aren't doing things for other people or making my money, like my paycheck, things like that. So how have you kind of prioritized or made the time for those sorts of things to help you avoid burnout?

Kristy Park [00:19:49]:

Yeah, it's more about allowing myself to do things. So, for example, some of the coursework that I'm doing and even like in this program that I mentioned, rather than saving it for nighttime and telling myself that it has to be outside working hours, I have to be nine to five, I need to be changed to my desk. Like their work hours, it's like, no, they don't have to be. I can allow myself half an hour to dedicate to myself. When we work on ourselves, we become better business owners, we become happier people. So it all becomes the work, if that makes sense. Like whether it's that personal stuff or whether it's client stuff. And I do find I was having a conversation last night with someone actually, because I'm about to come into quite a busy time, we're about to move house and things like that. At the same time, I've got a lot of big things going on within business. And she said to me, there is always enough time for everything. And time, they talk about time expansion, time expands for you. And that's why they say if you need something done, give it to a busy person. It's just about, I guess, looking at what actually is important. And just because I told myself that between nine and five I need to be chained to my desk, that isn't actually true. Like, I can take half an hour to do this personal development work for me. I actually have been getting up a little bit earlier before the kids get up and doing a little bit of exercise then, and meditation. And I do find that that's actually a really good way for me to start my day rather than being working up by a five year old standing at my pillow. It's actually nice to have that time for myself and it does help me set my day up. And I do find when I do things like that, I start the day happier and I start the day in a better mindset and a better headspace. And then I do just find that these things tend to happen a little easier for me if I set my day up well. So, yeah, it can be tricky, but yeah, for me it's been more about just really looking at, okay, like I've said that I need to be working from nine to five, but am I actually productive in those times or am I just telling I sitting here because I'm like, no, this is work time. So it's just like a reshuffling of things and making sure identifying what are my non negotiables for today, what do I have to do, and that looks like this coursework. And I guess like being realistic as well with what I can actually achieve in a day because I'm so guilty of writing this to do list, which has 27 tasks that are all very important but have to get done today. There's no way that I'm going to get through them. So really being realistic with the time that I have as well yeah. And knowing that it's okay to take time for myself, that was probably a big one for me initially. I was like, no, I don't need to do that. It doesn't matter. I just need to focus on the kids or work for the house or helping this person do whatever it is, but actually going, Hang on a SEC, like, no, I know it's such a cliche, but they say you can't pour from an empty cup, and it's so true. So, yeah, that's probably how I really make it work for me.

Shelby Leigh [00:23:20]:

Yeah, absolutely. So many good tips and tricks in there. So I always ask our guests to and you already shared so many great tips in this episode, but for a small step for our listeners to take with them this week on their self love journey. So I'd love to know if you could give one little task or step for our listeners to take, what would it be?

Kristy Park [00:23:42]:

Absolutely. And it's something we've actually already mentioned, but that is to start speaking to yourself every single day like you would speak to your best friend or the person that you love most in the world. I think we forget that the things that we say to ourselves, even the things that we just say in our head that we tell ourselves matter more than we actually realize, and our subconscious doesn't know the difference between what's real and what we tell it. So this is why, as well, affirmations and things like that are really so good as well. But yeah, definitely go into every day all these situations when you make a mistake, when something goes wrong, when you're feeling insecure about something. Like, really think of what you would say to your best friend for the person you love most in the world and treat yourself with the same kindness.

Shelby Leigh [00:24:32]:

I love that. That's a great tips. For sure. Thank you. So I think we covered so much just close out with where people can find you if they want to connect with you and learn more about the work that you do.

Kristy Park [00:24:46]:

Sure. So I mostly hang out on Instagram so you can find me. It's just @kristypask. So I know you'll pop the links in, but yeah, kristypask and you can also just find me online on my website, which is just kristypask.com perfect.

Shelby Leigh [00:25:04]:

Yes. I'll have those links in the description of the episode as well. Thank you so much for being a guest and sharing your story and being vulnerable and sharing some great tips with our listeners. I really appreciate it.

Kristy Park [00:25:16]:

Oh, you're welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

Shelby Leigh [00:25:18]:

All right. Thank you, everyone, for listening. If you have a moment, please go ahead and leave a quick review on the podcast form that you're listening, too, and I will talk to you in next week's episode. Bye.