Welcome to the money mindset podcast, where you will find the inspiration and motivation. You need to manage your money better. So you can stress less as living the life you want. This is Ashley with budgets made easy and the money mindset podcast today. I want to talk to you about perfectionism because perfectionism is bull shit. It's bullshit thinking. And you know what? You might be thinking. Ah, Ashley, I'm not a perfectionist. I thought the same thing, actually, I am a very quick action. Messy action taker. I get an idea and I just do it. That's not perfectionism, right? I don't wait. And, you know, make sure I have all the information before taking action. So I did not understand this when somebody told me that I was a perfectionist, but when it was explained to me like this, I finally got it. And I was like, oh yeah, maybe I am. And it's holding me back in my business and I need to work on fixing it. So perfectionism is fear, which did not make sense to me when I first heard it. It's the fear of doing it wrong or fear of it not working it max six self in thoughts like this, do you think this to yourself, I'm overwhelmed and don't know where to start. I'm going to screw it up anyway. So why bother? I've tried before and it didn't work. So why try again? I just suck. Let me tell you a story, what it looked like for me. So we, I mean, you know, I decided to get chickens. I'm an impulse several years ago while my, my husband was at work. I didn't tell him until I got home and cinema photo of them in a box in early, I then started looking for chicken coops. You know, I went down the rabbit hole of Pinterest. I saw these big, beautiful chicken coops. You know, they were, they were looked clean on the pictures. Of course they were pretty, they were so cute. They had rooms for lots and lots of chickens. You know, I looked at maybe getting, you know, just a smaller, cheaper ones for now, just for, you know, to get us through until we decided, you know, what we wanted, how much it'd be to build all those things. Well, you know, the cheap ones were like 200 to $300. They were tiny, they looked cheap. They looked hard to clean. Like, I didn't know if it would work. Like, you know, what if animals get in there and eat the chickens, all these things, because, you know, they had to still either have a pin or free range and all that kind of stuff. So my husband, who is also a perfectionist, and I decided that if we were going to go ahead and spend the money, we might as well build what we wanted, right from the beginning, why waste several hundred dollars on a small crappy one when we could just do it right from the beginning and build a huge coop, one that, you know, we could walk in and clean and be able to get the eggs and take care of the chickens and, you know, do all the things, right. So I started looking at plans and we decided on a 10 foot by 12 foot shed, basically with a pen area that has concrete all around it and extra wire. So that predators can't get in and eat the chickens. This thing even has electricity. It's massive. Like we can literally just walk in there, clean it, do whatever we need to do. Get the eggs, all the things, mind you. We had never had chickens before. We didn't even have farm animals. At this point, I had never had farm animals. My husband had, he grew up on a farm, but I had never had animals besides dogs and cats. Maybe some other rodents, I guess, rabbits and things like that, but never any like farm animals. Well, this coop ended up costing us over twice. What we thought it would. I bought a building plan online and their supply list was way, way off. We ended up going to the lumberyard at least two or three more times because we needed more materials than it told us we would need. And this dang coop is such a pain to clean because it's so big. You have to like shovel all the, the bedding and all the stuff out. It's a huge pain in the ass. Honestly, you know, it would have been easier and cheaper, a whole lot cheaper if we would've just got one of those small coops, even if we would have had to replace it once or twice since then, because these chickens, I can't believe how long these chickens I've lived. Actually they've lived way longer than they're supposed to. And they're actually like, some of them are like six years old at this 0.5 and I think five and six years old, and they're still alive. Usually chickens live like two to three years. So even if we had bought the cheaper coops and replaced them like twice, maybe let's even push it to three times. We still would've saved a lot, a lot of money. I think it would've been easier. We could have moved it around. It wouldn't need as much bedding. We could have cleaned it out a lot easier. I think in, you know, we could have seen tons and tons of money. I'm not even going to tell you how much we spent on this chicken group, because it's absolutely ridiculous. It is ridiculous, but we are using it for our goats now, too. So, you know, we shall see. But my point is, is that even though I do things quickly and on impulse, like buying the chickens and doing these my business, that was like, okay, I'm just going to do it. It doesn't have to be perfect. Just get it done. I still get hung up on wanting to do things the right way from the beginning. Like I don't want to waste money doing it the wrong way. So then I spend money that I shouldn't while I learn and figure out what I really do want. I will just guess what I want and spend all this money on, you know, the big thing, the perfect way to do it when it's really not the perfect way, right? This has impacted my finances and my business a lot over the years. I didn't even realize that it was based on the fear of wasting money or doing it the wrong way. Like I didn't even realize that I was having that problem and that it was actually perfectionism. Cause I don't consider myself a perfectionist and I let fear hold me back from doing some things. I also spent money on things I didn't need in my business because of fear. I didn't want to want to learn some, one thing that might be cheaper or free and then have to change it later. I just wanted to spend money on the right things from the beginning. You know, I didn't want to waste the time on testing things for free or cheap and spending money on technology or products I didn't even use in the long run. So I ended up wasting probably more money than I needed to because of this. I bought things that either were like, oh my gosh, you have to buy it right now is the only time it's going to be on sale. And you know, it's going to make all those difference in my business. I never even ended up having time to go through the material or even learn the thing to begin with. And so I just wasted my money. I even let it hold me back at times from helping you, I didn't record a podcast episode for over a year because I was worried about you hearing my crazy kids in the background. I mean, come on. Or maybe even my dogs barking. Like I just didn't. I wanted it to be perfect to an extent, but what if I would have recorded it anyway? I mean, this podcast is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I record, I edited a little bit and I put it out there. I don't take out all the ums and you know, my deep breasts and all those types of things. Like I'm not that big of a perfectionist. Right. But I did let it hold me back from putting out information that would help you for over a year because of my screaming kids. Like you probably have kids and hello COVID is 2020. Like I'm sure people would under stand, but I just let it hold me back. I mean, I don't worry about all of it sounding perfect as it is, but I did let the fear of my kids yelling in the background or the dogs barking from putting out information that you need to hear. I let it keep me from helping you. I let the fear of not knowing what to post on Instagram stories, keep me from, you know, making those videos, you know, and also the kid thing there too, you know, sometimes I just like, what do I post? And so then I just don't post anything because, you know, I don't want to just ramble on about nothing, but you know, what if I did it anyway, because you get better with practice, right? And even when I could just do both of those anyway, like the stories or the podcasts or whatever, and reach more people. I mean, what if I just would've went ahead and recorded the podcast? What if I would've just put up more Instagram stories? Like I would have been able to reach more people and help more people over the last year, but I let that fear of it not being perfect of you here in my kids. Have you hearing, you know, my husband's truck, the dog's barking, like all the things keep me from doing what I needed to do to help more people. And I mean, I learned last week that this business person that I follow, who has made millions and millions of dollars, she has like over 700,000 followers on Instagram too. She has numerous businesses. She records one of her podcasts episodes every single week on her phone using voice memo. I mean, come on. I figured she was using some fancy equipment in her car. Like it's I forget what she calls it, but it's like a car episode. She records it in her car. She just uses voice memo. So you know what, I'm just going to go with it. I'm going to use voice memo when I need to in the car, in the car rider pickup line and just get it done. I'm not going to let it the fear of it being perfect. Or you hearing something in the background or too many arms or whatever, hold me back from putting out this information that I know you need to hear. I mean, I can do that on my phone. So I've got to get past this fear. And that is what I am hoping that I am encouraging you to do as well. I mean, some people are not going to like my podcasts anyway, no matter how perfect it is. Even if I had somebody editing it for me, making it sound so crisp and perfect. I mean, some people are just going to hate it anyway. Like so whatever, like I've got to move past that. Right? But my point is, is perfectionism costs us, me, you money and time. And it's bullshit. It's all bullshit thinking. And it's thinking that we have to do it the right way or that you need everything together and ready before you can even start just freaking do it. You don't need to get it. Perfect. You just need to get it going. You don't have to track your spending for the past three months first. Yes. I encourage you to do that because it's a good exercise to do. It is a good exercise to do at some point, but don't let it keep you stuck. Like if it is keeping you stuck from moving forward, just don't do it. Just do something. If you screw up today and don't track your spending or run through the drive-through when you didn't have a plan for it, like it wasn't in your budget. So what do better tomorrow? Don't let it ruin the rest of your week or your month or your year just because it wasn't perfect. So just because you screw up today, don't be like, oh, I'll start over next week. No, start over tomorrow. Start over right now. Like let the rest of the day be good, right? I mean, if you lost $20, you wouldn't just take the rest of your money out of your wallet and light it on fire. Right? So just keep going. Don't let one mistake or one bad day ruin the rest of your financial goals. It doesn't mean that you're bad with money. It means that you're human. It's an opportunity to learn and grow, stop making it mean something terrible about you. Stop making it mean that you suck with money and that you're never going to be able to get it right. And that you just suck, right? It takes practice just like everything else, but it will help you keep making progress. I mean, I hit comments, questions, emails, literally every day from people just like you, that are overthinking things that want it to be perfect before they can start. They're just afraid to get started there. They're worried that they're doing their budget wrong, that they're paying off debt wrong or saving money. The wrong way. I mean, come on. There is no right way. The right way is the way you actually do it and follow through. Sure. I can tell you what works for me and how I do things. And maybe like, kind of what's the best practice, common practice, what things, what people do. But that doesn't mean that it's the right way for you. You have to get past this fear of doing it right or wrong and just try things and figure out what works for you and your family because everybody's different. We all process information differently. We take in information differently. So you've got to figure out what works for you. And it may mean doing digital envelopes instead of cash envelopes. It may mean tracking your spending bi-weekly or weekly instead of daily, it could be saving three months of expenses before paying off debt. Instead of focusing on the right way to pay off debt or save money or budget, whatever, focus on your big goal. So if that's saving three months of expenses, then focus on that. It doesn't matter how you get there. All that matters is that you get there, right? And be proud that you even have a plan or are thinking about doing it. Most people don't even think about it. They think their credit card is an emergency fund. So the fact that you're listening to this and you're taking in this information means that you're headed in the right direction and you are on the right track. You just have to keep moving in that direction. It doesn't matter. As long as you get there, it doesn't matter how you get or how long it takes you. It just matters that you get there. Another thing that has perfectionist need to work on is having realistic expectations. Oh man. Oh, I can tell you about some really unrealistic expectations. So we've got to retrain our brain to have realistic expectations. And one of those is you're not going to wake up tomorrow and be a completely different person. Okay. That's unrealistic. You're not going to just wake up and never crave Starbucks again, or forget your breakfast or lunch and have to run through the drive-through or decide to go with your friends to a concert instead of putting that money towards your credit card debt. Like all of that is unrealistic to think that you're just going to tomorrow, you are going to wake up. You're never going to overspend. You're never going to go through the drive-thru. You're never going to go through Starbucks. Like you're never going to shop at target or Amazon again, like you're never going to do it. That's a very UN realistic, I mean, come on. You need to set realistic expectations with yourself, especially early on when you are learning, when you were just trying this out, have realistic expectations for yourself when you're learning how to budget, save, pay off debt. You know, if you're gonna, if you right now are going through Starbucks, every single Workday, five days a week, maybe you're going through more than that. I don't know, but we're going to start with the vibe. Then you have to build a new habit to replace that because that has become a habit and a routine for you to go through the drive-through before you go to work, right? So you can cut it back to three days a week. Okay? Try that then cut it back to two. Then one it's not realistic to think that you can wake up and stop doing the thing you've been doing for years and never do it again, right? It's not going to happen. It takes practice patience and a new routine to change those habits. So replace them with better ones. So stop beating yourself up about it, learn from it and move on. So you can keep going towards your big goals. It doesn't matter if you follow a step-by-step plan perfectly the entire way, like who's keeping score. I'm not coming to your house and saying you did not save money the right way this week, that is wrong. That's not going to happen. All that matters is that you say runny or that you paid off debt. It doesn't matter how you did it or how long it took you to do it. All that matters is that you did it. So I just want you to focus on your progress. Not perfection. Just keep going, focus on your wins. Learn from the failures. All right. That's all for today. But if you still need your step-by-step guide on getting started, because I know, sorry, even though a perfectionist, you still want to guide, so I've got it here for you, but remember you don't have to do it perfectly. You just have to do it. But if you want step-by-step step-by-step printable guide on getting started with your budget, monthly budget busters lists. So those things, every single month that come up, seasonal things, holidays, stuff like that. There's a list for every single month and a printable checklist because you know, I know you guys still love your checklists and guides. Just get it going, but you can get that free budget's starter kit. A budget's made easy.com/start, and I will put it in the show notes for you as well.