Backsliding Happens (And That's Totally Okay)

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:06

Hey, there. Welcome to getting to Good Enough. I'm Shannon Wilkinson.

Janine Adams: 00:00:10

And I'm Jeanine Adams. We're here for practical and fun conversations about living with more ease and way less stress.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:17

Yep. We're all about embracing progress over perfection. So grab a tasty beverage and let's get started. Hey, Janine.

Janine Adams: 00:00:25

Hey, Shannon. How you doing?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:27

I'm doing pretty well. How are you?

Janine Adams: 00:00:30

I'm good. I'm feeling like a podcaster. We've now recorded a few episodes and.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:34

Yeah, it's kind of fun getting our tech sorted out a little bit.

Janine Adams: 00:00:39

A little bit. We have a little room for improvement. Yeah.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:45

Yeah, yeah. Well, I have good news to report.

Janine Adams: 00:00:50

Oh, good. What is it?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:00:52

After our last morning routines episode, my morning routine has been flowing a little bit more easily the more the way I want it to.

Janine Adams: 00:01:05

That's excellent.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:01:06

Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:01:06

Is it because you paired it with something or you just became more top of mind?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:01:13

No, it's just that I really realized that I have to do. I have to work out before I do anything else, because if I don't, I go down a rabbit hole and.

Janine Adams: 00:01:28

Then it's. All is lost.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:01:30

All is lost.

Janine Adams: 00:01:32

Right. So you're actually doing it. You already knew that, but now it's. You're doing it.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:01:37

Yeah, so now I'm actually doing it instead of just thinking, oh, I should be doing that. Oh, you know, oh, I've been sitting in my workout clothes for three hours and not working out, and now I don't have time to.

Janine Adams: 00:01:53

That's excellent. Yay.

And I can report that I, for the first couple days after we recorded a week ago, was exercising right after I brought finished walking Bix, but then I forgot and. But I have. But. But then I remembered. So I. I have been exercising, just not necessarily right after I walk bics.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:02:13

Yeah. But that's a good thing to keep in mind, is that forgetting is totally.

Janine Adams: 00:02:22

Normal, especially for me.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:02:24

Yeah. And I mean, I do it all the time and that it doesn't mean you failed it just once. You remember, it's an opportunity to restart.

Janine Adams: 00:02:38

Exactly. Yeah, you're right. I could have thought to myself, oh, I didn't do it right after I walked bics. Just. Guess it's not going to happen.

Yeah, but I didn't do that, so that's a win.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:02:47

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like that backsliding, like that is really a problem for perfectionists.

Janine Adams: 00:03:01

Yeah. Yeah. Backsliding is such a common thing on. On so many different efforts.

But you're saying that when you're a perfectionist, if you backslide, it feels. Feels like a failure, right? Yeah.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:03:13

Yeah. And then if you failed, then there's no point in trying anymore.

Janine Adams: 00:03:19

Right? Yeah. That's kind of sad.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:03:23

Do you feel really sad about that?

Janine Adams: 00:03:25

I do feel a little sad for people who feel that way because I don't think I share that generally.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:03:30

No, no. We have a mutual client who is telling me once about, you had shared with her that don't break the chain.

She was really worried about breaking the chain. And you're like, well, then it's just an opportunity to restart. And she's like, no, that's not how it works. Yeah.

So one of the things that I do with my clients is try to build in the knowledge that you are going to get derailed or you're going to backslide or you're going to forget or, you know, something's going to happen where you aren't going to stick with what you want to be doing. And that doesn't mean you failed.

Janine Adams: 00:04:18

It's right. Just expect it.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:04:20

Right.

Janine Adams: 00:04:21

Maybe even think ahead to what you'll do if that were to happen or when that inevitably happens.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:04:25

Yep. That's what we do is we have a strategy in place.

Like, okay, what are you going to do when you realize that you forgot to, you know, execute your morning routine the way you want to? Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:04:42

I love that because you can brainstorm that before you're feeling the emotions of it and then have that in your pocket for if it happens.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:04:51

That's really neat.

Janine Adams: 00:04:52

That's a great idea. Now I made me think about my wordle streak, which is.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:04:59

Right.

Janine Adams: 00:04:59

It's between 6 and 700.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:05:01

Wow.

Janine Adams: 00:05:02

Yeah. So that feels dire. Like I should start to think about what I'm going to do when I. When I miss it. When I.

When I either miss a day because I forgot or God forbid, don't get the wordle. My day will be ruined if I. Unless I maybe come up with a prize or something.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:05:20

Oh my gosh. But I would feel the same. I, as you may recall, have a quite a long duolingo streak.

Janine Adams: 00:05:32

I was actually wondering if you still had that streak going.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:05:35

I do.

Janine Adams: 00:05:36

Wow.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:05:37

And I just opened up duolingo because I couldn't remember what it was. And 1,967 days.

Janine Adams: 00:05:48

Oh my goodness. So in a month you'll be hitting 2,000. Yeah. Yeah.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:05:53

Wow. Yeah. But I will say that duolingo does have some fail safe measures in place. There's some stopgap measures. It has streak freezes.

You can earn streak freezes. And so if you can't or don't do it in a day, it saves your streak as long as you do it the next day.

Janine Adams: 00:06:18

Oh, well, that's nice. So if you were having surgery or flying, like when I flew to Australia, I literally couldn't do wordle that day because there was never in that day.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:06:29

Right?

Janine Adams: 00:06:29

Yeah, yeah, I lost a day. And yeah, so that's, that's a nice.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:06:34

That was almost worth buying, buying WI FI for on the plane.

Janine Adams: 00:06:37

It wasn't a possibility, believe me. I would have bought was not a WI FI equipped plane. But that's a nice thing for duolingo to give you that protection.

But yeah, I mean, so this kind of back. This kind of chain breaking, obviously not that consequential, but it is true that it's so motivating to not break the chain.

For me anyway, that breaking the chain can feel a little bad.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:07:07

Right.

Janine Adams: 00:07:07

Or demotivating.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:07:09

Right, right. Yeah. I, I don't do anything.

Any chain making, I don't attempt any chain making unless it has like a really, really, really tiny thing that I can do that counts.

Janine Adams: 00:07:33

That's smart. So could you give an example?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:07:36

Well, Duolingo, I have it set where I think all I have to do is earn 10 points and that and I met my goal for the day. And that counts for the day. Um, but normally I earn, you know, upwards of a hundred points or more, depending on how competitive the league is.

Janine Adams: 00:08:01

Oh my gosh.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:08:03

It's a whole thing. I'm telling you.

Janine Adams: 00:08:05

I might have to. I might have to look into that because I've been thinking I'd like to learn another language. So that could be fun.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:08:11

Well, and I'll tell you, I haven't actually been using it for a language lately.

Janine Adams: 00:08:16

What are you using it for? Math, of course.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:08:20

Of course.

Janine Adams: 00:08:22

No, not at all.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:08:24

That was a facetious.

Janine Adams: 00:08:25

Of course it was a facetious. Of course. Oh, so you can learn to do.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:08:29

Math and Duolingo, you can learn math, which I feel like is using a lot of brain cells. Like I'm, you know, making some new neural connections because I forgot a lot about negative numbers and fractions.

And it starts out very gently and I feel really smart. And then there was stuff is like, wait, what? It's been a couple of years since I've done this.

Janine Adams: 00:09:04

A couple? Yeah. Oh, that's cool. So you're doing it for your brain power.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:09:09

Yeah, I'm doing it for. Which is, you know, part of the reason why I was doing the language was for.

To exercise my brain and they came out with math and music, which is piano and chess.

Janine Adams: 00:09:29

Oh, that's interesting. I've never learned to play chess.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:09:33

Yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:09:34

Not even when I was a kid. Huh. And I have the World Chess hall of Fame just a couple blocks away.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:09:40

I know. I've seen the giant chess.

Janine Adams: 00:09:42

Giant chess. Right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:09:44

So I.

Janine Adams: 00:09:45

That's interesting. Okay, I'm going to look into that.

And I like what you said, getting back to your point, which was 10 points, some minimum thing that allows you that you can do in just a short period of time, presumably.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:09:59

Right. Yeah. I think you can set on duolingo. You can set your goal. And I think the lowest is like 10 points. I think maybe five minutes.

I said it so long ago and have never gone back. I don't know actually what it is anymore. And they do change these things from time to time. So it could be more than that or less than that. But. Yeah.

And anything that I do where I'm trying to keep a streak, I want there to be just the smallest thing that counts because there are going to be days when you don't have as much time or you don't feel well or whatever. And it's really nice to be able to maintain your streak without hurting yourself, without feeling bad. You know, I mean, like.

Janine Adams: 00:10:54

Right, right. I was thinking about backsliding as you were talking and thinking about what you advise or what I advise our clients who do backslide.

And like, in the case of. In my business as an organizer, we might not hear from a client. It might be a year since we heard from a client, and then we find out that the.

Their home has become messy again. And it's gotta be such a hard call to call us to come back and help them again.

Although I'm always delighted when they do, because the sooner you do that, the better off you are. But do you offer strategies for sort of picking yourself up and brushing yourself off when you do backslide?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:11:40

Well, and. And when I have the opportunity, I help my clients come up with a strategy that, that they feel good about.

Like, oh, this is an opportunity for me to put this into play Nice. Yeah. Like, oh, this is the thing that I knew was going to happen. It's happening. And now I can, you know, just keep going. Like, this is.

This is part of the process. It's not like a failure of the process. Right.

Janine Adams: 00:12:12

Yeah. Yeah. That's an important differentiation.

So I think I hear you say that when you start working with a client, a coaching client about a new process or just a new doing the things to Achieve their goals. You build in to the recipe what will happen when things go off the rails a little bit.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:12:32

Right.

Janine Adams: 00:12:32

And you let them. You normalize things going off the rails.

And then even if they just had an appointment with you and they might not be talking to you for another two weeks or something, or a week, I don't know how often you meet with people, but they know what to do. They can on. They actually have the tools.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:12:46

Yep, yep.

Janine Adams: 00:12:48

That's so smart. And we can do that for ourselves.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:12:51

Right, right. The other thing that I do is help them figure out what's most likely to cause them to backslide or not stick with a habit or something.

You know, what's. What's most likely to get in the.

Janine Adams: 00:13:08

Way so that they can watch out for it.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:13:10

So that either we can clear that obstacle or we can know that that's going to happen. Because sometimes it's, you know, if you're trying to start an exercise habit, you are going to get sick at some point.

Hopefully you won't get very sick. Hopefully it won't be for a long time.

But there's going to come a point where you're going to actually physically be sick and not able to work out, for instance, knowing that that's going to happen, what you can do. And that's where, you know, you have like, what's the smallest possible action you can take that would still count.

Janine Adams: 00:13:49

Right. And planning that ahead of time. Mm, I like that.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:13:53

Yeah. And also, you know, sometimes you get a pass. Like allowing yourself to give yourself a pass. Yeah. Give yourself you.

Janine Adams: 00:14:05

Yeah, yeah. You said that.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:07

Right.

Janine Adams: 00:14:07

Yeah. So allowing your future self to give your future self a pass when something goes wrong.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:13

Right.

Janine Adams: 00:14:14

Goes whatever. It doesn't go right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:18

Right.

Janine Adams: 00:14:18

That's great. That helps people be more kind to themselves, which is a big part of being a happy person.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:27

Yeah. Well. And it's a big part of motivation. I mean, we're so often feel like we have to beat ourselves up. We have to be me.

This is me hitting myself with, you know, cracking the whip instead of, you know, holding the carrot. That actually works against you being successful.

Janine Adams: 00:14:49

When you're hard on yourself.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:14:51

When you're hard on yourself. And it's so hard to let go of that. The feeling that you need to be hard on yourself in order to move forward.

Janine Adams: 00:15:03

Right. Do.

Do you think that perfection, people who are perfectionists have more difficulty in this arena, that they're especially hard on themselves when things aren't perfect?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:15:16

Absolutely. Yeah.

I really feel like if you have a tendency towards Perfectionism that not being able to stick with something or not being able to do something to the level you feel it should be done is. It creates stress if. If in your head your goal is perfect.

Janine Adams: 00:15:39

Yeah, I can believe that.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:15:41

And you know that the space between what you're able to do and what you feel you should be doing is like, the bigger that is, the worse you feel. And when you feel bad, it's harder to take action.

Janine Adams: 00:15:57

Right. So cutting yourself some slack or embracing good enough can really be life enhancing, I think.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:16:05

Absolutely.

Janine Adams: 00:16:06

And I think we experienced this in five years of podcasting about perfectionism that I think you. You both probably embrace good enough even more. I'm. I'm already pretty good at it. But yeah, in the. We. We felt the difference in those five years.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:16:22

Oh, yeah.

Janine Adams: 00:16:23

Yeah. And I feel like as I get older, I'm getting easier and easier on myself, I think. I feel like it. Like, I don't know.

But I mean, partly might be because of the stress filled six months or so I had last year.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:16:39

Right.

Janine Adams: 00:16:40

Basically all I could do, I had to cut myself slack constantly because that was the only way to get through the day. Yeah. And now it's like, yeah, I've become really good at it.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:16:49

Congratulations.

Janine Adams: 00:16:50

Yeah. Thank you.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:16:52

Yeah, I do find myself, like, not having the energy to be perfectionistic about things that I might have been in the past.

Janine Adams: 00:17:01

Yeah. It's just easier to embrace good enough and why not let it be easy?

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:17:06

Right, Right.

Janine Adams: 00:17:07

Right.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:17:08

Yeah. But, you know, you don't have to wait until you're just like. Don't feel like caring about it being perfect.

Janine Adams: 00:17:16

Right. Yeah, but.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:17:24

Yeah. Well, anything else to say about that or questions that you have about how I work with clients on it?

Janine Adams: 00:17:33

No, but it makes me feel like I want to have you be my coach. I haven't had a coaching session with you in a long time, and it's so. Has such. It's so powerful. And so I don't. Who knows?

I'm going to come up with something I need coaching on.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:17:49

All right. You know where to find me.

Janine Adams: 00:17:51

Yes, I do.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:17:55

Well, we would love to hear from you, our listeners. You know, do you. How do you feel when you get derailed, when you backslide, when you don't stick with something that you were planning to stick with?

-GTGE that's: 4843

Thanks for joining us on Getting to Good Enough. We hope you heard something that makes your life just a little bit easier.

If you did, leave us a review or share this with someone who's looking for their own version of Good Enough.

Janine Adams: 00:18:51

Thanks for listening. See you soon. Good memory, Shannon.

Shannon Wilkinson: 00:19:04

Yes, I did that all from heart. I'm so excited.

Janine Adams: 00:19:09

I'm very impressed.