I don’t know if you have an inner perfectionist, but I have one. It loves to get in the way of me doing anything, especially doing anything written down for other people to see. I grew up in (and continue to live in) a world that praises success. I went to school and had teachers who praised success. I was raised by parents who praised success. That’s lovely when you do succeed, and you get that warm glow of satisfaction and that rush of dopamine rewarding you. What happens when you don’t succeed, or we’re worried that we won’t? How do we deal with ourselves at that intersection of caring about the outcome of something so much that it paralyses us? I can’t begin to count the amount of times I’ve procrastinated and avoided working on or dealing with something because I wanted to get it right/ do it to the best of my abilities because it mattered to me. But then I ended up either not doing it at all, or rushing it last minute and being massively dissatisfied with the result. It’s a tough spot. “I want to do well with this. I want it to be perfect! I want people to be amazed by this.” I’m navigating these thoughts and feelings just writing this fairly inconsequential blog post. It might convince someone to choose to work with me, it might dissuade someone. It’s unlikely to result in anyone being hurt, or anything else dramatic and unwelcome. I know these things, but my inner perfectionist and inner procrastinator have still wrought havoc and delays on my writing. “What will my existing or future clients think of it? What will my peers think? Am I revealing too much about myself? Is this professional?” My ability to be concerned about these things is truly world class, I’m talking elite level worrying here. Doesn’t matter if it’s something I can do anything about or not, my brain will give it a go if it means not taking the risk of a good outcome versus the certainty of inaction.

I can highly recommend having a look through the Huberman Labs podcasts for topics that interest you. One podcast that casually blew my mind whilst listening to it was the podcast on "growth mindset". Normally phrases like growth mindset give me the boak like other meaningless corporate speak, but I trusted Andrew Huberman to not just bullshit me and the rest of his audience. Little did I know he’d blow my mind slightly by talking about a study done with kids where they took one bunch and consistently gave them identity based praise (You’re so smart! You’re so fast!) and took another group and get them effort based praise (You tried so hard at that!) They found that the kids getting identity praise started consistently taking on less and less challenging tasks because securing the praise from the adults was more important than the outcome of the task. Meanwhile the effort praised kids would take on increasingly challenging tasks because they wouldn’t receive as much praise for completing tasks that were easy for them. Kids look to their parents and caregivers for reassurance about how they are in the world. It makes sense why so many of us recognise receiving identity praise and building identities around that praise, but then start finding that as the tasks of life get harder and harder we start feeling less and less competent (Hands up all my fellow “talented but needs to focus/try harder to reach their potential” kids). It seems well meaning to praise kids for doing well, but it has the unintended consequence of breeding a fear of failure. To paraphrase the late theatre and improvisation teacher Keith Johnstone, “How wonderful it would be if we praised failure? If we praised willingness to try something and learn from it”. I won’t ever be fully able to articulate my gratitude to Keith for teaching me this.

What does any of this have to do with pancakes? GREAT QUESTION READER. I’m so glad you asked. I don’t know where the saying comes from, or even if it’s a saying at all, but growing up it was common knowledge the that first pancake was always not as good as the rest. Maybe it’s cause the pan isn’t hot enough or you’re just taking a minute to dial in your technique. My point is, this is my first blog post. I could have been so worried about it being good enough that i never let it see the light of day. I want to give myself a little courage, a little benefit of the doubt, that it is good enough. Even if my other blog posts are better, or worse, or if this is all unremarkable, the main thing is “oooh, pancakes!” is largely the response when they’re made. This blog might not elicit as much delight as a pancake, but much in the way you’d need to be a right arse to criticise someone else's pancake skills when they’re making you pancakes, I hope that this post is at best a delight, at worst a source of disinterest. The main thing is that I’ve tried, I’ve learned, and I hope you found value in it.

If you find you struggle with procrastination and perfectionism, and feel a bit stuck with either of them that’s totally a thing you could bring to counselling to explore a bit, and hopefully come away feeling empowered to do more in your life.