Elizabeth Onyeabor is a leading international expert on perfectionist leaders and high achievers. She has guided both individual and organizational transformations around the world for more than 25 years and now applies her diverse talents to supporting high achievers in letting go of the pressure for perfection so they can achieve a lasting sense of accomplishment, experience a lifetime of joy, and make powerful progress to live their dreams.

As the Founder of InnerGenuity, she coaches leaders ready to move forward with ease, be their best, and achieve unstoppable results. Liz is also a musician and award-winning, best-selling author & poet.

In this episode we discuss:

• Potential downfallls of being “Achievement Oriented”
• Recognizing you’re a perfectionist
• Transforming high standards from kryptonite to a super power
• Bridging the “Not good enough” gap
• 3 different types of Perfectionism
• Ways to work withyour Inner Critic

Pick up your “7 Powerful Practices for Perfectionists” and learn 7 practices that will help boost your sense of accomplishment herr: https://loom.ly/X4BnIQw

Connect with Liz online here: https://elizabethonyeabor.com

https://habitualhappinesshub.com

Susi Vine: Welcome back. I’m so happy to have you with me this week. For this episode of Happified, featuring my guest Elizabeth Onyeabor. Elizabeth is a leading international expert on perfectionist leaders and high achievers. As the founder of energy annuity, she coaches leaders ready to move forward with ease. Be their best and achieve unstoppable results.

She has guided both individual and organizational transformations around the world for more than 25 years and has been featured on ABC, CBS, the Boston Herald wall street, select Fox and NBC. She is also an award winning best selling author and poet Elizabeth. I’m so happy to have you with me on the show.

Thanks for joining us. 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Thank you. It’s my pleasure to be with you, Susi. Thank you for having me. 

Susi Vine: And I’m so glad that we connected in this space, in this virtual world where we get to make connections around the world. You’re joining me from Nigeria, so we don’t let anything stand in the way. 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Exactly.

Susi Vine: And I’d love to hear a little bit about how through the. The story of your experience, the focus that you had over the years, why do you feel it’s so important now to be having this conversation about the way that perfectionists show up in the world or how that relates to the work that we’re doing?

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Well, my own story really, I guess, hit. And about 2012 and I call it my midlife meltdown. Because I was trying to be the perfect everything and it was killing me. It’s trying to be the perfect mom, the perfect boss, the perfect friend, the perfect wife, the perfect, I mean, you name it. And it was crushing that pressure to try to be perfect.

And knowing that I was completely imperfect, you know, that disconnect was. So crushing that at that point it literally almost killed me because I felt so unworthy and you know, that’s a common theme that we can talk about with perfectionism. And so the funny thing is though, It also saved me because what I was thinking of and researching like, okay, well, you know, I’m not going to, I’m never going to be perfect and I’m never going to be good enough.

And I might as well just stop. Right. But it saved me because I couldn’t find the perfect way. To end it all.

And so my journey has taken me through unwinding these things and realizing that these perfectionistic traits and behaviors and perfection ism, because to be a perfectionist, I mean, it’s part of our identity. And we were aware our high standards as a. Brand of honor. But internally when, when that inner critic gets going, it burns a brand of shame.

And, and yet on the outside, I mean, people who worked with me had no idea. And so when I came out with my first book about my healing journey out of. Suicidal depression. They, they were like, we had no idea, you know, my, my coworkers at that time. And I was like, of course you had no idea. I didn’t want anybody to know.

Like I was embarrassed. I was ashamed because what I wasn’t perfect. So it’s really my mission to help all perfectionists find low and lasting joy and expand their self-love. 

Susi Vine: I really love that. I think that everybody can certainly do for expanding our self-love, but especially as you’re talking about people who have that high level of.

Requirement’s they hold themselves to such an impossibly high standard. And that inner critic that just, as you say, you would never let anyone else see is working away behind that facade as perfect as we can make it to keep the outside world humming along. Can really add up quickly to bring you down, I think, and you have a quiz so people can assess where they tend to fall and perfectionist tendencies.

And I can see some. Not all. And so I can find points of relate-ability. I’ve heard, certainly heard, and perhaps our audience has heard people say, don’t let perfect be the enemy of progress. And so we can bring a logical perspective to it. But at the same time, when we’re holding ourselves to this kind of standard logic, isn’t always the best way to, to approach it or to maybe to, to counter the impact of that perfectionist.

Tendency. How did you recognize in yourself that you were holding yourself to a standard that just wasn’t possible? Unfortunately,

Elizabeth Onyeabor: well, you know, it really took some time to recognize and create awareness because I had only ever really heard that, you know, oh, I’m a little bit of a perfectionist and it’s of course, a brand of honor, like, oh, if they ask you in an interview, like, what’s, what’s your you know, weakness? Oh, I’m a little bit of a perfectionist.

Right. But. There isn’t a whole lot that talks about kind of the kryptonite. Okay. We think of perfectionism and, and all that as our superpower. And it can be it’s that there’s this whole side of kryptonite to it that when we don’t recognize it, it just SAPs our superpower. And so I help people really get into this focused flow of not this all or nothing mentality.

And for me, it was creating awareness of, you know, more and more that, okay. I’m expecting myself to be. Here. I feel like I’m, you know, much lower there’s this gap and I call it the not good enough gap. How am I going to close that? And for a really long time decades,

I thought I could fill that gap by accomplishing things. All right. And it was, I think there was a pivotal moment when I was looking through this strengths finder assessment that I had done years before. And it said one of my top strengths was achievement orientation. And I thought, yeah, you know, I am achievement oriented.

I like to get things done. I like to, you know, But the reality is that I was trying to prove my worth. I was trying to feel good in it, but I

keep doing things or getting things done. So I was a human

and what. What was, I think really stunning was that assessment said, this is never going to go away. You’re always going to be unsatisfied with your achievement. And I thought, oh, is that why I ha I have this like hole in my soul where every accomplishment just, you know, no matter how big, no matter how great, like momentarily feels good, but that gets sucked into this black hole of not good enough.

And. I’m happy to report that through these practices. And mostly it was because I was focusing on trying to figure out how to be happy and make it last, because I didn’t realize that I had so much anxiety and depression because I had kept myself so busy over the years. So that I wouldn’t notice. And it was really coming out of that and embracing all of these things about myself and expanding self love that really made the difference.

Now saying it is one thing doing it.

A whole other thing, 

Susi Vine: there’s the path to recognition and then the path to making that claim for yourself and then actual well actually integrating it. Absolutely. It’s definitely a process that we keep coming back to, I think. 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Well, and I think that’s a really good point. Because self-development is never done.

And what has happened with me is that I have thought. Well, look, these are some issues. I have put them on a to-do list, check them off one by one to death, like my, to do list of self-development is done, but that’s not the way it works. And what had happened for me. I in 2012, I had just come out of like a period where I had done a lot of self development work in the previous few years.

And I had got to a really great place and I stopped doing all those practices one by one, and then I got even deeper, but I’m so grateful because. I got to a deeper level. I mean, you, you can’t get any deeper than rock bottom, so every way was up.

Susi Vine: Yeah. And, and, and I appreciate too, and I hope that people. I understand in, in your part of the story that, you know, even with the work that you’ve been putting in that you’ve been doing refining and developing yourself, trying to check things off of our personal to-do list that instead of that being a linear path, You know, I think a lot of times it is cyclical and we uncover more things that we have to deal with instead of feeling like we’ve made progress.

It feels like a setback, which I’m sure can be very overwhelming when you’re achievement oriented and off the list means progress, not setbacks, 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: right? It’s like, holy crap. I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t, I fix myself like, isn’t this done? But. I’ve discovered that here’s what happens any time we expand our comfort zone, these traits and behaviors, especially the perfectionistic traits and behaviors, because they were formed very early on.

And in some instances are carried through DNA. As the research has shown. And so all of these things started before we were even verbal. Okay. So these perfectionistic traits and behaviors, once we expand our comfort zone, they pop up again. But the thing. When we have practices and habits that we form and greater awareness, then it’s like, oh, hello, old friend, welcome.

Let’s have a chat. So this is what’s going on. Now it’s so much easier to deal with. And and this is what I found, and this is what I work with my, my clients on. 

Susi Vine: And so I would imagine a good number of people might be sitting there saying, you’re talking about me. I really re resemble these comments that are being shared.

And so I, what, in your experience. Is the, the extent of it, how widespread is perfectionism? Because I feel like they tend to, we tend to hold to ourselves and not confess. We might be perfectionist maybe as, you know, like a social party, like equip, but not really be present to what that means and how that impacts.

So how, how common is it that people are really struggling with these. 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Well, according to research that I found one in three are perfectionists, so it is pretty widespread. And then when you get in the leadership echelons and business owners, entrepreneurs I would say that it’s probably more than one in three because of the achievement orientation.

Okay. So the interesting thing is. And just let this sink in for a second. The research shows that perfectionists are successful in spite of not because of these exceptionally high standards that we put on ourselves.

That, which is stunning, as we all attribute it to look, I’m doing so great because I have high standards and we’re S we, we all know that it puts us into overwhelm and we say, Yes. When we really don’t want to say yes, we pile up things on our plate because we’re people pleasers and we have issues with boundaries.

Like we’re trying so hard to prove our worth through doing things that human doing part that It puts us into a lot of overwhelm. And so we have three types of perfectionists. Okay. There’s and they’re not mutually exclusive by the way. Okay. You can be all of them. 

Susi Vine: Great. You don’t hear one or just one?

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Yeah. So there’s, self-oriented perfection. Okay. So the south orange perfectionist is setting high standards for him or herself and, and the definition really, it isn’t just about the high standards. Okay. Because lots of people have high standards. And just because you have exceptionally high standards does not a perfectionist make.

It’s what comes along with it. It’s the never feeling that you meet those standards. It’s the not feeling good enough and that inner critic and all of that, that comes along with it. It’s the meaning and the interpretation that we make when we make a mistake or we don’t feel we’ve achieved that standard that we set for ourselves.

That not good enough gap is the definition of a self branch of perfectionist. And it’s really interesting. I’ll just tell you a little tidbit here because when I started my work with Specifically with perfectionists. I was talking with my husband and he was like, why do you keep saying I’m not a perfectionist?

And I said, because you don’t meet the definition. He’s like, I have high standards. And I said, yeah, what? You don’t beat yourself up over it. If you don’t meet him. And he goes, yeah, why would I do that?

Susi Vine: But from the outside, looking in, it feels like maybe I should be more of a perfectionist. So that’s a really interesting story. I love it. 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: So I said to him, well, you’re an other oriented perfectionist. Okay. You, you have high standards, but you expect other people to meet your standards and you’re upset when they don’t meet them, but you don’t beat yourself up over it.

So there’s, self-oriented perfectionist. And so when we don’t meet the expectations we set for ourselves, we beat ourselves up. There’s a other oriented perfectionism. Okay. And that’s directed toward other people. It’s like, well, I can’t delegate to that person because they’re not going to meet my standards and did it, did it, did it to death.

So then there’s. Socially oriented perfectionism. And this is at almost epidemic proportions now, especially in the younger age groups teenagers college age, because of. Social media picture. Perfect. Kind of influence that has happened over the past, you know, a couple of decades. So you can be all three of these.

And I called that the perfectionism trifecta and That’s me.

Susi Vine: So you can, you can put on all three hats. You can sit with people coming from whichever is their primary driver. And, and I would imagine that it, that it can shift. We can go from being self-oriented to other oriented.

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Right. So this is the fascinating thing, because most people who are perfectionist will say, well, I’m a little bit of a perfectionist in such and such. Like I’m not a perfectionist about everything. Well, actually, our. So here’s the deal with perfectionists. We have an all or nothing mentality either it’s 150% or it’s zero and we don’t even start on it and we get stuck.

Okay. So. The things that we put over in the zero, like, well, I’m not going to worry about this and I’ll tell you, one of mine is like, I’m not a super-duper house cleaner, you know, and what you call a relaxed house cleaner. Okay.

Let’s in my life zero category. I’m not going to be doing that 150% except sometimes. Except sometimes I’ll get that little, you know, that old toothbrush out and I’ll clean the ground. And like something that I thought was going to take 15 minutes, three hours later, I’m getting it. Perfect. Right.

Susi Vine: I love that. So 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: that.

Susi Vine: Well, and I think it, it also just goes to show that, you know, we, we go through different phases and stages. There are different priorities. And I love as you’re talking about that inner gremlin, because I do think that is something that just about everyone can relate to, but maybe the volume that it can take on.

When you’re a perfectionist is a different, is a different animal. 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Yeah. So I think that’s a really good point, Susie, because the more that we’re under stress, these perfectionistic traits and tendencies are going to come up even stronger. So I remember some years back when we were in the midst of wedding planning, not mine, but my daughters and.

Trying to get everything just so, so you know, chances are, if you’re a perfectionist parent, one or more of your children is going to be a perfectionist. Also, my mother was a perfectionist. I have siblings who are perfectionists. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. So. Really ramping up because I was, I wanted things to be perfect.

Okay. I wanted them to be just right. I might not have said perfect at the time, but I just wanted them to be.

And there were all these workers around who, who are like, ah, this is good enough. And I was like, no, it is not good enough. And I was like, okay, take a chill pill. I’m I, I started noticing like I was, I was getting stressed about it and I was like, you know, really? It is good enough. Who’s going to notice besides me, it’s done.

I’m over it.

Susi Vine: Making the choice, then making the choice to find a point at which you can let go. What do you what is a piece of advice for perfectionist who are struggling with that inner critic who have trouble saying, okay, this is where I can let that go.

Elizabeth Onyeabor: The biggest difference. In my life and what I help my clients with. And there’s, there’s a whole methodology to this, but here’s the simplest thing. I can boil it down to make friends with your inner critic. The thing is that inner critic is there as a protector, even though it sounds very often, especially when we’re stressed, especially when we’re worried or fearful.

It may sound very negative. Very critical it actually he or she is trying to protect us. And I would suggest you befriend that inner critic. It doesn’t really that inner critic doesn’t really mean the harm that it creates. So see if you can shift some of the conversation that you’re having with yourself and your inner critic to what would a best friend say?

So, you know, sometimes like we make a mistake and we’re like, oh, such an idiot. Why did I do that? I shouldn’t have, you know, go through all of that. But the thing is. You know, Susie, if you came to me and you said, oh, I made mistake. And this happened, I wouldn’t say to you, those things that my inner critics as to me, right.

I would try to empathize with you, give you some compassion, encouragement. So see how you can just shift the dialogue so that. Your inner critic comes more like what a best friend might say to you now, it isn’t always going to work, but there is this dynamic going on with the inner dialogue, this inner voice that we have that can be critical, but we can really embrace.

This is what comes from loving, you know, expanding the self-love is because that inner critic that petulance, that critical illness. It’s actually coming from the parts that we reject about ourselves. So it’s like our inner child feeling wounded, you know, have you ever watched a little kid who like, well, you know, if I don’t want to do that and I don’t know, you know, like that kind of attitude, well, if you don’t want to play me, I don’t want to play with you either.

You know, so recognize that. It’s really about accepting all these parts of ourselves. And as we do this step by step and it does take time that will completely shift.

Susi Vine: I really love that. And thank you for that. Reflection about how we can engage with that voice. ’cause I think people are very tempted to try to hit the mute button instead of looking for a way to engage and be curious. Where is that inner critic coming from? Why does it snap back so hard in certain situations?

Like you said, one stresses up when we’re under a deadline, different things are going on. We’re already depleted because other things are impacting us. Health-wise or in relationships and boy, it can be hard to hold space with that voice. So I love that suggestion of engaging with it recognizing that influence and of, of looking for ways to redirect it.

It’s not about muting. It that’s really helpful.

Elizabeth Onyeabor: I just needed 

Susi Vine: to be heard.

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Yeah. And, and it, you know, it’s step-by-step so we want to do things that are like you don’t want to turn it on full volume, cause that can be overwhelming too. Especially if you’re already depressed. But one of the first practices I did was I actually wrote out some of those things. That my inner critic was screaming at me and I went with it and,

and I let the negative, I actually wanted to prove the negative and the, and the, and the thing was as soon as I like allow the negative and said, okay, so, you know, I’m ugly and I’m fat and I’m this. And I’m that, you know, All of a sudden a but, but no, you’re not like your did that, that, that, so it was really weird because instead of pushing it away and trying to hit the mute button, I was like, okay, talk.

And it’s like, wait, you’re listening to me. Okay. We can say some nice things now.

Yeah. So that’s why I say it’s about befriending, but you know, do it like, like a kitty pool, you know, don’t like start trying to surf the ocean of emotion with your inner critic. Just dip your toe into the kiddie pool and then you’ll graduate. So the bigger pool, and then maybe you can step surf of the ocean of emotion, and then you can kind of boogie board and then you can surf the ocean of emotion.

It’s a step-by-step. 

Susi Vine: Yes. Thank you for that. I think especially being achievement oriented, we want to say, okay, I’m ready to tackle this. We’re digging out all the dirt and I’m gonna sit with it all. Nobody’s getting up from this table until we’re clear. 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Yeah. Just remember, it’s not a to do list that you check off on yourself.

Developed. So that’s why I call them practices. 

Susi Vine: Yes. Practices. And I love your suggestion of I’m a big fan of journaling exercises. I think when we give ourselves that kind of opportunity to let things come up, pass that first layer dropping into a lower level of recognition, or just seeing what words come up.

It’s really interesting to see how things can resolve themselves. Like you said, with that experiment, the voice kind of ran out of steam. Oh, you are listening to me.

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Right. And then the more we listen, you know, things like that. And like you said, journaling, like I remember I did a forgiveness exercise and. It said, what do you believe about forgiveness? And I wrote a few things and then the last thing was that I didn’t deserve forgiveness.

And that was really shocking. Really woke me up. I thought, wow. Okay. There’s some, there’s some more exploration to be doing there.

Susi Vine: And not necessarily that same sitting in that same session, but okay. All right. Oh 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Cause you see, you see, what I recognized was when I told you early on that the perfectionism almost killed me. It was almost. I would say the bulk of it was around mom, mom, guilt. And I mean, every parent has some guilt.

Okay. But mine was really severe and it took a lot of forgiveness and that’s why the third book that I’ve written is all about how I healed my mom guilt. 

Susi Vine: I think a lot of parents, mothers and parents would benefit from that perspective because I do think that is something that that they can carry and not recognize how it’s weighing them down and impacting that relationship with their children to.

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Yeah, absolutely. In one of the stunning things was when I started to talk about things with my family, that I had the burdens I had been carrying, and as I started forgiving myself, I have conversations with other family members. They were carrying a burden for the exact same thing. So I was blaming myself, somebody else was blaming him or herself.

Right. And so by having this conversation, we were actually able to unburden all of us. It was an amazing process.

Susi Vine: That’s really beautiful. And what a gift to make space for that it’s not an easy conversation to begin, but within that space, unexpected healing is able to happen. 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Yeah, it was, it was really wonderful. So such a surprise.

Susi Vine: Please share with our audience where they can learn more about the books that you’ve written. It sounds like there’s really, really valuable insights in all of them and how and how they can connect with you to move forward if they’ve 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: liked. Okay, great. I have a couple of websites. One is Elizabeth on yahoo.com and.

That’s where you can find out about my books and habitual happiness hub.com is another place where you can find out about the work that I do with perfectionists. And I founded the habitual happiness hub because I, I feel that it’s a practice. Like I choose lasting joy and I do it through my practices because one of the number one thing.

I wanted to make sure is that I could continue these practices and really sustain what I have discovered. So they can connect with me on social media, on Facebook, on LinkedIn and Twitter and Instagram. And also I have a gift that I’m sharing. It’s called seven powerful practices for perfectionists and Susie will share the link.

And this goes through seven things. The first is the perfectionist mindset. The second is excellent goal. The third is results. The fourth is finding forgiveness. The fifth is EMF, empathy and compassion. The sixth is connection with the full self and the seventh is taking time to celebrate and all of these acronyms together spell perfect because you were born.

Perfect. You don’t have to strive to be perfect.

Susi Vine: I really love that. And I think that there’s something for absolutely everyone in that certainly for the perfectionist in the group, but certainly for everyone else who, you know, we, we push ourselves sometimes that inner critic. Can go round and be holding us back. And so that sounds really terrific.

I love the breadth of what you’re sharing in that resource. So I hope folks take advantage. We’ll definitely have the link in the show notes as well as those points of connection with Elizabeth. So you can move forward there. If you want to learn more. There’s so much to this conversation and I appreciate your to coming back to The choices that we make, the habits that we can build to move ourselves in the direction that we choose.

It surprises some people. When I say that happiness is a bit of a triggering word because it doesn’t come easily. So I appreciate that you’re sharing tools to help people find out how to build that for themselves. 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: And I’d like to give one last tip in that regard. And that is, I call them habits and practices, but their day by day, I don’t call them daily because of this whole thing of all or nothing like as a perfectionist, if, if we don’t do it perfectly, we’re like, oh, well then, okay, I’ll just stop.

Or, oh, I have to start over. Or then, then we’d beat ourselves up. So give yourself permission to do day by day practices to build momentum. If you skip a day or two. Totally. Okay. Just continue the momentum. That’s the really important thing. So I call them day by day practices to give myself a ticket myself and others permission.

Susi Vine: Thank you for that. That’s a really important part. I think that we tend to. As we’ve been discussing, be our own worst critic, but then certainly underestimate what we’re capable of because we’re only tracking the ways in which we feel we fall short instead of recognizing the progress that we make. So I love that you talk about moving into momentum, recognizing where we are showing up the way that we want to and changing our focus.

Again, it’s definitely a practice that it takes. Some muscle building in that regard. 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Yep. And it’s lifelong, but it gets easier and it’s totally worth it. 

Susi Vine: Marvelous, thank you so much. There’s really, really a lot to think about here in this conversation. Is there anything that we didn’t touch on that that comes to mind before we go to.

Elizabeth Onyeabor: So I think there’s maybe just one, one last thing, and that is the biggest myth about the perfectionist mindset. And I kind of touched on it, but I want to be very specific here. The biggest myth is that we think through achievements, we’re going to close that. Not good enough. But here’s what happens. So the biggest methods, we’re not going to close it through achieving because what happens is when we set a goal and we don’t think it’s good enough, we have this not good enough gap, but research also shows that when we have this really high standard and we actually need it, we somehow say to ourselves, Oh, that was too easy.

I should have said a higher standard and we create a not good enough gap now. It’s not comfortable to fill not good enough, but it’s familiar and we create that familiar, not good enough gap ourselves. So it’s, it’s this no one situation that we create. Not good enough and accomplishments and doing are not going to close the gap.

It’s through tapping into the human being and the expanding self love that is going to close that not good enough gap. 

Susi Vine: Wow. I’m so glad you brought us back to that, because that is something I think a lot of people will probably have their eyes opened a little bit bigger than we, that mine just did it because it’s that point of comfort.

Our comfort zone is to see how we fell short. It really does take building new practices. Yeah. It’s 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: familiar. It doesn’t feel good. Right? Yeah, that’s an important, yeah. And that’s why we don’t celebrate our successes because we never feel like we’ve been successful. I 

Susi Vine: should have been more successful.

That’s where.

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Yeah. Like, oh, well I did that. That was too easy. And it’s like, even if it’s like Herculean effort to do it somehow, we’re like, well, wow. I met it. I sh I should have said it higher. Like, and it’s not, I mean, this, this is the. The way, all self-oriented perfectionist think it’s the mindset. So it’s really about the awareness and shifting and, and doing an actually more being than doing, like being first then do so be then do.

Susi Vine: I’m a huge fan of that. I think that there’s so much so 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: close with that thought you are a human being,

Susi Vine: not the sum of what you have done.

That’s marvelous. Thank you so much. I really appreciate everything that you’ve shared so much food for thought here. And certainly then we’ve got the resources in the show notes. If you want to connect with Liz and see what, what she is creating, what she’s sharing in the world, stay inspired with these brilliant insights.

I appreciate your time. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. This has been terrible. 

Elizabeth Onyeabor: Thank you. Susie has been my pleasure. 

Susi Vine: Have a great day. Take care.