How to Be Okay When Life Feels Overwhelming with Liz Fosslien

In this episode, Liz Fosslien discusses how to be okay when life feels overwhelming. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by emotions like anger, envy, or uncertainty—and then feel guilty for feeling that way? Liz challenges some of the biggest myths about emotions. She also dives into why negative emotions aren’t actually bad, how perfectionism holds us back, and why uncertainty feels so unbearable. She shares research-backed insights and actionable strategies to help us navigate difficult feelings in a more constructive and self-compassionate way.

Key Takeaways:

• 00:00 – Introduction to Big Feelings and Emotional Myths
• 05:55 – The Illusion of Certainty and Why We Overestimate Risk
• 14:37 – The Cycle of Anxiety, Thought Filtering, and Anxious Fixing
• 22:53 – Perfectionism as Fear of Failure and How to Break the Pattern
• 32:35 – The Power of Language: How “Always” and “Never” Reinforce Negative Thinking
• 38:39 – Comparison Isn’t the Problem—How to Use It for Growth
• 48:54 – Time Chunking: A Survival Strategy for Emotional Overwhelm
• 54:49 – Closing Thoughts: Accepting Big Feelings as Part of the Human  Experience

For full show notes, click here!

If you enjoyed this episode with Liz Fosslien, check out these other episodes:

Embracing Emotions at Work with Liz Fosslien (2019)

Befriending Difficult Feelings with Adreanna Limbach

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sometimes it's not even that we have thoughts that are helpful.
It's like the thought becomes I just want to run
away from us, What can I do? What can I do?
And what our brain generates is like what I can
do next? Often isn't actually what we need to do
to address that underlying emotion.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't

(00:45):
have instead of what we do. We think things that
hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Have you ever had a day where you just feel off?
Not sad exactly, not mad either, but just a swirling
mess of feelings that won't sit still. I certainly have
and as it turns out, that is completely normal. In fact,
my guest today, Liz Fossiline, has spent years studying why
we feel the way we feel and why we often

(01:29):
believe we shouldn't feel that way. She's here to bust
some of the biggest myths about emotions, like why anger
isn't actually the enemy, where envy can be useful, and
why it's not just you feeling like everyone else has
it figured out. By the end of this episode, you'll
walk away with a whole new way to think about
your emotions, one that just might make your life a

(01:52):
little lighter, a little easier, and a little more human.
I'm Eric Zimmer and this is the one you feed. Hi, Liz,
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Thanks so much for having me. Really excited to be
here again.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yes, excited to have you back again. And you have
a new book called Big Feelings, How to Be Okay
When Things Are Not Okay, which is a great topic
that I know listeners are going to love. But before
we get into the book, let's start, like we always do,
with a parable. There's a grandparent who's talking with their
grandchild and they say, in life, there are two wolves

(02:25):
inside of us. That are always at battle when it
is a good wolf which represents things like kindness and
bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second,
looks up at their grandparents, says, well, which one wins?
The grandparents says, the one you feed. So I'd like
to start off by asking you what that parable means

(02:47):
to you in your life and in the work that
you do.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, well, I like that it acknowledges that we all
experience these emotions and have these within ourselves. I think
that's a common misconception when people maybe feed or feel
the sort of quote unquote negative emotions, that they're alone
in it. So I really like that. And then I
think the concept of feeding these emotions is really great too.
Something that I look at a lot in my work

(03:13):
is when you're experiencing something that's difficult, how do you
learn from it but then try to move through it
so that it gives you some useful information, but you
don't get tangled up in it and continue to feed
it and get dragged into it. So I really love
that parable.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
You hit on something there that you talk about early
on in the book, which is really some myths about
what you're calling big feelings. You hit one of the
myths there, But can you talk about a couple of
the others.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yes, I think the one you're mentioning a hit on
which I actually think is worth revisiting again is for
the book, we surveyed about fifteen hundred people all across
the world from all different backgrounds, and we ask them,
have you experienced any of these big feelings, which in
the book include things like anger, envy, and out perfectionism,
And basically to a person, everyone said yes. And so

(04:05):
I think one of the myths is again that when
we experience envy, that we should feel ashamed because we're
the only person feeling that, which is absolutely not true.
Another one is just around the intensity of those feelings,
that people often also think in comparison to others that
they're the only ones that are really getting bogged down
in I think depression is a good example of this.

(04:28):
When you feel despair, often you feel like everyone else
is thriving, and that's one of the ways in which
it warps your view of the world. And that's just
also not true. And then the last one that we
cover in the beginning of the book is just that
there are good quote unquote and bad feelings, so things
like envy. Anger is one too. We're often taught that

(04:50):
anger is associated with violence and is really harmful to
other people. And there are absolutely ways that you can
express anger, like punching a wall or punching a person,
that are harmful. But at its core, anger can motivate us.
It's just a flag that there has been a violation,
so it can motivate us to advocate for ourselves, to
find a better situation for ourselves, to advocate for someone else.

(05:13):
So I wouldn't call that a bad emotion. You can
take bad actions based on it, but at its core,
an emotion is simply data and something that your brain
is producing.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Right, And we've got this podcast Parable that talks about
you know, good wolf and bad Wolf, which if we're
not careful, sets that myth up, which is that negative
emotions quote unquote negative emotions are bad. It's why I
love the take that you had, and it's one of
the reasons I love the Parable is it just says like, hey,
everybody has these you know, that's I think so so

(05:46):
important and you know, the thing that's really interesting And
I've been thinking about this a lot lately because we've
had a couple of guests recently that have talked about this.
One is a woman named Sarah Fay who just released
a book. She's diagnosed with six different things over her life, right,
and she sort of takes on the DSM, which is
the way that you know, mental health professionals diagnose people.

(06:08):
But I think it gets to the question of when
is something normal human emotion that we all go through,
and when is something what we would classify as mental illness,
and is that distinction even useful? Curious your thoughts.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
I'm not a licensed psychiatrist to make these calls.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
Yeah, of course, sort of.

Speaker 1 (06:27):
My intuition on this is that when it becomes something
that you really can't move through, and when you're actively
harming yourself or other people, that's when it requires maybe
medication or it is more professional help. But that said,
I mean, I think medication and professional help can be
useful even if you're sort of depressed but functioning. So

(06:50):
I think it's it's always valuable to consider these things
on a spectrum. And so I think there's not like
a clear line. Sometimes it's just a judgment call that
you make yourself or the people around you make, or
your therapist makes of Okay, at this point there needs
to be some more serious intervention. But I think I
don't feel like the depths of some of these like

(07:11):
really more sort of quote unquote severe disorders better in
the DSM. But on any given day, I feel good
and then an hour later I feel bad, and you
you know, like, is that am I like vacillating too
much between emotion? I don't know. That's my baseline. So
these are all definitely like arbitrary lines that are still
useful to have in some cases.

Speaker 3 (07:31):
Totally, yeah, And I do think every case is different,
and it's something I think a lot about as someone
who has what I would call maybe today i'll call
it depressive tendencies instead of saying, you know, I have depression,
I have a tendency in that direction. But at the
end of the day, I think that the tools that
are very useful for working with a lot of these

(07:53):
things are the same regardless. And that's really where you
guys spend a lot of time in the book. You
go through these big feelings and for each of them,
you talk about some myths and then you talk about
how to work with each of them. I love the
structure of the book. It's laid out very clearly, very helpfully,
and of course it has the drawings for which you
guys are are very well known. They're so great. They

(08:16):
really add so much that we just won't get in
a visual or we won't get in an audio only conversation,
but they add so much to the book. Let's jump
into some of the big feelings. Is there anyone that
you would like to hit one that feels like more
top of mind today for you than others. I've got
a couple I might choose, but I'm curious what you

(08:37):
might choose.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, I think I would choose uncertainty and perfectionism. Uncertainty,
you know, the last two years easy to say, they've
been very uncertain. Indeed, that's the one that I've struggled
with a lot, and I think a lot of people
have as well.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
Okay, so what are some of the myths around uncertainty?

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Two that resonated with me when I first started to
investigate them. The first was that certainty is attainable. It's
really comforting to think, Oh, I just wish I could
go back to when I was a child and things
were certain or pre pandemic, when life was more it
was just obvious what was going to happen next, and
I could plan for it. And the truth is, you

(09:21):
can never plan for the future because you can never
exactly predict what it is. And yes, there are times
when there's more alarming things that could happen in the future,
but generally, I think it's actually really useful to let
go of this myth that there is a perfect stability
that you can attain, because again, it helps you look
back at your life and say, I've always been operating

(09:43):
in some level of uncertainty, and for the most part,
I've been able to successfully navigate it. I'm still here,
So I think that can help you even in moments
that feel a little more unstable than others. And then
the second myth is that the anxiety we feel in
the face of uncertainty is is perfectly predictive of how
much risk we face. So I think it's so easy

(10:05):
to wake up in the morning with this like nebulous
pit of anxiety in your stomach and then lean into
that and say, oh, because I feel bad. That means
something bad is going to happen, and now I need
to be on full alert and in panic mode.

Speaker 3 (10:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
One funny thing that I don't know. Funny, but somehow
a lot of the research around uncertainty involves shocking people,
like giving them harmless but painful electric shocks. Like every
single study involved this, so uncertainty researchers loved electric shocks.
That seems actually fairly certain. But in one of these.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
Okay, but in one of these studies, I'm not going
to sign up for any studies around uncertainty. I do not.
As somebody owned an old guitar amplifier in really lousy
houses in a long time ago, I used to get
shocked all the time. I hate it.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Yeah, yeah, so same. I'm not signing up for any
of those. But in one of these studies, they segmented
people randomly into two groups, and one group had a
ninety percent chance of getting shocked, so it was pretty
much guaranteed that they were going to get this painful experience.
The other group had a fifty percent chance, and the

(11:12):
group that had a fifty percent chance was three times
more stressed than the group that was certain they were
going to get shocked, which speaks to this like we
would rather know that something bad is going to happen
then not know what's going to happen. So we really
really hate uncertainty, which again speaks to like, you can
be super anxious, but that doesn't mean that you're guaranteed

(11:33):
a horrible thing that's about to happen.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
There's a couple things in what you said there that
I think are important. That this idea that certainty ever
exists is certainly a myth, Like I think those of
us who study Buddhism and they sort of bang us
over the head with this sort of stuff, like you know,
it doesn't exist. There's a poet author out there, Mark Nepo,
who talks about something called the terrible knowledge, which is
that anything can happen to anyone at any time. And

(11:58):
I think that's true. But I think there's a pow
positive too to recognizing uncertainty. Besides feeling less anxious about it.
The other positive is you don't take things for granted
as much if you actually realize the true uncertainty of things.
You recognize like, oh, you know, let me be grateful
for my dog who's laying here right next to me,
because I just don't know how much longer that will happen.

(12:20):
You know it can. Knowledge of uncertainty can also contribute
to our lives in positive ways.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah. Absolutely. I have a friend who is, you know,
in his early thirties, extremely oppressive athlete, eats very healthy,
and he had some pain in his ankle last year
which then was diagnosed as bone cancer and needed an amputation,
and just like you know, had a horrendous year and
now luckily it seems to be in remission. But I

(12:48):
just remember that experience like it really felt like out
of nowhere. Yeah. I don't want to use his story
as like it made me feel really good, but it did.
It kind of crystallized like out of all of us,
he's the last person I would have predicted to have
such a health crisis at this age, and that it
just like put my own health in much more perspective.

(13:09):
And I agree with you, it made it was like, Wow,
things like this do happen, and it's horrifying. And so
even if I'm not having a great day, I'm still
grateful that generally things are okay.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, And the next question I'm going to ask, is
you know, as we look at working with emotions and
people who talk about emotions and theorize about emotions, some
people have a belief that like thoughts cause our emotions,
you know, there's a there's a you know, thoughts leading
to emotion. There's other people that think it's more complicated
than that. And when you were talking about anxiety, it

(13:42):
made me think of that sense of somehow some days
you just wake up and before you've even had a thought,
there's a mood, and then it's like every thought gets
filtered kind of through that mood. Is that sort of
what you were talking about with like anxiety, Like you
wake up and it's just, you know, you feel a
certain way, and now all of a sudden, your thoughts

(14:03):
all take on the color of that feeling.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Absolutely. Yes. So my view is that emotions are often
the product of like stimuli we're taking in, and it
can just be a result of our brain chemistry, which
is often the cause as well. And so I think
it depends on how you define a thought. But then
like the conscious thoughts we have get as you said,
filtered through this emotion that's coming up. So one example

(14:28):
of kind of how I consider emotion is way way
back in the day, if a lion was charging towards you,
it was really important that you just feel fear right away,
that your brain was able to process like lion coming
fear right away, and that it wasn't like this very
conscious like, oh there's a lion, perhaps you know, and
you can I think you can debate forever if the
thought comes first what a thought is, but then everything

(14:51):
after that is filtered through this like physiological response you're
having in response to that emotion. And with anxiety, I
think it's the same, right, So if you doom scroll
late at night, go to bed, have bad dreams, or
there's just this subconscious thing running through you that the
future is really scary, there's all these horrible things happening
in the world. You wake up, you have this pit

(15:12):
you're not even really conscious of what thoughts are driving that.
But then that starts to create these thoughts that might
not necessarily be true for me personally, which as I've
talked to people, I think a lot of people experience this.
It also generates this frantic energy that leads you to
kind of exhaust yourself in an effort to get over

(15:33):
the anxiety. But because you're not sitting with it and
really trying to understand what might be driving it. It's
not productive. So to give more color to that, I
used to wake up, especially during the early days of
the pandemic, feel so anxious, and I would just vacuum
the floor, I would answer all my emails, I would
create all these new projects for myself. I would call someone.

(15:55):
I would just have this to do list and mercilessly
bang my way through it. And at the end of
the day I was just exhausted. But I had never
stopped to think, why am I anxious? Like what can
I actually do about that underlying emotion? So I just
didn't feel any better, actually felt way worse. And so
I think that's also sometimes it's not even that we

(16:16):
have thoughts that are helpful. It's like the thought becomes
I just want to run away from this. What can
I do? What can I do? And what our brain
generates is like what I can do next often isn't
actually what we need to do to address that underlying emotion.

Speaker 3 (16:29):
So what are some tools for working with uncertainty?

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, So the first is just to stop this cycle
of what psychologists call anxious fixing. So this is you
feel anxiety and it feels good to cross things off
a checklist, and so you do, and you do, and
you do, but you're not actually addressing that underlying need.
So it's really just in this case, when you feel
that overwhelming panic or anxiety, it's to stop and don't

(16:56):
rush into anything else. Just sit there and say, like,
I'm this moment, I'm very anxious, and then try to
think through, like what are my fears? So anxiety is
more nebulous, this sort of anxious feeling we have, versus
a fear, which is centered around something specific. And so
you might say, you know, over the past, you like,
I'm afraid I'll get COVID, I'm afraid someone I love

(17:19):
will get COVID, and those are terrifying things. But once
you actually map out the exact fears you have, it's
easier to start thinking what can I do to prevent that?
What steps can I take? Versus with anxiety, there's not
a clear next step, So I think the first piece
of advice would just be just stop and sit with it.

(17:40):
As uncomfortable as that might feel in the moment, it's
really important, yep.

Speaker 3 (17:45):
And then you sort of let into another one there,
which is to try and go from vague anxiety into
more specific fears like what am I really afraid of?
And you know, the more specific oftentimes the better.

Speaker 1 (17:57):
Yeah. I think one thing that came out a lot
as I was speaking with both experts and then just
people about this is some people mentioned they find it
useful to ask themselves what's the worst thing that could happen,
and then realizing that it's not so bad is comforting
to them. And so if that works for you, that's great.

(18:18):
I do want to share that tip. For me personally,
I can come up with some really doomsday so, you know,
like what's the worst thing that can happen? I am
very creative when it comes to this question. So if
that's you, I would not ask that, or I would
say what's the worst thing that could happen? And then
follow it up with what's the best thing that could happen?

(18:39):
And what is the likelihood that the worst thing happens? Yeah,
because often it's like, yeah, I dreamed up this nightmare scenario,
but it's extremely unlikely that that's actually what's going to
happen tomorrow, and so it's important to keep that in
mind as well.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Makes me laugh. My partner's mom has Alzheimer's that that
does not make me laugh, but within that, you know,
humor is helpful. And she would get these anxious fears,
and so I would try and reason with her, like
she was always afraid she was going to starve to death.
I'd be like, well, you're not, you know, and I'd
start going into why she's not going to starve to death.

(19:14):
Every time she would just come up with a more
and more fantastical story about how this was going to happen.
And I just after a while I realized, like this,
this is this is not working, like, you know, like
this is one where her ability to dream up scenarios
is well beyond my ability to you know, come up
with contingency plans. And I know some people who are

(19:37):
like that also like, you know, what's the worst thing
that can happen? They've got some doozies.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
You know, Oh yeah, that's definitely me.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
What's the worst thing that can happen for me? Is
generally a pretty good one, you know, because I'll go like, well,
you know, I guess we won't make any money. If
we don't make any money for a few months, you know,
I'll figure it out, which sort of leads me to
another one of your for uncertainty, which is to sort
of reflect on moments that bring you confidence or reflect

(20:05):
on your ability to cope with what uncertainty brings.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Yeah, so this is I think one of the best
ways to navigate uncertainty. It's not about creating confidence for
yourself that something is going to happen at a future
point in time, because, like we said, you can't really
do that. It's about building confidence that you will be
able to handle it. And so one great way to
do that is to look back and try to find

(20:30):
moments when you were overwhelmed or you didn't think you
could make it through an experience and you did so.
For example, I actually, for I don't know twenty years,
struggled with a really intense needle phobia and I went
to cognitive behavioral therapy to overcome it. But it was
an example of where my anxiety was absolutely not proportional
to the risk, right, Like getting your blood drawn is

(20:52):
a very low risk procedure, and I look like faint,
I couldn't sleep for days. I would avoid going to
the doctor because I just didn't even want to risk
meeting blood work, and so through CBT, I was able
to gradually, like expose myself to the situation more and more.
And now it's still an unpleasant experience. But every time

(21:13):
I feel this fear, I remind myself think back to
the last blood draw, where everything was fine, you didn't
pass out, you were able to make it through. And
so every subsequent blood draw has been easier and easier
because I've built that confidence in myself. And so the
same thing can be applied to uncertainty. If you've gone
through something really hard, Often we wish we hadn't had

(21:34):
to go through that hard thing, but you can take
away the lesson that you are capable of surviving it
and of making it through. And one quick phrase I
want to end with on this is I found it
so valuable to also tell myself I am a person
learning to X so when you're confronted with uncertainty, saying
like I need to have it all figured out right now,

(21:57):
I can't do this. Just I'm a person learning to
continue to move through uncertainty. And I've done it before
and there's lessons there, but I'm still going to find
new ways to do it. And I think that phrase
can really help you shift your mindset to be more
open to It's okay, I will make it through this.

Speaker 3 (22:16):
Excellent. Well let's move on to I think you chose
perfectionism as your next one, right.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
I did. Yes, this is a big one for me.

Speaker 3 (22:24):
Tell us about your perfectionism.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, my perfectionism definitely manifests in my work. So just
I think becoming overly obsessive with getting to one hundred
percent versus you know, saying like in this case, actually
eighty percent is more than an help and it's actually
better for everyone if I don't spend more time on this.
But it also has shown up a lot in my

(22:46):
personal relationships. So when I first started dating my now husband,
I felt in many ways that I was two people.
And the first was me, who sometimes you know, likes
to stand in my case and radial pajamas and eat
cheese directly from the fridge. And then the person that

(23:06):
I was when we were dating and not living together,
which I always you know, I would put on makeup
and tried to be funny and gregarious and have stories
and would eat really politely. And then when the relationship
was going well, and then we talked about moving in together,
and that was terrifying for me because I was like,
oh my god, he's going to discover this person that's

(23:29):
so different, that's kind of a mess, that has anxiety
attacks at night. I just hidden that all away because
I really thought that to be in a relationship, to
have someone love you, you just had to be perfect
and you had to be fun to be around all
the time. So it's for a lot of my life
shown up sort of in every facet of both professional
and personal life.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Before we get into coping tools, let's follow the way
we've been going, which is what's a couple of myths
people have about perfectionism.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
So one myth is that you're not a perfectionist. And
I think people who have perfectionist tendencies often they're so
hard on themselves that it's incomprehensible to them that they'd
be a perfectionist, because they're like, I'm not perfect. I'm
a complete failure. I'm not perfectly dressed for every situation.
I don't ace every single presentation at work. How can

(24:50):
I be a perfectionist? And perfectionism is not about like
color coded folders and looking a certain way or behaving
a certain way, it's about death, really trying to avoid failing.
So it's one thing to aim for one hundred percent
on the test and get ninety four percent and feel
pretty good. It's another to aim for one hundred, get
ninety eight and then beat yourself up because you didn't

(25:12):
get that one question. And that's perfectionism. So I think,
being honest with yourself, that you might have these tendencies
even if you don't think of yourself as perfect or perfectionist.
And then another one is that perfectionism helps us. I
think a lot of myself included it was like, oh,
if I abandon this, if I try to move away
from these thoughts or tendencies, I'll turn into a couch

(25:33):
potato and I won't have any drive and I'll just
be a complete basket case on the floor. When in fact, perfectionism,
a lot of research shows, makes you focus so much
on this fear of failure that it holds you back
much more than it helps you move forward. So the
two are you might have perfectionist tendencies even if you

(25:53):
don't think, and then once you accept that it's okay
to move away from them, they are not as helpful
as you think. They are.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
Yeah. And then the third myth is what you sort
of hit on in your personal story, which is, you know,
I have to be perfect to be valued.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Yeah, exactly, And I think that for many people shows
up in their personal lives.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
Yep, yep. How have you worked with perfection in your
own life? And then you know, we can go into
some of the tools from the book, but I'm just
kind of curious, like in your personal life, like that's
a big one, you know, how have you worked through that?

Speaker 1 (26:23):
Yeah? So I did see a therapist, which was really helpful.
And the story I share in the book that has
stuck with me the most is my therapist asked me
to recall a time, like just a really great experience
I had with a pet. And I remember this like
grumpy Persian cat that I used to cat sit and she,
you know, she had the face that indicated she hated everyone,

(26:44):
and she had a breathing problem at that point, so
she would have these little snorts and I adored this
cat and she would, you know, she would just like
come and sit, and sometimes she looked she seemed like irritated.
I was there, but just by sitting there, like I
just liked to be around this cat. And my therapist said,
isn't it possible that, like, your boyfriend just likes to

(27:06):
be around you, And even if you're just sitting on
the couch and you're not telling a joke and you
don't look a certain way, that there's just a lot
of comfort in having another person be there, even if
they're just being there. And so that is something. And
I also think about my mom. If I call her,
I have a close relationship with her, it helps me
feel better. And that's how I felt about my boyfriend,

(27:26):
Like he didn't you know, if he just woke up
and had bed head and everything, like I don't know,
I just loved that he was there, and so starting
to see things from that perspective. And then the second
was also actually one of the tips that is in
the book too, is about moving away from avoidance goals
to approach goals. And so an avoidance school is avoiding failure.

(27:50):
So I don't want him to see me without makeup,
and an approach goal is about attaining something positive, and
an approach goals and hair currently more exciting and you
feel good when you reach it, right, Like if you
just avoid failure, that's not an inspiring goal, You're going
to avoid failure, and it's like, great, Okay, I don't
get anything out of this. So in the context of

(28:11):
that relationship, an approach goal might have been I'm gonna
put on my ratty pajamas and I'm going to show
him my favorite cheese and We're actually gonna have like
a fun time eating cheese out of the fridge together,
you know, and like that it was just like opening
up a little more. But then it was also it
culminated in this like really fun bonding experience. And so

(28:34):
often we just get into this mindset of I don't
want to mess up this presentation, and instead, if we
think free of expectations, how can I just really show
people how excited I am about the material? And that's
a really different way of starting to work on that presentation.

Speaker 3 (28:53):
I wanted to pause for a quick good Wolf reminder.
This one's about a habit change and a mistake I
see people, And that's really that we don't think about
these new habits that we want to add in the
context of our entire life.

Speaker 2 (29:07):
Right.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Habits don't happen in a vacuum. They have to fit
in the life that we have. So When we just
keep adding I should do this, I should do that,
I should do this, we get discouraged because we haven't
really thought about what we're not going to do in
order to make that happen. So it's really helpful for
you to think about where is this going to fit
and what in my life might I need to remove.

(29:29):
If you want to step by step guide for how
you can easily build new habits that feed your good Wolf,
go to good Wolf dot me, slash change and join
the free masterclass. You talked about not needing to get
things to one hundred percent as being one thing to do.
How do you start to know within yourself when you're

(29:51):
sort of in that zone of like, Okay, I'm spending
a ton of extra time to get very little value
out of that. How do you know that? Because I
think that's hard for perfectionists. And then secondly, once you
know that, what are some of the things you might
say to yourself to actually get you to set it
down and move on.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, So one question that I found helpful is when
would I be ready to ask someone for feedback and
they could give me useful feedback. Usually if you get
to one hundred percent you're actually not open to feedback
anymore because you're like, this is great. I don't why
should I need anyone to help me?

Speaker 3 (30:28):
That's so interesting.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
Yeah, Like if i'm let's say I'm writing an article,
I also can't hand someone a page that just has
completely incomprehensible notes on it. They're not going to give
me feedback. So I think that's a nice heuristic of
like when is this in enough shape where someone gets
where I'm going and they can provide useful direction. I
think that's one, and then I think it's also just

(30:50):
opening yourself to learning and so saying Another thing that
I found useful is if I am in a silo
working on this till one hundred percent, I might get
to one hundred percent and realize this is not something
that resonates with people or not what my boss wanted.
So I'm actually creating more work for everyone as opposed
to like handing it to her at like seventy percent

(31:14):
and then maybe making some course corrections. So it's about
creating some breaks for yourself. And then also I really
like this question of like when would this be ready
for feedback?

Speaker 3 (31:24):
Yeah, my partner and I were talking about that recently
in that, you know, when I'm giving a talk for
our Spiritual Habits program or you know, the second Spiritual
Habit circle of Connection she co teaches. But I tend
to start the lessons. And what I realized was exactly
what you just said, although I wouldn't articulate it as well,
which is that I think I'm almost done by the

(31:46):
time I bring her in, and at that point, I
don't really want feedback because what I want is to
be done, you know, Like I think I'm done, you know.
And so we talked about, like I got to bring
her in, like there's got to be enough there for
her to critique. To your point, like, but I need
to bring her in much earlier, because I may be
way more open to feedback at that point and not

(32:08):
take it in the way that I you know, sometimes
I just get a little grumpy, you know. And the
more time I spend with it, oftentimes, the more attached
I get to the way it is totally, which is
in the music business, we used to call it rough
mix itis. Right, You've listened to it this certain way,
in this rough mix for so long that that's how
you think it should sound. And somebody comes along and
may have a much better mix, but you're not open

(32:31):
to it because you're sort of mired in what your
idea of it was.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Yeah, I love those examples. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
You also talk about one of my very favorite topics,
which is how extreme language can cause extreme emotion, and
you talk about getting rid of always and never.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Yeah, so those are two words that usually show you've
slipped into your perfectionist tendencies and that your self reflection
has turned self destruct So examples are good parents never
yell at their kids, great employees are always turning everything

(33:10):
in five days before the deadline, and those are like
extreme views of the world that just aren't true. So again,
it's usually a sign that whatever thought is banging around
your brain is not an accurate perception of reality. And
so I think it's nice to have those words so
that when you notice them, say like, oh, okay, I
see what's happening here. I need to think about this differently,

(33:32):
so you know, like, good parents never feel frustrated at
their kids, and actually say, like, good parents do feel frustrated.
It's totally fine. How can I just navigate through this situation?
How can I make it better. In a work context,
you know, great employees or emplolies who get promoted never
make mistakes. Also not true, and so it allows you

(33:53):
to step back from that and say, I made a mistake.
Can I ask my boss for advice on how to
avoid me making that mistake in the future. I think
it just allows you to detach a little bit from
these extreme ways of thinking that cause us to berate
ourselves and then start to feel really down and low.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
Yeah, those two words tend to be destructive wherever they
show up, whether it's in our own lives, like you said,
a good parent should never get angry, or when we're
communicating to somebody else, you always do this or you
never do that. You know, like they just they're troublesome words.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah. I love that you brought up to in communication
and conversation. You know, if you say you always do ACX,
that person is just immediately going to come up with
an example of when they didn't do it.

Speaker 3 (34:36):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
Yeah, it's not a useful conversation.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
I'm sure I've done plenty of the saying always or never,
but I know for sure I've been in relationships with
people who have used those phrases and you're right. I'm
immediately like, but that's not true, you know, like you know,
which is missing the point totally. A more nuanced version
of me would be like, all right, I understand what
they're saying. Underneath ignore the words. You know, that's a feeling.

(35:01):
But but it's very hard, it's very hard to not
counter you know, a factual incorrectness there.

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Mm hmmm mm hmmm mm hmmm, h m hm, h.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
M hm m hmmmmmm.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 3 (35:50):
You talk about naming your inner perfectionist and finding a
non perfectionist role model, say a little more about that.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Yeah, so it's again a method to allow yourself to
distance yourself from your thoughts. And so you know, for
your perfectionist, it might be a part of you that
is useful to engage with sometimes, but you don't want
it to consume all of you. And so calling your
perfectionist I think in the book we give examples of
like Grace or Darth Vader or Bozo. It can be

(36:21):
a goofy name whatever feels good to you. And then
when you start to have these thoughts like good parents
always do X, great employees never do HY, saying like Oh,
that's Bob, my inner perfectionist. And I'm actually going to say, like,
what does Bob want in this moment? Right, Like there

(36:41):
actually might be some useful information in there, like Bob
really wants to be a great employee. It's useful to
know that, like, oh, I do want to do well
in this job, but you're not sort of like leaning
into those emotions and taking them or those thoughts and
taking them as fact and then a non perfectionist role model.
I think it's actually really useful if there's someone at

(37:02):
work that you really admire, a mentor just someone in
your personal life to also note when they flub something
or they don't immediately respond to an email, because again,
I think it helps you realize that everyone makes mistakes.
No one is like on their A game twenty four
to seven, and so you can still be successful and
impressive and this incredible person in someone's life even if

(37:25):
you're not, you know, striking a home run every second
of the day.

Speaker 3 (37:29):
If anyone needs a clear example of non perfection in
their life, I offer myself up.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Say I love that.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
Yeah, And I love naming my inner characters. I've shared often,
you know about my inner depressive tendency. Person is ere
you know from Winnie the Pooh.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
You know that's a good way.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
Yeah, yeah, And it makes me kind of laugh every
time I start putting my thoughts in your's voice, you know. Yeah,
it's good. So I've had people asking me if I
would record whole guided meditations for them. I'm an ewer's voice,
but I have I've stayed away from that for now.
All right, now it's my turn to pick a a
I've got a bug flying around here. I'm not going

(38:12):
to fall into the perfectionist idea of that, like it
should never have a bug in your house. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Bugs, they're everywhere.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
They're everywhere. Yes, I'm going to pick my big feeling,
and I'm gonna go with comparison. Not actually because it's
one of the ones that I struggle with as much,
because I actually don't as much anymore in my life,
but it's one I know a lot of people do
struggle with. And I found a lot of the things
you guys had to say about it in a lot
of cases counterintuitive and counter to what people think. So

(38:43):
let's talk a little bit about comparison. It can be
one of the most painful big feelings out there. What
are a couple of the myths around comparison.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, I think nowadays so much of the conversation centers
around social media, and so I think it's easy then
to assume if I get off of Instagram or Facebook,
I will be free of comparison, and that's just not true.
There's infinite examples of like you know, your neighbor, your colleague, whatever,

(39:15):
You're still going to compare yourself to people. So it
can be absolutely helpful to limit social media intake, but
it's not sort of the magic wand with which you
can eradicate all of these emotions. The second one that
we talk about in the book is if you just
get to a certain point, you'll feel great about yourself

(39:36):
and you'll never compare yourself to anyone else. You know,
it's very true that there's always going to be someone
who is better than you, quote unquote on sub metric.
If you have infinite money, you're suddenly going to turn
to like looks or I don't know, access to some whatever,
or maybe even like meaning or whatever it is. You're

(39:57):
just you can never be the best at everything, And
so I think it's really useful to catch yourself when
you hear yourself saying like, I'll be happy when blank,
because the truth is that's not guaranteed, and it's more
important to figure out how to be happy with what
you have. Those are two big ones, and then the
one that I find the most interesting, which we stumbled

(40:19):
across this research a couple of years ago and it's
been really helpful to me, is that to overcome comparison
or to envy, you should compare yourself less. So that's
the myth is that just like, don't look at other people,
and the truth is it's actually research shows makes you
feel better to compare yourself more. So, what the researchers

(40:39):
find is they asked people like, how good of a
runner do you think you are? And people said they
were not good runners because in their head they thought
of the absolute best runner they knew. But when the
researcher said, list out in your life ten people you
know personally and how well they run, and now evaluate
how good of a runner you are, people were like, oh,

(40:59):
I'm pretty good. Yeah, And so it's like, I think
it's really easy if we think about, you know, how
successful am I? We think about Mark Zuckerberg and we're like,
I'm so unsuccessful. But then if you actually put into
perspective like you're in the top five percent of all
money brackets or whatever it might be, or you think
about your peer group, you're usually not like far far

(41:20):
far behind everyone else, And so I think actually having
a wider comparison range can put things into better perspective.

Speaker 3 (41:29):
Yeah. I also think that ideas around what types of
comparison can actually be helpful is really interesting.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yeah. Absolutely, So comparison is sort of inevitable. So then
it starts you start to think about when I have
when I notice myself comparing or I notice myself being
envious of someone, what is helpful to me and what
is harmful? And so what is helpful is to take
a step back from that emotion and say, what is
my envy telling me? So envy can reveal what you value.

(41:59):
So it might be you really envia colleague who just
got promoted, and what you learn is that maybe you
really want to be promoted too, or you really want
to do well. But then it's still useful to kind
of drill down of like, yes, you want that, but
do you want the day to day of that, because
it might be that you're envious of a CEO because
they're successful, and you've been sort of socialized to want

(42:23):
to be the most successful. But do you actually want
to do everything it takes to be a CEO? Is
that the work life balance you want is that you
want to make the same sacrifices. And so I think
it's about really asking yourself this series of questions that
can then highlight when the comparison isn't useful and it's flawed,

(42:44):
and then it allows you to more easily step away
from it.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
Yeah, I really love that idea of really thinking about
I'm looking at this thing that I think I want,
what does that really entail? What do I really need
to do to get there? What are some questions that
are helpful for getting into that. I think you guys
call it the nitty gritty, right, getting into the nitty
gritty of like I look at somebody and I'm comparing

(43:07):
myself the CEO one is a is a great one,
you know. I could think about it. I could look
at somebody, a male model, Men's health cover model, and
look at that and be like, well, I want to
look like that. Well, when I think about the way
that guy has to live. Yeah, I suddenly go, ah, well,
you know, I think I'm doing okay, you know, like
I'm not sure that I want that life.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. So I think the first question is
just like what do they have that makes me feel less?
Then in that example, it's like they have whatever this
body that is on the cover of a magazine, And
then it's also useful to think about like do I
really want that? And am I willing to, like you
just said, like live the life that would lead to that,

(43:48):
and often we say no. So one example I share
in the book is I'm an introvert. In my worst
days or when I have like back to back meetings,
I'm just exhausted. And I have a friend who is
very successful, was promoted and like took over a team
of two hundred people, and I initially was really envious
of her, and then I saw her Google calendar and

(44:10):
was just like, nope, you know, I could not do
that that it's not for me, and then it just
really helped those feelings abate quite a bit. So I
think the day to day question is really great, but
then it's also useful to ask, like what void would
having that fill because often we anchor too much on

(44:32):
the specific thing versus like what actually is like the
bigger need behind the feeling of envy. So it might
be that it's not really that you want the body
that's on the cover of magazine. You just wish you
could feel more confident, and that then it's useful to
think like, oh, there's actually many other ways that I
can improve my confidence that don't have to do with me,

(44:54):
like never touching anything with sugar in it.

Speaker 3 (44:56):
Again, right, I just go over to Chris's and look
at his body and I suddenly feel way way better.
It's not nice, and I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding.
You've got a question in there too that I love,
which is, you know, swap out the question why don't
I have that with do I have enough?

Speaker 1 (45:14):
Yeah. Again, it's so easy for us to anchor our
comparison benchmark on people who are better than us or
not better, but like seem like they're doing better. That's
a correct wording, and it is then really useful to
think like, actually, I'm pretty happy with my life, and
you know, I don't want for many things, and so

(45:37):
right now I'm really just comparing myself to this maybe
ten thousand extra dollars you know, every two years would
be really nice. But fundamentally, like I live in a
safe country with a stable government, and like it's just
useful to remind yourself of that as well of like
all that you have, as opposed to only focusing on
everything you do not have.

Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah, I had a moment. I've shared this a couple
times on the podcast, but it was a really poignant
moment for me. It was years ago. We were relatively
early in doing the podcast, and we went out to
la and we interviewed Lewis Howes, who has gone to
be a huge podcaster and he's been on like Ellen
and all this stuff, and so he had this really
nice apartment in Hollywood, and I went out on his
balcony and I was just looking down at the view

(46:22):
and I was just thinking, like, man, Lewis's got it all,
Like wow, this is incredible, and feeling, you know, a
little bit of envy. And I looked up over my
shoulder and what I saw were these just incredible houses
on the hill. And I went, you know what, I
bet Lewis looks over his shoulder at those houses and

(46:43):
to your point that that never ends, right, that is
an endless process, and so that's one of the best
things for me. And why I like that question of
you know, do I have enough? Is when I really
start to recognize that. Again, I think what you're saying
is that recognizing what we're envious can tell us a
little bit about what we value, which is true, and

(47:04):
sometimes it can be really helpful to realize this thing
that I think if I had it, then I would
just that I would be happy to realize, Like that's
not true. Yeah, like that happiness doesn't work that way.
It doesn't come from like, oh, if I just was
in Bali this week like those people are, I would
be happy. Like that's not true. I've been on vacation
in beautiful places and been perfectly miserable. You know. It

(47:27):
just helps me to recognize that sort of unwind some
of those feelings.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
Yeah. Same, I've also been, you know, on the trip
of a lifetime and just been not happy at all.
It's in the book when you talk about something called
the new level, new Devil phenomenon, which is actually from
video games, but it's often yet it's like when I
achieve X, I'll be happy. So it might be when
I become a manager, I'll be happy. But when you

(47:53):
become that, your peer group also changes somewhat, and so
now everyone around you is also a manager because now
you're going to manager meetings, and so it sort of
normalizes this thing that seemed really unattainable at some point,
and so you just start looking upwards again. So it's
kind of like whatever level you get to, there will
be a new devil of the new thing that would

(48:15):
quote unquote make you happy.

Speaker 3 (48:17):
Yeah, we've talked about it is sort of that, you know,
if this thing, then I'll be happy. And one of
the things that a getting older and be having some
degree of success will do for you. It doesn't always
do this, but it can confer a certain degree of
wisdom because you have enough opportunities where you're like, oh,
I got what I thought I wanted, and look, it

(48:39):
didn't do it right, Like, it didn't fix me, you know,
it didn't, And you really start to go, oh, okay,
you know, what are the skills that I can have
that allow me to actually inhabit where I'm at right
now more fully? Yeah, totally is a way through that. Well,
we're nearing the end of time. What other things from
the book really stood out to you or from work

(49:00):
that you feel like would be really helpful for listeners.
As a last couple of things, if anything comes to mind.
If not, I can certainly drum up another question or two.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
But yeah, I think something that I've found really valuable
actually comes from our chapterund to Spare, and it's this
concept of time chunking, which is, you know, the emotions
we're talking about are really hard. There's often messaging that's like,
you know this was meant to happen for a reason.
You know this is a learning experience, and though you

(49:28):
know like it's a sure maybe it's a learning experience.
A year from now, maybe you can look back on
it and craft a meaningful story. But I think most
of us, something like grief or deep regret, we'd rather
not experience it. And so in those moments when it's
just like so so hard, I think it's so easy

(49:48):
to be like this is how I'm going to feel forever.
And what I've found really valuable is time chunking, which
is then I need to get through the next hour,
and it might be like I need to get through
the next moment, and then I need to get through
the moment after that I think it's fine to say.
There are days when my goal for the day is
to make it through the day, you know, and like,

(50:10):
just what do I need to do today? Because maybe
after sleep tomorrow will look a little different. Maybe I
just need to like watch Netflix all day. Maybe I
need to, you know, like lie on the couch and
just be sad. And often when we talk about these
big emotions, there's not enough that's focused on just like
how do you just make it through when you're in

(50:32):
the worst of it and in those moments when it's
actually hard to believe there's a better and it's hard
to believe that this will ever be a memory that
is meaningful or has created meeting for you. And I
think it really comes down to like one foot in
front of the other, or like one breath at a
time if you're lying down, I can't get up time.

(50:52):
Chunking is something I've come back to.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
Yeah, as a recovering alcoholic, right, I mean, AA I
think is the place that sort of that Probaben invented,
but certainly the place that made one day at a time,
like the popular phrase that it became because it's so valuable,
you know, when you're first getting sober. It's so overwhelming
to contemplate, like I have to do this forever? Are
you out of your mind? Like there's no possible way.

(51:16):
So okay, just today, And like you said, sometimes it's
like just this hour, just don't take a drink this
hour and hope that something shifts. Yeah, that time chunking
is such a valuable skill to be able to do.
And I love what you said about recognizing, like, Okay,
maybe this is a growth lesson and I'm going to
grow from. This is one of those things that I
always find it when somebody's in despair. I feel like

(51:39):
I'm always trying to balance when I'm trying to help
somebody who's in despair. Like ninety seven percent of me
is going I feel you. I simply like I'm with you.
Three percent of me wants you just to keep your
eye just a little bit on the horizon that says
like this is going somewhere for you. So not to

(51:59):
minimum is what you're feeling. Like the vast majority of
it is like it's okay not to be okay. And
I know when I've been in despair, it's always helpful
to have just a little bit of looking at the
horizon where I realize, like this will change, I'm going
to grow from this. What's the right balance of that?
I think is always challenging, but I find it really

(52:19):
helpful to have both those things in my awareness a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (52:24):
Yeah, absolutely, I think the often when someone comes to
us or when we just notice that they're suffering or
going through something, it feels good to like, Okay, have solutions.
I'm going to help you figure of this. And that's
not a bad thing necessarily, but I agree with you.
It's like, first you just need to say, you know,
maybe I don't totally know what you're going through, but
I acknowledge that, like this is really hard, and I'm

(52:45):
here for you, and I you know, just like it's okay.
Whatever you're feeling, it's okay, I'm here. And I think
that is just so so crucial before you start doing this,
like it'll get better or there's like a light at
the end of the tunnel type thing. I think too
often we just skip that part entirely.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
So listener and thinking about that and all the other
great wisdom from today's episode. If you were going to
isolate just one top insight that you're taking away, what
would it be? Remember, little by little, a little becomes
a lot. Change happens by us repeatedly taking positive action,
And I want to give you a tip on that,
and it's just start small. It's really important when we're

(53:24):
trying to implement new habits to often start smaller than
we think we need to, because what that does is
it allows us to get victories. And victories are really
important because we become more motivated when we're feeling good
about ourselves, and we become less motivated when we're feeling
bad about ourselves. So by starting small and making sure
that you succeed, you build your motivation for further change

(53:47):
down the road. If you'd like a step by step
guide for how you can easily build new habits that
feed your good Wolf, go to good Wolf dot me,
slash change and join the free masterclass. There's a psychologist
at the University of Michigan. His name's Ethan Cross, and
he wrote a book called Chatter. I don't know if
you're familiar with it, but he had some really interesting

(54:08):
studies about helping people who are going through really difficult times.
And what these studies seem to point to was only
sympathizing with people didn't lead to good results, that you
did need some degree of that solution oriented piece. And

(54:29):
when I was reading it, it just sort of struck me that, like,
of course, it's both right. We all know if you
skip right past the empathy sympathy part of the game
and you try and shepherd somebody right to solutions like
that doesn't work. Nobody want nobody wants that. So it
is a matter of like, Okay, how can I be

(54:50):
with you in this first and how long that takes
really depends on the person, right, Like I can't say like, well,
all right, I gave you your fifteen minutes and now
we're going to talk solutions, Like it really does depend
on the thing. But I found the research interesting that
it sort of said you kind of need both, and
it made me think about the argument that I hear
a lot between men and women, where you know, women

(55:12):
are saying I just need you to hear me, and
men just want to solve the problem. And when I
was reading it, I went like, we're both right, Like
there's value in both of those. How do we make
sure that they're both there? But you can't get to
the second one. I don't think effectively without the first one.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
Totally. Yeah. I agree with all of that, and that
research is super interesting.

Speaker 3 (55:32):
Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.
It is such a pleasure to have you back on.
I love the book. Like I said, I love the
way it's organized, I love the title how to Be
Okay When Things Aren't Okay, and I love the drawings.
It's really well done. We'll have links in the show
notes to where people can get access to you and
the book and all of that. Is there any where

(55:52):
you want to point people to.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
No shout outs. The book is available everywhere books are sold,
so hopefully you can track it out.

Speaker 3 (55:59):
Yeah. Yeah, and it's called Big Feelings, how to Be
Okay When Things Are Not Okay. Thanks again, Liz, it's
always lovely to.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
See you you too, Thanks for having me.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
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