Progress Over Perfect: Simple Shifts to Overcome the Need to ‘Get It Right’

Embrace Your ‘Flawsome’: Conquering Perfectionism 

It’s the new year—which means new possibilities and  a whole lot of self-imposed pressure. In this episode of Captivate the Mic, host Elaine Williams welcomes Michelle Molitor, an executive coach, hypnotherapist, and author of I Am Perfectly Flossom: How Embracing Imperfection Makes Us Better. Michelle shares her journey of being bullied out of a high-tech career and how that turbocharged her own perfectionism & imposter syndrome.

From chronic anxiety and physical manifestations to everyday blocks that keep us from achieving our goals, Michelle explains how perfectionism can be a trauma response—and how to break free. She highlights her upcoming program, Reclaiming Your True Self, designed to help women overcome perfectionism, burnout, and people-pleasing so they can thrive.

Michelle Molitor is the founder of Nectar Consulting, which combines positive psychology, neuroscience, hypnotherapy, and coaching to help clients rapidly transform limiting beliefs. As a “recovering perfectionist” herself, Michelle is dedicated to showing others how to embrace their flaws, reduce anxiety, and achieve success.

•Why Perfectionism Isn’t Always Obvious: How it can lurk in the background.

•Perfectionism as a Trauma Response: Why unresolved childhood experiences often spark the urge to people-please.

•Real-Life Transformations: Client success story by uncovering limiting beliefs formed earlier.

•Techniques to Overcome Mental Blocks: How hypnotherapy, mindset shifts, and group support can help you rewrite your “inner script.”

•Strategies for the New Year: Why setting the same resolutions won’t work if you haven’t shifted your self-talk; removed hidden roadblocks.

Highlights

•[00:02:10] – Michelle: bullied out of a high-tech career, sparking her journey toward coaching.

•[00:05:30] – Elaine’s realization of her own “closet perfectionism”; how it stops progress.

•[00:11:15] – Client story: Tying perfectionism, anxiety to physical health issues.

•[00:18:00] – How perfectionism can be tied to childhood trauma.

•[00:24:00] – Michelle’s upcoming program, Reclaiming Your True Self, for women seeking deeper transformation.

Resources 

•Michelle’s Website: michellemolitor.com

•Book: I Am Perfectly Flossom (Available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible)

•Group Program:Reclaiming Your True Self : michellemolitor.com/reclaiming-your-true-self

Schedule Call with Michelle:  book a complimentary call to see if the Reclaiming Your True Self program is a fit for you.

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Transcript

0:06

Hi everybody, Elaine Williams here with Captivate the Mic, and I am so excited to share my guest with you. I have the amazing Michelle here from Perfectly Awesome. I'm going to let her tell you all the things. Michelle, I'm so excited that you're here. And it's so perfect because it's the new year, new you. I always feel like January is self hatred month. So I know we can use some of your work. Tell us a little bit about who you are for people who aren't familiar with you yet, please. Sure. Thank you for having me on the show, Elaine. I'm delighted to be here. So hi everyone, Michelle Molitor here at Nectar Consulting. I'm the co author of I Am Perfectly Flossom, How Embracing Imperfection Makes Us Better. And I'm a recovering perfectionist. I got bullied out of my high tech career. I was a creative director in my former life. And yeah, it was pretty devastating. It really knocked all the confidence out of me, what little there was. And left me searching who am I now? And what do I do? And I, it created a massive case of imposter syndrome for me and it dialed my perfectionism up to about a thousand. And in the process of trying to figure out my next steps, I discovered coaching as a way to help me figure that out. And getting some coaching. many moons ago when it was a very brand new industry. I was like, Oh, this is the work I meant to be doing. So I pivoted my career and I got trained and certified and became a professional coach back in 2001. And I've been doing it ever since. I love my work. It's really about helping relieve the mental, emotional, physical suffering that people carry around and often hide from themselves and others to release it out of their nervous system and find greater joy and happiness and success. Wow. Oh, I love it. So much to unpack there. Yes, Michelle I'm so honored. We've been working together on some different things and I have learned so much from listening to you talk about your Successful client stories and your own journey. And, for anybody who's listening, I didn't think of myself as a perfectionist. Cause I'm like, I'm creative. I'm messy. I'm not anal. And yet I have realized one of my discoveries of 2024 was I am actually a closet perfectionist in some areas. And I had hidden that from myself because I had so much judgment against, those anal retentive people who were like, want to cross every T and dot every I. I've always been like yeah, big picture. Let's do it. Which is not always great. You need to have details and contracts and, and so that has been, Sort of nauseating, but also enlightening to realize, oh, I am a perfectionist in certain things. And that's why I get stop, like beyond blocked. Like it took me over a year just to tweak a website, because I felt like I had to be so perfect because I teach video. Anyway I'm just encouraging anybody who is listening to this or watching us, you may not think you're perfectionist and I encourage you to be open because there may be an area or two in your life where you actually are and you just have hidden it from yourself. Yes, it happens to the best of us and we think perfectionism is a good thing, right? Because we want things to be just right. We want them to be beautiful. And yes, absolutely. But in, in our book which aligns with a Japanese philosophy of Kintsugi, which is the art of golden repair. It's about repairing the cracks in broken pottery and mending it with gold dust so that the. The mended piece is more beautiful, more valuable than before. So if we apply that to ourselves if we apply perfectionism to ourselves and realize that our broken and cracked places within ourselves are actually part of what make us more beautiful and more awesome, more flawsome, as I would like to say, flawed and awesome all at the same time, right? So instead of, I have to get it just think about. How can I strive for excellence in a way that gets me pretty darn close to my goal of A 100%, but I'm not killing myself in the process, or I'm not moving into procrastination or even avoidance for fear of not getting it right. So when you can embrace striving for excellence, you can get out of that stuck in spinning place and instead get back into action. To reach your goal in a perfectly imperfect way because nothing is ever final. You can always do over, try again, or take the next step, learn what you need to learn and keep going forward. I love that. I just wrote a newsletter and I was encouraging people to pick a slogan for the year because I think resolutions are just, they don't work. I was, progress, not perfection. And that's a good one. It's just, and I, I've been in the 12 step world for 24 years and I hear people talk a lot about black and white thinking. If I can't do it perfect, then why bother? And that's such a defeatist. Way to live and with the pressure of social media. I feel like there's so many Unconscious Subconscious things, you know coming at us. I mean we put pressure on ourselves that internal pressure, but then there's the external too Oh gosh the statistics around how Social media have negatively impacted us are quite staggering, actually just amongst young people, 12 to 18 years old, 25 to 30 percent of kids between 12 and 18 have maladaptive perfectionism. Because of social media everyone has a perfect life on social media and I don't. And then I feel bad about myself and then the negative spiral of negative self talk and leads to, mental health issues, even suicide, suicidal ideation, which is really frightening for children. And as adults, it's even higher, like 68 percent of Americans are dealing with some level of perfectionism. Wow, that's a lot of people so the good news is y'all are not alone right and Knowing that you're not alone enables you to go, Oh if I don't have to be perfect, but I can continue to bring my best, how does that change things? How does that shift my energy, my attention, my focus? How does my body feel differently when I take that unnecessary pressure off your system? I love that. And I'm very like triple A results, and which can be great sometimes. But I know Tony Robbins talks a lot about like doing the work and loving the work of something. And that helps me think about like yoga practice. They don't say yoga perfect, yoga practice, right? Because. Every day your balance can be different. I had so much fun, Michelle. I was, I love behind the scenes, I both love the arts and they had all these nutcracker ballerinas commenting and it was I loved it because I've seen the nutcracker a gazillion times, but it was so interesting listening to them talk about what was going on in their head during this certain Dance or whoops I fell on the snow that time and listening to their process cause ballet, there's so much about perfection. So anyway yeah I just, I love your work. I just get a kick out of talking to you every time. And you've spoken at some amazing places like Berkeley and Michelle, can you tell us one of your favorite success stories? So that people might be able to hear something for themselves. Sure. Absolutely. In the work that I do, it's really about helping people recognize the conversations they're having with themselves that are detrimental to their wellbeing and oftentimes they don't. They don't see it, they don't recognize it, but they do see or feel or recognize the pain that they're feeling in their body. And one client who came to me, this was a few years ago her name's Janae and she had her own online business and she was dealing with very chronic IBS, inflammatory bowel syndrome. And she'd had it for over 15 years. And it was to the point where she didn't want to leave the house or go too far from the house because she was afraid her body would betray her, right? That she would have to run back to the bathroom. And so it created that the anxiety just just kept multiplying on top of itself, right? So when she came to me we did a deep dive into where some of these beliefs came from, right? And the work that I do is a combination of positive psychology and neuroscience and somatic therapy and mindfulness and hypnotherapy. And through this combination of tools, I'm able to help clients tap into their subconscious thinking to understand what's at the root causes of these limiting beliefs they're carrying around. So in Janae's case, she realized that In high school, her dad was her basketball coach. And even though she was the star player, he would still berate her on the way home. Why did you do that shot that way? I can't believe you messed up that. And he would, his need for perfectionism to be seen in the world. as right as the coach made her into a super perfectionist. So she had to get everything just right, which created high levels of anxiety, which manifested as IBS in her gut for 15 years, suffering from chronic IBS. And so once we got at the root cause and she realized, wow. I'm not in that place. I'm not living with my dad. He has no control over me. She, she lives close by to her family. She loves them. And she was able to look at the circumstances through a different lens and point of view and shift her perspective. So we literally rewrote the story she was telling herself, building new neural pathways in her brain and her IBS. It stopped. It turned off. Her gut was able to heal, finally, because of the dynamics of what she was telling herself. Your brain is so powerful. The thoughts that you think manifest your reality. So she was manifesting her need for perfectionism in her gut, and her gut was constantly like, No, it's not right yet. It's not right yet. By doing this work together, over just three or four months, she was able to dial her IBS all the way down to almost zero, increase her happiness and her well being. And a few years later, she came back to me. She just had a baby and she was suffering from postpartum depression pretty badly. She's Oh, I know I need to reach out to Michelle. And so we did some more work together. Because the postpartum depression was re triggering her anxiety. So we reconfigured her thinking, her mindset, the conversation she was having with herself. Her depression went away, her anxiety dialed back down, and Since we last spoke, she and her family have moved to the place she always wanted to live. Her business is thriving beyond what she ever imagined. She's just created this really beautiful life for herself because she was able to change her mind. And so it's, Not as hard as you think, but it can be very challenging because of the old patterns, the stories that we tell ourselves, even the emotional inheritance, the negative stories that we adopt from our families of origin. So it's really powerful work that I just love. And I love watching people transform their lives. I love it. I love it. I, yeah, I feel like you give people Access to freedom and P. Absolutely. It's so much fun to be able to take action when you haven't been unable to, it's so freeing. It's like releasing yourself from a cage because I've been there, right? I've been caught in my own perfectionism. It's why I wrote the book with my colleague, Tom Collins, as a way to move beyond my own need for perfectionism. All the stuff that I've carried around for too long. It was really funny cause as we were writing it Tom's wife happened to be our developmental editor. Their business is called Master Book Builders and they help people write their books. And I just so happened to get to work with both of them. Cause Tom invited me to collaborate with him on this book. And, we would work on it chapter by chapter and then we'd go back and we edit it. And Yvonne would be like, It's perfect. Move on. We're like, okay, we got to walk our talk. Step away from the chapter, move on to the next one. It was pretty funny. I love that. Yeah. You can edit, you can make yourself crazy. I love that. And another thing I think it's important for people to know that I learned from working with you, Michelle, is that perfectionism is a trauma response. Yes. And I, I guess I'm 56 and I'm still learning, I'm still pulling the puzzles and I didn't realize, but growing up in high dysfunction, I think I was trying to be perfect, trying to get the love from my alcoholic. Insane stepmother and my father. So I was like 4. 0 president of everything. But meanwhile, I was also bulimic and doing other self harming things. But I think it was, I was trying so desperately. To get their love and approval. And unfortunately, when you're in the throes of addiction, you don't have it to give, but just like knowing, Oh, I never realized that was related. Can you speak to that in case anybody else is listening? Yeah, absolutely. I didn't realize that was the case either until I started digging into this work more fully for myself and recognizing that As a child, if you're in the midst of dysfunction, or even in my case, I grew up in a perfectly imperfect family. There was no visible dysfunction. My parents are happily married. My brother and sister are lovely human beings. There's no addiction there. However the level of attention and love that I required was different than what my parents had to give running multiple businesses. So whether my story, your story, or somewhere in between, right? Sometimes it's not even painful events that happen that cause the trauma that leave the scar, i. e. the belief about yourself. Oh, I'm not good enough, or I'm not lovable, or I'm not worthy of my parents attention or love. If I just try harder, if I can just try harder, prove to them that I'm good enough, that I'm lovable, that I'm worthy, that I'm valuable, then they'll love me. Then they'll give me the pat on the back. Then they'll give me the attagirl, right? Whatever it is. And You can keep yourself caught spinning on that hamster wheel for decades, right? Until you realize and go, Oh what if I took the position that I am enough and I am lovable and I am worthy and Those people in that moment were doing the best they could, right? Just notice how your shoulders drop and you're able to breathe a little more deeply because you're able to find a different perspective that is a little bit more. self nurturing, right? And from that place you can take and put, one foot in front of the other to get you to where you really want to be versus spinning in circles in the, I'm not enough hamster wheel. I love that. I love that so much. And I think, it's such a waste of energy, right? Yeah. But I think I've also tried to be perfect at my job. That trying to be perfect so I can get their approval again. Like I really, just talking with you has opened up so many things for me. And I, I think if anybody's listening who is a people pleaser or a recovering people pleaser that, or a shapeshifter. There's so many ways that perfectionism. Sneaks in and you don't even recognize it. That's why I loved it when we were doing our work together Then you're like, oh, i'm just a i'm just a messy perfectionist. Isn't that interesting? I'm like, huh and that's okay It's okay. I'm messy And I have a high bar Yeah, okay, right but recognizing that then gives you the freedom to go can I be messy and lower my bar a little bit? Does it have to be that high? Can I give myself some credit from what I have already achieved and what I have accomplished? Absolutely. And because ultimately I just, I want to be more effective, right? I want to be, we, I think we all want to be effective and reach our potential, whatever that means. And that can be changing. Oh, I just love these conversations, Michelle. And the stories you've told have been fabulous. If I may, I would love to give you one tiny tweak. Oh, please. I'm always open to feedback. In our, fast paced world. So when you were talking about the IBS woman, I loved it because you went deep into the whole sort of the evolution of the work of it. And I'm just wondering if next time, maybe you say, This is a slight sidebar. I'm going to explain a little bit about the process, but stick with me or something like, cause we were talking about her and all of a sudden we went more into the work and so there was a part of me that was like, where do we go? I'm like, anyway it's tiny cause it was a beautiful story and I think sometimes. When we can guide our audience, like hang in with me, I'm going to explain this thing and then you'll understand. Let me take a left turn here for just a minute and then we'll get back to where we're going. Absolutely. No, I love that. That's perfect. Sometimes I want to explain everything and it's they don't need to know everything. That's one thing that's been so good about comedy, right? Because you want to look at every word. Because the less words, the more pow. Yes, absolutely. And I know, okay, so Michelle, you're doing this really cool thing that's starting soon. Tell us about your upcoming thing. I forget what it's called, but. My thing. Actually, I have an amazing new, not new. It's my next group program for women called Reclaiming Your True Self. And it's a program. especially dedicated for women, busy, professional women that perhaps have achieved levels of success, but despite their accolades, they're still feeling like there's a missing Something's not quite right. Something's not quite aligned with my heart and my spirit, but I'm doing work that I like, but something's a little off. I was just having a conversation earlier with someone and this was exactly the case. And so over four months together in the circle of support These women are not only going to be there for each other, but they're going to have individual and group coaching and hypnotherapy support from me to create the deeper levels of healing and transformation that they're longing for, to get at those root causes of what's blocking their view, right? To eliminate the perfectionism the people pleasing, the imposter syndrome that's creating burnout, that's creating overwhelm on their lives. So then they can go, this is what I want. This is how I'm going to create it. These are the steps I'm going to take. And then having this beautiful, small group of women, like cheering them on every step of the way so that six months from now, they can look back and go, wow, look at the quantum leap that I've made because not only what I've learned about myself, but the support that I've gotten from this amazing group of women. So I'm super excited about it. The next group starts at the end of January. And if folks are interested, then I'm happy to have a complimentary and confidential chat to see if now is the right time. For them to create a space of greater self care to amplify their dreams, their goals, and their wellbeing. This, it sounds amazing, Michelle. And I'm so excited cause I'm going to do it fabulous. It's going to be so powerful. The women who are already enrolled in it are amazing. And I love how these groups come together because all the perfect personalities come together from various walks of life from all over the country. And it's going to be amazing. Very cool. Okay. So if somebody is interested or they want to know about your book or. Where else, what's the best place for people to find you? Sure, I can always go to michellemolitor. com. I'm sure we'll have a link in the show notes for this. My book, I Am Perfectly Flossom is available on Amazon and Kindle and Audible. So you can listen to it, you can read it, you can color in it, you can do all the things. And my Reclaiming Your True Self program all the information's on my website. So you can go find that up in the menu. And yeah, just reach out if you'd like to schedule a chat. Be great. I love it. And, I just want to say this time of year, a lot of people are, they set their goals or their vision or their resolutions, whatever you want to call it. And which is, it is exciting, right? And if you're doing the same thing you've done every year and you're expecting different results, that's the definition of insanity. Crazy. Ask me how I know. All right. And it's great to try again. And this work could be the thing, could be the thing that's really the key to the queendom, if you will, because We know how to set the goals, and then it's, but then it's like taking the action, staying on the course, doing the setback, all the things. But if you have this new set of tools and a new level of understanding about how you work, your behavior, your motivations, your emotional, but all the things like all your blind spots, right? Because that's part of my superpower is people come to me and they're like, my life is great. They've got these blinders on. They think, Oh yeah. I'm like what happens if you take the blinders off? What else is available to you? And they're like, Oh, it never even occurred to me that I could take the blinders off. This just happened to me recently, a conversation that like blew the doors off my way of thinking about certain things. I was like, Oh, I've been doing this all wrong, I guess maybe I need to, build a bigger pie, right? And so it was really fascinating and I love it when you know, the universe conspires to help us see the thing that's usually just on the end of our nose, right? We forgot, was right there. And yeah and change course to align more with your true heart's intentions. Your work in the world is so unique and we need it, right? I can't do what you do. No one else can do what you do in the way that you do it. So being really honest with yourself and saying, what is it that I really want? What brings me so much joy? And how can I move in that direction to have more of that every single day? And when you do doors and windows start to open up to conspire on your behalf, to have what you want, it's really a beautiful thing to witness. I love it. I love watching you talk about your work. It's. Very inspiring. So thank you everybody so much. I will put all of our details in the show notes and please join us at the end of January. It's not too late. We've still got a few spaces left. Yep. January 22nd is when we begin and yeah, there's just a few spots left. So please reach out if you're interested and yeah, we will get you on the bus. So excited and thanks everybody for watching and listening and I can't wait to see you on the screen or stage soon All right. Bye for now. Bye for now. Thanks