Listener Favorite: Going from All to 85%

Speaker A: Welcome to youo Belong in the C Suite podcast. You are ambitious in life and in your career, but something is missing. You want to bring more of your passion to what you do because, let's be honest, you pour a ton into your work and it needs to mean more. I'm your host, Laura Igel. I'm a mom, wife, PhD coach, advocate, introvert, and indoor rowing fanatic. I'm passionate about living a life that's in line with my values. We'll give you the actionable tips and tools you need to lead with your values, make a difference, and have career success. The world needs more diversity and authenticity in the top jobs at organizations. Your leadership belongs there. You belong in the C Suite. My second book, Values First Teams how to Build a Culture that's Synchronized for Success, launches on May 20. Miscommunication, misalignment, missed deadlines. Every leader knows the frustration of a team that feels more like a tug of war than a unified force. And in today's whirlwind of deadlines and demands, it's easy to lose sight of the why behind the work, leaving your team feeling disconnected and disengaged. In Values First Teams, I'm sharing my proven framework for building an engaging team culture where shared values create stronger results and individual efforts harmonize to achieve a powerful collective momentum. It's more than just a leadership book. Values First Teams is a guide for building a workplace where everyone is aligned, engaged, and rowing in the same direction. Values First Teams launches on May 20, 2025. Learn more at theketchgroup.com valuesfirstteams. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the youe Belong in the C Suite podcast. In our last episode, I sat down with Laura Bernard to talk about why so many organizations struggle to deliver on their strategy. She explained how we often confuse activity with progress and how project management teams can become true partners in driving business outcomes if and when they are set up in the right way. And this week we're continuing that conversation. But this time I want to think about how, as we as individuals fall into similar patterns. Specifically how we are always pushing to give a hundred percent in everything that we do and how that can actually work against us. And in this episode, I'm talking about what it means to intentionally operate at 85% instead of at, uh, a hundred percent all the time. If you are a high achiever like me, this episode is the reminder that you may need right now. So today I'll talk about why giving more isn't always better. What perfectionism might be costing you in energy and time and how to reset your goals, efforts and expectations in a way that creates more space for focus and clarity. We'll also walk through three specific ways to shift out of the all or nothing thinking and build habits that still reflect your amazingness without burning out. Let's get started. Today I'm going to talk about a theme that has come up in the work that I have with my clients. Many of my coaching clients are high achieving leaders in high executive ranks at organizations. They have extensive experience, I'm talking deep expertise in their fields and lead big teams in charge of important strategies within their companies. Their experiences are diverse. How have so many of them gotten this far? Their drive for results, their achievement, being super smart. But let's face it, they're also working a lot of hours, often at the expense of other aspects of their lives, sometimes to the point of burnout or negative consequences on their health or well being. In episode 35, the new type A, I talk about the history of the Type A personality and some of the negative impacts of that construct on health and well being. Listen to that one if you haven't already. The data person in me hates it when people use percentages over a hundred. Like give it 110%. Um, no, you can only give a total of a hundred. But this is the idea of giving 100% all the time. You know, we've grown up in cultures of go all in or don't do it at all or go big or go home and all of these sayings and internalizing giving your best, giving it your all. That's how some of these leaders keep achieving and building on their successes. I know because I've done it. And after giving my 100%, usually I lose out on the other side of it. Lack of energy, not being there for my family or friends, or not feeling present. This all or nothing mentality feeds off of perfectionist tendencies. People pleasing, needing to get it right. But what if we are wrong about giving a hundred percent? Let that sink in. What if we are wrong about giving a hundred percent? I often tell my high achieving clients, your B effort is someone else's A effort. So this topic was very timely. As I was talking to a client about this idea and I asked her if she'd read the 85% article and her eyes lit up and she said yes, she had just read it and it really resonated with her. So I'll summarize the article for you here. So in a recent Wall Street Journal article by Rachel Feins called Try hard, but not that hard. 85% is the magic number for productivity. Um, they highlighted a 2019 paper where researchers used machine learning to try and find the ideal difficulty level to learn new things. And the neural network they created, which was meant to mimic the human brain, learned best when it was faced with queries set to 85% difficulty, meaning that's when it got 85% of the questions right. So the article includes several quotes from executives and other leaders on the benefits of taking it down a notch and not setting their sights of accomplishments at a hundred percent. So instead of a hundred percent, give 85. So 85%. Let's think about this as a perfectionist or recovering perfectionist or perfectionist. Trying my best not to be. Here are a few things I know that I've been guilty of. Let me know if these resonate with you. Kind of this all or nothing mentality of a hundred percent. You know, trying something and tracking it, like sleep or days of workouts or a streak or whatever. And the day that I mess it up, I kind of stop altogether. It's kind of all or nothing, right? Or something seems so big, I actually don't start it. Does that ever happen to you? I procrastinate on it because it feels big. And that's another version of all or nothing. If I don't start it, then I can't fail at it, guys, right? So by the time I do start it, it ends up taking much less time than I originally thought it would. And I probably spent more time thinking of doing it than it actually took to do it. What about this other tendency of trying to get to a hundred percent, but really just putting in more and more and more work until I do get it finished, to cross it off my list or accomplish the thing, all to get to a hundred percent. I know that my drive for achievement usually means putting too much on my plate, taking on more projects, extending my days, putting things off that I had prioritized for myself, and instead giving that time away to others to make more things happen. And most often, that looks like working more. It's exactly the themes that I've seen with my clients. We default to more work to get to that 100. So think about the time that you take to get to that perfect level. How much of that time does it take to get that thing? From the percentage of 85% to a hundred percent. That last 15%. That's what takes the most time. The thinking of it, the detail, the polishing, the socialization, the, uh, all of the things. So what would 15% less effort mean for you? What could it unlock for you? What energy could you get? What space could you get? What freedom could there be? What else could you do? Instead you might be listening and thinking, sure, Laura, I get it. Yes, logically there are big benefits to getting to 85%. But how do I actually get there? I've been a perfectionist for forever, so I'm raising my hand here too. So here are three tactics to reset to 85%. The first one is gonna. The first one brace. Brace for this. The first one. Care less. Yes, I said care less. I know, I know, but hear me out. In one conversation with one of my high achieving clients, she said, I give my A plus effort because I care so much about it. Maybe I should care less. And what an interesting perspective. Care less about the thing. Don't care a hundred percent about all the things. Care a little less about all the things. Because no matter what, I will bet that you were still giving quality work and a ton of your attention. Just a little less of it. Taking it down a notch recently she told me that this reframe has been uh, a has been really effective for her. She's still passionate about her work, but her energy isn't completely zapped adapt. She's caring less about the perfection, giving herself more room for an energy to care about other things. She's not dying on the sword for all the, all this stuff. She's picking what's most important, but generally at a lower notch than she was previously. She even looked more relaxed and confident in our meeting together. This is another way to think about caring less. Consider this like 1B. So a subset of uh, the first one. As I continue to think about this, this may mean caring less about things that aren't in your scope of work. I often see that high achievers see solutions to problems that are not theirs to fix. How many times have you seen a thing at work that you know that no one else is thinking about and if we don't do something about it, it will end up having a negative consequence in the end. But guess what? It may not be in your scope of work, but no one else is doing anything about it. So you do because you know you can impact it. So instead of doing that thing, I want you to care less about it. Do not do it if it is not in your remit. Highlight it as a thing for the business to think about down the road, but do not tackle it now. Not everything is yours to solve. Okay, so the first one was was care less. The second way to reset to 85%, we are going to reset the actual goal. So number two is resetting the goal to 85. This may seem super, like, obvious, but let me give you an example. I was recently at a conference with my friend and we were walking a ton around the conference center and she was trying to figure out why even though she was walking, that she wasn't closing her rings on her Apple watch. So whether you have an Apple watch, a Fitbit or Garmin, just this idea that all of these have a, ah, built in or a default daily step goal for you to meet. And she, she decided to look at her app and then she realized that she could just adjust the goal. So the next day she hit the goal. You know why? Because she literally lowered her goal. So she adjusted the goal. So in this example from 100% to 85 and she hit it. Her partner joked with her, saying that she was cheating. You can't change the goal just to meet it. Um, uh, guess what? She sure did. And guess what? You can too. Let's just change the goal to 85%. 85 is still most of the time, 85 is more likely than not and more than directionally accurate. So let's change the actual goal, and I bet we'll hit it more consistently than not. The third way to reset to get to 85 is to acknowledge and celebrate the 15% less effort. So if we reset it to 85, I don't want you to automatically fill the 15% with a million other things. I want you to have space. I want you to have thinking time. I want you to notice a difference in the pace of your day. I want you to notice the things that you aren't doing and I want you to reflect on how it feels. Maybe it feels less frenetic, maybe less intense, less urgent, less loud, less all or nothing. As an action item, start with a work task that isn't 100% urgent. So pick a project or a presentation or a thing. What would your current 100% look like? For this? Do that on the left side of the paper. Then on the right side of the paper. What would 85% look like? Write it down and be honest. Maybe it is less hours working in a document. Maybe it is not asking every single person for their feedback. Maybe it's trusting your initial instinct on a thing instead of gathering those last pieces of data for validation. Maybe it means something being not as polished or pretty when you present it or turn it in. Maybe it means being okay with not knowing everything on a topic before you present and acknowledging that you can go back and find an answer after the fact if it comes up. And those descriptions that I just mentioned, did any of those feel super uncomfortable? If so, then you are in the right frame of mind, my friend. I'm sure it will be super uncomfortable to not do a hundred percent because it won't be perfect. That means you won't be perfect, or that's what you'll be telling yourself. But guess what? You already are. You're perfect and you're good enough and you're amazing. I so let yourself breathe a bit, care less, and bring it down a few notches. I'm going to tell you a secret. I may. Um. And by may I mean I will listen to this podcast episode for myself later as a reminder. And guess what? Here's the secret. No one is paying as much attention to our perfection as we are. So I'll say that again. No one is paying as much attention to your own perfection as you are. So let's collectively all turn down the dial to 85%, honor the things that are important and create some space to just breathe a bit. Thanks for listening. If today's episode gave you something to think about, whether it was the idea of giving just a little less effort to make more space, or rethinking what's really worth your energy, I hope that you take a moment to notice what shifts when you do try it. This isn't about lowering standards, it's about being more intentional in how we lead, work and show up. Start with being honest about what's actually sustainable for you. If you found this episode to be helpful, share it with somebody else. That might be caring too much right now. And if you're experimenting with these ideas, I'd love to hear how it's going. So please keep connected. Remember, your leadership belongs here. You belong in the C Suite. I want to thank you so much for listening to the youe Belong in the C Suite podcast. If you are enjoying this content, please remember to rate and review on Apple Podcasts. By leaving a review, you are helping others find this content. We will be featuring five star reviews on air in upcoming episodes. Editing and support for the podcast is done by S and E Podcast Management. To get more tips and tools to help you live a life guided by your values, go to TheCatchGroup.com keep your boundaries and take care. Mhm.