I’m so excited for you guys to meet one of my favourite people ever, Constance Robbins!

Constance reached out to me on Instagram about three years ago and we were instant friends. (Wow, just realized I make a lot of friends on Instagram!)

Constance is a California girl and just opened a gorgeous, all-white, 1300 square foot salon. Pretty cool, right? She’s been a hairstylist for about 15 years and is a freaking badass colorist! (Check out her Instagram page, seriously).

And like so many of us anxious creatives, she struggled with perfectionism, so I wanted to get all her tips for dealing with perfectionism in a creative business.

Here are just a few things of the highlights:

• Why creatives tend to be perfectionists

• The comparison game, how it holds us back from our goals, and how to look to other people for inspiration and support rather than turning them into an impossible standard you have to live up to.  

• Something we don’t talk about enough: successful people fail big and they fail a lot. And that’s a good thing!

• Critiquing yourself versus beating yourself up. (Hint: One helps you grow and one doesn’t.)

• How perfectionism skews our definition of success and blinds us to what we really want and what we’ve already accomplished. (Side note: No, you don’t have to open a salon to be a successful stylist.)

• The difference between good taste/high standards and perfectionism. No, they’re not the same thing. And yes, it’s possible to do great work and get better without being a perfectionist.

• How letting go of perfectionism can help you grow your business. By letting go of your perfect expectations, you can look at what doesn’t work and use that to learn, grow, and adjust.

As creatives, we put ourselves into our work, and we put our work out into the world. So of course we want it to be perfect!

But ultimately, perfectionism keeps us stuck.  

Constance has learned to let go of perfectionism and is totally kicking butt in her business, and you can to! Give her a follow on Instagram at @constancerobbins, and prepare to be amazed by her incredible color work.

I hope you enjoy the episode and a few well-placed cameos from Leroy. 🙂

You can also listen and subscribe to The Anxious Creative on iTunes and Google Play.