Episode 26 - Consistency is Key: Small Steps that Lead to Big Impact ~with Dr. Kimberly Reynolds, Part 2

In this episode, Part 2 of a three-part series, Dr. Kimmy shares her journey of overcoming perfectionism and embracing consistency as a key principle for long-term success. She emphasizes that consistency does not mean perfection, explaining how perfectionism can become a form of procrastination, especially for high achievers.

Are you letting perfectionism hold you back from taking action? Reflect on areas where you've delayed progress because you wanted everything to be just right. 

Dr. Kimmy also highlights that relying solely on motivation isn’t enough: Consistent progress comes from building effective routines and systems. 

What small habits or processes can you implement today to stay on track, even when things don't go as planned?

What systems can you put in place to help you stay consistent, even when things aren’t perfect?

Keep these questions in mind as you enjoy Dr. A's conversation with Dr. Kimmy.

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Transcript

Hey there! Thanks for tuning in for episode 26. Happy Monday! I hope your day has started off great, and I pray that you'll have a most productive, blessed week. In this episode, the second of a three-part series, Dr. Kimmy shares her journey of overcoming perfectionism and embracing consistency as a key principle for long-term success.

She expounds on this principle: consistency does not mean perfection. Let me repeat: consistency does not mean perfection. She explains that perfectionism can become a form of procrastination, especially for high achievers.

So, the question is: are you allowing perfectionism to hold you back from taking action? Remember episode 20, titled A Bias for Action? Think about areas where you have delayed progress because you wanted everything to be just right. What systems can you put in place to help you stay consistent, even when things aren't perfect?

Dr. Kimmy makes a crucial point that relying solely on motivation isn't enough. Consistent progress often comes from having effective routines or systems in place.

Here’s another question for you: what small habits or processes can you implement today to help you stay on track, even when things don't go as planned?

Let's dive right into today's conversation with Dr. Kimmy.

Another theme I’m hearing is this whole notion of perfection, right? And, you know, I’ve been thinking about this, and one of the points I made to myself is that we have to realize consistency doesn’t mean perfection, right? Could you say just a little bit more about that and how acknowledging that and being comfortable with it allows us to be consistent when we’re comfortable with imperfections? 

Not just comfortable with sitting with imperfections, but putting the imperfections out there, right? So like this video—it’s going out. I don’t care if my head looks green or whatever it is, it’s going out. Yes, my background is fake. That’s fine. Kimmy’s background is real. That’s okay. One day I’m going to get there. And just a side note: to see what I’m actually talking about at this point, you can connect with me on Instagram at Dr. Adrian PhD. That’s D-R A-D-R-I-A-N P-H-D. Alright.

So follow me on Instagram. You’ll see the reels, the stories, the video clips, and in the most recent ones, you’ll see the background that I’m talking about. Also, in the episode description, I’ll provide links to both my Instagram page as well as my Facebook page. Now, back to my earlier point. You all see all this airbrushed, fantastic-looking stuff out there on YouTube with all the bells and whistles. You don’t get to see the humble beginnings. 

Well, you're getting to see mine. Kimmy didn’t start there. She just described it. Her background didn’t always look like that. But hey, look at where it is now. Well, now you're getting to see where I’m starting. And maybe in a few months, maybe a year or two, I don’t know, it’ll look somewhat like Dr. Kimmy’s. Okay? So go ahead, Dr. Kimmy. You know, consistency doesn’t mean perfection. Elaborate on that.

Yeah, so perfection is really just your brain trying to find safety. See, because, I mean, really, perfection is just another form of procrastination. It’s just, it tends to be the form of procrastination that a lot of high-achieving folks lean toward. High achievers, high functioning—you, you, you know, you, you tend to—like someone would look at you and say, “Oh yeah, they have it together.” So you actually lean on perfection as a tool or as a mechanism to get out of discomfort.

Right. So for instance, before my podcast, I had a blog, and what I would do is, I had like an hour-and-a-half commute to work from where we used to live, and I would speak my blog posts into an app on my phone. And this was before high-tech AI, but basically it would just give me a transcription. So I basically spoke out my blog posts. And then when I would get home, I would download the transcript and clean it up, and then upload it. 

And one day I was just thinking—this was around August, September, around this time in 2019—I remember thinking, I’m speaking my blog posts. That’s basically like a podcast. What if I just did a podcast instead? That way, I can just say it once, and I don’t have to take it and clean it up. And I just felt like it might be a lot more impactful for my audience as well. So that’s when I made the decision to do a podcast. 

Now, I didn’t upload my first episode until January. So there were all those months in between. And what would happen was, I got really stuck in perfection at that time. So it was like, I remember I would wake up at like 4 in the morning. I don’t know if you remember those 4 a.m. days. I would wake up every morning at 4 a.m., and I would go to—and we weren’t living in this house, so it was like my little desk in the living room.

Yes, I remember that. I remember that house.

Yeah, and I would just tinker and try to figure out the tech and the tools, and I would watch the YouTube videos. I remember one day—it was like November of that year, so this is like two or three months after I made the decision, right?—I woke up early and said, I am going to record this episode today. But I didn’t want to record in our house because I didn’t want our daughter to wake up. She was a baby at the time. And so I said, I’m going to rent—I don’t know if you remember this—I was like, I’m going to rent a room at Dunkin' Donuts. I didn’t have any—I wasn’t making any money, so it couldn’t be expensive. 

So Dunkin' Donuts has like a room that you can rent, like a conference room. So I rented the room. I woke up at 4 a.m. I drove to Dunkin' Donuts. I bought some coffee, bought a little sandwich or something, sat down, hooked up. I had my microphone, and I had all the things. And then here comes all the mind chatter: “Well, you can’t record now because there’s people outside, and they’re watching you. You can’t record now because what if somebody starts having a conversation? I don’t know if this is insulated from noise. What if they start talking, and then it’s going to be in the episode? You can’t record now because you haven’t fully figured out the tech, and how are you going to upload this? What if the Wi-Fi doesn't work?” 

So I spent—I had to go to work that day, right? So I needed to leave for work by like 7. So it was like, I gave myself two hours—which right now, if I needed to record, two hours would be more than enough. But back then I was like, okay, two hours. By the time I spent all this time trying to figure out, “Oh, are people going to hear it?” and then I logged into the thing, and it wasn’t working quite right, the two hours were done. 

I had to pack up everything and leave because I had to go see patients at work. And I’ll never forget just feeling so defeated and just sad. I was like, am I ever going to get this podcast launched? I don’t think I’m ever going to do this because the situation is never right.

It was really in that moment, as I was driving, I started thinking about—that’s probably like what my mom said. She was probably like, “Yeah, but, you know, the book is not perfect, and I have to fix this part, and maybe I need an editor,” and all these things. So I kind of had the thought, like, am I going to—is my podcast going to die inside of me? Am I never going to get it out? And so that was the moment I said, it can’t be perfect. 

I was spending all this time trying to make it perfect. And something high-achieving people will do is they’ll say, “I can’t put my name on something unless it’s perfect.” Again, that’s just you trying to get out of discomfort. So I told myself, I am not serving anyone if I make it perfect, because making it perfect is going to mean I’m going to be at Dunkin' Donuts again next week trying to figure this out, and it’s not going to work.

So I made the decision that it was going to be imperfect. I said, I’m going to take my listeners along the journey. I’m going to tell them, like, if you listen to episode zero of that first transparency, yeah, I literally say, y’all, you’re going to hear background noise. My kids are probably going to come in. It’s going to be a mess. And I was like, I’m not editing this, and here’s why. 

And I told them why. I was like, you guys are going to see me step out of my comfort zone. You’re going to see me showing up for this podcast, and it can’t be perfect, or else it won’t get done. And I will never forget—I had people write in to me and say, “Thank you so much for not editing your podcast. Thank you for making it imperfect so that we can see how it’s done, because you’re still helping so many of us, but it’s not perfect.”

So of course, I think that perfection is really just another piece of armor that you put on yourself to protect yourself against the discomfort, the uncomfortable feelings that you don’t want to feel. And so you have to be willing to take off that armor and just show up and think about the people that you want to serve, or the dream that you have, or the purpose that you have. So yeah, that’s amazing.

And really, the only way we can help others achieve their goals is to be transparent and to share our story, right? And the moments of discomfort, just live and live in color, and just be totally vulnerable because, you know, so often they see the finished product but not the behind-the-scenes work.

I’ve come to this realization—I might have known it prior—but I came to this realization just from doing. I mean, I’ve learned so much just from doing these episodes. I’ve learned a lot about life, I’ve learned a lot about others, I’ve learned a lot about me, and it just kind of dawned on me, maybe a few weeks ago, that I’m like—I was thinking to myself, and I’m like, you know what? It seems like people really start taking you seriously when you’re consistent.

It just kind of hit me. I’m like, people really—because, you know, I mean, I started out with the first episode and sent it out to a lot of folks. There’s only one episode, right? And then to others, I sent it out when I had like two. And I’m like, yeah, these folks are probably thinking, “Let’s see.” You know, we do know most podcasts fail—they call it podfade for a reason, right? 

So, I mean, like, where is this going to go? I mean, you probably had people who had tried starting podcasts themselves, and they’re like, “Hey, this is tough. Like, how’s he going to keep this up? I mean, this is a pretty busy guy.” And now, here we are on episode 26. I saw that happening. I saw that people who weren’t necessarily paying much attention in the beginning started paying more attention. And I’m like, yeah, I think they’re saying to themselves, “Okay, looks like this is serious stuff, right?”

So what do you think builds confidence in your product, your intellectual property, your thoughts, your ideas? When they see you showing up.

Well, I think that a lot of times, if we put something out there, or we start telling someone, “Hey, support me, I’m doing this thing,” and then we have a perception that they don’t take us seriously or they aren’t fully supporting us, they are simply a mirror for us. Like, they’re a mirror. So that means you’re probably not taking yourself seriously, and that’s why people are looking at you like, “Yeah, okay, well, I don’t really know about this.” 

But when you take yourself seriously, when you take your purpose seriously, when you take your work seriously, the evidence of that is the consistency and the, you know, continuing to put things out there. And then those people, again, are just a mirror for you. They’re just a mirror for what you’re already believing, right? So it’s not like they really change. We change. Right. So, yeah. So, you know, in the beginning, people are going to not be sure. 

And I mean, there’s also like, how many times do you listen to a podcast and then all of a sudden, there are no more episodes? And yeah, you’re right, the person doesn’t say goodbye to their audience. Yeah, they just go. And so a lot of us have had that experience. And so, yeah, I think other people’s thoughts or ideas are often a mirror for us. 

And so, when we start actually showing up in our lives and taking ourselves seriously, you’re going to notice that people are going to start taking you seriously. You’re going to notice that people are like—I mean, there was probably one point when I said to you, “Hey, I want to start a business.” I mean, you’re my husband, you’re going to support me, but it wasn’t until you saw me waking up every day, going into my office, recording these episodes, taking steps.

Yeah, you even looked at me and were like, “Oh, she’s actually doing this thing, right? Like, this is going to be a real business.”

Right, right, right.

And that started with me, though. You just mirrored what was happening in my brain, right? So, yeah. If people are not taking you seriously, don’t get mad at the people. I’m just offering—don’t get mad at the people. Just kind of spend a moment, look internally, and see for yourself, “Am I giving them something to take seriously?”

Right. And I mean, I really have no evidence that—I mean, the support has been overwhelming. I have no concrete evidence that there were people who weren’t taking it seriously. I just sort of wondered, based on where I am now, like, you know, as with anything that’s new, there’s never full buy-in. So you kind of wonder, “How long do you think this is gonna last?” Well, I mean, here we are.

So here we are. Question: what do you think is the relationship between accountability and consistency? What role does accountability play in building consistency?

I think that there is a relationship between accountability and consistency. I think that we all, to some extent, require accountability. I think it’s just a human thing. And I just feel like lately, accountability is like a dirty word. Like, you feel like you shouldn’t need accountability, like you should just be able to do things. But I always think about our kids, for instance, when they were really, really little—and even now, even still—we have to hold them accountable. Like, at some point, we told them, “You have to brush your teeth every day.” 

And they heard us say that, but then we had to hold them accountable, like, “Hey, did you brush your teeth? Did you brush your teeth?” In order for that to be formed and formulated as a habit, there had to be some sort of accountability until there was that internal accountability. So like, when Sela woke up this morning—I mean, I still ask, because it’s kind of a habit on my end, but I rarely experience a moment where she’s like, “No, I didn’t brush my teeth.” She knows before she even comes and greets us, “I need to wake up. There are certain things I need to do. I need to wake up, I need to brush my teeth.” 

So, I do think that there is a role for accountability. I want to make sure that people don’t think I’m saying that other people’s expectations have to be at the forefront, but I do think that accountability plays a role. And I think self-accountability also plays a role. But I mean, ultimately, at some point, I had to do these episodes every week because I told my podcast listeners that I was going to put it out every week. I told them in episode zero. I was like, “Y’all, I am committed to you, and I’m going to be putting out episodes at 5 a.m. every single Monday.” So then, I mean, I didn’t want to let them down.

Even in the moments where I was—I remember when COVID hit in March, so like, the school shut down on a Friday, Saturday, and then there was like Sunday, and Monday was coming, right? I said I was going to do a podcast episode. I remember being like, “Yeah, but we’re in a pandemic now. Like, I don’t think anybody would really be upset. I think people would understand.” But then I remembered I committed to this. So I sat in this office, and I just turned on the mic. I was like, “I don’t even know what I’m going to talk about, y’all, because I feel like the world...” because those were scary days in the beginning. Oh yeah, they were.

I remember like, are we going to make it out of this? So I remember, I just talked about that. I talked about how I was feeling. I talked about the fact that I felt really overwhelmed. I didn’t know what was going on. That was a hard weekend. Like, our kids are not going to school on Monday. I’m going to have to be in the hospital seeing patients. Am I going to get exposed? We didn’t have a vaccine yet. So I just talked about all of those things. So yeah, me making that commitment, me saying it to my listeners in the first episode, was part of it. And then also, me having that internal accountability.

So, Dr. Kimmy, I’m sure you’re familiar with this guy called James Clear. He wrote the book *Atomic Habits*, right? It’s been very influential out there. And here’s what he says in the book. He says—and you talk about systems a lot, right? And he says, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” Right? So I’m interested to find out what systems you use to stay consistent, particularly with your podcasting. And you can talk about other areas of Dr. Code School as well, if you wish.

Yeah, I mean, I think that quote and that book were part of the journey as well. I read that in, I think, 2018 or 2019, and I realized that motivation was not enough. Like, me just saying that I’m motivated and I’m hyping myself up is not enough. I had to develop systems. So for me, and I’m going to try to go back more so to the beginning of my journey, because now if I talk about where I am now, I mean, I just podcast. It’s not really hard for me because I’ve been doing it for four and a half years. But for someone who’s new or you’re starting something new—you want to do a new endeavor, maybe it’s a podcast or writing your book or whatever it is—one of the things I did in the beginning was, I had to decide what result I wanted to create, right, so this is an actual system.

So I coach myself. I’m a coach, but I also coach myself. And one of the ways I’ve been able to achieve so much over the past several years is I coach myself. So that actually is one of the systems. But within the coaching, one of the things I tell myself is, “Okay, why am I doing this? What is the result I want to create?” And I actually write that down. I don’t just think about it or have it in my head. I mean, my family knows—they’ll come into my office, I have like a big poster board on my wall, a big sticky note essentially, it’s giant, and I will have this written out. I have one right now that I’m looking at. So I think about what is my goal? What do I desire? What’s the result I’m trying to create?

And then I think about—and I’m writing all of this down—what do I need to believe in order to do that thing, right? So we actually think that if we see it, then we’ll believe it. But in fact, this is just a law: you actually have to believe it in order to see it. So I actually need to believe certain things before I’m going to see it. So I think about, what do I want to believe? 

What do I need to believe in order to—so if my goal is to podcast every day, then I want to believe that there are people in this world that I can transform with my voice. I’m just using that as an example, right? So I would write that down, which really helps me, like you said in the beginning, tap into my why. Like, who am I doing this for? Why am I doing this? What’s the bigger purpose, right?

And so the next thing that I do—and again, this is all part of the system of self-coaching that I do—I actually call this, this is my action belief process. I’m sorry, say that again, your action belief process? Yeah, this is called the action belief process. This is a self-coaching tool that I teach my clients and that I use with myself. So basically, everything I’ve created in my business starts with me sitting down and running through this process.

Now, if you want to hear more about Dr. Kimmy’s action belief process, join us for episode 27 next Monday, the final episode in this three-part series. In that episode, Dr. Kimmy will share her insights on the relationship between accountability and consistency. She’ll also introduce this concept of the evidence bank, and she’ll share some practical examples to help you apply these ideas to your everyday life.

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