All right, guys, have I got a fucking treat for you today. I have got the absolute queen, Riley May, here with me!

Riley is one of my very close friends, and I was also her coach and mentor for six months. We just recently wrapped that up, and now I’m so pleased to get to have her share with you all, because she’s truly on another level.

If Not Now, When?

Michelle: So, let’s start with this. I don’t know what your official title is, but you’re a business and mindset coach, right? That’s your official title. But you are also one of the most  open-hearted human beings I’ve ever met in my life. I do not have a single bad word to say about you; I don’t think anyone does.

From the moment I met you, I’ve felt so safe. I’ve never felt judged by anything  from you, ever, even though you have such high standards. You model very high standards in such a…I guess the term would be non-wanky way. I feel like the whole high standards thing is such a fucking wank bank, and it can get really  gross and weird, but I’ve never felt that from you.

Riley: I love that intro.  Thank you. I appreciate that. That idea of high standards is so interesting, because I do hear from people that I’m “chill” a lot. But both get to coexist. You can go out and party and still run a successful business. You can eat whatever you want to eat, but still be a healthy person.

You can have a standard and not hold yourself captive in its box. I don’t believe you’re out of integrity for being a human. I don’t believe you’re out of integrity for wanting to live. If you’re not living now, when do you start?

I started my business straight out of high school—I’ve always had a lot of responsibility, but the second I left school, I started this business, and it’s now been five and a half years.

I still have the business. I still have the responsibility. But I realized that shouldn’t keep me from living my life the way I want because I believe a responsible person has to live a certain way.

I remember thinking, “You’re twenty-three, Riley. When do you start living? When do you have fun? When do you enjoy your life? When do you go on the trip? When do you go out on a Friday night?”

Now, I don’t find a lot of fulfillment and enjoyment in the party scene. But I do want to enjoy my life. And a couple years ago, I used to make myself so wrong for wanting to enjoy things like that because it was “out of integrity” with the high standards I had for myself.

Lovingly…fuck that. Fuck how so many women torture themselves for what they think they need to do or who they think they have to be.

You need to be happy.  You need to be enjoying your life. You need to be building the success, yes…but then you need to be reaping the benefits of that. Because if not now, when?

Michelle: Exactly. I’ve shared this before, but recently, I had to stop and take in my life and reassess.

I got all the things. I got the house. I got the relationship. I got the car. I got the business. I got everything that I’ve wanted for all these years…and then I was like, “Oh, I’m not actually that happy.”

A lot of people strive for high standards in their lives and hold themselves strictly to that and go, “Once I have the body or once I have the relationship or once I have the business, then I will be happy.”

I’ll tell you right now, you will not. The happiness doesn’t come from that.

The Pretty Picture of Perfectionism

Michelle: A lot of people who are in my world are either active or recovering perfectionists. So first of all, have you ever struggled with perfectionism? And second of all, how do you have such high standards for yourself without dipping into perfectionism?

Riley: When I think about perfectionism, a part of me feels like, “Yes, I’ve experienced it, I’ve had it, but I also know perfectionism is a really nice way to mask your procrastination. And it’s really nice to pretend you’re just a perfectionist when really, you just don’t want to do the thing that you need to do, because that’s going to mean that you have to lean into a lot of fucking discomfort.

“So, sorry, can’t do it. I’m a perfectionist. I have high standards for my work. I’m a perfectionist, and it’s not perfect, so I can’t do it.”

That’s not true. You just don’t want to say, “I’m someone that procrastinates.”

How much nicer does it sound to say, “I’m just a perfectionist” instead? People love to resonate with that. I love to identify with that, because if I’m a perfectionist, I have high standards. If I’m a perfectionist, I’m just aesthetic. If I’m a perfectionist, everything just has to be right before I do something.

It was never that. It wasn’t because my Instagram post didn’t look good enough. It wasn’t because my hair looked weird in the story and I didn’t like how that looked aesthetically. It wasn’t because the podcast episode audio just wasn’t quite right.

It was because I don’t fucking want to be seen.

High Standards ≠ Denying Yourself

Riley: Now, in terms of dropping the perfectionism to live a life where you have standards, but you’re not going all-out one way or the other…let me ask you this.

What does it mean about you if you can go out on a Friday night, have three margaritas, and still have a successful business?

Michelle: Don’t worry, I’ll tell you: it means nothing. Your girl is living proof that you can have a successful business, thriving relationships, and still love a champagne.

Riley: And in the same way, you actually get to be completely sober and not have a successful business. Everything can coexist.

I do think there’s a season in business where it is head-down, bum-up, and you have to choose the things that serve you most in that season.

Sticking with the alcohol example, if you’re navigating a breakup, it’s probably not a good time to start drinking if you never drink ordinarily. But if you’re in a healthy relationship, life is good, you’re feeling happy, and you like to have the occasional drink…that’s fine.

If you start a diet, is it a good time to start going through Macca’s drive-thrus in the morning? Probably not. But that’s just discernment. It wouldn’t make sense for you to do that based on your goal. It doesn’t mean going through a Macca’s drive-thru means you don’t care about your health and have sacrificed your high standards in that area.

Standards vs. Values

Michelle: We also need to be careful of making other people with standards different than ours wrong for it.

I did this  a lot when I first came into this personal development world. It was all about high standards, high standards, high standards. I cut off so many friends because I was basically like, “You’re not living up to my standards,” but it was full ego on my part. I was judging them for having a different standard to mine. And now I’ve come to this space where it’s just like, “Let people live.” If their standard doesn’t affect me, I don’t give a fuck.

Riley: Yeah. And it’s almost about a shift in language for me, because here’s the way I see it: there’s values, and then there’s standards.

I want to share the same values as the people closest to me in my life. You know, if my friends or me and a future partner don’t share the same core values, there’s probably a bit of a disconnect. But in terms of standards…define standards, you know?

Your standard could be different to my standard, but it’s not a wrong standard. It’s just dependent on what we value most in our life.

Let’s just say health and fitness are really important to me, and relationships and sexuality are really important to you. Our high standards in those two areas are probably a little bit different,  but they’re relative to the level of importance we place on that thing in our life.

Michelle: Ugh, preach. It needs to be on a t-shirt. (You guys have to go listen to the episode we did on Riley’s podcast, by the way. We’re thinking of getting merch, that’s how many times we said, “Put that on a t-shirt.”)

But it’s so true. How can someone make someone else wrong for the way they live their life? If that’s the level of importance they place on something, it just is, and that’s okay. And if I’m going to get rid of every person in my life because they don’t have the same level of importance placed on something, because they don’t hold the same high standard for something that doesn’t matter to them that I do for something that matters to me, it wouldn’t make any sense.

But Wait, There’s More

This isn’t all Riley and I discussed…but we can’t fit all of it in a blog post. Truly, there’s such value packed into the episode we did for UFYR and on her podcast, it’s wild to me.

Don’t miss out on a minute. Go listen to Episode 165 of UFYR…and scroll down on this page to find the link to Riley’s podcast!

WORK WITH RILEY:

Website: https://rileymaycoaching.au/

CONNECT WITH RILEY:

Listen to Riley’s podcast, Influential CEO: https://open.spotify.com/show/7BtdnRq7i0KjFJAMIQZ89a?si=-zPE26xURAigf7Llcv1Mpw&nd=1&dlsi=297cffddcdbb421f 

WORK WITH MICHELLE: 

Join THE CONNECTED WOMAN, a shadow-work course for women who want to go from feeling anxious AF about their love lives to feeling confident, secure and having unfuckwithable self-worth: https://michellepanning.com/the-connected-woman

Join The EXPERIENCE, a year-long mentorship for the woman who wants to play in the frequency of big love, epic sex and mind-blowing relationships with men…and herself: https://michellepanning.com/the-experience 

CONNECT WITH MICHELLE:

Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/michellepanning

Website: http://www.michellepanning.com