“We can use every opportunity to beat ourselves up. Like, perfectionist, I should know better, I know I should not be a perfectionist. Or we can use it as a way to love ourselves more. Like, of course I want to make this amazing.” -Tamara Pflug

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Self-Doubt & Confidence with Tamara Pflug

Welcome to Imperfection In Progress, a podcast for ambitious women who are people pleasers, perfectionists, or procrastinators. Want to feel less stressed and more joy in your life? Then this is for you. I'm your host, Dawn Calvinisti

Today I am speaking to Tamara Pflug, our fun and confidence coach from Switzerland.

Tamara and I discuss how the 3 P’s (people-pleasing, perfectionism and procrastination) all have self-doubt attached. As a confidence coach Tamara brings such insight on how we can change those thoughts that keep us in the self-doubt spiral and instead bring belief and trust in ourselves.

I love how Tamara is vulnerable in how she has dealt with people-pleasing in her own life and gives us tangible examples of how she’s let go of what others may be thinking or feeling. I’m so excited to share all she has for you.

Here’s my conversation with Tamara.

Episode Transcript

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

 I am so excited to have what I'm now starting to consider a good friend in Tamara Pflug here. She was in my second As Good As It Gets summit. So if you were there, you would've met her and she is totally the most amazing person when it comes to confidence.

[TAMARA PFLUG]

Yes. Thank you so much for having me again. I have to say it's such an honor and I had a lot of fun and it was so professional to be working with you. Like I thank you so much again for this great opportunity. So yeah, here I am. I'm back here . So as you can probably hear, everyone, I'm not an English speaker, like at first.

It's not my native language. I'm from Geneva, Switzerland. I've became this fun and confidence coach that everybody know today. I've decided everybody knows me. 

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

 I love that you call yourself a fun and confidence coach. Last year in 2022, my word of the year was fun because I was feeling like everything was so serious, it had to be done right. And again, coming from a background of being a very much perfectionistic it had to be done right. But then it sucks the life out of it and you're not enjoying it. So I love that you have that as part of your description.  

[TAMARA PFLUG]

Thank you. And I also love that I think you pointed it at it to me that it goes well like together, that we can have fun and be confident and that it's related.

You know exactly what you said, to take things not too serious and I like that you pointed it together. I think when I first wrote I, I decided kind of the tagline, you know, fun and confidence coach. First people ask me, you consider yourself to be a fun person. And  was like, first, yes.

But it's also, I can also help. I teach about like having, having more fun, help them to hear about what's fun, like how you mentioned it about last year that just, yeah, we can't find fun and enjoyment in everything we do. I truly believe it. And why not? Like we don't, we all gonna die. Just relax, like  a bit dark, I did not want to enter here, but I just, no, sometimes we just need, sometimes just to remind ourself many, many things we've done. It's not that serious, you know? And sometimes it's nice to yeah, get reminded that it's true. It's not. Most of this thing in like one year or two years, it's gonna be not as important as we make.

It seems so important. And so, yeah, for today it sounds very heavy and important and actually the attitude in the moment makes also the difference to every day's life.

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[DAWN CALVINISTI]

When I've been interviewing people for the podcast we've talked about like relationships, we've talked a little bit about like just, just how to move forward in our businesses.

We've talked about all these things and one thing that keeps coming up now is the idea of fun. Because when you are having fun, people receive you differently. They see you differently. And I think that's the confidence part. 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

Yes, for sure. For sure. And I think it goes, the fun is also with what you mentioned before, not taking ourselves too serious, not taking ourselves too seriously.

That actually we are also not taking things so personally. We don't get so easily offended. I have actually, I share something saying that we can never get offended because people can say something, but it's always what we're thinking about this, that make us feel offended. So I say if we take it things more lightly we have a better attitude.

More fun for sure. I think that we're showing up with people in a relaxed way and we are just fun to be around and it is missing an anecdote. Recently my dad asked me because he is way older than me, we are 50 years different. And he asked me, but so you like to be around meAnd I said, I told him, just be fun to be around and people want you. Just be nice and fun to be around and people will want to stick around. We can all think of people that sometimes, I like to say sometimes we see people or they give us energy or they drain a bit of energy, even if it's not always people's fault.

It's true that the attitude and how we are fun, as you mentioned before, is making the difference in our relationships for sure. It has the huge impact and the confidence goes with because then when you know that it's not really other people that makes you feel a certain way and then you don't get easily offended and you don't take things so hard and so personally, for sure it's just nicer to be around. So it has a huge impact. And on the relationship we have with ourselves in the first place, you know for sure, right. People that get easily a bit aggressive or angry. You can see that some inside, maybe they're not feeling too good, this is what I mean by that for sure 100%. Which is not a problem, we can always do something about it. 

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

When, when I think about like this, particularly in this podcast, and I'm sure listeners who have been listening for a little bit now might be thinking, okay, we talk about people pleasing, we talk about procrastination, we talk about perfectionism.

What does that really have to do when it comes to confidence? And yet I think it has a lot to do around confidence. 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

Yeah, for sure. I would love to hear what the, you have to say, which is . Your whole podcast is about this, but I think Yeah, for sure. They've done it all, relates for me to like feeling self-doubt, procrastination.

It's like we don't want to do it because we're afraid of not making it good enough, which no matter what it is, perfection is the same. Like we want to make sure that it's good enough because probably also it says something about us, the presentation that we make, if people have something to say, we may think that it's like some people have to say something about us.

Think all of this, it's always there. Coming back to our selfworth, I say, any problem, anything that I'm coaching my amazing clients on, very often it goes down to feeling worthy. Who said that deep down we all want to be seen, heard, and understood.

And I think that the procrastination person's like, we are afraid of being misunderstood or not being heard, with what the intention we try that to have and also the people pleasing 100% that we try, also to please others and manipulate a bit what they will be thinking of us.

So we can tell ourselves that we worthy and that, so of course, it's 100% related to self-confidence, and I think that the moment that we grow our confidence, we don't have to be super confident, you know, to achieve goals or to make changes in our life. But I think that from the moment that you can already feel slowly, slowly, a bit more confident, you will for sure less want to please others, you're less likely to procrastinate because you also, you trust yourself that no matter what, you can learn something new, you can do it. And I like also to say really that the worst that can happen is an emotion. And I think confidence, for me, it's really about being willing to feel, to process any kind of emotion, and then procrastination, perfectionism, and people pleasing.

It's all dealing with emotion that we are not willing necessarily to. Going deep here, but I think that it's really interesting to see exactly what you said, that the more we build our confidence, even if it's something very, very small, yeah. The, it'll have a huge impact on the procrastination, perfectionism, people pleasing 100% because then we  let's rely on other things, uh, uh, on other people to feel good, but we can create it some wisdom.

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

Yeah, I, one thing I talk about a lot in, I know even in the membership I talk about the fact that we, we need to trust ourselves. And that often when we let ourselves down or we set a goal too high as a perfectionist, and then we don't accomplish it, we set off this cycle of, now, I, I can't do it. I don't really believe in myself. Right. I'm afraid to try it again. 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

I think that it also goes to the idea, it's never, the, like what we're thinking in the moment, but what we make it mean, like you said, if we are, you mentioned before, for example,  we have a project and we are very perfectionist and then we don't necessarily do the project the way we wanted because like for some reasons it's not that we did not do the project the way we want it. It's like the thoughts that come after, such as, I'm never gonna be able to do this. It's always the same with me, these kinds of thoughts, that little voice that it's very noisy in our head that keeps on feeling the insecurity and the self doubt. This is why I think that there's never, there's no problem to feeling like to procrastinate or to like wanting things to be perfect, but not to indulge in it.

Because most of the time we continue to want things to be perfect and then telling ourselves the story that's always been the same. That exactly what I, I say before that it's not really what we're thinking, but what we make it to mean. Like most of the people that come, it's not like they don't feel confident in one situation and they want coaching.

It's just because they're then to tell themselves that it's going to be like this forever, and something's wrong with them, if you know what I mean. People pleasing, it's not only in one situation that you feel like you please others, it then you feel like it's your only way to be loved, which is deep and hard, but it's, I think it's be the truth because then we get to the habit of pleasing others and getting a positive answer that people love us and we're continuing doing it.

You want this advice in your podcast like the three topics together? It's, perfect like amazing. 

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

Yeah. And, and you're right. Like it, it creates a cycle, right? And then when we create this cycle, it cements those thoughts deeper and so we believe them, yeah, even more. And it's really, they're stories. They're not, they're not even reality most of the time. 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

No. And I think that the brain instance, it's very efficient. We have an amazing brain that is just gonna repeat the same thoughts to us because we believe it, then we act on them. Like we probably people pleasing we continue to do things that we don't necessarily want to do.

And the thoughts the brain is just very efficient. It'll offer us the same thoughts over and over again if we continue believe them. So now it's, yeah, it's very interesting to see that we are not our thoughts, there are just thoughts, there are stories that we believe about ourselves.

It's so powerful to realize.  

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We have live monthly coaching calls that are also recorded and put into the membership area. One call with me and the other with a guest expert. We cover everything from physical health (movement, nutrition, sleep) to mental and emotional health (stress, anxiety, negative thoughts). We cover personal growth with topics like self-worth, confidence, happiness, hard conversations, boundaries, and self-talk. I love to help women put themselves on their own to-do list without guilt, this membership could be the perfect gift to you from you.

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Now, back to our episode. 

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

And I know, like we talk about catching our thoughts and starting to pay attention. Yeah. And In order to, to make changes to what we're thinking. But if somebody's listening right now and thinking, yeah, but it's true. Like I'm, I'm not really capable at this, or I, I'm not confident at that, or I, I can't really do this.

Or I've tried doing this, but it, it didn't work, so maybe I just can't do this. Or maybe it's really only for other people. Where do we start when we, when we believe things so deeply that we're struggling to get out of that? 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

Yes, for sure. This is the, the hardest because people will tell you at this point, believe that you can, and you halfway there, or they will share it with you, affirmations that are so beautiful and pretty, on Pinterest and everything, but if you don't believe them, it's like it's not gonna do anything to you.

So I think on the first step, the very, very first step here. Yeah, it's, it's really simple, is just to pay attention to this little voice that is telling us, that is stopping us. Most of the time with my clients, it thoughts such as I'm not good enough. I did not do enough. Yeah, I, I should not have said it.

I've done something bad. All of these thoughts and without even paying attention. And I get caught a lot now that I'm an expert, but I mean, I'm getting coached a lot and I still thoughts, like believe, things that my brain is telling me. So I came up with the idea to name my brain Sunny. I'm just like his name, like I love the sun.

And sometimes, which I'm not doing it all the time, I have to say I still have a human brain, but I'm, I see thoughts coming up. I'm trying, lots of things for my business. And I see thoughts coming up like, you've never done this, so you're never gonna succeed.  And one time I still believe it and I stop working.

I do something else to avoid the emotional feeling like I'm gonna fail and everything. And sometimes half of the time I'm catching my brain, like we said, and I'm saying, yes, Sunny, very nice of you just trying to keep me safe. And it's a nice thought. You really just want to keep me safe because your brain really, as we said before, just want to be efficient.

So it's gonna the same thoughts over and over again because it keeps you alive. It doesn't think like that it's creating this result for you. So I think the very, very step is just, just to observe yourself thinking, I see Sunny talking to me. I'm not my thought.

It's not because I'm thinking like I had mentioned before to for my business, like I've never done this before. It's not because I believe it's actually true know, I think we talked about it, we talked about many things that we have 60,000 thoughts per day. You, it's, most of them, like are, are unconscious. If they other patterns, like we say, they're coming back.

But I think that we can really start to be aware sometimes when it's this kind of hard thoughts like you did not go do enough, or you're never gonna get there or anything just to think it's a thought. Basically it's words next to each other and we give it, it's like so much meaning. Then all of our lives it's always from what we are thinking. So yeah, it's, it's very powerful. And just to catch and see that we, just a sentence, just a thought and that we're not our thoughts and it's just our brain. It's just Sunny talking to us and trying to keep us safe, which, thank you brain. It's working perfectly fine.

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

I love that you name your, your thoughts, Sunny. I name my, my inner critic. I call her Harriet. 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

And that's perfect. 

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

I think it's a good tip for people like who maybe you've never thought of it, cuz it just puts the thought at a distance, right? It doesn't, it's then not us. It's just something happening in there and yeah, we don't have to own it. 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

How do you use it? Can you gimme an example of a situation? 

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

So for me, for me, Harriet, is because perfectionism is probably the, the P that I resonate with the most. But for me it, Harriet will be like, well, you should spend more time on that.

Yeah. Are you sure it's just right? I think I've seen it done better by somebody else. Or you, you really could do better on this. You don't have to go and spend that time with the kids right now. Like it would be better if you just give, give another half hour to this, really, is this really the best you can do?

And so it's, yeah, it's almost a guilting, right? Like a guilt or a shame. And so for me, and, and it's always, okay, Harriet, I hear you. I hear that you'd like to work more. I hear that you would like to feel, you know, totally in control of this, but guess what? Even if I spend the next three days, there'll be something we wanna change.

So we're gonna be done for now. So I literally talk back to her like she's another entity. It's just a thought. It's just there, right. Just there. 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

A difference between you and this person, because sometimes when we have to stop, we really believe that it's, like us, like telling ourself, but it's just our brain trying to keep us safe.

And I think it goes with another thing that I find very interesting is that since our brain is still like very efficient, as before, it'll find proof for everything we think, which is I think called the confirmation bias. Something like something psychological, something smart  that says really, that no matter what we think the brain will just scan and find proof of this.

So if we think this has to be perfect or I'm never gonna get there. Just take a presentation at work because I coach people on, they do lots of presentations lately and it's like, I need to make the presentation amazing. The last time it did not work so well. The brain will look for all the time that it did not work so well to make sure that it's fitting and saving you time and energy to think about other situation.

But when we think about way that it can go well, or moments that things went the right direction that went well, you can also find proof. This is why we use very often in coaching. Also, tell me about a time in your life when you made the decision and it worked out for you, to try to redirect the brain to something that is more useful because to the perfection and the procrastination I think that it's very useful, I think it's coming from a good place, like wanting to make it perfect or like pushing it for the next day. So for sure we'll do it good, but I think it's stopping us from actually doing something. Taking action. 

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

I think it's good that you point out, like if you relate to any of those three P's they all have good parts of them. It's, it's not that they're all horrible, it's, it's great to wanna do things well. There's nothing wrong with that. Sure. If it gets in your way. 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

Yes, for sure. And I think this is also very interesting that we make it such a drama, but like, I'm people-pleasing, procrastinating or imperfectionist.

I know I'm not supposed to do this. But there is also I think self-doubt also has also some benefits, sometimes it's also like procrastination. It's, I think, show that we care, we want to do something good. I don't know. We can, I think we can use everything as. I like to share this a lot sometime, confidence coach, but I think we can use every opportunity or to beat ourselves up, like perfectionist.

I should know better. It's okay. I know I should not be a perfectionist. Or we can use it as a way to love ourself more. Like of course I want to make this amazing. Of course, I, I want people to love me. So I think it's just, yeah, it's the first step, but the very first step to observe, like you said with the, it's so funny. You name the name of a girl for your inner critic, and I name, I named it as a boy. 

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

Yeah, whatever, whatever works. 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

Yeah. But it just, it's true. It's separated completely. Like I, I had the thought really again, today, you've never done this, you've never gonna succeed at it. And I caught, I really caught my brain, like I said, yeah, I see you.

I really see you. But today, and it goes also with the idea of thinking something and believing it. We can, as I said, we have 60,000 thoughts. Like, I'm going to brush my teeth. You don't care. So it's just a thoughts. So why not? Sometimes we believe very strong kind of thoughts, such as, I have to do this perfectly, otherwise it'll won't work.

But it feels really bad to think this thought. So just to be aware that just a thought, just like words like a cloud, it's passing in the sky.

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

So what I always ask everybody, and I mean, you know, this is coming, but which one of the three Ps do you relate to the most? 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

I was going to surprise you and change my mind last minute. Now I'm happy that I'm not on the grill for sure. I would have said the people pleasing, I would've said, I'm saying people pleasing for sure. A few years ago, I would say like five, six, I was still thinking that to be loved, I would need to do things that I don't really wanna do and people say, but sometimes you've gotta do things you don't wanna do.

Yes and no. Like, it depends how you feel when you think this thought. But yeah, I really relate to people pleasing because I really felt that to be loved and to be understood, I had to think or to do things differently. And I mentioned it also on the summit.

But I'm not planning on having kids. I'm not going too much to funerals and for some reason it's just like I won't just because I want to. And I think that I realized also, and I shared it with you also, I think another time that if we are not being who we truly are without of course hurting others or like trying to make people upset on purpose, of course, but if we're not doing what we really want, people are not doing what they really want.

It's like nobody's doing what they want and it's Just, I like really to be authentic. I like people to be authentic, which I let them have their feelings when they're mad at me. But it's, yeah, I just think that people pleasing is, also, it's a non-ending circle because if I'm doing things I don't wanna do, I'm kind of resentful, wanting people to do things they don't wanna do.

So everybody's doing things they don't wanna do. I think it's just get so much easier if everybody can be respected by things they really want to do. And the people pleasing, I think goes also sometimes with the idea of saying no. And when I heard somewhere that if I'm saying no, it's because I'm saying yes to something else, which each time I'm saying no, it raises the value of my Yes. And I've discovered that then it makes me, when I'm with people, I like they know it because probably I repeated it, but I said, yeah, I am I'm with you. I'm choosing to be with you. Really, I really want to be with you. 

So, I dunno, it makes it's much more like sincere. I see my presence is more sincere and I'm more sincere with myself. 

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

I really like that you said so if you are with somebody, like you're really authentically with them, you chose that. You didn't just say yes cuz you always say yes.

[TAMARA PFLUG]

No, because, and even families, like people that we think we supposed to do things for friends, for families, like actually, I think that, just imagine a world if everybody will do, but sincerely, sometimes you do want to help somebody, even if it's not exactly the first thing you will do today. I think that we'll just all, like there will not be too much, not resentment or to just be, people will have deep connection on a yes, on a sincere and authentic place. I think that also what is funny was the people giving that sometimes, and we all find ourselves in this situation, that you do something for somebody and still they're not happy. Still they have something to say. So you are not happy. The other person is not, not happy. Everybody take care of yourselves and do what you really want to do, but again, without doing it on purpose to hurt others. And then I think the last piece of this is also very, very important, is to let people have emotions also because we make it, people should not feel sad, people should not be frustrated or disappointed.

Like I, I live abroad. So I not go to the funeral of my grandmother by choice. And actually I was surprised because I had so many thoughts in my head that my mom would say something and in the first she did not. But also I was at peace thinking that she would be sad or disappointed. So, yeah, it's not, it's never easy like situation and I'm still struggling, I have to say, people pleasing, like it's coming back to patterns as we mentioned.

But I seem to know what you really wanna do and then be also at peace. I want to be, respected for who I am as like people pleaser or ex people pleaser. But then I think simple also to respect others in their own choice. They're feeling this feeling we don't have to, to fix them to feel better.

It's also okay, they're sad in the moment. It's interesting. Yeah. We could talk hours about this I think, but your to podcast is covering topics that are so interesting For sure and it has impact on every area of our life. Like perfection is procrastination on every goal that we want to set.

So I wanted to tell you again that I think you are doing amazing. Like something amazing with your podcast for sure. 

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

Aw. Thank you so much. I love that you're here sharing with us. I know we got to know each other in the summit, but for people who didn't get to hear you there or even people who just wanna get to know you more, I love that we're able to, to have you here and be a part of this.

One thing I wanna mention is that we are offering something free, which is Tamara's “My Eight Favorite Thoughts That Will Help You Feel More Confident Today”. So I'm gonna put those in the show notes and you can grab that freebie. Thank you. But tell us a little bit about what it's for, what we can use it for.

[TAMARA PFLUG]

Yes. It's just cause again, I think also when it comes to self-confidence, we think that it's all or nothing. People are super confident. We don't actually think about somebody that is sometimes confident, sometimes not . So I think that we don't have to be all or nothing in this.

You can feel more confident. Today already by just thinking something different. And this is what I'm sharing. It's eight thoughts that when I'm reading them, of course, like we said before, it's a affirmation that like work for me because it make me feel confident, that when I read them I feel confident and I really believe in know from cognitive, uh, therapy.

It's backed up also with science that our thoughts create our feelings. So when I'm seeing results, I really feel confident and then I act in a world like I'm taking action. I'm like, no. Interesting. Myself, like you mentioned before in your membership. So yeah. And there is one thought that one thought that I shared inside that is not the, I don't need everybody to love me.

Not everybody has good taste. Something like this. I think that, so that, it's funny, it goes with the idea that you can be the juiciest peach on the tree. There are still people that don't like peaches, you know? So because the people pleasing, a lot of this is also coming from the idea that you want to be loved by everyone you know.

And when you realize that you don't have to be loved by everyone because not everybody has good taste. It's fine.

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

Well, thank you again, Tamara, for joining us on the podcast space so much. 

[TAMARA PFLUG]

Thank you so much.

[DAWN CALVINISTI]

Thanks for listening to today's show. If you found value in what you heard, please share it with a friend and rate and review us on whatever platform you listen on. It really helps get us out to other women who could benefit from listening. Check out our show notes for details from the show and to connect with me or our guests. Want to continue the conversation? My website is www.pursueprogress.com or DM me @pursueprogresswithdawn on Instagram. 

Until next week, pursue progress no matter how imperfectly.

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