In this episode, Liz Fosslien discusses how to be okay when life feels overwhelming. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by emotions like anger, envy, or uncertainty—and then feel guilty for feeling that way? Liz challenges some of the biggest myths about emotions. She also dives into why negative emotions aren’t actually bad, how perfectionism holds us back, and why uncertainty feels so unbearable. She shares research-backed insights and actionable strategies to help us navigate difficult feelings in a more constructive and self-compassionate way.
Key Takeaways:
- 00:00 – Introduction to Big Feelings and Emotional Myths
- 05:55 – The Illusion of Certainty and Why We Overestimate Risk
- 14:37 – The Cycle of Anxiety, Thought Filtering, and Anxious Fixing
- 22:53 – Perfectionism as Fear of Failure and How to Break the Pattern
- 32:35 – The Power of Language: How “Always” and “Never” Reinforce Negative Thinking
- 38:39 – Comparison Isn’t the Problem—How to Use It for Growth
- 48:54 – Time Chunking: A Survival Strategy for Emotional Overwhelm
- 54:49 – Closing Thoughts: Accepting Big Feelings as Part of the Human Experience
Connect with Liz Fosslien Website | Instagram | X | LinkedIn
Liz Fosslien regularly leads interactive, scientifically-backed workshops about how to create a culture of belonging, help remote workers avoid burnout, navigate different work styles and effectively harness emotion as a leader. Her work has been featured by The New York Times, Ted, The Economist, and NPR. She is also the co-author and illustrator of The Wall Street Journal bestseller, No Hard Feelings along with the book discussed in this episode, Big Feelings: How to Be Ok When Things Are Not Ok.
If you enjoyed this episode with Liz Fosslien, check out these other episodes:
Embracing Emotions at Work with Liz Fosslien (2019)
Befriending Difficult Feelings with Adreanna Limbach
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Episode Transcript:
Eric Zimmer (00:00.0)
Have you ever had a day where you just feel off? Not sad exactly, not mad either, but just a swirling mess of feelings that won’t sit still? I certainly have. And as it turns out, that is completely normal. In fact, my guest today, Liz Fossiline, has spent years studying why we feel the way we feel and why we often believe we shouldn’t feel that way. She’s here to bust some of the biggest myths about emotions, like why anger isn’t actually the enemy, where envy can be useful, and why it’s not just you feeling like everyone else has it figured out. By the end of this episode, you’ll walk away with a whole new way to think about your emotions. One that just might make your life a little lighter, a little easier, and a little more human. I’m Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed.
Hi, Liz, welcome to the
Liz Fosslien 02:31
show. Thanks so much for having me. Really excited to be here again, yes, excited
Eric Zimmer 02:35
to have you back again, and you have a new book called big feelings, how to be okay when things are not okay, which is a great topic that I know listeners are gonna love. But before we get into the book, let’s start like we always do with the parable. There’s a grandparent who’s talking with their grandchild, and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at their grandparent says, Well, which one wins? The grandparent says, the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah,
Liz Fosslien 03:22
I like that. It acknowledges that we all experience these emotions and have these within ourselves. I think that’s a common misconception when people maybe feed or feel the sort of quote, unquote, negative emotions that they’re alone in it. So I really like that. And then I think the concept of feeding these emotions is really great too. Something that I look at a lot in my work is when you’re experiencing something that’s difficult, how do you learn from it, but then try to move through it so that it gives you some useful information, but you don’t get tangled up in it and continue to feed it and get dragged into it. So I really love that parable
Eric Zimmer 04:00
you hit on something there that you talk about early on in the book, which is really some myths about, you know, what you’re calling big feelings. You hit one of the, you know, myths there. But can you talk about a couple of the others?
Liz Fosslien 04:14
Yes, I think the one you’re mentioning I hit on, which I actually think is worth revisiting again, is for the book. We surveyed about 1500 people all across the world from all different backgrounds, and we asked them, Have you experienced any of these big feelings, which in the book include things like anger, envy, burnout, perfectionism, and basically, to a person, everyone said, Yes. And so I think one of the myths is, again, that when we experience envy, that we should feel ashamed because we’re the only person feeling that which is absolutely not true. Another one is just around the intensity of those feelings that people often also think, in comparison to others, that they’re the only ones that are really getting bogged down in. Think depression is a good example of this. When you feel despair, often you feel like everyone else is thriving, and that’s one of the ways in which it warps your view of the world. And that’s just also not true. And then the last one that we cover in the beginning of the book is just that there are good, quote, unquote, and bad feelings, so things like envy, anger is one too. We’re often taught that anger is associated with violence and is really harmful to other people, and there are absolutely ways that you can express anger, like punching a wall or punching a person, that are harmful. But at its core, Anger can motivate us. It’s just a flag that there has been a violation, so it can motivate us to advocate for ourselves, to find a better situation for ourselves, to advocate for someone else. So I wouldn’t call that a bad emotion. You can take bad actions based on it, but at its core, an emotion is simply data and something that your brain is producing,
Eric Zimmer 05:55
right? And we’ve got this podcast parable that talks about good wolf and Bad Wolf, which, if we’re not careful, sets that myth up, which is that negative emotions, quote, unquote, negative emotions, are bad. It’s why I love the the take that you had. It’s one of the reasons I love the parable, is it just says, like, hey, everybody has these. You know, that’s, I think so, so important. And, you know, the thing that’s really interesting. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, because we’ve had a couple of guests recently that have talked about this. One is a woman named Sarah Fay, who just released a book she’s diagnosed with six different things over her life, right? And she sort of takes on the DSM, which is the way that, you know, mental health professionals diagnose people. But I think it gets to the question of, when is something normal human emotion that we all go through, and when is something what we would classify as mental illness, and is that distinction even useful? Curious? Your thoughts?
Liz Fosslien 06:53
I’m not a licensed psychiatrist to make these calls. Yeah, of course, sort of. My intuition on this is that when it becomes something that you really can’t move through, and when you’re actively harming yourself or other people, that’s when it requires, maybe medication or like, more professional help. But that said, I mean, I think medication and professional help can be useful even if you’re sort of depressed but functioning? Yeah. So I think it’s, it’s always valuable to consider these things on a spectrum, yep. And so I think there’s not like a clear line. Sometimes it’s just a judgment call that you make yourself, or the people around you make, or your therapist makes of okay at this point, there needs to be some more serious intervention. But I think I don’t feel like the depths of some of these, like, really more sort of, quote, unquote severe disorders that are in the DSM, but on any given day, I feel good, and then an hour later I feel bad. And, you know, like, is that? Yeah, am I, like, vacillating too much between emotion? I don’t know. That’s my baseline, yeah. So these are all definitely, like, arbitrary lines that are still useful to have in some cases,
Eric Zimmer 08:03
totally Yeah. And I do think every case is different, and it’s something I think a lot about as someone who has what I would call, maybe today, I’ll call it depressive tendencies. Instead of saying, I, you know, I have depression. I have a tendency in that direction. But at the end of the day, I think that the tools that are very useful for working with a lot of these things are the same, regardless, and that’s really where you guys spend a lot of time. In the book, you go through these big feelings, and for each of them, you talk about some myths, and then you talk about how to work with each of them. I love the structure of the book. It’s laid out very clearly, very helpfully, and of course, it has the drawings for which you guys are are very well known. They’re so great. They really add so much that we just won’t get in a visual or we won’t get in an audio only conversation. But they add so much to the book. Let’s jump into some of the big feelings. Is there anyone that you would like to hit? One that feels like more top of mind today for you than others? I’ve got a couple I might choose, but I’m curious what you might choose.
Liz Fosslien 09:09
Yeah, I think I would choose uncertainty and perfectionism. Uncertainty. You know, the last two years easy to say they’ve been very uncertain indeed. That’s one that I’ve struggled with a lot, and I think a lot of people have as well. Okay,
Eric Zimmer 09:25
so what are some of the myths around uncertainty? Two
Liz Fosslien 09:30
that resonated with me when I first started to investigate them. The first was that certainty is attainable. It’s really comforting to think, Oh, I just wish I could go back to when I was a child and things were certain, or pre pandemic, when life was more it was obvious what was going to happen next, and I could plan for it. And the truth is, you can never plan for the future, because you can never exactly predict what it is. And yes, there are times when there’s more alarm. Confirming things that could happen in the future. But generally, I think it’s actually really useful to let go of this myth that there is a perfect stability that you can attain, because again, it helps you look back at your life and say, I’ve always been operating in some level of uncertainty, and for the most part, I’ve been able to successfully navigate it. I’m still here. So I think that can help you even in moments that feel a little more unstable than others. And then the second myth is that the anxiety we feel in the face of uncertainty is perfectly predictive of how much risk we face. So I think it’s so easy to wake up in the morning with this like nebulous pit of anxiety in your stomach, and then lean into that and say, Oh, because I feel bad, that means something bad is going to happen, and now I need to be on full alert and in panic mode. Yeah, funny thing that I don’t know, funny, but somehow a lot of the research around uncertainty involves shocking people, like giving them harmless but painful electric shocks, like every single study involved this so uncertainty researchers loved electric shocks. That seems actually fair. But in one of these, okay, but in one of these studies,
Eric Zimmer 11:13
I’m not going to sign up for any studies around uncertainty. I do not, as somebody owned an old guitar amplifier in really lousy houses in long time ago, I used to get shocked all the time. I hate it, yeah,
Liz Fosslien 11:24
yeah. So same. I’m not signing up for any of those. But in one of these studies, they segmented people randomly into two groups, and one group had a 90% chance of getting shocked, so it was pretty much guaranteed that that they were going to get this painful experience, the other group had a 50% chance, and the group that had a 50% chance was three times more stressed than the group that was certain they were going to get shocked, which speaks to this, like we would rather know that something bad is going to happen, then not know what’s going to happen. So we really, really hate uncertainty, which, again, speaks to like, you can be super anxious, but that doesn’t mean that you’re guaranteed a horrible thing that’s about to happen. There’s a
Eric Zimmer 12:08
couple things in what you said there that I think are important, that this idea that certainty ever exists is certainly a myth. Like, I think those who study Buddhism, they sort of Bang us over the head with this sort of stuff. Like, you know, it doesn’t exist. There’s a poet, author out there, Mark Nepo, who talks about something called the terrible knowledge, which is that anything can happen to anyone at any time. And I think that’s true. But I think there’s a positive too to recognizing uncertainty, besides feeling less anxious about it. The other positive is you don’t take things for granted as much if you actually realize the true uncertainty of things you recognize, like, oh, you know, let me be grateful for my dog who’s laying here right next to me, because I just don’t know how much longer that will happen. You know, it can knowledge of uncertainty can also contribute to our lives in positive ways. Yeah,
Liz Fosslien 12:59
absolutely. I have a friend who is, you know, in his early 30s, extremely oppressive athlete, eats very healthy, and he had some pain in his ankle last year, which then was diagnosed as bone cancer and needed an amputation. And just like, you know, had a horrendous year, and now, luckily, seems to be in remission. But I just remember that experience like, it really felt like out of nowhere. Yeah, I don’t want to use his story as like, it made me feel really good, but it did. It kind of crystallized, like, out of all of us, he’s the last person I would have predicted to have such a health crisis at this age, and that it just like, put my own health in much more perspective. And I agree with you, it made it was like, wow, things like this do happen, and it’s horrifying. And so even if I’m not having a great day, I’m still grateful that generally things are okay, yep.
Eric Zimmer 13:53
And the next question I’m going to ask is, you know, as we look at working with emotions, and people who talk about emotions and theorize about emotions. Some people have a belief that like, thoughts cause our emotions. You know, there’s a there’s a, you know, thoughts leading to emotion. There’s other people that think it’s a more complicated than that. And when you were talking about anxiety, it made me think of that sense of some how some days you just wake up, and before you’ve even had a thought, there’s a mood, and then it’s like every thought gets filtered kind of through that mood. Is that sort of what you were talking about with, like anxiety, like you wake up and it’s just, you know, you feel a certain way, and now all of a sudden, your thoughts all take on the color of that feeling absolutely
Liz Fosslien 14:37
yes. So my view is that emotions are often the product of like stimuli we’re taking in, and it can just be a result of our brain chemistry, which is often the cause as well. And so I think it depends on how you define a thought, but then like the conscious thoughts we have get, as you said, filtered through this emotion that’s coming up. So one example. Example of kind of how I consider emotion is way, way back in the day, if a lion was charging towards you, it was really important that you just feel fear right away, that your brain was able to process like lion coming fear right away, and that it wasn’t like this very conscious like, oh, there’s a lion. Perhaps, you know, and you can, I think you can debate forever, if the thought comes first what a thought is, but then everything after that is filtered through this, like physiological response you’re having in response to that emotion, and with anxiety, I think it’s the same, right? So if you Doom scroll late at night, go to bed, have bad dreams, or there’s just this, like subconscious thing running through you that the future is really scary. There’s all these horrible things happening in the world. You wake up, you have this pit. You’re not even really conscious of what thoughts are driving that. But then that starts to create these thoughts that might not necessarily be true for me personally, which, as I’ve talked to people, I think a lot of people experience this. It also generates this frantic energy that leads you to kind of exhaust yourself in an effort to get over the anxiety, but because you’re not sitting with it and really trying to understand what might be driving it, it’s not productive. So to give more color to that, I used to wake up, especially during the early days of the pandemic, feel so anxious, and I would just vacuum the floor. I would answer all my emails. I would create all these new projects for myself. I would call someone. I would just have this to do list and mercilessly bang my way through it. And at the end of the day, I was just exhausted, but I had never stopped to think, why am I anxious? Like, what can I actually do about that underlying emotion. So I just didn’t feel any better. Actually felt way worse. And so I think that’s also sometimes it’s not even that we have thoughts that are helpful. It’s like the thought becomes, I just want to run away from this. What can I do? What can I do? And what our brain generates is like what I can do next often, isn’t actually what we need to do to address that underlying emotion. So
Eric Zimmer 17:01
what are some tools for working with uncertainty? Yeah,
Liz Fosslien 17:05
so the first is just to stop this cycle of what psychologists call anxious fixing. So this is you feel anxiety, and it feels good to cross things off a checklist, and so you do and you do and you do, but you’re not actually addressing that underlying need. So it’s really just, in this case, when you feel that overwhelming panic or anxiety, it’s to stop and don’t rush into anything else. Just sit there and say, like, I’m this moment, I’m very anxious, and then try to think through, like, what are my fears? So anxiety is more nebulous, this sort of anxious feeling we have, versus a fear which is centered around something specific. And so you might say, you know, over the past years, like, I’m afraid I’ll get COVID, I’m afraid someone I love will get COVID, and those are terrifying things. But once you actually map out the exact fears you have, it’s easier to start thinking, What can I do to prevent that? What steps can I take? Versus with anxiety? There’s not a clear next step, so I think the first piece of advice would just be, just stop and sit with it, as uncomfortable as that might feel in the moment. It’s really important. Yep.
Eric Zimmer 18:16
And then you sort of led into another one there, which is to try and go from vague anxiety into more specific fears, like, what am I really afraid of? And, you know, the more specific oftentimes, the better. Yeah.
Liz Fosslien 18:29
I think one thing that came up a lot as I was speaking with both experts and then just people about this, is some people mentioned they find it useful to ask themselves, what’s the worst thing that could happen? And then realizing that it’s not so bad is comforting to them. And so if that works for you, that’s great. I do want to share that tip for me personally. I can come up with some really doomsday so, you know, like, what’s the worst thing that can happen? I am very creative when it comes to this question. So if that’s you, I would not ask that, or I would say, what’s the worst thing that could happen, and then follow it up with, what’s the best thing that could happen, and what is the likelihood that the worst thing happens? Because often it’s like, yeah, I dreamed up this nightmare scenario, but it’s extremely unlikely that that’s actually what’s going to happen tomorrow. And so it’s important to keep that in mind as well.
Eric Zimmer 19:25
Makes me laugh. My partner’s mom has Alzheimer’s that that does not make me laugh, but within that, you know humor is is helpful. And she would get these anxious fears. And so I would try and reason with her like she was always afraid she was going to starve to starve to death. And I’d be like, what you’re not, you know, and I’d start going into why she’s not going to starve to death every time, she would just come up with a more and more fantastical story about how this was going to happen. And I just after a while, I realized, like, this, this is, this is not working, like, you know, like, this is one where. Her, her ability to dream up scenarios is well beyond my ability to, you know, come up with contingency plans. And I know some people who are like that also like, you know, what’s the worst thing that can happen? They’ve got some doozies, you know.
Liz Fosslien 20:13
Oh, yeah, that’s definitely me.
Eric Zimmer 20:16
What’s the worst thing that can happen for me is generally a pretty good one, you know, because I’ll go like, well, you know, I guess we won’t make any money if we don’t make any money for a few months, you know, I’ll figure it out. Which sort of leads me to another one of your tips for uncertainty, which is to sort of reflect on moments that bring you confidence, or reflect on your ability to cope with what uncertainty brings. Yeah,
Liz Fosslien 20:41
so this is, I think, one of the best ways to navigate uncertainty. It’s not about creating confidence for yourself that something’s gonna happen at a future point in time, because, like we said, you can’t really do that. It’s about building confidence that you will be able to handle it. And so one great way to do that is to look back and try to find moments when you were overwhelmed or you didn’t think you could make it through an experience and you did. So, for example, I actually, for I don’t know, 20 years, struggled with a really intense needle phobia, and I went to cognitive behavioral therapy to overcome it, but it was an example of where my anxiety was absolutely not proportional to the risk, right? Like, getting your blood drawn is a very low risk procedure, and I would, like, faint I couldn’t sleep for days. I would avoid going to the doctor because I just didn’t even want to risk needing blood work. And so through CBT, I was able to, like, gradually, like, expose myself to the situation more and more, and now it’s still an unpleasant experience, but every time I feel this fear, I remind myself think back to the last blood draw where everything was fine. You didn’t pass out, you were able to make it through. And so every subsequent blood draw has been easier and easier, because I’ve built that confidence in myself. And so the same thing can be applied to uncertainty. If you’ve gone through something really hard. Often we wish we hadn’t had to go through that hard thing, but you can take away the lesson that you are capable of surviving it and of making it through. And one quick phrase I want to end with on this is I found it so valuable to also tell myself, I’m a person learning to x, so when you’re confronted with uncertainty saying like, I need to have it all figured out right now, I can’t do this just I’m a person learning to continue to move through uncertainty. And I’ve done it before, and there’s lessons there, but I’m still going to find new ways to do it. And I think that phrase can really help you shift your mindset to be more open to it’s okay, I will make it through
Eric Zimmer 22:47
this excellent Well, let’s move on to I think you chose perfectionism as your next one, right? I did.
Liz Fosslien 22:53
Yes, this is a big one for me. Tell us about your perfectionism. Yeah, my perfectionism definitely manifests in my work. So just, I think, becoming overly obsessive with getting to 100% versus, you know, saying, like, in this case, actually 80% is more than enough, and it’s actually better for everyone if I don’t spend more time on this. But it also has shown up a lot in my personal relationships. So when I first started dating my now husband, I felt in many ways, that I was two people. And the first was me who sometimes, you know, likes to stand in my kitchen in ratty old pajamas and eat cheese directly from the fridge. And then the person that I was when we were dating and not living together, which I always, you know, I would put on makeup and tried to be funny and gregarious and have stories and would eat really politely, and then when the relationship was going well, and then we talked about moving in together, and that was terrifying for me, because I was like, Oh, my God, he’s going to discover this person that’s so different, that’s kind of a mess, that has anxiety attacks at night. I just hidden that all away because I really thought that to be in a relationship, to have someone love you, you just had to be perfect, and you had to be fun to be around all the time. So it’s for a lot of my life, shown up sort of In every facet of both professional and personal life, music,
24:39
music.
Eric Zimmer 24:53
Before we get into coping tools, let’s follow the way we’ve been going, which is what’s a couple of myths people have about perfectionism. So one
Liz Fosslien 25:00
myth is that you’re not a perfectionist. And I think people who have perfectionist tendencies often they’re so hard on themselves that it’s incomprehensible to them that they’d be a perfectionist, because they’re like, I’m not perfect, I’m a complete failure. I’m not perfectly dressed for every situation. I don’t ace every single presentation at work. How can I be a perfectionist? And perfectionism is not about like color coded folders and looking a certain way or behaving a certain way. It’s about desperately trying to avoid failing. So it’s one thing to aim for 100% on a test and get 94% and feel pretty good. It’s another to aim for 100 get 98 and then beat yourself up because you didn’t get that one question, and that’s perfectionism. So I think being honest with yourself that you might have these tendencies, even if you don’t think of yourself as perfect or perfectionist. And then another one is that perfectionism helps us. I think a lot of myself included. It was like, Oh, if I abandon this, if I try to move away from these thoughts or tendencies, I’ll turn into a couch potato and I won’t have any drive, and I’ll just be a complete basket case on the floor when, in fact, perfectionism, a lot of research shows, makes you focus so much on this fear of failure that it holds you back much More than it helps you move forward. So the two are, you might have perfectionist tendencies, even if you don’t think and then once you accept that it’s okay to move away from them, they are not as helpful as you think they are. Yeah. And
Eric Zimmer 26:33
then the third myth is what you sort of hit on in your personal story, which is, you know, I have to be perfect to be valued.
Liz Fosslien 26:38
Yeah, exactly. And I think that for many people shows up in their personal lives,
Eric Zimmer 26:44
yep, yep. How have you worked with perfection in your own life? And then, you know, we can go into some of the the tools from the book, but I’m just kind of curious, like, in your personal life, like, that’s a big one, you know, how have you worked through that? Yeah,
Liz Fosslien 26:55
so I did see a therapist, which was really helpful. And the story I share in the book that has stuck with me the most is my therapist asked me to recall a time like just a really great experience I had with a pet. And I remember this like Grumpy Persian cat that I used to Cat sit, and she, you know, she had the face that indicated she hated everyone, and she had a breathing problem at that point, so she would have these little snorts. And I adored this cat. And she would, you know, she would just like, come and sit, and sometimes she looked, she seemed like irritated there, but just by sitting there, like I just liked to be around this cat. And my therapist said, Isn’t it possible that, like your boyfriend, just likes to be around you, and even if you’re just sitting on the couch and you’re not telling a joke and you don’t look a certain way, that there’s just a lot of comfort and having another person be there, even if they’re just being there. And so that is something. And I also think about my mom. If I call her, I have a close relationship with her, it helps me feel better. And that’s how I felt about my boyfriend, like he didn’t, you know, if he just woke up and had bad head and everything like, I don’t know, I just loved that he was there. And so starting to see things from that perspective. And then the second was also actually one of the tips that is in the book, too, is about moving away from avoidance goals to approach goals. And so an avoidance goal is avoiding failure, so I don’t want him to see me without makeup. And an approach goal is about attaining something positive. And an approach goal is inherently more exciting, and you feel good when you reach it right, like, if you just avoid failure, that’s not an inspiring goal. You’re going to avoid failure. And it’s like, Great, okay, I don’t get anything out of this. So in the context of that relationship, an approach goal might have been, I’m gonna put on my ratty pajamas and I’m gonna show him my favorite cheese, and we’re actually gonna have like, a fun time eating cheese out of the fridge, you know? And like, that was like, opening up a little more. But then it was also it culminated in this, like, really fun bonding experience. And so often we we just get into this mindset of, I don’t want to mess up this presentation, and instead, if we think free of expectations, how can I just really show people how excited I am about the material? And that’s a really different way of starting to work on that presentation.
Eric Zimmer 29:24
You talked about not needing to get things to 100% as being, you know, one thing to do, how do you start to know within yourself when you’re sort of in that zone of like, okay, I’m spending a ton of extra time to get very little value out of that. How do you know that? Because I think that’s hard for perfectionists. And then secondly, once you know that, what are some of the things you might say to yourself to actually get you to set it down and move on? Yeah.
Liz Fosslien 29:55
So one question that I found helpful is, when would I. Be ready to ask someone for feedback, and they could give me useful feedback. Usually, if you get to 100% you’re actually not open to feedback anymore, because you’re like, This is great. I don’t why
Eric Zimmer 30:12
should I need anyone to help that’s so interesting? Yeah? Like, if
Liz Fosslien 30:15
I’m, let’s say I’m writing an article. I also can’t hand someone a page that just has completely incomprehensible notes on it. They’re not going to give me feedback. So I think that’s a nice heuristic of like, when is this in enough shape where someone gets where I’m going and they can provide useful direction? I think that’s one. And then I think it’s also just opening yourself to learning. And so saying another thing that I found useful is if I am in a silo working on this to 100% I might get to 100% and realize this is not something that resonates with people or not what my boss wanted. So I’m actually creating more work for everyone, as opposed to, like, handing it to her at like 70% and then maybe making some course corrections. So it’s about creating some breaks for yourself. And then also, I really like this question of, like, when would this be ready for feedback? Yeah,
Eric Zimmer 31:10
my partner and I were talking about that recently in that, you know, when I’m giving a talk for our spiritual habits program, or, you know, the second spiritual habits circle of connection, she co teaches, but I tend to start the lessons, and what I realized was exactly what you just said, although I wouldn’t articulate it as well, which is that I think I’m almost done by the time I bring her in, and at that point I don’t really want feedback, because what I want is to be done, you know. Like I think I’m done, you know, right? And so we talked about like, I gotta bring her in, like, there’s got to be enough there for her to critique to your point, like, but I need to bring her in much earlier, because I may be way more open to feedback at that point and not take it in the way that I, you know. Sometimes I just get a little grumpy, you know, yeah, and the more time I spend with it, oftentimes, the more attached I get to the way it is totally which is in the music business, we used to call it rough mix. Itis right. You’ve listened to it this certain way in this rough mix for so long that that’s how you think it should sound. And somebody comes along and may have a much better mix, but you’re not open to it, because you’re sort of mired in in what your idea of it was,
Liz Fosslien 32:20
yeah, I love those examples. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You also
Eric Zimmer 32:24
talk about one of my very favorite topics, which is how extreme language can cause extreme emotion. And you talk about getting rid of always and never.
Liz Fosslien 32:35
Yeah. So those are two words that usually show you’ve slipped into your perfectionist tendencies and that your self reflection has turned self destructive. So examples are good. Parents never yell at their kids. Great. Employees are always turning everything in five days before the deadline, and those are extreme views of the world that just aren’t true. So again, it’s usually a sign that whatever thought is banging around your brain is not an accurate perception of reality. And so I think it’s nice to have those words so that when you notice them say like, oh, okay, I see what’s happening here. I need to think about this differently. So, you know, like, good parents never feel frustrated at their kids and actually say, like, good parents do feel frustrated. It’s totally fine. How can I just navigate through this situation? How can I make it better in a work context? You know, great employees or employees who get promoted never make mistakes, also not true, and so allows you to step back from that and say, I made a mistake? Can I ask my boss for advice on how to avoid making that mistake in the future? I think it just allows you to detach a little bit from these extreme ways of thinking that cause us to berate ourselves and then start to feel really down and low.
Eric Zimmer 33:56
Yeah, those two words tend to be destructive wherever they show up, whether it’s in our own lives. Like you said, a good parent should never get angry. Or when we’re communicating to somebody else, you always do this or you never do that, you know, like they just, they’re troublesome words, yeah,
Liz Fosslien 34:10
I love that you brought up too in communication and conversation. You know, if you say you always do X, that person is just immediately going to come up with an example of when they didn’t do it 100% Yep, it’s not a useful conversation.
Eric Zimmer 34:24
I’m sure I’ve done plenty of the saying always or never, but I know for sure I’ve been in relationships with people who have used those phrases. And you’re right, I’m immediately like, but that’s not true. You know, like, you know, which is missing the point totally. A more nuanced version of me would be like, All right, I understand what they’re saying underneath. Ignore the word, you know, that’s a feeling, but, but it’s very hard, totally, it’s very hard to not counter, you know, a factual incorrectness there. Yeah. You talk about naming your inner perfectionist and finding a non perfectionist role model. Say a little more about that.
Liz Fosslien 35:44
Yeah. So it’s, again, a method to allow yourself to distance yourself from your thoughts. And so you know, for your perfectionist, it might be a part of you that is useful to engage with sometimes, but you don’t want it to consume all of you. And so calling your perfectionist, I think in the book, we give examples of like, grace or Darth, Vader or Bozo. Can be a goofy name, whatever feels good to you, yeah. And then when you start to have these thoughts, like, good parents always do X, great employees never do Y, saying like, Oh, that’s Bob, my inner perfectionist, yeah, and I’m actually gonna say, like, what does Bob want in this moment? Right? Like, there actually might be some useful information in there. Like, Bob really wants to be a great employee. It’s useful to know that, like, Oh, I do want to do well in this job. But you’re not sort of like leaning into those emotions and taking them or those thoughts and taking them as fact and then a non perfectionist role model. I think it’s actually really useful if there’s someone at work that you really admire, a mentor, just someone in your personal life, to also note when they flub something or they don’t immediately respond to an email, because, again, I think it helps you realize that everyone makes mistakes. No one is like on their A game, 24/7, and so you can still be successful and impressive and this incredible person in someone’s life, even if you’re not, you know, striking a home run every second of the day. If
Eric Zimmer 37:15
anyone needs a clear example of non perfection in their life, I offer myself up. Say, I love that. Yeah, I love naming my inner characters I’ve shared often. You know about my inner depressive tendency? Person is Eeyore, you know, from Winnie the Pooh. You know, that’s a good Yeah? And it makes me kind of laugh every time I start putting my thoughts in yours voice, you know? Yeah, it’s good. So I’ve had people ask me if I would record whole guided meditations for them in yours voice, but I have stayed away from that for now. All right, now it’s my turn to pick a a I’ve got a bug flying around here. I’m not going to fall into the perfectionist idea of that, like it should never have a bug in your house.
Speaker 1 38:04
Yep, bugs are everywhere. They’re everywhere. Yes,
Eric Zimmer 38:08
I’m gonna pick my big feeling, and I’m gonna go with comparison, not actually, because it’s one of the ones that I struggle with as much, because I actually don’t as much anymore in my life, but it’s one I know a lot of people do struggle with, and I found a lot of the things you guys had to say about it, in a lot of cases, counter intuitive and counter to what people think. So let’s talk a little bit about comparison. It can be one of the most painful, big feelings out there. What are a couple of the myths around comparison? Yeah,
Liz Fosslien 38:39
I think nowadays, so much of the conversation centers around social media, and so I think it’s easy then, to assume if I get off of Instagram or Facebook, I will be free of comparison. And that’s just not true. There’s infinite examples of like your neighbor, your colleague, your whatever. You’re still going to compare yourself to people. So it can be absolutely helpful to limit social media intake, but it’s not sort of the magic wand with which you can eradicate all of these emotions. The second one that we talk about in the book is, if you just get to a certain point, you’ll feel great about yourself, and you’ll never compare yourself to anyone else. You know, it’s very true that there’s always going to be someone who is better than you, quote, unquote, on some metric. If you have infinite money, you’re suddenly going to turn to like looks, or, I don’t know, access to some whatever, or maybe even like meaning or whatever it is, you’re just you can never be the best at everything. And so I think it’s really useful to catch yourself when you hear yourself saying, like, I’ll be happy when blank, because the truth is, that’s not guaranteed, and it’s more important to figure out how to be happy with what you have. Those are two. Big ones, and then the one that I find the most interesting, which we stumbled across this research a couple years ago, and it’s been really helpful to me, is that to overcome comparison or to envy, you should compare yourself less. So that’s the myth. Is that just like don’t look at other people. And the truth is, it’s actually research shows makes you feel better to compare yourself more. So what the researchers find is they asked people like, how good of a runner Do you think you are? And people said they were not good runners, because in their head, they thought of the absolute best runner they knew. But when the researcher said, list out in your life 10 people you know personally and how well they run, and now evaluate how good of a runner you are. People were like, Oh, I’m pretty good, yeah. And so it’s like, I think it’s really easy. If we think about, you know, how successful Am I, we think about Mark Zuckerberg, and we’re like, I’m so unsuccessful. But then if you actually put it into perspective, like you’re in the top 5% of all money brackets, or what or whatever it might be, or you think about your peer group, you’re usually not like far, far, far behind everyone else. And so I think actually having a wider comparison range can put things into better perspective.
Eric Zimmer 41:15
Yeah, I also think that ideas around what types of comparison can actually be helpful is really interesting. Yeah, absolutely.
Liz Fosslien 41:23
So comparison is sort of inevitable. So then it starts, you start to think about when I have when I notice myself comparing, or I notice myself being envious of someone, what is helpful to me and what is harmful. And so what is helpful is to take a step back from that emotion and say, What is my envy telling me? So envy can reveal what you value. So it might be you really envy a colleague who just got promoted. And what you learn is that maybe you really want to be promoted too, or you really want to do well, but then it’s still useful to kind of drill down of like, yes, you want that. But do you want the day to day of that? Because it might be that you’re envious of a CEO because they’re successful, and you’ve been sort of socialized to want to be the most successful. But do you actually want to do everything it takes to be a CEO? Is that the work life balance you want is that this want to make the same sacrifices? And so I think it’s about really asking yourself this series of questions that can then highlight when the comparison isn’t useful and it’s flawed, and then it allows you to more easily step away from it.
Eric Zimmer 42:32
Yeah, I really love that idea of really thinking about I’m looking at this thing that I think I want. What does that really entail? What do I really need to do to get there? What are some questions that are helpful for getting into that? I think you guys call it the nitty gritty, right? Getting into the nitty gritty of, like, I look at somebody and I’m comparing myself the CEO one is a is a great one. You know? I could think about, I could look at somebody, a male model, Men’s Health Cover Model and look at that me like, well, I want to look like that. But when I think about the way that guy has to live, yeah, I suddenly go, Ah, well, you know, I think I’m doing okay, you know? Like, I’m not sure that I want that life. Yeah,
Liz Fosslien 43:13
absolutely, yeah. So I think the first question is just like, what do they have that makes me feel less than in that example, it’s like they have whatever this body that is on the cover of a magazine. And then it’s also useful to think about, like, do I really want that? And am I willing to, like, you just said, like, live the life that would lead to that. And often we say no. So one example I share in the book is I’m an introvert. My worst days are when I have, like, back to back meetings. I’m just exhausted. And I have a friend who is very successful was promoted, and like took over a team of 200 people. And I initially was really envious of her, and then I saw her Google Calendar, and was just like, Nope, you know, I could not do that. It’s not for me. And then it it just really helped those feelings abate quite a bit. So I think the day to day question is really great, but then it’s also useful to ask, like, what void would having that fill? Because often we anchor too much on the specific thing versus like, what actually is like the bigger need behind the feeling of envy. So it might be that it’s not really that you want the body that’s on the cover of a magazine. You just wish you could feel more confident. And then it’s useful to think like, oh, there’s actually many other ways that I can improve my confidence that don’t have to do with me, like never touching anything with sugar in it again,
Eric Zimmer 44:43
right? I just go over to Chris’s and look at his body, and I suddenly feel way, way better. It’s not nice. And I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding. You’ve got a question in there too that I love, which is, you know, swap out the question, why don’t I have that with Do I have enough? Yeah,
Liz Fosslien 45:00
again, it’s so easy for us to anchor our comparison benchmark on people who are better than us, or not better, but like, seem like they’re doing better. That was a correct wording. And it is then really useful to think, like, actually, I’m pretty happy with my life. And, you know, I don’t want for many things. And so right now I’m really just comparing myself to this, maybe 10,000 extra dollars, you know, every two years would be really nice. But fundamentally, like, I live in a safe country with a stable government, and like, it’s just useful to remind yourself of that as well, of like, all that you have, as opposed to only focusing on everything you do not have.
Eric Zimmer 45:44
Yeah, I had a moment. I’ve shared this a couple times on the podcast, but it was a really poignant moment for me. It was years ago. We were relatively early in doing the podcast, and we went out to LA and we interviewed Lewis Howes, who has gone to be a huge podcaster. He’s been on, like, Ellen and all this stuff, and so he had this really nice apartment in Hollywood, and I went out on his balcony, and I was just looking down at the view, and I was just thinking, like, Man Lewis has got it all. Like, wow, this is incredible. And feeling a little bit of envy, and I looked up over my shoulder, and what I saw were these just incredible houses on the hill. And I went, you know what? I bet Lewis looks over his shoulder at those houses. And to your point, that that never ends, right? That is an endless process. And so that’s one of the best things for me. And why I like that question of, you know, do I have enough? Is when I really start to recognize that again, I think what you’re saying is that recognizing what we’re envious can tell us a little bit about what we value, which is true. And sometimes it can be really helpful to realize this thing that I think if I had it, then I would just that I would be happy to realize, like, that’s not true. Yeah, like that happiness doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t come from like, Oh, if I just was in Bali this week, like, those people are I would be happy. Like, that’s not true. I’ve been on vacation in beautiful places and been perfectly miserable. You know? It just helps me to recognize that sort of unwind some of those feelings.
Liz Fosslien 47:18
Yeah, same. I’ve also been, you know, on the trip of a lifetime, and just been not happy at all. It’s in the book, we talk about something called the new level, new devil phenomenon, which is actually from video games, but it’s often, yeah, it’s like, when I achieve X, I’ll be happy. So it might be when I become a manager, I’ll be happy. But when you become that your peer group also changes somewhat. And so now everyone around you is also a manager, because now you’re going to manager meetings. And so it sort of normalizes this thing that seems really unattainable at some point. And so you just start looking upwards again. So it’s kind of like whatever level you get to, there will be a new devil of the new thing that would, quote, unquote, make you happy?
Eric Zimmer 48:03
Yeah, we’ve talked about it as sort of that, you know, if this thing, then I’ll be happy. And one of the things that a, getting older and B, having some degree of success will do for you doesn’t always do this, but it can confer a certain degree of wisdom, because you have enough opportunities where you’re like, Oh, I got what I thought I wanted, and look, it didn’t do it right. Like, it didn’t fix me, you know, it didn’t. And you really start to go, oh, okay, you know, what are the skills that I can have that allow me to actually inhabit where I’m at right now more fully? Yeah, totally. Is a way through that. Well, we’re nearing the end of time. What other things from the book really stood out to you, or from this work that you feel like would be really helpful for listeners as a last couple things, if anything comes to mind, if not, I can certainly drum up another question or two. But
Liz Fosslien 48:54
yeah, I think something that I found really valuable actually comes from our chapter on despair, and it’s this concept of time chunking, which is, you know, the emotions we’re talking about are really hard. There’s often messaging that’s like, you know, this was meant to happen for a reason. You know, this is a learning experience. And though you know, like, it’s a sure, maybe it’s a learning experience a year from now, maybe you can look back on it and craft a meaningful story. But I think most of us something like grief or deep regret, we’d rather not experience it. And so in those moments when it’s just like, so so hard, I think it’s so easy to be like, this is how I’m going to feel forever. And what I found really valuable is time chunking, which is then I need to get through the next hour. And it might be like I need to get through the next moment, and then I need to get through the moment after that, I think it’s fine to say there are days when my goal for the day is to make it through the day. Yep, you know. And like, just what do I need to do today? Because maybe after. Sleep tomorrow will look a little different. Maybe I just need to, like, watch Netflix all day. Maybe I need to, you know, like, lie on the couch and just be sad. And often, when we talk about these big emotions, there’s not enough that’s focused on just like, how do you just make it through when you’re in the worst of it and in those moments when it’s actually hard to believe there’s a better and it’s hard to believe that this will ever be a memory that is meaningful or has created meaning for you. And I think it really comes down to like one foot in front of the other, or like one breath at a time, if you’re lying down, can’t get up, yeah? But time chunking is something I’ve come back to, yeah,
Eric Zimmer 50:39
as a recovering alcoholic, right? I mean, aa, I think is the place that sort of, that probably didn’t invent it, but certainly the place that made one day at a time, like the popular phrase that it became, because it’s so valuable. You know, when you’re first getting sober, it’s so overwhelming to contemplate, like, I have to do this forever. Are you out of your mind? Yeah, like, there’s no possible way. So, okay, just today. And like you said, sometimes it’s like, just this hour, just don’t take a drink this hour and hope that something shifts. Yeah, that time chunking is such a valuable skill to be able to do. And I love what you said about recognizing, like, okay, maybe this is a growth lesson, and I’m gonna grow from this is one of those things that I always find it when somebody’s in despair, I feel like I’m always trying to balance when I’m trying to help somebody who’s in despair, like 97% of me is going I feel you. I simply like I’m with you. 3% of me wants you just to keep your eye just a little bit on the horizon that says, like, this is going somewhere for you, so not to minimize what you’re feeling like the vast majority of is like, it’s okay not to be okay. And I know when I’ve been in despair, it’s always helpful to have just a little bit of looking at the horizon where I realized, like, this will change. I’m gonna grow from this. What’s the right balance of that? I think is always challenging, but I find it really helpful to have both those things in my awareness a little bit.
Liz Fosslien 52:09
Yeah, absolutely. I think that often when someone comes to us, or when we just notice that they’re suffering or going through something, it feels good to be like, Okay, I have solutions. I’m gonna help you fix this, and that’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but I agree with you. It’s like, first, you just need to say, you know, maybe I don’t totally know what you’re going through, but I acknowledge that, like, this is really hard, and I’m here for you, and I, you know, just like, it’s okay, whatever you’re feeling, it’s okay. I’m here. And I think that is just so, so crucial before you start doing this, like it’ll get better, or there’s like a light at the end of the tunnel type thing, I think too often we just skip that part entirely. Yeah,
Eric Zimmer 52:48
there’s a psychologist at the University of Michigan. His name’s Ethan cross, and he wrote a book called chatter. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but he had some really interesting studies about helping people who are going through really difficult times. And what these studies seem to point to was only sympathizing with people didn’t lead to good results that you did need some degree of that solution oriented piece. And when I was reading it, it just sort of struck me that, like, of course, it’s both right. We all know, if you skip right past the empathy, sympathy part of the game and you try and shepherd somebody right to solutions like that doesn’t work. Nobody wants nobody wants that. So it is a matter of like, okay, how can I be with you in this first and how long that takes really depends on the person, right? Like, I can’t say, like, well, all right, I gave you your 15 minutes, and now we’re going to talk solutions. Like, it really does depend on the thing. But I found the research interesting that it sort of said you kind of need both. And it made me think about the argument that I hear a lot between men and women, where, you know, women are saying, I just need you to hear me, and men just want to solve the problem. And when I was reading it, I went, like, we’re both right. Like, there’s value in both of those. How do we make sure that they’re both there? But you can’t get to the second one, I don’t think, effectively without the first one
Liz Fosslien 54:17
totally. Yeah. Agree with all of that, and that research is super interesting. Yeah.
Eric Zimmer 54:22
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. It is such a pleasure to have you back on. I love the book, like I said, I love the way it’s organized. I love the title, how to be okay when things aren’t okay. And I love the drawings. It’s really well done. We’ll have links in the show notes to where people can get access to you and to the book, and all of that is there anywhere you want to point people to
Liz Fosslien 54:43
no show notes. The book is available everywhere books are sold, so hopefully you can drag it down, yep,
Eric Zimmer 54:49
yep. And it’s called big feelings, how to be okay when things are not okay. Thanks again. Liz, it’s always lovely to see you. You
Liz Fosslien 54:56
too. Thanks for having me. You.
Chris Forbes 55:13
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