Stoic Wellbeing - Keep Your Eye on the Prize

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

I finally became a British citizen after years of putting it off – not because I didn’t qualify, but because perfectionism kept slowing me down. In this episode, I share the real reason I delayed, what happened when I shifted my focus from “perfect” to “done,” and revisit how the concept of maximizers vs. satisficers can help you move forward in your life.Read the article (and come say hi on Substack).***I’m your host, Sarah Mikutel, a communication and mindset coach. My work is about helping people like you share your voice, strengthen your relationships, and have more fun.As an American expat living in the U.K., I value curiosity, courage, and joy. A few things I love: wandering European streets in search of the best vegetarian meal, practicing Italian, and helping my clients design lives that feel rich and meaningful.If you're ready to have conversations that open doors – in your career, your relationships, and your life – let’s talk.Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

What is it that you really want? It is so easy to get lost in our to-do list and take our eyes off the prize. For example, your goal might be to move abroad, but then you get so lost in finding the perfect suitcase that it prevents you from moving forward. And here is a personal story to demonstrate this. I became a British citizen in January, and this is something that I would. was eligible for years ago. What held me back were the requirements that felt really onerous to me. I had to log every trip in and out of the UK for the last five years, and as somebody who travels a lot, that just felt really overwhelming. Get biometrics done, get letters of reference, pay a fee. So logging my whereabouts was a big mental blocker for me, and so was the test that I had to take the life in the UK test. I heard British people say, oh, I heard it was really hard.

I'm sure that I could never pass it. So in my mind, this test was a massive obstacle and it was going to take me months to study and I wanted to ace it and I was just putting it off for the perfect time and the perfect conditions. But then I realized my priority goal wasn't to score perfectly on an exam, it was to become a citizen of the country I'd been living in for almost 15 years. So after many years of delay of putting off citizenship, I chose an exam date only three weeks into the future, and then I just started cramming my buns off. I had less than a month to remember facts such as Bobby Moore being captain for England when it won the World Cup in 1966. I took 40 online practice tests, and I noted all the areas.

that were unfamiliar to me. I created little stories to help dates and names stick in my temporary memory. For example, the first British Prime Minister was Sir Robert Walpole. So in my mind, I was saying, everybody dance around the wallpole. We finally have our first Prime Minister in Westminster. And then, on the morning of the exam, I ate a veggie crepe, walked into the testing center, handed over my phone, underwent in an unusually thorough body search to make sure I wasn't hiding any notes and maybe that's a story for another time. And I passed the life in the UK test. When I moved past the distraction of feeling like I had to score 100 on this test and clarified what really mattered citizenship, everything moved forward and I had my UK passport in a matter of

months. Where in life might you be obsessing over the minor goal and losing track of the major goal? It is so easy to get caught up in this, and I see this a lot in my perfectionist clients who find themselves procrastinating, unable to move forward until everything is perfect in their minds. But of course, that time never comes. The thing is, we can't improve on our ideas, on our businesses, on our dance moves, literally anything, unless we take action toward our primary goal. We have to actually take a first step before we can refine what we're doing. And as I was reflecting on this, I remember that I did a podcast episode years ago on getting over perfectionism, making decisions, taking action, and I'm going to play some of that for you now. Launching this course has been my dream for a while and setting this up just took a lot longer than I was expecting.

and I realize now that this is mostly because I was approaching my business with a maximizer mindset. Right now I'm reading 168 hours by Laura Vander Kim, and in it she talks about the difference between maximizers and satisfizers. Maximizers want the best of everything, and the satisfizers actually make decisions. They give themselves a few minutes to make a choice. and then they go with it, while maximizers will spend weeks agonizing over what's the best email service provider, what's the best website host, and even when we know our stuff, we'll go back and research it again and again for hours because we want everything to be perfect. But striving for perfection is never satisfying because it doesn't lead us anywhere. We just keep spinning our

wheels instead of moving forward. So in life, I aim to become better at making quick decisions instead of over-analyzing everything. Another realization that I had is we're never going to be 100% ready to start something big. Anything worth doing is going to work us up a bit and just make us nervous and we just have to be okay with that and jump in even when we're still scared. I kept setting launch dates for my course, but then I would let them slip because I didn't feel ready. There was so much more to do. And I almost did that this time, but I stopped myself because I made a public announcement that I was launching podcast, Launch Academy on November 19th. I said it out loud to other people. That accountability has, you know, made this the most productive

week I've had all year. So I have a specific deadline. Certain things need to happen and they're happening. When we don't give ourselves these real time limits for projects, big or small, we just let time expand in, we assign ourselves all of these extra tasks and research that would be great if we had a thousand years to do all of this stuff. But we don't. Maximizers are so guilty of this. And that's what leads us to have those gross feelings at the end of a Saturday when we feel like we spent all day working on a personal project, but then we've got nothing to show for it. We're like, oh my gosh, what did I even do today? I feel like I've been working all day and there's nothing. There's nothing to show for it. And that's because we fell into this

perfectionist research spin. And I'm pretty laid back. I used to think I was laid back with everything, but I realized in recent years that I actually am a perfectionist in certain things that the things that I really care about. But it's not serving me to be this obsessive about things. And that's why I'm starting my podcasting course. That was so fun to hear Younger Me riffing on perfectionism and feeling ready and moving forward. What a beautiful reminder to myself and hopefully to you as well. So thank you, Younger Me. One thing that can really pull us off course is avoiding discomfort or trying to to avoid discomfort. This shows up in so many parts of our life. We tinker with small, comfortable things while putting off the step that actually gets us to our goal. It feels safer to keep

preparing than to risk failing at the thing we actually want. For example, are you spending so much time fine-tuning your LinkedIn profile that you never send the email that could actually open the next door for you. Or maybe like me, you're aiming for the perfect score on something when good enough would get you exactly where you want to go and a lot faster. When we pour all of our energy into these smaller, safer goals, the easier it is to lose sight of what really matters. I'm not saying you shouldn't have small goals. You absolutely should. It's good to have milestones. That is very helpful. It's when we get stuck in them and we can't move forward. We can't make any decisions. The moment you name what really matters and start moving toward it,

everything else gets simpler and progress finally happens. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I'm Sarah Micatel and it has been my pleasure to connect with you today. And in case you didn't know, I have a substack up and running. So if you want to contact me, get in a little dialogue about what you heard today, that would be great to hear from you. I'll share a link to that in the episode notes. That's all for now. Have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or. or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.