the link between perfectionism and vague messaging
this is keeping clinicians invisible!
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people aren’t responding to your calls to action. and you know it’s because your messaging isn’t landing.
you’ve been trying to get specific yet every time you do, you either spiral into fomo (i don’t want to limit myself) or imposter syndrome (who am i to say that?).
nothing you come up with ever feels good enough. and so you stay vague. you keep circling it. looking for the next strategy to figure it out.
but the thing is… it’s not a strategy problem. at least not entirely.
your brain is keeping your messaging vague on purpose to protect you. and until we address that part- you’ll keep spinning.
and before we get into it, if you want to build a coaching business that replaces your clinical income… the $100K Healer is the space for you. subscribe now.
from fomo to imposter syndrome
every time you try to hone in your message and make it more specific, more targeted, there’s this emotional response. your stomach drops. there’s a fear, a resistance, an unsettling kind of feeling. sometimes it’s almost like a tunnel vision, a dissociation. you feel dizzy.
or maybe it doesn’t feel like fear at all. it feels logical. i don’t want to limit myself. i don’t want to close any doors.
somebody tells you to niche down . just talk about burnout, stop trying to cover everything. and it genuinely feels like a wrong business decision, not a fear response.
that’s the fomo end of the spectrum.
then there’s the imposter syndrome end.
there are other people more qualified to say that. i don’t have enough results around this yet. i can’t guarantee this.
either way, it ends the same: that’s not it. this message isn’t good enough. i can’t figure it out.
you’re circling it, close to it, but it’s just not it.
then you go into your head to try to think your way out, spinning in circles with chat gpt, going through another worksheet.
you either stay vague and keep putting out content that feels adjacent but not quite right, or you stop putting anything out at all because you know it’s not it yet.
if this loop feels familiar, lets unpack what’s happening on a deeper psychological level.
your brain thinks vague = safe
here’s what’s happening psyhologically
perfectionism triggers a destabilizing response to negative feedback. cognitively. emotionally. physiologically.
perfectionism sits on a spectrum. the higher you identify as perfectionistic, the more your brain is wired to experience negative feedback as a genuine threat — not a mild discomfort, but a nervous system event.
there’s research on this: perfectionists show greater emotional dysregulation, higher cognitive disruption (rumination, decreased working memory), and stronger physiological stress responses (elevated heart rate, blood pressure) in response to negative feedback compared to non-perfectionists.
and the icing on the cake? the reward from positive feedback isn’t big enough to compensate for the risk of negative feedback.
so the perfectionist wants to avoid situations where feedback can occur- unless it’s certain the feedback will be positive.
what negative feedback in residency did to my nervous system
when i was reading these research studies i had this flashback to a moment in residency.
it was my intern year. i was on the labor suite, maybe my third or fourth week. there was an attending who pulled me out to the courtyard to give me “feedback” on my performance.
before that moment i wasn’t used to experiencing anything other than praise in an academic context.
but what she told me in that courtyard, completely crushed me.
she said something to the effect of: your clinical knowledge is significantly lower than it should be for where you are.
it felt like a stab in the heart. my stomach dropped. i dissociated. i was floating above the conversation and had and aerial, drone view of the two figures in scrubs sitting in the courtyard.
i don’t remember a single word she said after that. when the conversation was over. i nodded, said thank you for the feedback, walked to the bathroom, and broke down. like on the floor ugly crying.
that’s what negative feedback does to a perfectionistic brain. it sounds so dramatic, but now i realize thats how its wired.
and your brain will do everything it can to make sure it never experiences that kind of negative feedback again.
the three ways vague messaging feels safer
vague messaging is actually a risk mitigation strategy.
here’s how it works:
1. it keeps your options open
if you get specific, you’re making a definitive choice. definitive choices can be wrong choices. wrong choices invite negative feedback.
so instead you keep all the doors open and avoid making the wrong choice.
2. it makes evaluation impossible
if you say my coaching will help you feel better, no one can definitively say it doesn’t do that.
if you don’t take a stand, no one can disagree with you. if you don’t make a claim it can’t be picked apart. keeping it intangible, vague, and unclear helps you avoid judgement, retaliation, disagreement.
3. it reduces accountability.
the more tangible your claims, the more you take on accountability to deliver. which can be a good thing. it could be a sense of responsibility that activates you. but perfectionists usually internalize it as a pressure that causes collapse.
when you have an all-or-nothing relationship with results, more accountability just means more potential for failure. so the brain quietly keeps things intangible to avoid ever feeling like it fell short.
we’re not making our messaging unclear on purpose. but we struggle to clarify it because on some level, staying vague, intangible and unclear creates safety.
what actually helps
awareness is step one. when you understand the psychological mechanism at play.
a threat detection system trying to protect you.
you stop fighting yourself for not being able to “just get clear” and start working with yourself.
but awareness alone doesn’t get you there. you also need a context that makes specificity feel safe.
basically you need a way to clarify your messaging without activating your threat detection system.
some of the ways I approach this with my clients:
separating the internal positioning from the external positioning
titrating your specificity little by little. nervous systems do well with titration.
framing the messaging as a playful experiment that we are running. when there are no permanent choices, the threat goes down.
because here’s what i want you to know:
you DO have a tangible message.
you DO have the ability to say something that moves people.
and once we create the conditions where your brain feels safe enough… the message that brings your vision to life will pour out of you.
how to get my support on crafting a message that moves people:
Visionary Messaging. an 8 week coworking journey to craft a message that moves people. Enrolling now. Starting May 8th.
The Client Inflow Fix: learn the messaging framework that opens up the floodgates to clients.