Embracing Imperfection and the Nonlinear Path with Carrie Andersen, PhD

For recovering perfectionists, type-A planners, and those of us who really just want to get an A at life, it can be extra hard to try new things. It can also be super hard when life throws us curve balls and those meticulous plans have to change. But it doesn’t have to be quite so bad! There are a lot of adventures to be had when we can loosen our grip on how things are “supposed” to be.

In this conversation with Carrie Andersen, PhD (former educator and valiant career changer), Carrie shares about her blog The Side Quest Project, her Brodents podcast, and the joys of exploring the nooks and crannies of life without needing to follow a linear path.

It’s an affirming listen for anyone struggling with wanting to figure your life out (spoiler: you don’t have to!) or wanting some inspiration for adding a bit more curiosity, playfulness, and joy to your day-to-day routines. 

To support this podcast and help keep the lights on, please consider joining my Patreon or just send me a tip via Venmo!

Listen on Spotify

Listen on Apple

Listen on YouTube

Find the episode wherever you listen to podcasts!

Connect with Carrie

Follow her on The Side Quest Project.

Listen to Brodents. Available anywhere you listen to podcasts! But here’s the Spotify link,

Resources, References, and Links

Hero’s Journey. The narrative archetype that *most* stories follow. 

Legend Planner. https://legendplanner.com/

Skyrim. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_V:_Skyrim

Dilettante: “a person who is or seems to be interested in a subject, but whose understanding of it is not very deep or serious”

Past life regression. “What Is Past Life Regression?” 

Kintsugi. Read Carrie’s post about it.

Radiolab rat laughter episode. “Is Laughter Just a Human Thing?” 

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).   

Transcript

Note: this transcript was generated by AI. Please forgive any malapropisms and misspellings. It’s the robot’s fault!

[00:00] Carrie Andersen: I mean, when did dilettante become a bad word?

[00:03] Ooh, is it a bad word? Like, I. I remember learning that word and thinking like, okay, people say this as. It’s a. As if it’s a bad thing, but aren’t we all supposed to be exploring a lot of different things?

[00:15] Cate Blouke: No, that’s. It’s not productive.

[00:20] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[00:22] So that was another interesting moment. I don’t remember how old I was. It was probably, like, an SAT vocabulary word.

[00:28] And I remember thinking, like, oh, that sounds great. It’s like a Renaissance person.

[00:32] But no, it’s actually, like, kind of pejorative.

[00:35] Cate Blouke: Yeah, no, it has a pejorative connotation. But I’m like, oh, maybe I want to reclaim dilettante. Like, I don’t know. There’s. That’s a fun word.

[00:42] Carrie Andersen: Now’s the time.

[00:43] Cate Blouke: Yeah, now’s the time.

[00:47] Welcome to Settling is Bullshit, a sweary podcast about claiming your joy.

[00:52] If you are craving healthier boundaries, a greater sense of purpose, or an increased capacity to feel at ease in your own skin, then you are in the right place, my friend.

[01:02] I’m your host, Kate Blauch, joy activist and life coach to smart and sensitive humans.

[01:07] I’m here to offer you practical tools and playful encouragement to step forward and be your most awesome self. My hope is that each episode will leave you feeling a bit more empowered to make brave choices and claim your joy.

[01:22] Hello, my dear.

[01:24] Today’s episode is with a friend of mine from graduate school, Carrie Anderson,

[01:30] who, in a lot of ways, is like a regular person.

[01:33] She works a day job.

[01:35] She’s not, like a service provider like many of the folks that I’ve had on the podcast.

[01:40] But Carrie has a really delightful and cool approach to life that I really wanted to have on the podcast and talk about. She’s also,

[01:49] like myself, a recovering perfectionist. And I identify as a former academic. She identifies as a former educator. And you’ll hear us talk about that a little bit,

[01:58] but we both have really embraced the, like, nonlinear career path,

[02:05] the playful and exploratory approach to life. And Carrie does that through something she calls side quests. And again, you’ll hear us talking about it. But this episode is just a really nice, affirming listen for anyone who’s trying struggles with perfectionism,

[02:22] for anyone who struggles with, like, wanting to have your life figured out and feeling like maybe you’re not on the path that you’re quote, unquote, supposed to be on.

[02:33] And it’s just a great conversation about how maybe we don’t have to Figure it out and maybe trying new stuff that we’re bad at is actually really good for us.

[02:42] So it’s a really great conversation about a lot of the things that I’ve been talking about in recent months. And full disclosure,

[02:50] ADHD got the better of me. We recorded this episode,

[02:53] like,

[02:54] more than six months ago,

[02:56] and I’m excited to finally be delivering it. But it’s also really interesting because you’re gonna hear me talking about running. And in the last six months, I’ve kind of transitioned out of long distance running.

[03:08] And so it was weird and interesting to be editing it and listening to it again.

[03:12] And that just sort of affirms for me what I have talked about a lot on this podcast, of the importance of reflective practices and of,

[03:20] you know, creating an archive and going back and listening to ourselves or looking at what we wrote. And I thought about cutting out my discussion of running, since that’s just not where I’m at in my life anymore.

[03:30] But I think it’s cool and important to leave it in and to talk about that a little bit because the whole point of all of this is that change is inevitable and we have the choice to, like, roll with it or fight with it.

[03:44] And I’m a big fan of rolling with it to the degree that I am able.

[03:49] So that’s a little preview.

[03:52] If you enjoy the episode, please share it. Please leave a review.

[03:57] And I’ve got a Patreon set up if you want to support the podcast and help me keep the metaphorical lights on. The links to that will be in the show notes.

[04:04] And you can drop me a little money to let me know that you want me to keep doing this.

[04:09] All right, Enjoy.

[04:19] Do you consider yourself a former academic? Is that part of your identity, do you think?

[04:24] Carrie Andersen: I think so. Whenever I, like, get together with a new teammate and we do like the coffee chat circuit of like, tell me about yourself. Tell me about your background. The way that I lead is.

[04:35] Well, I’m a career changer.

[04:37] Cate Blouke: Yeah.

[04:38] Carrie Andersen: And I sort of frame it as, you know, I’m a. I’m a former educator who started in high school. Like, I started in teaching high school and then moved into university research and teaching before pivoting into ux.

[04:52] So that’s. That’s sort of the through line is I. I lean on the like, career change element over the, like,

[04:58] I was an academic.

[05:00] Cate Blouke: Mm. Okay. I love that you’re a career changer.

[05:03] Carrie Andersen: I find that resonates more with folks who have similarly had more alinear paths or circu not circuitous, but paths that are a little bit less well defined and less kind of constrained within a particular pathway.

[05:19] Yeah.

[05:19] Cate Blouke: And how has that been for you?

[05:22] For me, like, leaving academia was this whole, like, giant identity shift and angsty move out of a tenure track position.

[05:30] What did sort of your journey look like?

[05:33] Carrie Andersen: Yeah, good question.

[05:34] I. When I first went to grad school, my intention was never necessarily to become a professor. It was to learn and study the things that were interesting to me.

[05:45] And if I happen to fall into an academic job,

[05:49] great. But I wasn’t necessarily married to it. I just. I knew I liked teaching because I was a high school teacher first.

[05:56] So as I went through the program, I was like, you know, I could see myself becoming a professor, but it was never a must do.

[06:03] So I. I didn’t have a real identity crisis. It was more of a, like, okay, I’ve taken this thing as far as it can go. I’ll do the next thing now.

[06:12] Cate Blouke: Interesting. Sort of. I mean, what I’m hearing about. I’m hearing very much the, like, lifelong learner thing in there. But that also tracks for why I wanted to have you on the podcast in the first place, which was to talk about your side quest,

[06:26] Persona,

[06:28] writing, adventure, like, way of being.

[06:32] And it sounds like I. I feel like there’s sort of an umbrella of, like, life is just a giant fucking quest.

[06:37] Carrie Andersen: There’s a through line. Yeah,

[06:40] yeah, I’m.

[06:41] I’m not about to say I’m on a hero’s journey by any means to kind of pull from, like, narrative constructs, but very much on a journey. And,

[06:51] you know, it may be anathema to say in our very, like, type A perfectionist,

[06:57] like, capitalist society, but I don’t really have an end game. I don’t have, like, an endpoint of, like, this is the place that I’m shooting for in terms of my life.

[07:06] I’m really just kind of keen to collect a lot of experiences,

[07:10] whatever they are, and see where it takes me. So, yeah, side questing has been kind of a fun project to kind of motivate me to. To do that as part of my day to day.

[07:21] Cate Blouke: Yeah. Oh, man.

[07:23] I didn’t realize how much I had bought into the idea that I was supposed to be working towards something until you just said that, and I was like, oh,

[07:33] that feels nice.

[07:35] Carrie Andersen: I mean, but try to say it to somebody. Like, try to say to somebody, no, I don’t have a specific goal.

[07:42] Cate Blouke: No, I do. Well, I’m a life coach.

[07:45] Like, I’m. We. I Talk to my clients about this. So like, okay, like, what are we working towards? And I’ve been working on this myself of like, what am I working towards?

[07:53] And like, what if I’m just doing shit and seeing what happens?

[07:57] Carrie Andersen: Yes, Just seeing what sticks. Like it won’t all stick, but you figure something out along the way.

[08:04] Cate Blouke: Yeah, yeah.

[08:05] Carrie Andersen: Like, I think one of the ways that I came to that is I’m one of those people who for a long time was like, okay, I don’t know where I want to go.

[08:14] I don’t necessarily know like what my values are, what my dream job is, anything like that.

[08:20] But I bet this journal will help me and literally like over. I have like five journals. Like the Legend Planner,

[08:28] the Act Daily journal. I can’t even tell you how many journals I have. Oh, but you like, you like the.

[08:32] Cate Blouke: Like journals that have prompts and like assignments in them.

[08:36] Carrie Andersen: Oh yeah. Because I’m like, this will tell me what I am supposed to be doing.

[08:41] Cate Blouke: And, and what have you learned?

[08:43] Carrie Andersen: As it turns out, goal setting is something that I, you know, outside of like, very specific,

[08:49] like skills that I’m looking to develop. Like, okay, I might have a goal to like reduce my mile time or I might have a goal to like compete in a boxing match.

[09:00] I don’t necessarily have life goals because I don’t know who the future me is going to be. So it’s just sort of like evolving along the way.

[09:08] And all of these journals, like they start with where do you want to be in five years? And I’m like, who am I going to be in five years? Who am I to say that I know what that’s going to look like at this point.

[09:19] Cate Blouke: Right. And like we could be living in a dystopian future in five years, so who knows, Right?

[09:26] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. Yeah. So. So like I go through all these processes to like, try to articulate my long term goals, my long term vision.

[09:34] Nothing stuck.

[09:36] Nothing really felt like me. Nothing really felt like an aha moment.

[09:40] So I figured, well, maybe I’ll just try like bumbling along and figuring it out and just,

[09:46] you know, putting a lot of experiences in my backpack and taking them with me and seeing who comes out of it. So that’s, that’s kind of been the path. But like, it’s not a selling point to tell somebody like, hey, it’s okay if you don’t have a direction.

[10:00] Cate Blouke: Oh, because, well, I don’t know. You’re selling me on this. Like,

[10:05] I think there’s just so much pressure to like figure ourselves out and to have a career plan and to have a trajectory.

[10:14] And certainly for me, as someone who’s like, neurodivergent and quirky,

[10:21] that hasn’t. I mean, I. I really wanted to be a college professor because I didn’t. Because I didn’t want to have a real job. Like, really, it was like, Like, I liked college.

[10:29] I liked the gratification of getting A’s.

[10:32] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[10:33] Cate Blouke: I, you know, I liked the structure. I was like, oh, this will give me variety.

[10:37] It’ll be cool. I’ll have an office. I’ll be Dr. Blauch. Like, that sounds great.

[10:41] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[10:41] Cate Blouke: And then, and then I got into it and there were things about it that were great, but I didn’t like being on the faculty.

[10:47] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. Like the day to day happiness element of it.

[10:50] Cate Blouke: Yeah.

[10:51] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[10:52] Cate Blouke: And. And part of my decision to leave was realizing that I didn’t have a career goal. I was like, I have reached. I. I have reached my career goal.

[10:59] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[11:00] Cate Blouke: And you tried it out. And that sounds boring. Like, doing the same thing for the next, like, 30 years of my fucking life sounds boring.

[11:09] Carrie Andersen: Yes.

[11:10] Yeah. I think one of the things that I’ve learned is real happiness for me is about exploring a lot of different things and not trying to typecast.

[11:20] And so much of the world out there and the pressures that we feel are about, like, finding your narrative or finding, like, the one true thing that you want to do.

[11:29] And people are more complicated than that. There’s never any one true thing. Oh, yeah. It’s about finding, like, a multitude of different things.

[11:36] Cate Blouke: Yeah. When you say, like, the one true thing, like, my stomach clenches and I’m like,

[11:41] there’s like, no, there’s no.

[11:43] I have been baking since I was like, 13, and I love it,

[11:48] but if that was all I was doing all the time, I would shrivel up and die.

[11:51] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. Yeah. And like, I’m sure there are people like that out there who have like one or two things that really, really give them joy. But I think for a lot of us, that’s really kind of a false story that you’re gonna find fulfillment in, in everything or in like one single thing,

[12:07] and that that’s not gonna change.

[12:09] So, you know, the things that are invigorating right now, maybe they’re not going to be that for me in a year from now or in six months from now. And that’s fine.

[12:18] We all have.

[12:18] Cate Blouke: Okay. So thinking of the things that are invigorating for you right now. Carrie writes both the sidequest project and you have a Podcast.

[12:28] Carrie Andersen: I do.

[12:29] Cate Blouke: Which came first?

[12:30] Carrie Andersen: The sidequest project actually came first.

[12:33] Cate Blouke: Okay, so then let’s. So let’s start there to be in a linear historical fashion.

[12:40] Carrie Andersen: Definitely. So this is the progress narrative. Yeah.

[12:43] Cate Blouke: Okay, great. What is. What is side questing?

[12:46] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[12:47] So the idea originally emerged because I was playing a lot of video games. I really love video games. I wrote about them in grad school. I’ve been playing them since I was five.

[12:58] Very, very young person tackling Super Mario Brothers on Nintendo.

[13:04] And I was playing Skyrim one day, which is an open world game where you can kind of go on a lot of different paths. You don’t have to play the main storyline.

[13:13] You can just kind of explore a massive map. And my boyfriend at the time, now, now husband,

[13:20] was watching me play Skyrim one day and he said, are you ever going to play the main storyline? And I was like,

[13:27] eventually, but right now I’m just kind of exploring and finding new places.

[13:32] And it drove him nuts because he wanted to see that main storyline.

[13:37] And I was like, huh? I’ve never been one to, like, get to that main story because I just want to, like, explore these big open worlds. And I kind of did some reflection after that and realized, like, okay, what really makes me happy and what really fulfills me is finding all of those things outside of that kind of main focus in my life,

[13:57] in stories and seeing where they take me. And, you know, it conflicted with how I had sort of grown up as a very type a person. Like, did all the extracurriculars, took all the AP classes, went to a good college, went to grad school, did.

[14:13] Did all of the things along that line. But when I reflected back and thought about my biggest accomplishments alongside the things that were really exciting and brought me joy and memorable, yeah, those accomplishments did make me happy.

[14:27] But some of the other things had nothing to do with accomplishments. Like,

[14:32] I jumped out of a plane on New Year’s Day when I was 22 years old in Hawaii. That’s a really memorable experience for me. Even though, like, I didn’t work towards that.

[14:43] It was just, hey, I want to try this weird thing without really thinking about it.

[14:48] Cate Blouke: Yeah.

[14:48] Carrie Andersen: I wrote for a standup comedy periodical which was really fun, and it gave me a lot of weird, really weird experiences.

[14:56] Cate Blouke: So,

[14:57] yeah, that was. That was one of the things we sort of bonded over in grad school is you were writing for that publication and I was doing a dissertation about humor.

[15:06] Carrie Andersen: Right.

[15:06] Cate Blouke: So we were able to geek out about that.

[15:08] Carrie Andersen: Yes. Yeah. And that had nothing to do with that very linear path that I was otherwise on in my career as a. At that point as an academic. So, yeah, it.

[15:16] It was really like it emerged kind of organically as I did some reflection about what made me feel fulfilled and what really my values were as a person. I had sort of assumed growing up that it was all about ascension and accomplishment.

[15:32] That didn’t turn out to be the case nearly as much as I thought. That stuff’s still important to me, but it was all those other things that I wanted to bring forward a little bit more that had been de.

[15:42] Emphasized.

[15:43] Yeah.

[15:44] Cate Blouke: I remember in grad school having so many goddamn hobbies and at one point being like, I can’t take another class. I have to write my dissertation. But all I wanted to do was be taking dance lessons and ceramic classes and improv and just like,

[16:01] I have long sort of struggled with feeling because of capitalism.

[16:08] Feeling like a bit of a failure because I’m not actually that interested in mastery. I just want to get, like, kind of good at a shit ton of stuff because I’m fascinated by it.

[16:16] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[16:18] I mean, when did dilettante become a bad word?

[16:21] Ooh, is it a bad word? Like, I. I remember learning that word and thinking like, okay, people say this as it’s a. As if it’s a bad thing, but aren’t we all supposed to be exploring a lot of different things?

[16:33] Cate Blouke: No, that’s. Turns out. No, it’s not productive. It’s not. Yeah.

[16:40] Carrie Andersen: So that was another interesting moment. I don’t remember how old I was. It was probably like an SAT vocabulary word. And I remember thinking, like, oh, that sounds great. It’s like a Renaissance person.

[16:50] But no, it’s actually, like, kind of pejorative.

[16:54] Cate Blouke: Yeah, no, it has a pejorative connotation, but I’m like, oh, maybe I want to reclaim dilettante. I don’t know. There’s. That’s a fun word.

[17:00] Carrie Andersen: Now’s the time.

[17:01] Cate Blouke: Yeah, now’s the time. 2025. The year of the dilettante. Yes, exactly.

[17:07] You know, because. Well, because. Because virtuoso has more of a expert sense to it. To me, that. That, like, yeah, you know, I do want expertise in a few things, but, like, I mostly just want to explore the shit out of a whole bunch of stuff.

[17:23] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[17:24] Cate Blouke: So side questing. Yes.

[17:27] Carrie Andersen: So that’s how it emerged. And what I was discovering, like, more recently this year was after work, like, my job, I typically, you know, shut down around 5, 5:30, maybe 6 sometimes if I have a busy day, and then the rest of the evening is mine.

[17:43] And if I’m not at the gym, I typically like. What I noticed was I had a habitual kind of routine of,

[17:51] okay, day ends, eat dinner, get on the couch,

[17:55] watch tv,

[17:56] play my video game, go to bed. And what I realized over time was that was making me less and less happy. Like,

[18:04] it was just filler material. It wasn’t actually a reflection of how I wanted to spend my time.

[18:12] Like, I had a moment where I was, like, I’m in my late 30s,

[18:15] if I get to my early 40s, my mid-40s, and I look back and I think that’s how I spent my time after work for three years.

[18:25] I would be pissed at myself.

[18:27] Like, that’s not the life that future me would want for this me, I don’t think.

[18:32] Cate Blouke: Yeah.

[18:33] Carrie Andersen: And I, I, I just sort of knew that I needed to make a change in terms of, like, how I spent that free time.

[18:40] Cate Blouke: All right, so then side, so then side questing became the paradigm and organizing principle.

[18:47] Carrie Andersen: Yes. Yeah. So I wanted to make sure that I was accountable. So I started, like, writing and documenting and basically trying to make sense of, like, what my feelings were when I was trying to spend my time in ways that weren’t just, like, the defaults or like the immediate kind of dopamine hits that were increasingly not helpful.

[19:08] Cate Blouke: Yeah. What was the, like, organizing principle for? All right. I don’t want to just be watching TV and playing video games.

[19:14] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. So I started by making a list of things that I wanted to try that I knew I had enjoyed, like, some sense in the past, but could also imagine, like, spinning off into something different in the future.

[19:29] So, for instance, I knew I enjoyed art. I took some art classes in high school. But, like,

[19:34] you know, life gets away and you don’t often have time to do that sort of thing. So I thought, well, maybe I can have a side quest that’s about watercoloring or sketching or making things out of polymer clay from something that I saw on Instagram taking an art class.

[19:51] Cate Blouke: Did you frame it at that? Like, from the get go as, like, these are side quests.

[19:55] Carrie Andersen: Yes.

[19:56] Cate Blouke: Yeah.

[19:56] Carrie Andersen: And I defined it.

[19:58] Cate Blouke: Yeah.

[19:59] Carrie Andersen: Myself. Like, what is a side quest? A main quest is career,

[20:05] family.

[20:06] Like when you introduce yourself to somebody at a dinner or a cocktail party,

[20:12] typically you’ll say, hi, I’m Carrie, I’m a, whatever title. I live in this city. Here’s my husband, here’s my pet.

[20:20] That’s the story.

[20:21] Cate Blouke: Those are the main quests.

[20:23] Carrie Andersen: Yes, exactly. And I imagine for some people, the Main quest would be being a parent, managing a household.

[20:30] You know, it, it’s going to look differently for different people, but it’s sort of those like defining day to day routines that kind of comprise your day. Side quests are things outside of that that have nothing to do with your career or your family necessarily, or really anything that’s sort of like the 80% of your life.

[20:48] So hobbies,

[20:50] art. And I made a very explicit decision not to include like career development stuff as a side quest because I thought that’s part of my career. That stuff is really important to me too.

[21:02] But I’m going to leave that for during the workday.

[21:04] Cate Blouke: Okay, so you made a list. You were like, let me try this shit. Let me start a blog about it.

[21:09] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. And. And I, I basically,

[21:12] I got started. And the way that I got started was at the end of 2023, my husband and I went on a retreat to a mindfulness focused resort complex in Western Mass.

[21:26] That was our Christmas gift to each other.

[21:29] And I said, okay, before I go,

[21:31] I want to try things that I’ve never done before that are entirely new to me, that aren’t part of my, like, oh, I want to get better at this thing that I know I’m pretty decent at.

[21:40] Cate Blouke: You are also a recovering perfectionist?

[21:43] Carrie Andersen: Yes, very much so.

[21:45] Cate Blouke: And so how hard was this for you?

[21:48] Carrie Andersen: It was very hard. There’s always fear in choosing to do something that you’re not, that you don’t know if you’ll be good at it or not.

[21:58] And choosing something that, you know, the, the fear of being found out as a newbie or as an amateur is likewise significant.

[22:06] So there were, there were all sorts of classes at this resort in, you know, things like fitness or, you know, I, I work out at a boxing gym like five days a week.

[22:16] So I could have done a class in boxing and done pretty well at it.

[22:20] Cate Blouke: What did you choose instead?

[22:21] Carrie Andersen: I. I chose past life regression.

[22:25] Cate Blouke: Oh, okay.

[22:26] Carrie Andersen: Which was bonkers. I chose Kintsugi art, which is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold lacquer and adhesive.

[22:37] Cate Blouke: Yeah, I remember your post about that and I’ll link to it in the show notes. And just that it reminded me that that existed. And there’s just something so beautiful in the like, concept of.

[22:47] Yeah, if it’s broken,

[22:49] we heal it with gold. We don’t try to hide over the cracks,

[22:54] we glue them back together with gold.

[22:56] Everything’s precious and beautiful and, and allowed.

[23:00] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[23:01] Cate Blouke: And a man. If we could just like live there.

[23:05] Carrie Andersen: That reminds Me of.

[23:06] So mine. Mine turned out pretty well. It’s. It’s. I think I was supported by the fact that it actually only broke into three pieces when I smashed it. The poor woman next to me, though, her.

[23:19] Hers broke into seven pieces.

[23:21] She had such a hard time with the adhesive that we were all wearing rubber gloves.

[23:27] Her rubber gloves got stuck to it,

[23:30] and she just painted over them in gold.

[23:32] And she was like, you know, this looks terrible,

[23:35] but it’s mine, and we’ll just paint it over. And it’s very real.

[23:40] It was reflective of her struggle, and I think she came to like it. But,

[23:45] you know, in that. In that moment, I was like, I could feel those patterns of, like,

[23:50] my. My pottery has to look good, it has to look better. It has to be,

[23:54] you know, something that I want to put on my shelf. But it wasn’t about that.

[23:58] So, you know, a lot of it is about getting out of those thought patterns and those mental models that haven’t served us.

[24:05] You know, perfectionism, of course, being a.

[24:07] Cate Blouke: Big one especially,

[24:09] it’s uncomfortable and it’s hard, and it takes, like, intentional effort.

[24:14] So. So you’ve been doing this kind of side quest intentionally for about a year now. Yeah, yeah. What. What has evolved in your relationship with perfectionism and your free time?

[24:27] Carrie Andersen: Yeah, yeah, Great question.

[24:29] I can definitely say that I am less focused on being perfect and more comfortable with failure.

[24:38] I think part of that is. Is going through this process and, you know, continuing to write about it and really make a focused effort to be aware and, like, mindful of how I’m feeling in that moment of.

[24:50] Of side questing. I think part of it is I’m really fortunate to have my main quest, my day job. I work at a very growth, mindset oriented company, so that’s helped a lot in terms of my recovering from perfectionism.

[25:05] But, you know, I think it’s also,

[25:07] like, taking time to be present and kind of establish more patterns of self talk that, like, yeah, you’re gonna try something and you might suck, and that’s fine.

[25:18] Like, you’re just trying it out. It’s okay.

[25:20] And like, if only the voices in.

[25:23] Cate Blouke: Our heads would actually be that nice.

[25:25] Carrie Andersen: Wouldn’t it be nice?

[25:26] Cate Blouke: Yeah, like, yeah, I mean, I do. Like, I get there, but I have to notice that the parts being like an asshole to me about not getting it right immediately.

[25:36] Yeah, like, fucking. I used to, like, my students would show up and I would tell them, like, you’re here to learn. You’re. You’re not here to show me that you already have it figured out.

[25:46] But, like, I was thinking about this a couple weeks ago. Like, nobody told me that in grad school. Like, I really thought I was supposed to already know all this shit already, and I forgot how to learn things.

[25:56] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[25:56] Cate Blouke: And it was so painful. It’s so painful to, like, want to already be good at the thing.

[26:01] Carrie Andersen: Totally. Totally. And it’s. It’s never realistic either. Like, why would any of us ever expect to be excellent at something we try for the first time?

[26:10] Cate Blouke: I don’t. Like, it doesn’t make any sense, but we do. So weird. So it came from somewhere.

[26:14] Carrie Andersen: We do. Yeah. I think. I mean, it’s sort of like, the threat of failure, I think, is so ingrained in us that, like, if we don’t keep moving forward, if we don’t keep getting better,

[26:25] bad things will happen. We won’t be able to be productive or contribute or survive in our, like, very cutthroat society or loved or accepted.

[26:33] Cate Blouke: Or seen as valuable or worthwhile. Right.

[26:36] Carrie Andersen: Like, being a good person. Like, does that matter? No, not necessarily to a lot.

[26:42] Cate Blouke: Not if there are socks on your floor. I don’t know.

[26:45] Carrie Andersen: Like, I mean, that’s. That’s true.

[26:48] Cate Blouke: Like, God forbid.

[26:52] Carrie Andersen: But, yeah. Like, it’s. It’s so ingrained, I think. Like, it has to be cultural.

[26:57] Cate Blouke: Yeah.

[26:58] Carrie Andersen: You know,

[26:59] and I would. I would actually be curious to see, like, how much of that is built into, like, the American,

[27:05] North American fabric.

[27:08] Do you see different levels of perfectionism in countries outside of the US because, like,

[27:13] you know, we are very much a society and a culture in this country of, like,

[27:19] bootstraps. You put the work in. Nothing is more important than being productive and. And all that, which, of course, is going to give us a complex about perfectionism, because we’re only worth if we’re producing to the highest level possible.

[27:32] Cate Blouke: Yeah. And I really appreciate that. There is. There does seem to be, at least in the Instagram accounts, I follow, that there is a zeitgeist around. Like, this is some bullshit and we need to dial it back.

[27:41] Carrie Andersen: Yes. Yeah. My hope is that, like, Gen Z, in particular, seems to be especially resistant to that notion that we have to kind of continue on that journey. That’s a gross, like, generalization, of course,

[27:55] but that’s. That’s my sense. Just sort of, like,

[27:58] reading the Instagram world of how people talk about cultures of work and balance and lifestyle and things like that.

[28:06] Cate Blouke: Yeah. And, like, what’s actually important.

[28:08] Carrie Andersen: Yes.

[28:09] Cate Blouke: So what advice would you give someone who’s like, I like the Side. Side quest idea. What parameters would you offer?

[28:16] Like, embark on a. Like, this is going to be my year of side quests.

[28:20] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[28:21] So one framing that I found really helpful is if you find something that you might possibly be interested in trying out and you can’t think of a reason to say no, do it.

[28:34] My original thought process was I need to be able to say yes to something to make it worth my while.

[28:40] But that was like a really self limiting belief that I would know best or I had like the necessary information to be able to tease out like whether something was going to be worthwhile.

[28:51] So I’ll give an example.

[28:53] When I rappelled down a building in Cambridge,

[28:56] that was only because I saw an Instagram ad of like, do you want to rappel down a building?

[29:02] I think was the copy in the Instagram ad. And for a second I was like, is there a reason I should say no to that? And there wasn’t. So I signed up right there.

[29:11] Yeah. And reframing from like find the reason to say no rather than find the reason to say yes has made it easier to kind of like commit to doing new things and trying new things without kind of self editing, which.

[29:25] Cate Blouke: Yeah, that’s really interesting because I. In some areas of life, I’m a big proponent of fuck yes or no.

[29:33] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[29:33] Cate Blouke: Right. Like when we are trying to filter and make decisions based on like what is actually in alignment with our highest good.

[29:43] Right. Like fuck yes or no.

[29:45] However,

[29:46] when it comes to trying new things.

[29:49] Carrie Andersen: Yes.

[29:50] Cate Blouke: Like I am more inclined to be like no, I couldn’t possibly. Because here’s some reasons.

[29:56] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. And I think the way that it showed up for me in a way that like allowed me to not self edit was recognizing that I was only committing to try a thing once.

[30:08] I wasn’t committing to make it my life.

[30:11] I wasn’t saying like no to all of these other things because I’m saying yes to this thing. It was a very confined thing that I was saying yes to.

[30:20] So that made it easier in a lot of ways to find those side quests and pursue them and kind of get out of the habit of staying in my lane a little bit because it was just a much lower barrier to entry.

[30:34] Yeah.

[30:35] Cate Blouke: So you have not like taken up rappelling now and it’s your side hobby of all the time. Rappelling down a building once was sufficient.

[30:42] Carrie Andersen: You know, maybe I would do it again for another fundraiser. But I, I think more what. What I really learned from that was, was that thought process of like, it’s really just about finding a reason to.

[30:55] To not say no and finding, like, finding out the things that you don’t have to necessarily be fully on board with, but trying them is not a huge deal and that you can still just try a thing.

[31:06] Cate Blouke: Yeah. What did you learn from. I mean, aside from the, like, mindset shift, but, like, what did you learn about yourself rappelling down a building?

[31:15] Carrie Andersen: I learned that I don’t really feel fear very intimately.

[31:18] Oh, okay. It was kind of surprising because they.

[31:22] Basically, the way that it worked is we would get suited up, geared up, then they took us to. On the elevator to the roof of the building, and there were no ledges or barriers or rails or anything like that, because nobody is supposed to really be up there except people who are trained to be up there.

[31:38] And as I stepped over the ledge and started, like, rappelling down,

[31:44] everything in my body was saying, like, oh, you should probably not do this.

[31:48] But I didn’t feel any. Like, I didn’t feel the pit of my stomach feeling.

[31:53] I didn’t feel like, oh, run away. This is hundreds of feet off the ground.

[31:59] All I really felt was like, oh, this is kind of cool.

[32:02] I can feel the evolution side of me saying, don’t step over the edge of the building. But I didn’t feel anything in an embodied sense. So that was a really interesting thing that I learned about myself and has definitely made me try to be more mindful of, like, the physical feelings.

[32:19] I’m not sure if this has been your experience,

[32:21] but as, like, somebody who’s very cerebral, I’ve historically been extremely disconnected from anything visceral and part of my body.

[32:29] So a good learning experience that the thing that’s very scary objectively didn’t yield an obvious physical response.

[32:39] Cate Blouke: Yeah, no. I am.

[32:41] I do tend to have visceral reactions to things,

[32:44] but in terms of heights, specifically, if I were in a harness or if there are, like, safety rails, like, I’m like, whatever. I fucking love heights.

[32:53] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[32:54] Cate Blouke: Get me near it without some sort of safety barrier, then I do get a little vertigoey, and it’s scary to me.

[33:00] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[33:01] Cate Blouke: Cool. So, okay, how did Brodents. Carrie is the co host of a podcast called Brodents that I’m gonna let her introduce.

[33:13] Carrie Andersen: Yep.

[33:14] Cate Blouke: And I wanna know how that came into being.

[33:17] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. Yeah. So Brodin’s is a podcast about rats,

[33:23] typically,

[33:24] how rats show up in culture, popular culture,

[33:29] how they show up in history,

[33:31] in some cases internationally.

[33:34] And I don’t recall when my. My friend and I started it, but it was her idea she said, man, we should really do a podcast about rats.

[33:43] Cate Blouke: And I was like, okay, yeah, I’m. But like, because you guys are both really into rats, her more than me, I could.

[33:49] Carrie Andersen: What I appreciate about them is their complexity. They’re very much. And that I come at it from, like, the most cultural studies perspective possible,

[33:59] which is we find them revolting culturally,

[34:03] but they’re so fascinating.

[34:05] And why are we so fascinated and obsessed with rats, even though we also hate them? So there’s kind of a paradoxical relationship that we have.

[34:14] Cate Blouke: Yeah. Okay, so is this one of the examples of you not having a good reason to say no?

[34:18] Carrie Andersen: I,

[34:19] I, that was a genuine yes, because I wanted. I love doing creative projects, especially with my friends,

[34:25] and I really,

[34:28] I like studying things that people don’t typically study and learning really deeply about them, like sort of the un. Underdog stories in.

[34:38] In pop culture.

[34:40] And rats definitely seem to be one of those things.

[34:42] Cate Blouke: Yeah.

[34:43] Carrie Andersen: And I started doing some research about them and thought, like, okay, there’s. There’s a lot here in terms of culture and history.

[34:51] Cate Blouke: Yeah,

[34:51] I love that. And, and part of the reason I have wanted to have you on this podcast was to have my little. My little journalistic moment of I was getting ready to launch to, like, finally fucking sit down and start recording this podcast.

[35:05] And I’d been dragging my feet and feeling so, like, oh, my God, what are people gonna think? Ah, like, getting so stuck in that.

[35:12] And y’ all launched Broden,

[35:15] and I saw Brodin’s on Instagram, and I was like. And I listened to it, and I was like, you know what? If Carrie can fucking record a podcast about rats and put it out in the world,

[35:27] I absolutely can sit down and record this thing that I am very passionate about.

[35:32] Carrie Andersen: Yes.

[35:33] Cate Blouke: Have a lot to say about. I love know is gonna be valuable. And so wanted to thank you for, like,

[35:40] just doing a thing that brought you joy and, like, not fucking caring.

[35:45] Carrie Andersen: Yeah,

[35:46] I know it’s weird as hell. So does my co host. We know it’s weird,

[35:51] and that’s part of the fun of it is we, we can just. We have an excuse to weird out together,

[35:57] to be creative, to dive into something that I don’t think either of us would have dove into to the extent that we have except for the podcast.

[36:06] So figured why not try it out and see?

[36:09] You know, I don’t really care if people listen. It’s more about, like, the process of creating something with. With a close friend of mine that really makes us both happy.

[36:18] Cate Blouke: Yeah, you right. And y’ All I do appreciate that, like you, it is researched and y’ all are having a good time.

[36:25] Carrie Andersen: We, we very much are.

[36:27] Cate Blouke: And I never would have listened to an. A podcast about rats except for the Radiolab episode where they talk. Rats laugh. Like, that one’s great.

[36:39] Carrie Andersen: There’s some really fascinating research about them that like still very much need to unpack.

[36:45] Cate Blouke: Yeah, well, right, because they get re. I mean they’re the like primary.

[36:49] One of the primary research subjects that we try to understand human brains via rat behavior,

[36:55] which is interesting.

[36:57] Carrie Andersen: I mean, that’s another thing, like how do we best understand ourselves? Is it through the rats? Is Broden’s a metaphor?

[37:06] Cate Blouke: Maybe, maybe.

[37:08] Carrie Andersen: Maybe Broden’s is how I came to understand about myself.

[37:11] Cate Blouke: Oh yeah. Okay. What has it taught you? What has Broden’s taught you about yourself?

[37:15] Carrie Andersen: I speak really slowly compared to a lot of people.

[37:20] I’m from the Midwest, so I have a very like,

[37:24] measured cadence. I don’t use a lot of filler words typically.

[37:29] And I’m not afraid of a silence.

[37:32] So I listen to the podcast and I listen to the contrast in my,

[37:37] my and my co host energy and it’s stark.

[37:41] And I never really identified as a low energy person or as a slow person,

[37:49] slow talker from the Midwest. But I,

[37:52] it’s, it’s kind of funny to get another view of yourself and reflecting upon your contrast with another person as you’re recording something together and watching something together.

[38:03] And I think too, another thing, you know, more, more seriously is I left academia six years ago,

[38:10] more than six years ago at this point.

[38:13] I still really love learning about new weird things.

[38:18] That was so much of my focus in grad school is finding a weird thing and learning more about it. Like that was my research agenda and I’m still doing that, but in a way that’s much more fun and casual and creative and doesn’t require passing oral examinations about rats.

[38:35] Although I would love to take that.

[38:38] Cate Blouke: Or speaking about rats, I don’t need.

[38:41] Carrie Andersen: To cite like really hardcore academic sources.

[38:45] It’s just fun and it’s a way to kind of get that. I get those revs of the research and I get that, that kind of shot of the research input impulse in myself and without all of the additional baggage.

[38:58] Cate Blouke: Yeah. What I hear in that is the opportunity to take something that you liked from a prior career sort of field and skill set and channel it into something that you want to do just for the sake of doing it.

[39:11] Carrie Andersen: 100.

[39:13] Cate Blouke: And you don’t have to talk about ontology or although I may have.

[39:19] Carrie Andersen: Who knows? Yeah. Yeah.

[39:22] Cate Blouke: And it’s funny. I’m listening to you, and I’m like, oh, this is sort of the flip side. Because, like, my graduate school experience, I was studying stuff that made me deeply uncomfortable.

[39:30] And so writing my dissertation was a deeply unpleasant experience.

[39:34] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[39:35] Cate Blouke: And now I’m getting to channel that, like, innate curiosity and exploration into things that light me up,

[39:42] and I get to talk about things in a way that is accessible.

[39:47] And that was one of the really painful aspects of academia for me, was that I had to write this dissertation that was about humor and identity politics, but I had to write it in a way that was not accessible or funny or funny or fun.

[39:59] I did.

[40:00] I did get to cite Chris Pratt in my conclusion, and that made me really happy.

[40:06] Carrie Andersen: That’s good.

[40:08] Cate Blouke: But for the most part, no, it was not.

[40:10] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. Academia is not kind to especially creative forms.

[40:15] Cate Blouke: No.

[40:16] Carrie Andersen: But, yeah, I think in hearing what you’re saying and sort of turning it over in my mind,

[40:21] there’s so much that we can extract from the path that we’ve taken and use that to fuel where we want to go next.

[40:29] I have no regrets about doing academia. I had a fantastic time. I learned a lot. I made a ton of friends who I still like.

[40:37] I don’t want it as a career,

[40:39] but going through academia allowed me to better understand the things that I really did like, which was working with other people who are brilliant and thoughtful thinkers and analysts, researching things that I thought were interesting or that were sort of understudied and not understood very well.

[40:58] Like, you can pull those threads forward from paths that didn’t work out and use them to get to the next place.

[41:06] Cate Blouke: Yeah,

[41:07] that’s so true.

[41:09] And I remember when I was leaving academia,

[41:13] having this conversation with my sponsor at the time about how, like, just because we’re good at something doesn’t mean it’s the right fit.

[41:21] You know, I was a good teacher. I was good at what I did.

[41:26] And yet life outside of work was taking so much effort to just be okay.

[41:34] And, like, that was an indicator to me that, like, a pivot was necessary.

[41:39] But because I had built a lot of my sense of self around, like,

[41:42] first I was. Like, I was a college student, then I was a grad student, and then I was a professor. Like, that’s who I. And, like, who the fuck am I gonna be without that?

[41:49] Oh, my God. You know,

[41:51] But I can see the through lines. I can still draw on those skill sets and apply them to kind of what I’m doing now. But What I learned from that whole process is like when we let go of this, of the thing that we think is the like core.

[42:05] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[42:06] Cate Blouke: So much possibility opens up. Right. Like that part of my main quest had ended. Yes.

[42:12] Carrie Andersen: And you’ll have a, a new one or a conglomerate of side quests and either one is fine.

[42:19] Cate Blouke: Yeah. Yeah. Because like, even when I think about like, I’m so in love with this podcast, but if I think like five or 10 years out from now, I’m like, I don’t know if I’m still gonna be doing this.

[42:29] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. How could, how could any of us know?

[42:32] Cate Blouke: Yeah. But we’re supposed to.

[42:33] Carrie Andersen: Yes. Yeah.

[42:35] Cate Blouke: We’re supposed to have a plan and a mission.

[42:38] Yeah. I’ve never had a five year plan.

[42:40] No, I,

[42:41] I can like sometimes manage a year of like, okay, like what am I trying to do right now?

[42:46] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[42:46] Cate Blouke: But like beyond that, I’m like, I don’t know. So what are some of the sort of side quests you’ve done? What’s on your horizon?

[42:55] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. So my most recent side quest was running a 5K,

[42:59] which was by no means something that was especially unique. Plenty of people run 5Ks.

[43:06] The reason that I did it is I’ve never identified as a runner.

[43:11] And so I just wanted to see if I could.

[43:14] And I did better than I expected.

[43:16] So I think that was a moment where I had kind of let my self story get the better of me over the past 30 years.

[43:24] Something like that. Yeah.

[43:26] So that was the most recent. Before that I’ve, I’ve done,

[43:30] you know, art building, repelling,

[43:34] met a seal at the aquarium, which was great. We fed her fish.

[43:38] Cate Blouke: Um, yeah, so the, I wanna, I wanna slow down and talk about the running. Cause this is, you know, so this is a little bit of part of my journey too.

[43:47] I was the fat kid, so I was, I was like the opposite of athletic.

[43:52] And then I was a smoker for a long time and then I got sober and then I was about to turn 30 and just like got into my head that like a healthy 30 year old adult should be able to run a 5K.

[44:03] Like this was like the arbitrary decision that I made for myself. And I fucking hated running.

[44:08] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[44:08] Cate Blouke: At the time.

[44:09] And this was back in grad school when I was like, I need to prove things to myself. And so that’s how I started running was, was with this sense of, I am a grownup,

[44:21] this is a thing that other grownups do.

[44:23] And I,

[44:25] I could do this.

[44:28] And for me,

[44:30] it ultimately, it ultimately led to,

[44:34] I Am a runner now. Like, that is a part of my identity. I like long distance running.

[44:39] Half marathons are the perfect distance. They’re goofily long. But. But the point is, like, I. I learned that it was really good for my mental health, that it’s actually, for me, a really good way of channeling sort of anxiety and undiagnosed adhd.

[44:56] Like, it. It ended up being really good. And I never would have, like, found that as a resource if I hadn’t tried something that I wasn’t good at.

[45:07] Carrie Andersen: Yeah, it’s really hard to get past those narratives that we’ve kind of established over years, but, God, how rewarding. And now. Now it is a part of yourself.

[45:18] Cate Blouke: Yeah. And there’s plenty of other shit that I’ve tried that I’m not good. Like, I.

[45:24] During the pandemic, as we all did, you know, like, I tried to learn to make sourdough.

[45:28] Carrie Andersen: Yep.

[45:29] Cate Blouke: I had fun with that. Didn’t. Didn’t adopt it as a way of being.

[45:34] Carrie Andersen: Anything we do is going to be data is. Is going to shape us. Yeah. Like, the, the running thing was really interesting. It sounded like. In your case,

[45:44] was it more of a conformist thing of, like, I need to do what other adults do?

[45:49] Cate Blouke: Mm,

[45:50] good question.

[45:52] Um,

[45:53] I think so. That was part of it.

[45:56] I think it was also.

[45:57] I wanted to, like,

[45:59] prove to myself that I could, like,

[46:03] learn something and stick with it,

[46:05] but it was very much like health and fitness oriented. As someone who had never identified as, like, athletic, I, you know, it’s funny, I still don’t identify as athletic. And even though you went to marathons.

[46:16] Yeah, like, people. Right. It’s. Or as an athlete, like, there’s this. It’s just so funny to me, the way we, like, attach, like, speaking like, circling back to the dilettante thing, it’s the way we attach meaning to words for me.

[46:30] And then I don’t identify with that. You know, I don’t identify as artistic,

[46:36] even though I’m very creative.

[46:39] Carrie Andersen: Right.

[46:40] Cate Blouke: And it’s just interesting. Right. So, like, yeah, I run four days a week when I’m.

[46:46] Got my shit together. I’m usually running 20 to 25 miles a week.

[46:50] But in my. That doesn’t make me an athlete.

[46:52] Carrie Andersen: I don’t.

[46:53] Cate Blouke: I don’t know what makes somebody an athlete. But.

[46:56] But that’s, you know, but apparently that’s not it. Right. Whereas I was listening to you and I’m like, oh, but you go to the boxing gym all the time, right?

[47:02] Yeah. You’re, like, fit and healthy. So like, why wouldn’t you be able to run a 5K?

[47:05] Carrie Andersen: I mean, that’s, that’s part of the thing is even like literally five days a week is,

[47:11] is how often I’m going right now. And, and even at my slow points, it would be at least three times a week,

[47:17] which would be about four hours a week of, of straight boxing workouts. Hardest thing I’ve ever done.

[47:23] But part of the thing about signing up for this 5k is I had done so much boxing and I just thought, well, maybe, maybe that’ll help me run.

[47:34] And I wasn’t sure if it would. Obviously it’s gonna help. Cause it’s all radio.

[47:39] But I still had so much doubt and my only goal for myself because I had so much doubt,

[47:46] like really because of the identity and the story that I had sort of established for myself was all I wanna do is get to the finish line without walking. Doesn’t matter how slow I run.

[47:57] I just wanna finish having run the whole thing.

[48:00] Super low bar.

[48:01] Cate Blouke: Yeah.

[48:02] Carrie Andersen: Which I think was fine. My, my goal was never to achieve a particular speed or anything like that. It was just to do it and see if I liked it or could.

[48:11] And just gathering info.

[48:13] Cate Blouke: Yeah. And.

[48:14] Carrie Andersen: And I did it. And I did better than I expected.

[48:16] But that was honestly less important than me than having tried it in the first place.

[48:22] Cause that was the harder thing, honestly,

[48:25] was getting past that vision that I don’t meet the criteria of somebody who runs 5Ks.

[48:32] So much of the decision making I think of how we spend our time and how we identify is based in these rigid beliefs established years before that moment.

[48:43] Cate Blouke: Yeah. And how infrequently we interrogate them.

[48:47] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, honestly, like the only reason that I’ve been able to do this is because I’ve been through at this point, years of therapy with like a really great fit for myself.

[48:59] Somebody who practices acceptance and commitment therapy,

[49:04] which is all about living according to your values and being present and mindfulness.

[49:10] And it was through those conversations that I became,

[49:13] I developed my ability to be present and aware of how I was feeling on the way to understand how I could live more according to my values. But without that self awareness and without that, like multiple years of building my ability to have any level of self awareness.

[49:32] All of that was necessary.

[49:34] Cate Blouke: Totally.

[49:35] Yeah. I would have been, I don’t know, like a year or two into therapy at that time. And you know, and what’s funny to me,

[49:45] looking back on that sort of period of time in that moment in my life when I Was like, okay, a healthy 30 year old adult should be able to run a 5K.

[49:52] I’m gonna make myself do that.

[49:54] And then I immediately went to I’m gonna run a marathon someday.

[49:59] And it was very much tied to my like, unhealed sense of inner worthiness,

[50:08] of needing to prove things right that like, that decision to run a marathon was really about.

[50:15] I’m gonna prove this to myself.

[50:18] Unaware of the underlying like,

[50:21] sense of unworthiness that felt like I needed to prove things right. And what’s been beautiful about that journey for me in therapy and coaching and doing the work is getting to a place of like, oh, I don’t need, like, do I want to do that?

[50:38] I run half marathons now because it feels really good to my body. I like having a degree of like goal orientation and I like shiny objects.

[50:48] But like,

[50:49] yeah, you get a medal. Like it doesn’t matter how slow you go, I get a medal. And I’m like, this is great. And it keeps me fit and it helps my mental health.

[50:56] So there’s like an alignment there. But it’s so beautiful to be in this place in my life where I’m like, I don’t need to prove shit to myself anymore.

[51:03] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[51:04] Cate Blouke: And I certainly don’t need to prove shit to other people conceptually, emotionally. I do still have to work on that.

[51:10] Carrie Andersen: Right.

[51:10] Cate Blouke: Frequency.

[51:11] Carrie Andersen: Yeah. I mean,

[51:13] those old patterns, those old habits creep in so easily.

[51:17] That’s, that’s really cool though.

[51:19] It sounds like you found a good middle ground. Which, like, I mean, that’s a, that’s another lesson of, of all of this work is like so often my, my mentality was I need to find the perfect way to spend my time.

[51:32] I’m not doing mindfulness right if my mind is wandering.

[51:36] So I’m bet I shouldn’t do it at all because I can’t do this thing.

[51:40] But it’s not about finding that thing and doing it a hundred percent. It’s about finding the realistic middle ground that like, yeah, sometimes you’re gonna sit down and meditate and there’s gonna be noise in the background that’s realistic.

[51:53] Sometimes you’re gonna run a race and run slow. And that’s realistic. It doesn’t have to be like an all or nothing kind of thing.

[52:01] Cate Blouke: Sometimes I’m gonna ruin a race and I’m gonna walk because it’s like hot and humid and I’ll feel good. And sometimes like it’s gonna be a day that it’s gonna hit a hundred and I don’t care Enough.

[52:13] Like there’s a, there’s a race in Berlin that’s on the fourth of July that I’ve been supposed to run three times and it just like keeps not happening.

[52:22] Carrie Andersen: It sounds like you’re taking care of yourself though.

[52:24] Cate Blouke: Yeah. And, and that’s been a huge journey because I absolutely used to be someone who would like power through and was like so concerned with like what are other people going to think?

[52:35] And disappointing people and oh, I don’t want to be a quitter. Yeah, like, boo on all of that one thing.

[52:42] Carrie Andersen: I’m still batting away a little bit, but I’m way better at it. I participate in a program at my boxing gym called team training,

[52:52] which is 10 weeks at least. Like five hours or so a week of boxing training. Like really hard training, often sprints and cardio and all of those things.

[53:04] And maybe like 15 other people reliably complete slowest person every single time whenever we did sprints.

[53:13] And at first it bothered me. I thought, God, they’re gonna think I’m just like terribly unathletic. They’re gonna think I’m, you know, not supposed to be here.

[53:22] I had desires to be like, my legs are shorter than yours because I’m five feet tall and like rationalize.

[53:30] Yeah, exactly. It’s, it’s, it’s my genetics and basically make excuses for the fact that I wasn’t performing well. But over time, what I realized is like, I’m still gonna work with these people, I’m still gonna learn.

[53:42] Who cares if I’m the slowest one, if I’m making a little bit better progress every single time. And I’m still just getting something out of this. Like it doesn’t matter if I’m the slowest person, cuz I’m still doing my best.

[53:55] Which sounds like really trite, but that’s, that’s really what kind of got me.

[53:58] Cate Blouke: I mean, I am deeply impressed because like I don’t do running groups because I’m the slowest person and it feels terrible to me and I’d rather just like having a running practice.

[54:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So like I’m just wired.

[54:09] Carrie Andersen: That would be another thing. Okay, well, good job.

[54:14] Cate Blouke: Like I weather through made out of those lemons.

[54:17] Carrie Andersen: Yes.

[54:18] Cate Blouke: That’s amazing. How did you get into boxing?

[54:22] Carrie Andersen: It was actually during grad school when I was studying for my comprehensive exams, which involves reading a book a day for about nine months.

[54:31] So most of my day to day was okay, wake up, sit in my apartment, read a book,

[54:39] write notes about it, maybe go out and meet up with people. But in the summertime, a lot of people weren’t around,

[54:46] so I, I was just sort of going through this very isolated experience and one that didn’t necessarily lend itself to any physical activity.

[54:58] Cate Blouke: How boxing, though?

[54:59] Carrie Andersen: Yeah, I. I figured I needed something that was going to take me out of my head.

[55:05] I. I’ve never really did a serious martial art. I did karate as a six or seven year old,

[55:11] but always thought that women boxers in particular were really strong and kind of both physically and like mentally, constitutionally, because boxing is a very masculine space,

[55:26] boxing gyms are hyper masculine,

[55:29] and the, the culture of the sport generally is very masculine.

[55:34] So I was sort of casually googling boxing gyms in Austin, and I found one that was only women.

[55:42] And I thought,

[55:43] so I could join this gym and spend my time with a bunch of other women who likewise are subverting gender norms, committing to physical fitness,

[55:53] hitting shit, which was appealing, especially in this very cerebral moment that I was having.

[55:59] And I’m really grateful to my past self for doing this. But I kind of push past the discomfort of cold emailing this company and saying like, hey, can I join?

[56:10] Can I try a trial intro class?

[56:12] And,

[56:14] you know, sort of the, the rest kind of fell into place. I started going two or three days a week, learning the fundamentals. Never really sparring at that point, but really just kind of working out in a way that had never pushed me physically as much before in my life.

[56:30] Hardest thing I’ve done,

[56:31] probably,

[56:32] hopefully the hardest thing I’ll ever do physically.

[56:35] Yeah. And it’s. It’s just been great for me for all forms of health.

[56:41] Cate Blouke: Yeah. So what part, like, what did that side quest that has become a staple teach you about yourself?

[56:49] Carrie Andersen: A lot of resilience.

[56:51] That these days,

[56:53] when I do get punched in the face, it’s not the end of the world.

[56:57] I. I am sparring now,

[56:59] so I do get. I literally get punched in the face.

[57:02] Cate Blouke: Yeah, I was just thinking about that. I was like, oh, my God. You, like, actually mean that. I do,

[57:06] I do. I’m so impressed and admiring and have zero interest in.

[57:12] Yeah, I think my reason to say no is just like, nope.

[57:18] Carrie Andersen: Yep. No.

[57:19] Cate Blouke: Like, I do have curiosity. You know what? Maybe I will, I will commit to myself that sometime in 25, 20, 25, I will take a kickboxing class, because I do have curiosity and interest in that, and I’ve never tried it.

[57:33] Carrie Andersen: Why not?

[57:33] Cate Blouke: And so I will be like, okay, Carrie, I got mere boxing. Yes.

[57:38] Carrie Andersen: I mean, they will have you do punches too. It’s not just, yeah, yeah, yeah, but like, not. Not traditional Olympic boxing.

[57:45] Cate Blouke: Yeah. But like, it’s only like it’s gonna be in a bag and there’s nobody’s hit me in the face. I’m not going anywhere near that.

[57:52] Carrie Andersen: 80% of the time, I’m just working on a bag and most of us are,

[57:56] so. Yeah. Yeah, definitely a lot of resilience that not only am I able to weather getting punched in the face, I can react to it. I don’t get nervous about it nearly as much as I used to.

[58:08] And, you know, outside of the, the sparring ring,

[58:12] the workouts that we do are so damn hard.

[58:16] Last night we did nine minutes of sprinting,

[58:19] so 3.3minute rounds of pure sprinting.

[58:22] No,

[58:23] but I did it.

[58:24] And that’s not something that, if you said to me,

[58:27] hey, go do a workout. Nine minutes of sprinting on your own,

[58:31] probably would’ve said, like, that’s not realistic. I’m gonna injure myself.

[58:35] Cate Blouke: Yeah.

[58:36] Carrie Andersen: So.

[58:36] Cate Blouke: So part of me is just like, okay, this sounds terrible. Like, everything about this sounds kind of terrible.

[58:41] So what do you love about it? Like, what. How.

[58:45] Why is this the thing for you?

[58:48] Carrie Andersen: I am never as present as I am when I’m boxing.

[58:52] Never a single moment in my life. And that’s because it’s so challenging.

[58:58] It’s so uncomfortable.

[59:01] Like, still,

[59:02] because it isn’t something that I’ve historically been good at,

[59:06] that all I can do is focus on what I’m doing in that moment. I don’t have the luxury to be able to, like, spin off and think about something else.

[59:15] It really helps me kind of anchor myself where I am and not spiral and not overthink and just be and do.

[59:23] And they say, like,

[59:26] going to the gym is more about discipline than motivation.

[59:29] I very much feel that I’m. I’m not somebody who’s really ever like, oh, I really want to go work out right now.

[59:36] I really love how I feel when I’m done, though.

[59:40] The endorphins, the relaxation, the accomplishment, the knowledge that I’m,

[59:45] like, strong enough to do these really hard workouts is incredibly gratifying.

[59:51] By breaking you down,

[59:53] it shows you really what you’re capable of,

[59:56] because even though a thing is hard, you get through it.

[59:59] So I don’t like getting punched in the face.

[01:00:02] Cate Blouke: No. Well, yeah, Okay.

[01:00:03] Carrie Andersen: I don’t like it.

[01:00:04] Cate Blouke: I didn’t, I didn’t assume, but that was, you know, that was beautiful. And I was listening to you and I was like, okay.

[01:00:09] So much of the way you are describing that is how I feel about running.

[01:00:14] Right. It’s part of the reason I need to sign up for races is because it keeps me disciplined, because I don’t have a running group, because I feel like the slow fat kid.

[01:00:22] And I don’t like that feeling. But.

[01:00:24] But I do have to be present because I will trip on the fucking sidewalk and break my face if I’m not being careful.

[01:00:32] And,

[01:00:33] yeah, it is deeply gratifying on a Saturday to, like,

[01:00:40] get in the bathtub and be like, I just ran 10 miles.

[01:00:42] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[01:00:43] Cate Blouke: As. As someone who, like, in junior high, that, like, one mile thing was, like, the most miserable day of my life.

[01:00:51] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[01:00:51] Cate Blouke: Every time.

[01:00:52] Carrie Andersen: Yep.

[01:00:53] Cate Blouke: You know, there’s just something really beautiful about what we can do, whether we’re, like, built for it or not, whether we’re, you know, quote unquote, naturally inclined.

[01:01:08] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[01:01:09] Cate Blouke: I think I want to find a better way of phrasing it, but there is something beautiful about proving things to ourselves.

[01:01:15] Carrie Andersen: Yeah.

[01:01:16] I like to think. Well, I personally think about it as sort of a balloon that’s expanding. Like, we start out as,

[01:01:24] you know, a very deflated, tiny balloon, but then our sense of self just sort of grows and expands as we breathe more into it.

[01:01:31] And the mental shift that I had in all of this, like, questing was it isn’t about finding a singular core self.

[01:01:41] Like, there are any number of selves. Like, I think we all contain multitudes, and there isn’t a single place that we’re trying to go.

[01:01:48] Sort of capturing all of that diversity and all of that essence out in the world that’s, you know, frankly, just beyond that very small core that we imagine, we have assumptions about ourselves that are probably really fixed.

[01:02:02] Cate Blouke: Yeah.

[01:02:02] Carrie Andersen: It doesn’t have to be that way. We are. We are all multiple people.

[01:02:07] Cate Blouke: Yeah. Carrie, this has been a treat. It has. How do people. Where do you want people to find you?

[01:02:17] Carrie Andersen: You can go to thesidequestproject.com to read all of my latest.

[01:02:24] Cate Blouke: And then Brodents is available Spotify.

[01:02:29] Carrie Andersen: I. It’s not called iTunes anymore.

[01:02:31] Cate Blouke: Apple Music, Apple Podcast. I know, right?

[01:02:36] Carrie Andersen: Okay.

[01:02:36] Cate Blouke: Yeah. I don’t know.

[01:02:37] Carrie Andersen: I’m terrible at promotion, but, yeah, it’s just called Brodin’s podcast. It’s on Apple podcasts and Spotify.

[01:02:47] And yeah, we. We inconsistently put out episodes, but all of the backlog is available at any time.

[01:02:53] Cate Blouke: Yeah, I want to put in a request to the ether around that, so. Did you ever watch Fraggle Rock?

[01:03:00] Carrie Andersen: Uh, yes, but I don’t have very many strong memories of it.

[01:03:03] Cate Blouke: Yeah. So I was revisiting that this year as a just like self soothing like moment. And there are two rats and a trash heap are like primary characters in a deeply bizarre.

[01:03:17] So maybe not Fraggle Rock specifically, but like the rat characters and the Muppet.

[01:03:23] Carrie Andersen: So many of them. There are a lot street too.

[01:03:25] Cate Blouke: Okay, so. So puppet rats. I would love at some point to.

[01:03:30] Carrie Andersen: Make a deep dive.

[01:03:34] Cate Blouke: Amazing. All right, Carrie, last question. What brings you joy?

[01:03:38] Carrie Andersen: I would say at this moment,

[01:03:42] being present brings me joy.

[01:03:44] But if I had to be more specific about an activity or something like that,

[01:03:49] I would say spending time with people around me who I care about and extract energy from. And at the moment, that’s. That’s my. My husband and my dog to be schmaltzy.

[01:04:03] But we help each other be better, which I love.

[01:04:08] Or explore new things. Not necessarily be better, but explore new things.

[01:04:12] Cate Blouke: How about both? Let’s do both. Let’s do both. Let’s do both. Awesome. Carrie. Thank you so much.

[01:04:18] Carrie Andersen: Thank you.

[01:04:23] Cate Blouke: Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please help me grow the podcast by subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing it with anyone you think would benefit from hearing it too.

[01:04:33] Your support means the world to me.

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[01:04:39] please visit settlingisbullshit.com.com to subscribe to my newsletter.

[01:04:43] You can also find information there about working with me one on one to build your most amazing life.

[01:04:49] Until next time, remember that I believe in you and that you are fucking awesome.