Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #221| Being Busy Isn’t a Badge of Honor—Here’s What It’s Really Hiding
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: If somebody comes up to you and says, How are you?
- 0:02Michelle Gauthier: the standard answer is, oh, busy.
- 0:09Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:16Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:21Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:26Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:36Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
- 0:36Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for joining today.
- 0:38Michelle Gauthier: Today we're going to be talking about how being busy is sometimes like a badge of honor.
- 0:44Michelle Gauthier: And I want us today to just take a minute and think about that because I think it's more like a red flag than it is a badge of honor.
- 0:52Michelle Gauthier: But since red flag seems shamey and maybe overly dramatic, I just want to call it a pink flag.
- 0:57Michelle Gauthier: A pink flag being something that's it's not quite red, but it's definitely something we want to look into.
- 1:03Michelle Gauthier: So today, when you'll listen, you'll hear about why we associate busyness with being valuable and why that's a trap for us, the kind of cultural messages that keep us stuck in this kind of hustle, and the way we buffer with being busy.
- 1:18Michelle Gauthier: Before I jump into that, I have to tell you guys a quick follow-up story about manifesting.
- 1:24Michelle Gauthier: A couple weeks back, like around episode 214, we were talking about manifesting and how to manifest the things that you want in your life.
- 1:32Michelle Gauthier: And I just had to share a story with you guys.
- 1:33Michelle Gauthier: It's a quick one.
- 1:34Michelle Gauthier: A couple months back, one of my clients was telling me that she had been gifted this amazing set of sheets called Cozy Earth.
- 1:41Michelle Gauthier: And I had heard of them before.
- 1:42Michelle Gauthier: And as she was telling me about them, I thought, I gotta check that out.
- 1:45Michelle Gauthier: And I went to their website later and looked at them, and they have 10,000 five-star reviews for their bamboo sheet set and Oprah's favorite things and just raving reviews.
- 1:56Michelle Gauthier: And I thought to myself, I'm gonna get some of those.
- 1:58Michelle Gauthier: And then I just put it out of my mind.
- 2:00Michelle Gauthier: And then a month or so later, I got an email from Cozy Earth, not just like a marketing email, but an email from their sponsorship director saying, Hey, we'd love to send you some products if you think you might want to talk about them on your podcast.
- 2:12Michelle Gauthier: I literally did nothing else except think, I would like to have some of those sheets.
- 2:16Michelle Gauthier: And the opportunity showed up in my inbox.
- 2:19Michelle Gauthier: How's that for manifesting?
- 2:21Michelle Gauthier: Today's episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth.
- 2:24Michelle Gauthier: And one of the things that I received, which is absolutely amazing, was a set of their bamboo pajamas.
- 2:29Michelle Gauthier: They're hard to describe because they're lightweight, but they're heavy because they're such nice material.
- 2:34Michelle Gauthier: They're really soft.
- 2:35Michelle Gauthier: And I got them like right before the big snowstorm we just had.
- 2:39Michelle Gauthier: And I swear I wore them for two days straight.
- 2:41Michelle Gauthier: They are so comfortable.
- 2:42Michelle Gauthier: And one big thing I noticed, I always wake up in the morning sweaty.
- 2:46Michelle Gauthier: It's very menopause.
- 2:47Michelle Gauthier: And I did not wake up sweaty with these pajamas on.
- 2:50Michelle Gauthier: I love pajamas, just in life in general.
- 2:52Michelle Gauthier: I love pajamas.
- 2:53Michelle Gauthier: They are literally the nicest, coziest, comfiest pajamas I have ever owned.
- 2:59Michelle Gauthier: And good news, they gave me a code just for the overwhelmed working woman audience where you can buy a pair of these pajamas and get a second pair for free.
- 3:08Michelle Gauthier: All you have to do is put the two pair of pajamas, go to cozyearth.com, put the two pair of pajamas in your shopping cart, and use the code to get the second pair for free.
- 3:17Michelle Gauthier: It's a totally risk-free purchase.
- 3:19Michelle Gauthier: They have a hundred night sleep trial.
- 3:20Michelle Gauthier: You can try them out, sleep in them a hundred times.
- 3:22Michelle Gauthier: And if you decide you don't like them, you can just return them.
- 3:25Michelle Gauthier: They have a 10-year warranty, so if anything happens to them, you can get a new pair.
- 3:29Michelle Gauthier: All right.
- 3:30Michelle Gauthier: So go to cozyearth.com and use this code OW for overwhelmed working woman and then B-O-G-O.
- 3:37Michelle Gauthier: So the whole thing is O W B-O-G-O.
- 3:40Michelle Gauthier: Buy one pair of pajamas and get the second pair for free.
- 3:43Michelle Gauthier: Go and get these for yourself and somebody you love, or two pairs for yourself, or one for you, one for your Galantine.
- 3:51Michelle Gauthier: Whoever you love enough to gift this amazing set of pajamas, I totally recommend.
- 3:56Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so let's get back to talking about being busy and why being busy is a pink flag instead of a badge of honor.
- 4:05Michelle Gauthier: One of the reasons why we stay busy that makes it a pink flag is in order to make ourselves matter.
- 4:12Michelle Gauthier: Let's just start with a common belief that I think most people hold unless they've really investigated this, is that being busy makes us important.
- 4:20Michelle Gauthier: Somewhere along the way, we started equating a packed calendar with being successful.
- 4:25Michelle Gauthier: If people need us all the time, we must be doing something right.
- 4:28Michelle Gauthier: Check this out for you and think about it for yourself because feeling important isn't the same thing as feeling good.
- 4:35Michelle Gauthier: For example, if you're saying yes to a request that you don't actually want to do just to feel helpful, that could be a pink flag.
- 4:42Michelle Gauthier: Feeling every hour of your day to avoid that, am I doing enough feeling or feeling uncomfortable with open space on your calendar?
- 4:50Michelle Gauthier: Those are all pink flags that you can investigate to say, why do I feel that way?
- 4:54Michelle Gauthier: Am I somewhere believing that in order to be important, I have to be busy?
- 4:59Michelle Gauthier: In order to be needed, I have to be busy.
- 5:01Michelle Gauthier: The other thing that really weighs in on this topic is that busyness is a cultural currency.
- 5:07Michelle Gauthier: If somebody comes up to you and says, How are you?
- 5:10Michelle Gauthier: the standard answer is, oh, busy.
- 5:12Michelle Gauthier: We say it with a sigh, but sometimes like a little pride.
- 5:15Michelle Gauthier: What would you say if you didn't say that?
- 5:17Michelle Gauthier: It's just baked into our culture right now, especially for women, that the busier you are, the better.
- 5:23Michelle Gauthier: And that the more you hustle, the more you're worthy.
- 5:26Michelle Gauthier: But if we're all like that, if everyone's overwhelmed, it feels like the whole system is broken.
- 5:31Michelle Gauthier: Like, how did we get here?
- 5:32Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, if somebody says to me, How are you doing?
- 5:36Michelle Gauthier: Are you just so busy?
- 5:37Michelle Gauthier: And I say, No, I'm not that busy.
- 5:38Michelle Gauthier: People don't even know what to say.
- 5:40Michelle Gauthier: And I feel like I have to justify it to say everything's going well, like my business is good, my kids are good, but I'm just not that busy.
- 5:48Michelle Gauthier: Just imagine even giving that answer.
- 5:50Michelle Gauthier: So maybe that's one little countercultural thing that you could do is tell the truth if you're if you have a pretty free day or if you had a pretty relaxing day, or say, actually have nothing planned this afternoon, so I'm not busy.
- 6:01Michelle Gauthier: It's really nice.
- 6:02Michelle Gauthier: Just think about that.
- 6:04Michelle Gauthier: Pink flag moments to watch for in this topic are feeling guilty when you take a rest.
- 6:09Michelle Gauthier: So, like on a Saturday morning, if you have nothing, which is a miracle, and you're lying on your couch and you're just sitting around drinking coffee and maybe catching up on a TV show, do you feel guilty about that?
- 6:20Michelle Gauthier: Another pink flag could be using your busyness to avoid feeling lazy.
- 6:25Michelle Gauthier: So if you feel like you're lazy and it makes you get up and do things, even when your body's like, we're tired, we need a break.
- 6:32Michelle Gauthier: That could be a pink flag.
- 6:34Michelle Gauthier: And then comparing your chaos to other people's as a measure of worth.
- 6:38Michelle Gauthier: I can think right now of at least five people who I know who are busier than I am, who are doing more than I am.
- 6:43Michelle Gauthier: I'm sure I could think of a lot more than that.
- 6:45Michelle Gauthier: But I'm just care comparing myself to other single moms.
- 6:48Michelle Gauthier: And if that makes me feel less worthy, then that's a pink flag.
- 6:53Michelle Gauthier: In my case, it makes me feel like I'm doing something right.
- 6:55Michelle Gauthier: I'm not doing it right all the time.
- 6:56Michelle Gauthier: I'm always changing, I'm always trying to improve, but it does make me feel good.
- 7:01Michelle Gauthier: And then the third thing, which I see all the time in my coaching is when we don't know what to do, we buffer with things.
- 7:08Michelle Gauthier: And by buffer, I mean we do things in order not to think about the state of our life.
- 7:11Michelle Gauthier: So sometimes buffering can be eating, it can be drinking, it can be shopping online, but it can also be busyness.
- 7:20Michelle Gauthier: People buffer with busyness, and busyness is something that you can control.
- 7:25Michelle Gauthier: You can create busyness anytime that you want.
- 7:28Michelle Gauthier: And it's really an activity that you use to numb out or avoid what's actually going on underneath.
- 7:33Michelle Gauthier: And it's sneaky because it looks like you're being really productive, but you're actually avoiding those feelings.
- 7:39Michelle Gauthier: So here are some pink flags that might show up.
- 7:42Michelle Gauthier: If you're obsessively checking your inbox or your Slack or whatever, instead of doing the thing that actually moves the needle, if you fill your weekends with house projects so you don't have to face the silence or your own thoughts, or you if you multitask nonstop because slowing down makes you feel unproductive or exposed, you could be buffering with busy.
- 8:02Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so here's what you learned today.
- 8:04Michelle Gauthier: We looked at why busy isn't the badge of honor that some people think it is, and how it can actually be a pink flag or many pink flags that something is off.
- 8:13Michelle Gauthier: So if busyness masks your need for validation, if society normalizes the hustle and you just feel like you have to go along with that, or if you're buffering by doing so many things to avoid what you're feeling, just notice that pink flag without judgment.
- 8:29Michelle Gauthier: And remember that you don't need to prove your value by packing your schedule.
- 8:34Michelle Gauthier: Working with women on this is exactly what I do in my one-on-one coaching.
- 8:39Michelle Gauthier: We gently unpack all the pink flags and see what is beneath this overwhelm and this busyness that's going on in your life.
- 8:47Michelle Gauthier: So if what I'm saying today really resonates with you, I would love to talk to you.
- 8:51Michelle Gauthier: And when we do a one-on-one consultation to talk about coaching, you just tell me what's going on with your life.
- 8:57Michelle Gauthier: It is not a high pressure situation at all.
- 8:59Michelle Gauthier: I talk to you about coaching and how we would unpack something like this and get to the bottom of it so that you could start feeling better.
- 9:06Michelle Gauthier: And then we decide if it's a good fit.
- 9:08Michelle Gauthier: So if you are interested in unpacking some of your own pink flags and figure out what's going on with those and how to start feeling better both right away and in the long term, I can absolutely help you with that.
- 9:20Michelle Gauthier: I'll put the link in the show notes if you want to set up a consultation with me.
- 9:24Michelle Gauthier: Okay, have a wonderful week, friend.
- 9:27Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 9:34Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com.
- 9:40Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.