Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #299| The Real Reason "Good Enough" Feels Like Failure When You're an A+ Woman, and How B-Minus Work Rescues Your Productivity
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you will learn that the real reason good enough feels like a failure when you're an A plus type of gal.
- 0:11Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:18Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:23Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences.
- 0:28Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:38Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
- 0:39Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for joining today.
- 0:40Michelle Gauthier: Today we're going to be talking about the concept of B minus work, which you may have heard me talk about in the past.
- 0:46Michelle Gauthier: It's the idea that sometimes we choose on purpose not to do our very best A plus work on something.
- 0:53Michelle Gauthier: And I find that a lot of people either resist to this idea in general or like the idea but can't actually do it.
- 1:01Michelle Gauthier: So when you listen today, you'll learn why the concept of B- makes so many high-achieving women like you and me flinch, even when they know they can't keep doing it all.
- 1:10Michelle Gauthier: What it's really costing you to refuse B minus work or less than your best work at home and at work and with the people that you love most.
- 1:19Michelle Gauthier: And the one belief that's probably holding you to an A plus only standard, even while it's wearing you down.
- 1:25Michelle Gauthier: Okay, first let's just define what B minus work really is.
- 1:29Michelle Gauthier: Like I said at the start, it's choosing on purpose to give something slightly less than your best effort so that you can keep showing up without burning out.
- 1:37Michelle Gauthier: Because the truth is if you try to do A plus work in all places at all times, you're going to end up 100% in burnout and also super overwhelmed.
- 1:46Michelle Gauthier: B minus work isn't phoning it in.
- 1:48Michelle Gauthier: We're not talking like D minus work here.
- 1:51Michelle Gauthier: It's just deciding ahead of time where good enough really is good enough.
- 1:55Michelle Gauthier: So you save your A plus energy for the things that you choose and that matter most to you.
- 2:00Michelle Gauthier: Here's what that might look like at my house.
- 2:02Michelle Gauthier: An A plus dinner would be, let's say I grilled something and I have a couple sides, and there's a great balance between, you know, all the good macros, definitely vegetables involved.
- 2:13Michelle Gauthier: I'm cleaning the kitchen as I go along.
- 2:15Michelle Gauthier: Everybody sits down to a nicely set table, maybe some candles lit.
- 2:19Michelle Gauthier: This happens at my house maybe 5% of the time, but that's my A dinner.
- 2:24Michelle Gauthier: A B minus dinner is a rotisserie chicken from Costco that's been delivered, heating up some 90-second rice and whatever fruit we have in the house that I can cut up and everybody's fed and we're done.
- 2:39Michelle Gauthier: I think the dinner is a good example because most people are open to B minus work when it comes to getting dinner on the table.
- 2:46Michelle Gauthier: But a lot of times the concept of B minus makes people flinch with regards to work that they do or other areas of their life.
- 2:54Michelle Gauthier: So let's talk about first why B minus makes you flinch.
- 2:59Michelle Gauthier: I just taught this concept in my group coaching, and the initial resistance that I always get is like, oh, could I maybe do B plus or A minus work to start?
- 3:09Michelle Gauthier: And I mean, of course you can if that's what you want to do, but it just always makes me laugh because I understand it so deeply myself that the idea of purposefully getting a B minus is so uncomfortable.
- 3:20Michelle Gauthier: And so what happens in coaching is either people balk at the idea or they're like, okay, I get it.
- 3:26Michelle Gauthier: I get it in theory.
- 3:27Michelle Gauthier: I'm gonna try it.
- 3:28Michelle Gauthier: And maybe they'll try it one time, but then they go right back to A plus work and they just keep being exhausted.
- 3:33Michelle Gauthier: When you continue to do everything at A plus level, what usually happens is you're just not doing a lot of things.
- 3:41Michelle Gauthier: I have a client who was telling me that her house needs like a super deep clean and she kept waiting for the Saturday where she was free to be able to do that, and it just never came.
- 3:51Michelle Gauthier: And so her house just got dirtier and dirtier and dirtier.
- 3:54Michelle Gauthier: And so that is the downside to A plus work.
- 3:56Michelle Gauthier: Either you do this A plus job and spend your whole entire Saturday or maybe your whole weekend cleaning your house, or you just don't do it at all.
- 4:04Michelle Gauthier: And that's when I think B minus is the real winner because a B minus cleaning might be like, I'm just gonna vacuum a couple of rooms and give the kitchen a deep clean, or I'm gonna wipe down all the counters, you know, some smaller version where you feel like you're somewhat making progress.
- 4:20Michelle Gauthier: A lot of times staying in that A plus energy, what happens is you just don't do anything.
- 4:25Michelle Gauthier: Another pushback that I get around the idea of B minus work is, but I don't want to lower my standards.
- 4:31Michelle Gauthier: And if I let my standards slip here, whatever area we're talking about, I'll let them slip everywhere.
- 4:37Michelle Gauthier: And I just want to reassure you that if you're listening to this podcast and you're overwhelmed, you have very high standards.
- 4:44Michelle Gauthier: And that's probably why you're really good at what you do and probably why you've achieved as much as you have in life today.
- 4:51Michelle Gauthier: So it makes sense that you would want to protect those standards, those high standards and that A plus work that you like to deliver.
- 4:57Michelle Gauthier: I don't think there's any problem with the idea of having A plus and having high standard.
- 5:03Michelle Gauthier: It's just that you can't give that to everything.
- 5:05Michelle Gauthier: It's literally impossible.
- 5:07Michelle Gauthier: And when you try to really give A plus to everything, what happens usually is that the people in your life who you care about most end up getting the D minus version of you.
- 5:17Michelle Gauthier: And what I mean by that is if you wake up in the morning and you give an A plus to your workout and you give an A plus to everything at work the entire day, and you come home and you give an A plus to trying to get dinner on the table for your family, and then you give an A plus to keeping up with the house.
- 5:34Michelle Gauthier: So you're picking up the house and doing the laundry, and then you sit down on the couch.
- 5:38Michelle Gauthier: What do you have left for your husband or your kids?
- 5:43Michelle Gauthier: Probably like a D minus at that point because you're humid and you're freaking exhausted.
- 5:49Michelle Gauthier: Think about it this way: B minus isn't a slip when you choose it on purpose.
- 5:54Michelle Gauthier: It's a strategy.
- 5:55Michelle Gauthier: It's how you protect your A plus for the things that matter most.
- 5:58Michelle Gauthier: A woman in my group coaching said when she chose it on purpose and even said the words, I'm choosing to do B minus work, it stopped feeling like slacking and she started feeling like it was so freeing that she could choose that.
- 6:11Michelle Gauthier: She said she had never even considered the idea that she could purposefully do slightly less than her best sometimes.
- 6:17Michelle Gauthier: Okay, I hope you're thinking about someplace that you can do some B minus work this week.
- 6:22Michelle Gauthier: Maybe you've even tried it before.
- 6:25Michelle Gauthier: What I see happen a lot of times is that when women get this concept and they're like, okay, I'm gonna try B minus, and then they say, I'm gonna do it.
- 6:35Michelle Gauthier: I'm really gonna do it, and maybe they'll try it once and it feels a little bit uncomfortable, and then they go back to A plus.
- 6:40Michelle Gauthier: And A plus means overwhelm and burnout.
- 6:43Michelle Gauthier: And that's because that little voice in their head that says, I should be able to handle all of this at an A plus level is the one deciding that B minus is not allowed.
- 6:51Michelle Gauthier: And sometimes trying to figure out that transition from A plus burnout overwhelm to strategically doing B minus work in a couple places is a place where you really could use some help.
- 7:04Michelle Gauthier: If that's the case, in my one-on-one coaching, my overwhelm to calm method gives you someone on the outside who can see what you can't see.
- 7:12Michelle Gauthier: You know that saying it's hard to read the label from inside the jar.
- 7:16Michelle Gauthier: It's hard to change yourself when you can't see the thoughts that you're having and the patterns that you're in that are keeping you stuck there.
- 7:24Michelle Gauthier: So you'll have me who can see the label from outside the jar help you consistently over time start doing less and start doing B minus work strategically so that you can really give your A plus to the parts of your job that really matter, to your marriage, to your kids, so that those parts of your life don't get the leftovers.
- 7:46Michelle Gauthier: The good news is I totally stopped living like this.
- 7:49Michelle Gauthier: I used to try to do A plus on everything all the time.
- 7:52Michelle Gauthier: If you think about what that might look like for you, if you get to that place where you can have a Sunday afternoon that's actually free and a kitchen that's clean enough, and you're sitting on the couch and actually listening to your spouse when you're hearing about his day, and you'll have full energy for the couple of things that really matter this week with zero guilt.
- 8:13Michelle Gauthier: B minus is not lowing your standards, it's choosing on purpose where your best energy goes.
- 8:19Michelle Gauthier: So the people and the work that you love most get your A plus instead of your leftovers.
- 8:24Michelle Gauthier: If you've been listening to this episode and hearing that little voice say, I should be able to just do everything at A plus.
- 8:30Michelle Gauthier: Maybe I just need to try harder.
- 8:32Michelle Gauthier: I want you to know you do not have to keep trying to figure this out on your own.
- 8:36Michelle Gauthier: Trying to fix this yourself is just one more thing that you're trying to do at A plus.
- 8:40Michelle Gauthier: You don't have to do it all on your own.
- 8:42Michelle Gauthier: That's what I'm here for.
- 8:43Michelle Gauthier: I'd love to invite you to a free 45-minute discovery session with me where we can look at where your A plus energy is going right now.
- 8:52Michelle Gauthier: And I'll show you how we'd work together so that you can learn to take your best energy to the things that matter most and learn how to do strategic B minus work and just do less in general so that you can feel less overwhelmed.
- 9:06Michelle Gauthier: Absolutely no pressure.
- 9:08Michelle Gauthier: You do not have to have it all together before we talk.
- 9:10Michelle Gauthier: Just come as you are.
- 9:12Michelle Gauthier: You can book at Michellegauthier.com slash bookme and the link is at the top of the show notes as well.
- 9:20Michelle Gauthier: I'd love to talk with you.
- 9:22Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 9:29Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
- 9:35Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.