Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #245| 5 Core Truths To Embrace So You Can Finally Beat Overwhelm
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: it All comes down to these five things.
- 0:02Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:14Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:19Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:24Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:31Michelle Gauthier: Hello, friend.
- 0:35Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for joining today.
- 0:36Michelle Gauthier: Guess what?
- 0:37Michelle Gauthier: It is our anniversary, our overwhelmed working woman anniversary.
- 0:42Michelle Gauthier: Three years since the very first episode of this podcast.
- 0:46Michelle Gauthier: It's crazy to think that three years ago, having really no idea what I was doing, I hit publish on the very first episode of this podcast, and I really had no idea what would happen.
- 0:54Michelle Gauthier: I just knew that I was gonna consistently put out episodes that I thought women needed to hear and see what happened.
- 1:00Michelle Gauthier: And now here we are.
- 1:02Michelle Gauthier: Over 250 episodes, over 100,000 downloads, and ranked in the top 1.5% of podcasts globally.
- 1:10Michelle Gauthier: But even more important than all that, it has helped thousands of women feel less overwhelmed and more in control of their lives.
- 1:16Michelle Gauthier: And that makes me so happy.
- 1:17Michelle Gauthier: So if you have been a listener since day one, if this is your first episode, if you're somewhere in between, thank you so much for listening.
- 1:25Michelle Gauthier: Most of the time, when people tell me that they listen to the podcast, it's because a friend referred it to them or they searched for overwhelm and found it.
- 1:34Michelle Gauthier: So if you're recommending this to your friends, thank you so much for that too.
- 1:37Michelle Gauthier: Over the past three years, I've taught a lot on this podcast, all kinds of tools and mindset shifts and ways to think about your time and your energy and your life.
- 1:46Michelle Gauthier: But when I really took a look at all of the episodes, looked at which ones were the most listened to, remembered back on ones where I had gotten the most comments or questions, I decided today to put together the five core truths that sit underneath everything that you'll hear on this podcast.
- 2:03Michelle Gauthier: These are the overarching themes that I talk about in many different ways, but it all comes down to these five things.
- 2:10Michelle Gauthier: So today I'm going to tell you what those five core truths are and how each one of these simple shifts can completely change how you approach your life.
- 2:18Michelle Gauthier: Before we jump into these five truths that I'm talking about today, I want to ask you for a favor.
- 2:24Michelle Gauthier: If you have been a listener of the podcast, whether that's on Apple or Spotify or wherever it is, if you would please leave a rating, that's when you just do the stars, or a review where you actually type a review, that would be amazing.
- 2:37Michelle Gauthier: That really helps us move our rank up, which means we get shown more often when people are searching for podcasts to listen to when they're feeling stressed and overwhelmed.
- 2:46Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so these are the five truths that I have uncovered over eight years of coaching and 250 podcast episodes.
- 2:55Michelle Gauthier: Now, each one of these things that I'm about to say has probably 10 episodes about it at some point or another from some point of view.
- 3:02Michelle Gauthier: So if you want to learn more about any of these things, you can just search for what I'm talking about and find another episode.
- 3:08Michelle Gauthier: When you're listening today, although I want you to listen to all five, I want you to think about which one is really calling out to you today because there's no way to take action on all five of these in the same day.
- 3:20Michelle Gauthier: So listen with the intention of choosing one small takeaway that you'll work on.
- 3:25Michelle Gauthier: Okay, here we go.
- 3:26Michelle Gauthier: Number one is that overwhelm is a choice.
- 3:29Michelle Gauthier: Overwhelm is a choice that you are making with the way that you're thinking and the actions that you're taking and the beliefs that you have.
- 3:37Michelle Gauthier: The great news about this truth is that you can also choose not to live in that way.
- 3:43Michelle Gauthier: And if you decide to make the choice not to live in that way, the first thing to do is accept, okay, this is in my control and I'm making this choice.
- 3:50Michelle Gauthier: There are lots of things in life that are out of your control.
- 3:53Michelle Gauthier: If you have a horrible boss or if you are getting divorced and it was not your choice, there's lots of bad things that can happen that can make us feel overwhelmed, but you always have a choice and you always have the power to make a situation better.
- 4:06Michelle Gauthier: Number two is that the solution to overwhelm is not doing more.
- 4:11Michelle Gauthier: So a lot of times people will come to me and say, Can you please just help me figure out a way to be most efficient with my to-do list so that I can get more done so that I can feel less overwhelmed?
- 4:22Michelle Gauthier: And I'm here to tell you that is actually never the solution.
- 4:26Michelle Gauthier: Now I love optimizing a to-do list.
- 4:28Michelle Gauthier: It's not that you can't make that better, but in order to truly solve your overwhelm, you have to decide that you are going to do less and do things with more intention and be better at prioritizing so that you can get the most impactful, important things done and not work until all hours of the night.
- 4:47Michelle Gauthier: That may solve your overwhelm for 10 minutes, but when you wake up in the morning, it's all going to be back.
- 4:52Michelle Gauthier: Number three is that there is a huge amount of power in the pause.
- 4:57Michelle Gauthier: So anytime you're trying to change something about your life, things that we talk about all the time are people pleasing, learning to say no, learning how to manage your time and plan your week, all of those require this magical pause where you have to stop at the intersection of what you're used to doing and pause before you can turn and do the new thing.
- 5:19Michelle Gauthier: So for example, if you're used to automatically saying yes, if somebody comes up to me and says, Hey, Michelle, I know you're really great at fundraising and we need to raise some money for school, do you think you could do that?
- 5:30Michelle Gauthier: I have to be able to pause and not automatically say yes.
- 5:34Michelle Gauthier: The pause is where the magic can really happen.
- 5:37Michelle Gauthier: And once I have that pause, then I can have time to practice my new response, which is, thank you so much for asking me.
- 5:43Michelle Gauthier: I will think about that and get back to you.
- 5:45Michelle Gauthier: And you have just bought yourself the opportunity to take a new action.
- 5:49Michelle Gauthier: Number four is the solution to every problem begins with thinking.
- 5:54Michelle Gauthier: And in fact, sometimes thinking differently is the solution to the problem.
- 5:58Michelle Gauthier: It's the only thing that you have to do.
- 6:00Michelle Gauthier: But even if it's a really complex problem that's going to take a lot of action, the very first step, if you want to solve a problem, is to ask yourself, how am I thinking about this problem?
- 6:10Michelle Gauthier: And then changing your thinking so that you can start working on whatever actions that you have to take.
- 6:16Michelle Gauthier: For example, if I just spill this glass of water on my desk, I could have the thought of, oh my gosh, I've had the worst luck.
- 6:23Michelle Gauthier: This is a terrible day.
- 6:24Michelle Gauthier: I can't believe this just happened.
- 6:25Michelle Gauthier: I'm right in the middle of a podcast.
- 6:26Michelle Gauthier: What am I gonna do about this?
- 6:28Michelle Gauthier: Everything sucks.
- 6:28Michelle Gauthier: Life is always so hard for me.
- 6:30Michelle Gauthier: Blah, blah, blah.
- 6:31Michelle Gauthier: You can imagine my mind going on and on about that.
- 6:34Michelle Gauthier: But before I can actually solve the problem, why not just think, whoops, at least it's just water and I have some paper towels handy, I can clean that up quickly.
- 6:42Michelle Gauthier: I just change my thought, grab the paper towel, clean up the problem.
- 6:45Michelle Gauthier: Now that is a very small example, but that exact idea applies to all problems in life.
- 6:50Michelle Gauthier: The solution to any problem begins with the way that you're thinking about it.
- 6:54Michelle Gauthier: And then number five, this one was my personal least favorite, which is that you have to feel your feelings or they will never go away.
- 7:01Michelle Gauthier: I went for many years bragging that nothing upset me.
- 7:05Michelle Gauthier: I never got worked up about anything.
- 7:07Michelle Gauthier: I could be super sad, but I would never cry or let it show.
- 7:10Michelle Gauthier: The only emotions that I let show through were the positive ones.
- 7:13Michelle Gauthier: And let me tell you what happens when you do that.
- 7:15Michelle Gauthier: They just wait, they just wait.
- 7:17Michelle Gauthier: I feel like they just sit there at the bottom of your gut waiting for you to give them a chance to come out.
- 7:21Michelle Gauthier: And eventually, if you don't let them out, they will just come out without your permission.
- 7:25Michelle Gauthier: They might come out in the form of like lower back pain, that's how mine came out, or you might just completely freak out and have a total breakdown about something that seems like a very small deal, but those emotions are coming out.
- 7:37Michelle Gauthier: And so if you really want to start feeling better, just feel those feelings no matter what they are.
- 7:42Michelle Gauthier: Studies even show that if you were to just sit down and be sad and cry, then it usually passes in about two minutes.
- 7:49Michelle Gauthier: Just let that feeling out, let yourself express it, and then you can move on.
- 7:53Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so those are the five biggest truths.
- 7:56Michelle Gauthier: If you want to find out more information on any single one of those topics, you can just search it and find those.
- 8:01Michelle Gauthier: Number one, overwhelm is a choice, but you can also make the choice to not feel that way.
- 8:07Michelle Gauthier: Number two, doing more is not the answer to overwhelm.
- 8:10Michelle Gauthier: Doing less with more intention is.
- 8:12Michelle Gauthier: Number three, there's magic and power in the pause.
- 8:15Michelle Gauthier: Learning how to take a pause so that you can choose a new and different action than you have been taking is essential.
- 8:22Michelle Gauthier: Number four, every solution begins with the way that you're thinking about the problem.
- 8:27Michelle Gauthier: Thinking, mindfulness, how am I thinking about this is the key to everything.
- 8:31Michelle Gauthier: And number five, feel your feelings.
- 8:34Michelle Gauthier: So whichever one of those applies most to you today, I challenge you to go out there and do that thing.
- 8:41Michelle Gauthier: And if you want more information on it, keep searching in this podcast.
- 8:44Michelle Gauthier: You will find plenty more information.
- 8:46Michelle Gauthier: Just like I said at the beginning, I would be so grateful if you would take a minute to leave a rating and review for this podcast.
- 8:52Michelle Gauthier: And I just want to thank you again for three great years.
- 8:56Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 9:03Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.com.
- 9:09Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.