Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #166| How to Crush the Second Half of Your Year - Without Overwhelm
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: Now that we're halfway through the year, are you wondering wait, what happened to all of my goals?
- 0:06Michelle 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, and in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life.
- 0:35Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend, thanks for joining today.
- 0:40Michelle Gauthier: If you are all of a sudden realizing that it is halfway through the year in fact, more than halfway through the year and that you haven't either thought about your goals maybe you never made goals in the first place, or maybe you're making great progress on your goals, you think, but you haven't necessarily checked in with yourself.
- 1:00Michelle Gauthier: This episode is going to help you learn how to reflect on the first half of the year without guilt, from a place of what do I want to do for the rest of the year?
- 1:09Michelle Gauthier: So we'll look at what's worth letting go or crossing off entirely and what you want to focus on for the rest of 2025.
- 1:16Michelle Gauthier: And then I will also give you some quick and easy shifts that you can make to realign and simplify the rest of 2025.
- 1:26Michelle Gauthier: Way back in January, which seems like forever ago, I taught a class called your Best Year and, by the way, I teach that class every year in January for several years in a row now.
- 1:36Michelle Gauthier: So keep that on your radar for when the new year starts in 2026.
- 1:40Michelle Gauthier: But what we do in that is we choose a word of the year, so everybody picks their own word of the year and then we look at high level goals for each area of your life that you want to accomplish, and that can just be it, and participants can go off on their own and see their year through to the end.
- 1:57Michelle Gauthier: Or there's an option to join a monthly check in and, if you do opt for that option, every month we review what went well during the month, what didn't go well, what we want to do better for the next month, and then we plan out the next month.
- 2:11Michelle Gauthier: For me personally, when I looked at the end of my 2024, so last year and realized that I really did a great job on all the goals that I had set for myself that year, the reason why is because I did this monthly check-in.
- 2:23Michelle Gauthier: If you're checking in on a monthly basis about what you are doing well, things that you need to do better, and planning for the next month ahead.
- 2:33Michelle Gauthier: You're never really falling behind or falling off too far that you can't catch up.
- 2:37Michelle Gauthier: So that is the thing that I would most recommend is having a monthly check-in with yourself.
- 2:43Michelle Gauthier: Now, if you didn't do any planning for 2025, or you did, but you forgot where it is or what you might have had on that, or you did the planning and you're not doing a monthly check in, all is not lost.
- 2:56Michelle Gauthier: You are still good to go.
- 2:58Michelle Gauthier: So what I want to do today is just talk through how to figure out where you are and then what to shift if you want to finish out the year strong.
- 3:08Michelle Gauthier: So let's first take a look at what's going well so far for you.
- 3:11Michelle Gauthier: I will tell you that automatically, your brain may say oh my gosh, nothing.
- 3:15Michelle Gauthier: I haven't done anything.
- 3:16Michelle Gauthier: I haven't made any progress.
- 3:18Michelle Gauthier: That's kind of like the way that our brain likes to trick us.
- 3:21Michelle Gauthier: So you might have to challenge yourself and really think about.
- 3:24Michelle Gauthier: I know things have gone well, so what are some of those things?
- 3:27Michelle Gauthier: Here's a great way to jog your memory: scroll through your calendar or look back at your phone photos.
- 3:33Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes the good stuff gets really buried in the day-to-day and seeing it again can remind you oh yeah, that was really great, that really mattered.
- 3:40Michelle Gauthier: Think about all the areas of your life when you're doing this.
- 3:44Michelle Gauthier: So what has gone well at work.
- 3:46Michelle Gauthier: Remember it can be something really small or it could be something huge, like I finished this million dollar project I was working on, or I feel like I'm communicating better with the people on my team than I was before.
- 3:59Michelle Gauthier: Think about family and friendships and your mental health and your physical health and your home and your financial wins, any personal growth or any rest that you've given yourself, any little routines or habits that have stuck.
- 4:16Michelle Gauthier: For example, if you're a person who consistently works out, don't forget that that's something that's going well for you.
- 4:23Michelle Gauthier: So maybe, like in my case, I added at the beginning of the year, I want to be able to do a pull up.
- 4:28Michelle Gauthier: I'm no closer to doing a pull up.
- 4:30Michelle Gauthier: In fact, I've barely worked on it.
- 4:31Michelle Gauthier: That's one of my gap areas that I have not done well on this year.
- 4:35Michelle Gauthier: But let's not lose the fact that I'm going to work out several times a week at my gym.
- 4:40Michelle Gauthier: So don't forget about the things that you are doing that are working.
- 4:43Michelle Gauthier: These can be related to goals you have or just things that you observed that you really like.
- 4:49Michelle Gauthier: For me, I've started trying to do a walk in the afternoon, just a quick one in between clients, and I really like it.
- 4:56Michelle Gauthier: So that was not one of my goals for the year, but it's something that I have implemented and I really like it.
- 5:01Michelle Gauthier: Part two is looking at what's not going well.
- 5:04Michelle Gauthier: So we want to take a gentle no shame, look at what's not working or what hasn't been working this year.
- 5:10Michelle Gauthier: So ask yourself did I start a goal or write it down but never really started?
- 5:15Michelle Gauthier: Did I forget about something that I wanted to do?
- 5:18Michelle Gauthier: Or am I actually hitting all my goals, but it feels like too much, or it feels overwhelming.
- 5:23Michelle Gauthier: Or maybe I didn't set any goals and I'm just floating with no real direction.
- 5:27Michelle Gauthier: All of these are totally valid and not a big deal, but now is the time to check in.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: So think about what isn't going great for you this year.
- 5:36Michelle Gauthier: For example, if your calendar is completely jam-packed but your soul feels empty, it might be time to do a calendar clean out.
- 5:43Michelle Gauthier: I've done full episodes on that, which I'll link in the show notes and think about do I really want to still do this?
- 5:51Michelle Gauthier: Because you don't need to keep every recurring event from January just because it's still on your books, and it's also totally okay to cross up goals that no longer make sense.
- 6:01Michelle Gauthier: I mentioned to you guys that I added the walk, which I really like, and I never really started on the pull-up, and that's just fine with me.
- 6:07Michelle Gauthier: It's not quitting, it's being intentional about what you really want to work on.
- 6:11Michelle Gauthier: You can also move goals to next year.
- 6:14Michelle Gauthier: You can cross it off.
- 6:15Michelle Gauthier: You can say I thought I wanted to do this, but I actually don't.
- 6:18Michelle Gauthier: That is progress too.
- 6:21Michelle Gauthier: So as I was doing my review for my year, I realized that there were a couple places, when I did this part of what's not going well, where I thought, oh, I had good intentions but I never actually took the steps to make any of that happen.
- 6:35Michelle Gauthier: And there were three or four things like that and I didn't want to just put them all on my to-do list for this week, so I'm just going to sprinkle them out over the next.
- 6:43Michelle Gauthier: We have like five months left, so I'm just going to sprinkle them out and look at one of them each of the months ongoing and for me, I just put that on my monthly plan for each one of those months, so I remember to do it.
- 6:54Michelle Gauthier: So it can be as simple as that.
- 6:56Michelle Gauthier: As like, oh yeah, I forgot, I wanted to work on that.
- 6:59Michelle Gauthier: Let me see where I can schedule the first step for that project.
- 7:02Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so now that you know what is going well, what isn't going well, let's think about what you might want to do differently.
- 7:11Michelle Gauthier: Ask yourself, what could I do differently for the rest of this year?
- 7:17Michelle Gauthier: That would help me feel good when the year ends.
- 7:19Michelle Gauthier: It's probably not like do more or be better.
- 7:23Michelle Gauthier: It's probably just do something differently with more intention.
- 7:27Michelle Gauthier: Here are a couple of shifts that you can borrow or choose from or just make your own.
- 7:32Michelle Gauthier: Number one is start a weekly planning check-in.
- 7:37Michelle Gauthier: If you aren't already doing this and you're not doing like a full planning and calendar clean out on Sundays, it might sound intimidating to do that.
- 7:45Michelle Gauthier: If it does just start with 15 minutes of looking at your schedule and maybe jotting down a couple notes.
- 7:50Michelle Gauthier: If it feels too big, this is for anything.
- 7:53Michelle Gauthier: If it feels too big, then it gets overwhelming and then you do nothing.
- 7:56Michelle Gauthier: So if the idea of planning your whole week and spending several hours doing it sounds like whoa, that's way too overwhelming.
- 8:02Michelle Gauthier: Just spend 15 minutes just on your phone flipping through your calendar and looking at what you have for the week ahead.
- 8:07Michelle Gauthier: Maybe you make a list of your top three priorities, something like that.
- 8:11Michelle Gauthier: Another tip if you are a person who says yes all the time and that's causing trouble for you say let me get back to you, instead of instantly saying yes, it's not all the way to saying no, it's just a start.
- 8:24Michelle Gauthier: You could block off 30 minutes a day just for yourself and see what it is you'd like to do during that time.
- 8:31Michelle Gauthier: You could try to batch your errands.
- 8:33Michelle Gauthier: You could delete a social media platform that you hate anyway.
- 8:37Michelle Gauthier: You could ask for help, even if it's small or uncomfortable.
- 8:41Michelle Gauthier: I just want to remind you about this one, because a lot of times when we're overachievers, we like to be the ones who people ask for help, but not to ask other people for help.
- 8:52Michelle Gauthier: And I have a friend right now and I've been trying to help her with something because she's just having a really busy period in her life and she doesn't want to accept my help, and it helps me remember that when we ask people for help, it also can make them feel good - just reminding you of that.
- 9:10Michelle Gauthier: Pick one someday project and actually schedule it.
- 9:15Michelle Gauthier: So this is kind of like I was talking about at the beginning, where if you have something that you wanted to do at the beginning of the year and you just haven't started it, just pick a day on your calendar and it could be two months from now and just jot down and block off an hour for you to think about it or get started on it.
- 9:30Michelle Gauthier: If you're feeling overwhelmed, you could just take a weekend off and don't justify it to anyone.
- 9:35Michelle Gauthier: You could take the time to forgive yourself and let go of anything that you didn't do this week.
- 9:41Michelle Gauthier: I don't really think anybody who's listening to this podcast needs a full overhaul, even if your brain tells you that it does.
- 9:49Michelle Gauthier: I think if you look at what's going well for you and you try to lean into that what's not going well for you and you try to make a small shift on one of those things, that it will help.
- 10:00Michelle Gauthier: You see that so far this year you probably have been successful more than you would have thought and for the places where you feel like you're behind, you can just get one of those things on your schedule and take one little step.
- 10:12Michelle Gauthier: So that's it for today.
- 10:14Michelle Gauthier: Review what went well so far this year, review what isn't going well and come up with one small shift that you can do to finish out your year feeling stronger and better than you feel today.
- 10:26Michelle Gauthier: If this episode helped you breathe a little easier, share it with someone else who might need a mid-year reset as well.
- 10:34Michelle Gauthier: Anytime you share the podcast, leave a review or leave a rating, which is just where you click the stars.
- 10:40Michelle Gauthier: It really helps the podcast continue to grow.
- 10:43Michelle Gauthier: I appreciate every single one of you who has done that, shared it, told someone about it.
- 10:49Michelle Gauthier: Every single little step like that really makes a difference.
- 10:52Michelle Gauthier: I hope you have a great week.
- 10:53Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the overwhelmed working woman podcast.
- 11:06Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthiercom.
- 11:09Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.