Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #95| Breaking Free From Burnout and Overwhelm and Finding Peace and Productivity

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#95| Breaking Free From Burnout and Overwhelm and Finding Peace and Productivity · Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing

• 0:04
  Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
• 0:12
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, michelle Gthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
• 0:17
  Michelle 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.
• 0:28
  Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend, I've got a different kind of episode for you today.
• 0:33
  Michelle Gauthier: Today, instead of me interviewing someone, I am the interviewee.
• 0:38
  Michelle Gauthier: I am sharing an episode of Susan Hyatt's podcast You've Got Nerve where she interviewed me asking me, where do I have nerve?
• 0:47
  Michelle Gauthier: And, as you guys may know, I have the nerve to lead a life and help others do the same without stress, burnout, overwhelm, dissatisfaction all the things that are part of our societal pressures as women.
• 1:01
  Michelle Gauthier: So when you listen to this episode, you'll hear Susan, who is a fantastic interviewer, ask me and discuss with me how you can recognize and break free from this cultural script that dictates your worth.
• 1:14
  Michelle Gauthier: So much, as women, we feel like what we do, what kind of job we have, what kind of mother we are, dictates our worth.
• 1:21
  Michelle Gauthier: We're going to talk about that.
• 1:23
  Michelle Gauthier: We're going to talk about how to transition from low quality to high quality thoughts and what that means.
• 1:29
  Michelle Gauthier: And then we list out some small but impactful changes you can do to create a calmer, more intentional life.
• 1:35
  Michelle Gauthier: So take a listen to this interesting episode and check out Susan if you don't already follow her.
• 1:41
  Michelle Gauthier: She is really inspiring, amazing, and a wonderful life coach.
• 1:46
  Susan Hyatt: Michelle, welcome to You've Got Nerve! S o listen.
• 1:52
  Susan Hyatt: I have had the pleasure of witnessing Michelle grow her company.
• 1:58
  Susan Hyatt: By the way, Michelle, did you ever find that Rolex?
• 2:07
  Michelle Gauthier: Nope, I sure didn't.
• 2:07
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm still willing it to come back to me.
• 2:09
  Michelle Gauthier: I can't believe you remember that story.
• 2:13
  Susan Hyatt: So Michelle has been in my world for a long while and I'm joking, because we were at a On the 6 Mastermind Retreat in Savannah and she disclosed that she misplaced a gold Rolex.
• 2:30
  Susan Hyatt: Sounds so ridiculous.
• 2:33
  Susan Hyatt: Listen, I need everybody to conjure up.
• 2:38
  Michelle Gauthier: It has a pink face.
• 2:39
  Michelle Gauthier: It's the men's size, big one with a pink face.
• 2:46
  Susan Hyatt: O kay, and I just want to point out that Michelle is a very successful coach, but she's also a single mom, and let me tell you something what we need is for single moms to find pink face Rolexes.
• 2:57
  Susan Hyatt: Okay, we need them, to find them.
• 2:59
  Michelle Gauthier: So oh my gosh, I thought, because our goal was to, you know, try to picture it and have it show up, and I saw - I got it custom made, so it's not like one you can just go buy - and I saw a picture of one in a magazine as an advertisement, so I did see it.
• 3:15
  Michelle Gauthier: But I'm like Universe, that's not what I meant.
• 3:17
  Michelle Gauthier: I meant I want the real thing back.
• 3:20
  Michelle Gauthier: So I still think about it from time to time.
• 3:22
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm sure it's making its way back to me.
• 3:23
  Michelle Gauthier: Listen, it's going to make its way back.
• 3:25
  Susan Hyatt: I'm going to will it so.
• 3:29
  Susan Hyatt: Good, but Michelle, you have a really popular podcast Overwhelmed Working Woman.
• 3:35
  Michelle Gauthier: Every time I say the name, every woman I talk to is like, oh yeah, that's me.
• 3:39
  Michelle Gauthier: It's the podcast for everyone who works, who identifies as a woman.
• 3:45
  Susan Hyatt: Listen, and so you are out to disrupt that and help women get up the nerve to choose a different mindset, a different lifestyle, which is so needed.
• 4:00
  Susan Hyatt: So what do you think, in all the work that you do with your clients, and all of the podcast episodes that you've done, and all the guests you've interviewed, what do you notice is required to get up the nerve to opt out of what culture teaches us?
• 4:37
  Michelle Gauthier: Yeah.
• 4:37
  Michelle Gauthier: I always say this - the pain of staying in the overwhelm gets so bad - which is how I was able to transform my life - gets so bad and you're so miserable that you get to the point that you're like, I don't what it takes.
• 4:37
  Michelle Gauthier: I have got to fix this.
• 4:37
  Michelle Gauthier: Yes, it's uncomfortable to make a change.
• 4:39
  Michelle Gauthier: It's uncomfortable to start having boundaries and saying no to people and all those things.
• 4:44
  Michelle Gauthier: But if you compare that discomfort to living in the stress of overwhelm, I mean you know how that feels, because I feel like you were in the same spot when you were a realtor.
• 4:53
  Michelle Gauthier: It literally makes you sick in the body, in the mind, and it's miserable.
• 4:59
  Michelle Gauthier: You can't connect with your kids.
• 5:00
  Michelle Gauthier: You can't do a great job at work because you're too frazzled and frantic all the time.
• 5:04
  Michelle Gauthier: So people have to get sick enough of that to be willing to go through the discomfort of making a change.
• 5:12
  Michelle Gauthier: And I think one of the biggest things is they just have to know it's possible.
• 5:15
  Michelle Gauthier: You don't have to follow this script, and that's why I feel so passionate about what I teach, because it is an option, it's a choice that we're making, but we don't have to.
• 5:27
  Susan Hyatt: Well, right, and I think that when I was the poster child for being an overwhelmed working woman and mom back in the day, I looked around and didn't realize how much other working moms were suffering.
• 5:48
  Susan Hyatt: And also, even people who did vent about how overwhelmed and overworked and stressed out they were, I didn't see any examples of women who were doing it differently.
• 6:03
  Susan Hyatt: And I'm always saying, if you can't see it, you can't be it, and so I'm grateful that there are examples in the world, like you, to say you know, actually, here's what I did to change that narrative for myself.
• 6:20
  Susan Hyatt: And so what do you think in terms of when people, when women, discover that, oh, I've been taught to operate in this way that is really hurting me, it's hurting my physical health, it's hurting my mental health, it's hurting my relationships - what do you think are some of the first things that need to happen for women to create a different life for themselves?
• 6:49
  Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, I think the first is the awareness.
• 6:51
  Michelle Gauthier: So in the example you're giving, where the person realizes it, like, oh, I've been sort of socialized.
• 6:57
  Michelle Gauthier: I think, for our generation - I don't know if your mom worked, Susan, my mom stayed home.
• 7:03
  Michelle Gauthier: So I think we have this pressure to sort of be both of our parents, like we have the opportunity to, in my case, have a great career like my dad, and also be the mom with the mostest, like my mom did, and it's just, it's too much.
• 7:17
  Michelle Gauthier: So I feel like we're figuring it out and like our daughters hopefully aren't going to have to do this.
• 7:23
  Michelle Gauthier: But we have to realize that we're in the middle here where we're really defining a new situation and a new way to do things, and so just realizing you're in it is first, and then realizing that overwhelm is a choice and people sometimes don't like when I say that but it's a choice that we're making by -
• 7:41
  Michelle Gauthier: it's like we're voting.
• 7:42
  Michelle Gauthier: Every time we do too many things, we sign up for something that we don't actually want to do, where we buy into the idea that everybody has to feel like that, we're putting a vote in the jar of overwhelm.
• 7:56
  Michelle Gauthier: And so just realizing that it's a choice, not in a way, women like to go down the path a lot of oh my gosh, I've totally screwed this up, this is all wrong, I've been a terrible mom, whatever.
• 8:06
  Michelle Gauthier: Not that way, just from a neutral perspective, like I see what I'm doing, I'm voting for the wrong party here, and I'm going to start voting for being a calm mom by changing the way that I think and the things I do and the beliefs that I have.
• 8:20
  Michelle Gauthier: So I'd say that's really the first step is just realizing that you're doing it.
• 8:27
  Susan Hyatt: Realizing you're doing it, recognizing that it is a choice.
• 8:29
  Susan Hyatt: That's a tough pill to swallow man.
• 8:31
  Susan Hyatt: I remember learning like oh wow, I've been choosing to opt into this.
• 8:39
  Susan Hyatt: And if I want to opt out, what does that mean?
• 8:48
  Susan Hyatt: And I think that's where the nerve comes in, because most people are operating on default.
• 8:52
  Susan Hyatt: They're reacting to their lives instead of creating it.
• 8:57
  Susan Hyatt: And so if you're choosing, if you're acknowledging like, oh wow, I'm more powerful than I think, I can choose something different, but if I do, certain things might happen.
• 9:11
  Susan Hyatt: So what needs to happen after awareness is gained for people to make some different choices?
• 9:18
  Susan Hyatt: And what are some examples of some different choices you've made that have helped to alleviate - because I really agree with what you're saying.
• 9:27
  Susan Hyatt: I think many of us bought into the idea that like okay, I'm a feminist, I have choice and I can choose different things.
• 9:36
  Susan Hyatt: But what I have seen happen in my own life and in others' lives is like oh okay, well, now I'm just going to do it all.
• 9:44
  Susan Hyatt: Right, like you were saying, I'm going to have the career and then I'm also going to be the mom with the mostest, and what that ends up creating is two full-time jobs.
• 9:59
  Michelle Gauthier: Yes, exactly, and something that no one, literally no one, can do that.
• 10:04
  Michelle Gauthier: So I think, once you realize that you're doing it and you're ready to have a different kind of life, you just have to start small.
• 10:12
  Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes we feel like I'm overwhelmed all the time, but that really isn't true.
• 10:16
  Michelle Gauthier: It's not all the time.
• 10:17
  Michelle Gauthier: So I would say the first thing is to just sort of make friends with your overwhelm, sort of sit with it and say, what is it?
• 10:24
  Michelle Gauthier: Is it like, for example, I had a boss who just - instant - anytime I got a call or a text or anything, it was just instant overwhelm.
• 10:32
  Michelle Gauthier: Or is it a certain topic, like
• 10:34
  Michelle Gauthier: thinking about changing your job really makes you feel stressed out, and really realizing what's already working, and then what isn't, and then starting to think about what's possible.
• 10:44
  Michelle Gauthier: And that is exactly what you alluded to.
• 10:46
  Michelle Gauthier: Like, if you can't picture in your mind anything different, it's going to be really hard to create that, but you can create that just in a daydream.
• 10:53
  Michelle Gauthier: You don't have to do anything with it at first.
• 10:56
  Michelle Gauthier: Just imagine what it would be like.
• 10:58
  Michelle Gauthier: And oftentimes when I ask my client, well, what would your ideal day be, they're like what do you mean?
• 11:04
  Michelle Gauthier: Well, what do you like to do for fun?
• 11:07
  Michelle Gauthier: I don't know anymore.
• 11:08
  Michelle Gauthier: So just even getting back to that and connecting with yourself and making those small changes and then, I think, really just practical steps of making choices.
• 11:19
  Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, if you let your kids sign up for three team sports in a season, you're going to be overwhelmed, like that's way too much.
• 11:28
  Susan Hyatt: Listen if any of y'all listening, right the fuck now, if any of you listening have allowed three team sports in one season, I want you to compassionately fire something.
• 11:40
  Susan Hyatt: Okay, like it is like I don't know how I escaped team sports with my kids.
• 11:48
  Susan Hyatt: Well, they did little things when they were really little, but I escaped, like all the traveling sports You know, my kids just had other interests, like Ryan was into martial arts, Cora was into band and art, and so I have plenty of friends, though, and colleagues who are running all over, running, running the wheels off their car with all these team sports.
• 12:15
  Susan Hyatt: So, right, like, if you have to take a look at, like, what are you creating for yourself out of this mom guilt?
• 12:24
  Michelle Gauthier: Yes, exactly.
• 12:26
  Michelle Gauthier: And then I think, even with it, like my daughter does horse, which is a very time-consuming sport.
• 12:32
  Michelle Gauthier: She goes to the barn three times a week.
• 12:34
  Michelle Gauthier: She had a show this past weekend.
• 12:35
  Michelle Gauthier: It was nine to five Saturday, noon to seven on Sunday.
• 12:41
  Michelle Gauthier: I mean it is some serious long hours and I think just asking yourself do I need to be there the whole time?
• 12:49
  Michelle Gauthier: Do I have to do this sport myself, or can I sometimes -?
• 12:54
  Michelle Gauthier: So I dropped her off at noon on Sunday and all the other parents were there and I thought, I'm going to have a - I set myself up right for Monday on Sunday.
• 13:03
  Michelle Gauthier: If I don't get a chance to do that, which I'm not going to get to do, my week is going to start off on the wrong foot and I'm going to feel overwhelmed.
• 13:10
  Michelle Gauthier: So I prioritize that calm feeling over anything else, and so I said you're good to go, you're not riding for five hours, you have fun with your friends, watch everybody else.
• 13:19
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm leaving, I'm going to go back home and I'm going to do my thing.
• 13:22
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm going to order groceries, get our home organized and do that.
• 13:26
  Michelle Gauthier: So, even within the things that your kids do do, just making choices for you, making your calmness, your peaceful feeling number one.
• 13:37
  Susan Hyatt: Well, I think that's such a good point that there's always a way.
• 13:43
  Susan Hyatt: Right, there's always a way.
• 13:45
  Susan Hyatt: And the Sunday getting ready for the week thing, I think, is so huge.
• 13:50
  Susan Hyatt: I was talking about in my Yes Group like, don't let you know, Tired Nighttime You create messes for Future Y ou.
• 14:00
  Susan Hyatt: Like, don't, you know?
• 14:02
  Susan Hyatt: But as soon as I taught that, though, I left dirty dishes in the sink and the next morning I was like oh, yes, right, and it just sets your day off in a way that isn't great.
• 14:15
  Susan Hyatt: And the same is true for having that time to set up your week, whether it's meal prep or just getting laundry, getting things organized, whatever, and so I love that.
• 14:27
  Susan Hyatt: You were like okay, all the other parents are there and I've done enough this weekend and she can be there without me while I do what I need to do to create the conditions for me to have a good week.
• 14:40
  Michelle Gauthier: Yes, and our whole family to have a good week, because if I'm frantic, they're frantic.
• 14:44
  Michelle Gauthier: So if we can start it off on a calm foot, that's great.
• 14:47
  Michelle Gauthier: And I have learned to, and if this sounds far away from someone who's listening to this, that's okay.
• 14:52
  Michelle Gauthier: It sounded far away for me too, but I've learned to walk out that door, and somebody, one of the other moms, said, you're leaving?
• 14:58
  Michelle Gauthier: And I was like, I am, I'll see you in a couple hours.
• 15:00
  Michelle Gauthier: Zero thoughts.
• 15:01
  Michelle Gauthier: I just walked out.
• 15:02
  Michelle Gauthier: I knew that was best for me.
• 15:03
  Michelle Gauthier: She was probably, maybe, thinking, I wish I was going, or she's a terrible mom, or whatever she wanted to think, or nothing.
• 15:11
  Michelle Gauthier: Maybe she wasn't thinking about me at all, but I have no thoughts about that anymore and that's really powerful too.
• 15:16
  Susan Hyatt: It is really powerful because we can.
• 15:18
  Susan Hyatt: A lot of the reason why we don't get up the nerve to make the changes that we have is because we're allowing people to have real estate in our minds that, you know, we're so worried about what other people are going to think, or judgment from other moms.
• 15:31
  Susan Hyatt: Because, let's face it, the quote unquote mommy wars are real and we can opt out of those, too.
• 15:38
  Susan Hyatt: Because, let me tell you something, I was a stay at home mom.
• 15:42
  Susan Hyatt: I was a work totally outside the home, full-time mom.
• 15:48
  Susan Hyatt: I was a work part-time from home mom and I was a work full-time from home mom.
• 15:56
  Susan Hyatt: So I've done like literally every iteration of what moms get in fights about.
• 16:07
  Susan Hyatt: And there is no choice that I made, there was no scenario that I created, where someone wasn't going to have judgment about me not doing it well enough.
• 16:13
  Susan Hyatt: Oh, you're a stay-at-home mom?
• 16:15
  Susan Hyatt: Well, you're wasting your education.
• 16:16
  Susan Hyatt: Oh, you're working a full-time job outside of your home?
• 16:19
  Susan Hyatt: Oh well, what about the kids?
• 16:21
  Susan Hyatt: And then part-time?
• 16:22
  Susan Hyatt: Oh well, you know - and it's just kind of like, haven't you noticed that culture at large doesn't want us to win or create our own thing outside of the narrative.
• 16:36
  Susan Hyatt: So why don't we just do what we need to do, which can be very unique to us, although I think all human beings deserve downtime and time to plan and all those things, but you're talking about something that I think is really important, which is creating those conditions from a feeling state.
• 17:03
  Michelle Gauthier: Yes, and if you can even just ask yourself the question, will this make me feel more or less overwhelmed when you're going to do something, you can just use that as your lens.
• 17:14
  Michelle Gauthier: One of the things I do on Sunday is I look at my whole schedule.
• 17:18
  Michelle Gauthier: I write out a few things that I'm doing on each day and then I make a whole to-do list for the week and I look at the times where I don't already have clients scheduled or don't have meetings and I think where am I going to slot these things in?
• 17:30
  Michelle Gauthier: And every single time there are things that are just going to have to not get done, and so I think, being willing to make that choice and again sit with the discomfort of that.
• 17:41
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm an A-plus kind of person.
• 17:44
  Michelle Gauthier: I'd love to get everything done.
• 17:44
  Michelle Gauthier: When you have your own business, there's no end to the work you can do.
• 17:47
  Michelle Gauthier: So if I'm not prioritizing and asking myself the question, will this make me feel more or less overwhelmed, then I'm just going to try to do all those things and drive myself crazy.
• 17:56
  Michelle Gauthier: Where now - and I can see them all, this week when I went back, there were three or four things on the list from last week that still didn't make it on the calendar this week, and that's okay.
• 18:05
  Michelle Gauthier: Maybe I'll get to them and maybe I won't.
• 18:08
  Susan Hyatt: I love that.
• 18:09
  Susan Hyatt: And then I also would add when you make your list, like who else can do this?
• 18:15
  Susan Hyatt: Absolutely, can I outsource this, can I talk somebody else into this?
• 18:20
  Susan Hyatt: Like even still, there are things that just you know -
• 18:28
  Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, and the things that fall down usually are work things that I would love to have the time to do, but I just they don't fit into the hours that I choose to work, and so that just means they're not going to happen.
• 18:40
  Michelle Gauthier: And I have, at this point, I mean six years in.
• 18:42
  Michelle Gauthier: I feel like I've outsourced every possible thing that you can outsource.
• 18:47
  Michelle Gauthier: I put my laundry out on the porch on Tuesday mornings, it comes back, folded KonMari style, by the way, on Wednesday mornings.
• 18:54
  Michelle Gauthier: I have my house cleaned.
• 18:55
  Michelle Gauthier: I pay my teenage son to drive his sister to the barn one day a week, so I don't have to do it.
• 18:59
  Michelle Gauthier: I mean, I'm constantly thinking of all the things that I can do or I can pay someone to do.
• 19:07
  Susan Hyatt: I love that and I think that's an excellent point to bring up.
• 19:12
  Susan Hyatt: So for any of you listening who are suffering in silence with yourself, often when we're thinking, oh well, everyone, all these other overwhelmed working moms have it all together and we're not being honest, or have people that you can talk to about this, or choose to have people to talk to about this, so then what happens is you just take it all on and don't realize like, oh, Michelle outsources her laundry and Susan outsources her food (although I'm in my chef era right now).
• 19:51
  Michelle Gauthier: I bet you're going to give it away again eventually, though, when you're sick of it.
• 19:55
  Susan Hyatt: My friend Robert, uh the the weekend when I started cooking, he goes this will be over by Tuesday, and so he's shocked.
• 20:03
  Susan Hyatt: He's shocked that I'm still actually into it and I like I mean, he was like what, and everybody who knows me is like, what is happening?
• 20:15
  Susan Hyatt: But, I was like, I chose to do it or take it back, because I'm like weirdly having fun with it.
• 20:23
  Susan Hyatt: So, right, it's not something that I took back, and now I'm overwhelmed and I'm just suffering.
• 20:29
  Susan Hyatt: Right?
• 20:29
  Susan Hyatt: It's like as soon as it starts to feel like a burden, it's going to go again.
• 20:34
  Susan Hyatt: But I think that, like for any of you listening who are like well, that's all well and good, Susan and Michelle, but I don't have the extra budget right now to do those things, here's what I have to say.
• 20:46
  Susan Hyatt: There are people living in your house, probably, who could do more, and let's just start there.
• 20:53
  Susan Hyatt: Let's start with the free labor of the people eating your food and sleeping on your sheets.
• 20:58
  Michelle Gauthier: Okay, absolutely, and I think we can always - my old job, when I had a corporate job, was to make things as absolutely efficient as possible.
• 21:08
  Michelle Gauthier: So my brain is constantly thinking about efficiency and a friend just asked me the other day, well, how do you trust somebody else to do your laundry?
• 21:15
  Michelle Gauthier: What if there's something that needs to be dried without going in the dryer, or something special like that?
• 21:20
  Michelle Gauthier: I was like, I don't have stuff like that.
• 21:22
  Michelle Gauthier: If it can't be washed and dried, and if it's a dish and it can't go in the dishwasher, it's not in my house.
• 21:29
  Michelle Gauthier: I still have cute clothes and I have pretty dishes, but I mean, that's such a tiny thing.
• 21:34
  Michelle Gauthier: But think about the brain power that it would take to remember, oh, I got to take this bra out before I put stuff in the dryer, I got to take this out.
• 21:42
  Michelle Gauthier: I mean tiny little things like that that just make you have to think about things or do extra work.
• 21:48
  Michelle Gauthier: Just start cutting them out, that doesn't cost anything.
• 21:53
  Susan Hyatt: And you know, what I've often thought, like if something is a casualty, right, to me outsourcing this, then that's what happens.
• 22:03
  Michelle Gauthier: Exactly.
• 22:04
  Michelle Gauthier: It's more important that this get off my plate than it get done exactly the way I would want it.
• 22:10
  Michelle Gauthier: Exactly, because if you want it done exactly the way you want to have it done, then you're going to have to do it.
• 22:15
  Michelle Gauthier: And is you doing it going to make you feel overwhelmed?
• 22:18
  Michelle Gauthier: If the answer is yes, then it's like, get over it.
• 22:20
  Michelle Gauthier: I used to have to tell myself that about having a nanny.
• 22:24
  Michelle Gauthier: My kids are older now, so I don't have it.
• 22:25
  Michelle Gauthier: But I have to tell myself, if I want her to be just like me, then it's going to have to be me, and I love working and I want to do this, and I'm going to give my kids this opportunity to spend time with another person who can teach them different things that I wouldn't.
• 22:39
  Susan Hyatt: Yeah, it's so true.
• 22:40
  Susan Hyatt: It's so true.
• 22:41
  Susan Hyatt: What do you think in terms of overcoming this overwhelm?
• 22:48
  Susan Hyatt: And so we have awareness, we have understanding that your overwhelm is a choice, we have getting into the habit of daydreaming about what's working, what's not working and what's possible, and then, with what's possible, allowing yourself to daydream a little bit about what your life might be like if you were less overwhelmed.
• 23:17
  Susan Hyatt: When women start to daydream and, let's say, they hit on an ideal day scenario that looks real different than how they're living right now, do you have a mindset, mantra or a go-to belief that people could try on and practice while they're getting up the nerve to make changes?
• 23:44
  Michelle Gauthier: Yes, yeah.
• 23:45
  Michelle Gauthier: First of all, I would say take that ideal day, write the whole darn thing down.
• 23:49
  Michelle Gauthier: Or, if you're more of a visual person, make a vision board so that you've got it on there and then just pick one little piece of it.
• 23:58
  Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, I have wanted to be able to travel with my kids, so I have wanted to take them to Europe, and just now I booked the tickets and we're doing it.
• 24:09
  Michelle Gauthier: I told a friend she said oh, you've been talking about that forever, so you can't make things come to fruition right away all the time.
• 24:16
  Michelle Gauthier: But I have had that picture in the back of my mind and the way that I thought about it was, I want to have the freedom, the kind of life where taking a trip to Europe with my kids for several weeks is possible.
• 24:30
  Michelle Gauthier: So I think any mantra that just reminds you - or I'm working towards the kind of life where I enjoy my days.
• 24:38
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm working towards the kind of life where I feel relaxed and connected with my family.
• 24:41
  Michelle Gauthier: So it's not done yet.
• 24:43
  Michelle Gauthier: You don't have to make it another project that makes you feel stressed out.
• 24:47
  Michelle Gauthier: Just work on those little pieces, and little pieces for me were, like you know, researching places for us to go, a friend who lives in Paris, reaching out to her, researching the ticket prices and having those emailed to me all the time so I could get used to okay, this is the amount of money I'm going to spend on it.
• 25:04
  Michelle Gauthier: Just little bitty pieces of that, and it just kept coming to my mind and eventually I was like I don't know exactly how, but this is going to work out.
• 25:12
  Michelle Gauthier: I'm buying these tickets.
• 25:13
  Michelle Gauthier: The middle part is going to fill in.
• 25:15
  Michelle Gauthier: So at some point you have to take the action to move in that direction.
• 25:18
  Michelle Gauthier: I took the action to quit my corporate job because I had a dream of becoming a life coach, but before that I took little steps.
• 25:24
  Michelle Gauthier: I read self-help books, I did meditations.
• 25:28
  Michelle Gauthier: I finally signed up for Martha Beck Life Coaching, which is where I first heard of you, Susan, now that I think of it.
• 25:35
  Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, you were a teacher on our thing, but I didn't do - it wasn't like all of a sudden one day I was like okay, now I'm a life coach, I'm not a corporate person anymore.
• 25:46
  Michelle Gauthier: It's just little steps, day by day, and all of a sudden you're like oh, I feel better.
• 25:50
  Susan Hyatt: Yeah, and I find that once you write out your ideal day and you start taking - you start doing research, you start imagining what it might be like.
• 26:03
  Susan Hyatt: Then, all of a sudden - I like to think of it like the combination of elbow grease and spiritual grease - all of a sudden, like, you take these little moves and God, the universe, like your higher self, whatever higher power you believe in, conspires with you, so like you have to do things, but the door opens a little easier for you to walk through when you start to take those little little steps and it's it's um, for me lately it's been kind of wild, like oh wow, once you get into the habit of that, then it's like oh wow, there it is.
• 26:43
  Susan Hyatt: Am I going to walk through that door?
• 26:45
  Susan Hyatt: Because there's that open door.
• 26:47
  Michelle Gauthier: Yes, I think it's because you have the awareness and you start looking for the signs, you start looking for these opportunities and it's like, oh gosh, there it is.
• 26:56
  Michelle Gauthier: And I'm sure you've done this a million times.
• 26:58
  Michelle Gauthier: But you just put something out there that you want and all of a sudden the opportunity shows up like hey, do you want to be a speaker here, or do you want to go on this trip, or whatever it is?
• 27:09
  Michelle Gauthier: It just seems to come up.
• 27:12
  Susan Hyatt: It just seems to happen.
• 27:13
  Susan Hyatt: And guess what, when you get into a - what would you say is a common feeling state, your clients are after, if it's not overwhelmed - Calm is what they usually say, or intentional, peaceful Mm-hmm.
• 27:31
  Susan Hyatt: So if you are in the calm, peaceful zone, it's so much easier to recognize and seize opportunity, Right?
• 27:42
  Susan Hyatt: If you're overwhelmed and stressed out, you're going to miss it.
• 27:45
  Susan Hyatt: It's like that door could be opening in your face and you won't see it because you're like too stressed or whatever.
• 27:54
  Michelle Gauthier: Hmm, yep, that's exactly true.
• 27:56
  Michelle Gauthier: I was doing this meditation and it said to try to go somewhere where you go all the time and notice new things.
• 28:04
  Michelle Gauthier: And so I was driving my son to school, which was always in a hurry, I was always in a hurry to drop him off and I was trying to do it and I noticed, I've driven past this 100 times, and I noticed there was this cute bench with little flowers going around it that was just on the side of the highway and I'm like, I have driven past that 100 times and I've never seen it.
• 28:23
  Michelle Gauthier: It was just this little peaceful place.
• 28:25
  Michelle Gauthier: And so when you start tuning into like, where's the peace?
• 28:29
  Michelle Gauthier: And maybe the peace is in a person who you love but you haven't spent a lot of time with lately and suddenly they show back up in your life and you spend time with them, or you'll just find little pockets of it and find yourself being in that energy, you know.
• 28:42
  Michelle Gauthier: And one other thing that I want to say too, is that I still get overwhelmed.
• 28:46
  Michelle Gauthier: So this is not like a cure and you do it and you just suddenly feel amazing all the time.
• 28:52
  Michelle Gauthier: It's something that we just have to every day make choices, to decide okay, I'm going to do this thing because that's going to make me feel less overwhelmed, or I'm going to just go with what I had planned.
• 29:03
  Michelle Gauthier: Even though I want to go off and chase this shiny object, I'm just going to stick with what I have planned.
• 29:08
  Michelle Gauthier: So it's just about that mindset and making those choices just day in day out.
• 29:14
  Susan Hyatt: Yeah, I think that that's a good point to make, because often, right, like I will teach a thing and then find myself like, oh wow, here it is coming up for me again.
• 29:26
  Susan Hyatt: So it's like there's always work to be done and we're all human.
• 29:29
  Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, exactly, I think you can just get out of it faster when you have the training and you've done it a million times, but I swear, every time I'm teaching a webinar or I've got group coaching or something, one of my kids will get sick or there'll be something going on in my house.
• 29:45
  Michelle Gauthier: There's just always something that makes you have the potential to get overwhelmed.
• 29:50
  Michelle Gauthier: That's how life is.
• 29:52
  Susan Hyatt: That's okay, absolutely Well.
• 29:56
  Susan Hyatt: I love the work that you're doing.
• 29:57
  Susan Hyatt: Thank you for being such a lighthouse in the world for overwhelmed women and moms, and so obviously we're going to put in the show notes all the places where you can find Michelle.
• 30:08
  Susan Hyatt: Is there a preferred way for people to find you?
• 30:15
  Michelle Gauthier: My name, Michelle Gauthier Michelle with two L's, and then G-A-U-T-H-I-E-R.
• 30:18
  Michelle Gauthier: com is my website.
• 30:21
  Michelle Gauthier: It has everything like how to work with me, a link to my podcast.
• 30:25
  Michelle Gauthier: Everything you could need is there.
• 30:27
  Michelle Gauthier: Same on Instagram, Michelle Gauthier Coaching, so you can follow me in any of those places.
• 30:32
  Michelle Gauthier: Yay, yeah, thank you.
• 30:35
  Michelle Gauthier: I love the work you're doing too.
• 30:37
  Michelle Gauthier: We're doing, you know, trying to make women's lives better and I think we're succeeding.
• 30:43
  Michelle Gauthier: I do too.
• 30:43
  Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman Podcast.
• 30:51
  Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.
• 30:55
  Michelle Gauthier: com.
• 30:57
  Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.