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Michelle's Story: How I Stopped Trying to Be Perfect, Stopped People Pleasing, and Found True Peace Using Mindfulness · Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing

• 0:04
  Michelle: Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
• 0:09
  Michelle: Hey, friends, I was just sitting here working on some stuff for my group coaching and I came across this old picture of myself from when I very first had my own website.
• 0:25
  Michelle: I still had another job, but I was putting together my own website and I got some head shots and I looked at that email and just reminded me how I used to feel at that time and I felt inspired to just create this random short episode to share with you, in case you happen to be feeling like I used to.
• 0:44
  Michelle: When I came across the picture and I saw it was my first headshot I ever had taken for my business and I look so like perfect and stressed Not perfect like I'm saying, oh, I was amazing, but there wasn't a hair out of place.
• 1:02
  Michelle: I was just trying so hard to make my life work for me, but inside I was totally afraid.
• 1:10
  Michelle: When I saw that picture today, I just remembered exactly how I felt.
• 1:13
  Michelle: I was just afraid to quit my corporate job, afraid not to make that money anymore, afraid to get divorced, really afraid to be a single mom.
• 1:24
  Michelle: I was afraid to live in a smaller house in a different neighborhood.
• 1:28
  Michelle: I was afraid to walk away from the status that I was used to having, like the oh, I'm a corporate person and I have this awesome job.
• 1:40
  Michelle: That kind of was who I was, and so I was afraid to walk away from that, and I was so miserable, though, in the situation that I was in, and I had really tried to make it work.
• 1:52
  Michelle: I don't know how you are, but I suspect if you have any of the overwhelming perfectionism tendencies that I do when something isn't working out and you want to make it work, you just try and try and try and try harder.
• 2:05
  Michelle: I mean, I tried so hard, I couldn't have tried any harder and in the end, my old method of trying harder just stopped working.
• 2:15
  Michelle: I see this a lot with clients who I see now where they're.
• 2:19
  Michelle: Like my whole life I've just worked really hard, and anytime I felt stressed or overwhelmed I would just work harder and it would go away, but eventually it stops working.
• 2:28
  Michelle: It's like we can't keep outpacing the stress.
• 2:31
  Michelle: So that's how I was feeling at the moment, but I wasn't sure what to do next.
• 2:35
  Michelle: I wasn't sure what to do instead.
• 2:37
  Michelle: I had no idea how to let go of the idea that I had to keep achieving that I just had to be married, that I had to be part of a family of four instead of being a single mom.
• 2:52
  Michelle: There were all these rules that I had for myself and I really didn't know that there was any other option out there.
• 2:58
  Michelle: So if this is how you feel right now, if you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed and have tried so hard and just don't know how to get out of it, I see you.
• 3:08
  Michelle: I know exactly how that feels and you're going to be okay.
• 3:11
  Michelle: I wish I had known at that time.
• 3:14
  Michelle: I wish there was a program or a coach who was doing what I was doing.
• 3:17
  Michelle: I'm sure there probably was, but I didn't know that person at the time.
• 3:21
  Michelle: So after I did quit my job to start my new business and I was going through a divorce I love how people always say an ugly divorce, like there's really a nice divorce Although I do think there are nicer than others but it was not a fun one I literally just decided to try every mental health activity that I could think about.
• 3:41
  Michelle: So every day when I would wake up, I'd get up before my kids.
• 3:44
  Michelle: I meditated, journal, did tapping.
• 3:49
  Michelle: If you don't know what tapping is.
• 3:50
  Michelle: I have an upcoming episode about that.
• 3:52
  Michelle: I prayed, I had a therapist, I had a life coach, I did yoga.
• 3:58
  Michelle: I just remember sobbing in yoga one time.
• 4:01
  Michelle: Sometimes something about yoga really makes things release from your body.
• 4:05
  Michelle: I think I did it all and honestly, it's not like, oh, this didn't work for me and this didn't work for me.
• 4:11
  Michelle: I feel like they all helped me in different ways, but I'm gonna tell you the things that helped me the very most.
• 4:19
  Michelle: The first one was learning that I could only control what I could control.
• 4:25
  Michelle: That sounds so obvious like, yeah, duh, obviously, but I spent a lot of time trying to control, for example, what my husband was doing.
• 4:34
  Michelle: I tried to control what other people thought of me, and what I mean by that is I tried to act like everything was perfect all the time, so that other people would think I was perfect.
• 4:46
  Michelle: Now, of course, I have no control.
• 4:48
  Michelle: They could have thought I was perfect or they could have seen right through it, which I think most people did, but I spent a lot of time and effort attempting to control what other people thought of me and what other people did.
• 5:00
  Michelle: That is just a complete waste of time, energy and effort, and I did not know that.
• 5:06
  Michelle: So learning that was huge.
• 5:08
  Michelle: The second thing I had to do was realize that work or a title, or the work title or even the title of mom or wife wasn't the thing that made me enough.
• 5:20
  Michelle: Like it was, yes, it was a title, but it wasn't me, it wasn't my real self, and that I was already enough, even without accomplishments or being someone's wife or being someone's mom, like just me alone, even if I didn't have a job or I wasn't excelling in any way.
• 5:39
  Michelle: I was already enough.
• 5:41
  Michelle: I was totally okay.
• 5:42
  Michelle: Now, again, this sounds super obvious Like, yes, obviously you're not enough if you aren't achieving something.
• 5:47
  Michelle: But no, I had a deep-seated belief that I was enough and I was important and I was worthy because of what I accomplished and what I did.
• 5:58
  Michelle: I also learned that I can change the way that I look at a situation by changing my thoughts and by changing the way that I'm thinking about.
• 6:08
  Michelle: Something changed my whole life.
• 6:10
  Michelle: So it wasn't easy.
• 6:12
  Michelle: This transition was not easy.
• 6:14
  Michelle: It wasn't quick because I was figuring stuff out as I went along.
• 6:17
  Michelle: I would read a bunch of books, I followed coaches, I went on a coaching retreat and then I felt like I was healed enough to really coach other people.
• 6:27
  Michelle: So I applied what I learned in my own journey and what I learned in my life coach schooling and from my own experience both my corporate experience and the mentoring I had done there and the clients who I had as a coach by that point.
• 6:41
  Michelle: So after five years or so of doing that and obviously I forgot to say in there that I felt a million times better and it just keeps getting better.
• 6:51
  Michelle: I'm six years from that now, so it just keeps getting better.
• 6:54
  Michelle: I forgot to add that important part in there.
• 6:57
  Michelle: But after five years or so of doing that, of coaching people and helping women through their tough spots that were always had many similarities to the one that I was in, I decided, okay, I've got it.
• 7:10
  Michelle: I've got the method.
• 7:11
  Michelle: I know what it takes to change somebody's life.
• 7:13
  Michelle: I had all the tools.
• 7:14
  Michelle: I had shared them a bunch of times, explained them hundreds of times.
• 7:18
  Michelle: So I decided that I was going to create this group coaching program that had videos that explain each one of the concepts, so each one of the tools that I thought were essential to changing your life.
• 7:29
  Michelle: I spent all last summer in this fall creating the workbook and the videos and the whole process.
• 7:37
  Michelle: And then I finally launched that group, that first class, in November last year, and it's been so awesome.
• 7:44
  Michelle: That group is wrapping up right now.
• 7:46
  Michelle: We have two more classes left and the results that the women have gotten in the class were just amazing.
• 7:51
  Michelle: And my favorite part and I think the favorite part of many of the people in the group is that everyone just really supported each other, became friends with each other.
• 8:01
  Michelle: Even though everybody was working on different things, we all understood that we were trying to change our lives in different ways and really supported each other.
• 8:10
  Michelle: So it was really really neat.
• 8:12
  Michelle: And registration for the next round, which starts on March 1st, is open right now.
• 8:19
  Michelle: So if anything that I'm saying here resonates with you, please know you don't have to keep going with a stressed out, overwhelming life where you feel like you have to be perfect and you just don't even know the first step to do to make the change.
• 8:32
  Michelle: The first step is to join this group coaching that I'm offering.
• 8:37
  Michelle: I understand exactly how you feel, I know exactly what it takes for you to feel better and I would love to teach you that.
• 8:44
  Michelle: So come and join us.
• 8:46
  Michelle: I will put the link in the show notes, and I would absolutely love to have you included in this group.
• 8:51
  Michelle: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
• 8:59
  Michelle: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at www.
• 9:04
  Michelle: michellegauthier.
• 9:05
  Michelle: com.
• 9:04
  Michelle: See you next week.