Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #278| 3 Signs Your Exhaustion Isn't About Sleep, And the Belief That's Keeping You Overwhelmed and Running on Empty
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn three signs that your exhaustion isn't about sleep and the belief that's keeping you overwhelmed and running on empty.
- 0:09Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:20Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:25Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences.
- 0:30Michelle 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.
- 0:41Michelle Gauthier: Do you ever wake up even after a decent night's sleep and feel exhausted anyway?
- 0:46Michelle Gauthier: And you find yourself saying, Oh, this is just a busy season, but you've been saying that for months or maybe even years?
- 0:53Michelle Gauthier: When you listen to this episode today, you'll learn why this type of exhaustion that I'm talking about isn't something that more sleep can fix.
- 1:00Michelle Gauthier: You'll learn what's actually driving it.
- 1:03Michelle Gauthier: And then one question that can start moving you in the right direction to cure this.
- 1:09Michelle Gauthier: If I know you, and I feel like I do, you've probably realized that trying to do it all is a problem.
- 1:15Michelle Gauthier: And you've even tried to fix it, maybe with like a planner or an app or different systems you've bounced between, just trying to get control of everything on your plate.
- 1:25Michelle Gauthier: Maybe you've blocked focus time on your calendar and tried to protect the work that actually matters, like that strategic deep thinking time that you need to do your job, and watched it get eaten away by a message or a phone call or a meeting where someone just needed you for a second.
- 1:41Michelle Gauthier: It seems like the solution might be to delegate.
- 1:43Michelle Gauthier: So you try, but figuring out what to hand off and how and to whom takes so long that it's almost faster just to do it yourself.
- 1:51Michelle Gauthier: So you do.
- 1:52Michelle Gauthier: And eventually you turn into the person who handles it all.
- 1:57Michelle Gauthier: Let's be honest, though, about what constantly being the one who handles it all is actually costing you.
- 2:03Michelle Gauthier: Because eventually all of this catches up with you.
- 2:06Michelle Gauthier: This is not the kind of tire that a good night's sleep fixes.
- 2:10Michelle Gauthier: You can go to bed early and sleep for eight hours and wake up feeling like your brain never actually turned off.
- 2:17Michelle Gauthier: Because before you're even out of bed or your feet hit the floor, your brain is already running through everything you need to do.
- 2:24Michelle Gauthier: The email you forgot to send, the meeting you need to prepare for, the thing your child needs for school, that appointment that you haven't booked that you've been meaning to do for months, the person that you still need to call back.
- 2:34Michelle Gauthier: Your day has started before you've even gotten out of bed.
- 2:37Michelle Gauthier: And by the time you do get out of bed and actually get to work, part of you already feels behind.
- 2:42Michelle Gauthier: Then you end up spending the rest of the day reacting.
- 2:45Michelle Gauthier: Someone at work mentions they're struggling with something, and before you've even thought about it, you're offering to help.
- 2:50Michelle Gauthier: An email pops into your inbox and it's marked urgent.
- 2:53Michelle Gauthier: So whatever you were working on gets pushed aside.
- 2:56Michelle Gauthier: Your phone rings during the one hour you blocked off for yourself and you answer it anyway.
- 3:00Michelle Gauthier: You tell yourself, I'll get to my stuff later, but later keeps moving.
- 3:04Michelle Gauthier: So you get to the end of another day having done a hundred things for everyone else while all the things that matter to you are still sitting there waiting.
- 3:13Michelle Gauthier: And that's when the exhaustion starts becoming more than physical.
- 3:16Michelle Gauthier: Maybe you notice you're more irritable with the people you love, or you stumble through the doors after work with barely enough energy left to play with your kids.
- 3:25Michelle Gauthier: It's like they're stuck with whatever leftovers you have from the day of work.
- 3:30Michelle Gauthier: This isn't the kind of life you thought you were going to have.
- 3:33Michelle Gauthier: Your husband might ask you, how is your day?
- 3:35Michelle Gauthier: Or maybe your kids are sharing something fun that happened at school over dinner and you're there, but you're barely present because part of you is still thinking about everything that you still need to get done tonight.
- 3:46Michelle Gauthier: And you can't remember the last time you felt fully caught up.
- 3:50Michelle Gauthier: This exhaustion that I'm talking about isn't just something that you feel internally.
- 3:54Michelle Gauthier: It shows up externally in your life too.
- 3:56Michelle Gauthier: Like that time you were so deep in a work project that you forgot your best friend's birthday, which makes you question everything because you are not the friend who forgets birthdays.
- 4:04Michelle Gauthier: But there was literally no room left in your head for one more thing.
- 4:07Michelle Gauthier: So that fell through the cracks.
- 4:09Michelle Gauthier: You think you're keeping it all together, but the truth is people notice.
- 4:13Michelle Gauthier: I remember for years it was me who was constantly overwhelmed and honestly completely exhausted.
- 4:19Michelle Gauthier: And I was meeting up with a college friend.
- 4:22Michelle Gauthier: I happened to be in town and I was gonna visit with her.
- 4:25Michelle Gauthier: We went out and had a nice dinner, and you know, we were smiling and laughing.
- 4:31Michelle Gauthier: And the next day she texted me and said, Hey, I just wanted to check on you.
- 4:35Michelle Gauthier: Are you okay?
- 4:36Michelle Gauthier: You just looked really tired.
- 4:38Michelle Gauthier: And I felt almost embarrassed by that because I thought that I was pretending that I was okay, but she obviously saw it not only in my energy, but also in my face, in my worn-out look.
- 4:52Michelle Gauthier: And I just felt sad about that.
- 4:54Michelle Gauthier: I thought I was doing such a good job of pretending, but I really wasn't.
- 4:59Michelle Gauthier: I told her that it was just a busy time, but that everything was okay.
- 5:02Michelle Gauthier: And I think I was trying to talk myself into that as well, but it was not true.
- 5:07Michelle Gauthier: For the longest time, I was stuck in this pattern of overwhelm, feeling trapped, like I could never break through it.
- 5:13Michelle Gauthier: I had so much to do, and the thought of slowing down on anything really terrified me.
- 5:18Michelle Gauthier: Honestly, I believed it was a major risk that I couldn't afford to take, that if I slowed down even for a second, everything I was working so hard to keep up with would come crashing down around me.
- 5:29Michelle Gauthier: You probably feel the same way.
- 5:31Michelle Gauthier: But here's what I realized.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: I wasn't actually scared of slowing down.
- 5:36Michelle Gauthier: I was scared of what I thought slowing down would mean.
- 5:39Michelle Gauthier: Because somewhere along the way, being the person who could handle everything just became part of who I was.
- 5:45Michelle Gauthier: I was the reliable one, the capable one, the one people trusted when something really needed to get done.
- 5:50Michelle Gauthier: And every time I stepped in and solved a problem, or worked late, or took on more, or somehow managed to hold everything together in my family, I got rewarded for it.
- 6:00Michelle Gauthier: I got the promotion, I earned people's trust, I became the go-to person everyone could depend on.
- 6:05Michelle Gauthier: And that was my reward.
- 6:07Michelle Gauthier: And without realizing it, I started connecting, being needed with being valuable.
- 6:12Michelle Gauthier: And that's really where the trap was.
- 6:14Michelle Gauthier: When your value becomes tied to how much you can carry, slowing down doesn't feel like rest.
- 6:19Michelle Gauthier: It feels like you're putting your reputation and your success and even your sense of who you are at risk.
- 6:25Michelle Gauthier: So you keep on going.
- 6:26Michelle Gauthier: Even when you're exhausted, even when your body finally stops, your mind is running through what needs to happen tomorrow, what you forgot today, who might need something from you, and what could go wrong if you're not on top of it.
- 6:38Michelle Gauthier: Eventually I had to ask myself a super uncomfortable question.
- 6:42Michelle Gauthier: What if the thing I thought was keeping everything together is actually the thing that's wearing me down?
- 6:47Michelle Gauthier: Because the truth was, I really didn't need to be operating at 100 miles an hour all the time.
- 6:52Michelle Gauthier: I had just spent so long proving that I could do everything that I never stopped to question whether I actually should or even wanted to.
- 6:59Michelle Gauthier: And that's the shift.
- 7:01Michelle Gauthier: Slowing down isn't the risk.
- 7:03Michelle Gauthier: Believing that the whole world, everything depends on you is.
- 7:07Michelle Gauthier: Because the same pattern that helped you become successful can eventually become the very thing that makes success feel impossible to sustain.
- 7:16Michelle Gauthier: And until you separate your value from how much you can do, no amount of time off is ever going to feel like enough.
- 7:22Michelle Gauthier: Maybe your plan for getting through this is just waiting and hoping that people will finally leave you alone.
- 7:29Michelle Gauthier: Or maybe a new productivity system, maybe AI finally lets you do it all, but that day is never coming.
- 7:37Michelle Gauthier: I'm an optimist and I'm telling you that day is never coming.
- 7:40Michelle Gauthier: Instead, you have to learn how to pause and ask yourself, what would actually happen if I stopped doing everything?
- 7:47Michelle Gauthier: Would everything really fall apart?
- 7:49Michelle Gauthier: Or is that just the old story that I've been telling myself?
- 7:52Michelle Gauthier: I recently was working with a client and she came to me with her overwhelm at like a nine out of 10.
- 7:58Michelle Gauthier: She hadn't been to the doctor in years because she didn't have time to take care of herself.
- 8:03Michelle Gauthier: She was running on fast food, which she didn't like because cooking was one more thing she just couldn't fit in.
- 8:10Michelle Gauthier: She had piles of laundry everywhere because there was never a good time to deal with that.
- 8:14Michelle Gauthier: And every ounce of her energy went to her team, her work, her kids, everyone but her.
- 8:19Michelle Gauthier: A few months later, she was telling me a bunch of her wins on a session, and I asked her, Well, what does your overwhelm feel like now?
- 8:26Michelle Gauthier: It was a nine out of ten.
- 8:27Michelle Gauthier: What is it now?
- 8:28Michelle Gauthier: And she said it was a two.
- 8:29Michelle Gauthier: She booked that doctor's appointment.
- 8:31Michelle Gauthier: In fact, she booked several.
- 8:32Michelle Gauthier: She did one, and then she's like, Oh, I'm gonna go see the dermatologist now, and now I'm gonna go to the dentist.
- 8:37Michelle Gauthier: She started taking care of herself.
- 8:38Michelle Gauthier: She ended up losing weight, not even from a diet, just from taking care of herself.
- 8:43Michelle Gauthier: She hired a laundry service and importantly, let herself stop feeling guilty about it.
- 8:48Michelle Gauthier: She started delegating to her team, which at first felt very uncomfortable, but she did it.
- 8:53Michelle Gauthier: And one Saturday, she skipped her kids' practice, which she went to religiously on purpose to sit on her couch and read a book that she really wanted to read.
- 9:02Michelle Gauthier: That's not a productivity hack.
- 9:05Michelle Gauthier: That's what it looks like when you stop believing that everything depends on you.
- 9:09Michelle Gauthier: If this is resonating with you, this is exactly the kind of pattern that I help my clients break.
- 9:15Michelle Gauthier: This client I'm describing to you, she was not the first client to ever have this situation.
- 9:21Michelle Gauthier: In fact, most of my clients have this situation and have this pattern.
- 9:25Michelle Gauthier: It's hard to see that pattern from the inside.
- 9:28Michelle Gauthier: And it's even harder to break it alone, especially when it's been your identity forever.
- 9:33Michelle Gauthier: But when you work with me, I will help you identify what this belief is that is driving your exhaustion and your overwhelm.
- 9:41Michelle Gauthier: And we will practice separating your value as a person from how much you do.
- 9:46Michelle Gauthier: And I hold you accountable with love to make those changes stick.
- 9:50Michelle Gauthier: Because once you stop believing that everything depends on you, you actually get to live your life.
- 9:56Michelle Gauthier: You book that doctor's appointment you've been putting off, you sit down to dinner and you're actually there, not running through tomorrow's list in your head.
- 10:04Michelle Gauthier: You say no to something and you don't even feel guilty after.
- 10:07Michelle Gauthier: You take a Saturday for yourself, you have space to breathe, you can be present with the people you love, and nothing falls apart.
- 10:14Michelle Gauthier: And once you learn how to separate your worth from your workload, you have that for life.
- 10:19Michelle Gauthier: This is a skill that does not expire.
- 10:22Michelle Gauthier: So if this is the kind of life that you want to have, and trust me, I've had both.
- 10:26Michelle Gauthier: You want this kind, set up a consultation with me.
- 10:29Michelle Gauthier: You can book it at Michellegothier.com slash book me and the link will also be at the top of the show notes.
- 10:38Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 10:46Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
- 10:52Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.