Latest / Your Utmost Life / It Stopped Being A Calendar Problem A Long Time Ago (It’s Something Much Deeper)
Transcript
- 0:00Misty Celli: I don't have time for this right now.
- 0:02Misty Celli: I want you to notice something about that sentence.
- 0:04Misty Celli: You've probably said it more times than you can count without noticing.
- 0:08Misty Celli: You have said it about a workout, about a book you meant to read, the version of yourself you say you'll get back to one day once things calm down.
- 0:16Misty Celli: I'd bet good money you have never once said it about your daughter's orthodontist appointment, or your husband's work dinner, or your mom's follow-up scan.
- 0:24Misty Celli: Somehow the calendar always finds room for everyone else's 15 minutes.
- 0:29Misty Celli: You just can't seem to find yours.
- 0:31Misty Celli: So here's what I want to propose to you.
- 0:33Misty Celli: What if it was never actually about the 15 minutes?
- 0:37Misty Celli: If you are a woman who has looked at something, a book, a class, that walk you'd love to take, a version of your own life, and thought, I just don't have time for that right now.
- 0:50Misty Celli: While somehow still managing to remember your neighbor's dog sitting schedule, this episode is for you because I don't think you have a time problem.
- 0:58Misty Celli: I think it's something much deeper.
- 1:00Misty Celli: I think you have a problem that's wearing a time costume, and it's gotten so good at the disguise that even you believe it.
- 1:07Misty Celli: If you're an ambitious mother who feels like you're living for everyone else and catch yourself thinking, is this all there is?
- 1:13Misty Celli: You were in the right place.
- 1:14Misty Celli: You were never meant to disappear into your roles, but somewhere between everyone else's needs and expectations, you became invisible, disconnected, and living on autopilot.
- 1:22Misty Celli: Feel present, self-led and decisive in six weeks, seeing exactly where you are and how you got there.
- 1:28Misty Celli: By following this identity reset feel like yourself again six weeks series.
- 1:32Misty Celli: Reclaim who you are, design a life that's fully and intentionally yours and show up every day as the utmost woman you've always been.
- 1:38Misty Celli: Not just for everyone else, but finally fully for yourself.
- 1:41Misty Celli: This is where you begin the process of returning to your utmost self, not by accident, not by obligation, but by design.
- 1:47Misty Celli: Welcome to your Utmost Life Podcast.
- 1:48Misty Celli: I am Misty, Identity and Self Leadership Coach for Ambitious Mothers.
- 1:52Misty Celli: Before we get into it, if you have been listening along with this series, thank you.
- 1:55Misty Celli: If you haven't hit subscribe or follow yet, go ahead and do that now so next week's episode lands in your feed without you having to go look for it.
- 2:02Misty Celli: Okay, let's talk about time.
- 2:04Misty Celli: Last week we talked about how you didn't lose yourself, you lost access to hearing yourself, and we discussed the three patterns that do the erasing roll rush, calendar creep, and permission loop.
- 2:14Misty Celli: Did you catch yourself in any of them this week?
- 2:17Misty Celli: I bet you did.
- 2:18Misty Celli: Maybe mid-morning three requests deep before your coffee's even gone cold.
- 2:22Misty Celli: Maybe just moving your own thing to next week again, and if you're honest, it felt like the next week for about 40 weeks now.
- 2:28Misty Celli: And somewhere in that noticing, I'm guessing a thought showed up.
- 2:32Misty Celli: Something like, okay, Misty, this is all making sense, but I genuinely don't have time for this right now.
- 2:39Misty Celli: Can we just sit with that for one second?
- 2:41Misty Celli: Because I don't think it's a cop-out.
- 2:43Misty Celli: I don't believe you're lazy or half committed.
- 2:46Misty Celli: I actually think it's one of the most honest sentences you've said to yourself all week.
- 2:50Misty Celli: But here's the thing, it's not what you think it is.
- 2:53Misty Celli: You think it's about minutes and about the fact that your week is legitimately, genuinely full with the things that matter, people who need you and a life that doesn't leave a lot of open space.
- 3:03Misty Celli: And you're not wrong about that.
- 3:04Misty Celli: Your week is full.
- 3:06Misty Celli: But I don't have time for this, and I don't have time for anything that's just mine.
- 3:11Misty Celli: Those are not the same sentence, even though they come out of your mouth sounding identical.
- 3:16Misty Celli: If we actually hold up your calendar together right now, coffee in hand, and went line by line, I don't think we'd find a woman with no time.
- 3:24Misty Celli: I think we'd find a woman with time for everyone else except herself.
- 3:28Misty Celli: And that's not a scheduling issue.
- 3:29Misty Celli: That's something else wearing a scheduling issue's clothing.
- 3:32Misty Celli: Here's why this belief is so sticky, because you didn't make it up out of nowhere.
- 3:37Misty Celli: You've got actual evidence sitting right there to back it up.
- 3:40Misty Celli: You found time to rearrange your whole Tuesday when your mom's cardiologist could only see her at 11.
- 3:45Misty Celli: You found time to sit on the phone with your son for 45 minutes while he talked about a job offer that he was nervous about, even though you had your own deadline sitting open on the laptop.
- 3:54Misty Celli: You found time to handle the cater, the guest list, and the three vendor calls for your friend's parents' surprise anniversary party on top of everything else already on your plate that week.
- 4:03Misty Celli: None of that went on a list titled If I Have Time.
- 4:07Misty Celli: It just happened.
- 4:09Misty Celli: You made it happen the way you make everything happen because that's who you are for the people you love.
- 4:15Misty Celli: That's calendar creep, the pattern I named last week.
- 4:18Misty Celli: You fill your time with everyone else's needs before your own ever make it onto the page.
- 4:23Misty Celli: But here's the part that we haven't talked about yet.
- 4:25Misty Celli: Calendar creep isn't really about your calendar being too full to add one more thing.
- 4:30Misty Celli: It's that when something is just for you, it never even gets entered as a candidate.
- 4:36Misty Celli: It doesn't lose the competition for space.
- 4:38Misty Celli: It's not even in the running at all.
- 4:41Misty Celli: Think about it with me for a second.
- 4:43Misty Celli: If a friend called and said her mom needed a ride to scan next Tuesday at 11, would you check whether you had time?
- 4:49Misty Celli: Of course not.
- 4:50Misty Celli: You just go.
- 4:51Misty Celli: The second you heard it, it would be non-negotiable and your whole day would rearrange around it without you even deliberating.
- 4:58Misty Celli: Now, when's the last time something just for you got that same treatment?
- 5:03Misty Celli: A walk, a phone call with an old friend, 15 minutes with the door shut and nobody knocking?
- 5:09Misty Celli: Did it get protected like that?
- 5:11Misty Celli: Or did it end up in the if there's time pile, which, let's be honest, is really just the pile where things go to disappear.
- 5:19Misty Celli: That's not a discipline problem.
- 5:21Misty Celli: You are not bad at time management.
- 5:24Misty Celli: If anything, you are excellent at it for everyone whose name isn't yours.
- 5:29Misty Celli: So it's not a question of whether you're capable of protecting time.
- 5:32Misty Celli: You prove you are every single day.
- 5:35Misty Celli: The real question is just why doesn't your own name make the list of people worth protecting it for?
- 5:40Misty Celli: Here's the thing I think you already know somewhere underneath the busyness.
- 5:44Misty Celli: I bet if you were given 20 extra unclaimed minutes right now, genuinely free, nothing pulling at you, be honest with me, would you actually spin them on you?
- 5:55Misty Celli: Or would you fold the laundry, answer that email you've been putting off, scroll, which doesn't even really feel like rest, just numbness with a screen attached.
- 6:03Misty Celli: I think you'd fill the space with something almost immediately.
- 6:06Misty Celli: Because an empty 20 minutes with nothing productive in it and not doing something for someone else doesn't feel like relief.
- 6:14Misty Celli: It feels like laziness or added pressure.
- 6:17Misty Celli: And that's the confession underneath.
- 6:19Misty Celli: I don't have time.
- 6:20Misty Celli: It's not really the time, or that the time doesn't exist.
- 6:25Misty Celli: It's that when it does show up unclaimed, you don't know what to do with a version of it that's just for you.
- 6:31Misty Celli: Because somewhere along the way, giving yourself something with no other justification attached started to feel wasteful or even a little selfish.
- 6:40Misty Celli: I don't have time is a much easier sentence to say out loud than the one underneath it.
- 6:45Misty Celli: I'm not really worth the time.
- 6:47Misty Celli: And nobody handed you that belief in one moment.
- 6:50Misty Celli: You built it the same way you built everything else.
- 6:54Misty Celli: One reasonable, loving choice at a time.
- 6:57Misty Celli: Every time you put down your own thing so someone else's thing could happen, you weren't doing anything wrong.
- 7:03Misty Celli: You were being a good mother, a good wife, friend, and daughter.
- 7:07Misty Celli: But each of those choices was also quietly confirming something underneath that when it comes down to it, you're the one who moves.
- 7:15Misty Celli: You're the flexible one.
- 7:17Misty Celli: You're the one whose time is negotiable because you're always the one who says it's fine.
- 7:22Misty Celli: I've been in this moment myself, burnt out, invisible, running ragged, so needed by everyone that you think I'd feel valuable, but then I'd find tears running down my face in some quiet moment because I genuinely did not have time for one single thing that was just mine.
- 7:38Misty Celli: So I need you to hear this because I think it changes how you hear every I don't have time thought from here on out.
- 7:44Misty Celli: This is not a scheduling problem.
- 7:46Misty Celli: It's a worth problem wearing scheduling clothing.
- 7:49Misty Celli: Time doesn't organize itself around what's logically possible.
- 7:52Misty Celli: It organizes itself around what you've decided is worth protecting.
- 7:56Misty Celli: You've proven that a hundred times over with everyone else's needs.
- 8:00Misty Celli: The calendar bends every time for what you believe truly matters.
- 8:04Misty Celli: So when your own name can't seem to find a spot on it, that's not a full week talking.
- 8:09Misty Celli: That's an old belief about your own worth dressed up in a much more socially acceptable outfit.
- 8:14Misty Celli: Think about this for a second.
- 8:16Misty Celli: How many times in the last year can you recall some big event where a million things needed to happen?
- 8:22Misty Celli: And somehow you pulled it all off like an absolute wizard.
- 8:25Misty Celli: People were genuinely blown away with what you managed to accomplish in such a short window, but it was all for someone else.
- 8:32Misty Celli: All to make sure everything else was taken care of.
- 8:35Misty Celli: Everyone else was happy.
- 8:37Misty Celli: You stretched time for the important things, and I bet you haven't yet managed to stretch it for yourself the same way.
- 8:43Misty Celli: This week, right now, the words I don't have time are costing you the version of yourself that exists outside of logistics.
- 8:51Misty Celli: The one with an opinion about the book on the nightstand, the one who used to have somewhere she wanted to go, a version of you that shows up in the room instead of just running it.
- 9:01Misty Celli: Underneath that, at a quieter level, it's costing your husband and your kids the chance to know a version of you that isn't managing something.
- 9:09Misty Celli: It's costing you connection moments with your parents instead of logistics about what's happening and when for their next appointment.
- 9:16Misty Celli: They're getting your competence.
- 9:18Misty Celli: They're not getting your presence if you're honest.
- 9:20Misty Celli: Presence takes a woman who believes she's allowed to take up space that isn't in service of somebody else.
- 9:26Misty Celli: And if this doesn't shift, if I don't have time keeps doing its job as the polite stand-in for the real sentence, the cost isn't dramatic, it's quiet, but it's very high priced.
- 9:39Misty Celli: It is another decade of a calendar that runs life beautifully, but never once asks what you wanted.
- 9:45Misty Celli: It's looking up one day, kids grown and gone, husband, perhaps if the disconnection hasn't quietly killed the passion, still right there beside you, and realizing the woman who managed it all so well never got scheduled into her own life.
- 10:00Misty Celli: I'm not trying to be hurtful.
- 10:01Misty Celli: I just want you to see the actual cost clearly so you get to choose the outcome you actually want.
- 10:07Misty Celli: You don't need more time, my friend.
- 10:10Misty Celli: You need to believe that you're worth putting on the calendar.
- 10:13Misty Celli: Once that shifts, the time has a way of showing up that it never seemed to have before.
- 10:19Misty Celli: I want to tell you about a conversation with my husband that I still think about.
- 10:22Misty Celli: We were talking about the things that needed to get done that week, and he asked me when my doctor's appointment was.
- 10:27Misty Celli: I told him I wasn't sure I had canceled it because I just didn't have time to go.
- 10:31Misty Celli: This was the third time we had some version of this exact conversation.
- 10:36Misty Celli: Me saying the same thing every time.
- 10:38Misty Celli: But this time he wasn't accepting it.
- 10:40Misty Celli: He stressed to me that I needed to go, that it was important, that I might not care about my own health, but he did, and I couldn't keep putting it off.
- 10:47Misty Celli: I tried explaining all the reasons I genuinely could not squeeze it in.
- 10:52Misty Celli: But it felt like he wasn't hearing me, like he didn't understand what it actually took to keep everything important running.
- 10:58Misty Celli: Then he started listing things, how many appointments I'd missed over the years, how many times I let my own medication lapse because there just wasn't a window for it, how many complications I had come from all of that missing and lapsing.
- 11:11Misty Celli: And I kept saying, I understand, I hear you, but I just don't have time.
- 11:17Misty Celli: Here's the thing that actually got me.
- 11:19Misty Celli: Sitting there, listening to him, list it all back to me like that.
- 11:22Misty Celli: It wasn't the appointments themselves.
- 11:24Misty Celli: It was hearing out loud in his voice how long I don't have time had been my answer.
- 11:30Misty Celli: Not just for the doctor, but for almost everything that was only mine.
- 11:34Misty Celli: Fueling my body before dinner.
- 11:36Misty Celli: Oh my goodness, the number of times I hadn't eaten anything all day, moving my body instead of just moving through the day, finishing a project during daylight hours instead of cramming it in after midnight.
- 11:49Misty Celli: I could find hours to make some tiny detail of somebody else's event absolutely perfect, a detail nobody but me would ever notice.
- 11:57Misty Celli: But I could not find 45 minutes for my own body, the one that has to carry me through every single one of those other things.
- 12:05Misty Celli: I wasn't actually out of time.
- 12:07Misty Celli: I had proven that over and over every time something else mattered enough.
- 12:11Misty Celli: I had just never once let my own name be the reason the calendar moved.
- 12:15Misty Celli: That's the moment I don't have time stopped sounding like a fact to me and started sounding like a habit, a very old, very well-practiced habit of putting myself dead last on a list that I was the only one making.
- 12:28Misty Celli: It didn't fix itself that day.
- 12:30Misty Celli: I didn't reschedule the appointment in some triumphant cinematic moment right there at the table, but something did shift.
- 12:36Misty Celli: The next time something came up that was just for me, nothing urgent, nothing anyone else asked about, just something I wanted, I didn't automatically wave it off the way I always had.
- 12:47Misty Celli: I paused.
- 12:48Misty Celli: I let myself actually consider it, the same way I'd consider anyone else's request.
- 12:53Misty Celli: That was the whole beginning.
- 12:54Misty Celli: Not a transformation, just one pause where an automatic no used to live.
- 12:59Misty Celli: To be honest, I started small, five minutes that turned to 10, and then 15.
- 13:04Misty Celli: And now my calendar has me actually on it.
- 13:07Misty Celli: I know, I know, I can hear it now before you even say it out loud.
- 13:11Misty Celli: Misty, I really am busy.
- 13:13Misty Celli: This isn't a worth thing.
- 13:15Misty Celli: My week is genuinely full.
- 13:17Misty Celli: I believe you.
- 13:18Misty Celli: I have been there.
- 13:19Misty Celli: My calendar schedule to the minute completely crazy full.
- 13:22Misty Celli: I have no doubt that yours is too.
- 13:24Misty Celli: But full and impossible are not the same thing, and I think you already know that.
- 13:28Misty Celli: Because you make room for the truly non-negotiable all the time.
- 13:32Misty Celli: This isn't about finding four extra hours.
- 13:35Misty Celli: It's about deciding that you belong on the list of things that get protected the same way everyone else on your list already does.
- 13:41Misty Celli: But let's be honest with each other.
- 13:43Misty Celli: There's something else running underneath it.
- 13:45Misty Celli: If I actually start treating myself as non-negotiable, what happens to everyone who's used to me being the flexible one?
- 13:52Misty Celli: I get it.
- 13:53Misty Celli: That's a fair question and an important one because we don't want anyone to feel like they don't matter.
- 13:58Misty Celli: We don't want to be the reason someone else struggles.
- 14:01Misty Celli: We don't want to let anyone down.
- 14:03Misty Celli: And if we're really honest, we want to solve the problem because we're the fixer.
- 14:07Misty Celli: That's how we've always known we were valuable.
- 14:10Misty Celli: But let me ask you something.
- 14:11Misty Celli: What's the long-term cost to the people you love?
- 14:14Misty Celli: They love you, the whole person, the whole version of you.
- 14:17Misty Celli: They love that you help them, but they don't love you for the logistical brain that you have.
- 14:22Misty Celli: They don't want a version of you that's only present for logistics and absent from herself, and in the real moments, absent from them too.
- 14:30Misty Celli: Laughing together, talking about life, not the tasks inside of it, building real connection, not a well-run schedule.
- 14:38Misty Celli: And too much doing for the people you love can actually rob them of doing for themselves.
- 14:43Misty Celli: It can leave them feeling incapable, like you don't quite trust them to handle their own lives.
- 14:48Misty Celli: Now, I am not saying stop helping them.
- 14:51Misty Celli: I am not saying stop giving yourself to the people you love.
- 14:54Misty Celli: But what I am saying is you're important too.
- 14:57Misty Celli: You deserve a spot on your own calendar.
- 15:00Misty Celli: And honestly, the people who love you need you on it also.
- 15:03Misty Celli: They need the version of you that's refueled, the version who is choosing what actually matters instead of just filling every slot with what's urgent.
- 15:12Misty Celli: The version who isn't slowly worn down to nothing by a calendar that never once asked what she wanted.
- 15:19Misty Celli: I don't think they need you more depleted.
- 15:21Misty Celli: I think they need you more whole.
- 15:23Misty Celli: And those two things were never actually in competition, even though right now I know it feels like they are.
- 15:30Misty Celli: Imagine a Tuesday, not a Tuesday with fewer obligations.
- 15:34Misty Celli: You still have your mom's appointment, that form from your son's tuition, the grocery store pickup, the suit you need to grab from the dry cleaners, the full weight of a real day.
- 15:43Misty Celli: But as you scan the schedule, there's a line with your name on it.
- 15:47Misty Celli: In pin right there next to an actual moment in time, holding the same weight as everything else on the page.
- 15:53Misty Celli: And for a split second, that old voice tries to creep into the space.
- 15:57Misty Celli: The old reflex to just move it, same as always.
- 16:00Misty Celli: But this time it doesn't win.
- 16:02Misty Celli: You don't delete you because you're not negotiating from, I guess I could give this up.
- 16:07Misty Celli: You're protecting something you've already decided matters.
- 16:11Misty Celli: And when that block of time actually shows up, even if it's only 30 minutes, instead of immediately filling it with a task or a to-do that has to get done for so-and-so, you let it be what it actually is for.
- 16:22Misty Celli: Maybe you read or you go for a walk around the block.
- 16:25Misty Celli: Maybe you just sit outside with a cup of coffee that's still hot watching the sun come up.
- 16:30Misty Celli: Not because nobody needs anything from you, but because you need this for you and you've decided you're worth the moment to reconnect with yourself, worth the intentional refill so you can show up fully inside the day that you've designed.
- 16:43Misty Celli: It felt strange at first, like a muscle remembering it exists, but it doesn't feel strange anymore.
- 16:49Misty Celli: It just feels like Tuesday.
- 16:50Misty Celli: Your husbands notice the difference, how you're more lit up, more alive, more present in conversation about Y'all's day.
- 16:57Misty Celli: Your kids notice it too and how you talk with them.
- 17:00Misty Celli: You're more engaged, asking more questions, actually listening to what they say instead of already thinking about the next thing.
- 17:07Misty Celli: Your mom notices you're actually looking at her now instead of through her when she's telling you what the doctor said.
- 17:12Misty Celli: You didn't announce any of this.
- 17:14Misty Celli: Nobody had to sacrifice anything for it to happen.
- 17:17Misty Celli: You just finally put your own name on the list of things worth protecting.
- 17:21Misty Celli: And the calendar, which has always been for what you decided matters, bends for you too.
- 17:26Misty Celli: Here's what I want you to carry out of this episode.
- 17:28Misty Celli: I don't have time was never really about the minutes.
- 17:31Misty Celli: It's always actually been a worth problem wearing scheduling clothes.
- 17:35Misty Celli: And it's been convincing enough to talk you out of the one thing you need most for yourself and for the people you love.
- 17:41Misty Celli: Time that's actually yours.
- 17:43Misty Celli: You don't need a more efficient calendar.
- 17:45Misty Celli: You need to see yourself as someone worth scheduling.
- 17:48Misty Celli: And that starts in the same place we've been building this whole series, knowing who you are clearly enough that protecting her stops feeling stressful or optional.
- 17:57Misty Celli: And because I've been exactly where you are, I put together the identity reset starter toolkit so your own name can finally earn a real permanent line on that calendar, the same way everyone else already does.
- 18:10Misty Celli: Go to yourutmost.com forward slash starter and get immediate access.
- 18:15Misty Celli: In about seven minutes, you will know three things that are true about who you are as a woman underneath every role you play.
- 18:22Misty Celli: From there, over the next several minutes, you'll start building your identity blueprint.
- 18:26Misty Celli: Not the whole thing today, just the beginning of it.
- 18:29Misty Celli: Because you can't protect time for a woman you haven't fully reconnected to yet.
- 18:34Misty Celli: If you were sitting here with me, I would grab your hands, look you in the eye, and ask you to hear me fully and repeat after me.
- 18:41Misty Celli: I am not too busy for my own life.
- 18:43Misty Celli: I am worth putting on the calendar.
- 18:45Misty Celli: If this episode shifted something for you, please leave a review.
- 18:49Misty Celli: It is how other women who feel like they've lost themselves find this show.
- 18:53Misty Celli: And if a friend came to mind, one who said, I just don't have time more times than either of you can count, send her this episode.
- 19:01Misty Celli: Let her see she's worth so much more than running herself ragged in the name of being too busy.
- 19:08Misty Celli: Let her know she's worth being on her own calendar too.
- 19:10Misty Celli: Next week, we're diving into the four things that help you feel like yourself again, without threatening the life you've built or the relationships that matter most.
- 19:19Misty Celli: These four things don't create chaos.
- 19:21Misty Celli: They create clarity, emotional steadiness, and a life that finally feels like it fits.
- 19:26Misty Celli: We'll start with the part of you that's been waiting the longest to come back.
- 19:30Misty Celli: Then we'll look at what actually happens to the people who love you when she does.
- 19:34Misty Celli: We'll name the real thing you've been protecting yourself from this whole time.
- 19:38Misty Celli: The thing hiding underneath I might lose people because I don't think that's ever really been the fear.
- 19:44Misty Celli: And we'll end with the truth that changes everything once you actually believe it.
- 19:48Misty Celli: The right people aren't going to flinch when you come back.
- 19:51Misty Celli: They've been waiting for her to.
- 19:53Misty Celli: If you have ever lain awake wondering whether becoming more fully yourself would cost you the very people you've been trying to protect by staying small, next week is for you.
- 20:03Misty Celli: Until then, go to yourutmost.com forward slash starter and put your own name on the calendar first, just once and see what happens.
- 20:11Misty Celli: You are more than everyone's everything.
- 20:14Misty Celli: You are someone.