Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #292| 4 Things Calm, Accomplished Women Do Every Day to Have Max Productivity Without Overwhelm
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn four things that calm, accomplished women do every day to have maximum productivity without overwhelm.
- 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.
- 0:37Michelle Gauthier: Hi, friend.
- 0:41Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for joining.
- 0:42Michelle Gauthier: Do you know that movie Sliding Doors?
- 0:44Michelle Gauthier: It's Gwyneth Paltrow and she's the same woman, but her whole life splits into two completely different paths depending on this one tiny moment, whether she catches the train or not.
- 0:53Michelle Gauthier: Today I'm gonna do that, but with overwhelm.
- 0:55Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you'll learn the exact choices that differentiate a calm day from an overwhelming one.
- 1:02Michelle Gauthier: Why, when you start to feel stressed and you make yourself push through it, it makes you more exhausted and not less.
- 1:08Michelle Gauthier: And what changes by bedtime tonight if you make even one different choice today?
- 1:13Michelle Gauthier: Let's imagine that we have two different people who are having the exact same day.
- 1:18Michelle Gauthier: I know that's a stretch.
- 1:19Michelle Gauthier: That can't really happen.
- 1:20Michelle Gauthier: So just pretend with me here.
- 1:21Michelle Gauthier: The first one we're gonna call overwhelmed Annie, and then our second person is calm Caroline.
- 1:27Michelle Gauthier: And we're gonna walk through what their days look like and the choices that they make along the way and the results that they get throughout the day.
- 1:35Michelle Gauthier: So as I'm describing this, I just want you to think about am I more of an Annie in that situation?
- 1:41Michelle Gauthier: Am I overwhelmed Annie or am I calm Caroline?
- 1:44Michelle Gauthier: And see if there's any place where you could make the other choice today.
- 1:48Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so let's imagine their alarms go off at 6 a.m.
- 1:53Michelle Gauthier: Annie reaches for her phone before she gets out of bed and she does a little scrolling and she's starting to look at her schedule for the day and starts to panic because she has a ton of work emails and she feels already behind before her day starts.
- 2:08Michelle Gauthier: Caroline, on the other hand, planned her week on Sunday.
- 2:12Michelle Gauthier: She spent about an hour doing that.
- 2:14Michelle Gauthier: So she wakes up already knowing what she's doing today and today's priorities.
- 2:18Michelle Gauthier: And instead of pulling out her phone, she takes a few minutes with her coffee and has a few minutes of silence, maybe a little journaling before anything pulls at her.
- 2:27Michelle Gauthier: Both of them are going into the office today, so they get ready.
- 2:31Michelle Gauthier: Annie hates getting dressed.
- 2:33Michelle Gauthier: She doesn't know what to wear.
- 2:34Michelle Gauthier: Her closet is a mess.
- 2:36Michelle Gauthier: It's full of things that she doesn't wear or don't fit her anymore.
- 2:40Michelle Gauthier: And getting dressed always takes her at least 10 minutes and she changes outfits twice.
- 2:45Michelle Gauthier: Caroline opens her closet.
- 2:47Michelle Gauthier: It is full of things that fit her.
- 2:49Michelle Gauthier: She has them organized.
- 2:51Michelle Gauthier: She knows exactly what she likes to wear, and she can choose anything in her closet.
- 2:55Michelle Gauthier: So she chooses an outfit and she puts it on.
- 2:58Michelle Gauthier: They both walk out the door, they go to work, they get settled in, and then mid-morning an email comes in and says, Hey, I noticed an error on that report you sent last week.
- 3:07Michelle Gauthier: The numbers on page three are off.
- 3:09Michelle Gauthier: Can you correct and send back ASAP?
- 3:12Michelle Gauthier: This went to the client already.
- 3:13Michelle Gauthier: Now both of them feel very stressed about that because nobody likes to make a mistake.
- 3:18Michelle Gauthier: But here's where it splits.
- 3:20Michelle Gauthier: Annie pushes through, her heart is racing, she's already spiraling into how could I have missed that?
- 3:26Michelle Gauthier: They must think I'm careless.
- 3:28Michelle Gauthier: I can't believe I messed that up.
- 3:30Michelle Gauthier: And she starts typing from this frantic energy and over-explaining the response before she's even calmed down enough to think straight about what the right numbers are.
- 3:39Michelle Gauthier: Caroline feels the exact same stress when she realizes that she's made a mistake.
- 3:44Michelle Gauthier: She notices that that is happening to her and she tells herself, yes, okay, this is what happens when I make a mistake.
- 3:51Michelle Gauthier: My body gets very activated.
- 3:53Michelle Gauthier: I worry about it.
- 3:54Michelle Gauthier: I need to just take a few deep breaths and remind myself, all humans make mistakes.
- 4:00Michelle Gauthier: I made a mistake.
- 4:01Michelle Gauthier: This isn't the end of the world.
- 4:03Michelle Gauthier: I will fix this from a calm place and send it out as soon as possible.
- 4:08Michelle Gauthier: Before she replies, she even gets up from her desk and just does a quick lap around the office to take some deep breaths.
- 4:15Michelle Gauthier: Quick check.
- 4:16Michelle Gauthier: If this is you and you get an email that tells you that you've done something wrong, what happens and how do you react from that place?
- 4:25Michelle Gauthier: The day goes on, and at noon, Caroline's alarm goes off for a boot camp class.
- 4:31Michelle Gauthier: She's got plenty of work sitting on her desk, plenty of reasons she could skip it today, but this is planned.
- 4:37Michelle Gauthier: She knows she has time for it, and she knows that her day will be so much better if she goes.
- 4:41Michelle Gauthier: So she goes and 45 minutes later, she's back at her desk, maybe a little sweaty, but clear-headed and ready for the afternoon.
- 4:49Michelle Gauthier: Annie's alarm also goes off at noon and it says, take a walk, and that's the reminder she set for herself three weeks ago.
- 4:56Michelle Gauthier: She glances at it and thinks, there's no way I can do this right now.
- 5:00Michelle Gauthier: I don't have time, and she swipes it away.
- 5:02Michelle Gauthier: Again, just like she did yesterday and the day before.
- 5:05Michelle Gauthier: Then, mid-afternoon, around 2 30, they both get a message from their teenager, Mom, I forgot my cleats.
- 5:12Michelle Gauthier: They're in your car.
- 5:12Michelle Gauthier: Practice starts in 20 minutes.
- 5:14Michelle Gauthier: Can you bring them to me?
- 5:15Michelle Gauthier: This is not the first time this has happened.
- 5:18Michelle Gauthier: Annie feels the guilt hit immediately.
- 5:20Michelle Gauthier: She beats herself up for not reminding him to bring the cleats.
- 5:25Michelle Gauthier: She drops what she's doing, tells everyone she'll be back shortly, and drives the cleats over to school.
- 5:30Michelle Gauthier: And she's telling herself it's fine and she's just gonna do it this one time, but the whole time over there, she's feeling resentful.
- 5:37Michelle Gauthier: When Caroline gets the same text, she says, I can't today.
- 5:41Michelle Gauthier: You'll have to just wear the shoes you have on or sit out of practice today.
- 5:45Michelle Gauthier: She feels that pang of guilt too, because nobody likes their kid to be in an uncomfortable situation.
- 5:50Michelle Gauthier: But five minutes later, she's back to her afternoon.
- 5:52Michelle Gauthier: She's not still replaying it.
- 5:54Michelle Gauthier: By 6 p.m., Caroline's making dinner.
- 5:57Michelle Gauthier: She's making an easy spaghetti dinner, the ingredients that she bought on Sunday when she planned the meals in advance.
- 6:03Michelle Gauthier: She knows she doesn't have to do the dishes because she is the cook and her kids and husband do the cleanup.
- 6:09Michelle Gauthier: She doesn't feel like she has to scramble or figure out what she's making for dinner, and she sits down to eat with her family while it's actually hot.
- 6:17Michelle Gauthier: She has conversation with them because she has left work behind for the day and she is fully focused on her family and how they're doing.
- 6:25Michelle Gauthier: Annie's staring into the fridge at 6 p.m., but she still hasn't decided what to make.
- 6:31Michelle Gauthier: Still half thinking about the mistakes she made from this morning, thinking of all the things that she still has to do for today despite working so hard all day, except for that quick trip to her son's school.
- 6:42Michelle Gauthier: And she ends up just ordering dinner, not from the place of, I don't feel like cooking today.
- 6:48Michelle Gauthier: I'm just gonna order dinner to make my life easy.
- 6:50Michelle Gauthier: But from I can never get it together, I'm gonna have to order dinner again tonight.
- 6:54Michelle Gauthier: I'm wasting so much money doing this.
- 6:56Michelle Gauthier: This isn't the kind of food I want to be feeding my family.
- 6:59Michelle Gauthier: And then while she's waiting, she gets back on her laptop, does some work, makes sure her correction email that she sent at 10 a.m.
- 7:06Michelle Gauthier: went through because she hasn't heard any response on it, and she's still in her workday in her mind, even though her family is there.
- 7:14Michelle Gauthier: By 9 30, Caroline's in bed, lights off, asleep in just a few minutes, and Annie's in bed too, but her mind is still running the tape of the mistakes she made, the cleats her son forgot, the dinner she fed her family, and she checks her phone one more time, and then again, and she finally falls asleep at 11:30, and the alarm's gonna go off again in six and a half hours.
- 7:36Michelle Gauthier: Okay, so let's tally it up.
- 7:38Michelle Gauthier: Think back through both of their days and the opportunities that they had.
- 7:42Michelle Gauthier: What did they do when they first woke up?
- 7:44Michelle Gauthier: What did they do to plan their week in the first place?
- 7:47Michelle Gauthier: How do they react to an email?
- 7:49Michelle Gauthier: How do they react to the boundary that they've set that they work out over their lunch hour?
- 7:54Michelle Gauthier: How do they react to the boundary that they set with their kids?
- 7:57Michelle Gauthier: That you have to remember to bring the things you need for school or you have to live without them.
- 8:02Michelle Gauthier: How did they handle dinner?
- 8:03Michelle Gauthier: How did they handle bedtime?
- 8:05Michelle Gauthier: If you think about yourself in these situations, whatever happened during your day, or maybe if it's you're listening to this in the morning, what happened yesterday or on Friday?
- 8:14Michelle Gauthier: How many times were you Caroline and how many times were you Annie?
- 8:18Michelle Gauthier: There's no wrong answer.
- 8:19Michelle Gauthier: It's just good to know where your split happens.
- 8:22Michelle Gauthier: And this isn't about shame, like, oh my gosh, you're being such an Annie.
- 8:26Michelle Gauthier: It's just showing that you can have the same day and the same opportunities and have a completely different result at the end of the day if you're not overwhelmed.
- 8:36Michelle Gauthier: I actually think this is a really good thing that you don't have to wait for things to change, for example, to be less busy at work or for your kids to become more responsible, to feel less overwhelmed.
- 8:48Michelle Gauthier: It is entirely in your power to create the kind of day that you want to have.
- 8:53Michelle Gauthier: This is exactly what I teach my clients inside one-on-one coaching.
- 8:57Michelle Gauthier: My clients turn into their own version of calm Caroline.
- 9:01Michelle Gauthier: They learn to catch those moments where there's the opportunity to be overwhelmed, pause, think differently, and make a different choice so that they can continue on through their day feeling present and calm no matter what comes up.
- 9:14Michelle Gauthier: If you want to become much more calm, Caroline, and less overwhelmed, Annie, I would absolutely love to help you.
- 9:20Michelle Gauthier: This is my specialty.
- 9:22Michelle Gauthier: This is what I do.
- 9:23Michelle Gauthier: Set up a discovery session with me to learn about exactly what we work on inside one-on-one coaching and find out how it can help you.
- 9:32Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 9:39Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
- 9:46Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.