Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #172| Why Your Packed Schedule Is a Choice — And How to Choose Yourself Instead for Less Overwhelm
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: Overwhelm is a choice, and it's a choice that you make every day with your thoughts and your actions.
- 0:10Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:17Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:22Michelle 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.
- 0:37Michelle Gauthier: Hello friend, do you ever look at your calendar and think how did this calendar get this full?
- 0:42Michelle Gauthier: Here's the truth that I'm going to tell you today.
- 0:45Michelle Gauthier: Your schedule didn't just happen to you.
- 0:47Michelle Gauthier: You created it one thought and one decision and one action at a time.
- 0:52Michelle Gauthier: In a way, this is sort of hard to hear and in a way, it's really good news because it's all in your control when you listen.
- 1:00Michelle Gauthier: Today we're going to talk about how everything on your schedule started with a thought and a decision, how lots of times we are overpacking our schedule because we are familiar with the feeling of being busy not that we love it, but we kind of know it and are used to it and then also talk about how your calendar really reflects your beliefs not the time that you have, but your beliefs.
- 1:27Michelle Gauthier: And I really felt like talking to you guys about this today because it's back to school time where we live in St Louis, and this is a time of seasonal overwhelm, just like the end of school is, and the holiday season is where there are just all these extra things to do, and it's such a good reminder that we are becoming overwhelmed only when we're allowing ourselves to.
- 1:51Michelle Gauthier: Before we jump into all of the details on that.
- 1:55Michelle Gauthier: I want to remind you that I am doing a fall declutter challenge.
- 1:58Michelle Gauthier: Speaking of overwhelming stuff can overwhelm you so quickly, whether it's too much in your email inbox, too much on your calendar, too much in your closet or your purse or your car or whatever it is.
- 2:12Michelle Gauthier: So I'm designing a easy, quick five day challenge where each day, you'll listen to a podcast episode and it will tell you what we're going to focus on for that day.
- 2:21Michelle Gauthier: When you join the challenge, you will get a workbook, a beautiful workbook to document all of your progress that goes over the daily lessons for the day, asks you journaling questions and keeps track of your wins.
- 2:33Michelle Gauthier: You can also submit questions to me and your wins to me, which I will answer the very next day on the podcast.
- 2:39Michelle Gauthier: So it's going to be interactive.
- 2:41Michelle Gauthier: There will be prizes and by the end of the week, I guarantee that you will feel so much better than before you started doing the challenge.
- 2:48Michelle Gauthier: So come and join me.
- 2:49Michelle Gauthier: It's going to be a great time.
- 2:51Michelle Gauthier: The link is in the show notes.
- 2:52Michelle Gauthier: The cost of this is $17.
- 2:54Michelle Gauthier: Okay, let's get back to business.
- 2:58Michelle Gauthier: The first thing I want to talk about today is that everything on your schedule started with a thought and a decision.
- 3:04Michelle Gauthier: So if you look at your calendar and there are 10 meetings on it today, or 10 things on it today, you could go to each and every one and say how did this end up on my calendar?
- 3:13Michelle Gauthier: So, for example, if I look at my calendar for today, picking up my daughter from golf practice is one of the things that's on my calendar.
- 3:21Michelle Gauthier: How did that get on the calendar?
- 3:22Michelle Gauthier: Because she made the golf team.
- 3:24Michelle Gauthier: I agreed that she could try out for the golf team.
- 3:27Michelle Gauthier: I knew that that would involve me picking her up if she made the team.
- 3:30Michelle Gauthier: That's how that got on my calendar.
- 3:33Michelle Gauthier: Taking a look at yours, you might see, let's say, a field trip.
- 3:37Michelle Gauthier: What's the thought that got you to have that on your calendar?
- 3:41Michelle Gauthier: It could be a thought like good moms show up for everything.
- 3:43Michelle Gauthier: So I need and you make the decision to do it, even though you have a really busy work week and you maybe don't really want to, or maybe that field trip is on there and you're like, yeah, I just like to do a field trip once a year.
- 3:56Michelle Gauthier: This is the one that I'm doing and this is going to be great for me.
- 3:58Michelle Gauthier: So those are two totally different thoughts, but each thoughts that got that item on your calendar.
- 4:04Michelle Gauthier: So if you feel like you have too many things on your calendar, take a look and see what are the thoughts that I'm thinking that is allowing this to get on my calendar.
- 4:13Michelle Gauthier: For example, if somebody let's say one of your clients or customers or co-workers wants to meet with you at 6pm and that's the time that you usually eat dinner with your family, but yet that meeting is on your calendar right now, maybe you had a thought like if I say no, they'll go elsewhere, or if I say no, they'll be upset with me.
- 4:32Michelle Gauthier: So you make the decision to say yes, even though it cuts into dinner with your family.
- 4:37Michelle Gauthier: Noticing what you're thinking that is allowing things to get on your calendar is very insightful.
- 4:44Michelle Gauthier: So as you start going throughout this new week, just notice how did this meeting get on my calendar, what were my thoughts, what was the action that I took to get it here?
- 4:53Michelle Gauthier: Taking radical responsibility.
- 4:55Michelle Gauthier: If you don't know what I mean by radical responsibility, there's a whole episode on that and we'll link that in the show notes.
- 5:01Michelle Gauthier: But taking radical responsibility for your decision is so helpful.
- 5:06Michelle Gauthier: The second reason why our calendar ends up being overly busy is that you use busyness to avoid discomfort.
- 5:13Michelle Gauthier: This one cuts me deep.
- 5:15Michelle Gauthier: Being busy often feels easier than the discomfort of saying no.
- 5:21Michelle Gauthier: So you don't have to feel guilty or awkward or selfish or worry that people won't like you or that people might think you're lazy.
- 5:27Michelle Gauthier: So you just go ahead and fill up your calendar and pretend that you're superwoman and that you can do all of the things.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: It's uncomfortable to be busy, but it's less uncomfortable than facing saying no or thinking about how people won't like you.
- 5:43Michelle Gauthier: Although I kind of debate that, I think it's really important to recognize that those are two uncomfortable situations.
- 5:50Michelle Gauthier: And which is worse?
- 5:51Michelle Gauthier: When push came to shove, for me, it was worse to be jam-packed and super busy all the time than the discomfort of saying no.
- 6:00Michelle Gauthier: You're just weighing the discomfort.
- 6:01Michelle Gauthier: Which one is getting you closer to living the kind of life that you want to have?
- 6:06Michelle Gauthier: Which version of discomfort is better that you want to have?
- 6:12Michelle Gauthier: Which version of discomfort is better?
- 6:13Michelle Gauthier: And if you need any help on learning how to say no, learning how to stop people pleasing, learning how to set boundaries there are tons of episodes on this podcast.
- 6:19Michelle Gauthier: Set up a one on one meeting with me to learn about coaching with me.
- 6:23Michelle Gauthier: That is exactly what I do.
- 6:25Michelle Gauthier: And the third reason why overwhelm is a choice that you're making is because your calendar reflects your beliefs.
- 6:31Michelle Gauthier: And that might sound kind of weird, but your calendar is more than logistics.
- 6:35Michelle Gauthier: It's a mirror of your belief system.
- 6:37Michelle Gauthier: So whatever you believe to be true about yourself and others and your worth is playing out in your weekly calendar.
- 6:45Michelle Gauthier: Funny story.
- 6:45Michelle Gauthier: So my handsome man friend, I was telling him on the way home from dinner one night I had a really busy day that ended up with being at my daughter's new school for a back to school parent night, and it was definitely an item that was on my calendar.
- 6:59Michelle Gauthier: I did not feel like going, but I really wanted to go because I wanted the information.
- 7:03Michelle Gauthier: So we decided we were going to meet up for dinner afterwards.
- 7:06Michelle Gauthier: So we met up and had dinner and a glass of wine.
- 7:09Michelle Gauthier: And on the way home I said I just really had almost no breaks today.
- 7:13Michelle Gauthier: I had lots of client meetings, I had a doctor's appointment for myself, I had to help my son with something, then I had to go to this meeting for my daughter.
- 7:21Michelle Gauthier: It was just a really busy day.
- 7:23Michelle Gauthier: And he said and how did that happen that you accepted so many things on one day?
- 7:28Michelle Gauthier: How dare you turn that around on me?
- 7:31Michelle Gauthier: I was like, well, because I really felt like I just needed to do all those things today.
- 7:38Michelle Gauthier: And he's like, oh, and what does that mean about you that you really feel like you need to do all those things in one day?
- 7:44Michelle Gauthier: Because he was calling me out hard core.
- 7:47Michelle Gauthier: He's not a therapist or a life coach, by the way, this is just the way he is.
- 7:51Michelle Gauthier: He's deep.
- 7:52Michelle Gauthier: Anyway, what he was gently saying to me is are you trying to do as many things as possible in a day because it makes you feel like you're enough or it makes you feel like you're worthy?
- 8:03Michelle Gauthier: And it was a great question and it really made me pause because that's what I used to do in my old life, all the time, 24/7.
- 8:10Michelle Gauthier: That's what I was doing.
- 8:11Michelle Gauthier: And I realized that the reason why that day had worn me out so much is because I did have a day that was kind of like that day had worn me out so much is because I did have a day that was kind of like that.
- 8:20Michelle Gauthier: So it was a really good realization and it made me remember that my belief what used to be my belief is I'm only as valuable as the amount of work that I do in a day, did drive that one day doesn't drive my life, but it drove that one day and it helped me refocus for the next week to be like okay, I value rest.
- 8:39Michelle Gauthier: I get a lot of things done in a week.
- 8:40Michelle Gauthier: I don't need to have a jam-packed calendar.
- 8:42Michelle Gauthier: I had to, like, say my new beliefs out loud in order to create my calendar from that.
- 8:49Michelle Gauthier: The good news is you don't need a new time blocking system.
- 8:52Michelle Gauthier: You just need to look and identify what's really going on behind the appointments on your calendar.
- 8:59Michelle Gauthier: What are the thoughts you're thinking?
- 9:00Michelle Gauthier: What are the feelings you're trying to avoid?
- 9:03Michelle Gauthier: What are the beliefs that are making you book yourself and overbook yourself?
- 9:07Michelle Gauthier: Because as long as you believe that your worth is tied to your output or your helpfulness or your availability, your calendar will always be full, but not in a good way.
- 9:19Michelle Gauthier: Okay, friends, that's it for today.
- 9:21Michelle Gauthier: Overwhelm isn't a mystery.
- 9:22Michelle Gauthier: It's the result of a thousand small choices rooted in thoughts that you maybe have never questioned before.
- 9:28Michelle Gauthier: If you want to start questioning those and getting down to the thoughts and beliefs and actions like people pleasing that you're taking.
- 9:35Michelle Gauthier: Reach out to me, set up a one-on-one consultation with me to learn more about coaching.
- 9:41Michelle Gauthier: And while you're there in the show notes, don't forget to sign up for the declutter challenge.
- 9:46Michelle Gauthier: It's going to be great.
- 9:46Michelle Gauthier: Thanks for listening.
- 9:54Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 9:56Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier.
- 10:00Michelle Gauthier: com.
- 10:02Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.