Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #200| How Finding Your North Star Can Help You Avoid Burnout and Overwhelm
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: If your life looks great on paper, but something about it just doesn't feel right on the inside, you are not alone.
- 0:11Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:18Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:23Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's Working Woman experiences.
- 0:28Michelle 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.
- 0:38Michelle Gauthier: Thanks so much for joining today.
- 0:40Michelle Gauthier: Today is our 200th episode, which I am super excited about.
- 0:44Michelle Gauthier: I can't believe it.
- 0:45Michelle Gauthier: It's so funny when you just step by step keep doing something and all of a sudden you look back and you think, oh my goodness, 200 episodes on the podcast.
- 0:53Michelle Gauthier: That is amazing.
- 0:54Michelle Gauthier: I just want to take a second and say thank you to everybody who has been a listener, who has written a review, who has passed this podcast on to a friend.
- 1:03Michelle Gauthier: I can't thank you enough.
- 1:04Michelle Gauthier: It continues to grow and get more popular, which means more people are hearing this message and hopefully living much less stressful, less overwhelming lives.
- 1:13Michelle Gauthier: So thank you so much for all you have done to get us to this 200th episode.
- 1:18Michelle Gauthier: I'm excited that today's topic is also in line with that milestone.
- 1:22Michelle Gauthier: Today I'm talking about a book by Martha Beck called Finding Your Own North Star.
- 1:26Michelle Gauthier: If your life looks great on paper, but something about it just doesn't feel right on the inside, you are not alone.
- 1:33Michelle Gauthier: If that is the situation that you're in right now, and that is the situation that I was in before I made a whole bunch of changes in my life, but one of them being completely switching my career to become a life coach.
- 1:44Michelle Gauthier: When I was feeling that way in about 2017, I didn't know what was wrong or why it just didn't feel right.
- 1:52Michelle Gauthier: And finding Martha back, I also did my life coach training under her.
- 1:56Michelle Gauthier: She's written lots of amazing books, but finding her and reading this book really helped me and is one of the things that made me basically transition my whole life and quit my 20-year corporate career and become a life coach.
- 2:10Michelle Gauthier: You might not need to make a change that big depending on what's going on with you, but this is a great book if you feel like something is off on the inside.
- 2:20Michelle Gauthier: When you listen today, you're going to learn why we all have two selves, the social self and the essential self, and what happens when they're out of sync, what your burnout or your overwhelm is trying to tell you, and how to start following your own personal North Star without blowing up your life.
- 2:36Michelle Gauthier: It doesn't have to be a super dramatic, I'm not doing any of this anymore.
- 2:41Michelle Gauthier: Two weeks ago, I mentioned that I was going to start reviewing some of my favorite self-help books to just teach you the points that are in the book.
- 2:48Michelle Gauthier: And then if it's something that feels like it really resonates with you, maybe that's a book you want to grab and read.
- 2:53Michelle Gauthier: In today's episode, I'm going to feature a book that is near and dear to my heart called Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck.
- 3:00Michelle Gauthier: The basic premise of this book is that we have two selves inside us.
- 3:04Michelle Gauthier: One is the essential self, and one is the social self.
- 3:07Michelle Gauthier: The essential self is who you are, it's your soul, it's who you would be, no matter where you were born, what culture you were born into, what country you live in, what language you speak.
- 3:19Michelle Gauthier: It's just the part of you that knows what brings you energy and ease and joy.
- 3:25Michelle Gauthier: And then your social self is the version of you that has been shaped by rules and expectations and sometimes things like people pleasing.
- 3:33Michelle Gauthier: Neither one of these things are good or bad.
- 3:36Michelle Gauthier: For example, one thing that I really love and have always loved is cars.
- 3:40Michelle Gauthier: I love cars.
- 3:41Michelle Gauthier: So my essential self would see a beautiful car and think, oh my gosh, I love that car.
- 3:46Michelle Gauthier: It'd be so much fun to drive that car.
- 3:48Michelle Gauthier: But my social self is the one that figures out how do I get that car?
- 3:52Michelle Gauthier: How much is that going to cost?
- 3:53Michelle Gauthier: How do I finance it?
- 3:54Michelle Gauthier: My social self is the one who goes to the DMV and gets everything registered.
- 3:58Michelle Gauthier: You need your essential self to tell you your own truth, to show you what you are attracted to, what things you're good at, what gifts you have.
- 4:06Michelle Gauthier: And then you need your social self to be able to adapt that to the rules of your society in order to make it happen.
- 4:13Michelle Gauthier: So there's no problem about having these two selves.
- 4:16Michelle Gauthier: The problem comes when the two selves are out of alignment.
- 4:19Michelle Gauthier: When those two things are completely out of sync, that's when you start to feel anxious and burned out and overwhelmed.
- 4:28Michelle Gauthier: You get a good case of the Sunday scaries because there's something about your life where your social self is really leading the way and your essential self has gotten way too quiet or might not even be present.
- 4:40Michelle Gauthier: There's a quiz right at the start of the book that asks several questions to see how much of your essential self is showing up in your life right now.
- 4:49Michelle Gauthier: And I have definitely gotten to the point in my life where my essential self is showing up most of the time, if not all of the time.
- 4:56Michelle Gauthier: But in previous versions, like back in 2017, when I was feeling really stressed and overwhelmed and working a ton and really working my way up the ladder in a job that was not a great fit for my essential self, but was a great fit for my social self, you just start to feel really out of alignment.
- 5:13Michelle Gauthier: So some of the questions she asks at the beginning of the book, there's a bunch of them, but I'm just going to give you a few examples here are my life feels like a great adventure.
- 5:21Michelle Gauthier: Is that often, sometimes rarely or never?
- 5:24Michelle Gauthier: Or I laugh out loud often, sometimes rarely or never.
- 5:28Michelle Gauthier: I feel overwhelmed by gratitude often, sometimes rarely or never.
- 5:33Michelle Gauthier: Things just seem to work out for me.
- 5:35Michelle Gauthier: I get so involved in projects that I forget to stop or lose track of time.
- 5:40Michelle Gauthier: And every time you answer an often, that means you're really connected to your essential self.
- 5:45Michelle Gauthier: And if it's rarely or almost never, you're probably more connected to your social self.
- 5:52Michelle Gauthier: So what to do about it?
- 5:53Michelle Gauthier: Well, there's a whole book to tell you exactly what to do about it.
- 5:56Michelle Gauthier: But in general, the whole premise of this book, and she gives very there's quizzes and things you can fill in in the book.
- 6:02Michelle Gauthier: It's almost like a workbook in some ways.
- 6:05Michelle Gauthier: But the good thing that she really helps you do in this book is not to like create a new life with purpose, but to learn how to notice what lights you up.
- 6:15Michelle Gauthier: A lot of times when I first start working with a client and I'll say, What's fun for you?
- 6:19Michelle Gauthier: What do you do for fun?
- 6:21Michelle Gauthier: They'll be like, I can't remember.
- 6:23Michelle Gauthier: I've just so busy checking all the boxes that I don't even remember what I really like to do.
- 6:29Michelle Gauthier: And so Martha Beck in this book will teach you how to notice what your essential self is saying and how to bring small pieces of that into your life.
- 6:37Michelle Gauthier: So for example, my essential self is creative.
- 6:41Michelle Gauthier: I love to work on my house.
- 6:43Michelle Gauthier: I love to decorate my house.
- 6:45Michelle Gauthier: I like to do hand lettering.
- 6:47Michelle Gauthier: I'm not a good artist like a drawer, but I'm good with letters and I like to write people cards and I like to paint sometimes.
- 6:54Michelle Gauthier: It just I have a creative streak in me.
- 6:58Michelle Gauthier: And so that doesn't mean that I need to quit my job and become an artist.
- 7:03Michelle Gauthier: It just means that when I'm sitting down and watching TV, now I have a little bin full of blank cards and pretty markers and some books that I use and some workbooks with different lettering styles.
- 7:15Michelle Gauthier: And when I sit down, sometimes I can just pick that up and do that little creative thing.
- 7:19Michelle Gauthier: So it's not like you need to just completely change your whole life.
- 7:23Michelle Gauthier: It's just starting to do a little bit more of things that your essential self really loves.
- 7:28Michelle Gauthier: If you just even take a second and think right now, what really makes you feel super alive?
- 7:34Michelle Gauthier: Maybe you feel super alive after mentoring someone at work, or you totally lose track of time when you're organizing your closet.
- 7:42Michelle Gauthier: That's not random.
- 7:43Michelle Gauthier: That's your North Star, your essential self shining through.
- 7:46Michelle Gauthier: And when we don't give space for that essential self to really be part of our day-to-day life, several things can happen.
- 7:53Michelle Gauthier: One being burnout, stress, overwhelm.
- 7:56Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes people get physically sick when they're out of alignment like that.
- 8:00Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes you'll just forget things or self-sabotage yourself.
- 8:04Michelle Gauthier: Like there's lots of examples in the book about what can happen when you're living too much in your social self and not enough in your essential self.
- 8:12Michelle Gauthier: But the good news is you don't have to blow up your whole life or be perfect at this.
- 8:16Michelle Gauthier: It's enough to just take one small step, like the markers that I'm talking about.
- 8:20Michelle Gauthier: If you just take one thing from this podcast, what I would ask you to do today is think, what is something that really lights me up?
- 8:27Michelle Gauthier: Where is somewhere that I lose track of time or that I just absolutely love?
- 8:31Michelle Gauthier: When is the last time I did that thing?
- 8:33Michelle Gauthier: And how can I bring that small thing into my life this week, even?
- 8:38Michelle Gauthier: And if this is really speaking to you, I highly recommend that you get this book.
- 8:42Michelle Gauthier: I have recommended it to a lot of people over time, and I think it has been very influential in the lives of many of my clients.
- 8:48Michelle Gauthier: Okay, that's it for today.
- 8:51Michelle Gauthier: Thank you again for being here for this 200th episode and have a great week.
- 8:56Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 9:03Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at MichelleGauthier.com.
- 9:09Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.