Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 21: Pause and Reflect: Make Space to Hear Yourself Before Burnout Hits

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21: Pause and Reflect: Make Space to Hear Yourself Before Burnout Hits · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:22
  Samanthan Pruitt: Hey, superstars welcome back Polly here and Sam Pruitt, what's up?
• 0:26
  Samanthan Pruitt: Beautiful humans hey hey, Samantha Pruitt.
• 0:29
  Polly Mertens: What are we talking about today?
• 0:31
  Samanthan Pruitt: Today we're talking about some things.
• 0:34
  Samanthan Pruitt: Okay, so we're talking about a process that is called pause and reflect?
• 0:41
  Samanthan Pruitt: Yes, but I want you to explain to the audience what we mean by that.
• 0:46
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 0:46
  Polly Mertens: So I want to like kind of preface it.
• 0:48
  Polly Mertens: We were talking before we started about, like, is it you know when to, or how to, or whatnot.
• 0:54
  Polly Mertens: And I'm like it's the practice, because I think we both agree that this is absolutely something that needs to be a part of growth, a part of transformation.
• 1:03
  Polly Mertens: And we're going to relate some of these things that we'll talk about to business and some to your personal life.
• 1:08
  Polly Mertens: But when you're making changes, when you're you know let's just take for an example you're creating a new habit, right?
• 1:14
  Polly Mertens: Or you're starting a new program like use the example for myself I'm in my Ironman training, right.
• 1:20
  Polly Mertens: So if I'm just like hard charging it with one, so let's say I set up a training plan in the beginning and I say, okay, this is what I'm going to run, and this is what I'm going to swim, and this is what I'm going to bike, and oh yeah, and I'm not going to do any stretching, I'm not.
• 1:34
  Polly Mertens: You know, I didn't add some things in.
• 1:35
  Polly Mertens: If I don't pause and reflect periodically on, like, how I'm doing, I could get way off in the weeds or, you know, not notice, you know the progress I have made or what's not working, or something like that.
• 1:49
  Polly Mertens: So the pausing and reflecting in any area of our life, business or personal, is taking that time keyword there taking the time and the self-awareness to put it upon ourselves and to reflect.
• 2:04
  Polly Mertens: And I want to you know me in definition, so reflect.
• 2:06
  Samanthan Pruitt: Oh, here we go.
• 2:09
  Polly Mertens: Wait for it.
• 2:10
  Polly Mertens: I love to look this stuff up.
• 2:11
  Polly Mertens: So reflection, you know, besides a reflection in the mirror, right Is time to evaluate, it's to think, or give thought to think or give thought to.
• 2:23
  Polly Mertens: And so, like, what are we thinking of?
• 2:24
  Samanthan Pruitt: giving thought to ourselves, I mean what time to reflect and give thought to ourselves.
• 2:32
  Samanthan Pruitt: I love that piece.
• 2:33
  Samanthan Pruitt: Yeah, and patience requires a lot of different things, but awareness time, patience and then commitment to self.
• 2:42
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and I think one of the things you and I had talked about offline is when we don't, when we're so hard charging, right, let's say you're, if you're in business, growing a business, yeah, you're great, yeah, a lot going on, feed yourself, right, and so people like I don't have time to stop and whatever, right, same thing with you know mom, motherhood or you know relation, you know starting a new relationship, and you're juggling a lot of things and all this stuff.
• 3:08
  Polly Mertens: I don't have time to pause.
• 3:09
  Polly Mertens: I gotta get this stuff done.
• 3:11
  Polly Mertens: And you know we won't go into the statistics, but let's just insert this that there's lots of benefit.
• 3:17
  Polly Mertens: I just want to insert one quote that I remember from this gentleman that I met years ago this is when I had an early marketing position that I remember from this gentleman that I met years ago.
• 3:22
  Polly Mertens: This is when I had an early marketing position and he told me that he spent 10% of his marketing budget.
• 3:29
  Polly Mertens: So let's say 100% of his marketing budget, let's say 100 grand, he would spend 10,000 or 10% of it on research and I was like, hmm, like the startup, you know, like analyzing the market, things like that.
• 3:41
  Polly Mertens: So he'd do all these surveys and stuff like that and I said why do you spend 10%?
• 3:46
  Polly Mertens: He goes I spend 10% of my money so that I know how to spend the other 90% and I was like that's really good and so I think that's that related for me to this topic is like I spent your time.
• 3:59
  Samanthan Pruitt: Attention on how you're going to do the other 90%.
• 4:07
  Polly Mertens: Exactly, exactly.
• 4:07
  Polly Mertens: And this pausing and reflecting doesn't have to take up, you know, 10%.
• 4:09
  Polly Mertens: We're not making it that specific, but it is a.
• 4:12
  Polly Mertens: I think that idea, that concept that he shared with me translates here right.
• 4:17
  Polly Mertens: So it's we're spending time looking at what we're doing so that we, you know, are evaluating, we're putting thought to.
• 4:25
  Polly Mertens: You know, we spent a lot of time in the beginning, hopefully, you know, contemplating is this the thing I should do?
• 4:30
  Polly Mertens: Do I want to do that, making a decision and then going for it?
• 4:32
  Polly Mertens: Right, like getting ourselves in line, and, lord knows, we probably spent a lot of time doing the thing, whether it's the new habit or working with teams going for a goal.
• 4:41
  Polly Mertens: You might want to pause and reflect and see how it's going midway, right?
• 4:47
  Samanthan Pruitt: Well, so why is this important?
• 4:51
  Samanthan Pruitt: I mean, let's be honest.
• 4:53
  Samanthan Pruitt: So people generally our audience in particular are very change-oriented, forward-thinking, personal investment, personal growth people, and they probably have a multitude of things that they're working on in their life, that they'd like to see habits change or progress towards different paths in their life.
• 5:12
  Samanthan Pruitt: Why is this piece so important?
• 5:16
  Samanthan Pruitt: And then I would add to it it's completely natural.
• 5:19
  Samanthan Pruitt: It's actually part of the whole process itself.
• 5:22
  Samanthan Pruitt: We tend to reject it.
• 5:23
  Samanthan Pruitt: So let's unpack the first part, which is what's your opinion on why you think this moment of reflection is so important?
• 5:30
  Samanthan Pruitt: Why does it add value?
• 5:31
  Samanthan Pruitt: Why?
• 5:32
  Polly Mertens: I think for myself, what?
• 5:33
  Polly Mertens: So a couple of things come to mind and that is um, I see how I'm doing and what's working, what's not working.
• 5:40
  Polly Mertens: Right, you know, if I'm just like somebody said I should do this, you buy into it, you know, you start doing it.
• 5:48
  Polly Mertens: Or they did it that way.
• 5:49
  Polly Mertens: Okay, that worked for them.
• 5:50
  Polly Mertens: I'm just going to do it because it worked for them, right?
• 5:53
  Polly Mertens: Whatever, you know, if it's a marketing plan or if it's a training plan or whatever, right Like this is what they say.
• 5:59
  Polly Mertens: Well, if I don't evaluate for me the human being, especially if it's at a personal level or if it's at the business level, I may have a different environment that I'm operating in, I may have a different team, a different budget, the clients that I'm serving could be different, you know.
• 6:15
  Polly Mertens: So there's a lot of factors that if I'm just cookie cuttering and saying, oh, I'm doing it because that person did it and that's how you know it worked for them, it worked for me, then I could be missing things that either opportunistically like, oh my gosh, I'm not even paying attention, I don't have my head up enough in reflection time, like you know hey, wait a minute.
• 6:34
  Polly Mertens: I wonder if I could do this a little bit differently.
• 6:36
  Polly Mertens: So I think a couple of things happen in that pausing time.
• 6:39
  Polly Mertens: It's how is it going, you know?
• 6:41
  Polly Mertens: So I want to, I want to check in with myself, my team, whatever it is.
• 6:46
  Samanthan Pruitt: How's it feeling?
• 6:47
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 6:49
  Samanthan Pruitt: How's it feeling?
• 6:50
  Samanthan Pruitt: Yes, how's it working, how's it going?
• 6:52
  Samanthan Pruitt: But like, how's this feeling?
• 6:53
  Samanthan Pruitt: Is this horrible?
• 6:54
  Samanthan Pruitt: Yeah, I mean, can you think of all the things we've tried in our life where we're like I'm doing it and then you get in there and you're like this sucks, I don't want to do it anymore?
• 7:09
  Samanthan Pruitt: That's true, you totally forgot why you even committed to do the thing or work towards the change, adapt a new habit or whatever.
• 7:12
  Samanthan Pruitt: And then you get in the middle of it and you're like this sucks, which is also normal, by the way.
• 7:16
  Samanthan Pruitt: But I see a lot of people that do this sort of pendulum, swinging all or nothing around, committing to significant change in their life.
• 7:26
  Samanthan Pruitt: If it's health and wellness, that's one thing.
• 7:28
  Samanthan Pruitt: Or starting a business, or, you know, searching for the love of their life or whatever this thing is, if they're really trying to do differently than they were doing last month, right.
• 7:38
  Samanthan Pruitt: So they start down the path towards this change and they feel like there's one way to do it generally and it's whatever.
• 7:47
  Samanthan Pruitt: The way that they've chosen or somebody has helped them in a book or otherwise, told them is the best strategy for that, and they go charging down that path and they commit to it.
• 7:58
  Samanthan Pruitt: You know, we know a lot of type A people, we know a lot of doers, and they really commit and they go all in, yeah, exactly.
• 8:03
  Samanthan Pruitt: And then they get into it and it's just totally miserable.
• 8:07
  Samanthan Pruitt: They can't stand it or they can't sustain the effort, energy, focus, the resources required to continue, and so they, you know, fall off the wagon or off the bus or whatever the thing is, and so maybe for a day or a couple of days, or three or four days, they're no longer doing that thing eating healthy or, uh, you know, investing in their business the way they should be, or whatever the thing is.
• 8:31
  Samanthan Pruitt: So they stop, they fall off the bus for a hot second and then that's it.
• 8:35
  Samanthan Pruitt: The party is over because they have failed.
• 8:39
  Samanthan Pruitt: That's how they perceive that they were doing all of the things, and then the next day they're doing none of the things.
• 8:45
  Samanthan Pruitt: There's no in between and no grace there.
• 8:47
  Samanthan Pruitt: You want to speak to that?
• 8:49
  Polly Mertens: Well, I think you've.
• 8:50
  Polly Mertens: I think you laid it out perfectly.
• 8:52
  Polly Mertens: The only thing that was coming to mind as you were saying that for me was, in the background I'm hearing the word, two words possibility, you know.
• 8:59
  Polly Mertens: So staying open to possibility means there may not be only one way for this to happen, or sure?
• 9:07
  Polly Mertens: You know?
• 9:08
  Polly Mertens: As you, as you get a little bit more information, you get into it.
• 9:11
  Polly Mertens: You know, I've been doing my swimming training right for my Ironman, and so each time I get in the pool, like you know, I mean I'm spending a lot of time in the pool.
• 9:19
  Polly Mertens: So you know like oh, that's not where a lot of time to think when you're swimming Time to think Right.
• 9:25
  Polly Mertens: And so if your perspective, if you're, or if you're perceptive right, I'm open to possibilities of doing this differently and approaching it a little differently, and moving my arm a little bit differently, or tilting my head a little bit more, or you know, possibly, or you know whatever.
• 9:41
  Polly Mertens: So it's, I'm open to the possibility.
• 9:43
  Polly Mertens: And then the other word that I was thinking that comes to mind is 25 years ago.
• 9:47
  Polly Mertens: I remember being in a company that was all about, you know, this was when it was popular as like continuous quality improvement, CQI.
• 9:53
  Polly Mertens: Oh my gosh.
• 9:54
  Samanthan Pruitt: There was an obsession for 10 years.
• 9:57
  Samanthan Pruitt: It was exhausting, yeah, wasn't it?
• 9:59
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:00
  Polly Mertens: So, but that reminded me of that and it was like continuously looking at how you're doing reflect, you know, change, go back, you know, tweak, modify, you know.
• 10:08
  Polly Mertens: And so it's this practice, if you will, of maybe there's not just one way.
• 10:15
  Polly Mertens: It can be improved a little bit, little bit, little bit.
• 10:17
  Polly Mertens: And then I would say we're human, and guess what?
• 10:20
  Polly Mertens: You're going to put your own little spin on things?
• 10:22
  Polly Mertens: I hope so.
• 10:23
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, exactly.
• 10:23
  Polly Mertens: We're not robots.
• 10:24
  Polly Mertens: And guess what?
• 10:25
  Polly Mertens: You're going to put your own little spin on things?
• 10:26
  Polly Mertens: I hope so.
• 10:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, exactly.
• 10:27
  Polly Mertens: We're not robots.
• 10:28
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, so I think the being open to possibility along the way is I'm going to go do this thing, like you said, and see how it feels, not like I'm going to give up, feeling like, oh, this is hard, but maybe I've learned something in the first week of doing it or the second week of doing it.
• 10:44
  Polly Mertens: Can I fine tune, can I begin to tweak, can I adjust something?
• 10:49
  Polly Mertens: Did I learn something new?
• 10:50
  Polly Mertens: You know, like I'm reading, like at night I'm reading your triathlon book that you gave me, and I'm like just reading and seeing if other little tips or ideas come out of that as I go, right.
• 11:02
  Polly Mertens: But you get into that process and the frame of mind of making a change, trying something different.
• 11:05
  Polly Mertens: You read things along the way, you pick up things.
• 11:08
  Polly Mertens: Maybe you incorporate them.
• 11:10
  Samanthan Pruitt: Yeah, I think it's really important to again convey to all the humans who are listening that we're not robots and there isn't just one way.
• 11:19
  Samanthan Pruitt: So there isn't one nutritional strategy, there is not one way to train for a triathlon, there isn't one way to start a business Like.
• 11:27
  Samanthan Pruitt: There's so many different ways to lead the life of a human being, and our idea for them would be to explore many of those things.
• 11:35
  Samanthan Pruitt: So if they want to impact change within a certain part of their life so that's the other thing I want to touch bases on is please don't try and change your whole life all at once, unless there is a crisis and you've had to do that just out of external forces, of course that that does happen, but we're talking about people who have made a decision I want to do one part of my life differently, so focusing on one area of your life at a time and then saying I'm going to choose this path to try and impact change.
• 12:06
  Samanthan Pruitt: So I'm going to change these behaviors, these habits.
• 12:09
  Samanthan Pruitt: I'm going to set up some systems, I'm going to hold myself accountable, either directly or through some sources that we'll talk about, and then I'm going to get down the road.
• 12:18
  Samanthan Pruitt: I'm going to start walking down the road doing the things right.
• 12:21
  Samanthan Pruitt: Inevitably there is a point and I was telling you a little bit about some research I did Strava did a big study 800 million users.
• 12:30
  Samanthan Pruitt: That's one of the apps around fitness and running and biking and stuff.
• 12:33
  Samanthan Pruitt: But the interesting thing that is kind of playing around on online right now is called Quitter's Day, because at the beginning of the year everybody starts a resolution and there's inevitably a point that many, many people quit the resolution and just throw it away and then they wait for the next new year.
• 12:50
  Samanthan Pruitt: Right, they forgot that there's 11 more months.
• 12:52
  Samanthan Pruitt: Oh, so I thought this was really interesting that Quitters Day, scientifically based on pure data, is around day 19 of starting something new, a new habit, a new change, behavior.
• 13:08
  Samanthan Pruitt: I thought that was absolutely fascinating and so that what you and I conspired then is that day 18 is should intervention day of an intervention.
• 13:20
  Samanthan Pruitt: Why don't we just automatically set this up for ourselves and for our people, our teams at work, whatever the environment is, our family, you know?
• 13:28
  Samanthan Pruitt: Um, a moment before the wheels fall off the bus to pause and reflect, take an inventory of what's working.
• 13:37
  Samanthan Pruitt: How is this feeling?
• 13:38
  Samanthan Pruitt: Is this the right path for me?
• 13:40
  Samanthan Pruitt: Make some adjustments of what's working.
• 13:42
  Samanthan Pruitt: How is this feeling?
• 13:43
  Samanthan Pruitt: Is this the right path for me?
• 13:44
  Samanthan Pruitt: Make some adjustments.
• 13:45
  Samanthan Pruitt: Give yourself grace and just have an honest conversation with yourself, or with somebody that you trust around the process before you move forward.
• 13:51
  Samanthan Pruitt: If you know that day 19 is probably going to be quitter's day, let's just.
• 13:55
  Samanthan Pruitt: Let's just head it off at the pass.
• 13:58
  Polly Mertens: And I think what's smart about that?
• 13:59
  Polly Mertens: I mean, if that's the you know one way that we can help fewer people, you know, stop making the process.
• 14:07
  Polly Mertens: That's one of them.
• 14:07
  Polly Mertens: And with that, you know, oftentimes decisions made in emotional states, you know, like low emotional state, we can have an outcome or make a decision that doesn't vibrate with what we made, you know, when we first chose it.
• 14:22
  Polly Mertens: You know, so, january one, or the you know the changing of something new, or we get fired up and we learn about something.
• 14:28
  Polly Mertens: We're like, oh yeah, I'm going to do this thing.
• 14:38
  Polly Mertens: I'm going to do this thing the bus, or you know, you got a little sleep deprived or you're the.
• 14:43
  Polly Mertens: You know the days and days of working out.
• 14:45
  Polly Mertens: Life happened as it tends to do, right yeah, totally so on 18, maybe you know what.
• 14:53
  Polly Mertens: What may be conspiring with this, as you're saying, is 19, is like they're tired.
• 14:59
  Polly Mertens: That you know.
• 14:59
  Polly Mertens: There's like accumulated muscle fatigue or the fatigue of trying to introduce new habits or shifting their schedules or whatever they're doing.
• 15:08
  Polly Mertens: You know, the business is like the team.
• 15:10
  Polly Mertens: You know teams go through that norming, forming, storming, performing, you know.
• 15:14
  Polly Mertens: So they might be in the clunkiness of trying to work together towards this project or this goal, and it's just still in the clunkiness right.
• 15:21
  Polly Mertens: And then work together towards this project or this goal, and it's just still in the clunkiness right, and then they haven't.
• 15:24
  Polly Mertens: They don't let themselves enough time to get to that.
• 15:27
  Polly Mertens: You know, thriving things are smooth, people are finishing each other's sentences, kind of feeling.
• 15:31
  Polly Mertens: So I, I like what you're saying, like assume that you know, don't just start.
• 15:37
  Polly Mertens: And then you know, oh, this is a, in 30 days I'll see the results.
• 15:42
  Polly Mertens: And then assume like, oh, it's just going to get done, or set it and forget it, or you know, we'll just we're not going to do KPIs and manage the team so that we're checking and seeing how progress is going along the way.
• 15:53
  Polly Mertens: It's like, no, we plan for that right.
• 15:55
  Polly Mertens: Exactly.
• 15:57
  Samanthan Pruitt: We don't plan for perfection.
• 15:58
  Samanthan Pruitt: First of all, that's not even a thing, right.
• 16:16
  Samanthan Pruitt: So we're setting ourselves up for failure before even day one, and then we're setting a culture for ourselves, or, right?
• 16:20
  Samanthan Pruitt: We want a culture of understanding one another, being honest in conversations and really taking the time to pause and reflect collectively, collaboratively, to problem solve.
• 16:30
  Samanthan Pruitt: So making sure those environments are what we're actually facilitating is what we would want for ourselves, and we would definitely want to give that to anybody we're working with or we live with in the same house.
• 16:41
  Samanthan Pruitt: You know people we share our life with, for that matter.
• 16:43
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 16:43
  Polly Mertens: So just you know, if you're listening to this, you know just think about like, are you doing that already?
• 16:48
  Polly Mertens: You know, just kind of take a little inventory, like anything that you're charging forward in your own life right now.
• 16:53
  Polly Mertens: Are you automatically doing that, or do you sort of put that off, or do you have the maybe that mindset of like I'm too busy to, I don't have time to pause, I barely have time to sleep.
• 17:03
  Polly Mertens: You know kind of thing.
• 17:04
  Polly Mertens: But you know, as we said, you know could there be benefit in this and how could and how and when and where might this show up?
• 17:13
  Samanthan Pruitt: Well, let's not forget to talk about the hustle culture that we live in, right?
• 17:18
  Samanthan Pruitt: So there is this expectation that people put on other humans to constantly be performing and storming and doing all the things grinding.
• 17:28
  Samanthan Pruitt: Remember that whole like grit and grind thing that went on for a couple of years, um, online and in business especially that people were just like you know, if you're not grinding, you're not doing anything, like you're not hustling, and I mean they were putting it on shirts and like it was.
• 17:43
  Samanthan Pruitt: It got crazy for a minute, didn't it Like?
• 17:45
  Samanthan Pruitt: What was the?
• 17:46
  Samanthan Pruitt: What was that all about?
• 17:47
  Samanthan Pruitt: We need to make sure that we don't continue to subscribe to that way of living.
• 17:53
  Samanthan Pruitt: A it's not healthy, because we're not taking care of ourselves physically and emotionally, if we are grinding ourselves literally the term grinding ourselves down into, you know, not even resembling ourselves anymore, but that mindset of having to constantly perform and be at a certain level in order to feel worthy no, that's got to go.
• 18:18
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and I think you know one of the things on the other side of the pendulum, as I was thinking about this before we were going to chat today is, you know there's a thing I think it's called the slow movement.
• 18:28
  Polly Mertens: You know, along the lines of like minimalism or the slow movement.
• 18:33
  Polly Mertens: It's like slowing down.
• 18:35
  Polly Mertens: There's a lot of slow movement around slow food I don't know if you've heard of that Eating slow.
• 18:41
  Polly Mertens: Well, eating slow and preparing food, you know it's.
• 18:49
  Polly Mertens: You know, enjoying being in the present and things like that.
• 18:50
  Polly Mertens: So I think you know, depending on whoever's listening to this, if you the idea of doing things slow just freaks your nervous system out you know we're not talking about that.
• 18:59
  Polly Mertens: So, like, don't click off and be like no.
• 19:03
  Polly Mertens: I'm not, you know, I'm not going to minimalism and I'm not going to, you know.
• 19:06
  Polly Mertens: You know, tune out to the life.
• 19:11
  Polly Mertens: I've got to still be engaged in life.
• 19:12
  Polly Mertens: And it's like, yeah, I get that, I totally get that, and we're not saying that this is a part of the practice and process of growth, is a pause and a reflection on the way to the next step and the next step, right, it's almost like if you just breathe out all the time and you didn't ever breathe in like breathing in as a part of the process, like you, it's an in and an out and an in and out.
• 19:35
  Polly Mertens: You breathe out, you know execution of your plan.
• 19:39
  Polly Mertens: You breathe out your, your steps of your process, whatever.
• 19:42
  Polly Mertens: And then you breathe in like how's it going?
• 19:46
  Polly Mertens: Get some reflection about you know.
• 19:48
  Samanthan Pruitt: I'm laughing because I've been binge watching the amazing race, as you know, because we are going to be on it at some point.
• 19:55
  Samanthan Pruitt: We are applying for the amazing race side note, but it's hilarious because one of the like I'm writing down the what not to do's because we're going to go in and crush that thing, right, oh yeah.
• 20:05
  Polly Mertens: We're going to do all the things.
• 20:06
  Samanthan Pruitt: Like one of the number one things that people do terribly wrong, which seems obvious, is they don't actually pause and reflect and read the clue for the next challenge they're about to do.
• 20:19
  Samanthan Pruitt: They literally go and they run.
• 20:22
  Samanthan Pruitt: And they're like in a cab, or they're running or they're doing whatever they're doing and they're not reading and absorbing.
• 20:28
  Samanthan Pruitt: So this could be true in any instance really absorbing what is the reality of the situation, the information that I've learned, the experience I'm having, how this makes me feel, this growth process that I'm on, and so they make a ton of mistakes and inevitably it's a disaster.
• 20:48
  Samanthan Pruitt: So same kind of thing that grinding, rushing, you know, going through things quickly and not really assimilating all of the value that comes from what you've just done.
• 20:57
  Samanthan Pruitt: So, even if what you've just done for the last two weeks wasn't great, let's say you didn't see a ton of progress in achieving this goal.
• 21:06
  Samanthan Pruitt: Well, first of all, you're very impatient and you need to settle that down right.
• 21:11
  Samanthan Pruitt: Like, aren't we funny?
• 21:12
  Samanthan Pruitt: But there is always lessons and learnings, there's always information, there's always knowledge.
• 21:19
  Samanthan Pruitt: Every single day and actually every single single decision, choice, conversation, experience, there's a gleaning of just gold nuggets to be had, even when it's really sucks and is awful, right.
• 21:32
  Samanthan Pruitt: So if you didn't allow for the pause and the time to really reflect and look into that, you would be missing so much of the experience to build off of.
• 21:44
  Samanthan Pruitt: So I think that's where you were going is like there's a process here.
• 21:47
  Samanthan Pruitt: These are steps.
• 21:48
  Samanthan Pruitt: It's a journey.
• 21:49
  Samanthan Pruitt: Our life is very long, ideally if we're taking care of ourselves, and so this is never going to be this journey of building ourselves our best lives.
• 22:00
  Samanthan Pruitt: It's not a 30 day journey.
• 22:03
  Samanthan Pruitt: Last time I checked right, it's going to.
• 22:04
  Samanthan Pruitt: I'm hoping I'm on this thing till the day I die.
• 22:06
  Samanthan Pruitt: So continuing on the process.
• 22:10
  Samanthan Pruitt: What's the rush?
• 22:12
  Polly Mertens: right, what is the rush?
• 22:13
  Polly Mertens: Well, you know, I mean, I definitely feel like there's, um, you know, one of my sort of inherent feelings or senses of like there's so many things and places to do, and not I'm not talking about FOMO or fear of missing out, I don't have that but I just have a like an inherent knowing that there's a lot that I want to get up to in life, right, and so you get this driven perspective, you get this kind of drive to see and to, you know, like, suck the marrow out of life kind of feeling.
• 22:43
  Polly Mertens: And I think we can have fun with that.
• 22:45
  Polly Mertens: And I think one of the things we can just sort of like compartmentalize this and then move on to the next step, and that is like this doesn't have to be long.
• 22:53
  Polly Mertens: We're not saying like, sit on the couch for a week after you've worked out for a week and reflect on things.
• 22:58
  Samanthan Pruitt: That's not what we're saying.
• 22:59
  Polly Mertens: This isn't like worked out for a week and reflect on things.
• 23:01
  Polly Mertens: That's not what we're saying.
• 23:03
  Polly Mertens: This isn't like oh, it's one-to-one.
• 23:07
  Polly Mertens: It's like hey, you know, we'll talk about you know how each of us does that.
• 23:08
  Polly Mertens: Why don't we, why don't we go into?
• 23:09
  Samanthan Pruitt: that Like how do you, you know what is repositing?
• 23:11
  Samanthan Pruitt: Yeah, because when you were talking about you are this character that likes to squeeze the most out of every day.
• 23:22
  Samanthan Pruitt: I literally don't know anybody really who has that to the magnitude that you do commitment to the pursuit.
• 23:31
  Samanthan Pruitt: But at the same time, it's so fascinating to me because you also have this really quiet, reflective, meditative side of your life and I'm going to assume and I want you to share your tools because I think this is really important, and then I'll share my lack of tools.
• 23:52
  Polly Mertens: I wing it yeah.
• 23:54
  Samanthan Pruitt: So I feel like you, you can be that way and do those things and operate that way, because you have structure and tools in place and you are somehow magically balancing these two things the striving, the thirst, the quest for the experience, getting the most out of this one precious life, with understanding its value, and the peace, the quiet, the sanctity.
• 24:19
  Samanthan Pruitt: And then somewhere in the middle is this how you structure that.
• 24:27
  Polly Mertens: So, yeah, I think that.
• 24:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I think what you and I, you know because of our yin and yang.
• 24:29
  Polly Mertens: You know we're going to share each couple of perspectives, and there's probably 30 that exist, and so we'll share some ideas and what this might look like for people, and how or when, or you know what you might do for that.
• 24:40
  Polly Mertens: And then, really, this is an invitation for you to consider it for yourself.
• 24:44
  Polly Mertens: Like what, what could, what could?
• 24:46
  Polly Mertens: Like, I said it's not, oh, I work out for a week, or I tried something for a week, and then I take a week to evaluate it.
• 24:51
  Polly Mertens: Oh, like, get with it.
• 24:53
  Polly Mertens: I mean, you can do it while you're doing it.
• 24:56
  Polly Mertens: Sometimes, like I said, like I'm swimming and I'm evaluating the swimming along the way, I'm like, oh, or like, as I'm, you know, changing in the locker room about to go swimming.
• 25:06
  Polly Mertens: I'm thinking about, all right, what did I do last time?
• 25:08
  Polly Mertens: And, okay, what do I want to keep in mind as I get into this pool?
• 25:12
  Polly Mertens: You know, just like taking lessons with me.
• 25:14
  Polly Mertens: You know, I don't bring in a long list of stuff, you know.
• 25:18
  Polly Mertens: So that's just an idea, like off the cuff, like it can be along the way it doesn't have to be.
• 25:24
  Polly Mertens: Go screw yourself away, take a weekend to reflect on whatever.
• 25:28
  Polly Mertens: Now, those are great, and so maybe I'll share a couple of my things, like what I do, so how this looks for me on the macro level, meaning on an annual basis or whatnot.
• 25:39
  Polly Mertens: So at the end of each year in December, I usually squirrel myself away, whether it's a retreat or at my home or something.
• 25:45
  Polly Mertens: I just kind of like tune out the world and I set up time, me time, right, and that's two days of reflecting on the past year.
• 25:52
  Polly Mertens: Sometimes I'll pull up my old journals and you know, but mostly it's the last 12 months.
• 25:56
  Polly Mertens: So it's a lot of kind of going through my calendar, going through photos.
• 26:00
  Polly Mertens: You know, like what was going on.
• 26:01
  Polly Mertens: And I have some prompts for this, some of its visual prompts, some of its meditative prompts what have you?
• 26:07
  Polly Mertens: So this weekend is a review process, if you will.
• 26:10
  Polly Mertens: That's a bigger reflection on 12 months.
• 26:12
  Polly Mertens: And then January I go into and I take that information with me.
• 26:16
  Polly Mertens: So I take the lessons, I take the.
• 26:19
  Polly Mertens: What do I want to leave behind?
• 26:20
  Polly Mertens: I take the.
• 26:21
  Polly Mertens: What do I want to take with me?
• 26:22
  Polly Mertens: What do I want to make sure that I focus on now that I know this and who I am now, what you know like, what's key about the next year for me, so that it's like that reflecting time grows information for me to formulate right.
• 26:39
  Samanthan Pruitt: What did I?
• 26:39
  Polly Mertens: learn and then okay, so fast forward.
• 26:42
  Polly Mertens: So that's the annual process.
• 26:44
  Polly Mertens: And then many micro versions of that I do throughout, actually every month, every week.
• 26:49
  Polly Mertens: So Sunday afternoons are my reflection time for myself, it's my time to, so I do the annual planning.
• 26:57
  Polly Mertens: So January is an awesome time to start that and I'll do it sometimes other times of the year, of things in my life pivot, so I'm not just saying only in January, never look at it again, but like January is a good example.
• 27:08
  Polly Mertens: So January and then I'll have, like, let's say, the first quarter's goals.
• 27:11
  Polly Mertens: So I'll know January, february and March, these are the things that are essential, these are the things I'm moving towards, this is what the outcomes I want, habits I want to you know, etc.
• 27:16
  Polly Mertens: Moving towards.
• 27:17
  Polly Mertens: This is what the outcomes I want, habits I want to you know, et cetera.
• 27:21
  Polly Mertens: And then on the month, so one of those goals may not start until March, but you know I'm in January, so I'll say okay, in January, what are my priorities, what am I doing?
• 27:31
  Polly Mertens: So I line that all up and I write all that down.
• 27:34
  Polly Mertens: You know, and this is, this is all you know.
• 27:36
  Polly Mertens: Like I said, I'm raising my hand here.
• 27:38
  Polly Mertens: I am the type A.
• 27:39
  Polly Mertens: So there is a lot of structure to this, all right, all right, I'm just sharing Lots of beautiful journals and notes For those of you that like that kind of thing.
• 27:47
  Polly Mertens: You're just, you're gleaming from ear to ear along with me like, oh, that sounds fantastic, can't wait to get my hands on that stuff.
• 27:53
  Polly Mertens: And some of you are like that sounds horrible, right, sounds horrible, right.
• 28:03
  Polly Mertens: And then on the weekly so I take that monthly and then I drop that down into the weekly, and so Sundays of every week is my opportunity to reflect on the prior week.
• 28:08
  Polly Mertens: I look at the tasks I had, the objectives I put forth for myself that were aligned with my intention for the year.
• 28:19
  Polly Mertens: Right, I found that, you know, when I started doing this probably 15 years ago or 20, whenever I started doing this, I used to be driven by what was in my inbox.
• 28:28
  Polly Mertens: So what was in my inbox led my life for the next day Reactionary, yeah.
• 28:34
  Polly Mertens: The next week, then there was no rising above.
• 28:37
  Polly Mertens: You know the vantage point yeah, get up from the map for a minute, take a look around, like where are you Right?
• 28:45
  Polly Mertens: That kind of thing.
• 28:46
  Polly Mertens: So that's what this process now gives me, right?
• 28:50
  Polly Mertens: So at the beginning of the year, I have a really big vision.
• 28:54
  Polly Mertens: Look out, you know, way farther into the future as far as I can see.
• 28:57
  Polly Mertens: And then on the month, I go okay, here's the next 30 days, this is what we're the picture, this is the picture we're going for.
• 29:04
  Polly Mertens: And then on the weekly, I'm looking back to the prior week, I reflect on those things.
• 29:09
  Polly Mertens: So, three things I just want to say that I build into each of those weekly reviews is what are my wins?
• 29:15
  Polly Mertens: I think that's essential, right?
• 29:17
  Polly Mertens: So I am looking at what did I do?
• 29:20
  Polly Mertens: Right, like what was a win?
• 29:21
  Polly Mertens: Right, like woohoo.
• 29:22
  Polly Mertens: Second is, what did I learn?
• 29:25
  Polly Mertens: Like was there some key gems in that?
• 29:27
  Polly Mertens: Like I want to remember and pull those out.
• 29:29
  Polly Mertens: Like, hey, I got some gold here along this thing called life, let me take it with me.
• 29:33
  Polly Mertens: And then the last one is like, what do I want to do differently next week?
• 29:36
  Polly Mertens: Right, so I have probably my list of things to do, but maybe there's something I need to shift.
• 29:43
  Polly Mertens: And we're talking about this pause and reflecting as a moment to go Possibility, opportunity, opportunity, pivot.
• 29:49
  Polly Mertens: Something may need to pivot me, something else, someone else, the strategy, the timing, scheduling, whatever.
• 29:55
  Polly Mertens: I may need some new resources, all of those things.
• 29:58
  Samanthan Pruitt: Yeah, so you're not talking about putting you know procedures in place, structure tools that are rigid.
• 30:04
  Samanthan Pruitt: So these are things that you lean on and tools and process that you utilize that have worked for you.
• 30:11
  Samanthan Pruitt: That's why you use them.
• 30:13
  Samanthan Pruitt: It's not a rigid.
• 30:14
  Samanthan Pruitt: This is the one way to do it, this is the right way and this is how I'm going to stay on the path to greatness.
• 30:20
  Samanthan Pruitt: I mean, what in the hell?
• 30:21
  Samanthan Pruitt: Life is totally chaotic, but I love that you have these tools and I think to some extent I mean mine doesn't look anything like yours, but it's helpful for everybody to have something.
• 30:33
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 30:34
  Samanthan Pruitt: Right, so is our life just passing us by here?
• 30:37
  Samanthan Pruitt: I mean absolutely not.
• 30:39
  Samanthan Pruitt: We only have so many years, days, minutes on this planet and I'm pretty sure most of us would like to actually utilize those to the best of our abilities, right?
• 30:48
  Samanthan Pruitt: So, having some process and procedures in place, I do a little bit like that on the annual, like I do take a look and see how did this go.
• 30:57
  Samanthan Pruitt: I don't spend two days doing that, but I'll do a quick reflect and I'm always doing a forward, like planning, and it'll be what are the you know things that I want to achieve this year physically, like what are my physical challenges?
• 31:10
  Samanthan Pruitt: What's going on in my sports space, what's happening in my business space, what's happening in my family relationship space?
• 31:17
  Samanthan Pruitt: So I kind of look at it like that and I'll plan things out and then I'll get some structure to it.
• 31:22
  Samanthan Pruitt: But then my reflection piece is more definitely more micro and probably because I came out of a physical and emotional health crisis that I had to more regularly drill down into those experiences to understand.
• 31:41
  Samanthan Pruitt: I think I want to change these behaviors right, I want to pause for a moment.
• 31:46
  Polly Mertens: So I wonder if some of what created that new practice for you?
• 31:50
  Polly Mertens: Or, like, looking at it on the micro basis, did you think that maybe prior to that you weren't pausing or reflecting, you were just going?
• 31:58
  Polly Mertens: You know, maybe you were either sure I was surviving yeah, crisis mode survival, and and you know the thing, there are some times of my life where it's not this structured.
• 32:06
  Polly Mertens: I just want to put that out there, like, so, this isn't every sunday.
• 32:10
  Polly Mertens: For the past 20 years I haven't done this every sunday, but I do this, probably 90, yeah.
• 32:16
  Polly Mertens: No, I'm just saying, like, there are times in my life where, yeah, like things are good, like I or I'm let's say I'm not, you know like there's winter, spring, summer, fall.
• 32:25
  Polly Mertens: Like there's some times in our life and I don't mean that literally, just like the time on the calendar, but what phase we're in where it's not about growth, it's about reflection, or it's about grief, or it's about harmony or something else.
• 32:38
  Polly Mertens: Right, like you know, when you've got the loss of a loved one, loss of relationship, loss of something, or there's something that interrupts this thing called life, everything.
• 32:49
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you don't just keep keeping on right like, yeah, you, you, you shift something.
• 32:55
  Samanthan Pruitt: So I just want.
• 32:55
  Samanthan Pruitt: Well, I hope you don't.
• 32:56
  Samanthan Pruitt: I do think a lot of people keep keeping on and then you end up with unprocessed emotions, in addition to the repercussions of the continuing to do the things that aren't working Right.
• 33:09
  Samanthan Pruitt: So when I was thinking about, like reflecting, when you were talking about some of the things that I do do, process and procedures around just kind of understanding myself better and practices, so in unpacking or a pause and reflect a lot of times for me was around what I was doing with my physical body.
• 33:30
  Samanthan Pruitt: So like, what was I eating?
• 33:32
  Samanthan Pruitt: I have an autoimmune disease, so I have celiacs, I have a lot of food allergies.
• 33:36
  Samanthan Pruitt: So, for example, if I was trying to feed this body nutritionally, what was the response my body was giving and taking pause literally after a meal so that's three or four times a day and saying, wow, does this feel good?
• 33:53
  Samanthan Pruitt: Am I body?
• 33:54
  Samanthan Pruitt: Am I making the right choices?
• 33:55
  Samanthan Pruitt: Should I maybe do this a little differently, not to beat myself up and be critical, but to understand and get to know myself.
• 34:03
  Samanthan Pruitt: If I didn't invest all of that time and, by the way, it felt like a full-time job at some point like understanding just what to consume in order for my body to work.
• 34:15
  Samanthan Pruitt: Um, I would have never learned what I know now and all of these years later be able to have the body and the brain function that I want and deserve doing If we didn't take moments irrelevant of a training plan to get to a finish line, if we didn't take those daily moments to be like, well, yeah, I went and did that workout, but it didn't feel good.
• 34:53
  Samanthan Pruitt: Something's not working.
• 34:54
  Samanthan Pruitt: If we just keep grinding away at that training program because we think ultimately it'll get us to the start line and pray and hope we get to the finish line, I can tell you right now, half the time that wouldn't even happen, and it's more than half the time, many, many people stop doing those things nutritional changes, exercise, body changes, health and wellness changes.
• 35:18
  Samanthan Pruitt: They stopped doing them because they're not working.
• 35:20
  Samanthan Pruitt: They didn't take the time to pause and reflect, and that's a bummer.
• 35:24
  Samanthan Pruitt: That's a bummer.
• 35:30
  Polly Mertens: And I think this is, you know we, what we're?
• 35:31
  Polly Mertens: Where I'm really starting to put this together for myself is, as we're talking, is this is the learning process you know, like we think learning ends at the 12th grade or when we're 18 or 17 or whatever.
• 35:40
  Polly Mertens: It is um and it's like oh, I'm done.
• 35:42
  Polly Mertens: Like you know, you might go into a work training sad yeah, but they're like guess what?
• 35:48
  Polly Mertens: It's ongoing right and so I hope so.
• 35:52
  Polly Mertens: see yourself as a learner, a student, curiosity, possibility, optimistic, open, like you know, and yeah, yeah and so know you need and one of the things we were talking about too is like accountability, like some reflection on this, sometimes with ourselves, like so what we're talking about here is like I'm, you know, like I don't have anybody necessarily in this train, like I'm not training with a partner or something like that, or a coach right now.
• 36:17
  Polly Mertens: So it's like, oh, I don't have that weekly check-in right, but like for us, as we work with our clients, they set up a goal, they start charging towards something and then it's like, well, how are you doing right?
• 36:27
  Polly Mertens: And so an external force factor, person, whatever, can be that accountability, whether it's a women's circle, a coach, like us, you know a partner that's doing it, you know the race or the thing with them or their team, you know at the office or you know in their business.
• 36:42
  Polly Mertens: So you actually build in positive reflection when you have someone on your team or you know a thought partner like we've talked about right, like a coach, our favorite new term thought partners.
• 36:54
  Samanthan Pruitt: You have a couple accountability groups you belong to and that seems to be a normal part of how you live in the world.
• 37:00
  Samanthan Pruitt: I've belonged to these groups in the past women's circles and different things, and definitely training groups and teams and stuff like that.
• 37:07
  Samanthan Pruitt: I don't currently, but I think that's really invaluable.
• 37:11
  Samanthan Pruitt: You know you and I are thought partners to each other.
• 37:14
  Samanthan Pruitt: I think having that in your life whether it's a coach or a trusted person in your professional field, if that's really you know what you're focusing on at this season of your life, or if it's health and wellness, somebody in that space, whatever but like having a person that you can share ideas with non judgmental this is not about I'm holding you accountable.
• 37:35
  Samanthan Pruitt: Did you get that workout done?
• 37:37
  Samanthan Pruitt: You better text me a picture that you actually sweat and I.
• 37:40
  Samanthan Pruitt: I need to see all these like we're not talking about that.
• 37:43
  Samanthan Pruitt: That's judgment.
• 37:44
  Samanthan Pruitt: I don't want that in my life, by the way, but I want people to be like, so tell me how's it going?
• 37:48
  Samanthan Pruitt: Cool, let's talk about it.
• 37:50
  Polly Mertens: Let's, and what are you discovering along the way?
• 37:53
  Polly Mertens: You know, like, sometimes you know, so I was I was texting with a client that, um, you know, is doing some growth in business and speaking up right, let's call it boundaries or something like that.
• 38:02
  Polly Mertens: And so she's like, you know, should I talk to this person about this?
• 38:07
  Polly Mertens: Right, like what is?
• 38:08
  Polly Mertens: You know, this is the situation, and there was a little blending of the thoughts there.
• 38:12
  Polly Mertens: I was like, well, that's about this, but you know, and you're a 10 on this in confidence, but look at this, you know, and so I'm able to just help and reflect back to her something that's like, oh right, so like we bring that to our accountability partner, we bring that to our coach because we want to improve upon that right.
• 38:28
  Polly Mertens: It's like here's, here's something I'm discovering.
• 38:30
  Polly Mertens: Maybe they're about myself, or this isn't working for me, or, like you said, it doesn't feel good, like, yeah, I just.
• 38:35
  Polly Mertens: I just noticed I clenched up when I thought about going and talking to this person about this thing, or I got this hot flash because of, like, the stress of, you know, probably some trauma from the past that I've stored in my body about talking to men, or something like that, whatever that is, it's an opportunity to get some reflection right, like we're talking about like reflect on that and what you know, process that.
• 38:57
  Polly Mertens: Like work on that.
• 38:57
  Polly Mertens: Like what does that have to unpack for you?
• 39:06
  Samanthan Pruitt: Exactly that term unpacking makes a ton of sense.
• 39:07
  Samanthan Pruitt: You know, we both coach clients and we have them across the table or across the room or whatever, and you know, having a conversation and creating a space for each other, for ourselves, for them, to just be able to work through the craziness called our brains I mean, it's complex in there there's a lot of conversations going on.
• 39:25
  Samanthan Pruitt: I don't even know who half these people are, and just allowing that to be a natural part of all of us with, again, without judgment, that, that space for just dialogue, and again it's pause and reflection, it's what it is, you know.
• 39:43
  Polly Mertens: And then notice you know and so I'll just share one other thing about this that maybe this will help somebody who's listening to this.
• 39:52
  Polly Mertens: So, you know, as I gave this particular client some coaching, it was like, well, you know, here's an area for you to maybe learn something more about yourself, right?
• 40:00
  Polly Mertens: So she's got this hang up, or hiccup about approaching someone in the workspace, discomfort about talking to them, about you know something, and I was like, well, look, why don't you learn and go through this process that I was teaching her about visioning and, you know, working with the emotions and stuff like that, telling a new story, and don't necessarily in the first step, meaning this process.
• 40:23
  Polly Mertens: Know that it's because you have to make that conversation happen, because that conversation, in this particular case, doesn't have to happen.
• 40:30
  Polly Mertens: It's something that it's bringing up.
• 40:32
  Polly Mertens: You know something inside of her that she wants to grow in, whether she uses this as an opportunity.
• 40:38
  Polly Mertens: You know, like, sometimes it's the best place for you to you know, practice those things, right.
• 40:43
  Polly Mertens: But I said disentangle that you know.
• 40:45
  Polly Mertens: I said why don't you work on the process within yourself?
• 40:47
  Polly Mertens: And if you feel like after that first stage, that you then want to have the conversation, great, then you're ready to have that conversation.
• 40:54
  Polly Mertens: But do the yummy work on yourself first.
• 40:56
  Polly Mertens: You know, unpack this thing, figure out where it's coming from, what may have caused it, what do you?
• 41:02
  Polly Mertens: What's the outcome?
• 41:02
  Polly Mertens: You want all this stuff irregardless, because, you know, if we have this sort of looming fear, like I have to go approach this person, or I have to, like, get this result, or, you know, change something out here, it will, you know, continue almost to, I would say almost, like embed that, that thorn that's inside of her.
• 41:21
  Polly Mertens: That hasn't you know.
• 41:22
  Samanthan Pruitt: That's so interesting, yeah, and what I was thinking about is a lot of our people are on this journey for some kind of change in their own life.
• 41:34
  Samanthan Pruitt: That they're having with themselves to pause and reflect and unpack could be that emotional turmoil that might be going on internally around being honest with themselves, being vulnerable with themselves, nevermind to another human.
• 41:53
  Samanthan Pruitt: Many people don't want to actually own up to what's going on within themselves.
• 41:59
  Samanthan Pruitt: It's difficult to feel emotions.
• 42:01
  Polly Mertens: It's it's a lot of times, yeah, sometimes it's confusion, you know, like we're not sure where it's coming from, or I don't know why I'm feeling this way.
• 42:09
  Polly Mertens: Or oftentimes, yes, you do, you know, it's like probably right there if you pause, but we'd rather just speed on through, you know.
• 42:17
  Polly Mertens: We'd rather just like, you know.
• 42:20
  Polly Mertens: I just get it over with either get it over with and like grit and bear it which isn't necessarily going to have it go well.
• 42:26
  Polly Mertens: Right, right or number two, avoid it.
• 42:30
  Polly Mertens: Just don't do it Like just swallow that you know pill again.
• 42:35
  Samanthan Pruitt: I just want to say though I'm hoping that people understand, but maybe they don't, and we should just actually say this that if they are taking on a opportunity for change in their life willingly, right, this isn't being forced upon them, it's not a punishment, right?
• 42:54
  Samanthan Pruitt: This is not because they're not amazing and perfect just how they are now, because they are.
• 43:01
  Samanthan Pruitt: And if they don't want to do change in any way, shape or form, they shouldn't.
• 43:06
  Samanthan Pruitt: This is for the people who are saying something is not working.
• 43:09
  Samanthan Pruitt: I've identified it and I want to create some new habits or change in this particular area of my life.
• 43:14
  Samanthan Pruitt: If it starts to feel like so yucky that you're just doing it a hundred miles an hour and grinning, bearing it, that's really a way of punishing yourself, and we want that absolutely not to be the case.
• 43:28
  Samanthan Pruitt: And if that's what this feels like, we need to not just pause and reflect, we need to stop like hard stop.
• 43:34
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, and maybe in that moment you, you, you know you don't have the power, you know.
• 43:39
  Polly Mertens: So one of the things I was coaching this client was like you know, maybe today, right in the middle of your day, isn't the time you're unpacking.
• 43:46
  Polly Mertens: You know, I mean, this could be the behind what's going on behind this could be 10 years of something right, it's a lifetime, yeah, so it's not like oh, 1030.
• 44:00
  Polly Mertens: Okay, I'm going to give myself five minutes to you know change this emotion.
• 44:04
  Polly Mertens: So, yeah, yeah, yeah so, but but it's, you know, I mean.
• 44:08
  Polly Mertens: One thing that's beautiful is life is continuously bringing us opportunities for growth, isn't it, though, continuously?
• 44:14
  Polly Mertens: So if it's not right now, it will either be louder or harder or come from another person, but you will.
• 44:20
  Polly Mertens: You'll have that opportunity to revisit.
• 44:21
  Samanthan Pruitt: It can't be avoided.
• 44:22
  Samanthan Pruitt: It can't be avoided.
• 44:24
  Samanthan Pruitt: We're hilarious that we think we can avoid it.
• 44:26
  Samanthan Pruitt: I think what we should do is we should, for our crew here, kind of come full circle a little bit, yeah, and maybe give them some takeaways from this for themselves.
• 44:38
  Polly Mertens: I hope that you know there was enough that you've been listening from hearing from Samantha and I that whether you do it how Samantha does it, or I do it, or come up with your own way or whatever it is, find something that works for you.
• 44:49
  Polly Mertens: And I don't know that we hit enough on the benefits, but I hope we did that.
• 44:54
  Polly Mertens: And I mean there's statistical benefits in this and you know we have articles on like the pausing and reflecting, you know, creates more opportunity, it creates more growth, it gives you more opportunity for learning Right.
• 45:07
  Polly Mertens: So just know that there are benefits to this.
• 45:10
  Polly Mertens: And again, we're not going on the other side of the pendulum which is like go have a minimalist life and like do nothing and pause, you know, for the rest of your life we're not saying that this is a pause and reflect and grow.
• 45:21
  Polly Mertens: Pause, reflect, grow Like breathing in, breathing out, breathing in, breathing out.
• 45:25
  Samanthan Pruitt: So I would go.
• 45:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, continuous improvement.
• 45:29
  Polly Mertens: You might say, yeah, but it's a part of it, it's built into that.
• 45:32
  Polly Mertens: So I would just want to emphasize three things I would say from what I wanted to share most, and that is, you know, set aside time for reflecting.
• 45:42
  Polly Mertens: You know, and in that busy life of yours I hope that people can find time.
• 45:48
  Polly Mertens: You know, we get on our devices, we get distracted with other things.
• 45:53
  Polly Mertens: You know, I make a commitment to myself that my Sundays are that time, not the whole day, but, you know, like an hour or two on a Sunday I'm setting aside that time for me.
• 46:01
  Polly Mertens: That's what works.
• 46:02
  Polly Mertens: But whatever works for this human listening, you know, find that can be less and start small.
• 46:07
  Polly Mertens: You know, maybe it's like 15 minutes, you know, once a week.
• 46:10
  Polly Mertens: And then I would really encourage the mindset shift about.
• 46:15
  Polly Mertens: You know, I talked about that 10% to know how to spend the other 90% right, and so these micro moments of reflection are meant to maximize the other parts of all the other things that you're doing right.
• 46:27
  Polly Mertens: So this isn't wasted time or not going to get that time back.
• 46:31
  Polly Mertens: It's actually going to help the performance, it's going to help you.
• 46:34
  Polly Mertens: You're going to learn more for the future.
• 46:38
  Polly Mertens: And then I would say, lastly, we talked a little bit about that, rising up from your schedule, getting up above your to-dos, right, and so what that helped me to start to do was living deliberately instead of living by default.
• 46:51
  Polly Mertens: So, living with intention.
• 46:53
  Polly Mertens: It takes time to reflect, takes time to step back and check in with myself, check in with yourself about what's most important.
• 47:02
  Polly Mertens: What worked about that?
• 47:02
  Polly Mertens: What do I really want to go?
• 47:03
  Polly Mertens: Am I going to keep doing this?
• 47:05
  Polly Mertens: Is this right for me?
• 47:06
  Polly Mertens: How does this feel right?
• 47:07
  Polly Mertens: So, living intentionally, which we all want to do, going forward, not just by default, just not what's in front of us, not what we've always done, is something that you rise above the doing and you start to focus on, you know, the bigger picture, if you will.
• 47:22
  Polly Mertens: How about you?
• 47:23
  Polly Mertens: What do you want to share?
• 47:24
  Samanthan Pruitt: I want to add two more things to that.
• 47:26
  Samanthan Pruitt: Not to overload the audience, no, these are good ones.
• 47:29
  Samanthan Pruitt: But that whole idea of finding a believer, a thought partner a believer is a term I use also for with coaching.
• 47:38
  Samanthan Pruitt: Like I'm a believer in that person, they're not a believer in themselves.
• 47:42
  Samanthan Pruitt: A thought partner is a believer in you, in your worth, in your investment towards becoming your best self.
• 47:51
  Samanthan Pruitt: Right, they're so, on your team, find the thought partner.
• 47:54
  Samanthan Pruitt: I think that is really like magic.
• 47:56
  Samanthan Pruitt: And then I would say also just you know if you can listen to these really small things.
• 48:05
  Samanthan Pruitt: So we're talking about pause and reflect.
• 48:08
  Samanthan Pruitt: There are small things all day long.
• 48:11
  Samanthan Pruitt: Does this feel good?
• 48:13
  Samanthan Pruitt: This environment I'm currently in in my home space, in my workspace?
• 48:18
  Samanthan Pruitt: Listen to yourself and honor that and pay attention.
• 48:23
  Samanthan Pruitt: Does this feel good?
• 48:24
  Samanthan Pruitt: This activity that I'm doing with my body, this nutrition I'm putting in my body, all of these choices I'm making?
• 48:31
  Samanthan Pruitt: We make so many choices throughout the day, so I see those as really micro opportunities for pause and reflect.
• 48:36
  Samanthan Pruitt: I want to see people doing both.
• 48:39
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you know that's huge, because it's not like it's something you save up to do.
• 48:43
  Polly Mertens: You know cause you could forget, but but it's, it's something you're always in, right, it's a, it's a, it's a self inquiry, right, it's a.
• 48:51
  Polly Mertens: You know you're, you're witnessing yourself, you're witnessing your life, you're, you're a cause in your life, you're intentional about things.
• 48:58
  Polly Mertens: And you know robots just take a program and execute, execute, execute.
• 49:04
  Polly Mertens: Humans, we're not made to do that, right, like that's the beauty of humanity.
• 49:08
  Samanthan Pruitt: Yeah, the concept is mindfulness, but I see it differently than like traditional practice.
• 49:14
  Samanthan Pruitt: I can't sit and meditate and do a lot of these things that are mindful practices, but I can have every day, every moment, awareness.
• 49:23
  Samanthan Pruitt: I'm coming into a space, I'm with these people, I'm doing this thing, I'm eating it, whatever, like becoming aware, being awake.
• 49:30
  Samanthan Pruitt: We can all do that.
• 49:32
  Samanthan Pruitt: That costs nothing.
• 49:33
  Polly Mertens: That is mindfulness.
• 49:34
  Polly Mertens: That, yeah, that's being in the present.
• 49:35
  Polly Mertens: Awesome, awesome All right so yeah.
• 49:39
  Polly Mertens: So one thing just you know, work it into your process, schedule it if you need to, or, as Samantha said, you know just every day all the time yeah, like, like it's, it's a part of all.
• 49:54
  Polly Mertens: You know everything that you're doing, so not to overwhelm you or distract you from it, but to help you live with intention and make sure you're taking care of you.
• 50:07
  Samanthan Pruitt: All right, my dear beautiful.
• 50:08
  Polly Mertens: What do we want to remind them of here before we?
• 50:10
  Samanthan Pruitt: I want to remind everybody how your life feels is more important than how it looks, and every day and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
• 50:15
  Samanthan Pruitt: All right, lady, good job.