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05 | The Superwoman Myth – Why Doing It All Is Breaking Us · Spacious Success

• 0:00
  Hi, it's Kristi and welcome back to the Spacious Success podcast.
• 0:11
  We've all heard the line, you can have it all, you just can't do it all.
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  And let's be honest, it sounds really empowering, but here's an uncomfortable truth.
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  It's not true.
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  And worse, it sets women up to fail.
• 0:27
  The reality is that you can't have it all at once.
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  Even with outsourcing, with delegating or with help at home, there are still hard limits
• 0:37
  to your time, your energy and your attention.
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  Yet everywhere I look, there are women being praised as being superwoman, applauded for
• 0:47
  having it all and often sometimes still trying to do it all.
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  But we see this on LinkedIn, we see it on Instagram, we see it at the school gate.
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  And what looks like praise and often is intended as a compliment is often pressure.
• 1:02
  What we think is empowerment is actually entrapment.
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  So by the end of this episode and it's a contentious one, I want you to understand why the
• 1:09
  superwoman myth is toxic, the contagion effect that keeps it spreading and the practical
• 1:15
  things that you can do to step out of it without stepping away from success.
• 1:21
  So take off your cape and enjoy this episode.
• 1:24
  Hi, I'm Dr. Christy Goodwin, a neuroperformance scientist, speaker and executive coach who
• 1:30
  learned the hard way that chasing success can come at a cost.
• 1:35
  After burnout landed me in hospital, I made it my mission to help ambitious women who
• 1:41
  are done trading their health and happiness for high performance.
• 1:46
  On spacious success, I share science-backed strategies and real stories to help you flourish
• 1:54
  as a female at work and beyond so you can stop paying the success tax.
• 2:01
  Not long ago, I was scrolling through LinkedIn and I saw a really great post by a very accomplished
• 2:07
  woman.
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  It's a woman I know.
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  She's a partner in a law firm, she's raising four kids, she's juggling at all.
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  She showed an image, a photo of the four school bags and the corresponding school shoes lined
• 2:20
  up at the front door and her laptop sitting beside it.
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  The post was about the four hours of work, the invisible but important domestic labour
• 2:30
  that had gone on that morning and the emotional toll that that morning had to put her through.
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  All of this endured by 8.30am when they were attempting to leave the house.
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  Now let's be honest, it was no mean feat and if we really looked behind the scenes, there
• 2:47
  were probably some moments where this woman was being superhuman, where some exponentially
• 2:53
  incredible skills were required.
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  And then I read through, holding it in post, a common word kept popping up, superwoman.
• 3:01
  I felt uncomfortable because I've been there, I've been called superwoman and I know,
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  I know it was intended as a compliment, as praise, but being celebrated for juggling
• 3:12
  impossible loads, for spinning every single plate, for being endlessly available, well,
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  it's just not healthy.
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  You see, behind that compliment, I believe it's a curse.
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  There's an unattainable, an unsustainable expectation that leaves women burning out
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  because they're believing that they're just not strong or capable enough.
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  The days where I've delivered a keynote, I've raced back to school pick up line, managed
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  homework, answered emails between dinner and bedtime, only to collapse into bed utterly
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  exhausted.
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  Now, from the outside, it might look like I'm doing it all, but on the inside, I know
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  the truth.
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  And I'm often, if I'm honest, sometimes running on fumes.
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  But that's not failure, that's physics.
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  You cannot keep every horse on the carousel galloping at once, not all the horses are
• 4:05
  up, some are down.
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  You can't have every burner on your stove top on high without blowing a fuse.
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  But when we label women and we do it all the time as superwoman, we fuel the illusion that
• 4:19
  they are, that they can do it all and have it all and that illusion is contagious.
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  So why does this superwoman myth stick?
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  Well, there's biology.
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  Our brains run on glucose, every decision, every timely task switch, every bit of emotional
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  regulation that we offer our kids or our colleagues, well, it burns through glucose.
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  We don't have an infinite supply, so we will get fatigued.
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  Time is another factor.
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  We only get 24 hours a day, even Beyonce.
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  And every yes is often an invisible no.
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  And our energy, our energy runs in cycles, circadian rhythms or trade in rhythms.
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  We are wired as humans for effort and recovery.
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  We are not designed for endless output, for just keeping on going.
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  And yet we are always applauding women for being endlessly capable, endlessly busy.
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  And we see it spreading in workplaces where women overwork to prove that they belong.
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  I see it spreading in homes where mothers are carrying both the mental and the physical
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  load.
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  And let's not forget the digital load.
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  It spreads in friendship groups where we hesitate to admit that we're drowning.
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  Women look around and it seems like everyone else is coping, but here's the deeper layer.
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  The system we operate in is still set up for a 1950s family model.
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  School still finishes well before the typical workday does.
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  Appointments assume that a parent, which is usually a mum or a female in a heterosexual
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  relationship, is available before midday and after school.
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  Women make up nearly half the workforce, yet most us of the caring and domestic responsibilities
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  are still falling on us.
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  So when we call women superwoman, we're not empowering them, we're excusing and enabling
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  a system that just hasn't caught up to our modern reality.
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  I believe the superwoman Kate comes with consequences.
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  And we're seeing this, the gender well-being gap, 61% of women have reported burnout
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  in the last year.
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  We know that women are attempting to compensate for being busy by multitasking and that drives
• 6:24
  up stress and errors.
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  People woman mode floods our brains and our bodies with adrenaline and cortisol.
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  We see it impacting our sleep, compromising our immunity and even putting a saccario
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  vascular risk and cognitive decline.
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  You see, superwoman is in a compliment.
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  I believe she's a warning sign, a warning sign that you're trying to have it all, even
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  if you're not trying to do it all.
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  So how do we step out of the mist without stepping away from success?
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  Firstly, name your season.
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  First, which horse on the carousel is up and which one is down?
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  Which burner is hot?
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  Which one is off?
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  Which one is simmering?
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  My beautiful E.A.
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  Karen, who tragically passed away earlier this year, had a real gift for asking me, Christy,
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  what does success in this season of your life look like right now?
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  That question used to anchor me.
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  It anchored me when my husband was sick last year, when my boys started school, when
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  I launched a book, when I had a busy season of speaking work.
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  And it's the question that I now ask myself and my clients.
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  Secondly, redefine success.
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  Forget balance.
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  Balance suggests that if you're walking on a tightrope, two things are intention.
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  We're at risk of falling.
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  What we need is integration, knowing which burners are hot right now and which other
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  burners just need to wait their turn.
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  Certainly, we need to dismantle the guilt.
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  I call it the industrial complex.
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  We think condition, especially as females, to believe that guilt proves that we're good
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  moms.
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  It doesn't.
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  Guilt is just evidence of an impossible standard we're trying to hold ourselves up to.
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  Ask yourself, would I want my daughter to feel guilty about her future success?
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  Do I want my sons to think that ambition requires self-sacrifice?
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  Your film isn't selfish, it's fuel.
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  And number four, show the trade-offs out loud, verbalize them.
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  Don't hide your help.
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  Let your kids see teamwork.
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  The partners that cook like mind us, the projects that are shared, they're equal distribution
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  of domestic loads, the home support, the cleaner that you have.
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  And number five, protect your bandwidth, your time, your energy and your attention.
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  These are your three most important human currencies.
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  Spend them with intention, not with obligation.
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  Here's what I want you to take from this episode.
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  The women who look like they're doing it all, they're not.
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  They're the women showing the A-roll, the highlight reel on social media.
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  Superwoman isn't real and aspiring to be like her, well it's breaking us.
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  What your kids, your colleagues, your community need isn't a woman who's trying to do it all
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  or have it all, but instead they need a woman who's leading with clarity,
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  who makes conscious trade-offs and who protects her biological bandwidth.
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  That's not weakness, to me, that's wisdom and that is spacious success.
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  In our next episode, we're going to talk about the productivity hijackers.
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  What are the myths, the habits that are stealing your focus?
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  And until then, remember, you don't have to be superwoman.
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  You just have to be human.
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  Strategic, selective and whole just as you are.
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  I'm Dr. Christi Goodwin, an Euro-Performant Scientist, a speaker, author, executive coach and a mum.
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  And if today's episode resonated, may be it agitated you.
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  Aggravated you.
• 9:57
  I'd love for you to subscribe so that you don't miss another episode
• 10:00
  and share this with another woman, a friend, a colleague, a neighbour who needs this reminder.
• 10:06
  You don't have to do it all.
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  You don't have to have it all to live an extraordinary life.
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  Spacious success is living success on your terms in this season of your life.
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  Thank you for listening.