Latest / Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing / #252| Your Beliefs Are Keeping You Exhausted—Here's Why
Transcript
- 0:00Michelle Gauthier: Even though you're exhausted, you still feel like you haven't done enough to rest.
- 0:08Michelle Gauthier: You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less.
- 0:16Michelle Gauthier: I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former Overwhelmed Working Woman and current life coach.
- 0:21Michelle Gauthier: On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences.
- 0:26Michelle Gauthier: And in each episode, you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease, and relaxation to your life.
- 0:33Michelle Gauthier: Hello, friend.
- 0:37Michelle Gauthier: Thank you so much for joining and listening today.
- 0:40Michelle Gauthier: Today we're going to be talking about rest.
- 0:42Michelle Gauthier: And if you're like, what rest?
- 0:44Michelle Gauthier: Then this is the episode for you.
- 0:46Michelle Gauthier: But I know there are times in everyone's lives where you find yourself in a pocket where you don't have to do anything.
- 0:53Michelle Gauthier: But maybe suddenly everyone in your house is gone and you have 30 minutes to yourself.
- 0:58Michelle Gauthier: Or you're just pulling up to a kid's baseball practice and you're like, oh, could I just sit here in my car and listen to a podcast?
- 1:06Michelle Gauthier: Or do I need to get out my laptop?
- 1:08Michelle Gauthier: That's what we're going to be talking about today.
- 1:10Michelle Gauthier: Today you'll discover the belief that's underneath that inability to rest, or the idea that resting is bad and you have to earn it.
- 1:19Michelle Gauthier: You're going to learn what that belief is actually costing you every time you listen to it.
- 1:23Michelle Gauthier: And then I'm going to offer you a simple shift so that you can move into taking an actual rest.
- 1:29Michelle Gauthier: I want to start off with a question.
- 1:30Michelle Gauthier: Sit with us for a second before you answer it.
- 1:33Michelle Gauthier: When was the last time that you rested, like really rested, without feeling like you should be doing something else?
- 1:40Michelle Gauthier: For a lot of women who I work with, the honest answer is I can't remember.
- 1:43Michelle Gauthier: And that's not because they're bad at relaxing, it's because somewhere along the way they'd learned something that has been running in the background ever since, that their value is tied to their productivity.
- 1:54Michelle Gauthier: If this feels like you from a very young age, you get the message consistently that work hard and you'll be rewarded, do more and you'll be recognized, achieve things and you'll be worthy.
- 2:04Michelle Gauthier: And probably no one sat down and said that to you, but you picked it up based on people's reactions to what you were doing.
- 2:10Michelle Gauthier: And for high-achieving women, that message really worked, right?
- 2:13Michelle Gauthier: It got us good grades and a good career and a full life and praise for being the person who could always be capable and reliable and handle everything.
- 2:22Michelle Gauthier: So the belief that's running in the background is my goodness, my enoughness is tied to how productive I am.
- 2:30Michelle Gauthier: So when you stop being productive, like if you sit down on a Saturday afternoon with nothing to do, your brain's gonna send you an alarm and say, this doesn't feel right.
- 2:38Michelle Gauthier: There's still more to do.
- 2:40Michelle Gauthier: We need to be productive.
- 2:41Michelle Gauthier: And therefore, rest, even if you're sitting there watching TV, it doesn't feel like rest because your brain's like, it should be doing something, it should be productive.
- 2:48Michelle Gauthier: The good news is that feeling like you're falling behind isn't the truth.
- 2:52Michelle Gauthier: It's just a really old, very practiced belief that your brain is probably running on autopilot.
- 2:57Michelle Gauthier: The belief that probably made you successful and get to where you are today is the one that can run you straight into overwhelm and burnout.
- 3:07Michelle Gauthier: So let's imagine this person, and maybe it's you, maybe you're picturing yourself in this situation.
- 3:11Michelle Gauthier: I can certainly picture myself in this situation in the past.
- 3:14Michelle Gauthier: If you believe that you can never rest and all of your enoughness is tied to what you produce and you have to be productive at all times, imagine the trickle-down effect of that situation.
- 3:24Michelle Gauthier: Every time you push off rest until you've done enough, air quotes enough, until the list is finished, everyone's taken care of, until you feel like you've earned it, you're paying a price.
- 3:33Michelle Gauthier: You're paying with your energy, the kind of energy that doesn't just come back on its own because you slept.
- 3:39Michelle Gauthier: You're paying with your presence or lack thereof because a woman who's running on empty is physically there, but not really there, not for her kids or her partner, or her work, or herself.
- 3:48Michelle Gauthier: You're paying with your own health.
- 3:49Michelle Gauthier: Chronic stress without recovery doesn't stay in your brain.
- 3:53Michelle Gauthier: It shows up in your body.
- 3:54Michelle Gauthier: For me, it's always showing up in my lower back, in your sleep or the way that you snap it, the people you love for small things.
- 4:00Michelle Gauthier: And it can also just strip you of joy and relaxation.
- 4:05Michelle Gauthier: The belief that rest is a reward and that you are what you do.
- 4:10Michelle Gauthier: You are enough if you are productive, is really just keeping you in a depleted state.
- 4:14Michelle Gauthier: If you think about it like your car, it's like you're always putting one gallon in and almost running out of gas at all times.
- 4:21Michelle Gauthier: And you constantly have to think about that.
- 4:24Michelle Gauthier: The cure for this is obvious.
- 4:25Michelle Gauthier: It's resting, but that's hard when you've had this belief that tells you that that's not okay.
- 4:30Michelle Gauthier: So before you can believe that it's okay, I want to tell you that it's okay.
- 4:34Michelle Gauthier: I give you permission to rest.
- 4:37Michelle Gauthier: Believe me before you can believe it yourself.
- 4:39Michelle Gauthier: I am giving you permission to rest.
- 4:41Michelle Gauthier: Not when your list is done, because we all know the list is never done, not when things slow down because things never slow down on their own if you don't do it on purpose.
- 4:50Michelle Gauthier: Not when you've done enough because you can't even define enough.
- 4:52Michelle Gauthier: It will always be just never quite enough.
- 4:55Michelle Gauthier: So right now, this week, as you are, you've done enough to deserve rest.
- 4:59Michelle Gauthier: You've worked hard enough, you've shown up enough, you've given enough, you're allowed to stop.
- 5:04Michelle Gauthier: You're allowed to have a morning that just belongs to you, to have an evening that isn't productive, a Saturday that doesn't even have a to-do list.
- 5:13Michelle Gauthier: Sometimes it's easier for us to do something if someone else tells us to do it.
- 5:18Michelle Gauthier: So you take my permission to rest, and then you think of someone else in your life who needs permission to rest and forward her this episode and send her the same message, and we'll just keep passing it on because the permission she needs and the permission you need is sitting right here.
- 5:34Michelle Gauthier: Remember, rest is not something you earn, it's something you need.
- 5:38Michelle Gauthier: The belief that your value is tied to your productivity is an old belief, but it's costing you more than you realize.
- 5:45Michelle Gauthier: And finally, you're allowed to stop.
- 5:46Michelle Gauthier: And so is every woman in your life.
- 5:48Michelle Gauthier: Before we wrap up for today, I want to talk to you for a second about overwhelm in general.
- 5:53Michelle Gauthier: If you feel like you are so overwhelmed right now that you've lost the ability to think clearly, or you're constantly having negative self-talk, or you're always saying yes when you actually want to say no, that can cause a cycle of overwhelm.
- 6:06Michelle Gauthier: Maybe you start on Sundays and you're like, I'm really gonna get organized this week.
- 6:10Michelle Gauthier: And then on Monday, one thing happens, maybe you're double booked, or you're late picking your child up from school and things start to fall apart, and then it's back to another week of total overwhelm.
- 6:21Michelle Gauthier: What I find is that people get stuck in that because it's so overwhelming to just think about what to do first, how to get out of it.
- 6:29Michelle Gauthier: And the reason why you're stuck in that is because you haven't really identified the primary driver of your overwhelm and where to start.
- 6:35Michelle Gauthier: And that's why I created the quiz, the Why My Overwhelmed quiz, which is on my website and it takes less than two minutes.
- 6:43Michelle Gauthier: And it's so helpful for you to understand the root cause of your overwhelm and then get clear on what your first step should be in solving it.
- 6:50Michelle Gauthier: Because overwhelm isn't a problem that you can solve in one day and all of a sudden change everything in your life.
- 6:56Michelle Gauthier: But if you can figure out the primary driver and what the first step is to solving that, you can get unstuck and start moving in the direction of a way less overwhelming, of a calm and more simple life.
- 7:08Michelle Gauthier: The link for that quiz is in the show notes.
- 7:10Michelle Gauthier: You can also just go directly to my website at michellegothier.com and you will see the quiz right there on the homepage.
- 7:17Michelle Gauthier: Okay, thanks for listening today and have a great week.
- 7:21Michelle Gauthier: Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast.
- 7:28Michelle Gauthier: If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at Michelle Gauthier.com.
- 7:34Michelle Gauthier: See you next week.