When trying to acheive major goals in life, I realize that many of us have been conditioned with the a$$ backwards mentality that struggle and burnout is required and even noble....but what if it wasn't?
Where in your life are you beginning to feel burnt out, resentful or overwhelmed? Believe it or not, it all gets to feel easier.
Living from a place of ease not only benefits you...but it benefits everyone around you!
In today's episode I am sharing some ways to stop being an effing martyr, so that you can get back into a place of flow, ease and happiness.
**All my fellow mamas out there: I am a potty-mouth, so you may want to listen with headphones on!**
If you found this episode helpful it would mean the world to me if you could share it with a friend or screenshot this episode on your phone, upload it to Instagram stories and tag me (@designingvibes). This podcast is not monetized, so spreading the word is the best way to "pay me back" for my time and wisdom- so to speak.
Welcome to the introverted influencer podcast. I'm your host Erica van. Like my soul's mission on this planet is to help fellow introverts grow their online influence and estate, a feminine flow and ease while battling the lows of depression, anxiety, and even mom guilt. I've somehow managed to build a six figure blog without the use of social media and without sacrificing my mental health, if I can do it, you can too Welcome back to another episode of introverted influencer podcast. So this week's episode is going to be as much for me as it is for you. I'm being a little selfish here, but I hope it helps. So I'm sitting here trying to work and concentrate, and my kids are out for spring break this week and I keep getting interrupted and I'm just feeling frazzled and distracted and downright off right now. Cuz I've had to be a referee a few times already today.<laugh> and then that's when it came to me that I need to follow my own advice. So I've preached before on my blog about how we women can't be everything to everyone. The feminine species is in such an odd place in society right now. And it feels like no matter what life choices we decide to make as sovereign feminine beings, we are going to be shamed for it. Like if you wanna focus on your career, you're going to feel like a selfish person or a mom or wife. But then if you wanna take the more traditional route of maintaining a household or raising children, you're going to be perceived as having no ambition, which is actually really up. And for those of you on the more domesticated traditional path of raising your children<laugh> and keeping a household, which is one of the most vital jobs ever hats off to you, I mean, it's really, it breaks my heart that so many of us have been brainwashed to believe that being a stay-at-home mother is not important.<affirmative> hell I tried to do my best<laugh> with that traditional role at one point of my life. Well, I was more like a hybrid. I worked from home and I only worked like, I don't know, 20 hours a week. And then I had my babies at home with me, but that didn't work for me. I basically almost lost my mind and I definitely lost myself. And I decided that I had to rearrange my life when mental health began to decline, There came a point in my journey where I had to invest in help caring for my kids. And I guess the way I was able to justify it Was that not only was it an investment in my mental health, but it was an investment in my business and in my career. And guess what? It paid off tremendously, both with my blog and with my personal wellbeing. And I would be lying to you if I said that I haven't had to overcome some major mom guilt And I still have those moments. And I think a lot of it was the fact that I had created this life where I could work from home and raise my children full time. That was the plan originally when I, when I first got pregnant, but you know what? Life doesn't always turn out the way we planned. And when we are feeling resentful and miserable in our current situation, we get to flip the script at any freaking time. One of my favorite business coaches always, um, says the saying, I like she is, it goes something like there's no chalkboard in the heavens that says your life has to be a certain way. Life gets to be much more fluid than that. Life is not a linear path. We should all know that it's more of a wave and it's kind of Vay It VES in D directions And call me crazy. But I know in my soul that life gets to feel good. Of course we're all gonna have our highs and our lows, but our default should be a general sense of wellbeing and joy. So where in your life, you starting to feel resentful Or overwhelmed or burnout. How can you rearrange or reprioritize? It's safe to live from a place of ease, but you have to decide to stop playing the role of an effing martyr. I realized many of us have been conditioned with asked backwards mentality that struggle and burnout is required and even noble. But what if it wasn't Where are ways that you can allow for more ease and flow in your life, Even if you don't have the means to delegate at the moment, are there ways to trim the fat from your workload, so to speak, Could you possibly reevaluate your daily tasks and assess what truly is a money making activity and what isn't, because maybe you have shiny object syndrome where you're chasing after all the latest social apps or trends, and basically just giving yourself busy work Or for those of you in a service oriented career. If you're not a blogger influencer, could you raise your prices so that you don't have to take on as many clients and you don't have to work as long of a day? For me personally, I never, I had kind of toyed with the idea of hiring out social media. I've told you in previous episodes, I just show up on social media. When I feel like it, I don't make money through social media, but there was, I guess it was about two years ago when I started to make pretty good money from the blog. I thought, well, maybe I should monetize my social media. Maybe it would be worth hiring, um, a professional social media Consultant on. And I really started to think about it. And to me, I just didn't see how the ROI would be worth it for me with the social media, but you know, what has been worth the investment childcare. And even more recently, I got to a place where I was hiring someone to clean my house. And these types of investments can be just as valuable to your business and career sometimes than hiring out more of a traditional role<affirmative>. But I do, I wanna add back, like back in the day when I first started with my blog and I realized that I could not work from home and do a blog and take care of my children, 24 7, they were babies and toddlers. Um, my husband and I, we really didn't have much money to spare. So I started off just small with doing mother's day out, I think maybe like two days a week. And it wasn't that expensive, which we still really couldn't spare it. But like I said, I saw it as an investment in more than one way. And eventually I, I worked up to the point where I really could justify like full-time childcare, especially during the pandemic when schools were out. And so it got to the point where I had my children in like full-time daycare. And now this is where I'm gonna have to call out my own hypocrisy. So we just moved into our dream home on the lake a few weeks ago and in an effort to save some money because moving is expensive and I've furnished this whole house and I'm kind of freaked out.<laugh> I put a temporary spending freeze on basically all of my help. So I, I don't have any help with childcare right now. I'm doing all the cooking and the cleaning and then trying to work and I'm not gonna lie. I have lately found myself in a really snappy and overwhelmed place. Like just, I feel like there aren't enough hours in the day and even worse. I know that my stress is seeping out on my kids and my husband. And I'm totally not down with that. And you know the saying, if mama ain't happy, nobody's happy. Well, it's freaking true and I've gotta realize I'm not superwoman. I can't do it all on my own. And I'm making myself miss trying to do so. So I know it's time for me to rearrange some things in my life because the whole point in being your own boss for me at least is to have the freedom to live life on your own terms and being in constant mode is not the life that I I'm okay with living like long term. I know I'm gonna go through stressful phases, especially when you're trying to grow and up level. But if this feeling sustains much longer, I'm going to have to do something about it, not down with it. So that is it for today. Folks, like I said, I've been frazzled with kids fighting all day<laugh>, but I hope that by sharing my own struggles with you in this episode, that it's helped you kind of reevaluate maybe where you need to make a few adjustments to your own life so that it can feel better editor to you. Thank you so much for stopping by this week. I make no money from this podcast. So the best way you can pay it forward is by leaving the show a five star review, sharing it with a friend or even screenshotting this episode on your phone, uploading it to your Insta story and tagging me in it at designing vibes, sending you my love.