EP 136: How to Stop Sacrificing Your Well-Being for Success
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[00:00:00] Are you a soul centered entrepreneur ready to step into your power and create a life and business you love? Welcome to the Alive and Thriving podcast, where host Jessica and industry experts explore how your inner world fuels your outer success. Let's dive in and ignite the embodied leader you were meant to be.
squadcaster-13gi_1_10-08-2024_170941: Does it feel like the success that you felt is coming at the cost of your mental health, your well being, and your relationships? What if I told you that there is a way to grow your business and prioritize your wellbeing? Would you like to talk about it? Welcome back to Alive and Thriving. My name is Jessica.
I am your holistic business mentor, and I am here to help you master your emotions, align your subconscious desires with your subconscious programming [00:01:00] so that you can be more confident in your business. for joining me. The woman who creates and holds your sustainable and scalable and successful coaching business, your healing business, your consulting business.
That is what we are here for. So today's episode is all about a topic that feels especially close to my heart, particularly after starting my career in this space, Working in the space of anxiety management, stress management, burnout recovery, trauma healing and then as I stepped more into this business mentoring space and combined that with this powerful holistic healing, it became so evident to me that women in this space are building their success at a All costs.
And it is something that just honestly breaks my heart. I have said it [00:02:00] in episodes before I have had so many amazing women with these really successful businesses in my space online or in person, just completely at burnout. And remember, burnout is not just being at that chronic pain. Stress point, but these women have been battling illness and they have been completely and physically and mentally wiped their nervous system completely frazzled and it is taking years for these things to recover.
Okay, and what I find. And I just want to say this quickly, because I am going to take you through today, 7 strategies, like 7 key things that you can implement right now today to help you avoid building your business at all costs. Okay, your mental health, your physical health, your relationships, romantic children, all the things, friendships, all the things.
But what I am [00:03:00] not doing here is saying that these things are a 100 percent preventative for burnout and that is going to go against some of the very common surface level advice that you get from social media. And the reason that I am not claiming that these things are going to prevent burnout.
Prevent you from going into burnout or getting into that space where you are diagnosed with burnout is because in my experience, when somebody has reached that place of burnout, what is happening in their business or in their job or whatever it is, it has burnt them out. That is here on the very tip of the iceberg.
That is that 5 percent that you see sticking out above the water. And what is underneath? Is a very dysregulated nervous system that often is actually stemming right back to things that they have experienced, either trauma throughout [00:04:00] their life or childhood experiences that they have held onto that are unresolved.
And these can even just be these can even be beliefs and stories that they hold about themselves that hold about the world. That then bring this lens and perception of stress that has been carried with them throughout their life. That then comes into this job or this business that they are creating for themselves, where they lack boundaries, where they don't know how to look after themselves, where the narrative inside is not supportive at all because of these beliefs, but this has been building up for years.
And then we are over committed to the business and we label the business, the monster. And it takes every single thing that we are absolutely willing to give it. And then it is my business, burnt me out. That is the story. And that is the experience. But in my experience working with burnout, there is always so many more emotional layers [00:05:00] beneath that, which is why, again, I'm going to share with you seven key things that you can change right now, or become aware of in your world right now to help avoid.
Living in a state of chronic stress to help avoid having a business that burns you out, but we're not going to claim that these 7 things are the key to not burning out because, as I said, I, in my experience, burnout has been a much bigger picture. So with that said, let's be real here. Entrepreneurship, especially when you are building something that is truly meaningful to you can come with its challenges.
Okay, so what if we could do this differently? If you have been growing your business at all costs. Sacrificing your health, sacrificing your relationships, observing, or maybe not even observing. Maybe [00:06:00] this episode is the one where you go, Oh my gosh, do you know what? I have been building my business at all costs.
And I thought that my mental health was just separate. I thought I was just a stressed person. I thought that this anxiety was related to something else. Maybe this is the catalyst for your realization that you have built this beautiful business on paper, but on the inside. Your nervous system is not aligned with where you need to be right now.
So if you are feeling like maybe you're on that pathway or you want to make sure that you put the brakes on now and avoid being in that position altogether, then this episode is definitely for you. So I'm going to share with you in a moment. I think it's seven. If you've had other episodes with me I can't count.
Seven very real strategies to help you sustainably build a [00:07:00] business. And so remember sustainably, what does that even mean? Sustainably is something that you can continue on with something that is going to be long lasting, something that your body can actually hold. And so sometimes we see people build their businesses and they go very hard, very fast, and they're working extremely long hours, or they have extremely.
A high costs, or they have all of these different aspects that is actually not sustainable in the long term. And when we focus back on you being the woman who holds the success, yet your nervous system needs to grow and expand with your next level of success and grow and expand with your next experiences.
And if we can jump too quickly, and then we're suddenly in this place where we are doing more and we are giving more and our energy is being drained by this business that is not [00:08:00] sustainable. If you have built your business around the fact that you have to work 80 hours a week in order to support it.
In my opinion, that is not sustainable because one day your body is going to say, no, it is going to say, listen to me, pay attention. And if you do not slow down, I'm going to make you slow down. And this is extremely challenging for high achieving people. Women, it is extremely challenging for moms juggling all the things.
It is extremely challenging for a culture in society that has been celebrated for being busy over and over again. So I promise you, you can still make an impact and feel good in your body and mind. And today we're going to talk about some ways that can help you to do that. Now, if you are sitting here and you're resonating with this and you're like, Oh my gosh, I have built this [00:09:00] amazing business.
But I, I'm not feeling how I want to feel my internal results don't match my external results. And that there is in a work to be done that your beliefs and your internal dialogue are not necessarily supporting your next level. Then let's have a chat about, first of all, What private mentoring together could look like, or second of all, if there is a program like embodied entrepreneur, that could help you to really cultivate that into those internal resources to hold the success that you're calling in.
Okay. So if you'd like to have a chat about which pathway might be the right next step for you, if you are ready to heal, if you are ready to make changes, if you would like my support to do that, then one of those two options might be a really great choice for you. And you can just pop into my [00:10:00] DMs. Pop into my DMs on Instagram and we will have a conversation.
Cause yes, we are real people and we will talk. I will voice message you. I like to chat, no obligation, but I want to hear from you if you're ready. So let's get into these key takeaways now. So key takeaway number one is that you need to prioritize your self care as a non negotiable. We talk about self care and I have episodes where we are talking about defining self care for you, but we talk about self care and we think how often do we treat it as a luxury instead of a necessity, but if you're running your business and you're also you're constantly running on fumes.
Then you really need to look at the fact that it is really important to actually take a moment and pause and do something just for you. Now this doesn't have to be big and [00:11:00] extreme because I know straight away this is new for you or you're still dabbling in that whole concept of slowing down to speed up.
Then your mind your conditioned mind is going to be like, I can't stop. If I stop, my business will fall apart. My home will fall apart. If I go away, if I this, if I that, but what if self care doesn't have to be a a weekend away or a month long vacation away from your family, all those things would be amazing too.
What if it is as simple as. Stretching your body before you start your day. What if it is as simple as walking out in nature or having a moment of stillness, you need to remember, and you've heard these, it is plastered all over everybody's motivational, Instagram posts. You can't pull from an empty cup.
Okay. But you just can't, you really can't. [00:12:00] And you can try and keep running on those empty fumes. It is not actually selfish for you to do something for you. As I said, it could be as simple walking in nature, stretching, sitting stillness, creating some nice rituals for yourself every single day that don't need to take up more than five minutes.
If that's all you have, it is not selfish. It is essential. And there will be a way for you to build this around your family and your current season of life.
You deserve to feel replenished while you scale your successful business. In fact, you need to be replenished while you scale your successful business. So don't think about self care in a way that feels. Unobtainable in a way that feels like you have to create more time in your day and we can go back and we can look at my episode on time where we speak about how [00:13:00] regulating your nervous system, slowing it all down is actually going to engage your logical thinking mind.
It is going to help your creativity and help you access those parts of you that are going to be more productive, that are going to create better output because you've chosen to slow down first. I'll see if I can find that episode and link it, but if this is new, if you know that you have just been caught up on autopilot and you've been going and going, then I want you to think about this in micro moments, micro circuit breakers in your stress response, and what could they look like for you?
And let's chat about it. Let's chat about it. Come into my DMs and let's chat about what those micro moments could look like for you. So the next thing, number two, is to set aligned boundaries. So let's talk about boundaries because, oh my gosh, even for me, saying no feels hard. But setting clear, aligned boundaries.[00:14:00]
Isn't just about protecting your time. It is about honoring your energy. It is saying yes to the things that truly matter in your life and your business. And that is so key because I can guarantee you that most of the things that you are telling yourself are urgent in your business right now I not and then unapologetically saying no to what drains you and I still practice this I still have to someone said to me in the very beginning if it's not a hell yes or it's not a full body turn on then it's a no.
Then it's a no. And here's the thing. Here is what I'm learning more and more as we talk about this, because without you, you don't have your business. So your well being comes first. Your well being comes first. So when your energy is aligned. And you show up more powerfully [00:15:00] and boundaries will create space for that.
They will create space for growth. They will create space for overwhelm. They'll create space for you to let go so that you can move forward. So I have some reflection here for you. If you have not. If you are not clear on your boundaries, or you know that previous past boundaries are not serving you, or you are really struggling to hold those boundaries, then quite often there is inner work that we can do to help that.
So yes, being clear on what they are and why they matter, and then what they look like as you implement them. That is one thing. But when I look at boundaries, I look at what subconscious programming is keeping me fearful of holding this boundary. And that is the kind of inner work that I recommend really looking at.
That is why we look for that deep lasting change rather than just surface level band aid fixes. [00:16:00] So number two was boundaries. Number three is about having, finding, or creating a supportive and empowered community. Because as we go about building your Business. It feels very lonely. And I if you're on my email list about a week or so ago, or my Instagram, you would have seen a post that I put up and a story that I shared with you about one of my masterminders.
She came into our Slack channel and her voice message was so Raw and so real and so heartbreaking and so emotional and we labeled it with love a meltdown because that's what it was. And she, came into that space because she knew we got it. She knew that the weight of what she was feeling in that moment.
Didn't have to be hidden and she didn't want to do [00:17:00] the same thing that she'd done before Which was suppress it and then allow the thoughts and the meaning that she was attaching to that She'll come in and say things like you should not be doing this business. This is not for you know, you're never gonna be successful.
You're never going to make money Those thoughts were old narratives for her that she So with her choice to come in and to share and to download and to cry and to let it all out with all the words and all the frustrations and all the feels, she was held by every single woman in that container and they swooped in to hold her.
And the thing is that, and I said this the other day, and I could honestly do a whole episode on this. It's not spoken about just how hard it actually is. Like it's really not. Because most people who speak to business owners, who speak to entrepreneurs, what they are saying to you is I'm going to help you get X, Y, Z results.
So I'm going to show you all these [00:18:00] amazing results that I have gotten, and not many. Barely any that I see actually showing you behind the scenes, showing you those meltdowns, showing you the fact that loneliness, that weight of it all, that is so real. Okay, and so we can be really, confused and really tricked into thinking that.
You are alone in feeling this way. And then that's when we go and we put all of these meanings on how we're feeling when really all it is, a human experience being an entrepreneur, right? And it's just a natural emotional human experience when things start to feel overwhelming or they don't go our way, or we are struggling with something.
Our energy is off. And again, so often that is the tip of that iceberg from so much that is going on underneath. So [00:19:00] surrounding yourself with like minded soul led women who get it, who understand the unique challenges and wins. Is a game changer and I say and wins too because you might go and you might share to someone that your opt in page is now converting at 27 percent instead of 17 and you're so excited because it was that one messaging shift that you made that change and that person's huh?
What? Who fucking cares? Excuse my language, so having someone to be able to share those wins with having someone to be like, Hey, guys, guess what? I said no to someone today. I put my prices up today. Guess what? I did this thing that actually felt really big and scary for me. And I know that you've got it.
We have a whole channel in Slack in my mastermind just for celebrations. [00:20:00] That's it. A whole channel just for celebrations for people to come in and acknowledge the things that the rest of the world don't see as big that we do. So this is a game changer. You need people who remind you of your why, who hold space for your struggles and your success and who lift you up higher.
Whether it be. A mastermind, and if that is something that you are really considering at the moment, then let's chat about the transcendence mastermind. It is an amazing space where we grow you and your business with my three energies of success framework. And we collaborate and we help each other and it's all strengths led strategy and it's healing and it's amazing.
Maybe it's an accountability group or maybe it's, mentors that you trust your support network is going to carry you through the moments of doubt and there is so much power in community. So number 4, let's move to number 4. [00:21:00] In avoiding your success coming at the cost of your mental health is to practice mindfulness and embody gratitude.
Sometimes I actually feel a little bit funny talking about this because I am very much for the feeling and the healing. And I feel like sometimes there's a narrative out there that people will say, just practice mindfulness or just be grateful. And when there's real things, like when my client last week was having that real emotional experience, mindfulness and gratitude.
Not so much what we needed in that moment, we needed to feel to heal, right? But mindfulness and gratitude is going to help you to sit in the vibrational state that you need to be in to receive what you want to be bringing into your world. Not only that, but when you are in a place of gratitude, when you are in a [00:22:00] mindfulness state, You are in a parasympathetic nervous system.
Your body is not activated in its stress survival response. So cultivating a practice like mindfulness and embodied gratitude doesn't have to look like long meditations. If that's not your thing, it's about presence. It's about slowing down. Slowing down really intentionally before you move in your business, that might be even simple practices like coming into your body and feeling into your body's inner guidance system, whether that be through your human design or your intuition or however you are choosing to identify.
That is something we can figure out together as well. When you're building your business, it's always so easy to just keep focusing on what's next, what next, what's next, and miss out on the journey and miss out on the here and now, and miss [00:23:00] out on the emotional cues that your body is communicating with you.
Your body's always communicating with you. And so if you are not present, if you are scared to come into your body, if you are so in your head, Then you're going to miss those. You're going to miss what is not meant for you. You're going to miss what is misaligned. You're going to miss the things that are causing you stress and frustration and the early warning signs as well.
So gratitude shifts everything. When you are grateful for what you have now, you create more ease and flow for what is coming. It also helps your nervous system to feel safe and settled. Okay, so this is really a simple step that you can take now to implement in your life. And again, when we look at those self care practices, this can actually form a part of that.
Maybe your daily self care practice could be to spend [00:24:00] five minutes. You could just place one hand on your forehead and one hand on your heart and close your eyes and come into your body and breathe. And notice what your breath is doing. And just observe, mindfulness is observing, just observe the sound as it moves through the body.
Observe the sensations, observe the sounds that are happening around you, observe the thoughts that are happening. And then you could finish off with a gratitude practice, so you could do your gratitude practice right before bed. There are so many different simple ways. I saw something the other day that was like, if you're struggling to make this a habit, start doing it while you're on the toilet.
It's so simple, you just put your hands up behind your head and you do this exercise and you can do it while you're sitting on the toilet. Okay. That's one way to anchor it in to say, Hey, this is an easy practice to actually just naturally incorporate into my day rather than feeling like and running with that narrative that I don't have [00:25:00] time.
So let's move to number five and number five is delegate to elevate. Okay. Here is some truth bombs that maybe some of you need. You are not meant to do everything alone. You're not. Let's be real. Let's be really real here. The superwoman mindset can only get you so far because eventually your nervous system will burn out.
I don't even like the words like burnout will creep in or you'll feel burnt out. No, you'll feel chronically stressed. You'll feel exhausted. Your nervous system will burn out. And again, that is not just impacting your exhaustion levels and your stress. That is illness. Emotional emotional upset, just lost my words, but you [00:26:00] know what I am trying to say.
So delegation is a skill. It is a learned skill and it is powerfully freeing. Listen to the book. The 4 hour work week by Tim Ferriss. There is this whole section where he talks to you about how to get comfortable with delegating, how to get comfortable with freeing yourself from tasks that are not meant for you to be doing.
That are literally weighing you down and keeping you working outside of your zone of genius, keeping you feeling busy, keeping you in that narrative of I am too busy, even though most of these tasks you do not need to be doing. Some can be automated and some can be outsourced. And so I would really love for you to go and create a list.
And maybe it's a wishlist or maybe it's something that you're going to act on right now, which I actually encourage you to do [00:27:00] to start to outsource what drains you. Bring in support where you need. I have shared the story with you before about my first VA, about how I was telling myself, Oh, you need to be earning a certain amount of money before you can hire someone.
And then I realized that I was so drowning in this ridiculous admin work that I was actually. Telling myself I was too busy to see clients. Oh my God. That's the whole point of the business. And to get this admin done, I was putting my daughter in an extra day of daycare, which was not great for either of us.
And we're paying a casual rate of 160 a day with no subsidy. Then I realized for 160 a week, pay VA to do just that. 50 times more than what I was doing and better quality, and I had to move through those whole can they do it as good as me? What if they don't understand? Oh my gosh, it's so much better.
And the [00:28:00] freedom that brought me to be able to focus on the actual needle moving income producing things in my business is phenomenal. So bring in support where you need it. You deserve to run a business that feels aligned with your energy. Not one that drains you daily. Look at where you can outsource.
And so outsourcing could also be. Automation as well. How many things coming into your inbox? How many things are you doing? How many things are you actively sending and clicking go on every single week that actually could be automated within your business? A huge automation that I have in my world is a robotic vacuum cleaner and mop.
And, It is a business expense because I have clients who come here to my, space and every single time that I have clients in person, I was giving 20 minutes [00:29:00] at least to the vacuuming, to the mopping, to making sure that that it was a presentable space and then, and that caused so much stress for me too, like just because it was pressure.
I just felt like there was this pressure. And so that vacuum mop, it now gets up at six o'clock in the morning on those days. And it goes about and it does its thing and it's all automated. And I don't have to think about it. I don't have to worry about it. I have brought back a whole hour of my week. And that's the thing.
When we look at delegating to elevate, we are buying back our time. So let's move to point number six. Now, the sixth thing that we can do to make sure that our success does not come at the cost of our mental health is slow down to speed up. Now, I have whole episodes on this, so I'm not going to go too deep in it now, but this is your reminder that taking breaks, that coming into your body, that intentionally [00:30:00] Creating a regulated nervous system before you sit down to work, before you sit down to serve, is a radical form of self leadership.
When you slow down, you don't lose momentum. And I know it goes against all odds no I can't stop, I can't stop, but you can and you need to. Because instead of going and going in this dysregulated space where your brain thinks that you're in survival, and that's all it's focused on. So we're not engaging our CEO thinking brain.
Instead, you are gifting yourself the clarity and the creativity and the focus needed to really move the needle forward. When you're back in action, and sometimes this can just be a few minutes before you start. It could be a short break every between focus tasks. It could be however you choose [00:31:00] for it to be.
It could be making sure, like I had a client say to me yesterday, she said, yes, I'm actually going to have 1 week off every 3 to 4 weeks. She's going to go hard and then she's going to have break and as a single mom building a business. She needs that as someone who became really disconnected from herself because she had shut down the adventurous parts of her and the creative parts of her.
And she had told herself that she needed to prioritize all of this hustle before she looked after her nervous system. She was completely detached from herself and miserable. So whether it be a holiday, whether it be a short daily break, whether it be five minutes of breathing or tapping Before you start your day, make resting a part of your strategy and some of our energy types.
We need to rest. I have in my human design. I am defined from my throat down. [00:32:00] There is so much energy. Within me, and if I don't rest, if I don't actually take more time away from myself, more time where I am just alone, where I am just with me, where I am intentionally resting, then I completely hit these lows that feel really hard to climb out of.
And so it is this whole piece of working through, I used to feel guilty about this. I used to let the narrative of, or I'm lazy or I'm having all of these narratives. Sometimes I can literally just sit in bed and just stare. Like I don't even put the TV on. I just stare. And I think and I, just sit with myself and that doesn't feel lazy anymore.
There is no meaning attached to it. Another one of my masterminders said to me the other day, Nicole, she said, I've been feeling really exhausted lately and my past narrative was to go, And I would [00:33:00] have guilted myself for this really badly. And instead, she's actually just taken some time. The business is still ticking over.
She said, Oh, maybe I should be doing something. And I said, is your business still making income? And she said, yes. And I said why then? Okay. Why? If this is going to help you recharge and come back stronger and come back more aligned with your vision, slow down, speed up. Another motto for that is the less I do, the more I may that is a belief that you might like to borrow.
Let's talk about now number seven, our final tip for making sure that your success is not coming at the cost of your mental health for today. And that is to review and realign your goals. So when we come into these places where a business has taken over as a time hungry energy sucking monster, or you get to the point where you have finally burned out [00:34:00] or chronic stress has taken over your life, or you have been become so disconnected from your family and from who you are.
You don't even know if someone says, what do you like to do outside of your business? You're like, I don't know. My business is my life. We can become so caught up in chasing goals that actually aren't aligned with who we are now, because maybe you started your business and you had these goals that you needed to bring in a certain income.
You had to replace an old income, you had to prove that you could do something and you've reached those goals. And so now it's just growth. It's just, let's focus on growth. What's our next growth goal? Our next growth goal. But when was the last time that you actually reviewed your goals through the lens of your wellbeing and your core values?
When was the last time you did that? And if it's not been for a while, I want you to sit down and do it now. The goal setting process that I take my masterminders through, and they have now this workbook in their [00:35:00] portal to do every quarter directly reflects back one to their bigger picture, but not just their bigger picture growth goal.
It reflects back to what is it, what experience do I want to be creating for myself because I'm running this business? What do I want to be feeling internally because I am running this business? Then what are my goals and do those goals actually align with what my core values are? And if they don't, and if it doesn't come back to that bigger impact, if it doesn't come back to your core values, if it doesn't feel expansive and it feels suffocating instead, then your goals are not aligned with your core values and you really need to be revisiting them.
Don't get caught up in the autopilot. Okay. Next growth, the next growth, like next growth. Yes. Keep growing. I'm not saying that, but please make sure that these goals that you are going towards. Our view through the lens of your [00:36:00] wellbeing, if one of your core values is time freedom, and you have created a business monster that keeps you at least 80 hours a week to hit those goals, then that is not aligned.
And you're going to end up in a very disconnected space. If one of your core values is family, and you have created a business where you have to be on at bedtime every single night, and you're answering your emails on the weekend, and you're not holding your boundaries, and your clients are accessing you all the time, and you're not present with your family, or you're not able to take trips with them, if one of your core values is travel, And the moment you up and travel from your business, like up and travel and take a month off, you've got no, not enough outsourcing or not the right team underneath you and not the right automations.
And you, take a week off and then your business collapses. That doesn't align with your core value of travel. So can you see how [00:37:00] we need to really make sure that these are aligned with what really lights you up and what really excites you and what you really stand for, not just what you think that you should be doing.
Okay, so I'm going to really quickly recap our seven steps, our seven, key things that you can go and implement right now. They're not big things. They're all things that you can go and implement right now. And again, if you want help with this, then let's talk about what private mentorship looks like.
If you know that it is the inner work that you need to do, then maybe that's The mastermind or maybe embodied entrepreneur is your next step. If you know that you want to scale your business in an energetically aligned strengths led way, whilst being the woman who grows the business, then maybe it's the mastermind.
There are ways to move forward that I can help you. And if you just want a taste of it, because you have a belief that you are aware [00:38:00] of now that you know that you want to shift. Then go and check out the becoming limitless self paced workshop that you can actually access straight away. So number one was prioritize self care as a non negotiable.
Number two was setting aligned boundaries. Number three is creating a sub or finding a supportive, empowered community. Number four was practicing mindfulness and embodied gratitude. And of course, that could also be techniques like meditation, tapping self hypnosis. Mindfulness movement, yoga practices.
There's so many, like we are not just limited here to just mindfulness. But those practices that help you to come back into your body and come back into the present really super important. Number five was delegate to elevate. Number six, slow down to speed up number seven, [00:39:00] review and realign your goals because there is no point building your thriving business.
If you end up burnt out, unwell and unable to actually function and enjoy your life in the process. So we are here for the long game. I know you are too. It's not just a short term hustle game. It is about creating a business that feels abundant and aligned with your health and your energy and your life's purpose.
So if you enjoyed today's episode, then go ahead and share it with an entrepreneur soul sister, who you know needs to hear this and make sure that you like and subscribe for next week's episode. I want to hear from you over on Instagram, Jessica Reed lc. Maybe your big takeaway or if you wanna have a chat about what is [00:40:00] next for you.
If you know that you are definitely ready to change your internal world and master your emotions. Be the woman who holds your next level of success. Let's find the right program for you and create a thriving business together. One where you are fully taken care of because that's what you deserve.
That's a wrap on today's episode. Feeling inspired to explore your inner world and reach your full potential? We'd love to hear from you. Subscribe for more, leave a review and share your takeaways on Instagram at jessica. reid. ilc. Until next time, keep thriving!
