Thrive series: Stop mum burnout now! - Thriving Woman Project

Artwork for podcast Thriving Woman Project

Thrive series: Stop mum burnout now!

Episode 7 • 4th May 2022 • Thriving Woman Project • Wendy Griffith

THIS TRANSCRIPT IS COMPUTER‐GENERATED. IT IS POSTED TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND OR FIND CERTAIN PARTS YOU ARE INTERESTED IN. ALTHOUGH THE TRANSCRIPTION IS LARGELY ACCURATE, IN SOME CASES IT IS INCOMPLETE OR INACCURATE (COULD IT BE BECAUSE OF WENDY’S SOUTH AFRICAN ACCENT?). SO, IT MIGHT GIVE YOU A LAUGH HERE AND THERE!

00:02

You're listening to the healthy and thriving career moms podcast where every week you will learn about healthier habits and hacks to create and support healthy and thriving lifestyle as a busy mom. I'm your host Wendy. And I truly believe that the best gift you can give to your family and the world is a healthy thriving you. Let's dive in

00:26

to Hi lovely and welcome to today's episode of The Thrive series, which is all about giving you the tips, tools and tricks to live, healthy and thriving. Life as a busy career mom, and today's episode we're going to be talking about the subject of mum burnout. Okay, and this isn't just that, you know, throwaway comment. Oh, I'm just so burnt out. This is actually a real deal and more and more women mums are being diagnosed with this as such.

00:55

Now, I just want to before I go any further caveat all of this episode with the disclaimer that I am not a mental health professional. If the information that I shared today triggers you in any way or makes you think, actually I need to go and speak to someone a professional that can help me with this. The first place I would invite you to is to start with a call to your doctor. And from there you can work out what the best way forward is, but hopefully by sharing more on the subject today

01:24

because I just feel it is such an important topic that we need to talk about more than ever right now. It will hopefully make either you think about your circumstances or maybe perhaps think of things that you've seen in a friend or a loved one that you think actually you might need to have a conversation to say, Look, do you need to go and speak to someone do you need to take this further?

01:45

Do you need to get the support and help so that's very much my intention for today's episode. But let's just start with talking about and calling out some of the potential symptoms of mom burnout so often it's very much characterized by extreme mental fatigue or physical exhaustion, being short tempered, maybe feeling just completely emotionally depleted, feeling disconnected or isolated from others including your kids feeling mom guilt about behaviors and reactions, thoughts of feelings,

02:15

feeling parental guilt or like you're an adequate parents maybe feeling anxious or overly focused on what comes next and experiencing in some cases. monrage like being quite hostile or having like quite extreme emotional highs and lows. Maybe you're questioning your life choices, entertaining like escapist fantasies like I've just got to run away extreme feelings of never feeling good enough at home or at work and maybe concerns that your children deserve someone better than you.

02:44

Maybe you feel disconnected from your partner. Maybe you have social fatigue, which is preventing you from tapping into support networks. I know especially off the back of the pandemic. So many of us are actually feeling quite socially anxious, getting back to the real world and I know personally I felt quite overwhelmed about all the social events and gatherings and things and I've actually felt quite exhausted recently by all the catching up as everybody's been doing.

03:08

Or maybe you just have an inability to ask support or to state your needs. So really, we're just going to if that resonates with you today, we're just really going to dive into that. And we're going to look at some of the aspects that can maybe help you from a self care perspective now, before you think oh my goodness, when if one more person talks to me about self care, I'm actually going to punch them in the face.

03:30

And I concur with that. I mean, self care is such a buzzword and I'm all about the self care. Heck, like I do these great self care workshops are actually free. I'll link to them in my show notes. I do one to two a month and I just offer them to my support my mom's community and just really to give people tips, tools and tricks to manage their stress manage, they sell care, but I also appreciate that even within that there are so

03:59

many busy moms, we shiftworkers single mums who genuinely just do not have time. I know people can badly about well, if it was a priority, you'd make time and they're like oh my goodness, between work or parental responsibilities. Maybe you're caring for a parent. I know that since my mom came to live with me nearly a year ago. It has taken up a lot more of my time than I anticipated it would having

04:25

another person to look after because yeah, that's changing dynamics is the parent child relationships. So a lot of us are finding ourselves in a situation now where we've got small children, but we're also caring for parents. So that is incredibly stressful and time consuming. So there's all sorts of things that can factor into this. So this is not going to be a podcast that is going to tell you oh you need to take better care of yourself and you need to make time for self care because honestly, I'm with you on literally punching that person.

04:54

for this episode. I feel like: 2021

05:24

would say harder for me than: 2020

05:48

s started to pile up. And now: 2022

06:11

but also it's all the missed things from the pandemic that people are wanting to catch up on now the holidays for weddings. So I've been feeling like my weekends have been so completely packed with socializing, which don't get me wrong, I absolutely love but it's also not giving me the opportunity to rest and to recuperate because during the week we've got all the different things that we do as moms and whether

06:32

it's the volunteer roles or the parenting and the homework and the kids stop or even if your kids are fully grown and have left home there's still so much of a burden of responsibility as a mother that never leaves it just it just becomes a different version of it doesn't it different carrying version of it. And as I say maybe you're looking after parents now whatever it is. So as I say this was really my inspiration for this episode because I really had to sit and think to myself,

06:56

Okay, what's going on here? Why am I feeling this way? Why am I feeling so discombobulated? And it dawned on me that so many of the things that I do, okay, so let's call it self care practices for want of a better phrase things that I do to help me manage my well being and my stress levels because we all have them you know, you can be the happiest person in the world doesn't mean you don't have stress in your life.

07:18

So think about all the things that we have the self care practices, and that's different for everybody. And I thought to myself, do you know what it is? I have a quite a rabid diary so that time to do those things that are self care practices that bring joy to me that keep me balanced that keep me in check. I've not been getting around to so it was really that reflection point that actually, I'm the person who's in charge in my diary.

07:42

I dictate how that works now, and that's not because I'm not because I'm self employed in my own boss. But I mean, just because you really have to get back to this phrase myself included are when we say yes to something we're saying no to something else. When we say yes to something we're saying no to something else. And I say that again for emphasis because we have to just say no and recently I sit on some volunteer committees and people have been asking me to do things and in the last week, I've said no quite sternly on two occasions.

08:13

And you know what happened a while didn't end. Well done and it was so liberating. I mean, it was scary as heck because you know, a recovering people pleaser I don't like to let people down but I just had to say no, I'm sorry. I cannot do that. Right now. I'm at capacity. And it was true. I was and I know it's easier said than done. But that's something I really just wanted to emphasize before I go any further and it is just think about everything that you say yes to the quick little oh, I'll just do that.

08:40

Oh can come on the moms bring some cakes tomorrow for this. So I saw you know, we've got our dojo app here in the UK where the school communicates with you and then I saw a message saying, Oh, can we get parent volunteers down to do this, this and this and I just thought I could do it. I had a sort of a clear a diary that afternoon and I thought well, no, because I actually need to batch record some podcasts I need to do some things because

09:02

I've got a really busy May. So it's that whole thing of you know, you have to assess what you're saying yes to and how much pressure that's going to put on you later down the line. So really, actually I feel like in order to make time for self care, we have to manage our time a bit better. And that takes orcas and that takes some time.

09:21

So what I really want to dive into now are some of my top time management tips that I personally come back to and use and have had to recently assess and go actually Wendy are you doing this are you living your authentic life and living in the truth of what you teach, which is you know, to really be intentional with your time and people say to me sometimes Oh, you're so busy and I go Oh,

09:46

really? Am I quite interested when people say that because I think well, how can they see my diary? They don't know what I'm doing but just because you you can be a busy fall or you can be busy being productive and I I would just like to state it's about being efficient with your time and making the best use of your time. And that's really something that I live my life by. So yes, I pack a lot in, but I am efficient with it. But the key is where there's gaps then that you create in your diary

10:17

by being efficient with your time it's not to then fill it with other stuff. So that's the thing that I'm always mastering because, yeah, I'm a person whose brain goes at a million miles an hour and I do have lots of energy. So it's one thing I always have to check myself on is to say, No, and that'd be enough. That'd be the full sentence. So here are some of my time management tips for you. But before I get stuck into those,

10:40

I just wanted to invite you to check us out. Are you ready to start or reset your healthy habits that maybe you're short on time or you're just not sure where to start? You're exactly the person I've created by thriving five mini course for reset your healthy habits and just five minutes a day so you can start to thrive in all aspects of your life and health. And the best part is it's totally free to get it. Go to Wendy griffith.co.uk

11:06

forward slash thrive and five or go to the link in my show notes for more information. Right back to today's show. Right back to today's time management tip for you. So number one is to be realistic. I can as I've admitted find myself being a little bit unrealistic sometimes in what I can achieve. I mean besides the fact that that's a product of my ADHD

11:06

that I managed with time blindness, where I sort of think to myself, I've got more time than I do to do things, but this is where I have to be really conscious of setting myself my most important actions every day. So I set myself three things on my to do list every day and that can be a mix of personal and business. Those are the three things that absolutely must happen. And I do speak more about this in my morning routine episode which I'll link to in the show notes and

11:06

how I set my day up and how I plan for it and how that looks and some of the recommendations I can give you around that. But the problem comes is crucially as we tried to do all the easy things first and leave the most important stuff to the end of the day when we're stressed out and we're tired and this is when we have the meltdowns so it's just really about being realistic. And that's why I like to do my weekly CEO date where I look across the week and I go right here are the things

11:06

I need to do need to achieve. And then I chunked it up into three mis most important actions for each day so that I can see actually when you've got far too much on your plate this week, you may need to call something but when until you can see it across the whole week. This is far too easy to think oh I can do it. I can do it. I can do it. Then you know throw in female hormones and that time of the month or in the lead up to that time of the month. All sorts of things. You know, we're not.

11:06

Women aren't just like flatline like men. It just quite sort of balanced emotions throughout the whole month. We do have this up and down. So it is also being mindful of that it could be that you wake up on a day and you just think oh, I just can't be bothered to do this. And then you beat yourself up because you haven't done the 10 things that you set yourself for the day because it was completely unrealistic and we don't want that we don't want to get in that shaming cycle.

11:06

And so this leads on to the second tip which is assess your time, take a bit more of a critical look at how you spend your time. Are you wasting time in the shops for example, when you could be doing an online and it's so funny when people say to me they go to the shops and like many people still do that. So are you spending all hours on your phone and not the one hour that you tell yourself?

11:06

Is that time productive? Is it mindless? And is it really contributing to your life and well being so even though social media is a big part of my business and I love to connect with people and reach out to people and through the powers of online, I'm very grateful for that. I also have to be very, very mindful. And something that I do is I give myself a digital detox day on a Sunday. So I'm not online on a Sunday, because that to me is just you've got to give yourself a break and I was even thinking going into

11:06

May June, summer is actually I'm looking to give myself a Saturday and the Sunday I was speaking to a colleague the other day I was saying well I feel like Monday to Friday. Social media is more for business and then on the weekends I actually want to do social media for like social stuff. But actually it's getting that balance isn't it and we can very quickly get done the squirrel hole and we've wasted so much time. So think about those little 1% gains on your life

14:16

now. For example, grocery shopping, I know that you probably love to pick your stuff, and I get it but it might be that yeah, that is just something that has to give in order for you to create more time so that you could have your weekly Shop your favorites knowing what needs to be added to the basket then topping it up meal planning is such a key thing. I've got a whole episode on that. I've got blogs on that I've got my free meal planner, which I'll link to in the show notes. Such a great way to save time and money and headspace to think about those little 1% games priorities.

14:47

Make your life revolve around your priorities. And I know that that seems so obvious. But I had this amazing analogy given to me the other day about glass balls and rubber balls. And how as a mum was just made up of these glass balls and rubber balls and some things are glass balls like our families, okay, our families, our children's well being it's a glass bowl, you cannot drop that. We cannot drop that glass ball. But a rubber ball could be something like the gym.

15:14

Now I'm a big advocate for movement and exercise as a self care strategy. But is it that you're an extremely busy period and it may be that you can't get to the gym three times a week you want it to maybe it's only once a week. That's a rubber ball. That's the rubber ball that can drop and that can bounce back up and you can pick it up again next month. It's thinking about your life in terms of what are the glass balls and what are the rubber balls? Yes, we want to be a great friend.

15:42

We want to meet up with our friends for coffee and after school and whatever it is like all the things that what is a rubber ball and what is a glass ball. It just might be that some of those rubber balls just need to bounce for now, but we can't drop the glass balls. And the other thing is we can easily confuse people's demands from us to do stuff is urgent so just because someone messages you asking you for something, that deadline doesn't become your emergency. It's simply a request for your attention.

16:07

And for me I just think well I will respond when I'm able to and I know that sounds a bit harsh, but it is true nowadays in this quick you know by a culture of centimeters centimeters do I know about you but I've got about feels like 14 inboxes to manage of people coming at me with stuff I just have to set aside and allocate time to respond and just know that I am doing my best and I will get back to everyone as soon as I'm able to

16:30

and I don't apologize i i Don't start my messages unless it is been a complete shocker and it's been like two weeks and I completely miss replying to somebody. But if I take a couple of days to get back to someone, I don't start the message. I'm so sorry. It's taking me so long to get back to you. It's so well let's be honest, life is busy and we're all just doing our best. I don't need to apologize. If someone really needs something urgent for me really. And even then I'm like, Oh, who's calling me what's going on?

16:54

What's the emergency because we don't do phone calls either. But if someone really needs something, they can say this is virgins. And then I can look at that. But yeah, we just we just need to manage expectation. Another tip is to manage who's responsible for tasks. So don't take on everyone's responsibilities and just be that Oh, it's okay, nevermind I'll do it myself person, take charge and make the person responsible to do it. So I've done and delegated is like the weekly grocery shop to my husband. So we have a app on our phone, Microsoft to do app, it's free.

17:27

You can download it and you can share your list and what we do is when someone's in the kitchen, something runs out we add it to the list and then that way on sushi a Tuesday night so he books all the slots in advance so we have a standing slot on a Wednesday between five and six when our shopping comes and on a Tuesday nights there's an alert in the diary in our shared calendar which we share because not on the calendar exist that alerts to say do the shop so you're sitting by the telly he'll add everything to the basket and then often they'll just

17:56

Canada to me and so just want to check this quickly as anything else you want and he that's something I've delegated. Now, that might seem quite extreme. And you might think oh, I don't mind doing the shop. I can just do that quickly. But that's a good sort of half an hour 45 minutes in my headspace. Why can't my husband do that? Like that's often time that I'm spent maybe catching up on work in the evening because I've been doing the school run during the day, or whatever it is.

18:19

So it's just about managing those expectations and those first runs abilities and I know it's different for everybody but I'm very much a person who delegates don't attempt to do it all because that's just ridiculously unrealistic. Number five, so I've already touched on this, but just to reinforce it learn to say no. Are you always trying to be that people pleaser? That person who's always saying yes, absolutely no worries. You know,

18:42

they always say always ask a busy person, but actually, it is a case of saying no and maybe more busy people that get stuff done said no, they'd start asking the people who maybe weren't so busy or actually things might not get done. events might not get organized and raises might not happen if people aren't stepping up but it can't always fall to you. So don't be a martyr say no.

19:05

Number six, switch off your phone notifications and this is one that has been such a game changer for me. I've had notifications off my phone for years now. I still can't believe that my husband still has notifications of actors that not drive you nuts pimping bing bing bing bing bing bing bing all the time. I also have downtime on my phone. So help us nine at night. It goes into like dark nighttime mode and doesn't come back until I think it's helpful six in the morning. I see I don't even know if so don't look at my phone

19:31

until about eight o'clock in the morning because that is my time to get my head in the game for the day. I do not need other people's ping ping pings notifications, interrupting my Zen and getting organized and time with my family in the morning which we usually like to read with my daughter and have breakfast and get into our day so it's not so rushed and chaotic. And my final tip is to be done with perfection. It doesn't exist.

19:55

So why are we striving for the impossible? What can you live with being imperfect kids I made beds our not you that has to sleep in them or kitchen just before bedtime? You could clean it now or in the morning when I'm going to mop after breakfast anyway. Yeah, don't worry. What can you just like? Let go of? I know for me, I get so frustrated about time when everyone gets up and goes to bed and then like I'm bluffing does anyone else like the sofa cushions and I'm like

20:21

Why does no one fold the blankets and Puff the cushions? And I'm like, what if I just lifted and went to bed? What if it didn't have to be perfect the next morning when none of us actually sit in the lounge again until the evening. I mean guys Done is better than perfect. And that is a mantra that has served me so so well. So I really hope those top tips that I've shared that just from personal experience that I've implemented over time have helped you and just to really think about

20:50

how you manage your time and having time for you and your family and just why it's so important to be asleep. protect that. And as I say I don't always get it right. But I know that when I'm starting to feel out of balance when I'm starting to feel burnt out when I'm starting to feel like it's all just getting on top of me and emotional and it's more than just the feelings you get at that time of the month. It's like that deep rooted like, Oh, my depressed is like what's going on?

21:17

Like why am I feeling this way? It's when I really soul search on it. It's because I have totally abandoned my self care practices. I'm not managing my time well, which means I'm not making time to exercise to have time to do things that I enjoy like in my garden or reading or whatever it is so Yeah, a bit of a longer day, but I feel like it needed to be done. I feel like it needed to be said and I feel like it's gonna hopefully give a lot of you permission to prioritize your time.

21:48

Protect your time so that you can make time for self care so that the next time someone says to you, oh, you just need to practice self care. You don't want to punch them in the face. As I say please don't go around. doing that. But yes, I hope that's inspired you please reach out to me, let me know what from this episode has resonated and I just really want to encourage you if you feel like it's much deeper than that there's a lot more going on than what I talked about today.

22:14

And that some of those sort of symptoms that I spoke about at the start are really, really hard to know whether you felt they made you feel quite triggered, then I really really want to encourage you to put a call into your doctor and talk to them about how and what the next steps could be to support you with your mental health. So as always, lovelies, I love hearing from you please reach out to me and if this show is helping you is resonated with you.

22:39

Please please, please may I ask you to pop up quickly and leave a review or share it on your social media so that other moms can get this information and we can just help inspire healthy and thriving career moms. Thank you for tuning in today. I'm so grateful for you. If this episode has resonated make sure you visit Wendy griffith.co.uk To discover more of my content and my fantastic free resources to support you in private.

23:04

Or if you'd like to continue the conversation further. Drop me a DM by Instagram at Wendy Griffith live healthy. I'd love to hear from you. Until next time, keep thriving.