Something changes when the things you once loved start feeling heavy.

The project you chose. The hobby you couldn't wait to begin. The commitment that once gave you energy. Nothing about it has necessarily changed, yet somehow it starts feeling like another obligation.

It's easy to believe that means you've outgrown it. That it's time to quit. Or that you just need to push yourself harder.

Maybe neither is true.

Sometimes the question isn't, Do I still love this? It's, Does this still fit the season I'm in?

Because not everything that's heavy is meant to be left behind.

Some things need to be released. Some things need more space. Some things need less pressure.

And some things are simply asking to be carried differently.

Work with me:

1. Lighter: finally release the weight attached to your plate www.samanthapenkoff.com/lighter
2. The Leaders Table: https://www.samanthapenkoff.com/leaders-table
3. Breakthrough Intensive: You already know you should slow down, delegate more, stop overcommitting & be emotionally present. So why can't you? That's what we figure out in 90 minutes + integration call 1 week later. Book your Breakthrough
4. Exhale Private Coaching: For women ready to do this work until it sticks and you can't revert back. 3 open spots: Work with me

Connect with Sam: Instagram | Facebook

Welcome to part three, our final part in the series of What's on Your Plate. Part one was two weeks ago, and it was all about what is your full point and how full is your plate and how it becomes full. Part two last Tuesday was how your plate goes overboard. The two things that actually make it heavier than it needs to be. And then today we are talking about just

What happens and just the interesting part about how when things that we love become heavy, because we often think that the things that we enjoy doing shouldn't feel heavy. It should be light and fun and we love them. So why does it feel like a burden? So when that happens, first and foremost, I think just validating that for a lot of you. And then also what to do, recalibrating instead of just

Pushing through or letting it completely drop, and when that's appropriate and when to recalibrate and adjust. So first I want to name what I think is kind of like the paradox. And it's that the things that we choose freely, right? Not the comparison things on our plate, not the shoulds, but the things that we genuinely want.

Can turn heavy. And it likely isn't heavy in the beginning. That's why we want to start doing them. But eventually it can start to feel like a burden, like an obligation. And there's so many different areas of your life that this can happen in. In fact, I'm writing down another example as I'm recording this. But the question isn't, do I love this anymore?

It's does this still fit the season I'm in? Does this still feel like mine? Does this still suit me? Does this still wanna be something that I pursue? And if yes, how can I make it feel better?

So before we get into actually solving this or fixing it, I want to give some examples of how this might show up in different areas of your life, at least how it's been showing up in mine. So a few different things that come to me straight off the top of my head. The first one is my newsletter. This is something that I did for not a full year straight.

I started it in May and ended it in January. So counting on my fingers, however many months that is. But I loved my newsletter. It truly brought me joy for so many reasons. And I started it when I was off of social media. So I think it gave me that creative outlet when I wasn't creating content, but I kept doing that for months. And I just loved

Pouring me into it. It truly felt like something that was me that wasn't AI and it wasn't anybody else, right? I was adding my own pictures in there. I remember I did one email about when I was little, why I said my favorite color was red. And I pi uploaded a picture of when I don't know, I was probably seven or eight, and I was.

with my twin sister. It was me and her, and I was in a red swimsuit. It was just so fun and personal and I enjoyed doing it. But then in January, you'll hear another thing later on in this episode that happened in January, but I just started to question a lot in my business. And that was one thing that I it was so quiet, but it was in the back of my mind where I was like, should I not do my newsletter?

And it really stemmed from not, do I love this? Because I still enjoyed doing it, but I realized that my conversion rate for my business, for getting actual paying clients, right, that support me in life, that support me and Griffin and literally my my life, my career, no one came from my newsletter. And I know that.

Least in the business world, they say that there's so many touch points, right? You don't know how many newsletters that one person read before she reached out to you on Instagram. And you think that it was your Instagram posts and whatnot, but no one came to me from my newsletter. I am such a relationship person. I convert best through talking to people, even if it is like DMs, not one on one or whatever the case.

And I just questioned, even though I love writing the newsletter, what if I didn't? I would have so much more time. And that felt freeing. That felt like permission. And so I kind of tested it. At first, I was like, you know, I don't fully love the idea of letting it go. I'm just gonna write two newsletters a month instead of four, because I was writing these weekly.

And so I did two, which lasted, I believe, one month, maybe two. And then I just let it go. And I let it go. I didn't force myself to bring it back. Nobody ever mentioned anything. And it felt good. And I realized that newsletter fit me for a season. It got me to where I wanted to be. It filled me fully wholly, you know, like in my body, until it didn't. And that's okay.

The idea that I jotted down earlier was book club. When I was living in Boston, I joined a book club with some friends. We all started it together. And at first it was fun. And I was reading the book and, you know, going to drink the wine and have the snacks. And I really think I only read the first book. And then we started the second book. And I did not read any of it. And I truly felt so much pressure to quickly read cliff notes, like on the way to

Our book club meeting. And then I felt like I had to speak up when I was there. And you guys, these were my friends. I could literally have just said I didn't read it. But at the time, in my 20s, I was like, I don't want to admit that. but it eventually became heavy. So that's just a lighter example of something that I enjoyed. And then I was just like, I would rather be doing something else, or I would rather be there, right? I don't need to drop that entirely.

I just need to be honest and say, I'm not gonna read. I'm just gonna come for the wine and the conversation. And when you guys talk about the book, I'm gonna be really interested in it, but not read it. Right. So that's how I could have recalibrated that. And then another really quick example is Griffin in sports, my son. So he really did enjoy participating in sports like swimming, soccer.

I feel like we did one other one, but he liked participating in those when I was with him. And a lot of things are parent-led, practices are parent-led until you're four. So up until three, when I could be there, he loved it. But when they say, Okay, parents, you're on the sidelines, it was like meltdown city. He did not want to participate. Last summer, when Griffin was four, is when I experienced that. And he did not want to go to practices.

And things that felt fun and not only fun but educational and skill building. And there's so many positive things that come from playing sports, started to feel heavy. And like I didn't gymnastics we've done, but I didn't want to feel like a battle twice a week now to get to practices. And so I made the decision.

This summer I asked him if he wants to play sports.

I showed him videos of different sports to see if he might want to try lacrosse or baseball. And he could just kept saying, Nope, nope, nope, not if you're not doing it with me. And I said, okay, this summer I'm gonna let you be a kid. We're gonna have no responsibilities. And it has been so freeing. So this is where, as you start to think of your ideas, I wanna just share with you the difference between like completely dropping something.

And not doing it anymore, kind of like my newsletter and Griffin in sports currently, versus recalibrating and moving something around as you know, two different solutions to the same heaviness. And my example for you here is having a podcast. I've talked to so many people that have had a podcast. In fact, I wish I came in with a statistic for you here, because there are

gosh, so many podcasts that have 10 episodes. And if you make it past 10 episodes, you're pretty much guaranteed to be in the top 10% of all podcasts or something. Maybe not that, but still, it's super high. And then most people fall off. But I know of a lot of people that have worked hard at their podcast. They've had a top podcast, and then eventually it becomes heavy. There's a real-time commitment to it. You need to think of ideas, there's a creativity.

burden to it, right? And eventually it becomes not joyful for them and or it's not benefiting them. But I even have a friend, Corinne, who had a podcast and it was successful. I think she was even getting money from it and sponsorships from it, but it wasn't worth it to her in that season. And so she chose to stop doing it. Myself, I have a podcast, obviously, and for me it started to become heavy.

And it became heavy last year. And it was January. That other thing that I was questioning was this podcast. Because around last year, this time, and the next the following months, I was not really enjoying podcasting. It was truly just one more thing I had to do. And I was starting to question why. And this is the example of how I was able to recalibrate it because.

I didn't want to drop it right away, kind of like my newsletter. I didn't want to drop it, but I was asking, how can I make it feel better for myself? And with the difference between my newsletter and my podcast is with my newsletter, I recalibrated. I tried it twice a month, and pretty quickly I was like, nope, not doing this. With my podcast, I it was so much deeper. I realized that the reason that I wasn't enjoying it was because

I was putting so much pressure on myself, so much pressure to reach the right listeners. and to do so, I was putting pressure on the titles that I had, the types of episodes that I had, what I was saying in each episode. And to do all of that, I was heavily using AI, not to script my episodes.

But to outline it so that I didn't miss anything. And every time I had an episode, I would use AI and I was like, how is this outline? Am I missing anything? Should I add anything to make sure that by the end there's a conversion of some sort? It just became so heavy. And mind you, I wasn't even on social media at the time. So none of this is even then. I need to share it on YouTube, create slides for Instagram.

All of this stuff. I wasn't doing any of that. And I still am not doing any of that. I literally just post my episode. So thank you for listening because this is a top podcast, all because of the listeners, zero social media engagement. But, anyways, I realized that's why it felt heavy. And go back and listen to my January episode. Bear with me as I'm scrolling back.

210, episode 210 was my January 6th episode with my rebrand. I rebranded entirely because I drew a line in the sand and I was like, I am not going to be doing my podcast like this anymore. I want to be authentic. I want to have episodes that I love. I completely scrapped my intro for a month or two there. I was redoing my intro. I was like, I need to say the right thing in my intro.

And I no longer have an intro. And it just feels so much better. And on that other episode, 210, I go through all the changes and it feels so much better. And the statistics are showing me that my podcast is growing. You guys are loving it. My listeners are binging episodes now. And it feels amazing. And so that's how I recalibrated it. Is it was heavy. I questioned it.

And I found a way that proved that I actually enjoyed it. And now it's like literally my favorite thing to do again. So when you have something that does that you used to love, you started it because you loved it, and now it's feeling heavy. On Thursday, in a couple of days, our episode is going to be strategic journaling prompts, where I'll take you through how to actually recalibrate. But the one single question that I'll give you today that will help you identify a lot is.

How can I change this to feel better and see what comes up? That will determine which path you go down. Either let's just drop it, that feels easier, or it's worth it to recalibrate a little bit. And so to tie this all together, we went over our full point. That's really your capacity and how your capacity changes every day, but definitely.

Every season, different years, what's going on in your life. We also went over what makes your plate heavier, different seasons, but then also shoulds and comparisons and things that shouldn't even be on your plate, things that make your plate heavier, but that do still need to be there. And the complimentary journaling episodes to both of those help you identify why your plate is heavier, and then also why the heavier things on your plate are still there versus releasing it. And today has been all about.

What keeping things on your pl today has been about the things that you've enjoyed and what should stay on your plate versus what you should maybe drop, even when they did bring you joy. And the complimentary episode to this, as you know, is going to help you make that decision and take action from there. So I hope, I hope that you loved.

So I hope that you have loved this series. If you want to tap in even more into all of this and truly embody that lighter feeling, right? And recalibrate your to-do list, but also and most importantly, rewire how your brain thinks about it so that your second job isn't making sure you don't forget anything or needing to remember everything.

But you're truly relaxed and present and in the moment physically. That's what my 12-week experience lighter is for. So click the link in the show notes to learn all about that. Thank you so much for being here. I'll see you on Thursday if you're gonna journal through that. Otherwise, truly thank you so much for being a listener of Beyond Awareness, and I'll see you next time.