The start of a new year often comes with pressure to fix everything at once—set bigger goals, do more, become someone new. For many entrepreneurs, that pressure doesn’t create motivation; it creates shutdown. Especially when you’re already carrying mental load, emotional fatigue, or burnout, productivity advice rooted in force and discipline can feel deeply unsupportive.

In this episode, Aimee offers a gentler approach to productivity - one rooted in clarity, capacity, and nervous-system safety. She shares a simple but powerful principle for reducing mental overwhelm by getting out of your head and into a system that actually supports you. This isn’t about planning your entire year or forcing consistency—it’s about creating enough internal space to breathe, think clearly, and take the next grounded step.

This conversation is for heart-centered entrepreneurs who feel behind before they even begin, who know what to do but feel too overwhelmed to follow through. You’ll walk away with a calmer perspective on productivity, a practical way to release mental pressure, and permission to approach the new year (or any season) without urgency, shame, or self-fixing.

Money Mindset Playbook: https://aimeecerka.com/mindset

For the full transcript and all links mentioned, see the blog post: https://aimeecerka.com/238

Ready To Take Action: https://aimeecerka.com/podcastlinks

What if January and the new year wasn't like this time that we

had to overhaul your entire life?

What if you could start the new year and just be clear, like have the

clarity, feel good and in alignment instead of pressure and urgency?

If the New Year energy makes you feel like you're behind, before you even

begin, and if you're tired of trying to fix yourself and your life every

January, or if you're coming into the New Year already overwhelmed,

this episode is gonna be for you.

This is Money Simplified, the podcast where I help female

entrepreneurs go from stress and struggle to unstoppable with money.

Money is more than just budgeting and p and Ls, and we're gonna

take you through all of it here.

We blend proven financial strategy with mindset work and energetic

alignment, so you can create unstop.

Finances, build an unstoppable business and truly enjoy your unstoppable life.

It's time to take my wisdom and my expertise to help you simplify

money and go beyond the numbers.

I'm your host, Aimee Cerka.

Welcome.

I'm so glad you're here.

Welcome back to our final episode of 2025, and we are talking about

productivity because this time of the year with New Year's pressure,

everyone is like, set big goals.

Do more, create your vision board.

Start stronger.

Create the new habit, be disciplined.

And if you're already carrying the emotional load of life and entrepreneurial

burnout and juggling all the things, that pressure isn't motivating.

Like you end up, that you shut down.

Maybe you can get hyped up for a minute, but it's not sustainable and we shut down.

And before we go any farther, I need you to know, I need you to

remember you're not a project effect.

You're not broken.

There's nothing wrong with you, and you do not have to go into January trying to

become a different version of yourself overnight, and you might not need a

different version of yourself at all.

So today we're gonna get into like a productivity principle,

because productivity has kind of been sold as doing more.

You get more done, you're gonna work harder, we're gonna add more

goals, and we're gonna force, we're gonna create more momentum.

And you might get more momentum, but sustainable productivity has a lot more

to do with energy management, capacity, awareness, clarity, and return on energy.

Because when you simplify what you're doing, we can multiply your results.

We don't necessarily have to be doing it all.

Okay?

And this principle.

Is the core of my unstoppable productivity that is lives inside

the unstoppable experience and it's built around these principles.

And we're gonna talk about like the main one today.

And it's the thing that a lot of productivity systems, when you

buy them, they try to fit you into their system, which is why we talk

principles here, because it's your life and it should be customized to you.

Okay.

So your brain was never designed to store everything you're trying to hold.

You've got ideas, you've got work related tasks that you need to do.

There's a kid's birthday party next week that you've forgotten about

that you gotta buy a gift for, and then you gotta remember how are

you gonna get everybody to there?

You've got this reminder coming up.

There's loose ends and oh yeah, you had to get that client project taken care of.

You are trying to keep it all in your head and you feel overwhelmed.

Not because like you're not productive, it's because you are juggling

all the balls inside your head.

So we're gonna do something really simple, this principle, okay?

We're gonna create a system to get it outta your head, okay?

And this can be whatever.

This can be a pen and paper, but like make it a specific pen and paper.

You can't just like write on random sticky notes 'cause you're gonna

have sticky notes everywhere.

Okay.

This could be a notes app on your phone.

This could be a to-do list on your ai.

This could be a document, this could be in Clickup, like a

project management software.

You can have a business one.

You can do personal Google tasks, like we've gotta get it out of your head.

This is it.

I'm not, we're not planning.

We're not organizing.

You're not even prioritizing.

It's when something comes to your remembrance that you're gonna have

to do, it can't stay in your head.

We've gotta release the mental load that you were carrying, and

I know you've got a lot going on.

You're still gonna have that mental load that you're carrying, but the pressure

of trying to remember all the little fricking things that you gotta remember,

that's the part that we gotta get out.

Okay.

Now, end of the year, like this is a really powerful time.

I think just to brain dump in general, like what's worked, what hasn't

worked, what do you love, what's not?

So you can just go into that and if you are somebody who likes to talk it

out, like voice note on your phone or write it out, it can be big things.

It could be little things.

It is, don't forget this items, like whatev those things, right?

We've got to have a system.

Okay, so this might evolve over time.

I know mine for sure has, but like my personal system, I have a

personal one and a business one.

Sometimes business stuff goes on the personal because it's easier.

Personal One is a Google task list, and I actually have several different Google

tasks, but I have a Google task list.

It's called Daily Actions, and when I remember something that needs to be

handled, it goes on the Google task list.

I've got it pinned on my phone, like there on the front.

Okay.

I can get to it from my computer.

I can get to it from my phone.

I've tried things before, like keeping the to-do list on my Alexa here.

And the problem with that was like I would add the things to do to

the to-do list, and it worked great 'cause I could do it like hands free.

You could just verbally tell her to do that.

The problem was, it was stopping there.

I wasn't, I didn't have anything in my system.

I didn't have that habit.

Trained to go check the to-do list and move things off of it.

So things are still getting missed because it was just on the to-do list.

So we need to have something that's gonna work for you when you're at

home and when you're on the go.

That's why I like the Google task for my personal, for the business side,

we've done a couple different things.

I've had specific notes for business.

Right now I have my project management software, which is

Clickup, so I've got that there.

If it's something that I can add into Clickup, then we do it there.

But if it's a podcast idea or if it's a social media post, I end

up that I email myself right now.

I've also discovered if I don't move on that content in like the next

couple weeks, I don't come back to it.

So then I'm releasing the pressure from myself to feel like I need to come back.

Because again, we have infinite ideas.

It's almost like a, it's not a lack, but it almost was like a lack, and

I realized like I'm not going back.

So keeping a massive content bank of all these ideas that I've had, that I

haven't moved on, like that wasn't serving me because it wasn't doing any good.

So we need to create a system.

This is like your one task.

To go into the new year and it's gonna make everything else so

much more effective because you're going to be able to breathe.

You've got things handled.

Take a breath, take rest.

So what feels good is it pen and paper?

I've got, I mean, I still use my paper calendar, which again is

inside Unstoppable Productivity.

I showed the weekly planning sheet for those of you who

are watching on YouTube, but.

Much more of my system is digital now because that's the way that I operate.

I still have things that I track and I'll update once a week on the paper

because I like to see it on pen and paper.

But for my, on the go life, I needed the, electronic because then if I had 10

minutes to work on something, I needed to be able to know what I needed to work on.

And it couldn't be like, oh, that's at home.

Can't get anything done.

And then you spend the time trying to figure out what you need to get done.

And when you have an idea, you need to be able to write it down.

We need to be able to move it.

Okay.

Once we get all of these things outside of your head, you're gonna be able

to see, and even just like writing it down, you're gonna be able to see

like, okay, does this actually matter?

Does this not matter?

Is it something that feels like a yes, it feels aligned?

Or if that's like a, uh.

Or is it?

This is not right now, this can wait.

The clarity here isn't from planning it all out and creating a detailed plan

that we're probably not gonna keep, and then you create more resistance

'cause you're not staying on top of it.

Clarity comes because you're not trying to carry it all alone,

even if it's just a system.

Okay.

And if you've done all that and you're like, okay, yeah, I

got that, Aimee, what's next?

What's the smallest, like, what's the next step that would make you

feel successful today that would make you feel supported today?

There are some people who can plan out their whole year, their next three to five

years, the next quarter, but if you were not that person, don't feel that pressure.

One small step, what's the next doable, grounded action that moves you forward?

Because if you are in a place of stress and fear and overwhelm, you

can't implement the 47 47 step plan, but you can stop carrying it all

mentally and choose one next step.

All right.

This is like our little miniseries finale.

We started with talking about your choices and how to make choices

from clarity instead of pressure.

Then we talked about your revenue clarity number, what to focus on your business

so that there wasn't more overwhelm, and then we talked about your personal

finances and how to regulate with your personal finances and a quick.

Action step principle here to get into momentum.

Then we talked about your bookkeeping, how to get clear on that without the shame.

So if you are looking for a place to kinda center from before we go into the

new year, I would watch or listen to some of those episodes if you miss some.

The goal here is new year.

But a more grounded, more supported, more aligned version of you.

It doesn't necessarily need to be a new year, new you.

Again, no discipline.

We're not forcing, there's no guilt and shame.

We're stepping into the aligned version and helping you feel safe to actually

do the things that we need to do.

'cause you know what to do, right?

We know what to do, we're just not doing it.

So this is helping you.

To actually do the things that we know we want to do and be the version of

you that you wanna be while you do it.

Okay?

So if productivity has felt overwhelming, emotional, or heavy,

again, it's not because you don't know what to do or you don't have

the discipline to do it, it's because you've been carrying too much for too.

So if you want support creating internal clarity, emotional safety,

and be able to follow through in a grounded way, the Money Mindset

Playbook is a beautiful next step.

That is my free private podcast and PDF Guide that helps you shift the

patterns underneath procrastination, avoidance, burnout, the financial,

yo-yo, all the things, right?

And these principles help you be aligned.

So then again, the productivity actually feels possible.

So you can grab that at Aimee Cerka.com/mindset.

Of course, that link is gonna be hanging out in the show notes for you as well.

Remember, you've got this and I've got you.

That's it for now.

We'll see you next time.

Thank you so much for listening to Money Simplified.

My favorite place to hang out is on Instagram.

You can find me at Aimee Cerka to catch all the behind the scenes of my stories.

Send me a message to share your biggest takeaway or just to say hi.

I love hearing from podcast list.

Nurse, when you're ready to take action on your mindset, your money, or the

systems behind it all, I'm here for you.

Whether you're snagging a free resource, exploring a mini course, diving into the

fundamentals with Money Mastery Academy, getting in-depth support inside the

unstoppable experience, or scheduling a complimentary bookkeeping consult to

finally get hands on help with your books.

Your next step is waiting for you, Aimee Cerka.com/podcast links has all the

information, and of course, that link is hanging out in the show notes for you.

We'll see you next time.