Let's talk about why rest is essential - not a sign of laziness, but a powerful form of protection and wisdom, especially during the hectic holiday season. I’ll share practical steps on how to set boundaries, choose what truly matters, and let go of guilt when saying no to unnecessary obligations.

You’ll learn my simple system for prioritizing, delegating, and releasing tasks that don’t serve you. Whether you’re a female entrepreneur feeling the seasonal pressure or just looking to simplify your approach to money and life, this episode gives you permission to choose peace over productivity.

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

For the full transcript and all links mentioned, see the blog post: https://aimeecerka.com/234

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

What if the thing you actually need most this season isn't another

plan, another strategy or system, but permission to choose what

matters and to let the rest go.

That's what we're gonna talk about today, because rest isn't

laziness, it's protection, it's regulation, and it's wisdom.

This is gonna be so key for you.

As we get deeper into the holiday season, so let's get to it.

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 Money Simplified.

I'm your host, Aimee Cerka.

Today we are talking about making aligned choices and letting the rest.

Go, because often we'll feel pressure, we'll feel like we just have to figure out

a new strategy, a new system, a new plan.

But really we need.

To give ourselves permission to choose what matters, to choose what we know to

return to ourself and let the rest go.

And starting today, and over the next couple weeks, I'm gonna go through

different areas and we're gonna talk about how to practically do that to

help you again, choose what matters to you and let the rest of it go, cut

through the noise and return to yourself.

All right, so.

Okay.

We feel pressure down the holidays, right?

There's expectations put on ourselves, one that we put on ourselves about

what things are gonna show up, what we have to get done, external

expectations, internal expectations that we put on ourselves that nobody

else really even cares about, right?

That we've got all the obligations, kids functions, family functions,

um, business functions.

Personal obligations, like all of those things, right?

It's a busy time.

There's a lot of different things that are putting obligations

and expectations on ourselves.

And then if you are a perfectionist or a recovering perfectionist, we

gotta work through that as well.

I really feel like I'm a recovered perfectionist, but

you know, it's a journey, right?

We are always learning and growing new things.

We do not arrive.

We talked about this, I think this was on the podcast where we talked about

like the, there's no magic moment.

Like the, you know, the Disney movies make it seem like we're

gonna have this magical moment.

Like, it's just gonna work out.

Everything's gonna be perfect.

I don't have to worry about anything anymore because, you know, we

found Prince Charming, we hit the income goal, whatever it might be.

But life continues to life after said moment.

So perfection is impossible.

And the sooner we can embrace that, the sooner you feel better.

Right?

Like not to put that pressure on yourself.

Okay?

So survival mode, people pleasing mode, both of them.

People pleasing.

People pleasing is a form of survival mode, but the tendency is

to say yes to everything, right?

Do you feel that?

There's so many things like, oh, we need somebody to donate for this

cause that we're putting together.

Oh, we need somebody to make cookies for this.

Oh, we need to do that.

Oh, we need to do this.

And it's just, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Okay.

But when you center yourself, when you choose without the

guilt, we choose from a centered.

Safe feeling empowered place

you get to choose without the guilt.

Doesn't that like sound nice?

So let's start here.

Rest begins with boundaries.

You are allowed to not do traditions that you hate.

You're allowed to say no.

You're allowed to tell people no.

It is crazy.

And the world continues to spin and you're allowed to choose peace.

Over productivity.

Like imagine how much enjoyable things would be if you just took some time

to rest instead of being like a go, go, go, go, go all the dang time.

And I know as somebody who has a busier life, like there's still

a lot of intentionality for me.

I'm a single mom to four kids.

We homeschool, I run a business.

I'm co-leading a four school, um, our four school co-op.

We have different things that like I'm committed to and I choose very

intentionally what's important and I'm choosing these things because

of the value that they have for me and that they're important to

me, not out of the obligation.

Okay.

We are gonna speak a minute to the guilt, okay?

Because we feel guilty saying no.

But what is the root of the guilt?

Like if you were to say no, why would we feel guilty?

What emotion is coming up?

Maybe fear.

Frustration, fear's at the root of a lot of things like shame, guilt, fear,

probably like our three core emotions.

Okay.

So, but by choosing to go,

we're still feeling those shame, guilt, fear, like the negative

emotions that we don't wanna have.

So.

You choose to do it and you feel it and you don't want, because you don't want

to feel guilty about saying no, right?

If you said no, you'd feel guilt, but you said yes, and now you're frustrated

like they're both negative emotions.

You've already got the negative emotion.

You already can handle it, right?

You're already in it.

So choose the thing and let the fear go.

And I know, easier said than done.

There's a lot of techniques that we use to help center yourself, to

help feel calm, all of those things.

But when you realize

we're choosing something, 'cause we don't wanna feel bad, but we already feel bad.

Like it's almost kind of like permission.

Like, Hey, I'm free, was feeling bad anyways, so who cares, right?

I choose for you.

And your kids, your family, they don't need to see you.

Do all the things.

Choosing rest, saying no.

Like think about the example, the leadership that you're showing,

your family, your clients, all of those things, because it's not like

you're gonna completely ignore them.

I know if you were watching this, you're a person of integrity.

You're a person, a heart-centered person, like this is important to you.

You're not.

We're not looking at abandoning things that are important because

that's not how you operate.

You're not going to do that, but you get to rest and choosing the rest.

That's like a, again, think about the example that you're setting.

Like what do you want your kids to remember?

What do you want your clients to remember about you know that you are a leader

in your business, your family, the self-respect that you have for yourself.

Okay.

Your action step that I wanted to leave you with here on this one, and

it's, it's kind of an action step.

It's kind of like a practice to put in place this month when things feel crazy,

which we already kind of talked about last week with the, get it outta your head,

stop trying to remember all the things.

Okay.

But.

It's a little bit of a different take on the three things list that

you probably have heard before.

Okay?

So once you've brain dumped, got all of that mess that's swimming around in your

head that you're trying to remember all the things that you need to do, you're

gonna pick one thing to work on, okay?

So that's the one thing you'll do.

One thing that you either can delegate, even if it's having kids, spouse,

somebody else take care of for you.

Or if delegating is not an option.

What's the one thing that's gonna wait?

Like this isn't urgent.

This can be put off even if it's next week, next month, whatever it might be.

It doesn't need to be done right now.

And the third thing is one thing that doesn't really matter to

you, you're gonna let it go.

Whether it's an obligation that you said yes to, and we need to find a way to back

out whatever an obligation that's been presented that you haven't said yes to.

Find one thing to let go.

Okay.

So when you're overwhelmed and you're feeling the stress and the

pressure from the season, remember to give yourself permission to pause.

You're not behind.

You're building from a place of strength, not pressure, and I'm

so proud of you for showing up.

And make sure that you are on my email list.

You get early access to a couple holiday offers.

I'm pre-selling a money magnet challenge and a brand new course I'm gonna release

called Bookkeeping Simplified Pre-Sale.

Discounted.

Um.

There's a couple other holiday offers that I'm going to share exclusively

with my email list, so I will put that link in the show notes.

If you're not on the list, Aimee Cerka.com/email.

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.