Business & Professional

n a l i o e s s P r o f & s n e s s i B u

R 3 esettingPowerf Y ul ourself fMental or S Suc hifts cess for : the Year Ahead

Iva Perez, Licensed RTTÒ Practitioner- Hypnotherapy

Whether the last two years of the pandemic have been a blessing in disguise or a mixed bag of sorts, having to make constant decisions has been part of the equation as entrepreneurial moms. Our daily lives seem to revolve around the questions: “What’s going to happen next?” and “What’s for dinner?” while trying to make decisions accordingly.

It has also meant having to make thousands of new choices on the spot and wondering whether those decisions are right or not.

This uncertainty about the long-term impact of our decisions might lead us to think we’re winging it, or worse, feeling like frauds. Therefore, as mothers and businesswomen, it can be easy to experience Imposter Syndrome and feel the insecurity and self-doubt creep in.

This triple whammy of pandemic fatigue, decision fatigue, and Imposter Syndrome is hopefully subsiding this year and a glimmer of hope seems to loom ahead.

Therefore, this is a great opportunity to do a quick mental reset to bring about the success, personal growth and happiness we actually want while knowing how to effectively call the shots regardless of what is happening outside our door . Here are some powerful mindset tactics that we can use to our advantage to achieve our goals faster while keeping our emotional and mental wellbeing in check.

Let’s start with tackling pandemic fatigue. It seems like it’s the hardest one out of the three. We’ve been handling an endless number of decisions while navigating everchanging scenarios with lots of conflicting data and very little guidance. How To Thrive In a Pandemic is not on Amazon yet, unfortunately.

It’s only natural that the question at the back of everyone’s mind is When will this end?

Feeling like we have no control of what’s happening triggers feelings of overwhelm and anxiety in many of us. Especially if our thoughts fall into the realm of the 3 P’s: thinking that it’s Pervasive (there’s no escaping it); thinking that it’s Personal (I’m the only one going through this), and thinking that it is Permanent (it will never end).

So, here are three things that can help keep pandemic fatigue at bay.

Change the Narrative

Fatigue, exhaustion, overwhelm- they are all stories of resistance. We feel triggered while imagining a future where everything goes wrong. Trying to calm down these negative emotions is challenging and only adds more fuel to the fire.

That’s because the shift from anxiety to calmness requires many steps along the emotional ladder. Excitement, by contrast, involves an almost identical physiological state with a slightly different story — a story that welcomes and looks forward to the future instead of dreading it. That's why excitement is so much easier to pull off than staying calm. We're no longer trying to change our basic physiology. We're just changing our story about it.

Another tactic involves accepting the negative feeling in the moment instead of feeling ashamed or frustrated by it. This will actually help you feel less anxious. Acknowledging the feeling instead of fighting it frees you up to learn how to manage it. Accepting it doesn't mean giving up, either. It means you stop spending energy berating yourself for being anxious and in a negative state and instead allows you to lean into holding space for yourself at that moment.

Pencil It In.

Postpone the overwhelm and anxiety – and make a date instead. Set aside 10 minutes each day during which you can feel all these feelings and anything you want! Give yourself permission to not be okay. You’ll find that you won’t perceive the situation which triggered the initial overwhelm to be as bothersome or worrisome when you come back to it later. Our thoughts actually decay very quickly if we don’t feed them with energy or attention.

Photo by Alex Meza on Unsplash

Finding reasons to say thank you truly goes a long way. Gratitude is really the most powerful antidote against fear, anxiety, overwhelm, and stress. The truth is, we cannot be in a place of gratitude while being worried or anxious at the same time.

It also shifts the focus from what’s not working or how we think we’re not measuring up because at the neurochemical level, being thankful helps modulate the prefrontal cortex, which manages negative emotions.

Whether we do it through journaling or verbal expressions, when we are grateful, we are more empathetic and positive minded by nature and we’re able to dissolve negative feelings almost instantly

Powerful Mindset Tactic Two

According to studies[1] the average adult makes approximately 35,000 decisions per day. But as entrepreneurial moms, that number easily quadruples. In between the mile-long list of to-do’s, the endless chores at home, what might be happening in your business, issues with your spouse or kids, and handling finances, our daily quota of best “decision-making pixie dust” quickly runs out.

Decision fatigue was first coined by social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, who identified it as “the emotional and mental strain resulting from a burden of choices. ” When your mental energy is depleted, you either start making bad decisions or stop making decisions altogether. Work, home front, and family are the three biggest areas where it gets depleted. Since in the past two years we have all been running on a smaller mental and emotional bandwidth, prioritizing what’s essential and non-negotiable from what isn’t is key.

A good strategy is to define what decisions have a high, long-term impact while also making as few decisions as possible throughout the day- especially those that we know are a given, like the dreaded “What’s for dinner” at 5 pm every day. Here’s what that looks like for these three areas:

Business

For the most part, decisions related to our business rank high in priority and have high stakes attached to them. The best approach is to make a plan that allows you to make business-related decisions either on a) need-to basis or b) preferably when your mental bandwidth is at its best _ i.e. at times when you ’re rested and refreshed. This helps avoid making uninformed and costly decisions.

Photo by Elisa Ventur on Unsplash

Write down your top business decisions and priorities for the day and tackle them at the beginning of the day when your pixie dust basket is filled up. This might require a bit of detective work, but in the end, you will be able to pinpoint what nonessential decisionmaking we can cut down on and live without.

With young kids at home this might be a challenge, so having plans in motion for how you make decisions regarding your home and family will help sustain your mental bandwidth for when you need to focus on the business.

Home Front

House-related decisions can rank lower in priority, meaning those decisions have lower stakes. Yes, we all want a clean house and a full fridge but deciding on whether we do laundry in the morning or evening won’t have a high impact or cost when it comes to your children’s wellbeing or your health, for example.

Automation and routines can help. Besides meal prepping, what other things can you already establish beforehand, so you don’t have to spend time thinking about them? Setting up automatic bill payments frees up a lot of time and energy. Having a meal calendar in place avoids brainstorming on the spot on what to cook that day. Even going as far as having a uniform for the week for ourselves eliminates the “ what to wear?” conundrum. In a nutshell, set up your day so that you have to make the fewest decisions possible around the house so you can truly focus on what matters.

Family

As parents, we are still making the thousands of decisions we were already making prepandemic PLUS thousands of new ones we are given daily to think about. No wonder we’re mentally exhausted!

Examining your rules is key. Especially the ones regarding your children. What do rules and decision fatigue have to do with one another? Well, living with kids means that sometimes rules are meant to be broken. Or at least tested (daily by the kids) to determine how robust they are.

When we wonder “Are my children testing me?” the answer is yes. Probably not consciously, but they do want to have confidence that someone is piloting the plane so to speak.

The caveat is that rules mean enforcement. And coming up with ways to enforce rules is tiring! The more rules we have, the more enforcing we need, so more decisions need to be made. And in no time, your pixie dust is gone. Allowing yourself some grace about where to draw the line is also crucial. This is where taking a stand about mom's guilt comes in.

We are all doing the best we can with what we have and what we know.

Let. It. Go.

If no screen time on weekdays is your non-negotiable rule, and you have to go into a full-on enforcement mode about it, then do it. And let it go.

Because many times, we do it, and then we’re secretly wondering whether we should have been more flexible or if we are being too harsh. Then we go down a rabbit hole chasing a rabbit that we will never catch.

Go over your rules, trim out the ones that you can live without, and take a stand with your non-negotiable ones. Drop the guilt when you enforce.

Rinse and repeat.

Does it sometimes feel like everyone seems to have it together, and you ’re the only one scotch-taping your way through life? Or using double-sided tape, for that matter? According to studies, 70% of women feel this way. That means seven of your ten best gal pals are also using glue guns to keep their life afloat.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Of course, that doesn’t make the fear and worry of Imposter Syndrome completely go away.

So why do we feel like phonies?

It tends to boil down to a deep-rooted inability to believe we’re good at what we do or that we have value. One tell-tale sign is that it’s hard to accept praise from others believing there is a hidden agenda behind other people’s compliments. It is difficult to fully believe praise towards us.

Another giveaway is we tend to go into a perfectionist streak, believing doing things perfectly will keep others from finding out we are not as good as they seem to think. But this puts us in an emotional hamster wheel waiting for the other shoe to drop and being found out. Therefore, anxiety increases along the way.

As women running our business, we might even have a praise deficit. Especially in those early stages of growing a business when we’re working solo or from home. We might not hear enough praise from others to give us a sense of whether we are doing a great job or not.

Listening to your self-talk holds clues as to how you handle praise as well as how often are you able to praise yourself. Do you deflect praise from others and play it down? When someone gives you a compliment do you automatically give one back? Perhaps you subconsciously think that if you stand out from the rest (even in a positive way), people will no longer like you or accept you.

Social acceptance is a survival mechanism dating back to our ancestors. We had to be part of the tribe to survive back in the cave days. The need to belong is deeply ingrained in all of us. However, modern life has made things even more difficult on this front.

One thing I’ ve seen play out countless times as a Licensed RTT Practitioner is how we’ ve been conditioned to accept a narrative that puts us at odds within ourselves intensifying feelings of Imposter Syndrome and undermining our confidence as mothers and entrepreneurs.

It’s hard to feel like we are good enough when society places paradoxical demands on us:

·We are expected to be nice and play nice, yet "nice girls" don't get ahead. ·As women, we are held to higher standards for work and professionalism yet we ’ re criticized if we are too good for others. ·We are expected to put a strong front professionally yet lose business due to not being relatable. ·We are expected to work like we don ’t have kids and mother like we don ’t work.

Trying to actually live up to these expectations already sets us up for failure. The way we can counteract this is two-fold:

Nurture Your Inner Cheerleader

The first thing we must do is be intentional about praising ourselves. Constantly. Tell yourself the words you ’ ve been waiting to hear. This is where it pays off to be selfsufficient and give to ourselves the praise we want. We will never know a hundred percent what someone else’s intentions are when they praise us. But our minds won’t ever question our own praise.

Grab a pen and post-it notes and write “I am enough” , “I have fantastic coping skills” ,

“I’m a great mom to my kids” . Place them in your work area, bathroom mirror, fridge, near the laundry basket, as your screensaver _ wherever you are sure to constantly see them. These are great subliminal messages to feed your mind about your worth and value!

You do You

Another mental shift is to stop the comparison game. Stop comparing your apple crumble to another woman’s tiramisu. This is how you keep tabs on your mental and emotional state.

Or as I like to tell my clients: You do You. The more we keep to our own lane, the less leeway we allow to Imposter Syndrome to creep in.

Sometimes, the feeling of not enoughness is so deep-rooted that seeking professional help is the best course of action. Just like anxiety and overwhelm, the silver lining is that Imposter Syndrome is highly treatable and the earlier you seek help, the better the outcome.

This is due to our internal beliefs creating a blueprint that conditions our mind into recreating overwhelm, anxiety and not feeling enough as familiar emotional scenarios. The good news is that we can transform and upgrade old limiting beliefs and rewire our mind with a powerful new blueprint.

Once you realise you can change your life through your beliefs, you will discover that you can remove toxic thoughts that previously prevented you from reaching your goals. Resetting our thoughts and actions and breaking patterns of negative thinking despite what might be happening outside our door is the fastest way we can bring about the results that we want in our business and in our lives. When we are able to do this successfully, every single area of our life changes for the better. After all, we’re not only building successful businesses, but we also want to have a successful business that works around our dream life.

Iva Perez

www.themomergymovement.com @momergymovement

Be Real, Mama

“To succeed, be you. To have balance, be you. Be your real self, entirely. Right now. Today. In everything that you do. Make time for all the things that matter to you. ” – Brianna Hosack

Brianna Hosack Parenting, Productivity & Accountability Coach

As a businesswoman and a mother, your demands are many, and frequently, your supporters are few. You are also one of the pioneers that are paving the way for a new generation of women who will TRULY be perceived as, treated as, and compensated as equal to men in the future.

Having clear priorities is, therefore, not optional.

This basically means… no ‘flying by the seat of your pants’ , and really take the time to get to know what matters.

You must have clear goals, you must have a direction you are headed, you must have a purpose in what you do, and you must stick to your priorities. So how do you decide what is a priority? You are the main support beam holding up the ceiling of your life. Without you, your family topples. Without you, your business collapses. Without you, perhaps your community dissolves. Without you, your circle of friends may drift apart.

YOU are the keystone. This means two things:

1) YOU come first, for you, from now on. And 2) Be yourself. Be unafraid. Be unapologetically you in all that you do. The world needs you, just as you are.

“Those in bondage have no idea of freedom. As you advocate for yours, expect & prepare for resistance. ” – Zo Moore

Put on your own oxygen mask first and fill your own cup first. You cannot pour from an empty cup, and you were only ever meant to pour from the saucer anyway.

It will not be easy to pave the way for future generations of powerful CEO Moms. You have not chosen an easy path.

YOU are the key to your children’s success in life. And only if you can successfully raise your children and successfully run your business will you be able to create massive ripples in the world that will impact all women who desire equality and an empowered self, as well as the ripples created by your children’s impact in the world.

No one else will prioritize you; you must be unafraid to do it. Your self-care will support your capacity for peaceful parenting. Taking time to center and nourish yourself (emotionally and physically) first will free up your mind to focus on key money-making activities in your business when it’s time.

Picking yourself first every time will teach the next generation what truly matters and how they can achieve true balance in life. They need to see you as worthy of self-care to see yourself as worthy of self-care. If they see you distrusting and insulting yourself, they will learn to do the same. If they see you prioritizing your mental health, choosing family, and practicing kindness, they will do the same! It is so tempting to put business first when it truly needs to come last to be in balance.

If the thought of putting your business last terrifies you, it’s time to get clear on your priorities. Why did you start your business? Or why did you get behind the cause you are a part of?

Likely, you started your business so that you could be your own person, not just ‘ mom’ … and so you would have the freedom to spend more time with your family… and financial freedom so that you could support the life you desire, cover your needs without stress, vacation regularly, spoil your kids a little, and give to causes you believe in… like empowering other women to do all of these things!

If that’s true for you, then go back to the last paragraph and notice this time the order in which it was written.

To achieve true balance in your life, it must be in this order: Self, family, business. Once your business is successful and supporting the life you desire, you will have the ‘time freedom’ to add in community and causes.

To release the fear of putting business last, remember the adage of Parkinson’s Law: "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. " . You want your business to expand and grow, but only to fill the time you choose for it. Time does not equal money!!

So, how do you know when you are successful enough to add in the rest? When will you be successful enough to be yourself and do these things that you want? There are so many possible measures of success.

Is success measured by wealth? What is wealth? To you, it might be $100 leftover in your account after everything is bought & paid for. For someone else, it could mean always having food to eat. Or it might be a low balance alert on your account at $10,000. It will be different for me than for you.

Is success measured by popularity? To introvert popularity might be to have 10 friends, but to a celebrity, they may feel like a failure with ‘ only ’ one million followers.

helping + being a role model

+ overflowing creative energy… always learning +

Create your own formula and include what you need to feel balanced.

You could also just ask: ‘Am I happy and allowing all parts of my life their fair share of time in the sun?’ Answer yourself honestly and thoughtfully.

Ask yourself questions like:

·Do I have free time? ·Do I choose to take that free time? ·Am I always open to learn new things? ·Do I have money for a little fun? ·Do I choose to have that fun? ·Do I choose to spend time with loved ones? ·Do I have people in my life who love me? ·Do I have people in my life whom I love? ·Do I have all my needs met regularly? ·Am I helping others every day? ·Do I take care of my body? ·Am I consistently learning and improving myself? ·Am I someone my children can look up to? ·If I become wildly popular, am I embodying what I’d like all those followers to emulate, i.e., am I a good role model? ·If I become wildly wealthy, do I have dreams for how that wealth could impact the world? ·What are my ultimate goals in life for myself? ·What are my ultimate goals in life for my children? ·What are my ultimate goals in life for my whole family? ·What are my ultimate goals in business? ·What are my ultimate goals for my local community (if any)? ·What are my ultimate goals for the larger community, or for the world (if any)? ·What will my life look like if, and when I achieve those goals? ·How can I choose to live my life in the embodiment of those goals? ·What is the first, tiny step towards each of those ultimate goals? To succeed, be you. To have balance, be you. Be your real self, entirely. Right now. Today. In everything that you do. Make time for all the things that matter to you. Then you’re already there; already successful. And it relieves the pressure so that you get to just grow and expand your success. If you are truly just being yourself, in every choice you make and in each action you take, you WILL have the balance you desire, simply because you desire it. You were endowed with exactly what you need to succeed, from birth. Your desires will naturally flow in the direction needed to fulfill them if you are true to yourself. Just. Be. Yourself. Fully. All the rest will follow

Brianna Hosack

www.thecalminspiredmama.com @TheCalm-InspiredMama