Manders Mindset
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a Breathwork Detox Facilitator, Transformative Mindset Coach, and Divorce Paralegal.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
97: Burnout to Brilliance: Practical Daily Self Care with Daniela Wolfe
What happens when a first-generation American with Sicilian roots embraces her imperfections and overcomes anxieties?
This inspiring episode of Manders Mindset features Daniela Wolf, a licensed social worker and self-care strategist who helps burnt-out professionals regain control over their lives and well-being. Daniela shares insights on the transformative power of self-care, mindset shifts, and effective time planning. Listeners will hear about her journey from burnout to empowerment, the impact of small daily changes, and her practical framework for balancing work, life, and mental fitness. This episode is packed with actionable tips for anyone looking to prioritize themselves, manage stress, and create a more balanced life.
Timeline Summary
• [2:10] - Introduction to Daniela Wolf and her journey into self-care and burnout recovery.
• [8:45] - Daniela’s childhood, family dynamics, and how they shaped her perspective.
• [14:20] - Transitioning from social work to coaching and the inspiration behind her career pivot.
• [20:35] - The power of gratitude practice and how small moments create big impacts.
• [28:10] - Daniela’s Eight Pillars of Self-Care explained.
• [36:15] - Building resilience through time planning versus time management.
• [47:50] - Daniela’s Exhausted to Empowered formula and her unique approach to self-care.
In this episode, you’ll uncover:
•The journey from burnout to brilliance:
Discover how Daniela Wolf transformed her life and how you can apply her insights to your own.
•The power of small, daily self-care practices:
Learn why the little things matter and how they can create a massive shift in your mindset and energy.
•The Eight Pillars of Self-Care:
Daniela’s comprehensive framework that goes beyond spa days and gets to the heart of sustainable well-being.
•Mindset shifts that make a difference:
Hear how reframing your thoughts can help you respond rather than react, reducing stress and boosting resilience.
•Strategies for reclaiming control over time:
Explore Daniela’s approach to time planning versus time management and find ways to build balance into each day.
You can watch this episode HERE!
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Daniela's Book: Balance Breakthrough (available on Amazon)
Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people when your host, amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life, will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Mander's Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, Amanda Russo, and I am here today with an awesome guest who I am so excited to speak with. And I am here today with Daniela Wolf, and Daniela helps stressed and burnt out professionals set themselves up for success by overcoming stress and burnout, productively managing daily tasks with ease and having the time and energy for self-care every day. She has been a licensed social worker for 27 years, focused on self-care, stress management skills, mindfulness, relationships, parenting and managing all the chaos of life. Her mission is to empower you to prioritize yourself on your to-do list and learn the strategies to make over your daily life, and I am so excited to speak with Daniella today. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 3:Thanks, amanda, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:So that's an awesome bio, but who would you say Daniella is at the core?
Speaker 3:Let's see, Daniella is someone who does things. I just kind of do. I get things done. I'm highly motivated, but I also have my own set of anxieties and insecurities that I'm always working through and just kind of embrace my imperfections. I've really stepped into that over the last couple of years, especially as I've gotten older. I'm like, well, this is just who I am and I'm cool with that.
Speaker 2:I love that. That's awesome. Is there anything that helped you embrace the imperfections?
Speaker 3:I think, first of all, I think, just getting older and comfortable in my own skin as well as I found, the more I did the things that really felt aligned to me, the fact that nobody, all those negative things that we think are going to happen, or that people are going to think about us or judge us, didn't happen. And I was like, wait a minute, you know, it wasn't about all these other obstacles, the only obstacle was me.
Speaker 2:Love that. The only obstacle was you. Can you take us down memory lane a little bit? Tell us about your upbringing, family, dynamic childhood, however deep you want to go with that.
Speaker 3:Sure, so I'm first generation American citizen. My parents both grew up in Sicily. They came to this country when they were in their teens. So I grew up what I at the time thought of as kind of a non-traditional household. Like my parents had very different cultures. Our holiday dinners looked different, my school lunches, like. I never had the little sandwich with the Fritos and the Twinkies. My mom always packed them with some kind of leftover and had a fruit and vegetable bar, but it was like I don't know. My parents were very strict. They had very kind of stereotypical, traditional roles I would say. You know, my dad went out and worked, my mom stayed home. They provided a great upbringing. I can appreciate it obviously more from this side than at the time when things seemed like they were unfair and whatnot, but just pretty traditional for the most part. Okay, did you have any siblings? I'm the oldest of three. I have a brother who's four years younger and a sister that's seven years younger.
Speaker 2:And how would you say your relationship with your siblings was growing up? Were you close?
Speaker 3:I think it's gone through different periods of time. Obviously, when you're younger, there's different issues you kind of squabble about or whatnot. As well as then, as we've gotten older, there's things that bring us really close, things we're not exactly all the same on, but that's okay. You know, family isn't always about you being carbon cookie cutters of themselves, and I think even being raised by the same people, we all turned out very different.
Speaker 2:Now, how was schooling for you? Did you go to college?
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I went to suburban schools high school.
Speaker 3:High school was actually kind of different because it was open classrooms, so it was almost designed like an office building, where you can stand up on one end of the floor and there were just partitions.
Speaker 3:There weren't walls or classroom doors, it was just partitions and you could see all the way across to the other end of the floor, which was kind of different and unique. It's the only high school in Missouri that's like that. I don't know if there's high schools around the country that are like that, but yeah, so that is a really different experience where you could see other classes, hear other teachers and you really had to learn how to focus and how to be able to kind of zero in on what you needed to pay attention to in order to get through that. And now I work in education with kids with learning disabilities and things like that and, gosh, I feel so bad because I can only imagine how hard that was for people who don't have certain strengths and things like that. Then I went to college. I went to Purdue for undergrad, I went to UB for my master's and I did a lot of different experiences along the way.
Speaker 2:Awesome. And did you get your master's right after undergrad?
Speaker 3:I waited for about a year and a half. I just kind of wanted to get some work experience and I was just a little tired of school at that point and wanted a little bit of a break. But I did get into what was considered an accelerated program then for my master's, because if your bachelor's is in social work, you get to do it in a year instead of two years, which was nice, and so yeah, so you got the bachelor's in social work.
Speaker 2:Did you know for a long time that social work was what you wanted to do?
Speaker 3:So I actually I started in psychology. I thought I wanted to do psychology but I knew I wanted to work with kids. I knew I wanted to do direct counseling and definitely found social work when I was an undergrad was kind of the path I wanted to take to really get more of that hands-on direct client work Psychology a lot of times you can end up doing a lot of testing or there's just a different track to take. That just didn't seem to fit what I was looking for.
Speaker 2:So you get your master's in social work, and from there, where'd you go from there?
Speaker 3:So then I got a job working at a residential facility where kids were court ordered for what's called PINs personality to supervision. So they were behavioral issues. Their parents a lot of times filed the PINs just because they were having struggles with them at home and things like that. So I worked there for about three and a half years and then I got the job I'm in now. I'm a full-time school social worker in addition to my coaching business, but I've been at the school for about 26 years and the coaching business for about three, so I do both right now.
Speaker 2:How do you like the School of Social Work compared to the residential social work?
Speaker 3:I like it. It's definitely. It's changed a lot over the years. You know, when I started, there were barely computers. Kids didn't have cell phones, and so the types of issues that I saw were very different than what I see now, even though there's still mental health and things like that. It's definitely presenting in a different way. I think COVID had a big impact as well. So there's a lot going on. Our young people are definitely there. There's some struggles. We're all working to kind of help get everyone back to a good place. What age range do you go Like? 14 to 18, or so 18, 19. And you know a lot of anxiety, a lot of depression, a lot of mental health.
Speaker 2:So what made you decide to delve into coaching? You said you got into that three years ago.
Speaker 3:So the coaching came a lot from my own just personal journey, going through my own burnout. When my kids were younger, about four and six months old, I went through a divorce and so I was a single working mom trying to do it all, be it all, and I wasn't great at asking for help or practicing a lot of the things that I help other people with, and I found that I got to be irritable, snapping and just not a great person to be around, not who I wanted my kids to grow up knowing. And we had this surprise October storm and I was trying to bail out my basement by myself and do all these things and I just kind of wrote down. I was like I just can't keep living like this. This wasn't working.
Speaker 3:And so I started super small, started gratitude practice daily, started using the free childcare at the grocery store, started taking care of myself, prioritizing, you know, my own self-care and what I needed, and I found not only was I doing better, but my kids showed up better. We were all happier. They were also just learning those skills that I think we take for granted when it comes to taking a break, taking time for ourselves, managing our stress and all those kinds of things. And, you know, not only was I finding that I was showing up better, but people were coming to me and asking what are you doing? How can I do this? Or sharing with me moments that they took for themselves because of something that I said or that I did. I realized I think we're all looking for that validation of permission that this is okay to do, that we need to be taking that time for ourselves, and so I really kind of wanted to start to do something to make a bigger impact, to be able to share that with more and more people.
Speaker 2:Wow, I love that. Now, I'm not a mom myself, but I've been a divorce paralegal for four years, so I've seen a lot of sides to divorce and especially the moms even more so post-divorce have a hard time prioritizing themselves. From what I've seen, a lot you know, so that's awesome that you were able to recognize that and become aware that you weren't.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and our kids definitely follow what we do, not always what we say, you know, and I'm glad that it's had just a positive impact on them as well. They're young adults now and definitely they've learned when it comes to taking care of themselves, their mental health, their self-care and putting their stress management and their own needs at the top of their priority list.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned you started with gratitude. Was that the first thing you started doing?
Speaker 3:That actually was. I remember I'd seen something at Oprah where she talked about just a daily gratitude practice. This is probably in the gosh late 90s, early 2000s that I'd seen it, and she talked about just writing down three to five things every night that she was grateful with. And you know they didn't have to be big things and so I would write sometimes, you know, if the sun was out because I live in the Northeast so that's not always common in the winter If someone held the door for me, my favorite banana smoothie, like just small things that made me smile throughout the day.
Speaker 3:And now, through everything I've learned and everything you know that I already kind of knew but have really seen the benefits of, there's so much science behind the benefits of even just that small, simple gratitude practice. Like it activates a part of our brain called the RAS, the reticular activating system. And so now not only do you intentionally start to find those benefits, but you see them everywhere. You know, if you say you're going to go buy a red car and then all of a sudden you see a red car everywhere, it's not that there's more, but your brain is more turned on and aware to look for them. And it's the same. With gratitude, you start noticing those little moments. You start by practice and then next thing you know you're seeing them everywhere throughout your day, getting those benefits of that gratitude practice.
Speaker 2:I love how you mentioned, like, the small things. You know, I'm someone who's had a gratitude practice, probably for three or four years now, but it was more recent. I started writing down things that I was grateful for within the last 24 hours and almost forcing myself to be more present. It's easy to come up with the big things, like I'm thankful for my mom which, yes, I do still have gratitude for that but I've found I'm even more grateful by noticing the little thing, because it's almost obvious that you're grateful for the big things but, like you mentioned, somebody held the door for you and you're now seeing these little things that you might not have seen before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it is segue into mindfulness practices and there's definitely, I guess they've said, the science between being thankful and being grateful, and thankful is those big things that we just kind of appreciate as a whole. But gratitude has to do with specific moments and there are senses tied to them and that's what kind of gives it that extra power of being just being generally thankful of that gratitude of that moment and savoring it and being able to recall those feelings. Then, when you think of those moments and that's where you get some of those benefits is the fact that it triggers a specific feeling based on that specific action, because it's so tangible.
Speaker 2:I never knew that thankful versus grateful that makes a lot of sense, though, and now post the gratitude. What was like the next thing you added?
Speaker 3:Starting to utilize just different supports, whether it's our grocery store Love Wegmans had free childcare at the time, and so I could just drop my kids off as well, as I started at a gym that had childcare, letting people help me when they said what can we do to help, and just being accepting of that and getting over my own kind of negative self-talk, what I call the mean girls in my head, those limiting beliefs of guilt, of assumptions, of what other people were thinking if I was in a grocery store by myself, without my kids, and I put them in the child care. Just letting go of that guilt and those assumptions and those negative thoughts and allowing myself to just enjoy that moment. That freedom helped so much, as well as, like I said, giving my kids even a break from me. We assume, oh my gosh, we have to be with them all the time, not realizing the benefits that they get from having a break as well as the benefits you're giving everybody else around you that you let help you. People want to help. You feel good when you have the opportunity to help somebody else and so you're also kind of giving back to somebody else by giving them the space to be able to be present for you and help you as well. So there's so many benefits from being able to ask for help, accept help that I think we take for granted. And again, it's a lot of those stories we tell ourselves that we need to let go of in order to be able to start doing that.
Speaker 3:So, you know, starting those practices by joining a gym, I was adding movement to my day. Again, more self-care. I was feeling healthier, I was feeling stronger, my stress levels were down because I had an outlet for them. I was sleeping better because, again, all these things, they kind of add up on each other. And it's part of how I've modeled the self-care framework that I teach, where, you know, it's not just spa days and luxuries and, once in a while, getaways, but it's a daily, practical self-care that you integrate throughout your entire day, every day. And it covers these eight different pillars because there's not just one way and they don't all have to take a lot of time. Some of them are five minutes, some of them are 10 minutes, some of them it's a shift in how you show up, based on these different actions that you take.
Speaker 3:And what are these eight pillars Can you take us? Through them you're able to integrate every day and may involve how you sleep, how you eat, how you move, how you connect with others, how you think about money, how you dress, how you decorate and organize your home, as well as the traditional kind of personal development, of mindfulness, meditation and those types of practices. And so you know I almost use like a wheel analogy when you integrate them together and you kind flow it through your day almost like you were going around on a wheel, you feel that balance a little bit because you're not just so hyper or focused in one thing. And that's part of what burnout. People always assume burnout comes from things you don't like, but burnout can come from the things you love.
Speaker 3:If you're spending too much time in one thing just because you love it, whether it's a relationship that you're in your kids, a business, you can still set yourself up for burnout because you've let go of your boundaries, you've let go of those other pieces of you that make you whole and help create that work life balance for yourself.
Speaker 3:And so, by finding all these different ways to kind of recharge throughout our day, it's like we prioritize having our phones charged gas in our car but we never think of our own battery and realizing that self-care isn't just about being calm and relaxed, but it's about the things that make you feel good about yourself, that make you feel confident. Confident Think of again the way you dress. If you are wearing a color that you know looks great on you, a pair of jeans that you just love the way they fit, you're going to show up more confident, more energized, and that energy is going to translate to everything and everybody else around you based on just that small little action, like these micro moments throughout your day that keep you recharged and keep you energized.
Speaker 2:It's so true in terms of the fit, in terms of the outfit, and I think that's something not a lot of people talk about. Like we hear a lot about self-care, but I don't often hear about like wearing the jeans that make you look more confident. People ask me all the time about I wear a lot of purple and I feel more confident in purple. I like how I look in purple, so it could be something as simple as that.
Speaker 3:And you're going to show up different than if you were wearing yellow and feeling uncomfortable or wearing something that's too tight, that you're constantly like tugging and adjusting and feeling self-conscious in. So it really are those small shifts, the way you decorate and organize your home. You know having the colors around you, the things in your space that make you feel good when you walk, in the sense you know there's so much to sound, to smells, to all those things, the colors, integrating all those senses in your home, because that's where we start and end our day, that's our sanctuary, and it doesn't mean it has to be perfect. Things don't always have to be totally clean and neat and organized. But knowing where things go, knowing where you're going to find your keys every day, is going to save you 10, 15 minutes of looking for them, so that you're not going to start your day frantic and frazzled because you're running late because you couldn't find your key. So that's where some of that organization comes in.
Speaker 3:Is just having a place for things and knowing where they are can just help you have that ease and breathing room in your day because life's going to happen. You might spill coffee at walking out the door, you might get stuck behind a truck or going super slow, and so by already having these other systems built into place, maybe you're able to just respond differently rather than react. It doesn't change, maybe you're going to be later, things like that but it's going to help you be relaxed and be able to think in a different way, so that when you think differently, you feel differently. When you feel differently, you act differently, and so you can just show up differently, by not maybe snapping that at everybody else throughout your day because you started off on the wrong foot. You can respond, you can take a deep breath and be able to show up still in the way that's more aligned with how you really want to answer and who you really want to be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes so much sense, all the little shifts to make you be able to show up better. You know, I love how you mentioned the keys example. Like anything that you know you're going to need just setting yourself up for that success like even goes back down to the habits that I think of. Atomic Habits is one of my favorite books. One of the things that really helped me with my weight loss journey was leaving the gym clothes out. Like you see that, and if the gym clothes and the sneakers are out, it's something so simple. But I look at it, you get dressed and you're prepared, you know. So I love that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is, it's those micro habits. I love that book as well, you know when he talks about the habit stacking as well. And it's those pieces of well. You can add so many parts to your day and they can be small, they can be big. I heard this one trainer that I followed. She was saying how she does squats when she brushed her teeth because she wanted to add in more movement, finding just little ways throughout your day. Or I love my cup of tea in the morning, but I added just stopping for a second and really like smelling it, feeling the work through the cup. Adding that 30 seconds of mindfulness shifts how I enjoy my tea in the morning versus just kind of quickly grabbing it on the run.
Speaker 3:And when I think about we all talk about work-life balance. Some people prefer work-life harmony, work-life flow, because it's not that. Balance has to mean everything is equal, and I think that's where some people don't love the word balance. I see work-life balance coming from our ability to adapt, pivot, have resilience and have boundaries, and when we put those four things in place, you can kind of roll through your day with all the life's ups and downs that are going to happen in a way that feels good to you, and especially boundaries is my favorite B word.
Speaker 3:I think it really helps people get more freedom in their stay, more freedom in their energy, not only by the things that we aren't doing, because people always think boundaries is a wall or something you say no to, but boundaries is also the things that we aren't doing, because people always think boundaries is a wall or something you say no to, but boundaries is also the things you say yes to every day. Like you said, putting your gym clothes out every day is a boundary you say yes to. For me, doing my morning routine every morning. It's something I say yes to, and maybe I'm flexible with how much time I spend on it, depending on what my morning's looking like. Some days it's 10 minutes, some days it's 30 minutes, but the fact that it happens every day consistently is where the benefits are coming from, and so that boundary is still a non-negotiable, even if I'm flexible with the time part of it.
Speaker 2:I like how you mentioned the flexible with the time part of it. You know and you're still showing yourself that you are identifying as the person who does her morning routine, whether that's five minutes of movement, whether it's 50 minutes of movement, you know it's still embodying that identity and I love that. You know I do a cold plunge every morning and I was struggling with some resistance at one point and I was not wanting to do it. I was doing five minute cold plunges and then it came to me and I was like what if I did it every day? But I didn't require myself to do it for five minutes and you know I removed the barrier to entry. So there's some days when I have so much resistance. Maybe it's a three-minute cold plunge, but I still did it and it's still embodying the identity of somebody who does this.
Speaker 3:And that's again that mindset piece of giving ourselves that grace, letting go of those expectations and limiting belief that can then cause that all or nothing where, well, I wasn't able to work out, to get to the gym this morning, so I'm not moving today, I'm not working out today, where, you know, maybe you didn't get to the gym but you added a couple extra, like, if I go to the restroom I'll go up and down the stairs a couple times, you can take an extra lap.
Speaker 3:When you go out to the mailbox to get your mail, you can add movement. It can look so different, and I believe in just having so many options is how we allow ourselves, then, kind of that grace and flexibility to integrate it throughout every single day, because it doesn't have to look a certain way, it doesn't always have to be one way in order for those things to happen. We can kind of base on what's going on in our world, whether it's with us, with our partner, with our families, things like that. It's just going to be different every day and you can find a way to make it work so that it works for you, not feeling that resentment of it didn't go the way I wanted.
Speaker 2:And I would think that would even help to prevent burnout a little bit, because you're not setting yourself up for failure.
Speaker 3:Right, like I said, these kind of activities you're doing not only are they lighting you up at the moment you know people assume okay, I'm going to feel that instant sense of zen or calm or whatever, but that isn't always the case but, like I said, it's so subtle in the way that it reduces your cortisol levels, reduces your stress levels.
Speaker 3:You know, there's practices that I teach people that are short as one minute, that can start to have an impact in those areas. And when you do those things consistently, again you have the ability to respond rather than react. And that's where it's really going to help you in managing all of those things that life throws at you. That helps prevent burnout because you're making intentional choices, not only that involve prioritizing yourself every day, but in how you adapt, pivot and have that resilience in situations. So you're creating that work life balance. And again, it doesn't mean everything's equal. Some days might be work heavy, some days might be family heavy. And by having that kind of flow between the two is how you feel like I've got this, because there's that intention behind it, there's the priorities that you set behind it and it really kind of becomes you own your day. It becomes what you choose for it to be, even when life happens unplanned.
Speaker 2:So can you tell us one of these one minute practices?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's so easy. Sometimes it almost feels like too simple, but the simpler and easier it is, the more prone we are to do it, because we don't want to do hard things, we want to do something easy. So what you do is you set a reminder on your phone to go off five times a day and that reminder is just going to be. Then you set a timer for one minute and for one minute you're not doing anything else. You're not going to go throw a load of laundry in, you're not going to make a quick phone call, you're not going to go scroll on social media. You're just going to sit for one minute, which can feel really long. When you're just sitting and doing nothing, you might grab some water and hydrate, you might take some box breathing some deep breaths to help yourself really relax, do some shoulder shrugs, release some tension. But just that one minute, five times a day.
Speaker 3:Not only do you start to get the physiological benefits of lowering your cortisol, your stress levels, things like that, but you also get the physiological benefits of lowering your cortisol, your stress levels, things like that, but you also get the dopamine hit up. I set a goal and I achieved it. I succeeded. So you start to add some of those positive benefits as well. You start to become more productive, more intentional with your time, calmer, and these things add up. Just from starting a five-minute self-care practice, maybe you set that time for one minute and you're like you know what I'm going to do two today, I'm going to do three, and so now you know it might be an eight-minute practice, a 10-minute practice, and realizing that small little shift in starting with one minute five times a day is how you start to build that consistency that we talked about. That really has that impact.
Speaker 2:That's so cool and I like how you mentioned you're setting a goal and achieving it. You know, it's like that same concept of doing the thing, even if it's a shorter amount of time, that you're doing the thing, but still doing the thing, and it's giving you that sense of satisfaction. I say all the time, the biggest way to decrease confidence is not keeping promises to yourself, like whatever the promise is, even if it's the smallest thing. If we don't keep the promises to ourself, who are we going to keep them to?
Speaker 3:Exactly so. They can be super small, super simple, and that's going to be the most achievable promise you're going to keep to yourself. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:I'd love achievable promise you're going to keep to yourself. That's awesome. I'd love if we could transition a tad. I know you have a. I don't know if you call it a framework, but it's a three-step framework, I believe it is. That you do with your clients.
Speaker 3:So it's called the Exhausted to Empowered Formula and it embodies your mindset, your time planning and your self-care. And, like I said before, you know, I think I always start with mindset because I think when you think differently, you feel differently. And when you feel differently, you act differently. And I think a lot of times people just jump right into the actions. They start with you know, I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, I'm going to organize my house. But without going backwards and starting with that mindset piece either, people have said to me I just feel like I'm going through the motions, I'm not really feeling the benefits, I'm not really into it, I'm not really motivated, and that's because we don't have that foundation to really be what's keeping us going in those benefits. And so, by starting with our mindset, looking at some of the things that, whether it's guilt, whether it's those assumptions, whether it's things we've been taught growing up, whether it's a good spouse is supposed to do this, a good mom does these things, a good employee stays late and works hard and hustles all the time, whatever those limiting beliefs and thoughts are that we have looking at, what are they? Where did they come from and why are we still hanging on to them? What benefit are we getting from them? How are they serving us so many times? I think when we hear those same phrases from a friend, we respond totally different than we do to ourselves, and treating ourselves like we would treat a friend is so key in helping to undo those thoughts. Change our mindset, go from an I can't to an I can't yet, or I have to to. I get to Type of mindset, that growth mindset of really being in a space of accepting and being open to. I'm going to make some changes. I'm going to live a different way, and here's why.
Speaker 3:So we start with our mindset and then we look at our time planning. What are the priorities we're setting every single day? I use a tool called the Eisenhower Matrix, where it really helps us look at what do we have to do, because I think everything gets thrown into one category, which is important and urgent, and that's not always the case. So, looking at what's really important and urgent, what's important but not urgent, so we can schedule that later. What's urgent but not important. So what's important? Like what can we delegate? You know it's urgent, it's got to happen. Does it have to be us, though? Can we farm it out to somebody else? Can we hire someone? Can we work with a neighbor to collaborate and make it happen, but without us as well as then, what's not important, not urgent and needs to leave our calendar completely.
Speaker 3:And when we start to really break up those tasks, we can then plan our time so much more intentionally, and I love doing kind of like a time blocking, and it doesn't have to be super rigid, because, like I said, everyone's got a different style. Some people are a little more kind of relaxed and boho about it and like to kind of just wing it, and other people want superstructure, but having an idea, how long is it going to take? Where in my day is it going to fall? And then I love to build in what I call like buffer zones, so giving yourself like at least even a 15 minute gap between different things You're not stacked back to back. Either one allows life to happen.
Speaker 3:So if something goes wrong, you've got that space to adapt and pivot and roll with it and take care of it, and if not, if things are going according to plan, you now have 15 free minutes in your time to do one of these small self-care practices. Maybe it's catching up with a friend listening to a 10-minute podcast, going for a short walk, whatever you wanna do, taking a 10-minute break to kind of do a walk outside in nature. I love being out in nature. There's huge benefits there. Whatever that is, you've now found those 15 minutes in different spaces throughout your day to start integrating more self-care, and so once you start to then have this time, we dive into self-care and looking at where are you super strong, where are some areas you might want to spend a little bit more time and how can we create that balance and flow throughout your day. So that's like a brief summary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I heard you talk about this on a different podcast and I loved it because I really resonated, not even just with the mindset aspect. But you know, I've talked about this a little bit on the podcast I lost and maintained a 70 pound weight loss, but at one point I was at kind of a standstill. I had lost about 30 pounds, which was great. I still looked and felt better. But what I noticed and then I noticed it in a really random way I was saying awful things to myself and it was affecting me.
Speaker 2:I had started with the action, which I still did receive some results and had some progress, but because I didn't start with shifting and changing my mindset some progress, but because I didn't start with shifting and changing my mindset, I eventually reached a standstill because then I was calling myself the fat kid internally and I didn't even know it. I didn't know it for over a year. So it's so key to start with the mindset, with what you're saying, what you're thinking about it. It affects so much and and you know, I wasn't even conscious that I had this thought until I said it to a stranger once if we don't shift internally, we might see change with action, but I don't think we're gonna see the change that we're looking for obviously projecting what we're, what's in our head, even if nobody else knows that know, I didn't even realize it was a thing until I lived it and I heard your reference and I was like, oh my God, I was living proof of that.
Speaker 2:And then, once I shifted what I was saying internally, I started losing more weight, I started getting healthier, I started showing up differently. Because I shifted the mindset to align with the action, because they shifted the mindset to align with the action.
Speaker 3:I'm so glad that you were able to make that pivot, because it can be that smallest shift that's so powerful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I really like how you voiced it as time planning and not time management. Everybody talks about time management and I also talk a lot about words on the podcast and even just how they make us feel and I just feel like more of a negative conception around time management. It just sounds more controlled, less rigid.
Speaker 3:I definitely like time planning as opposed to time management, because I think it put a lot of pressure. When it came to time management, it did mean we were supposed to be in control and that if we weren't, there was something wrong with us. Versus time planning is like our intention. This is how I'd like my day to go, and you know I'm going to put my best effort in to sticking with the plan versus thinking I have to control it all, because I think we can still have the outcomes we want, even if we're not always controlling it in kind of that micromanaging way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I love that. And then you mentioned the last one with self-care.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because, like I said, that's those actions that once we change the way we're thinking, change the way we're looking at our time and how we see our space in the day, then we can put the actions and then we can start to really.
Speaker 3:I think it's a lot of fun, for me at least, that I call myself a self-care strategist, because I can find ways to fit in self-care in so many different ways as far as how it can look, based on different scenarios, and so this is a lot of fun for me to really brainstorm options with people and it really helped them see how they can make it work for them, because what works for me might not work for you, might not work for somebody else, because we all have different lives, we all have different things going on, and so to know not only ourselves well enough to know what lights us up, but what we have the space for, what is going to work at different points in time in our day, based on different things that are happening, is really can be kind of unique, and so I love brainstorming options so that if something goes wrong, things have to change, you have to pivot, you know what your options are, you still have choices, because I think when we only think of one way for each area, so to speak, we can get stuck, and I don't ever want people to feel like they're stuck, that their day's gone and they can't still find that time for themselves.
Speaker 2:Self-care strategy. So what would you say that means to you a self-care strategy Like?
Speaker 3:I said I think you know I see it as like a superpower.
Speaker 3:I can just see options in so many different ways of what it can look like, even if you're just sitting at home.
Speaker 3:We can look at some of the different pillars, whether it's how you sleep how do you set yourself up for sleep each day, how you think about money People don't always realize your relationship with money can have a big impact on your self-care.
Speaker 3:Money can be a source of stress and a lot of times when we're stressed again, we don't sleep well, we don't eat well, our relationships can be strained, and so taking that time to look at our money in a way that is empowering and energizing, and the energy that comes from money and rethinking our relationship with money can have a big impact in our self-care.
Speaker 3:So looking at again just the different ways that you can infuse it throughout your day, like you said, if you like purple, so you're fitting that in throughout your day, you're surrounding yourself with it so that it subconsciously has those benefits as you go throughout your day Helping people find the things that work for them, whether it's different mindfulness practices, gratitude, helping them to see kind of even get back into hobbies, I think, as we get older, sometimes we don't always take the same space to prioritize the things we do just because they make us happy, because we like to do them even if we're not good at them, and that's the other part. I think we have this expectation as we get older that if I do something I have to be good at it, versus doing it just because we like it even if we're not great at it.
Speaker 2:For, like, for something and you know if like, if it's not a skill we have, we lose a lot of.
Speaker 3:And I don't think it has to be that way. Yeah, absolutely. I think sometimes just doing things because they're fun and they're silly, again, it's that self-care, because self-care can be loud, it can be laughter, it can be just sillinessiness, sometimes having a dance party, but there's so many different ways just to add in those pieces throughout every single day, and so you know, that's why how it kind of rounds it now is is you end with you, you start and end with you I love that and that ties back to everything like to prevent, to show up as a better parent, show up better in your relationships.
Speaker 2:It all starts with you. Early on in the podcast, I had a guest be like. It's like when they say to you on the plane, you got to put your oxygen mask on first. That was her realization that she had to take care of herself before she could take care of the kids. If she's not caring for herself before she could take care of the kids, if she does not care for herself, she won't be able to do that.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. Whether it's your kids, a relationship, job, business, you know it all starts and ends with you and if you're not in a good place, everything else will crumble around that. And so, like I said part of back to then, my purpose and my why is helping people step into that place for themselves. Because I think, like you talked about, with habits, not only positive ones, but we can get stuck in negative ones, even if we know they're not serving us. It's our comfort, it's what we know, and so changing those habits, changing those routines, it's a process, it's a practice. That's why we use the word practice in it. And so helping to get rid of what's not working, change what's not working and start adding new things is it's a part of the journey along the way, because there's always going to be new ways to grow and new ways to keep empowering ourselves.
Speaker 2:So anything you do to help people specifically try to change.
Speaker 3:Again starting with the mindset part and looking at what are the statements tied to those habits Again, where did they come from? And then starting small. As far as when it comes to creating new habits, I think recognizing it doesn't have to be a big, massive action. That's where a lot of times we can trip ourselves up with habits as we set it too big. We set our actions based on the long-term goal versus starting small.
Speaker 3:You can't decide you want to run a marathon and then go out and start running 20, 26 miles or whatever. You might start by walking around the block once, walking around the block twice, jogging half a block and building up gradually over time is how you're going to be the most consistent, most successful, as opposed to taking on too much and then getting injured or feeling like you can't accomplish it because it's too big of a goal. By doing bite-sized pieces, micro steps, throughout your day is how you're going to build that success. So, whether it's working with the individuals, one-on-one they do a corporate training and speaking. I have a book coming out in a couple of weeks and I outlined the whole formula in the book. You know there's so many different ways to help people see where they can integrate this and infuse it throughout their day.
Speaker 2:I love how you mentioned the micro. You know so many people want to start with doing everything and it's not going to work long term because you're not used to being this new person. Even when I first started my fitness journey I talk about this a lot because I didn't change my nutrition right away and I had a personal trainer say to me you're not going to lose any weight, you're not going to be successful. And I was like, listen, I have never gone to a gym. I was not raised with meal prepping and all of this type of stuff. I'm not going to wake up one day and just be this gym rat. Maybe I'll put on that facade, but it's not going to last. So I was like I'm only going to start working out. I'm not changing the diet because it's not going to last.
Speaker 3:I'm going to set myself up for failure and you're already building one new habit. We can mentally only focus on one thing at a time. That's why they say that multitasking is not productive. We're not successful when we try and multitask too much, and it's the same when we're creating new habits. We have to be so monofocused on one thing at a time. Once it's automated, then we can add new things, new layers, new steps.
Speaker 2:I'd love if we could get into your book a little bit, if you could tell us a little bit about that.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. It's called Balance Breakthrough a practical guide for busy professionals to take charge of your work, life and well-being. It's broken into two parts. Part one we talk about burnout, work-life balance and mental fitness, and then the whole second part is the Exhausted to Empowered formula. You get a digital workbook that comes with the book as well to really help you again start to take those action steps, start with that self-assessment, self-reflection, and then start adding those new pieces in adding those different parts and components as they would work for you. So it really encompasses all of it. I just felt it was just a different way to access this knowledge, without hiring me, without seeing me speak, that you can still kind of have a coach in your back pocket, almost literally in your bag, and be able to read and reread and revisit those parts that are going to help you make those shifts and changes in your day. I'm going to put the order right now on my website until October 29th, and then you can buy it live everywhere on Amazon and all over.
Speaker 2:Okay, awesome, and I will link that in the show notes for you guys to click that directly. Well, thank you so much. Have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? Yes, so I'm a big fan of him. He's got a podcast called On Purpose and he ends it with two segments and I've started incorporating those segments into my podcast by. The first one is the Many Sides us. There's five questions and they need to be answered in one word, each. Number one what is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as I'm outgoing? Number two what is one word someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you as?
Speaker 1:Trustworthy.
Speaker 2:What is one word you'd use to describe yourself? Awkward, awkward? What is one word that, if someone didn't like you or agree with your mindset, would use to describe you as bossy? What is one word that you're embodying right now? I'm happy okay. The second happy Okay. The second segment is the final five and these can be answered in up to a sentence. What is the best advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:Don't worry about making things perfect, just do it anyways.
Speaker 2:What is the worst advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:That you've got to always work hard and hustle to get ahead. Why is that the worst? Because I think it's at somebody else's expectations and time, and not always with when we're our most productive. You know, if you're working 10, 12 hours and we're exhausted after six or eight, you're not getting our best.
Speaker 2:That's true. What is something that you used to value that you no longer value? Stuff Much stuff I want to get rid of all my stuff, any particular type of stuff or just stuff in general. Lots of stuff, too much stuff. If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?
Speaker 3:That she embraced life, followed her heart and her passions and helped make others feel better.
Speaker 2:If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow. What would it be? And I want to know why.
Speaker 3:To just be kind. I think sometimes we're judgmental in a way that is hurtful for no good reason other than our own opinions. I think we overshare what we think. When it's not necessary, it's not helpful, it's not productive, the only point is to bring somebody down, and I just wish we wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2:I agree. Well, thank you so much, and where can the listeners connect with you if they want to follow up and get in touch?
Speaker 3:Sure, so definitely on my website, bestdlifecom, as well as I'm on Instagram, linkedin and Facebook, and please feel free to reach out and ask me any questions.
Speaker 2:Awesome, and I will link all of that in the show notes, and no pressure whatsoever, but I do like to just leave it back to the guests. Any final words of wisdom for the listeners? Any final words of wisdom for the listeners? Anything else you want to leave them with?
Speaker 3:I always love to leave at my talks my listeners to think of just grace. Give yourself the grace just to be human. We're all going to have our good days and bad days and ups and downs, and we don't have to be perfect, but always keep working and making progress over perfection.
Speaker 2:Love that Well. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you speaking with me. Thanks, amanda, I had a great time. And thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Amanda's Mindset. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm booting for you and you got this, as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks guys, until next time.
