BONUS: The Power of Off-Work Time (and How to Protect It)

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In this week’s episode of the podcast, I’m kicking off a powerful new mini-series where I walk you through the 4 key priorities that support true, lasting work-life balance, the exact ones I coach on in Ambitious and Balanced. And today, we’re diving into the very 1st (and often most misunderstood) priority: off work time. If your evenings feel like just an extension of your workday or your brain never truly shuts off, this episode is going to speak to you. I talk about why protecting your off time matters, what it actually means to be off, and how to start reclaiming space for yourself and your life again. You don’t want to miss this one.  

Topics in this episode:

  • What off work time really means (hint: it’s not just being away from your desk) 

  • Three reasons why off work time is essential for sustainable balance 

  • How working through guilt and mindset shifts changes everything 

  • Real stories from clients Dana and Anna who reclaimed their evenings and lives 

  • The 3-step process of clarity, confidence, and control to protect your time 

Show Notes & References:

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Transcript

Intro

Welcome, welcome to this very special mini series of the Ambitious and Balanced working moms podcast. In my work as a coach over the last eight years, I have had thousands of conversations with working moms and what I have found are the ones who thrive both in the boardroom and at bedtime have one thing in common. They focus on four key priorities that support a sustainable, fulfilling work life balance. These are the very same priorities I coach on inside the Ambitious and Balanced program. 

And in this series, I'm giving you a behind the scenes look at what they are, why they matter, and how to create real transformation through them. Whether you're feeling overwhelmed, stretched thin, or like something needs to change, but you're not sure what it is. This series is your starting place. 

If you're ready to prioritize yourself and your family while staying successful and productive at work, the next round of Ambitious and Balanced is open for enrollment right now. Head to www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/ambitiousandbalanced to learn more and grab one of those 10 coveted spots. Are you ready? Let's get to it. 

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it.

Hey, working moms. I'm excited to bring you this mini series. We're in the middle of open enrollment to the next cohort of Ambitious and Balanced. So this series is a little behind the current experience for you.

And I'm walking you through the four key priorities that time and time again, research has shown how vital these priorities are in creating work life balance. And they also make up the foundation of the Ambitious and Balanced program.

And so there will be four episodes in this mini series that will drop every Wednesday for the next four weeks. And they're going to be short, to the point, where I talk about one of the four key priorities each week.

Off Work Time: More Than Just Leaving Your Desk

So today we're diving into the one that maybe sounds simple, but is often completely misunderstood. And that is off work time.

So let's be clear. Off work time isn't just time that you're not at your desk. It's time that you're not thinking about work. You're not checking email, you're not planning tomorrow's presentation in your head while making dinner.

It is space where you're not jumping from task to task in your mind. It's not mentally managing your team while also trying to parent your kids. It's not sorting through emails while you're also walking the dog. That's not being off. That's just sort of changing the scenery while you keep working, right?

Off work time is when your brain has fully stepped away. When you feel mentally and emotionally disconnected from your job. When you're thinking about your life outside of work, the people outside of work, yourself.

Why This Distinction Matters

It's when you're engaging in life, not in output, not in achievement. And that distinction matters. Because you're not just here to work in life, right? Your ambition doesn't need to come at the cost of your life.

And your schedule shouldn't just be filled with things to do. It should hold space for you to simply be.

In Ambitious and Balanced, I don't just help you manage your calendar. I help you reclaim your life. And that starts by protecting your off work time.

Reason 1: Your Brain Needs Rest

So let's talk about why this is such a big deal. I have three reasons why off work time is so key in creating sustainable work life balance. The first is your brain needs to rest.

We often talk about burnout, like it's emotional. And that's because it is. It's also neurological. The synaptics in your brain, literally the ones that help you solve problems, respond thoughtfully, manage conflict, make big decisions, communicate effectively at work—those synaptics literally need downtime.

And if you're constantly running, thinking and working all the time, even when you're supposed to be technically off, you never actually give your brain a reset. So you stay in this sort of foggy, reactive, depleted state that you begin to think is actually normal. But that's not normal. That's just survival mode. That's exhaustion.

Reason 2: Breaking the Productivity Trap

The second reason why your off work time is so essential in creating sustainable work life balance is that off work time actually stops the cycle of you trying to prove your worth by what you do.

This is one of the biggest mindset shifts that we do inside of the program. Most of my clients don't even realize how deeply they believe that their value comes from their output. Essentially, it comes from their job. It comes from being productive. It comes from checking things off the list, from making sure everyone around them is okay and not disappointed in them.

And when you never unplug, you just reinforce this belief over and over again, that who you are—your identity—is found in your work. And so it becomes this thing where you just have to keep going, right? You can't stop now. Too much of who you are is riding on your success.

Reason 3: Reclaiming Your True Worth

But when you decide, look, I'm done working for the day—even if there's more to do, then you start to teach your brain a different story.

One that says:
I matter, even when I am at rest.
I'm valuable, even when I'm not working.
I'm worthy, I'm unique, I'm special—even when I'm not productive.

You essentially remind yourself that your value doesn’t come from being perfect or being productive. It comes from being you.

Reason 3: Off Work Time Brings Your Life Back

The third reason why off work time is so essential in a life that's balanced is because off work time actually brings your actual life back. It brings joy, it brings spontaneity, it brings adventure, it brings all the fun back into your life.

You can't experience those things when you're in a to do list mode, right? When your evenings and your weekends are just extensions of your work day, there's no space for laughter, for connection, for adventure, for spaciousness and fun.

But when you have time, because you've contained your work, you've decided when you're actually off work, when you have time for truly living, you begin to feel like a real person again.

Dana’s Story: “I Got My Life Back”

I had a client Dana, who was in the last cohort of Ambitious and Balanced, and she used to log back on every night after she put her kids to bed, right? She'd open her laptop, she'd catch up on her messages, she finished slides, you know, whatever she needed to do to sort of get ahead the next day. And she thought it was just what she had to do in order to stay on top of everything.

But in this program, she actually started to track how that time made her feel—tired, drained, disconnected, not present, exhausted. And she committed in this program to not always making the choice to work in the evenings.

In fact, by the end of the program, she wasn't ever working in the evening. She logged off when she wanted to log off and she stayed off. And because of that, she started taking long walks. She started taking herself out to dinner. She started reading books. She started scheduling in concerts and things that were fun again.

And she said: “I got my life back. I'm not just a worker, I'm not just a mom. I'm me again.” Those were her exact words that she told me.

Anna’s Story: Rest Creates More Power

Another client, Anna, she used to work like 60 plus hours a week behind her computer—let alone, you know, another probably 10, 20 thinking about work. But she believed that rest would actually set her behind, right? That rest was sort of a reward for getting through everything.

But through this program, she realized that having boundaries and walking away from her laptop gave her more power, not less. It actually made her more productive, not less.

And she started ending her workdays at a more reasonable time. And guess what? She started to be more present with her son at the end of the day. She started making time for her marriage more than she ever had before. And she felt more confident, more grounded, more anchored, because she wasn't working all of the time.

Off work time is about honoring your whole self, your whole life—not just your working self, not just the doing, but the being.

The Question: How Do I Actually Do This?

So you might be asking yourself, that's great, Rebecca, I'm totally on board with the idea that I need to not always be in work mode. But how do I do that?

So let me walk you through the three step process that we use in Ambitious and Balance.

The first step is clarity. I help you define what off time looks like to you, right? What time you actually want to end your day? What does it mean to be truly off? What do you actually want your evenings to look like when you're off work, right? We have to give your brain a sense of clarity and direction around what you want your evenings to look like if you're not always going to be working all of the time.

Number two, we focus on confidence, right? We actually face the guilt that's going to come up, the fear of falling behind, the fear of letting someone down, right? The fear of missing a deadline of some kind. The part of you that says, I can't rest until all of this is done. Right? We actually face that voice that says, I just got to get one more thing done. I got to get a little bit more ahead.

We coach through that. You learn how to calm your nervous system, reroute your thoughts, so that you're not always making decisions based on stress and based on getting more things done, but we make decisions based on what you value and who you are and what's most important to you.

The Final Step: Control

The last step is control, where I actually help you follow through. Because even when your brain feels really clear on what you want your evenings to look like and when you want your day to end—and even if you feel confident that you are worthy and deserving of that—it's still going to feel uncomfortable.

When your inbox is full, when you barely got through your to-do list today, your brain is going to want to tell you: You got to keep going. You can't rest now. You have to log back on.

Learning how to control your thoughts and your emotions in this moment and honor your commitment and decisions to not work—that is a skill set we build within this program.

Clarity, confidence and control. 

As you walk through those three steps, you actually become someone that protects their time, not because everything is done, because there's nothing left to do. Of course, there will always be more to do. But because you've decided that life outside of work is worth protecting and you know how to do it.

Work-Life Balance Isn’t About Getting Everything Done

Work-life balance isn't created by getting everything done. It's created by deciding what matters most and then aligning your time and your decisions accordingly.

If you're constantly working or constantly thinking about work, then it's time to make a new decision. What if you said today, I'm done for the day? What if your evenings weren't about finishing the list, but reconnecting back to yourself? That's what I help you do inside the Ambitious and Balanced program.

Join the September Cohort of Ambitious and Balanced

The last day to join the September cohort of Ambitious and Balanced is August 15th. That's when you get access to the entire program and process through a video course. You'll have one month to go through that material until we start meeting weekly on Wednesdays, starting Wednesday, September 17th at 3pm Eastern, that's 12pm Pacific, and we meet all the way up till Christmas on Wednesdays at that time.

Once we start meeting weekly, the time commitment for this program is just 20 minutes a day—10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the afternoon—where you do two very specific exercises that I walk you through that make holding your four key priorities super easy and simple.

I only take 10 women into this program and spots are already filled. So now is the time to join. There's no excuses.

Next steps: go to the website, get all the details, all the logistics, and either click one of those buttons to sign up or just schedule a 30 minute call with me to make sure that you are the perfect fit for this program. The website is www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com forward slash ambitious and balanced. And of course, there'll be links to that in the show notes.

The First Key Priority: Off-Work Time

Working moms, the first priority that is key essential in creating sustainable work life balance is off work time. Go this week, commit to not always working.

And until then, let's get to it.

If you wake up most days spinning with 100 different priorities, vying for your attention, then the Daily Kickstart is exactly what you need. It's a simple six step process that helps you get your thoughts out of your head, reset your mindset and refocus on what actually matters. It's designed to help shift you out of overwhelm and into calm, confident action before the chaos hits.

This daily practice is the same tool I offer to all my clients. And it's going to show you exactly how to lead your day instead of react to it. It takes just 10 minutes a day and the impact will ripple through everything—your mood, your energy, your presence with your kids, and how you lead at work.

My clients indicate time and time again that this tool was the one that made the biggest difference for them. And I'm offering it to you totally free.

You can download it by going to www.ambitiousandbalanced.com forward slash daily dash kickstart. And of course, I'll have that for you in the show notes as well.

Alright, working moms, let's get to it.

Rebecca Olson