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There are 6 common mistakes that create stress and overwhelm for working moms during the holiday season. During this mini-series I will cover each mistake and teach you how to correct it. In today’s episode I dive into mistake #3: not deciding when you will work and when you will not. Without a clear commitment to NOT work, your brain is going to default to always being available and checking email in all the “in-between” moments. In today’s episode, I explain 3 steps to ensuring you only work during the times you planned.
Topics in this episode:
Why deciding NOT to work is just as important as deciding when you will
Your brain will remain in default work-mode unless you decide otherwise
Decide ahead of time, when you will check email on your phone and when you will not
What do you do when your brain really wants to work at time you don’t want to
The crucial moment you either follow-through with your plan or you don’t
Show Notes & References:
Want a tailored coaching experience that takes into account your unique needs and circumstances but is based on the success of hundreds of other working moms? Click here to schedule a free call to discuss coaching and to hear more about your unique plan: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com
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Transcript
Intro
Hey, working moms. If you're just picking up the podcast this episode, you'll notice that we're in the middle of a series the top six mistakes that create stress and overwhelm during the holidays.
This is a six part miniseries to help you create a calm present and restful holiday season.
These short, ten minute episodes drop Mondays and Wednesdays, so there's a few bonus episodes during this series.
And today we're diving into mistake number three. You ready? Let's get to it.
Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast. The place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it.
Okay, so we're in the middle of a miniseries, around the top six mistakes that you don't want to make this holiday season that cause extra stress and overwhelm. And today we're talking about mistake number three.
And here it is, not deciding when you're going to work, and perhaps more importantly, when you're not going to work.
And I'm not just talking about a time in front of the computer or in your office. I'm also talking about when you're going to be available to your team and when you're going to check email on your phone or your Slack messages.
We're talking about anytime you're going to use your work brain and literally move your thoughts into work mode.
It would be a mistake to not decide ahead of time when you're going to do that and when you're not.
And here's why it's a mistake…
Your brain is going to want to keep working.
Or perhaps another way of saying this is, your brain is going to want to stay in work mode because most days you wake up and your brain enters work mode.
It's a habit, and it's a habit that serves you. You wake up and your brain naturally starts to think about the things that you want to get done today.
It naturally starts to prioritize today. It starts scanning for things that need to get done that must get done. Whether we're talking about your paid work or your unpaid work, this isn't a bad thing.
The challenge is how to sort of control your brain on a day that you're not working, particularly when you're not going to be working for an extended period of time, like a holiday or a vacation.
But to be honest, a lot of what we're going to talk about here today to correct this mistake could also be applied to your weekends. If you have a hard time not going into work mode over the weekends, this is going to be a very useful podcast for you as well.
So it's a mistake not to plan when you're working and when you're not working, because by default, your brain is going to go into work mode and over the holidays, you're not going to want that.
It's very normal for your brain to want to continue to work.
And that's really the first takeaway I want you to have as we begin to discuss this mistake. It's very normal for your brain to want to continue to work, to wake up and think about the things that you have going on at your job and to think about the things you have going on at home and the work related to your family and the holidays. It's totally normal.
It all starts with a decision.
I have this conversation with my clients when we begin to talk about boundaries and shutting down your work brain at the end of a workday because the process starts with a decision of when that's going to happen.
It's making a commitment to when you are off work and being very clear with your brain on what that means.
So the first step in correcting this mistake is to decide or to commit to when you're going to work and when you're going to not.
And I literally want you to put that in your calendar. I want you to mark off days that you're working and days that you're not.
Decide, decide right now.
And then the second thing you're going to do is on the days that you're working, you're actually going to decide what time you are going to be working and when you're going to be off work.
So for example, for me, over the Thanksgiving holiday, I had planned to work up until 4pm on the Friday before Thanksgiving.
I was taking off the Saturday and the Sunday completely and then I was logging back on on Monday morning for 4 hours specifically between 9am and 1pm…and I have a babysitter for my kids during that time.
And then I'm off Tuesday before Thanksgiving all the way through the Thanksgiving weekend. My calendar literally has my days off listed and the days that I'm working. It has times that are very specific.
Get really specific.
If you don't get that specific with your brain, it's going to think logging on to work on the weekend or the Friday after Thanksgiving or just for a few hours at night after the kids go to sleep, your brain is going to keep that as an option. And if you have it as an option, it's likely going to utilize that option and it's going to follow through.
I have a client right now who is arguably in the busiest, most stressful, emotionally taxing season of not just the year but her career. And we've determined her schedule together. She made a very clear commitment of when she was going to work and when she was not.
But then things sort of shifted at work and so she had to make a new commitment that included kind of working a few nights on the weekdays and logging back on after the kids were to sleep. And that wasn't a problem, she made a decision about that ahead of time and she put it in her calendar.
But then she didn't really make an end time to that commitment. And so she just kind of continued to work evenings beyond the time that the project, if you will, was complete. And then that started to turn into working every night.
And then her commitment got super wishy washy and her brain just defaulted back to what it normally does, which is to be in work mode and think that, oh my gosh, I need to get more things done. And so I just log on every single day and for a few hours over the weekend to get all these things done.
What I want you to hear is that it's okay to decide to work evenings and weekends, particularly during a busy season or when there's like a crunch time or a deadline, but it should be decided ahead of time.
It should be decided when you're going to work and when you're going to not.
And when that commitment starts and ends, you need to get very specific with your brains.
I never let my clients work weekends and evenings to get something done that they didn't finish during that day, because that’s not how a balanced life works.
That's a life that's very reactive and sort of at the whim of your productivity instead of a life that's based on desire and priorities.
Rebecca: So it's okay to decide to work over the holidays. I just want you to pre-think and decide ahead of time when you are going to be on and when you are going to be off.
And I want you to be very honest with yourself, because my guess is you don't want to be working a bunch over the holidays, and so you shouldn't.
The holidays are a time of memories, of celebrations, of connectedness.
It's a time when you get to be the mom that you want to be, and you don't want to trade that off for work productivity.
One of my clients went on vacation during the summer and during her coaching session, I coached her on having a very clear commitment to not working.
But her challenge was a little less about being in front of a computer and a lot more, about being available to her team while she was gone and checking her email on her phone.
So during that coaching session, we talked about what she truly feared by being completely offline. There was this lack of trust she had in her team, and there was a fear of how she would look if certain things happened in a certain way.
And then there was these worst case scenario fears that came up as well. And so we coached on each one of those, focusing on why being completely offline was really the best thing for her, for her company, for her family.
And by the end, her brain was totally on board with being completely offline during the vacation because she wanted that rest time.
She knew why she wanted that rest time.
She felt she was deserving of it.
We made plans for all of her worst case scenarios and so she was totally on board with how it benefited her, how it benefited her team, and how it benefited her family.
Now, I know that you may not decide that you want to be completely offline during the holidays, but I want you to decide exactly when you will be checking email and available and when you will not be.
The first thing you need to be doing is putting in your calendar when you will work and when you will not.
Decide the times you will be working on the days that you've decided to work.
And I want to make sure that you are considering not just in front of your computer time, but time spent checking email on your phone and messages and simply being available as well. All of that is a part of when you are on and when you are off. So that's step one.
Step two, you need some form of accountability.
Now, I spoke about accountability on one of the most recent podcasts so I'm not going to really go into it here.
But you need to tell someone your plan for when you are going to be working and when you are not going to be working. You need to have somebody that's calling you out on that.
That could be your spouse, could even be your kids for that matter, or a friend or another family member. So that when they see you on your phone they can be like, hey, what are you doing? Are you working?
You are 90% more likely to follow through with this commitment if you have some form of accountability.
That's what research tells us and that's one of the reasons why coaching is so effective. It's a natural form of accountability.
You know that I'm going to ask you about your commitments and your progress and if you have followed through with the things that you committed to on our last call. So you know that when you get on the next call, you're going to have to be talking about progress made or progress not made.
That's one of the reasons why coaching is so effective for people because there's built in accountability, right? So step two, have accountability.
Have a plan.
Now, the last step is to have a plan. A plan for when you either find yourself working at a time that you have not decided to or you're just feeling really tempted to.
And your brain is coming up with a really convincing argument for why it's okay to log on for just a few minutes, to check a few things, to get something done, even during a time you don't want to be doing that.
Because here's the thing working at all times and being available at all times, that's a habit.
And you're not going to break that habit over the holidays, which means you're still going to feel compelled to work at times that you would normally work.
And that's not a problem - nothing's gone wrong. You have a human brain. You just need to create for yourself a plan for when you notice that you're either working or feeling compelled to work at a time that you have not decided your plan for what you're going to do in that moment.
Because this is the crucial moment. This is the moment where you're either going to follow through and be truly off at the times that you want or you're not.
I've done several podcasts that talk you through different types of plans that I utilize with my clients. I call them protocols and I will put a few of those in the show notes for you.
But this plan can look like all sorts of things.
You just need to decide ahead of time what that plan is so that you don't have to think about it in the moment.
Now, with my clients, I teach them that a good plan has two parts.
First, dealing with sort of the default thoughts and emotions that are coming up that are trying to convince you to work right now, and then moving your brain into some intentional thoughts and reminding your brain of your commitment and your reasoning behind your commitment. So two parts usually.
And with each of my clients, I tailor a plan just for them.
Coaching is tailored to you and your needs.
I've been coaching working moms for the past seven years and have personally coached hundreds of women. But everyone is unique. Everyone has their own special brain and their own unique circumstances so everything I do as a coach is tailored to you.
That being said, having coached hundreds of women through this, I have learned a thing or two about what works and what doesn't work.
That's what makes my coaching so effective. It's personalized, but we're also not reinventing the wheel.
Many other women, if not most ambitious women, struggle to shut down their work brain during the holidays and during the weekends and during their vacations.
And there really is an effective way to learn how to do that that I will coach you through when we work together.
Learning how to have a life outside of work.
So if that feels helpful to you and comforting to have me walk you through a process of dealing with your unique brain and your unique circumstances and really teaching you how to not always be on and to learn how to have a life outside of work, then I really want you to schedule a time to connect with me before the year is out.
But in the meantime, here are a few ideas for you as you think about your own plan when your brain feels compelled to work.
Are you going to stop and take five deep breaths?
Are you going to go on a quick walk or have a spontaneous dance party with your kids?
Are you going to get out a piece of paper or journal and just rewrite your commitment to not working?
Are you going to stop and have a conversation with your brain about why you're feeling so compelled to work?
Are you going to repeat some sort of mantra or affirmation over and over and over again to just deepen your commitment to not working?
Don't make this mistake working moms.
Decide when you're not going to be working this holiday season and have someone keep you accountable to that commitment and create a plan for yourself if you ever find yourself off track, which almost everyone does at some point. It's totally normal.
That's all I have for you today. Stay tuned to the next episode, where we will be talking about mistake number four - not expecting big emotions.
All right, working moms. Until then, let's get to it.
