Follow the show:
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Everywhere else
When you do something other than the thing that you know you need to be doing you are buffering. Buffering is when you avoid your priorities, commitments, or boundaries because following through feels bad. On today’s podcast I’m talking about buffering your emotions. I will share several examples from my clients, and myself, on what it looks like to buffer your emotions and then I will offer you the steps to stop buffering when you realize you’re doing it.
Topics in this episode:
The only thing that gets in the way of you following through with your commitments and priorities is an uncomfortable emotion.
The most common emotions we like to buffer: inadequacy, failure, incompetence and incapable
My favorite buffering behavior is getting a cup of tea and texting my friends
Identify your own buffering triggers and behaviors
5 steps to end the buffering when you realize you are doing it
Show Notes & References:
Have you been listening to this podcast for a while, but still can’t seem to put into practice all the strategies and tools we discuss? Then it’s time to book a free breakthrough call where we will create a plan for how we can move you forward through coaching. Click here to schedule your free call: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book.
Want ongoing support as a working mom? Sign up for the free 19-day audio series: How to be a present and connected mom. Each day you will receive an email with a downloadable audio of 5 minutes or less that will teach you a tool or strategy for being more present and in the moment. Click here to sign up and receive the first audio: https://www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/be-present-optin
Enjoying the podcast?
Make sure you don’t miss a single episode! Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or where ever you listen to podcasts.
Leave a rating and review in Apple Podcasts or Podchaser.
Transcript
Intro
Oh, let me just go get that cup of tea real fast or check my email or answer a couple of messages.
These behaviors are not bad, but when you do them to avoid doing the thing that you know you need to be doing, you're buffering.
Buffering is when you avoid your priorities, commitments, or boundaries, because following through sort of feels bad.
On today's podcast, I'm talking about buffering your emotions.
The only thing that ever gets in the way of you following through is an emotion that feels bad.
Today, I'm going to share several examples from my clients on what it looks like to buffer your emotions.
I'll share in full transparency what it looks like when I buffer my emotions, and then I will offer you the steps to stop buffering when you realize you're doing it.
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.
Hello, working moms. I want to dive into a phrase that I use with my clients. It's more like a belief, but it goes like this.
The only thing that ever gets in the way of you going after the thing that you want or doing the thing that you know that you should be doing or following through with the commitment or the boundary or the decision that you've made - the only thing that ever gets in the way is an emotion.
So let me give you some examples of this.
I have a client who is struggling to put up boundaries with her own clients. Her clients email her, text her at all hours of the day, and sort of expect a response because she always gives one.
We talked last week about what it would take for her to tell her clients that they were not allowed to contact her outside of whatever hour she determines and to let them know that if they did, she would not be responding until the next day.
And that very thought of putting up a really hard boundary like that, it flooded her body with fear.
Boundaries and fear.
Fear of disappointing her clients, fear that they'll leave her and go somewhere else, fear that they would think that she was too rigid, and then they would tell other people that she was too rigid, and then she'd lose more clients or not be able to gain new ones.
Fear of failure and fear of being too rigid.
That was what was getting in the way of her really being able to put up boundaries. So let me give you another example.
I have a client who's dealing with some really tough situations with her kids right now, and it's taking a lot of mental and emotional energy, and she's feeling really exhausted.
And she knows right now, more than anything, her kids really need her to lean in, to give them a little bit more time and to be present in that time. They need her to be sturdy and strong.
She knows all of this, and she's doing some really wonderful things for them right now, but there's just a little bit more that she wants to do. And she wants to give, but she just can't.
And when we started talking about what was really getting in the way of her showing up in her fullness and in the way that she really wants to as a mom in this situation, she said, I don't know if I can, and I'm not sure that even if I did, it would be enough.
Inadequacy or feeling incapable is getting in the way of her showing up in the way that she wants to as a mom.
Let me give you another example. I have a client who manages a team, and she's really struggling with a few of her employees. They're just not simply performing in the way that she would like them to.
And we've been discussing what it looks like for her to really show up as the leader that she wants to be.
But when it comes to these few employees, she's just really struggling. She turns from an open and curious manager to a lecturing micromanager exactly what she doesn't want.
And so we've discussed what she really needs to be doing in order to show up as the leader that she wants to for these team members in hopes that their performance improves and that they can stay on the team.
And so she doesn't feel so exhausted because she's always trying to pick up the pieces of things that they're not doing.
And what she told me is she really needs to be willing to let them fail.
But of course, fear that this will look poorly on her as a leader shows up in this moment.
She fears looking incompetent. Incompetency is what's getting in the way of her following through.
Are you starting to pick up what I'm putting down here? All of these emotions, these emotional barriers?
Let me give you one more.
Let's just talk about it from even a generic point of view. It's 05:00 and it's time to stop working and go be with your family. But you look at your to do list, and then your body fills with overwhelm. You feel so behind.
So rather than shut down your computer to go be with your family and have a very lovely present meal with them, you compromise on your boundary and you just work a little longer to get a little bit more done.
Overwhelm and feeling behind is what gets in the way of you shutting down at the time that you want.
So, with those examples in mind, let me share this again.
The only thing that ever gets in the way of you following through with anything that you want to be doing or know that you should be doing is an emotion.
And let me get even more specific.
It's an emotion that you don't want to or are unwilling to feel at that moment.
You don't want to feel inadequate.
You're unwilling to feel incompetent.
You don't want to feel like a failure.
You're unwilling to feel overwhelmed and behind.
Now, it's what happens next that's, at the heart of this podcast today when you are unwilling to feel potential failure, potential inadequacy, potential overwhelm, potential incompetence.
Notice I'm using the word potential because we actually don't know if you will be inadequate or fail or be overwhelmed or whatever it may be. We don't know. It's just the potential of it.
So when you're unwilling to feel those emotions in that moment, what do you do?
You buffer.
You do things to lessen the experience of that emotion that you're avoiding.
You get to work. You open up your laptop, you check your emails, your messages, and you answer some of them. You check in with a few people, maybe on your team, and now it's time to get to your to do list for the day. And a surge of overwhelm floods your body.
You're not exactly sure what to do. You're not sure what the best use of your time and energy is in that moment.
You may have even decided yesterday, before you left work, what your three priorities were for the day, but now that you're looking at them, you're just not sure if that's the right way to go about it.
So you feel really overwhelmed and you feel confused.
I know so many of you out there experience this probably every single morning.
So rather than picking one of those things on your to do list and just getting started, which may mean that you might pick the wrong one and you'd put your energy in the wrong place, and maybe it will take you infinitely longer to get through that one thing that you thought you could do really quickly.
Rather than do that, you buffer.
You go get yourself another cup of coffee.
You check your slack messages.
If you're in the office with your coworkers, you might get up and go chat with them.
You're not being productive at this moment. You're buffering.
You're trying to lessen the feelings of overwhelm and confusion and the potential failure that you feel in that moment.
Grabbing a cup of coffee or for me, it's really tea. Chatting with a friend or a coworker and kind of messaging someone. This is my very common buffering behavior. I do it almost all of the time on queue.
Anytime that I feel confused on what I should be doing in that moment, my brain can make it sound pretty convincing to do.
I mean, who doesn't deserve another cup of tea? It's very calming. It's going to get my mind in the right place. I'm going to be ready to tackle those things as soon as I have that cup of tea.
Heck, I'm a busy working mom. Middle of the workday is usually the best time. I have to text a couple of friends and get a couple of things done.
I feel very productive when I go get that cup of tea and I send those messages or send off those quick emails or whatever it is. But I'm not actually doing the thing that I need to be doing.
I'm buffering the emotions of overwhelm and confusion that come with not exactly knowing what I should be doing with my time.
Let's say you have a project or a presentation that you need to make some progress on. You're not going to get the whole thing done, but you need to do pieces of it. You need to keep moving the thing along. But the fear of failure is so high.
Rather than start and rather than make progress, instead you just check off a couple of other things on your to do list, right? Easy things. Tasks that you know you can accomplish without any trouble.
Sounds pretty logical and convincing, doesn't it?
I mean, you're still getting a few other things done that probably need to get done. They just may not be very pressing, but they still need to get done eventually, right?
And besides, it really feels good to check those couple of things off the list so that your list doesn't feel so long.
But in reality, all you're doing is procrastinating.
You're not doing the things that you know that you need to be doing on that project or that presentation, the thing that's actually going to make you feel good.
You're buffering the overwhelm and the feelings of potential failure and inadequacy.
Whenever you're doing all those little small tasks, the five minute or the ten minute tasks, you're avoiding the thing that really needs to get done.
You're buffering your emotions.
Get to know your buffering behaviour.
It's really important that you clue into your own buffering behavior so that you can identify it quickly and fix it.
And there's a feeling, it's not actually a feeling, but we like to talk about it like it's a feeling that causes a lot of buffering behavior for almost everyone. And that feeling is when things feel hard.
When things feel hard.
When things feel hard, it's really common for us to avoid doing the thing. We kind of buffer when things feel hard.
Remember, our brains are like an efficient battery. Your brain is always doing sort of like a cost benefit analysis to the energy out and the input in.
And doing things that feel hard requires a little bit more energy from both usually your brain and your body. And so your brain hesitates to do them so oftentimes.
When things feel hard, they often feel confusing as well.
Like, we don't really know where to start. We're not really sure the right way to go about something. And so it feels hard.
So I just want to mention that one to you. So as you start thinking about your own buffering behavior and when you tend to buffer and let's be clear, it's probably several times a day for all of us, this one is likely one that comes up for you.
Anything that it feels hard for you or you're very confused on where to start because there's no real right answer or right way to go about it. And it feels hard.
Oftentimes a lot of buffering is going to come along with that. So what are your buffering situations and what are you doing? What are the actions that you're taking as you're buffering your emotions?
Now, I've mentioned a few here. Getting yourself a cup of tea or a coffee or a snack, or texting a friend or family member, or just completing the easy tasks on your checklist, or answering Slack messages right?
Here's a couple more for you.
Checking social media.
Checking your email one more time.
Organizing your desk.
Vacuuming the floor.
Doing something you've maybe already delegated to someone else to do.
Shopping on Amazon.
Let me just be clear - these behaviors, they're not bad.
They're not wrong. It's when you're doing them to avoid doing the thing that you know you should be doing.
When these things are getting in the way of you being productive and following through with your commitments or boundaries, that's when they're a problem. That's when they turn into buffering.
What do you do?
So you've identified these moments where you tend to buffer. You've gotten clear on what the buffering behavior looks like, right? So now you're aware of it.
What do you do when you realize that you're buffering?
Now, to be honest, this is where a lot of my clients find me. This is where they come to me.
Now, they may not have the language to say that they're buffering emotions and things like that, but they have awareness to their behaviors and they don't know how to fix it.
And so they come to me in coaching to figure out how to stop procrastinating, how to make more confident decisions, and to stop second guessing, how to get more things done, how to feel better about themselves and their work and themselves as a mom.
This is the work that we do in coaching.
We don't just bring awareness to what's going on and label it. We fix it.
So here's what you need to do. I'm going to actually walk you through the process.
How to stop buffering.
As soon as you notice that you're doing one of your buffering behaviors, first thing you do, you stop and you notice what's going on.
Literally stop typing, stop scrolling. Put down your cup of coffee and say, oh, my gosh, I'm buffering. I'm not doing the thing I know I need to be doing.
I'm feeling…and then fill in the blank.
I'm feeling like I might fail.
I'm feeling inadequate.
I'm feeling incompetent.
I'm feeling incapable.
I'm feeling confused.
Once you put a label to it, likely what's going to happen is not what you want to have happen. You hope that it's actually going to lessen it a little bit. But let me just tell you, it actually gets bigger.
Flooded with emotion.
As soon as you bring awareness to the emotion that you're feeling. Usually your body kind of feels flooded with that emotion all of a sudden after you've stopped and you've noticed and labeled.
This is the moment where you actually breathe and let your body ride the wave of emotion.
Remember, you've been avoiding the emotion up till now. It's just time to feel it.
Intentional thinking.
The next thing you do, once the emotional wave sort of feels smaller, you can move into intentional thinking. I have my clients do this by asking themselves a good question. It might sound like this:
What am I avoiding?
Why do I actually want to do that thing right now?
What's the most important thing I can do right now?
How do I know I'm on the right track?
What am I doing right?
How do I know I can do hard things?
What's the one thing I could do right now that would make the biggest difference?
What you're doing in this moment, since you've dealt with all that uncomfortable emotion is you're getting your brain on board and focused on your priorities.
This is value based thinking, priority based thinking.
And then, of course, once you've thought about the thing that you really need to be doing and brought some intention into that moment, now it's time to follow through right then and there.
Don't go do one more thing.
Don't get that cup of tea.
Don't check that email real fast.
Do the thing.
These are literally the steps that I teach in coaching. And if you can take these steps, write them down and go off and do them, then go, go do it.
I want you to listen to this podcast at a moment when you can write it down so that you can go implement.
That's my goal of this podcast, to help you have a breakthrough so that you can go implement what we're talking about.
It's why I get so specific.
It's why I actually talk about the solution to how to solve your problems. I don't just give you the theory. I give you the next steps because I want you to take them and do something with them.
Remember that we are a community of women, ambitious women, going after a both and life.
A life where your career is meaningful and fulfilling and impactful and successful, and your family life feels connected and filled with love and joy and presence.
That's my goal for you on this podcast. And it's the goal of every client that I work with.
But here's the thing. If you listen to this podcast or maybe you've been listening for months or even years, and you resonate with what I'm talking about.
The steps make sense to you, the problem, then the solution. They make sense to you as I talk about them, but you're having a hard time implementing, whether that's because it feels too hard or you don't have enough time, or you're not making time for it, or you just feel a whole lot of resistance to change.
Whatever the reason, if you're not taking action toward the life that you want and following through with the steps that I give you, I want you to reach out and book your free breakthrough call with me.
Don't wait.
Now is the time to go after your both and life.
And if you've been listening to this podcast for months, maybe years, and you keep thinking, if only I could just take the time to implement what I'm learning. I just need to make the time to do the things that Rebecca is saying. If I could just stop this podcast and write this down right now.
If you've been saying those things for a while now, it's time. It's time to reach out.
I can help you create your both and life.
If you fear the cost of the investment, if you fear how much this is going to cost. I want to be transparent with you to work with me for six months where I essentially guarantee the life that you want and walk you through the process.
The investment is $8,000. Now, I know for a lot of people that feels like a lot of money, and I'm not going to argue with you it is.
But if at the other end of the investment, if at the other end of the discomfort that it's going to take you to invest in yourself at this level, is the both and life that you want, is it worth it?
If the promotion, the successful career, the extra time spent with kids where you don't feel like you're regretting your life, if you stop waking up every day feeling overwhelmed and exhausted, if at the other side, was this both and life that you want, is it worth it?
That's actually a question we're going to talk about on this call.
So if you're ready to implement all of this has been resonating with you, and it's time for the accountability. It's time to walk you through the process to get over the resistance and the fear.
I want you to schedule your free call and let's connect.
All right, working moms, stop buffering those emotions.
Or really, it's not about stopping so much as it's learning how to pivot your way out when you realize that you're doing it.
I can help.
Follow the steps here or reach out for a call. I'll talk to you next week and let's get to it.
