Its time to take back your life (stop doing things just because it’s expected)

Welcome to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, also known as the Geeky Girl. In this podcast, we’re going to be talking about some amazing things to help you get over overgiving. Hi and welcome to this episode of the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. I have to say this is well timed. I am recording this towards the end of the year where it seems to get busier. Not only are there a lot of things happening around the world in my life and, but also businesses tend to pick up a lot at this particular time of year.

There is the end of the year crunch, but then there’s also the new year’s coming. There’s a whole lot of energy that happens here. So This episode is for you. I named it. It’s time to take your life back. Stop doing things just because it’s expected. It’s like one of the things that I think is most important as entrepreneurs, we can get stuck in these strange movements in where we think we have to do this.

So and so said we should, so therefore should we do. I should do this. I should do that. I should, oh my gosh, we should all over ourselves. So let’s take a moment and think about what our life really needs to be. What do we want it to be? What is our business? Well, you have so much power in your hands in terms of how you want this to work out.

So let’s talk about it. One of the things that’s really important when we think about taking your life back or stopping doing things that just don’t feel right to anymore is reevaluating expectations, not just your expectations. So there’s a lot of expectations that are put upon us. So we have expectations.

. Maybe your spouse has expectations of you. Maybe your children have expectations of you. Maybe you’ve got clients that have expectations of you. Maybe you have people who are watching you that have expectations of you. Then we have our own expectations.

When you have all of those things together and they’re smushed into our brain, it can be really overwhelming. It can be very, very heavy to carry around all of those expectations. So taking a look at those expectations that are being placed on you or that you’ve placed on yourself, Ask yourself, do those expectations align with your personal values, the goals that you’ve set for yourself, and what priorities you have when, when you’re unsure about where you’re headed, if you don’t know what it is that you want, everybody else is gonna be more than happy to let you know what they want from you.

So this is an opportunity for you to really take a step back and say, what is it that I want of myself? What is it that I want my life to look like? We have a freebie actually on our website that’ll help you to look at what it is you want for your life, to actually see things from a different angle and maybe get some clarity into how you want to see your life.

We will drop that down in the show notes for you underneath this video. If you’re listening to this on audio, it’ll be in the show notes. I want you to have this beautiful. Exercise so that you can craft your own beautiful life. Part of it is looking at that concept of, you know, the personal values, your goals, your priorities, and the way that I ask you the questions and it allows you to walk through a path that seems a lot less unencumbered when trying to come up with those things.

So it allows you to really look at. What it is you want to be able to say, does that align with me? So when you have something new come across your desk, does it make sense? Does it contribute to my wellbeing? Does it, does it actually add to my long term objectives? One of the, this is one of the biggest lessons I learned in business.

Cost me a lot of money, cost me a lot of time and cost me a lot of stress when I wasn’t. Understanding exactly where I wanted to head. I just assumed that somebody else knew the right answer for me. We all know what happened. We assume right. First three letters out of you and me. So when you think about.

You know, if somebody said to you, Oh, does that align with your values? Does that align with your long term objectives? If you’re like, Oh dear, on the headlights, I’m not sure you really should get that freebie and that’s a good place to start. Then I want you to just, you know, think about what are some ways that I can get to a place where I understand what that looks like.

Defining your priorities is important and your priorities will shift as your life changes. When I started my business in 2009, my priorities were to make sure that I was able to take my daughter to all her hockey games. I was able to be dressing her mom. I was able to be there for other kids whose parents weren’t able to drive them.

That was a big priority for me. Now it’s less of a priority. My children are grown. My youngest is no longer needing me to drive her around because she’s got her own car. She’s pretty much done university. She’ll be on her own soon. So those priorities have shifted. So now what are my priorities? Okay, so just because you’ve set your priorities in the past doesn’t mean they still align to where you are in your life today.

So it is important to revisit these things as well. When you can figure out what’s important to me, what are my priorities, where is it that my time matters, where do I want to spend my time, who do I want to spend my time with, then it becomes easier to make decisions. When we set boundaries. This is where clarity comes in.

Our boundaries can get frayed or maybe even a blurred a little bit because we sort of let go and we relax. This happens to me throughout the year, actually. I would say it’s cyclical in the year because my boundaries get a little more relaxed in July and August because I’m doing holidays. You know, our workflow is a little different during those times.

It’s much more of a relaxed pace. And then all of a sudden, by the time October hits, we are crazy. And with those boundaries that got blurred, things get a little Cray cray. So understanding what those boundaries are, and that comes from your priorities where, you know, like if you’re like, my priority is, I’ll give you some of mine.

My priority is I need to make sure I’m sleeping well. My priority needs to make sure that I have time to read fiction books. My priority is that I am able to spend time with my husband and my family. These are things that are important to me. And if I am constantly working, then that’s going to encroach in those other things.

If I’m putting 16 hour days in, I’m not going to have time for those other things that I want to do. You need to eat. You need to sleep. You need to drink water. These are all things that are really important to you. So how does that all fit in? You can have it all. You just might not be able to hit all your goals as quick as you want.

That’s just the truth. Okay. However, when you do set boundaries, it is It’s really important from a boundary perspective that you understand that it’s your own internal self saying, Hey, here’s my boundaries. Those boundaries can be emotional boundaries. They can be energetic boundaries. They can be financial boundaries.

They can be time boundaries. There’s lots of different kinds of boundaries we can create in our lives. But when you do set them, understand that that is a boundary you’ve set inside your own head and nobody else knows that boundary, but you. So when somebody walks over the boundary steps on it.

Shushes it with their toes. You know, throws a slurpee over it, whatever the case may be. When somebody takes an action against your boundary, it’s important for you to reinforce that boundary. Setting the boundary is crucial. However, it is very important that you also protect that boundary. So if somebody has walked over the boundary, somebody’s touched the boundary, let them know, Hey, you know what?

Nope, sorry. That’s the thing, right? It’s very important. My clients know I don’t work evenings and I don’t work weekends. If I happen to be working on something on evenings and weekends, that’s my own choice. It’s not because my client called me at five o’clock at night on a Friday and said, this has to be done in the next two hours, not going to happen.

My clients know this about me. They know how we work. They know how we operate. They know how important it is that we have time with our families. If they don’t agree with that, then it’s not a good fit to us to work with, for us to work together. And there’s no point in pursuing that relationship. That’s a boundary.

And it’s important for me to reinforce it. So if a client messages me at 5 o’clock at night, and we don’t hit, we don’t actually message them back until the next morning and they get upset, we can say, Hey, sorry, you know what? That email did come in after hours. We did hit you back first thing the next morning though.

Always make sure that you are keeping those lines of communication open. You are clear about your boundaries with people and reinforce them. It is not their job to understand what your boundaries are necessarily, however, it is important to, to show them what those boundaries are. Obviously, if somebody’s continuing to smash into the boundary, to try to erase it, to jump over it, to get in your face, your relationship will fail, or at least your relationship will suffer for that. Now, somebody who refuses to abide by your boundaries is somebody is different than somebody who just messes up at the end of the day, everybody else is running their own lives as well.

And so sometimes it’s difficult to remember what somebody else’s boundaries are. And if you reinforce and they apologize, or they re you reinforce and they throw up their hands up and say, Oh, I forgot you had that boundary. That’s different than somebody that goes, yeah, but I need your time. Yeah, but you need to do this for me.

Those are two different types of situations, right? So when we reinforce our boundaries and we come up against somebody who is not willing to accept your boundaries, then my opinion, and this is, comes from the way we do business here, is that this is now a time for us to have a. Very, very honest communication about what our boundaries are.

What does this look like? Is this no longer going to work in a business relationship together? Is it time to part ways? Those kinds of questions. Okay. It can be difficult to have those conversations, but having those conversations is really, really important. for you as a business owner so that you can actually feel free in the way that you work.

I know we’re hearing a lot on social media about being your authentic self and, you know, embracing who you are. And one of those ways is being able to set those boundaries and to be clear about them. When you are, it frees up a lot of mental space for you. It allows you to be much more creative and have a lot more fun in your business for sure.

Okay. So, this next piece ties into the same thing I just talked about, embracing the authenticity. Okay. There are a lot of societal pressures on you and how you do your business. That’s the truth. Depending on a lot of the factors that are in your life. Your race, religion, your gender, all of the things that make us as human beings can sometimes be part of that external pressure or external desire for us to conform to a certain way.

Years ago, I remember doing videos and people would constantly comment, You’re not wearing makeup. You should wear makeup. You’d look prettier with makeup. Oh, people listen to if you wear makeup. I can’t stand makeup. I have never enjoyed it, never wanted any part of it. I mean, I did when I was a kid a little bit, played with it, but I’ve never really embraced it.

It’s never been something I’ve enjoyed. And I remember having to bash my head against that wall a few times. And my boundary was strong. If you don’t want to listen to me, because on video, I’m not wearing mascara and lipstick, I mean, bye. It was hard for me to get to that point. It was something that was an external pressure.

It was a form that people wanted me to conform to. They wanted me to be something that I wasn’t. And so being authentically me and standing up for that allowed me to be able to show up who I am. If I had to go through and paint my face and do all the things I had to do to conform to those things before I showed up here, I would never be here.

Because it’s too much work? No, maybe. Cause it doesn’t feel like me. I would show up like somebody else and I’d be constantly worried about whether or not I looked right. I am not focused on those things. And if somebody doesn’t want to listen to me because of that, then that’s fine too. Right? I am comfortable with that today.

I haven’t always been comfortable. Obviously years ago, it was a big deal, but when you do embrace your authentic self and when you live in alignment with your true values, and when you stop doing the things just because they’re expected of you. You will open the door to be more genuine to have a more fulfilling life, to have a more fulfilling business, to, you heard the concept of, you know, filling your cup first so that you can fill other people’s.

I think about it when I think about my business, when I am overwhelmed and overworked and frustrated and cranky and not able to do the things I want to do from the constraints that are happening around me. My cup is not even close to full, but when I am able to embrace my authentic self, when I get to show up as who I am, when I get to bring value to the people around me and I get to surround myself with amazing human beings, my cup overflows.

I literally am flowing my cup into whoever wants to throw that cup underneath there. To me, that’s more valuable than trying to conform and trying to break, break myself basically to social and external pressures. It’s not even bending. I feel like I’m breaking when I’m trying to do that. So when we’re looking at taking your life back and stop doing things that you just think you should do, you are cultivating a more mindful lifestyle and your lifestyle is part of your business and how you work.

Now, you are not your business and your business is not you. That’s not where I’m going with this because the minute you let go of that and you can look at your business as the thing that it is as opposed to it being your baby or connected to your heart, you You will make some better strides in your business, I promise.

But when you are able to look after yourself and show up as who you are, that analogy I shared with you about my cup running over, about literally spilling over with anybody could just put their cup underneath to grab some. That type of concept, when I am in that headspace. When I am there, I am powerful.

I am able to bring joy and I’m able to bring amazing things to the people who I’m trying to assist and help and grow. So this is where taking your life back takes you. Allowing you to get to that point where you feel so abundant that you are overflowing with amazing things. It allows you to be present in the moment.

Another hard lesson for me, when my kids were younger, I would work and think, I wish I was with my kids. And when I was with my kids, I was like, I wish I was at work. When I let go of that and I became more present, I was like, I’m, I’m at work right now. And when I’m at work, I’m doing work things. I’m not wasting my energy on worrying about the kids.

They’re well looked after whether they were at school with their daycare, whatever they were at, they were being well looked after with their father, whatever the case may be. I’m focusing my work. My work became much more valuable. My work became clearer. My work became more easy to accomplish. And then the same with my kids.

When I was with my kids, I wasn’t doing work. I was focused on my kids. I was present. We were able to have fun. We were able to enjoy each other without that cloud of work hanging over top of my head. Really powerful lesson. It comes back to how we put up our boundaries, how we choose to say what’s important to us, what are our priorities.

The, those things are all really important into cultivating this mindful way of living and mindful way of practicing our businesses as well. Okay. Being present in the moment allows you to make more conscious choices about how you want to spend your time and your energy, but it also allows you. to be able to look at an opportunity and say, does that fit?

You become much more intentional, and it’s a much more satisfying way to live. Now, not telling you that that is the answer, and once you fix, once you write all this stuff down, it’ll be good forever, because that’s not the truth. You will have times in your life when it will slip. And that’s okay, because if you’ve got this tool already, if you’ve done the work on that freebie that I have for you, or you have done the work into understanding what this looks like for you, you can go back and do it again.

And when life changes, you can go back and do it again, because if anything else is consistent in the world is that everything changes. I hope you have a fantastic week, and I look forward to talking to you next week. Bye now.