Real Happy Mom

Practical tips and encouragement for moms

Does Work-Life Balance Exist? Hacks for Finding Balance While Getting More Control and Time

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Work-life balance is something that we hear about often. I feel like there are two camps. One that believes that you can achieve work-life balance and the other that thinks that it doesn’t exist because there is no such thing is balanced because you can give equal amounts of time to the different parts of your life.

Which camp are you in? This is the question that I asked my guest, Angie. Because let’s be honest we secretly want when we are feeling out of wack at home or work.

In this episode we talk about:

  • How Angie got started as a coach
  • Angie’s thoughts on work-life balance and if it really exist
  • What is means to operate on your highest level of integrity
  • Why we avoid doing things … especially the things we know we need to do

About Angie

Angie Robertson, Senior Coach, HG Life Coaching: As a former attorney, Angie is familiar with what it takes to leap and pursue the career of one’s dreams. She is highly experienced in coaching people through career transitions and navigating the balance of work, personal life, parenting, and relationships.

Connect with Angie

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Transcript of this episode

Real Happy Mom 0:02
Hey there, Mom, are you juggling all the things and motherhood for managing your time getting healthy meals on the table, to being a present wife, all while making yourself a priority without feeling guilty? I get it. It’s overwhelming. And guess what? The best that you need support doesn’t make you a bad mom. And that’s why I created the Real Happy Mom podcast. I’m toniann, a wife and a mom of two little boys as well as a general dentist and reservists in the Navy. And I get it when it comes to being a busy working mom. On the Real Happy Mom podcast. I’ll interview real moms to chat about real life experiences. These guests and experts will help you to navigate the motherhood journey by providing answers to your questions and concerns surrounding raising children, self care time management, and so much more. So if you’re ready to get rid of the overwhelm, and start being a Real Happy Mom, join me inside the Real Happy Mom podcast. Hey there, welcome back to another episode of the Real Happy Mom Podcast. I am so happy that you’re here. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on and listening. And I am so glad we’re at the end of 2020. I am super pumped to finally close out this year because I don’t know about you. But this year has been a very interesting one. And I’m ready to kind of close things down and start something new. So I thought it would be really good to have Angie, come on. And if you are not familiar with Angie, Angie is a life coach at the handbell group. She’s a former attorney. And she is very familiar with what it takes to take that leap and pursue your career, or the one thing that you have been dreaming now. She is highly experienced in coaching people through career transitions in navigating the balance of work, personal life, parenting and relationships. And that is pretty much what we are going to be talking about today. She’s going to be helping us out with this question is, does work in life actually exist, and actually some hacks for finding balance and getting more control. So you will hear her talking a lot about this. And then you’ll actually hear in the end, she kind of coaches me on a couple of things. And she is amazing. So make sure you stay tuned for that. And speaking of coaching, you know what, if you have ever thought about having someone to help you with time management, motherhood, all of the things in life, you definitely want to see if you can partner up with a coach. And you know what, guess what, I just started coaching. And if you don’t like that word, then I just started doing strategy sessions. And these sessions are just for moms who are trying to find that balance in life who are overwhelmed, who just need some accountability, someone to talk to you to kind of work through some of the struggles with motherhood concerning time management, productivity, routines, all the things just just so that we can be better, because let’s just be honest, like I said, 2020 has been very challenging. I want you to have all of the great things that are in store for you. And sometimes that takes working with someone else. So you can definitely work with me or another mother, I would of course, highly recommend that you come and try me out. But definitely don’t do this by yourself. This is something that I have learned this year is that trying to do things on your own is a lot harder. But when you do it with someone else, it makes it so much easier. So send me an email at Hello at Real Happy Mom or shoot me a DM on Instagram and let me know that you’re interested in doing a strategy session with me, or just getting some coaching so that we can work through some of your challenges that you are having so that you can set yourself up for success and live that real authentic life that I talked about here on Real Happy Mom. So now that we have that out of the way, let’s go ahead and jump into this week’s episode with Angie. All right, so we have Angie here today, and I am super pumped to have you Welcome to the podcast.

Angie 3:59
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Real Happy Mom 4:01
Yes. And I am particularly happy to talk to you today just because I feel like you just like something up inside of me whenever I talk to you. And I’m just really excited just because I know we’re coming to the end of this year. And like I was telling before the SEO has been rough. It’s been rough with you know, Coronavirus and having to step away from work or not working at all. Then with everything going on as far as those hard conversations we had to have as far as racism in and it’s just been hard, hard for us all and I know that a lot of us are over 2020 and I really wanted to bring you on just to kind of get us pumped up and ready to close out 2020 but also get us ready for 2021 in particular. But before we jump into our topic, I just wanted you to share a little bit about you and how you got started as a

Angie 4:55
coach. Great. I’m so excited to be here. I love this topic. So a little about me. So I came to the handle group as a client over 10 years ago, and you know that that is really, that blows my mind every once a while I’m like, Oh, yeah, it really was 10 years ago, because I can think back to the reason I called as a client was because I was not happy in my current life. And I really wanted help. And so I came because I felt like, oh, there’s something more I wanted to be doing and career. At the time, I had not even a two year old, she was like, a little, I think she was like, 15 months at the time, you know, like, I was just feeling pulled as a mom. And also as a person who was trying to figure out my career, I’m a lawyer by trade, I had gone in house with a company. And I kept, I kept saying, like, oh, if I just go do this thing, then I’m gonna feel happier. And then it’s going to all work out. And I kept getting to those different milestones that I had set for myself, and I found, oh, wait, I’m still not happy. I’m still not like where I feel like I want to be. So I called the handbell group. So I did a lot of Google searching, or I think it might have been Yahoo at the time, right, like career coaches. And I found the handout group because I read about a program that they were doing at MIT, with students on designing your life. And so you know, I’m a little bit of a skeptic, as a lawyer, I caught you know, I’m a little analytical, I was like, Well, if MIT is trusting these people in their method, I’m going to give them a shot. And so that’s how I came to coaching, I came as a client for help with my career. And then I just really loved the method, love what the company was about, and actually transitioned from Why did a bunch of transitions in my legal field started to work with nonprofits rather than that the area that I was practicing in, and then develop this love of working with people. And so I trained to be a coach. And I’ve been, I’ve been with handle group ever since. So started as a client now. Now I’m working with them.

Real Happy Mom 7:09
Awesome. And I love that story to just how it seems to be like full circle, like, he was skeptical about it, then he got started with it. And now you’re a coach, which I think is awesome. And I’m particularly excited, because I know, as a coach, you deal with a lot of clients who deal with this whole issue of work life balance, and I feel like if we haven’t, you know, at least thought about work life balance this year. I don’t know. Because I feel like 2020 has taught us, you know, to slow down and to really figure out what is most important to us. And I know, especially as busy working moms, like we’re trying, you know, to juggle it all into, you know, do everything. But when we think about balance, I feel like there’s two camps. There’s one that feels like you can achieve work life balance, and then there’s others that feel like it doesn’t exist, because there’s no such thing as balance. But I wanted to hear your thoughts on work life balance, and how we can make it work for us.

Angie 8:07
Okay, great. Suzanne, I’m going to tell you about the very first assignment that we give our clients, which will which will answer this question in a roundabout way. So the very first assignment that we give our clients is to do an assessment of what we call 12 areas of life. So we have broken like we had hands over broken life up into these 12 areas, and we give you the areas career is one of the 12. Right. And so we have things like your body and health, your relationship, your parenting, your community learning money unit, like the list goes on and on up to 12. But you can hear how career is one of those, right, one of the 12. And so we really we start out having someone say, Okay, if I could have anything in each of these areas of my life, what would that look like? Right? So we want you to start by saying, If I could have anything, what would that look like? And then you do an assessment of Okay, how far Am I away? From what we call what you want your dream? How far Am I away from my dream? What’s the current state of things? So right out the gate, we’re really assuming that your life is more than your career. I’m not saying that your career is not a very important part. It actually is. One of the top reasons that people come to work with me in a coaching capacity is to figure out something about career. But the truth is, we have to deal I’m going to say deal with career deal with that area of your life in light of all these other areas of your life, too. And so after we do that initial assessment, then we typically dive in to three to five areas and kind of teach you the tools of the method and like go to work on upgrading those areas, but again, from the outset, we’re assuming you got a lot of areas of life, and we want to make sure you’re paying attention. And I remember for myself, and I know the experience for some of my clients is, when they get this initial assessment, they’re like, Wow, there are some areas that I haven’t really even thinking about haven’t really been paying attention to. yet.

Real Happy Mom 10:24
And definitely, because I was listened to you talking, I remember you listed out learning and I was like, really taking time for that. So yeah, that’s definitely an area that we can, you know, allow ourselves to have more time for, because I feel like as moms, we’re so used to doing everything for everyone and being everything for everyone that we forget that we’re a person and we need to, you know, take time to learn new things and do new things on our own.

Angie 10:50
Totally. Okay, I have a quick story about my kids, which is Yeah. So what I decided that it was really important that my kids learn piano, I just wanted them to learn piano I had, you know, in my opinion, I’m not a scientist, but in my opinion, I liked the things that I read about how it helps you at school, and you know, it helps with brain development, and all those things that are connected. Plus, I love music. And I also thought it’d be really fun if someone could like, you know, play music at home. Okay. I am not a piano player. So my kids, my two daughters, they sort of called me out. They were like, we think you want to play piano? Like, why are you making us play? Learn? We think you want it. And I was like, You know what, guys? You’re right. And so last year, last school year, I signed up, and I started taking adult piano classes. And it was really just so much fun to learn. And I was like, Yeah, you’re right. I’m sort of pushing that on them. Now. I still made them take their classes, right. But I was also like, you’re right, I want to learn it for myself. And that was just a really fun thing to pay attention to for myself. And it challenged me. And it was fun. And you know, all those things. So some Yes, learning some sometimes you might want to pay attention, like, what am I pushing my kids to do? Maybe I want to do it. Maybe I want to do it.

Real Happy Mom 12:15
I like that one. And I just I just started thinking because I remember my mom saying to me, sorry, mom, if you’re listening, but you did the same thing. Like what in the world? But yes, definitely looking at, you know, what we are pushing our kids to do, because that is definitely a sign there. But one of the other things I wanted you to touch on, because you talked to me about this before is operating at a high level of integrity. And you’re sharing with me that there is an equation for someone to operate at this highest level of integrity. So I just want you to share a little bit about what that means. And then that equation that you were sharing with me too, yeah,

Angie 12:53
great. Okay. So personal integrity is one of the key stones, that concept is one of the key stones to the method that we teach. And the way we define personal integrity at handle group is living in alignment with the highest ideal for yourself. Right, like so. It’s your ideal. That’s why we always start with the dream. So we’re like, okay, have you admitted what you want? Have you really said what you want in terms of your dream? And then are you doing things consistent with that? We think that when you are in alignment, when you’re living in alignment, that means that your heart, which is your dream, and your actions, which are literally what you’re doing every day. And then here’s the key. This is where I spend a lot of time in coaching your mind. Right? So your head, that your mind, your heart, that your dreams and your actions, that’s what you’re actually doing. When those things are aligned. We think that’s personal integrity. That’s going to get you closer to your dream because you’re at

Real Happy Mom 14:09
Don ante, I’m still recording but sorry, okay, it just cut off for just a second. I just want to let you know that we’re still here before. I was like, please don’t hang up on me. Sorry. I’m gonna have you started. Right when you’re talking about alignment when those three things are in alignment.

Unknown Speaker 14:28
Okay, do I say the three things again?

Real Happy Mom 14:30
No, no, no, you can just start there. Sorry, because that’s where it started to cut off.

Unknown Speaker 14:34
Okay, okay. So, living in alignment, where your head, your heart and your actions are aligned, right. They’re all on the same team. You have a dream, you’re thinking you’re thinking consistent with your dream, and your actions are consistent with your dream. Those three things in alignment, we say that’s personal integrity, right? And that is not only going to get you closer to your dreams, but it’s also going to have you happy, satisfied and proud in your current life, which is really important. It’s not just about the these dreams, it’s also about being happy today. I mean, this is, you know, we’re living our life. So that’s one of the equations that we try to teach people is really thinking about, where are you not in alignment with the highest ideals for yourself?

Real Happy Mom 15:25
And yes, I like that so much. I was sitting over here taking notes and just thinking, because I was telling you this before that 2020 has kind of taught us, you know, what is most important to us, because it’s kind of made us slow down in a lot of ways. So, this definitely goes into it like really thinking about, okay, is what I’m doing really important to me? Do I really like my job? And that was a question, Angie, I asked myself, because I remember, I didn’t stop working, when everything started shutting down. And I remember going to work and I was like, I actually do like, what I do actually do love what I do. It’s just certain parts of it that I could do without insurance insurance, you guys are the devil and other things. I do like what I do, you know, and that made me happy. Because it was a it was one point in time, I’ll be honest, I was like, I just wasted this time becoming, you know, distances. And I don’t even like it. I don’t even love it. But thank God, I just had a little, just a little crisis. And I got over that. And, and I’m feeling better. Because honestly, it was like, during a really hard time where I thought I was gonna get sued in my life was over and all of this craziness, but everything was fine. And I realized, yes, I do like what I do. So for those moms that are like, actually do love my work, I do love I do love my job, like, what are some actions that we can start to take to start to bring some of that alignment? Especially we are spending more time with one thing and not the other? Are there certain things that we need to look at or questions we need x just help me walk into that?

Unknown Speaker 16:56
Perfect. Okay, so that’s such a great story, right? Because that the truth is, you’re I think you’re always evaluating like, what, what’s your dream? Right. And, and by the way, the, the process that you and I are talking about today, I have people start with it, right, our clients start with the process of giving that you know, their whole life, this evaluation and asking what they want. And then we do it annually. So everything that we’re talking about, we do this, we start in about December, and we start to make our what we call them our business plans for our life for the next year. Right? And you you take the learnings from the previous years. So 2020 is going to be chock full of learnings. And you use all of that to design how you want 2021 years ago. So here’s some tips. I think if you’re feeling bad and an area, so this is another equation, right? We think that feeling that is a diversion. Feeling bad is a diversion, you really want to stop feeling bad, and instead ask, Where am I out of integrity? Like, where am I not pursuing something that my heart really wants? Or am I maybe thinking and consistent with that? Where am I literally not doing something? So I’ll give you an example for me. So this year, I decided, Okay, you know, I think that for the time being, I’m going to go from a full time coach, to a part time coach, because there were some things that felt like I was feeling bad about not being available to my kids. But that was my feeling. I’m feeling that. And so it was like, okay, rather than continuing to feel bad, because that has like a huge spillover effect. Okay. I’m like, how can I design? What would make me happy. And so I had a lot of conversations at work. And I said, Look, for the time being just right now, and I’m gonna keep evaluating, I’m gonna dial back the number of hours that I’m working, right and kind of change up how I work. But notice, like, I had to start with recognizing the feeling bad, right, and then start to tell the truth. Now, what did this mean? So for me what this means what this meant was that I had to deal with my parenting dream. And we know that some of the things that I felt like we’re missing were things like, my availability, right? I did, I just no longer no longer works for me, and just currently no longer works for me to be on phone calls when my kids are home, because they were like, I need help with homework or I need this thing or can you bring me to you know, this, whatever, right activity? There really aren’t that many. It’s more like, Can you help me get on the zoom? Right? And so it was like, Okay, I had to deal with my dreams and both of those areas. But that was really like I was teed off by where I was feeling bad, right? And so that’s a great place to start, like, what am I feeling bad about? And then you can ask your Self, okay, where am I out of integrity, I’m either not telling the truth about what I want, which means like, you know, work on admitting what you want, which sometimes can be very hard. Like, I’m not just saying, you get like we teach people dream writing over several sessions, because it’s something that we, as adults have forgotten how to do, or we’re just carefully measuring, what can I have? Not? If I could have anything? What would it be? Right? So there’s telling the truth about what you want. And then there’s, usually it’s okay, I’m actually out of integrity, like, I’m not doing something that I know would would help me or have me feel proud or happy. And so you know, if I, if I go down to part time, and then I keep accepting calls, after I pick up my kids from school, well, that totally defeated the purpose and so that the physical integrity or the action is okay, so I have to have an agreement with myself, we call those promises. This is an accountability, you know, this, this action, like I want to be held accountable to, I don’t have calls after 330. Because the truth is, when I’m in the daily life, and you know, caught up in all of it, not really paying attention, I literally can forget, oh, remember, you design this a certain way you designed to, you know, so that you’re you’re not on calls whenever your kids get home from school, right? So that if I say yes to a call, while I’m out of integrity, I’m just using these as examples. But like that really is a you can you can start to pay attention to where do I feel off? Or where do I feel bad? And then you get into a creation state. From there. That makes sense.

Real Happy Mom 21:46
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Because this brought me back to the previous conversation that we had. And you’re telling me, you know, when you avoid things, those things seep into other areas of your life, so you have to be careful of, you know, the worry, and yet avoiding things like that. And I was like, ooh, I need to think about this somewhere. Because I think I do this a lot. So I definitely did some introspection, because it’s funny, because I feel like a lot of times, we don’t pay attention to, you know, our feelings and what’s going on inside of us to know like, okay, something’s off, something’s not right. But now you’ve made it really clear, like, okay, when these feelings pop up, we need to take some time, it really drew from some, some thinking about it. Because I think another thing to Angie, you can help me with this. One is, I feel like a lot of times we do have a certain dream for our lives and what we want it to look like. And then when we do have it, it’s not what we thought we wanted, or it’s, we’ve changed, and we don’t want that dream anymore. So sometimes I think we have a hard time, like, you know, letting go and changing that dream, because it’s not what we thought we wanted.

Unknown Speaker 22:53
Yeah, that’s such a great point, you made two really good points. Number one is to really start to pay attention to our feelings. And then if you if you peel the onion layer back a little bit more, right underneath the feelings are usually some sort of thoughts that you’re having. And so a lot of the things that I work are a lot of the tools that I give clients have, they have to do with really pay paying attention and starting to name certain thought patterns that you have? Right, and, and sort of recognizing it, and then not actually standing for, like, I have to accept these thoughts. Right. So that’s, and and then what you were saying is like, you know, so I can, I’ve trained myself, I’m not perfect, I still I still have a coach, thankfully, because I know now enough to tell them myself, like, Oh, I’m having anxiety over something. Okay, what does that mean? I’m avoiding that’s typically how it shows up in me, right? Like I’m feeling off, or maybe I’m snappy with my kids or my husband, or like, you can just you just start to look at yourself differently and a little bit more critically, not not to be critical, but to be helpful, right? And so it’s like, okay, I can notice that when I’m feeling anxious, or when I’m feeling worried. I’m avoiding something. Okay, can I figure out what it is? Okay, great. Can I get myself in a plan to go take an action that has me deal with it? So there’s not the spillover effects? Like I know, when I’m avoiding something at work, or an email or you know, whatever it might be a phone call to the insurance company, whatever it might be. I’m avoiding it. And then I have to go be with my kids because it’s time my kids Well, I can be edgier I can be not as awesome as I want to be, you know, I’m just I’m bothered by them. I just wish I could go back and do it. Like, you know, you do all those, all those things. And so if you can see how have I don’t handle this thing in one area of my life, it really does have a spillover effect. That’s, you know, that’s a great thing to be aware of. So that you can start to literally take the actions to change. So that’s, that’s definitely one point. And then your second point on, you know, dreaming. And like, what happens if you get to your dream? And then you don’t necessarily like it? Well, I would say that’s, that’s life, like that’s living life, living life really is going and doing all these different experiences, you know, and figuring out which ones make you happy, which ones work for you which ones resonate? Now, look, I know, there’s a lot of things that you have to negotiate in terms of, you know, we all can’t quit our job and try something else. Like, no, you have to do it in a responsible way. But the truth is, we assume we being the coaches, like we assume that your dream is going to change every year, usually, because you’re aiming for a certain level, you got yourself accountable, you dealt with yourself, you told the truth, and you got to that level, and then you’re a lot of times like, wait, I’m pretty proud of myself, maybe I want to do a little bit more, or go a little bit further or do this a little bit different direction. And so there really is that sort of evolution, I look at your dreams, as you know, a living breathing thing that really it is going to change over time, it’s going to change, when your kids are different ages, it’s going to change, you know, when you’re, maybe you have something health wise going on, it’s going to change, you know, maybe when you have certain times in your relationship that things will come up. So you know, life is dynamic. And so we really do want to treat dreams as dynamic and that I was talking to a client today. And I was like, Look, you can’t be afraid that this isn’t going to work out. Because you’re really going to see and she was actually talking about making a move, like, you know, leaving a job and, and literally moving her family in different locations. But you know, the thing, the truth for her was, she’s always wondering, should we live in this place? And you know, like, that’s, that’s like a thing that she’s been thinking about, like, Okay, look, we’re not committed to you’re going to go to this place, and you’re going to love it. What we’re committed to is you’re going to go to this place, and you’re going to try it out, and you’re going to figure out what you love. It’s a very different question. Right? So, you know, I’m all for learning that you went down a path, and it’s not actually the path for you, because I think that actually helps. That’s what happens, you know, to me through the course of exploring what I wanted to do as a lawyer, I had a lot of that a lot of, you know, dead ends that actually ended up helping me figure out what are the things that made me really happy?

Real Happy Mom 27:45
Yeah, I love that. I love all of it. Because I was just thinking about that, too. Like, I feel like a lot of times, especially like when we’re little you know, they ask you the question, like, what do you want to be when you grow up. And if it feels like this, this terminal thing, like, you can only be this, like, you can’t change your mind. And so like, especially when I see young kids who come into the office, and they’re like, tell me they’re about to graduate, but they don’t know what they’re, they want to do, I will just tell them, like, like, dude, like, you got a whole life ahead of you. Like, it’s okay, if you change your mind, like, just get started with something. So I love that you say that, because I feel like as an adult, we, we kind of lock ourselves into like just doing one thing or being one thing instead of knowing that we’re multifaceted, and things change. And like you said, we evolve in and I love that.

Unknown Speaker 28:28
Yeah, you know, look, one of the things that we teach people to do when they do dream writing is, you know, it’s not necessarily like, for example, My dream was not I am the best lawyer ever. And I go to court, and I deal with clients, and they’re, they love me, and they pay me a lot of money. Right? That’s kind of that’s a good, that would be a good dream. But my we don’t teach people to dream in that way. It was more about my dream became more about, I’m really helping people, I’m making an impact. I’m using my mind, you know, to help to make a difference. I’m problem solving. I’m abundantly rewarded for doing this, you know, like, you go through that in there. But you could hear like, when I first wrote that dream that sounded kind of like that. I literally was thinking, Oh, and I’m gonna do law, like, I got to figure out how to do this in law. And, and then, and I even had some lawyer things in there that made it real, like, oh, it has to fit in the lawyer box. And then my coach was like, how about let’s take out the lawyer specific stuff and just go with the feeling of what you want. And then it was like, wow, I never really I hadn’t considered up to that point that coaching could fit that thing too. And so they’re, you know, the truth is, maybe you’re, you have a dream of something that doesn’t actually even exist right now, but you’re the one that’s going to create it. So, you know, or you’re just not aware of that there’s a job that looks like that or a house that looks like that or, you know, a relationship that looks like that whatever that you know, quote unquote, that is it. Just keeps you like tethered to your heart and open to possibilities. Because I think that’s the other thing is we don’t we don’t actually always know all the answers. And sometimes we want to give, like life and our experiences and you know, all of that, a chance to surprise us that the thing that you want maybe doesn’t look exactly like you think it should. So that’s the other part too.

Real Happy Mom 30:26
Yes, yes. No, definitely all that. I was like, Huh, I see how that could go. But yeah, it definitely has me thinking like, okay, like, this coming year doesn’t? It looks, it looks pretty good. I know. 2020 was that but 2021? I think will be good will be good. Because

Unknown Speaker 30:41
so what do you can ask you a question?

Unknown Speaker 30:42
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 30:43
So when you think about 2021, and you think about like, okay, which ones do I want to design? which areas don’t want to design? Or what do I want to make the biggest impact, like what’s on your mind for 2021?

Real Happy Mom 30:56
Lately, it’s been about like, being more present, and like how I’m spending my time. So I just feel like I was on autopilot for a long time. And I’m grateful now for for the pandemic happening, because it made me like, stop and really, like, stop this, you know, just move in and really look around me and see, you know, what is really important? Am I doing what’s important, and I really just want to be more intentional in being more present when I’m doing the things that I’m doing. So that’s what I’m trying to make sure that one I know what’s most important to me, and I’m really living that and then to spend in time and being present in those things.

Unknown Speaker 31:35
Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 31:36
that’s great. You know, I will tell you, the best thing that happened to me was to cut my hours down, because I really had to be accountable to not working all the time. Like there’s a, it’s like, okay, and I get up to this certain hour, and then I’m done. And it’s, it’s been really uncomfortable. For me, it really has because, you know, I just kind of wasn’t, you know, maybe very strict about oh, well, I’ll just check this email, or I’ll just do this, like, you know, it, it really has had me be accountable to how I’m spending my time. And that’s been amazing. Because the truth is, yeah, like if you’ve got a fill. So a tip for you is like really, when you identify those things that you really want to be doing, you know, maybe it’s playing with your kids or exercising or you know, learning a new skill or participating in a hobby, you have to make sure that you put those on your calendar, like really plan out, When am I going to do those things, right? Because if you wait until you have a free time, you know, free time, chances are, you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna have free time, because it’s going to be filled up with whatever else. So it’s really proactively making sure you go and do that. And so that’s what we say, That’s a promise. Like, we call that a promise, he would make a promise to yourself, like, I promise to learn to play tennis by playing one hour a week, or I promise to learn piano by practicing two hours a week, or I promise to like, what’s one thing that you know, you want to do more of? What do you think,

Real Happy Mom 33:11
for me is definitely exercise. That’s definitely the big thing on the list, because I have neglected that because of coke. Okay, great.

Unknown Speaker 33:19
Susan. So this is a good tip, right for everybody listening is that you want to be really specific about your commitment. So a very common exercise promise that a lot of my clients start with is, I promise to exercise three times a week for at least. And then you fill in the amount of time 3045 60 minutes, like whatever that is. So it’s very clear. Okay, I’m looking for three blocks of 45 minutes. And so we also talk about inner dialogue and like, how you how you talk yourself out of doing these things, like how did you get to the place where you, you know, need to make a promise. And we have some funny names for our inner dialogue. One we call the brat like, I don’t wanna, I’m so tired. I had such a hard day, right? Or, you know, I just don’t feel like it. Right when the alarm goes off, if you’re gonna try to go in the morning. Then we also have the chicken which is the voice of fear, that doesn’t always sound like fear. It sounds really smart, and it’s trying to keep you safe. And but it really is the voice of fear. And then we have the third voice, which is the weather reporter. And the weather reporter is you’re just operating, you know, as if you have no say over anything. I couldn’t work out today. It was raining like What was I supposed to do? Right when when you break that down? It’s kind of like, well, there’s like, you couldn’t work down inside, like really good, you know, but we’re like, What was I supposed to do? So you start to hear your voices. And then you start to design these actions so that your voices can’t talk you out of it. So the reason I brought that up is because I even had to get as specific as like saying what I was going to do in those exercise blocks. Because I would be like, okay, I walked really fast from my car to the front door of the store. Does that count as like, you know, whatever? I mean, no, but you can hear how we can get a little bit sneaky. So you want to make your commitment. She want to know, at the end of the week, I’m going to be able to say, Yes, I did it or No, I didn’t. And, you know, go from there.

Real Happy Mom 35:28
Yes, I love it. I love the three names, too. Those are awesome. Because I think I hear all three of them at

Unknown Speaker 35:34
least, what we

Unknown Speaker 35:36
all. We all have all three. When you start to listen to you, you’ll probably hear him daily. And so and yet when we talk about living in alignment, your heart and your head and your actions, what I’m talking about is when you think about your head is notice, how am I talking to myself? Is it is one or one of those voices? Like Can I hear him? Is that my brat? Am I just trying to talk myself out of it? Because I’m scared. That also, you know, getting to understand what am I listening to? What am I believing and questioning it?

Real Happy Mom 36:10
Yes. I love this. And I love that little coaching session he did for me. That was awesome.

Unknown Speaker 36:14
Okay, so wait, can I do one more? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 36:17
yes.

Unknown Speaker 36:19
So what if you had to make a promise today about exercise? Or you know, I want you to start today, but you can start, you could start on them. We don’t believe we don’t believe in January 1, our Monday I’ll start Monday. We’re like you could start today. But let’s just pretend. What do you think you would promise?

Real Happy Mom 36:38
I would say I promise to exercise every morning before work for at least 20 minutes.

Unknown Speaker 36:48
Okay, so can I coach you a little bit more on this? Sure.

Unknown Speaker 36:51
helpful.

Unknown Speaker 36:52
Yes. Okay, so great that you had the 20 minutes. Okay. And it and it is really important that it happens before work? Like that’s a key thing here. Okay, great. Okay. So I, how much are you exercising now?

Real Happy Mom 37:11
Depends usually like, it depends. Some weeks I do it like every day, and then some weeks, I can’t do it at all. So it’s hit or miss.

Unknown Speaker 37:17
Okay, great. Okay, so

Unknown Speaker 37:19
perfect. The reason I’m asking that is because you really want to create the promise, that’s the stretch, but doable. And so if you said, I’m not exercising at all, I would say okay, every day before work, sounds like, you know, too big of a jump, we want to really exercise the muscle to get you up to that point. And so you want to create the absolute minimum. So that’s why I’m going to say that, that’s my question to you is, so on an absolute minimum? What is your like? What’s your no matter what I need to exercise this many times?

Real Happy Mom 37:54
No matter what, three times, Okay, perfect,

Unknown Speaker 37:57
just great. Okay, you can always do more than you’re promising. That’s the thing. But your promise is, you know, it’s really that minimum. So no matter what I’m going to work out in the morning three times before work, right? And then if you do five, awesome, if you do less great, you get to figure out why. But and then you’re really building up. We believe that having integrity is a muscle that you can build up, which is great. So that you can keep exercising it and add on if you need maybe you add on more time, maybe add on more days, but you’re really holding the line for the absolute minimum that’s gonna stretch you. Right? That makes sense?

Real Happy Mom 38:40
Yes, yes, definitely. Definitely.

Unknown Speaker 38:42
All right. Yay for you.

Unknown Speaker 38:44
Yes, yes. Thank

Real Happy Mom 38:45
you so much for that. Now, Andy, I know some moms are listening is like, man, I need that. So I’m just wondering how can moms get started with either the handout group or get it started working with you?

Unknown Speaker 38:57
Amazing. So we have a great website, handle group calm, I think you’re going to put that in your, in your notes, right. And then the most amazing thing, which is made really made our coaching method accessible to tons of people is that we put all of our method so that everything that I’m talking about like the dreaming and learning about your inner dialogue, and coming up with promises, and what to do about that inner dialogue, when you hear it, all of that we put all of that into a digital coaching platform. It’s called inner you. And what I love about interview is that not only does it come with modules, which are like, you know, US teaching you and then there’s homework assignments, and you know, there’s it’s literally interactive in and of itself. But what you get with interview too, are these group classes, these master classes, where you can walk through the beginning of the method as part of your subscription to interview you know, with a group of people, which that’s great The thing that I wanted to say, so like, for example, you with your exercise, you really should get a buddy, right to hold you accountable. Because this, that’s why I have a coach. So, as coaches, we are people’s accountability buddy. So they get to say like, okay, here’s how I blew off my promise this week, or here’s what happened, or, you know, and and really your buddy and your coach, they’re really the stands for but wait a minute, you said you really wanted this thing in your life. And I want you to be happy and proud. Come on what’s going on there, like let’s dig in and figure out. So you get you get a master class, which is a group of people to walk through the beginning with and you also can get a buddy on the platform. But you know, you guys can get buddies now, right? I have buddies, I have a coach. And it does make a difference. You know, the sad thing is that we blow ourselves off, we blow off the things that are most important. We’re really good at keeping promises to other people, right to our kids to her family, you know, people at work. But we often put ourselves last on the list. So this really highlights and sort of holds up. These are the things that are important to me. So interview a great way to get started. And then I’ll have you share my email if you want to. I would love to help people figure out if a more one on one coaching experience is right for them or

Real Happy Mom 41:19
how we can help. For sure, yes, I’ll definitely include those in the show notes, as well as the link for interviews so that moms who are listening, we got to I’m going to have those four, you know, he was gonna have one last thing that I wanted to see, before I sign off, there is one thing I always ask if you have either a motivational quote or words of encouragement for us Real Happy Mom.

Unknown Speaker 41:46
I want you to know, I’ve been thinking about this, because I know you gave me the hint. Right? And I think that the one that is speaking to me today is really, you know, just this whole idea. It’s not, I’m not gonna quote anyone but this idea that life is so precious, right? Like, in that time is the currency of our life. That is a quote from Hanzo. Group time is the currency of our life. And so really taking a look at how we’re spending it. I think that’s one of the things that 2020 has taught us is like, really what is most precious to us? And then it really is like, Okay, are we spending our lives with the people that matter most to us on the things that matter most to us. This has been a real you can look at 2020 is a real opportunity to, you know, ask yourself, what is most important to me, and am I you know, putting my money where my mouth is in terms of that. I think that’s how at the end of the day, you know, you’re really just happy, satisfied and proud, which is what we’re about. Awesome. Well, Angie,

Real Happy Mom 42:47
thank you so much for coming on. This has been an amazing experience. I really enjoyed talking to you.

Unknown Speaker 42:52
I had so much fun. This is so great. Thank you for having me.

Real Happy Mom 42:57
Now that does it for this episode of the Real Happy Mom podcast. To find the links in the show notes. Make sure you head over to Real Happy Mom comm slash on 111. That’s number 111. And there you’ll find all the links that were mentioned, as well as how you can get in touch with Andy if you want to get some coaching with her. Now, do me a favor if you haven’t already, rate and subscribe this podcast wherever you listen to. And go ahead and take a screenshot of you listening to this episode and put it on your Insta stories or on your Facebook stories. So that I know that you’re listening and if you want to take it a step further, take a screenshot and let me know what you’re doing while you’re listening. If it’s while you are vacuuming or driving or watching the kids play, whatever it is, let me know what you’re doing. I would love to see what you’re doing while you’re listening to the podcast. Now I hope that you finish out this year strong have a phenomenal rest of your day and know that you can do some amazing things. I’ll be back again next week for another full episode. Take care and with lots of love

 

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