9. Juggling It All: Business, Motherhood & Life
In today's episode, I'm taking you on my rollercoaster ride of doing ALL the things: running two businesses, raising two kids, prioritizing my marriage while also pouring into myself.
I spill the tea on my journey from trying to be a Superwoman to finding a more aligned and pleasurable groove in life and business.
From struggling with unrealistic timelines and expectations to finding peace in everyday moments, I've learned a thing or two about making it work.
Plus, I share 10 practical tips to help YOU manage it ALL without losing your mind.
So if you're juggling a million things like me, stick around for some nuggets of wisdom and a whole lot of encouragement!
In this episode, you’ll learn about:
[04:17] Managing multiple roles, including running two businesses, hosting a podcast, and consulting on social media.
[14:12] Tips for navigating the challenges of postpartum depression while maintaining professional responsibilities.
[18:29] Perspectives on societal expectations and self-imposed pressure regarding productivity, success, and maternal roles.
[23:20]: Balancing ambition with spaciousness
[24:47]: Practical self-care tips and ten actionable practices, including daily walks and prioritizing relationships.
[35:26]: Small pleasures and finding joy in simple acts like fresh flowers and reading for pleasure.
[39:37]: Continuous growth, including adding more fun into life and setting realistic timelines.
Links mentioned in this episode…
Insta-Growth: The 30 Day Private Instagram Mentorship - https://www.elizabethmarberry.com/insta-growth
SAVE $200 WITH CODE "PODCAST"
Free guide to Monetize Your IG: Seven Simple and Proven Ways to Finally Make Money on Instagram
Apply for your FREE Instagram Breakthrough Call with Elizabeth
Quotes
[26:13] "Your business will grow when you can release yourself from having to care for everybody else."
[28:06] “Movement was no longer about changing the shape of my body, but changing my mind."
TRANSCRIPT
S3 Ep09 Juggling It All: Business, Motherhood & Life
**Elizabeth Marberry 0:00**
00:00
Today's episode is going to be a little different than usual. If you've been tuning into the podcast the last few weeks, you know that I am a huge fan of sharing tangible strategies, tips, and tools that you can implement right away so that you can start using Instagram to work for your business. My goal is to help you impact your bottom line, get a better ROI on your time and energy.
00:25
so you can make a deeper impact within your own family and your community. But today we are shifting gears a little and I'm answering an audience question that came in. It was very heartfelt and it was about how do you juggle it all? I run two successful businesses, I have two young children and I've been happily married for 14 years. And while I definitely don't have it all figured out, after 14 years as an entrepreneur, I have
00:54
learned some things and I would love to share with you a little bit behind the scenes and how I am able to juggle it all and create a life that I love, create a life in which I wanna jump out of bed in the morning and I can't wait to get into this conversation with you. Let's get real, let's get raw, let's do it. Welcome back to the show. Before we dive in and talk about all things business, motherhood and life.
01:22
I want to quickly highlight something that's been happening on Instagram and that is the constant glitching and people being logged out of their account, Instagram going down for a full day. There has been a lot of Instagram drama in the last month and it is such a good reminder to all of us who use this platform to market our business. It's a great reminder.
01:51
of two things. One is you absolutely must be building an email list on these platforms. So that way, if you were ever to lose your account or you weren't able to log back in or something horrible like that happened, I know so many creators who this has happened to where they've lost their account. If that ever happens to you, you want to have an email list with people's contact information because as you know, you don't own your followers.
02:21
You don't have their information. And so part of your strategy in leveraging Instagram to grow your business is you have to have some sort of juicy freebie that people are gonna wanna grab in exchange for their name and their emails so they can get on your list and you can deepen your relationship with them and hopefully of course, lead to more conversions within your business. So whenever Instagram is just horrible and not working, I'm always...
02:50
feeling comforted to know that I don't have all my eggs in one basket with Instagram. I have a diversified marketing strategy, which leads me to that second point, which is don't put all of your marketing eggs in one social platform. You absolutely need to be playing on multiple platforms. And most importantly, you need to be optimizing your website and all of those domains online that you do own. That...
03:19
The algorithm doesn't impact you because it is yours, right? You created it. So while Instagram is great, I am a huge fan of it. It should not be your primary only resource in growing your business. So with those outages, just a reminder that A, you need to be building an email list and B, you need to be diversifying your marketing strategy. So not every egg is in the Instagram basket.
03:48
Okay, so let's get into this conversation of juggling it all. And I want to read to you the question that came in from Cassie. So Cassie wrote in to the show and she said, it sounds like you're doing so much running two businesses, podcasting, social media consulting. How do you have time for it all? What do your days look like? Is that a crazy question?
04:17
So Cassie, thank you so much for this question. I love when I hear from my listeners. So as you're listening to this podcast, if you ever have questions for me, send me a direct message on Instagram and ask me a question. I check each and every DM. It's not an assistant, it's me. I will get back to you. I love getting into conversation with my people. And you, my friend, if you're listening to this podcast, you are my people. So.
04:45
Cassie, thank you so much for that question. It is not a crazy question, and it's actually quite funny. When I read that question from Cassie, like how are you doing all this? My first instinct is sort of like, I freeze a little, and I'm like, I don't know. Like, how am I doing all of this? And I'm sure so many of you can relate to that. You know, so many of us are moving so quickly, we're hustling, we're pushing.
05:12
And it's really important that we take time to pause and take stock about how we're making it happen, what's working, what's not. And so in preparing for this episode, it was actually really helpful for me because I was able to kind of take some time to reflect on my journey over the last 14 years of entrepreneurship. I've been a mother for 11 years and I've learned so much and I continue to be
05:42
to learn every single day. I now for sure know that there is no final destination in this journey of life, okay? That is why we must enjoy the journey. And if you're a parent or not, I'm sure you can relate to this feeling of, you start to feel like you have things figured out either as a parent, like, oh, you're doing this thing with your kid and it's working great. And then two weeks later, it stops working or sometimes that happens.
06:10
on social media. You're posting content, it's really performing well, it's doing great, and then you don't really change much but all of a sudden it stops working. So this is just life. We have to always be constantly growing and learning and evolving. I love this question because it really gave me space to reflect. And I want to be honest and say that this question is a little hard for me to answer in terms of juggling business and motherhood and life.
06:41
I tend to not share a ton of personal information about my family's life because my husband and I made a really conscious choice when I became a quote unquote public figure and all that really means is I decided I made an intentional choice to use Instagram to grow my personal brand using my actual name.
07:04
And we talked about it and together we decided that we wanted to kind of protect the identities of our children. So you'll see if you go to my Facebook page or my Instagram page, I don't post any pictures of my kids. I don't really talk about them a ton. I don't share their pictures. We personally have decided that that is their journey. That is their choice. You know, the digital footprint lasts forever. And I want them to.
07:33
make their own digital footprint. I want them to have ownership and choice and consent in doing that. And there's no judgment here if you do post photos of your kids publicly, it's totally your own personal decision. Every family has to make the right decision for them. I'm sharing this with you because as I was preparing for this podcast, it was a little tricky because I do wanna be honest with you about some of the struggles I've had while also
08:02
keeping my private life private. So I'm gonna do the best I can to walk that line and I appreciate you, just your support and you being here. So I wanna start with this illusion of work-life balance. I don't believe that there is this ideal perfect balance of every moment, right? Where, oh my gosh, when I'm with my kids, I'm just so present and I'm with them.
08:31
And when I'm with my work, I'm just so dialed in and I'm doing all the things and I just feel this perfect balance and I'm with my husband and we have all of our time and our dates and I see all my girlfriends and I am just this perfectly balanced human being. Okay, yeah, no. I do feel like that is an illusion. That's almost this story that we've been fed that that's even possible and.
08:59
It really isn't, especially in this day and age where we are juggling so much. We have so much information coming at us from every angle all the time. I don't know about you, but my brain is constantly swamped and overwhelmed. I just wanna start by saying, I'm not gonna be here preaching to you about how I have it all perfectly figured out, and I'm just living this perfectly balanced life. My sign is a Libra, for those of you who are into
09:28
the zodiac signs, and the symbol of a Libra is the scales. And for so much of my life, I feel like I kind of tortured myself because I thought that perfect balance was possible. And so I was kind of always chasing that shiny object or that new relationship, really just constantly trying to figure out the perfect schedule or the perfect this, perfect that.
09:56
and I got caught up in that illusion. And so I think how I wanna just start this conversation is can we just let go of the pressure of juggling it all perfectly? Because what I have found is that there are seasons, there are seasons in which I have had to pour 90% of all of my life force into my children. And during those seasons,
10:26
I couldn't grow my business the way I wanted to. Was that hard for me? Yeah, it was. I'm a person with a huge capacity. I get so many ideas. I love being creative. I love creating things. There have been chapters in my life of being a mom in which I had to kind of put a lot of that on hold because my kids needed me. They really...
10:55
needed me and I don't just mean when they were babies like we have been through some pretty big tsunamis in our household in terms of the needs of my children in terms of our personal struggles and There are those seasons and chapters where they just needed mom to really be there energetically for them and that even meant that like while they were at school my brain was
11:21
doing all these other things to make sure that they were taken care of. So I just wanna say that there are seasons in which they pull me more, and then there are seasons in which I know that they're okay and they're thriving, my children are thriving, and then that gives me a sense of freedom to go and create more of what I want in my business. And that's just the reality. And there's nothing wrong with that.
11:50
And I do find that there is an ebb and flow. And the sooner you can kind of allow the ebb and flow, like imagine that you are swimming in the ocean and it's like swimming with the tide, moving with it. So it's going up, it's going down. You're just riding that wave. That's a lot easier than if you were swimming against the current, right? And you are pushing and you're like, no, but.
12:19
I wanna go up, but this wave is taking me down. And I feel like for so long, I was in that place of really resisting my current present life situation where I was like, this is not what I wanted. This is not what I signed up for. And that was painful. That was a struggle. And so one of the things that I'm continually trying to practice is being present and riding the wave
12:48
best I can and when I can trust and go on the wave, I know this is very abstract, but hang with me. When I can just ride that wave, I feel calmer and way less exhausted because I'm not swimming against the current. Okay, so I'm gonna step out of the metaphor language and go into more tangible things here.
13:14
So I want to go back to the beginning of when I launched my wedding dance coach business. It was 2010. My husband and I had just gotten married and I was so excited to launch my dance business because I saw a real need in the market. I knew that there was no other ballroom studio that you could walk into and they could just choreograph a really fun mashup that would include ballroom and hip hop and contemporary and all the different styles I knew at the time.
13:43
And I was super excited. So like many of you, in the beginning of my business, I wore every single hat. I worked like 80 hours a week. I remember I used to teach for eight hours straight on Saturday, eight hours straight on Sunday. I would teach on Friday nights from like four until 10 p.m. during wedding season. Like it was insane. And then in 2012, I got pregnant with my first child.
14:12
And as I was growing this human inside of me, I was realizing, oh my gosh, I cannot keep doing this. Like, I can't keep teaching at this level. I can't teach for eight hours straight. And I have this precious child coming. I'm not going to be able to be away from them for eight hours on a Sunday. And that is when I made my first hire.
14:37
So when I think about like, how do I juggle it all? It really started slowly with making that first hire. And I'm not sure where you're at in your business, but for many of us, especially if you have like an online business or a coaching brand, any kind of service provider business, for many of us, our first hire might be a virtual assistant, someone that we could offload.
15:06
even like five to 10 hours a week of admin tasks. So getting support was a huge first step in being able to juggle business and motherhood and life. And when my first child came, I was hit with postpartum depression. I actually struggled with postpartum depression with both of my babies.
15:35
And it was devastating because it was a time in my life I had wanted to be a mom since I was a little girl. It was something I had known I wanted. I had nannied for years and years. I taught dance to children for years and years. I thought it would be a cakewalk for me, which is hilarious now that I think about it. But I didn't know. And when my first child was born...
16:02
The postpartum depression was so heavy and it was so hard because I remember just feeling like, why am I not happier? Like this is what I always wanted. This isn't how I thought it would be. I had no idea that it would be this hard. And this was being in a supportive relationship with my husband too. Like I wasn't even on my own. I had support and I still felt so isolated.
16:32
I remember at that time reaching out to other moms who had kids older than mine and checking in with them and saying, please tell me it gets easier. And honestly, I didn't feel like there was anyone out there at that time that was being really honest about the hardship of being a parent. I felt like there was all this judgment around being a mom and that you should just love every moment. And that from the moment you see your baby...
17:00
You just fall in love and it's instant and it's the best thing ever. That wasn't what happened to me. It took time. It took time for me to grow into my skin as a confident mother. And it looked so different. As my children started to grow, you know, my second one came along and I was just slowly trying to get more and more support, just personally, professionally.
17:29
And I would do it just one degree at a time. Of course, I knew I needed all of the help, but I had to do what I could afford for my business at that time, what we could afford within our family. And so it might look like, okay, I would put my kid in school for a half day and then hire a babysitter for a couple hours. And that gave me just a few more hours of time to get work done. I do remember when my kids were really young
17:59
It was so hard for me because I never wanted to be a stay at home mom. I always knew that I wanted to keep working, that I love business, I love entrepreneurship. It's a huge part of my identity. It's a huge part of my essence and who I am. And I'm a firm believer that it's so awesome for their kids to see their mom just going after her dreams and her desires and prioritizing what's in her heart. I do really believe that that is so.
18:29
helpful and supportive to my children. I did feel this constant back and forth of guilt in terms of I'm not doing enough for my kids or I should want to be home with them more. Even though no one in my family, my husband didn't give me the guilt trip, there was no one telling me that. It was societal, right? It was social media. It was this pressure of like,
18:58
Well, a good mother wants to stay home with her kids and be with them 24 seven. And so a lot of my motherhood business journey has been letting go of these societal expectations and pressures that I felt and really finding like, what is my truth? What is my truth? What is our family truth? What actually supports our family?
19:28
and really coming at it from the inside out versus the outside in. So I discovered in the last couple years this belief system that I had really taken on as my truth, what I thought was my truth. And I do feel like it was a result of trying to juggle so much and wanting to be the best possible mother, the most present loving mother for my children.
19:58
and also go after my dreams, my big, giant, bold dreams for my business. And this limiting belief that I didn't know was a limiting belief at that time was I felt this sense of lack and really where it came from was I put all these arbitrary timelines on myself. So I would tell myself the story of...
20:27
I'm not far enough. I should be further by now. You know, like by this point in my business or at this age or at this place in my life, I should be further. And just feeling so frustrated and really feeling that feeling of I am not enough. I am not doing enough. This is just not enough.
20:52
And it really led to this like constant sense of striving and working myself to the bone and feeling so exhausted all the time. Like I really struggled with chronic fatigue for many years as I was growing my business and raising my kids. And so much of it was these arbitrary timelines I put on myself and I had my business coach.
21:22
She was the one that really highlighted this for me. And she said, Elizabeth, you are the boss of your own company, right? Like this is part of why we all go into business for ourselves or entrepreneurship is we wanna be in control, right? We wanna be the boss of our own lives, create our own destiny. And yet here I was at the helm of the ship and I'm just cracking the whip on myself, berating myself, telling myself that
21:50
I should have this done by now. I should go further faster. Why is this not good enough?" And what I realized is that I had a really unrealistic relationship with time. I kind of see myself as superwoman and in a way I have been. There's so much in my life. There's so much proof of my life. The things that I've lived through and losing my father very tragically when I was 20 years old. There is so much proof that I could tell you why I'm a superwoman.
22:20
But that superwoman was tired. She was tired of pushing and just feeling like things were never done. There was always something more. I'd reach a goal and then I'd put the yardstick way in front of me again. I wouldn't celebrate where I came from or where I got to. I was just always striving for the next thing. And it was really led by this belief of just like, I'm not enough, I'm not doing enough.
22:50
And my relationship with time, because I thought I was the superwoman, I remember telling my business coach, like, I'm planning to convert all my contractors over to employees. I'm going to do that by the end of this month. And she looked at me and she's like, Elizabeth, that's going to take you like six months to do. You need to meet with a lawyer. You need to meet with your accountant. You need to have this contract drafted up. You need your employee handbook. You need... And I
23:20
And it was such an example of me just thinking I could be superwoman and do these like impossible things and then what would happen? I would get to the end of the month. I wouldn't be done with it. And I would be like, oh, so frustrated with myself. So part of my journey of balancing motherhood and business is unlearning this sense of urgency. It's like, how can I be ambitious without?
23:48
suffocating myself with these arbitrary timelines that actually slow me down because I'm essentially sabotaging myself, right? I'm setting myself up from failure. So I'm wondering if you can relate at all to this thought. Like, I'm so curious and I would love for you to DM me on Instagram and let me know like if this is resonating at all with you and your story because I do find that the people who are in my sphere, we are high achievers. We want it all.
24:17
Right? We want it all. And I'm wondering how we can shift that belief and remove those arbitrary timelines and say, I have enough time and I'm going to give myself spaciousness and I'm going to trust in the process. I'm going to trust in myself. I'm going to hire support when I can. I'm going to be strategic about my next hire or maybe your next hire is a babysitter.
24:47
Right? However you need to fuel yourself with support, I invite you to do that. I made a list of 10 things, these are like actual, tangible things that I do on a regular basis, weekly basis, that help me juggle it all. These 10 things help me to not lose my mind and help me to really enjoy the journey, enjoy my businesses so much more.
25:17
enjoy being a mom, a wife, a friend, and just help me to feel like myself. These practices help me to ground and feel refreshed. So I'm going to go through these 10 items really quickly. You can write them down or make a mental note. And if I say one and you're like, oh yes, I want to do that, I invite you to just take one of these ideas and see if you can implement it this week to support you and caring for you.
25:45
Because the truth is your business is not going to thrive while you're constantly pouring into everyone else and caretaking everyone else except for yourself. It just doesn't work that way. My friend Leah, she's my business bestie and expert copywriter, she said this and I told her I was going to quote her in this podcast. She said, your business will grow.
26:13
when you can release yourself from having to care for everybody else. And I could not agree with that more. There's something about motherhood that is so consuming. It's all consuming and it should be, it should be. There's a season for that. The problem becomes when you meet a mother whose child is going to college and they realize they've put themselves on hold for 18 years. And that was something I never wanted to do.
26:43
And so these 10 practices help me to pour into myself. And therefore, after I pour into myself, I can pour into my husband, I can pour into my beautiful children, and I can pour into my businesses. Let's get into it. The first thing I do, and this has completely changed my life, is I walk in nature every day for 30 minutes. I have been doing this practice now for
27:12
at least three years, maybe it's now five years, now that I say it out loud, it's been a long time. And I started this walking practice, it seems so simple, like go for a walk. But I started it because I was feeling that chronic fatigue every afternoon, I'd be working from home and it was like a cement truck hit me in the head and I seriously would have to lay down and take a nap every single day at like two o'clock. And I hated it, it wasn't like a good nap, it wasn't like this feels good, it was like.
27:41
My body battery is so drained, like I can't keep going. And that didn't feel good. Because of the support of a therapist at that time, I started this walking practice. And now I have completely fallen in love with it. I cannot begin to tell you how much this simple practice of walking outside for 30 minutes has completely changed my life. And...
28:06
It's something that I now do every single morning. My husband and I generally take turns in terms of dropping the kids off or picking them up at school. So our schedule is typically, he'll take them to school in the morning and when he leaves, then I put on my sneakers and I go for my walk. I try to do it first thing in the morning so that way it's my priority. It is a walk for my mental health. That was a big shift for me as a former professional dancer and...
28:35
over-exerciser, I had to make peace with movement. So movement was no longer about changing the shape of my body, but changing my mind. And so now I go for a walk every single day for 30 minutes, and just that fresh air, being with the trees, looking at the birds, it gives me so much energy and it gives me spaciousness. And then when I get back to my desk, I feel ready. I feel ready and recharged. And what's really fun is sometimes I'll get my best
29:04
business ideas and downloads when I'm out walking. So I cannot recommend going for a walk and making it a consistent practice if you are able to. It's totally worth it. The second thing I do is I take a yoga class at least once a week. And the only way that this happens is I found a class that I absolutely adore. My yoga teacher's name is Bri, and it's this Yin-Vin class. So we start out with vinyasa, so we're moving.
29:33
quicker and then we end with a yin practice where it's very like restorative. So we're just holding postures, we're breathing, it's very relaxing. My point to you is if you find even just one class a week that you're like, this helps me to feel into my body and ground into myself and put it on your calendar. That's the key.
29:55
is it is on my calendar and I plan all of my work meetings, all of my interviews, everything I'm doing, I plan around this class because it's that important to me. So that yoga class is super helpful in juggling it all. The third thing I do is I'm in bed by 10 p.m. every night and I prioritize sleep. My husband will tell you that...
30:20
I love sleep the most. I love sleep. We're always joking about how much I just cannot wait to get into bed and go straight to sleep. But really, I love sleeping. It is my jam. I do find that if I'm up later than 10 p.m., I'm pretty much a disaster the next day, especially as I get older. I find that I really need a lot of sleep. My alarm goes off at 6.15 every morning. If I'm not asleep by 10, I don't get my solid like...
30:50
I need a solid eight or nine hours. Really honestly, I need nine hours to feel like a full human, but if I get eight, okay, I'll be fine. But prioritizing sleep is absolutely critical when you are trying to grow a business, be a mom, be a wife, and do all those things. Sleep is priority. The fourth thing I do is I drink a lot of water, okay? So I have this giant water bottle and it goes everywhere with me. I carry it with me up and down the stairs of my house.
31:18
If I drive anywhere, it's right next to me in the car. I seriously don't go anywhere without my water bottle. In fact, it's right next to me now as I'm recording this podcast. And if you can make it easy, easy to access, you will consume more of it. So now I don't even have to think about it. It's just always with me and I'm always consuming a lot of water. But if you're one of those people who's like, I always forget to drink water, maybe you just need to have it with you at all times like I do.
31:47
and then you'll start to cultivate a new habit. The fifth thing that I do is, and these are all in no particular order, it's just like my brain dump. The fifth thing is major. I share the parenting load with my husband. Our marriage has been so supportive to me as an entrepreneur, as a person. We really value that teamwork.
32:17
in our marriage. And so sharing the parenting load, and it's not even sharing the parenting load, it's the life load, right? So I already mentioned the kids being dropped off, he'll drop them off in the morning, I pick them up after school. My husband is an incredible chef, like he is a foodie, he's made me a foodie, I'm obsessed with food now thanks to him. And so he'll cook.
32:43
Most of our meals, if he's not cooking, then I say, okay, babe, where do you want us to get takeout? I'll go get it. So he cooks and then I clean up the dishes. He does a lot of our grocery shopping. I do a lot of the target runs. So you're kind of getting the gist here. He does his own laundry. I do my own laundry. So we have developed this.
33:06
very team-like setting in our house. And I do know that that's a huge reason why I have spaciousness to do all the things that I want to do is I have an awesome teammate in my house. In fact, he's out of town this week and I'm joking with him. I'm like, I have to make all my own coffee this week? Like, I don't even have time to do that. So I know I'm spoiled in telling you this. I'm almost like embarrassed to say all this because I'm just like, I know I'm so lucky. I'm so lucky.
33:35
But what I want to tell you is if you are in a partnership and you're not getting the support you need, communicate. You know, we didn't get here overnight. My husband and I, we've been married for 14 years. We've been through so much, so many struggles. And the key to our marriage is we're just always growing and we're evolving and we're learning and we're talking. We're talking things through and we're both committed to growth. And so...
34:03
If you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I wish my partner would do this, start with one small thing. It might be so scary to bring it up, but the more you can practice, the more confident you'll feel in communicating and it might be uncomfortable, but you'll be amazed at how things will start to shift if you could start to speak up and really ask for what you need. The sixth thing we do is,
34:29
We try to get a date night in at least every two weeks. Sometimes it ends up being once a month if we kind of forget, but we have never stopped dating. Every day is Valentine's Day in our house. We really prioritize like our romance and our love. And for me, the date nights are so important because we prioritize our marriage and our romance and that fills my cup. And when my cup is filled, I can show up for my kids, I can show up for my businesses.
34:57
and it's that ripple effect. The seventh thing I do is I have discovered how much I love fresh flowers. My favorite thing is when I'm at the grocery store or I'm at Target or whatever, I'll go over to the flowers and I'll look and see if I can find like a really beautiful bouquet for like five to $7. I don't know why, but that's just my number. And if I can, I will buy it for myself and I put fresh flowers on my desk. I don't know why I won't spend 20 bucks. I would, but like.
35:26
There's something about getting the deal I just really like. And I put fresh flowers on my desk. And so when I'm working, I get to see these flowers and I cannot tell you how happy it makes me. So my invitation to you is like, do you have something like that? Do you have like a little thing that maybe you feel like is like a splurge, but you could gift yourself to just brighten your day, to add.
35:50
that element of you into your day. I love nature, so plants and flowers, the more I can bring that into my office, into my house, the happier I am. The eighth thing I've been doing lately is reading a novel just for pleasure. So if you're a high achieving entrepreneur, I guarantee you're like me, and you're constantly reading all these self-improvement books. You're reading books about business, books about money, all this personal development stuff.
36:20
And I realized recently that I was having a lot of trouble turning my brain off from my business. And so I started reading this novel that is set in World War II in France, and it's just the most incredible story. And it is so refreshing for me to just like pour myself into a book that has nothing to do with my reality or my business or my kids or my marriage or like any of those things and just like take me somewhere else. And so I invite you to
36:48
Maybe grab a book, go to the library and find something that interests you. The ninth thing I do is I love to sit in nature or on my porch and just sit in the sunshine. So I have a really beautiful chair on my porch. We call it the egg chair. It's like this big eggy looking chair. If you go on my Instagram, you'll see it. It kind of looks like a bird's nest and I like climb in there. I have like my wind chimes.
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and I'll just like sit in there. And if I give myself the spaciousness to just sit, my phone's not there, nothing else is there with me except my water bottle. And I just allow myself even like 10 minutes to just sit and be in nature or go find a bench and stare at a pond or go stand by a tree and just watch the birds for 10 minutes. I'm telling you this practice, it's actually hard to do because how often do we just create space to do nothing essentially is what I'm telling you to do.
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But what I find is that especially for creatives, which you are if you're on this podcast, you are a creative, you're a creatrix, you want to create for Instagram, you wanna create for your business, you are a creator, we need a lot of space. We need downtime, we need time where we're not thinking about our business. So I love sitting on my porch or maybe I'll just go sit on the front steps and sit in the sun, but that really helps me.
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The last thing I've been playing with, number 10, is turning off my phone, literally powering it down, to help me turn off my brain. Because I am a social media marketing mentor, as you can imagine, I'm very plugged in all day long. I'm talking to my clients through the Instagram DMs. I'm posting content, I'm posting on Facebook, I'm posting on LinkedIn. I am very much plugged into my phone for my business, and it's fun.
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And I need to have boundaries. So a lot of times when I notice after my work hours, I'm home with my kids, we're having dinner, or it's later in the night and I find myself constantly checking it, I will actually power off my phone. I'll even tell my husband because it just helps me to have some accountability. Like, hey babe, I'm turning my phone off and it's awesome. And I cannot tell you, even just turning your phone off for like two hours is so recharging.
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It is such a great practice. So if you haven't done that in a while, I invite you to do it. My coach recently challenged me. She said, Elizabeth, I want you to turn your phone off for two hours every single day. I'm not there yet, but that is a goal that I'm working on. So I wanna close out this episode with some things that I am still working on. And I invite you to, as I mentioned, DM me on Instagram, let me know which of these things is landing for you.
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You know, is this content that you want to hear more of? Of course, most of our content will be very strategic around Instagram and marketing growth, but I did want to really open up about the full dimension of what it's like to be a person and grow a business and also be a parent and all of those things. So if you're digging this episode, send me a DM on Instagram, definitely let me know. So to close out, I want to share with you four things.
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quickly that I am working on and continuing to work on. One is adding more fun into my life, just for fun, not for business, like taking a dance class or going out dancing with my girlfriends or adding more trips with my husband or my friends or even like solo trips. I love traveling, but just allowing myself to just have fun for the sake of having fun instead of reaching a goal. The second thing I'm working on is time blocking my schedule.
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because I have my podcast, because I'm running two different companies, there's a lot of different things I'm constantly juggling and I would like to add more structure and time blocks into my week so my brain can focus on one thing at a time. The third thing I'm working on is giving myself realistic timelines for projects. I've already touched on that, but I think I'm getting a lot better at it. Really a trick that I'm doing for myself right now is if I think I can get it done in a day, I'm gonna give myself a week.
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If I think I can get it done in a week, I'm gonna give myself two weeks. So I'm kind of just trying to add on extra time to really remove those arbitrary timelines and give myself more spaciousness. And the final thing I am working on is allowing myself a full day completely off from work and social media. When you have your own business that's open seven days a week, it's so hard to unplug even with my studio manager and all the support that I have, it still feels like I'm on.
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And so I want to be better about making sure that I have one full day where I can really allow myself to not check my email, to not go on social media, to do nothing for my business, and even allow myself to be bored. Like, is that even a thing that people do? I want to know what it's like. I want to be bored. I hope that today's episode was supportive to you. I cannot wait to hear from you. And if this episode helped you at all, please share it with a friend.
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a business bestie, anyone who's looking to grow their business and create a life that lights them up. I cannot wait to see you back here next week for more content. Let's strut it.