the bossbabe podcast - 311. Overcoming Adversity, Setting Boundaries + Giving Yourself The Grace You Deserve

Starting point is 00:00:00 A Boss Babe is unapologetically ambitious and paves the way for herself and other women to rise, keep going and fighting on. She is on a mission to be her best self in all areas. It's just believing in yourself. Confidently stepping outside her comfort zone to create her own vision of success. Her own vision of success. Welcome back to the Boss Play podcast. So today we are taking a deep dive. I recently spoke for Growth Day all about failure, setting boundaries and giving ourselves grace during moments of adversity. It resonated really deeply with the people that were

Starting point is 00:00:41 live with me on there and so I want to share it with you because I know so many of you will be able to relate. We've all heard the saying, treat others the way you want to be treated. But so often we are treating others way better than we're treating ourselves. And so today we're putting an end to that. It's time to welcome in way more kindness, grace, and responsibility for being in charge of our boundaries. I know you're going to love this one. And if you want more like this, you should join Growth Day. You know, I'm teaching there every single month

Starting point is 00:01:09 alongside so many other incredible experts. If you're interested, I'm going to put the link below in our show notes. It really is a great resource. Another thing that I actually do with Growth Day is every single day I listen to the Daily Fire. It's such good motivation. And I do all of my journaling in Fire. It's such good motivation and I do all of my journaling in there. That's actually been really helpful while I'm away traveling

Starting point is 00:01:29 because I don't have to take a physical journal and my notes are always there for me. It's been an absolute game changer and it really keeps me on the habit, which we know is a really big habit of high performers. So I'm all about being the highest performing version of myself, which is a big reason I love the platform. Anyway, the link is in the show notes. And so with that, let's dive in. Most of the time when people talk about failure, they have a really tangible story of something that they tried really hard at and it didn't go well or something they went through and came out the other side of. And sometimes when we're struggling with something, it can be really great to hear that because we can hear that there's an end in sight, right?

Starting point is 00:02:12 So you might hear people talk about that launch strategy that they implemented for their business and it totally crashed and burned. Maybe it's that time you hired someone and it was really not the best hire and it turned out to be quite detrimental to your company. Maybe it's the time that you were really misunderstood in your personal life or even on social media and there was a bit of backlash that came back at you that you weren't expecting and you move through that. So we hear people talk about all of these stories and we've all been through what we kind of call these micro or macro failures with a start and an end. But that sort of failure is really contained, right? You can have a rough couple days, weeks, even months, but as you look back on it, you can see a really clear beginning and a clear end to the experience. At some point, it becomes

Starting point is 00:03:06 a story that we can reflect back on and have a really tangible takeaway or lesson learned. And we kind of, you know, I hate to say it, but like that kind of failure in hindsight, because it gives us a really good story. And when our friend's struggling with something, we can say, hey, I went through something similar and you can share that story with them or in a situation like this. But what's not often talked about is the less, let's call them sexy failures, right? The days where it feels like you are just constantly pushing a boulder up a hill for it to just roll back down and crush you every day. The lessons that take a really long time to learn, the confusion and lack of clarity that might come with a lack of progress,

Starting point is 00:03:52 where you're feeling like you're really pushing and you're really trying and you're like, it's not working, but I can't necessarily say this. One thing was a failure. I don't know what it is. It's not just a clear, yes, this happened and now I'm better off. It's exhausting and it's really hard not to give up, especially if every single day you have the same feeling

Starting point is 00:04:14 again and again and again. And what I want to share with you is I've had that. I actually went through that for quite an extended period of time. And, you know, from the outside looking in, it wasn't the kind of thing that everyone would have known or assumed, which I'm gonna go ahead and assume might be the case for a lot of you too. You know, we're very good at suiting up and booting up, as we call it, putting on a great front, smiling, you know, always asking how everyone else is doing and avoiding really going there for ourselves. And I think a lot of people kind of thought that of me, you know, they looked outside from the outside in, you know, this thriving business, beautiful house, you know, so many, okay, on the outside, everything looks great. And what I want you to realize is that you can have it

Starting point is 00:04:59 all. So many of you do, but you can still feel broken on the inside. You can still feel like whatever you're going through is just never-ending and you can be really stuck in that loop. There is no level of success, outward success, that guarantees inner peace. Oh, if I can just get to that next financial milestone, if I could just make that next hire, if I could just take a two-week vacation. None of that means that you're really free. If you're just waiting for the next thing to fall into place, that's not real freedom. And I understand there can be some shame about externally having it all, but internally not feeling free, internally not feeling great. I understand that, you know, for so many of us, a lot of people would look in and say,

Starting point is 00:06:00 well, that's not a problem. If it feels like a problem to you, it's a problem because your experience is valid and your experience is your experience. So we're going to overcome that today and we're going to talk about processes around that, what you can implement. And I'm seeing that so much of this is really resonating and I think probably why you needed to be here today. So I want to introduce you to my best personal and professional development guru out there. Like the best of the best. She taught me everything I know. She changed everything for me. That is my daughter, Noemi. And I remember reading all of these self-help books about giving yourself grace and not feeling the pressure to do it all, to be it all, thinking this is a really great message and I'm going to crack the code. I'm going to figure out how I can do all the things all at

Starting point is 00:07:01 once. You know, we're going to crush the business. We're going to be fully present at home. We're going to cook all the healthy foods. You know, my baby will not be eating out of pre-packaged foods, working out, maintain a house that is pristine all the time, win boss of the world, whatever it is, all the things. I even remember telling my team, I don't even know if I'm going to take a return that you leave. I remember being in that place and not making it wrong, but I remember that's what my mindset was, right? How many times do we do this to ourselves? We accept a story of empathy and healing for everyone but ourselves. You've heard to treat others the way you want to be treated, but often we can treat others a lot

Starting point is 00:07:46 better than we treat ourselves. And so while I was talking a big game over here, really, it was coming from a place of, I feel like if I'm not doing all these things, I'm a failure. And what's really interesting is any of my friends who have gone through something similar, doesn't necessarily need to be a baby, can be juggling all the things that they're juggling, whether parenthood is involved in that is irrelevant. They can be juggling all the things and giving themselves a really hard time about not doing it all to perfection and feeling like a failure. And I'm the first person to jump in and say, listen, we don't do guilt over here. Give yourself a break. Look at all the things you're doing. Yet for myself, I just had this narrative going on that if I wasn't doing all the things,

Starting point is 00:08:37 then I'd be failing. And I also had this story that if I'm not putting this much pressure on myself, I'll never get the results that I want. I would hear people tell me, Natalie, you need to be kinder to yourself. And I'd hear it. But if I'm going to be totally real with you, on some level, my inner voice was saying, if you be too kind to yourself, if you give yourself too much grace, you won't succeed. You won't get the results you want. You have the results you want because we have that internal dialogue that is pushing, pushing, pushing. You can resonate with

Starting point is 00:09:18 that internal dialogue. Probably majority of us because we're all high achievers, right? We are heard, treat others the way you want to be treated. But like I said, we often treat others way better than we treat ourselves. Whether that looks like wearing a million hats so your team at work doesn't have to wear more than one. Whether it's not asking your partner for help because you want to be the super person that's doing it all, whether it's saying yes to that party you really don't want to go to because you feel the need to show up, all of this stuff would give everyone else the advice of, can you take it easier on yourself? Can you just give yourself a break? Can you just let yourself breathe and be where you're at. And the ugly truth is, you think that you're being kind by saying yes to everyone and everything.

Starting point is 00:10:13 But you often end up building a lot of resentment and kind of having strings attached to everything. You're maybe waiting for this award that never comes. You're waiting for this award of superman, superwoman, and you never get it. And so you can end up feeling quite bitter and angry at the world. Why me? Why is everything like this? You know, why am I carrying so much of the weight myself? You can relate to that one. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity which I love. Not to mention our team

Starting point is 00:10:54 couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at boss babe is simplify to amplify and kajabi has really helped us do that this year so of course i needed to share it here with you it's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business you know get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible i definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to

Starting point is 00:11:37 kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash boss babe. So what do we do? Well, it all starts with taking responsibility. And that's the least sexy piece of all of that is taking responsibility. Did anyone even ask you to do all of this? Is your partner really expecting you to keep the house as clean as a model home? Is your team really expecting you to be hitting every single deadline that you've set for yourself? Is your boss really expecting you to be on email 10.30pm every single night or replying to an email within five minutes? Or is that your own internal dialogue telling you that in order to be accepted, in order to be worthy, that you need to be doing it? And so we need to take real responsibility for that ourselves. And then we get to set boundaries. Here's the thing. I love it when people cancel plans on me. I love it when my, you know, I'm

Starting point is 00:12:45 scheduled to go out for dinner and I get a text saying, I'm just not going to make it tonight. I'm like, oh, tonight is going to be good. I'm going to run a bath, PJs on, trash TV, body weight and chocolate, like let's go. So why do I feel so bad when I'm the one cancelling plans on someone else? Riddle me that. Why do we do that to ourselves? Because I know if it was the other way around, I'm like, let's go. My schedule just freed up and I didn't even know I needed this, right? I heard something about boundaries that really resonated with me and it was the only people who are going to be offended when you're less available are the people who benefit from you being overly available. The only people who are going to be offended when you're less available are the people who benefit from you being overly available.

Starting point is 00:13:35 And most of the time, most of the people in your life really want to support the highest, happiest version of you, and they'll celebrate and accept your boundaries. But let me be clear, boundaries aren't, you can't text me after 10 p.m. because that's you instructing something from someone else. Boundaries are, you can text me whenever, but if it's after 10 p.m., I'm probably not going to reply. So you're taking away, trying to control someone else's behavior, and you're just fully owning that responsibility yourself of, you can text me anytime. I'm going to be on do not disturb, and I'll reply to you in these hours. That's just a simple example. And again, this isn't what people often think of as a typical failure, but it's a sneaky one because it's when we're failing ourselves.

Starting point is 00:14:28 And failing ourselves, I think, is one of the biggest failures. When we fail ourselves, it's something that was so in our control that we've put on ourselves and allowed to happen over and over and over again. And when we stop feeling ourselves is often when we break the cycle of exhaustion, of burnout, of guilt, of chaos, of resentment, when we stop feeling ourselves. And so I want you to make a note of where you might be feeling yourself right now. Whether it's something that you are continuing to commit to over and over and over again, whether it's something you've told yourself everyone's expecting from you, whether it's the self-talk, whatever it is, I want you to write down what your takeaway from that is

Starting point is 00:15:28 where you might be feeling yourself or letting yourself down especially on a consistent basis I'm not asking you to fix it I'm not asking you to come up with a big aha of how this is going to change but one of the best things that we can do in the situation is bring awareness to the situation. Because when we have awareness, action normally follows. So just make a note of that. And hopefully, as we're going through, yeah, Lauren, I'm feeling myself and not giving myself the compassion I so readily give to others. So the good news is I did end up taking maternity leave the bad news is I returned way faster than I should have it's very interesting in America it's very big difference and coming from the UK so it's been really interesting to compare and contrast the way that kind of thing works

Starting point is 00:16:16 my first couple months back were completely exhausting I couldn't get in creative flow I kept setting all these boundaries, thinking they'd help, and really it made things worse. I thought that I needed to separate my work and my life very cleanly down the middle. The more I tried, the worse both got. Have you ever felt that way,

Starting point is 00:16:37 where you're doing like all the textbook things, but it's still not working? You're logging in to Growth Every Day. You're doing every business growth self-help book. But even when you're absorbing it all, it's just not working for you. You're like, I don't even know how to apply this, where to apply this, because there's just a block. There's just some kind of block here. Well, the truth is that boundaries aren't going to solve your burnout like I thought they would for me. Boundaries are great when it's like your mother-in-law showing up completely unannounced or when your best friend always expects you to

Starting point is 00:17:10 pick up the phone. But when you start to notice all of these boundaries being broken, it should be a bit of a red flag, right? So what you're going to want to do is get to the root of that issue. I know it's not going to be comfortable. And probably something came up when I said that. Your intuition knows what's up. And until you solve that, all the hacks and tips in the world aren't going to solve that problem. And so what I want you to think about when it comes to how you are going to make a change and how you probably are going to set more boundaries.

Starting point is 00:17:42 And you can think about them as boundaries. You can think about when you go bowling and you're, you know, you're not a pro, let's put it that way. And so you put the rails up at the side, right? They're not really interfering at all. But when you throw that bowling ball down, it's just going to make sure you don't really go off track into the next person's lane. You know, they're not going to make you win. They're not like the secret sauce that's going to get you a strike every single time. But it's going to stop things going a little bit too far off path. That's how I like to think about boundaries as guardrails.

Starting point is 00:18:12 And so I want you to think about your guardrails, your boundaries. What would really support you in being able to get in your best frame of mind, your best, highest performing state, so that when you are logging in every day, when you are learning every day, you're able to actually apply it because those guardrails are up. Your energy isn't spilling everywhere. Your self-talk isn't everywhere. The guardrails are up and we're doing what we need to do to keep ourselves in check. And I want you to do without shame. So for me, that was more time. I needed more time, and I had to really put my own boundaries in place to make that happen. For others, that might be getting

Starting point is 00:18:52 more mentorship. For others, it might be, you know, having a conversation with your partner so you can get those 30 minutes in the morning that you need to log in and listen to daily fire ask for help allow others in so you can talk to them go to therapy do the real self-care put the real guardrails up so that you are protecting your own mental and physical state you know when we talk about self-care it's very much hand in hand with boundaries i think we can sometimes think self-care is like spa days and a margarita or a happy hour and it isn't. Real self-care is putting those guardrails up in our lives so that we can keep ourselves in the best frame of mind. And again, it's not a typical failure to hear this, but when you're failing every day, that might be a sign that those guardrails are really leaky, broken, or just not

Starting point is 00:19:45 up at all. There are very big failures that happen in life, but if it's every single day, you might just be trying to fit like a square peg into a round hole. It's like trying to fit into the jeans that don't fit anymore. Like I remember six months post-partum trying to get those jeans on and I'm like, you know what what I love these jeans they looked really good but at some point I just need to accept these jeans aren't made for me anymore and you know what they're not supposed to I've changed and so I'm probably better off going and getting new jeans versus trying to fit back into the old ones and as we go through adversity, especially, it's changing us constantly. And instead of keep thinking we need to reset and go back to exactly where we were comfortable, maybe it's I've expanded.

Starting point is 00:20:36 Now, how do I set some new guardrails around that new expansion? How do I really settle into that new expansion, that new expression of me, those new genes? How do I really change into that new expansion that new expression of me those new genes how do I really change it up in that sense

the bossbabe podcast - 311. Overcoming Adversity, Setting Boundaries + Giving Yourself The Grace You Deserve

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