I see all that you do. The mental and invisible load of what you carry. The endless to-do lists, decisions, and problem solving.
I know your mind never rests. Between taking care of yourself, the household needs, the child(ren), the meal planning, and career responsibilities, you are tapped out.
For years I have been helping women with mental load. Some of the tools that help are time and task management systems. Some of it involves mindset and beliefs (like whether you really HAVE to do that thing or do it in the complicated way you are asking of yourself).
Recently, I was introduced to the Fairplay system developed by Eve Rodsky, and I’m obsessed. If you haven’t heard of it, there is a book and card deck. The book is the starting point as it addresses how we ended up in a situation where women overwhelmingly carry the majority of the mental load and offers solutions and methods to even the playing field more. The card deck breaks down the roles and responsibilities of running a household into a game that couples can play to improve the shared responsibilities.
This week on the podcast I introduce the system and give you the CliffsNotes version. My favorite bullet points that she covers are:
Eliminate tasks
Release what isn’t in alignment for your family or season
The invisible work
Acknowledge how much labor goes unrecognized
CPE (Conceptualize, Plan, Execute)
In the Fairplay system, whomever is executing is also taking on the conceptualizing and planning. If you hold the card, you hold it from beginning to end. There is no sharing of cards. One person owns it wholly.
All time is created equal
No one person’s time is more valuable than another.
Minimum Standard of Care
This is HUGE when it comes to ending the bickering, nagging, and criticizing of how tasks are done. Part of the exercise is agreeing on a shared definition of what is reasonable to expect in the execution. Sometimes you need to up your game, and sometimes you need to lower the bar. But having a shared standard cuts out so many of the fights.
Unicorn Space
This may be my FAVORITE part of the book. Each person in the partnership needs a weekly window of time to pursue the thing that lights them up and can be shared with the world. Pursuing joy is just as important as keeping the household running.
If you are in a partnership and want to reduce your mental load, I highly recommend that you listen to this week’s episode.
And of course, if you want help decreasing the overwhelm in your life, my 1:1 coaching goes far beyond just looking at this one tool. Before committing to ongoing coaching, the first step is to schedule a Roadmap session.
When you think differently about yourself, you get different results.
Meet Chelle Hartzer, one of the coolest clients I have had the privilege of coaching. She is an entomologist, meaning an expert on all things bugs. During the pandemic, Chelle was laid off from one of the largest pest control companies in America. She then pivoted to start her own consulting company where she supports small and medium-sized pest control companies across the globe.
This week she is on the podcast sharing her story of stepping into more confidence. We discuss the concepts of being your Favorite Self and also owning your Favorite Business.
Chelle shares her journey of learning to own her “weird,” thrive as one of the only women in a male dominated field, and improve her stage presence (she regularly speaks at conferences).
During this conversation she shared that one of the most powerful tools that helped her during the coaching process was writing affirmations. These affirmations helped her change the way she saw herself. The affirmations she chose are:
🪲 I am intriguing.
🪲 I am engaging.
🪲 I am valuable.
🪲 I am interesting.
Our thoughts determine our feelings.
Our feelings determine our behaviors.
Our behaviors determine our results.
Meaning, when you think differently about yourself, you get different results. When Chelle began to see herself as intriguing, engaging, valuable, and interesting, she felt more confident on stage and in one-on-one conversations.
To listen to the full conversation with Chelle, click here.
If you would like help growing your confidence in yourself, start by scheduling a Roadmap session.
Your body is the most important asset in your business.
Attention entrepreneurs…write this thought down somewhere you can see it frequently throughout the day: My body is the most important asset in my business.
It’s really easy to get caught up in taking care of others, getting the tasks done, keeping the clients satisfied, prioritizing your friends and family, but it’s not sustainable if it takes a toll on your health.
How many of you have either experienced or personally witnessed a business owner hit burnout? It’s really, really, really common. They take on all the stress. They juggle all the balls. They burn the candle at both ends, and then they hit burnout. It happens every day.
It’s avoidable, but not easy.
Choosing yourself and your body first can often feel like an act of rebellion.
Choosing to go to bed early instead of replying to more emails or wrapping up the project can feel counter intuitive.
Choosing to not return the phone call so you can hit the gym after work may not feel natural.
Pushing back the deadline for a day or two because your body is asking for rest isn’t always praised in our culture.
But our bodies are the most important asset.
When we take care of our bodies we have more energy, have better ideas, are more attractive to be around, and get more done.
How you spend your time is a reflection of your priorities. Are you prioritizing yourself? If not, what do your actions reflect you believe is a higher priority?
Tune into this week’s podcast episode for more thoughts to chew on on this topic and some real life examples you will probably relate to.
If you are a business owner (or experiencing career burn out) and know that taking care of your body is so far down the priority list that you can’t keep going on like this, it’s time to reach out for support. Schedule a Roadmap session and we can discuss what it can look like for you to start choosing yourself.
Join the waitlist for the Your Favorite Business group coaching program if you want to be notified when the next round opens up on August 20th.
There is a question that began plaguing me several months ago:
Is it ADHD, anxiety, or nervous system dysregulation?
As I have openly shared, my daughter and I were diagnosed three years ago with anxiety and ADHD, respectively, and since then I have been diving deep into the research of the brain so as to best support each of us.
Fast forward to the present…there has been an incredible amount of progress. Our symptoms are both under control, infrequently rearing their ugly heads. But…I can’t unsee the patterns of what had worked.
We both needed the same medicine…listening to what our nervous system was asking for from us.
While we were navigating this in our personal lives, in my professional life I was diving deeply into the relationship between our thoughts, feelings, and bodies. When I began my coaching practice, I mostly coached my clients cognitively, but the more that we entered conversations through the lens of the body and the feelings it wanted to process, the more their results sky rocketed. This led me down the rabbit hole of understanding how our nervous system works.
A regulated nervous system doesn’t mean calm and chill. That’s not life. It means that you have the BANDWIDTH to move through the emotional roller coaster easily. The more regulated your nervous system is, the less likely you are to go into fight or flight in a stressful moment (ex: yelling at someone or shutting down).
If you are skeptical of what I am suggesting, PLEASE do the deep dive for yourself. Research the lifestyle changes that are recommended to help with ADHD, help with anxiety, and help regulate your nervous system. The Venn Diagram overlap is staggering. Here are JUST A FEW of the recommendations that find their way onto all the lists:
Get a full night’s rest
Breath work
Exercise one hour or more a day
Manage the things in your life that make you feel overstimulated
Think 5 senses…some people are triggered by loud noises, clutter, certain textures, etc.
Food changes (learning what your body uniquely needs)
Reduce stress
Feel your feelings rather than suppressing them
Am I suggesting that I don’t have ADHD and am rescinding my diagnosis? ABSOLUTELY NOT. Funny enough, I actually have come to LOVE the label. The more I understand how my brain works, the more I understand how to meet my own needs and play to my own strengths. It’s been one of the most unexpected gifts in my life.
Here is the question I have been wrestling with:
What if we are having the wrong conversations? What if the conversations should really be dominated by everyone doing their own personal work in regards to of what it uniquely means for them to have a regulated nervous system? And what if, when we are dysregulated, we each respond in our own ways?
My dysregulation looks like scattered thoughts, overwhelm, inability to focus, procrastination and avoidance (all things typically associated with ADHD). My daughter’s dysregulation looks like having less control over the thoughts in her mind and an escalation of emotions (aka anxiety).
I’ve been asking these questions for some time now, and at this point, it’s become my new worldview, which is why I was finally ready to talk about it on my podcast. If this is something that interests you, the most helpful resource I have found is the work of neuroscientist and occupational therapist Dr. Brooke Weinstein.
I recorded a more in-depth podcast episode that goes into detail on:
how our nervous system works
what it means to have a regulated vs. dysregulated nervous system
A PLETHORA of ideas on how to regulate yours
I cannot pack into a single blog post the amount of content I was able to share in a 45 minute episode, so if this interests you, I recommend listening here.
If you want to explore working with me 1:1 to discover what a more regulated version of you could look like, the first step is to schedule a Roadmap session.
“When you avoid conflict to keep the peace, you start a war within yourself.”
-Cheryl Richardson
Check in with your body. Do you feel grounded, centered, and calm? Or, like most people, do you feel a tension in your chest, stomach, shoulders, neck, back, or somewhere else?
Most of us are walking around carrying tension as if this is the only way to do life.
It is not.
We don’t have to accept this.
Season two of the podcast just launched; in this season we will regularly be asking – what can our bodies teach us? What can we learn by listening?
For our first conversation, I want to discuss one of the ways to create more peace in your life by choosing 10 seconds of courage.
Your peace may be on the other side of one 10 second decision to choose courage. The courage to speak up for yourself.
There is a great quote by Cheryl Richardson that I have been repeating to myself for years,
“When you avoid conflict to keep the peace, you start a war within yourself.”
Many of us are walking around with wars and conflicts in our bodies.
But it doesn’t have to stay this way.
On the podcast episode this week I give five real life examples pulled from my own life and client experiences over the years. Real moments where peace looked like:
Seeing a DM that felt like there were some undertones covering up some pain. Choosing not to reply, but to dial their phone number immediately and get to the bottom of what that comment was inferring.
Opening up the voice memo in a text message, clicking record, and word vomiting to get it out. Knowing it was messy. Knowing it could have been handled better. But knowing that if you didn’t go on that tangent right then, you would probably bury it again like you had for months.
Choosing to turn on a reality TV show in the middle of the weekday afternoon rather than doing a task for the sake of “productivity.” Letting people around you feel whatever they want to feel about your small act of rebellion that was a big act of self-care.
The 10 seconds it takes to write your boss an email and say, “I have something important to discuss, when can I get on your calendar?” Knowing that the requests on your list are not easy asks, but they’re the only path to you staying sane and not forfeiting your physical and mental health any longer.
Choosing your workout over the convenience you provide to the other people in your home or office. That choice to drive to the gym before the house takes 10 seconds to decide whether you get in the turning lane or stay straight. Or maybe it was the 10 seconds to decide not to reply to the next email but actually leave work on time.
Either way, you know if you keep neglecting yourself in the name of serving others, this whole ship is going to sink. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next week. But this path of neglect isn’t sustainable. Whether it’s six months, a year, or two years down the road, eventually this story doesn’t end well.
What 10 second decision will bring you closer to your inner peace?
If you are ready to do the work to find your inner peace and tired of trying to do it alone, one-on-one coaching may be a great option for you. The first step is to schedule a Roadmap session.
When a client comes to me in overwhelm or needing help with their work-life balance, the very first step I take with them is to design a Favorite Week. It’s essentially a budget of your time. A financial budget is spending your money on paper before you make it. A Favorite Week is spending your time before it happens.
It’s a template. Given the priorities you juggle, design a schedule that leaves you feeling the best. Give the appropriate amount of time to each of the areas of your life.
I teach these steps:
Define your priorities/mental load
Consider how much time you need to be able to thrive in each area
Figure out a flow that leaves you feeling really good
Then, play Jenga.
Pointers:
Consider tasks that have to be done daily or weekly and build in when you will consistently do them
Be realistic. Just because something can fit on the calendar at 8pm or 6am, are you ACTUALLY going to feel like doing it at that time, or will you just be constantly letting yourself down for not following through on something? Don’t set yourself up for failure.
Share this flow with the people in your life. If you have a partner, an employee or anyone else who actively plays a role in your schedule, let them know your intentions so they don’t commit you to things that will sabotage your flow
PLAY JENGA!
Making the plan is one thing, but there’s a reason it’s called the FAVORITE week. It’s best case scenario. Tiramisu ice cream is my favorite flavor. It’s rarely available for me. So I often enjoy chocolate or coffee. This template sets you up for success, but being human means there are circumstances outside our control. So we must be prepared to be flexible.
In the game Jenga, you start with the perfect tower. It’s strong. It’s stable. Everything is precisely where it belongs. And then…you begin adjusting.
Your Favorite Week is the starting tower. Everything fits perfectly. It’s your best case scenario.
Each week, it’s almost guaranteed you will need to make adjustments. This is where the most important work begins:
Declare your non-negotiables.
What absolutely must occur to set the rest of the week of up for success?
Think of each one of these cell blocks as a Jenga block. Some of them you can move around and absolutely nothing happens. They practically pop out on their own. The stability of your tower is not impacted by moving that piece around. However, other pieces, if moved will either make the tower wobbly or will cause it to come crashing down.
I recorded a full episode on the podcast this week (episode number 11) explaining the entire process and why mine is designed the way it is. Here is a link to find the episode on your preferred app.
If you would like to receive coaching to help you discover your best flow and put these ideas into practical application, consider exploring if 1:1 coaching is right for you.
Examples shown below: (top) My personal example of a favorite week. (bottom) A blank template.
I created these in Google Sheets but you could easily replicate in Excel or a similar program.
Recently I was talking with a couple other coaches about the question, “Is wanting more a good thing?”
We discussed the tightrope between contentment and aspiration. It is an absolutely beautiful thing to crave more in your life and have a deep, burning desire to create change. At the same time, it’s so imperative that we remain grounded in gratitude.
So how do you walk this out? How do you feel content and grateful for the life you are living while simultaneously dreaming of something else?
I likened it to a cross country road trip.
It reminded me of a poster that hung in my high school biology teacher’s classroom that said, “happiness is a journey, not a destination.”
I live in Florida. If I were to plan a trip to Portland, Oregon, it would inevitably be beautiful. Despite how excited I am to see the Pacific Northwest, the only way to get there is to take a scenic route through other parts of America.
I have the option of getting there as quickly as possible, or I can plan to make pit stops along the way at the beautiful cities and landscapes I will encounter on the road trip.
If I pause to appreciate everything I see along the way, then my time spent in Portland will be accompanied by countless memories and new experiences. I may drive through the middle of America, or I may choose to party in New Orleans, line dance in San Antonio, drive up the California coast and then take detours to visit Yosemite and the redwood trees.
The journey to get there would have been a greater gift than where I arrived.
Wherever you are on your journey today, remember to pause and appreciate the process. Remember that the goals you are chasing are not only about where you are going, but also about who you become and what you experience along the way.
Growth is not easy. Obstacles and hurdles and u-turns and setbacks are never fun. However, when you finally arrive at the destination you are pursuing, you will experience the joy of celebrating the end victory and every single milestone along the way.
Happy road tripping friends. Where are you headed?
To join Sophia live for in-depth conversations in Clubhouse, mark your calendars for Tuesdays at 2pm EST. Each week she is joined by Business Coach Chrissanne Long and Mindset Coach Dean Fox. Sophia’s Clubhouse handle is @sophiahyde
Sophia Hyde is a certified coach who specializes in helping busy people release their favorite selves. She teaches a 10-week course that accompanies 20-minute coaching sessions to lead people through the process of defining what that looks like in their own lives. If you would like to schedule a complimentary strategy session to see if coaching is right for you, click here.
In American culture, it’s very popular to discuss goals around the new year. From the day after Christmas, into the first half of January, goal setting tends to dominate our dialogue.
Personally, my FAVORITE time of year to revisit goals and jump into massive action is August, and here are the reasons why:
Most people are deadline driven
The average person is deadline motivated. Most of us tend to focus on the urgent needs in front of us and put on the back burner the items that can wait. When a goal for the year is set in January, it’s easy to defer taking action. There is a wide gap between the starting line and the deadline.
The nice part about August is that you start to get that urgency feeling. OOF! Seven months have already passed. If I am going to hit this goal by the end of the year, I better start jumping on it right now. Summer has passed and the nearness of the end of the year starts to add that necessary pressure.
Summer Vibes are Dwindling
When summer hits, many people take their eyes off their goals. It’s very easy to set it all aside when we take a vacation and mentally want to check out. However, it’s also very common that we forget to pick the baton back up when we return home. The general feel of summer is to chill, which doesn’t coincide with taking massive action toward our goals.
August is the perfect transition. We mentally feel like it’s time to tuck away the flip flops and get out the running shoes.
Routines Matter
One of the most important aspects of achieving goals is to break them down into habits and to build those habits into our routines. For many people, the summer is full of interruptions to the routines. Whether it’s traveling, house guests, kids at home, or many other factors, the daily rituals can be more challenging. With August comes a return to normal, and it’s much easier to habit-stack those daily rituals that will lead to success.
If you would like to use a proven template to model your goals in a way that will help you be successful in achieving them, click here for an example of how I design mine.
If you feel stuck or have been stagnant with achieving your goals, click this link to schedule a complimentary strategy session.
*Cue all the judgements and gasps and strange looks*
I’ve been taking flack for this lifestyle choice for six years, so I decided to share with you why my husband and are quite happy with this decision.
First, I realized long ago that the reason so many people are uncomfortable with this information when I share it is because most people can only understand someone else’s life through the lens of their own experiences. When they respond with a strange look or comment, I’m able to understand what they are actually saying is “that would never work in my marriage.” And that’s totally fine.
I am in no way on a mission to convince anyone to copy us. It’s probably not a good idea for most people. What I am on a mission to do is to encourage people to think independently, get comfortable with being different than everyone else, and to advocate for what’s best for your family.
So, now for the part many of you are sticking around for…why do we each have our own bedroom?
Short answer:
In our family, we prioritize a solid night’s rest and this arrangement allows all four members of our family to sleep well. Everyone gets 7-11 hours of sleep in the Hyde house, and we are all happier humans for it.
Long answer:
Let’s go back to 2007, the beginning of the marriage.
For the first seven years of our marriage, we had indeed been sharing a bed. I am a cuddler, and he doesn’t want to be touched. I’m a bed hog and a blanket thief. We used separate blankets so I could create my cocoon and he didn’t have to wake up to unravel me. The two blankets didn’t solve the problem that I took up 3/4 of the bed, and he wanted a bubble around himself.
At some point in the marriage he began snoring. I would solve this by plugging his nose in the middle of the night, which also wasn’t appreciated.
My opinion of the ideal temperature at night is between 70-73 degrees. His opinion of the ideal sleeping temperature is between 60-64. This is a big difference. I was always freezing cold or he was sweating.
In 2014 our daughter was born. We decided to put an adult bed in the same room as the baby. I knew I wanted to breastfeed so I was the only one who could feed her at night. If I was going to get interrupted in the night, why have her cries wake my husband too?
He wouldn’t be able to offer me relief so we might as well have one fully rested adult. We agreed that my job was to take care of the baby, and his job was to take care of me. Since he was well rested, he could handle more of the household responsibilities.
Shortly after she was born, I converted to safe co-sleeping for us. She and I both slept so much better. Brandon was extremely uncomfortable with having her in bed with him, and it’s not recommended as part of safe co-sleeping. So I just always slept in our daughter’s room, and he slept in ours.
Well, not too long into this arrangement, my husband started sleeping much better. He could set the temperature to 60, snuggle in his blanket where no one would touch him or try to steal it, and he could snore as loudly as his body desired. As my daughter grew, she too revealed to be a snuggler. In contrast to her mom, she always kicked off her blankets. So we made a great match. We could sleep through the night all up in each other’s personal bubbles.
And then along came our son. We had to rethink the arrangements because our 5 year old didn’t need to wake up every time the infant cried. I needed a room to myself with the baby. We live in a 3 bedroom home so we discussed all the options. It made the most sense to teach my daughter to sleep in her own bed and to move me into the master bedroom next door. Dad tried a few nights on the couch and that was an epic fail.
So we looked at the office. We could have called it the “spare room” but why not call a spade a spade. We put a twin in the office, which has its own mini-split a/c unit and dad was back to his awesome rest. The logistics of him having to wake us up to get to his clothes also made no sense so we just decided to go all in and move his clothes into the office too.
As our son grew, I still loved co-sleeping, and he proved to also be a snuggler.
At some point our daughter started waking up in the middle of the night and getting in bed with me. I was sleeping on a queen mattress on the floor (safe co-sleeping) with bumpers to keep them from rolling off and it was tight. Too tight. I was sleeping miserably.
So during this quarantine we decided to get everyone situated with the appropriate bed arrangements.
Mama now has a king bed with bumpers that has ample room for the three squirmy cuddlers in the family.
The kids have bunk beds to give them the illusion of having their own beds, but Liam never uses his and Eleanora makes it 3-5 hours in there each night.
Daddy got upgraded to a queen in the third bedroom with his quiet corner of the house at the perfect temperature each night.
This works really well for us. I have the entire master bedroom closet to myself and a giant king bed that my kids come snuggle with me in. It’s awesome.
And now…the answer to the question you’re all wondering. The one I get asked the most, “but doesn’t this have an effect on your sex life?”
C’mon now people. Really? We have to spell it out this clearly for you.
Kids bedtime: 7:30pm Moms bedtime: 10pm Dads bedtime: 11:30pm Typical time first child wakes up looking for mom: 11:00-11:30 if she’s not already in bed
Mom and dad are doing just fine.
We have never in the history of our marriage gone to bed at the same time. I prefer to go to bed early and rise early. He prefers to stay up late and sleep later.
So there have never been those cute moments like in the movies where we read our books together and then kiss goodnight and turn off the two lamps on the night stands. It’s more like he’s watching a movie or playing a video game and I say “Goodnight babe. Love you”
Like I said, I am in no way advocating for others to follow our lead. What I do want to encourage you to do is to get a full night’s rest, be a good human and get really comfortable going against the grain if it improves your quality of life.
This is probably the scariest post I have ever written. I will gladly spill my emotions out without hesitation, but our society teaches us that money is a BIG secret. Asking “how much do you make?” is considered a rude question. God forbid you ask someone how much they paid for their car (but then we Google the MSRP and make some guesses on that monthly payment). However, a way to TRULY help each other is to talk about this stuff.
A few months ago I was writing in my Instastory about finances. We had recently become debt free and people were asking how we did it. I took a poll and asked how many would love to see an example of our budget and 100% of the responses were yes….and there were DOZENS of people.
I felt like I had opened the door and had to follow through, but I put it off for months. It felt vulnerable and scary.
My husband is in the film industry so with all the shoots cancelling during the pandemic we knew it was only a matter of time before his pay stopped. And then we got “the call.” After April, his income sources will dry up and we will be applying for unemployment. I know other people are facing similar situations, so I felt that it was finally time to open the window.
The reason I am choosing to take a GIANT risk, do something that feels VERY vulnerable, is because I am here to help people. I know so many people are facing financial challenges like us and talking about this stuff helps. Finding out what others spend on groceries, and life expenses helps us learn. So, I am going to share with you guys our February budget, which was a pretty normal month for us. Our May budget is being slashed by childcare and any other expenses we can trim to try our hardest not to tap into our emergency fund.
Important notes about reading this document:
I don’t run our budget off an excel document. This was just the easiest way to publish the data. We use an app called Everydollar that organizes it all for us very well. My two favorite features are the drag and drop syncing feature with our bank, so after I swipe I just have to drag to the appropriate category, and the ability to establish funds.
The green boxes are funds. Our app allows us set these up differently so that if we don’t spend all the money we budgeted for that category it will roll over to the next month. A great example of this is the car maintenance. We budget $250/month. Most months we will spend $0-50 on our cars and then have a $500-1000 repair a couple times a year. Setting aside the money each month anticipating those hits takes all the stress out of the yoyo-ing.
Any money we bring in beyond the expenses goes into the savings. We follow the Dave Ramsey baby steps. We are now debt free, but we have not finished funding our 3-6 months emergency fund. Full disclosure, since we just became debt free around Christmas time, we don’t even have 1 month of expenses saved yet.
Have any questions? I’ll gladly answer them! Please comment, reply or email me if this brings any value to you so I can feel better about totally laying out my personal life for everyone to see.
If you would like to receive an email whenever my blog updates, you can subscribe by putting your email address into the bottom of the page. When you do so, it will send you a free gift download that is a self assessment called the “Wheel of Life.”
****2021 Update***
Since the original post was published, I have switched platforms. We now use You Need a Budget (YNAB) to manage our finances on a daily basis.
My greatest recommendation is that you create a budget and find a system that word for you to monitor it daily. Using a budget to let you know how much money you can afford to spend in a category will serve you much greater than just pulling up your checking account to see if you can “afford it.” It’s all about the budget.
