There’s no such thing as the perfect schedule or routine. Sure we all have schedules and routines that work for us, but that’s the key. They work for US.
At the same time, things change. We go through transitions in life and business and we have to make adjustments to how we work.
As this episode is being released, we’re in a transition phase. Fall is here, if not officially then in spirit because school has started in most parts of the U.S. This means mornings might be busier and early afternoons are a whole lot quieter. And if you have kids in school, you’re probably shifting things around a bit to accommodate this change. I sure am.
This week on the podcast, I’m talking about different seasons of change and transition and what I plan to focus on in this particular season. Things don’t always have to stay the same and there’s no perfect solution for everyone. But when you try out some things and make little shifts and changes, you will find what works best for you.
And if you need support to hold yourself accountable or to figure out how to clean up some of the mess that’s leftover from summertime, you’re invited to join us in the Inner Circle. Find out more about this monthly membership here!
Links and Resources:
Time Stamps:
[0:42] – Why fall is the best
[2:14] – Managing transitions and shifting seasons
[3:44] – Want to surprise me for my birthday?
[4:46] – Fall transition is a natural time to revisit some of your routines
[6:12] – I am not a morning person
[6:55] – What I plan to focus on
[9:06] – I want to be more present when my kids get home from school
[9:56] – Always feel like I’m in work mode because I haven’t done the most important thing first
[10:53] – How are you taking care of yourself
[11:20] – Big reminders
[13:05] – Sometimes you need some support
Transcription:
Amber Hawley 0:01
Business owners are increasingly being pulled in so many directions, feeling like they aren’t reaching their full potential in business and life despite their type aways. With my background as a therapist, entrepreneur, and as a.com dropout with ADHD, I interview and coach high achieving business owners like you who want to stop struggling for success by using psychological systems, strategies, and the occasional care for entation. This is the easily distracted entrepreneur, your place to slay overwhelm perfectionism and shiny object syndrome so that you can get done what matters most to you.
Amber Hawley 0:41
Hello, hello, happy September my focusing friends. I love September it is it has always been my favorite month. And not just because it’s my birthday month, although obviously, that’s great, too. But growing up in Minnesota, it was the end of the hot summer. And so it was fall and fall is my favorite time of year. I just love the leaves churning. I love the smells of fall. And the cool weather. I’ve always said I look way cuter in Fall clothes and layers than I do in summer clothes. It’s just not my thing. I’m not a hot girl. I think I like fall in spring, because I’m kind of like the Goldilocks of weather. Like, I don’t like it too hot or too cold. Like I like that, that in between. So yeah, this is one of my favorite times. And now, you know, it’s kind of like, fall this time. September is like that. We’re in back to school season. So we’re kind of getting back to, you know, quote unquote, normal after half being on summer schedule. And even for people who don’t have kids, I find that they say the exact same thing. There’s like something about September, that’s almost like, okay, we’re getting back on track. And we’re gonna end our year strong. So I think everybody’s schedule changes, it seems in this time period. And, you know, especially when I think about all my therapist, friends, August is notoriously slow. For most therapists, I guess it depends on your specialty and region. But August was always pretty slow, because people are on vacation and getting ready for back to school stuff. And then yeah, then it’s like September, you know, the everybody hits the ground running first, they’re just trying to get acclimated to things. And then they’re like, Okay, now I need to reach out and take care of some stuff.
Amber Hawley 2:44
So just wanted to talk today a little bit about, you know, managing these transitions, because I feel like, there are these seasons in our lives that most people go through where things shift, and it requires different energy. And to kind of see those seasons as like the back to school season, the holiday season, the beginning of the new year, it’s kind of a season, the end of the school year that May, June time is the season and summer, of course is the season. And like I said, each each one of those has its own energy, it kind of has its own obligations or commitments. And, you know, I mean, maybe that’s what keeps life interesting. But I think a lot of people I’ve been talking to myself included are kind of ready to get back to normal, although I will not be getting back to normal because as this comes out, I am currently in California closing down my office. And so I am missing most of the back to school season. That that initial time period where you have to get adjusted to everything you know, a little more, we go from having those lazy summer mornings to having to have lot a lot more chaotic mornings, being on a real schedule, having to go to sleep and wake up at certain times. I get to miss it all because our school didn’t start until August 29. And I left on September 2, so yay. Also, I just celebrated my birthday. So if you would like to give me a birthday present, if you know me, you know my my love language or my one of my top love languages, I should say is words of affirmation. So I would love to either hear from you, or if you could leave a review somewhere if you’re loving the podcast and let other people know because that’s how people you know, we live in a Yelp society. That’s how they figure out oh, I want to listen to that. I want to, you know, hear all that magic that Amber has to give.
Amber Hawley 4:55
So I would greatly appreciate it and consider it belated birthday present If you would do that, and like I said, even reaching out to me, I love to hear from you. And, you know, it would make my day. So just putting that out there. So yes, talking about transitions, these are those transitions of seasons, or even life transitions that we go through, right. But this particular one getting back on track and kind of getting back into our routines, it can be a time where it’s like a natural time to revisit some of those routines like look at how is your schedule? How is your morning routine? How is your evening routine actually working for you? And, you know, maybe experiments a little bit. So I think this is a good time in September to, to take a look at that kind of stuff till take a look at Do you have a big goal that you want to accomplish by the end of the year? Is there something that you set out in January? Or February, that you said, Okay, this year, this is the year I’m going to do? You know, x whatever that thing is? And did you actually do that? Have you gotten that done yet? Did it shift? Did it change? You know, there’s there’s a lot of things that that happened over the year, but this is a time where you can say okay, yes, that’s still a priority for me, and I want to come back to it. But sometimes it’s really taking a further step back and looking at, does our daily schedule, does our workflow does our morning routine, set us up to achieve those things? Right. So for me, personally, I think I’ve talked a lot about not being a morning person, I’m really not a morning person. I’m very much a night owl. Although I started realizing, I think I’m a solid middle of the day, or when it comes to work. Like I naturally can stay up late pretty easily. But I find I am not wanting to do work at a certain point. Seeing clients is very different for me, because when I’m I get the energy of being with other people, but actually having to do a project or to do writing or do content, like I just find I don’t have the bandwidth.
Amber Hawley 7:20
So for me, something I’m going to be experimenting with, once I’m back from California, is really focusing on, you know, getting up doing my morning routine that’s very self care oriented. And then taking a look at how I’m tackling things. So I’m going to experiment with the eating the frog technique a little bit. And if you’re not familiar with that, there’s this great book called eat the frog in which they basically talk about you should do the most important task, or your biggest task or your most dreaded task first thing in the morning and get it out of the way. Because then you like Have you’ve built that momentum, you’ve got the worst thing out of the way. And now everything else was a little bit easier. And you know, if I’m following my own advice, which I really tried to do, of just having one thing for the day. And you know, I say sometimes like it’s three if it’s very small tasks, but really focusing on what is that major thing that I’m trying to get done. In that day, I’m going to really push myself to get that stuff done before noon. Because my thinking is How amazing would that feel, to know that by noon, every day, I’ve gotten the most important thing that I needed to do for the day done. I still have some time, you know, take a lunch break, get some other things done, that would be nice to do.
Amber Hawley 8:57
I usually save all my meetings and client sessions and coaching sessions for after 1pm and even podcast interviews. So those are no problem. Like I have no problem showing up and meeting with people and doing that kind of stuff. It’s the I think what most of us struggle with is showing up for ourselves, right? So I’m going to be experimenting with that. And I will report back to you as somebody who has been a director of mornings and I’m going to try to do it in a different way. Because part of me also wants to feel like by the time my kids get home from school that that I can be more present with them and not feel like stressed or behind or like I have to go back to work and do something. There are days that I see clients two days a week usually until about 9pm. So those days, of course I’ll be doing that. Which means I really should have a ton of flexibility on the other days. So that’s that’s what I’m doing. I you know, paid attention to how I was feeling about not really being able to be present with the kids and always kind of feeling a little bit distracted, because I still had like, major things to accomplish at like four or five in the afternoon, you know, and just that feeling of, I always have to be in work mode, because I haven’t done the most important thing first. And I realized at this point, it’s not really serving me. So I’m going to change it up. And so that’s something to look at, look at, maybe you’ve always, you know, had this story, we tell ourselves these stories, like, I’m not a morning person, or, you know, I, whatever the story is, like, I like to do things, you know, after 6pm, or after 9pm, or whatever, like, look at that and see, are you actually doing that stuff? Is that actually working for you? And then figuring out like, are there things that you can be doing at night that set yourself up for that morning time, if you if you’re one of those people that has that rush in the morning, of you know, getting kids out the door, or getting everything where it needs to be? So taking a look at that, and then looking at like, how how do you take care of yourself? Are you building in that time to do the things that give you energy, and that support you being healthy, because that’s the most sustainable thing you can do, right? Is do things that make you feel good and make you feel healthy.
Amber Hawley 11:29
That’s the stuff that that keeps us sustained in our business not burnt out. And you know, feeling good. So I guess, I just wanted this episode to be a reminder, one that we’re in transition, it’s, you know, the beginning of September, if you’re listening to this, and you may say, Oh, my kids going back to school for two weeks now. Well, honestly, I still think it takes like a month to really fully get into the swing of things. Because there are all these big shifts, you know, that are very different from being in summer, then we have to give ourselves space to acclimate to that. You know, transitions are hard, like there’s our body clocks, kind of get set on something. And it’s been, you know, quite a long time for a lot of people since they’ve had to do that morning routine. So give yourself a break, give yourself more time to adjust. take naps, remember that. Like it’s okay to be tired, it doesn’t mean that you had a terrible night’s sleep or something else is bigger is going sometimes you’re just tired.
Amber Hawley 12:30
And you need to give yourself extra rest, like pay attention to what your body’s doing. Paying pay attention to how you’re feeling throughout the day, if you’re feeling really stressed, if you’re feeling down, you know, are there certain times a day? Are there things happening? Are there things that you feel like you’re missing out on and you can’t do because you feel so overloaded by your your work? I think reflection is a big piece of this, it’s just looking at and actually taking that step back and looking and saying, Hey, is this actually working for me, because sometimes we’re just in the thick of it. And we just don’t even think we feel so overloaded. We don’t think about taking that step back and, and taking a critical look at things. So I really want to encourage you to do that. And yeah, if you are one of those people who are like, hey, I need some support and accountability, and I feeling overwhelmed, I don’t even know where to start on like finishing this big goal I had for myself in the year, then I want to remind you that our quarterly goal planning workshop is happening on September 30. In the membership, it is an all day workshop that is included in the membership. And we are going to go through really spelling out everything that needs to be done for that one big project that you want to accomplish. Or if it’s a huge, huge project, maybe it’s the big milestone that needs to be accomplished. And getting that scheduled out so that you have a sustainable plan to get it done.
Amber Hawley 14:06
And also in September, we have an amazing guest expert training, where my friend Edwin Ruiz is going to be talking about building a kind of backup computer contingency plan so that you can feel at peace as an entrepreneur and not be worried about if something happened to your computer that you would be screwed. It’s one of those things that you know, like organization or backup systems or kind of putting in redundancy in our business it can it we all know its importance and yet it’s there’s never like the right time to prioritize it. So I think having something where we’re doing this workshop gives you that space to say okay, this is what I’m doing and I’m working on it. It can be so useful. So I would love to see you all there. And then we have some other amazing guest trainings coming up as well, where my friend Wendy, Wendy Sanders is going to be helping us with organizing our space and decluttering. So that we can not so feel so overwhelmed and stressed. And the thing is, she is, you know, she comes from the lens of supporting people who are neuro divergent. So she really understands those nuances that are unique to us, neuro divergent folks.
Amber Hawley 15:29
So yeah, lots of cool things happening. But, you know, that will be there to support you. Because, as I said, I think it’s also a good time to kind of look at, you know, structurally how things are set up, you know, do some organization do some, you know, cleaning, clearing off the plates, cleaning out your space, and feeling refreshed and ready for this end of the year. And, you know, reaching the goals that you want to, we want to, I don’t want to just end the year, right in the year strong financially, like, that’s always great. But we also don’t want to feel really good about it, I don’t want to end the year feeling completely burnt out. And I have done that many times. So I have just found that, you know, as we go through these transitions in life, whatever they are, you know, like, the ones that I listed might not be the ones that you feel are your transitions of seasons. But when we go through those, it’s a good reminder, this is a time to reflect, and, you know, revisit our routines, and maybe renew our commitments to things and to ourselves and get a fresh perspective. So I hope that is a helpful perspective for you and encourages you to, to do just that and take a look at it.
Amber Hawley 16:53
As always, I love to hear from you. If you you know, want to send me that words of affirmation, birthday wish, or if you want to let me know, yes, you took some time to reflect and kind of revisit things and here are the things you’re changing. I love to know the things that people are changing. I think this is probably why I love being a therapist so much is I love people’s stories. I love knowing how people do things, and how they change things up. I just think it’s exciting. And I love, I love all the different ways in which people do that for themselves. So thank you, thank you, I hope you have a wonderful week. But I don’t want you to feel overwhelmed by this. If you’re still like adjusting to the transition of having to wake up so early or go through all these other changes that are happening. Allow yourself time you do not have to do any of this right now. But it’s something to think about. So maybe your takeaway message is allow myself a lot more naps in space and don’t stress out. You know, make life easy for yourself as you know for the next few weeks. And if you’re feeling adjusted and you’re like hey, this is a good time for me to reflect. I want you to do that but do what works for you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
The Inner Circle
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