#176| The Real Reason You Can’t Stay Focused (And How to Say No to What Derails You for More Productivity): Overwhelm, Productivity, Time Management & People Pleasing

Do you ever feel like you just can’t focus no matter how hard you try — like your brain is stuck in constant emergency mode?

If your calendar is overflowing, your to-do list never shrinks, and distractions pull you in a hundred directions, you’re not alone. This episode dives into the hidden beliefs and habits that silently drain your energy and clarity — and how to finally reclaim your focus.

In this episode, you will:

• Learn how to spot the hidden “bricks” you’ve been carrying that weigh down your productivity.
• Discover a simple pause-and-breathe technique to break the cycle of treating every request as urgent.
• Walk away with a three-step process to shift from overwhelm to clear, intentional focus.

Press play now to learn how to lighten your mental load and finally create space for deep focus and productivity.

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Life can be overwhelming, but on this podcast, you'll discover practical strategies to overcome overwhelm, imposter syndrome, and negative self-talk, manage time effectively, set boundaries, and stay productive in high-stress jobs—all while learning how to say no and prioritize self-care on the Overwhelmed Worki...

Chapters

• 4:35 Bricks in Backpacks
• 5:45 The 911 Emergency Mindset
• 8:43 Take a Deep Breath

Transcript

Michelle Gauthier: 0:00

So picture what is in your overachiever's backpack. What do the bricks say and how heavy are they to carry around?

Michelle Gauthier: 0:14

You're listening to Overwhelmed Working Woman, the podcast that helps you be more calm and more productive by doing less. I'm your host, Michelle Gauthier, a former overwhelmed working woman and current life coach. On this show, we unpack the stress and pressure that today's working woman experiences, and in each episode you'll get a strategy to bring more calm, ease and relaxation to your life.

Michelle Gauthier: 0:42

Hi friend, thanks for joining today. Do you ever feel like you just cannot focus or concentrate? That is sort of a hallmark of feeling overwhelmed and stressed. That's very hard to think clearly. Today, I'm going to tell you a story about one of my clients and how she was able to set down her backpack full of responsibilities, so to speak, and be able to do some very good, clear thinking for better productivity.

Michelle Gauthier: 1:08

Before I jump into that, though, I want to remind you that the declutter challenge is next week. It starts on Monday and it ends on Friday, every day next week. It will take you well, it depends how much time you have, but if you join, you can expect to spend at least five minutes, which is listening to the podcast episode of the morning that will explain to you which area you'll work on decluttering that day, and then around 30 minutes to do the actual decluttering project. By the end of the week, you will feel so much lighter and you will have made progress on decluttering your digital life like think about your email inbox, your calendar, all of your responsibilities, a couple places in your house or your car some kind of physical space and your mind. So you're going to get a taste of all different types of decluttering and notice how they make you feel. The cost for this is $17. You can register at the link in the show notes and when you do, you will get an email that has the workbook that goes with it. So in case you want to print it out before you get started, or if you're more of a person who wants to just keep it on your phone, whatever it is, you will get it immediately upon registration. I hope to see you there next week.

Michelle Gauthier: 2:21

We're actually going to do some fun prizes. If you listen to the episode on the Sunday basket and organizing system, that's going to be one of the prizes. A label maker is going to be one of the prizes, which is like the best thing ever. If you don't own one, you need one Definitely. I feel like everything in life needs a label. And the last prize is a coaching session with me, which, if you do a 30 minute coaching session with me, normally that would be $150. So it's $150 value for free. The way to enter is to just give me feedback throughout the challenge about what your wins are or any questions that you might have, and I'm going to be featuring some of your questions and comments on the podcast next week. So, as we're going through the challenge, I'm going to be sharing wins on the podcast every day. It's gonna be fun, you're gonna feel good. I'm going to be doing it right alongside you, so please join me.

Michelle Gauthier: 3:13

Okay, back to the inability to concentrate or focus. I don't even know that I need to go over why that's bad for your productivity. Right, it just makes sense. If you can't concentrate and you can't focus, then you can't really get anything done. You just get kind of that spinning, paralyzed feeling that comes often with overwhelm and stress. So today, when you listen, you'll discover through hearing about my client Priya's story, why focus problems aren't necessarily your phone or your environment, and how treating every request like an emergency really drains your productivity. And then a quick three-step process to lighten the load and help you be able to focus your attention to be super productive during the times when you want to be productive.

Michelle Gauthier: 4:01

My client, Priya, came to me basically saying, my to-do list keeps getting bigger, I can't get a handle on it, my calendar is out of control, I feel like I never have time to do anything fun and I just can't focus. This is very common. If this, if you're like, yes, I feel like that, this is very common. Almost every client who I work with has this same type of issue, and so the first thing we want to do is get into it Like why, what is going on there? Why is your to-do list never ending? Why is your calendar jam packed? Let's get underneath it.

Michelle Gauthier: 4:35

And what I realized while working with her is that Priya had two main problems that were causing this inability for her to concentrate, and I like to think about them like a metaphor of a backpack. So she had this heavy backpack that she was carrying around, and inside that backpack I picture bricks with words written on them like I have to say yes or I'll let people down. Everything has to be perfect If I don't handle it. No one else will. And if you've ever had any of those thoughts, consciously or unconsciously, those weigh on you. So picture what is in your overachiever's backpack. What do the bricks say and how heavy are they to carry around? If you, for example, are carrying around that heavy brick of I have to say yes or I'll let people down, that means you're always going to say yes and you're worried about what people are going to think about you. And when you always say yes, that shows up on your to-do list, that shows up in your calendar. It shows up as a lack of energy and a lack of concentration. So she had that. That was the number one thing.

Michelle Gauthier: 5:45

And then the other thing that she had is I like to think of it like a pair of AirPods that were stuck in her ears, that were whispering to her every time she got a notification. Okay, you know when you're. I just got a new set of AirPods because I lost mine, which I found, I seem to. I think I'm on like my fourth or fifth pair, and every time I buy the replacement ones, I find the old ones. It's kind of my way to do it, but anyway, I've got the new ones, so they're way fancier than the previous ones that I had, that I lost and found. And when you put them in your ears they automatically go to noise canceling mode so you can only hear, like what's coming out of the AirPods. You can't really hear the noises around you, which is amazing, like on an airplane or something like that the noises around you, which is amazing, like on an airplane or something like that.

Michelle Gauthier: 6:32

But if you think about that, Priya had these in and every single time she would get a notification on her phone, or she would get an email or her phone would ring, she would be notified, and it's like as if this is a metaphor she's not really wearing these AirPods around, but it's as if she heard nothing else except this voice coming into her head saying you got a text message, you need to respond to it right now. It's like a 911 mindset. There's no prioritizing or no way to think about things as like I can wait until later to do that. So every time a text message it doesn't even have to be an important one a phone call, an email from her boss, or even someone who works for her, or even just a friend If she didn't answer it right away, it would. Just, it's like those AirPods would keep playing the message of like you got to get back to that, there's somebody waiting on you. You've got to get back to them.

Michelle Gauthier: 7:27

So if you think about the combination of her wearing those noise canceling AirPods, where she could just only hear that voice telling her to immediately get back to everyone, and wearing that backpack with all the bricks in it with all the messages of I have to say yes or I'll let people down. Everything has to be perfect. If I don't handle this, no one else will Imagine what her concentration level was Exhausting, right, like, how can you concentrate? If I could only concentrate when I'm not getting messages like no texts or phone calls or emails I would never be able to concentrate. As you're hearing her story, maybe you're thinking, yeah, me too.

Michelle Gauthier: 8:09

I think that this is really common, especially for women, that we're really taught that we need to be available, get back to people. Everybody's relying on us. We can't make anyone else upset. So this is super common and discovering that she was feeling this way, carrying around this backpack and wearing these AirPods, was actually super helpful, because as soon as you discover what it is that's causing this inability to concentrate and this stress and this overwhelm, you can get busy on doing something different. So here's what we worked on. We started with the 911 emergency mindset.

Michelle Gauthier: 8:43

So when her brain yelled emergency when a text came in, she learned to take a breath and ask, is this actually urgent? So the process that you want to do if you feel like this one applies to you is, just when you get a message, make a new rule for yourself that you actually can't respond until you put your hand on your chest and take a breath and ask yourself is this actually urgent? I'm doing it to myself right now and I feel calmer just putting my hand on my chest. So put your hand on your chest and say is this actually urgent? And if the answer was yes, which it sometimes is then she would answer. And if it wasn't urgent I mean, how often is something actually really super urgent?

Michelle Gauthier: 9:33

She would check the thought that was really weighing her down, like I have to do this right now or I'll look bad, or people are expecting me to get back to them right away. And then she replaced it with lighter thoughts, like it's safe to respond when I'm ready. I'm allowed to focus on one thing at a time Even a thought like this is not an emergency and I can reply when I have time. And just by doing that she learned to train her brain that it was okay if she didn't respond to things right away. Sometimes things are urgent and you respond to them right away, but I would say 95% of things are not that urgent, and learning to give yourself that time and space to just put your hand on your chest, take a deep breath and ask is this urgent? Will help you break that habit. It's like you take those noise canceling AirPods that are talking in your ears, out of your and I don't know what. You don't want to throw them to the bottom of the lake. Maybe you just want to put them in a different room so that you can think on your own without having that message coming in.

Michelle Gauthier: 10:46

So once we calmed her brain from that emergency, emergency mindset mindset. So once we calmed her brain from that everything's an emergency mindset, it got so much easier to address the backpack. So the backpack, remember, is her carrying around these bricks that have beliefs written on them, like I have to say yes or I'll let people down. Everything has to be perfect. If I don't handle it, no one else will. And what we agreed is that when she got to work in the morning, she would take off that metaphoric, she would take off this invisible backpack and set it next to her so she wasn't carrying it around.

Michelle Gauthier: 11:31

And then, if one of those thoughts came up that are on the bricks, she would do exactly the same practice that I just described. So she would pause. Let's just say someone asked her to do something that she doesn't want to do or isn't her responsibility, or that she can delegate to her team. The heavy brick of I have to say yes, or the heavy brick of if I don't handle it, it won't be done right. We know that that was weighing her down. So she can put her hand on her chest and ask herself is it true that if I don't do it, it won't be done right? Could it be true that someone else could do this job, even if it's not exactly the way that I would do? It else could do this job, even if it's not exactly the way that I would do it.

Michelle Gauthier: 12:18

And then she would try to choose a new thought like I'm going to delegate this to my team and I'll tell you when you start doing this and you start kind of talking back to those bricks. You will feel uncomfortable, and that's okay. Change always feels uncomfortable, but she was able to, brick by brick, come up with a replacement thought notice, when she was having that pressure of everything has to be perfect, or I have to say yes, or I'll let people down. And putting that pause in putting her hand on her chest, taking a deep breath and then asking herself is it really true that I'll let people down if I don't do this? Can I know that's for sure, true? Is it okay to let people down? Even if people are let down, let them, as Mel Robbins would say. So if you feel like you've been carrying around a backpack full of bricks with old beliefs, or you've got those airpods in that are whispering in your ear that everything is a 911 emergency, try this technique and help settle yourself down, and that will totally enable you to be much more productive and focused.

Michelle Gauthier: 13:23

Okay, have a great day. Don't forget to sign up for the declutter challenge. It's going to be so much fun and I think you are going to love the results. The people who did it last year I got tons of great feedback. It's so much fun knowing you're not doing it alone, that you've got this whole group of people, all these internet people and podcast people doing it alongside you. Have a great week. Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier. com. See you next week.