Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing
Imagine feeling calmer, more focused, and in control . . . even with a full plate. That’s what Overwhelmed Working Woman, a top 1.5% podcast, delivers for accomplished women every week.
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Each episode offers simple, practical strategies to help you reduce overwhelm, improve productivity, and stop people pleasing. You’ll learn surprising time management hacks, how to do less without guilt, and why the path to calm begins with changing how you think. All of this comes with guidance from host and Life Coach Michelle Gauthier, who has 8+ years of experience coaching hundreds of women.
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If you're ready to reclaim your energy, focus, and peace of mind, you’re in the right place. Start with listener favorite: “The Power of a To-Don’t List.”
Overwhelmed Working Woman: Boost Productivity, Master Time Management, Overcome Overwhelm & Stop People Pleasing
#200| How Finding Your North Star Can Help You Avoid Burnout and Overwhelm: Overwhelm, Productivity, Time Management & People Pleasing
Welcome back to Book Club!
Are you living a life that looks “perfect” on paper but secretly feels misaligned, heavy, or strangely empty?
In this episode, Michelle discussed Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck. The book breaks down why high-achieving working women often feel overwhelmed even when everything looks successful from the outside—and how that inner discomfort is actually a powerful message from the parts of you that have gone quiet.
Listeners will learn:
- The difference between your social self and essential self—and how misalignment triggers burnout
- How to identify the activities that genuinely light you up (even if you think you’ve “forgotten”)
- Simple steps to follow your own North Star without making dramatic life changes
Hit play and discover how to reconnect with what makes you feel alive—so your life finally feels as good as it looks.
Featured on the podcast
Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck
Wondering why you're overwhelmed? Take my "why am I overwhelmed" quiz to find out the source of your overwhelm, and what to do about it.
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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...
If your life looks great on paper, but something about it just doesn't feel right on the inside, you are not alone.
Michelle Gauthier: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:Hi, friend. Thanks so much for joining today. Today is our 200th episode, which I am super excited about. I can't believe it. It's so funny when you just step by step keep doing something and all of a sudden you look back and you think, oh my goodness, 200 episodes on the podcast. That is amazing. I just want to take a second and say thank you to everybody who has been a listener, who has written a review, who has passed this podcast on to a friend. I can't thank you enough. It continues to grow and get more popular, which means more people are hearing this message and hopefully living much less stressful, less overwhelming lives. So thank you so much for all you have done to get us to this 200th episode. I'm excited that today's topic is also in line with that milestone.
Michelle Gauthier:Today I'm talking about a book by Martha Beck called Finding Your Own North Star. If your life looks great on paper, but something about it just doesn't feel right on the inside, you are not alone. If that is the situation that you're in right now, and that is the situation that I was in before I made a whole bunch of changes in my life, but one of them being completely switching my career to become a life coach. When I was feeling that way in about 2017, I didn't know what was wrong or why it just didn't feel right. And finding Martha back, I also did my life coach training under her. She's written lots of amazing books, but finding her and reading this book really helped me and is one of the things that made me basically transition my whole life and quit my 20-year corporate career and become a life coach. You might not need to make a change that big depending on what's going on with you, but this is a great book if you feel like something is off on the inside. When you listen today, you're going to learn why we all have two selves, the social self and the essential self, and what happens when they're out of sync, what your burnout or your overwhelm is trying to tell you, and how to start following your own personal North Star without blowing up your life. It doesn't have to be a super dramatic, I'm not doing any of this anymore.
Michelle Gauthier:Two weeks ago, I mentioned that I was going to start reviewing some of my favorite self-help books to just teach you the points that are in the book. And then if it's something that feels like it really resonates with you, maybe that's a book you want to grab and read.
Michelle Gauthier:In today's episode, I'm going to feature a book that is near and dear to my heart called Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck. The basic premise of this book is that we have two selves inside us. One is the essential self, and one is the social self. The essential self is who you are, it's your soul, it's who you would be, no matter where you were born, what culture you were born into, what country you live in, what language you speak. It's just the part of you that knows what brings you energy and ease and joy. And then your social self is the version of you that has been shaped by rules and expectations and sometimes things like people pleasing. Neither one of these things are good or bad. For example, one thing that I really love and have always loved is cars. I love cars. So my essential self would see a beautiful car and think, oh my gosh, I love that car. It'd be so much fun to drive that car. But my social self is the one that figures out how do I get that car? How much is that going to cost? How do I finance it? My social self is the one who goes to the DMV and gets everything registered. You need your essential self to tell you your own truth, to show you what you are attracted to, what things you're good at, what gifts you have. And then you need your social self to be able to adapt that to the rules of your society in order to make it happen.
Michelle Gauthier:So there's no problem about having these two selves. The problem comes when the two selves are out of alignment. When those two things are completely out of sync, that's when you start to feel anxious and burned out and overwhelmed. You get a good case of the Sunday scaries because there's something about your life where your social self is really leading the way and your essential self has gotten way too quiet or might not even be present. There's a quiz right at the start of the book that asks several questions to see how much of your essential self is showing up in your life right now. And I have definitely gotten to the point in my life where my essential self is showing up most of the time, if not all of the time. But in previous versions, like back in 2017, when I was feeling really stressed and overwhelmed and working a ton and really working my way up the ladder in a job that was not a great fit for my essential self, but was a great fit for my social self, you just start to feel really out of alignment. So some of the questions she asks at the beginning of the book, there's a bunch of them, but I'm just going to give you a few examples here are my life feels like a great adventure. Is that often, sometimes rarely or never? Or I laugh out loud often, sometimes rarely or never. I feel overwhelmed by gratitude often, sometimes rarely or never. Things just seem to work out for me. I get so involved in projects that I forget to stop or lose track of time. And every time you answer an often, that means you're really connected to your essential self. And if it's rarely or almost never, you're probably more connected to your social self. So what to do about it? Well, there's a whole book to tell you exactly what to do about it. But in general, the whole premise of this book, and she gives very there's quizzes and things you can fill in in the book. It's almost like a workbook in some ways. But the good thing that she really helps you do in this book is not to like create a new life with purpose, but to learn how to notice what lights you up. A lot of times when I first start working with a client and I'll say, What's fun for you? What do you do for fun? They'll be like, I can't remember. I've just so busy checking all the boxes that I don't even remember what I really like to do. And so Martha Beck in this book will teach you how to notice what your essential self is saying and how to bring small pieces of that into your life. So for example, my essential self is creative. I love to work on my house. I love to decorate my house. I like to do hand lettering. I'm not a good artist like a drawer, but I'm good with letters and I like to write people cards and I like to paint sometimes. It just I have a creative streak in me. And so that doesn't mean that I need to quit my job and become an artist. It just means that when I'm sitting down and watching TV, now I have a little bin full of blank cards and pretty markers and some books that I use and some workbooks with different lettering styles. And when I sit down, sometimes I can just pick that up and do that little creative thing. So it's not like you need to just completely change your whole life. It's just starting to do a little bit more of things that your essential self really loves. If you just even take a second and think right now, what really makes you feel super alive? Maybe you feel super alive after mentoring someone at work, or you totally lose track of time when you're organizing your closet. That's not random. That's your North Star, your essential self shining through. And when we don't give space for that essential self to really be part of our day-to-day life, several things can happen. One being burnout, stress, overwhelm. Sometimes people get physically sick when they're out of alignment like that. Sometimes you'll just forget things or self-sabotage yourself. Like there's lots of examples in the book about what can happen when you're living too much in your social self and not enough in your essential self. But the good news is you don't have to blow up your whole life or be perfect at this. It's enough to just take one small step, like the markers that I'm talking about.
Michelle Gauthier:If you just take one thing from this podcast, what I would ask you to do today is think, what is something that really lights me up? Where is somewhere that I lose track of time or that I just absolutely love? When is the last time I did that thing? And how can I bring that small thing into my life this week, even? And if this is really speaking to you, I highly recommend that you get this book. I have recommended it to a lot of people over time, and I think it has been very influential in the lives of many of my clients. Okay, that's it for today. Thank you again for being here for this 200th episode and 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.
