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
#201| How to Hit Every Goal You Set—Without Overwhelm: Overwhelm, Productivity, Time Management & People Pleasing
Do you ever get to the end of a month and wonder why you’re still overwhelmed even though you’re working so hard toward your goals?
This episode reveals the simple monthly review practice that helps overwhelmed working women stay aligned, make consistent progress, and avoid the cycle of overplanning, burnout, and forgotten goals—especially heading into the busiest month of the year.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- How to pause and reflect in a way that actually moves your goals forward
- The three core questions that simplify your month and eliminate overwhelm
- How to plan ahead intentionally so each month feels calmer and more aligned
Press play now to learn the monthly system that helps you stay on track, feel less overwhelmed, and make meaningful progress toward your goals.
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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...
Making progress on your goals while still feeling overwhelmed, A, I think it's kind of impossible, and B, it takes all the fun out of it. 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. Hi, friends. Thanks for joining today. I can't believe it's almost December, and therefore it's almost 2026. It seems like this year has gone by so quickly. Today we're going to be talking about one of my absolute favorite coaching tools, which is the monthly pause and review. When you listen today, you're going to learn why it matters to pause and review for your month. And this is especially important, I think, as we are just about to start. The I would say for most people, the busiest month of the year, December, is a month that could definitely use planning more than probably any of the other 11 months of the year. So you'll learn how to review your month, how to reflect meaningfully and simply on what went well, and then how to plan ahead so that the next month feels more aligned and less overwhelming. As I've been a coach for the past eight years, it's so much fun because as I do things for and with my clients and myself, I'm just continually learning, like, wow, that thing really, really worked. Or okay, that was interesting, but that's not something that I'm going to keep doing. I started sharing this monthly review process with my clients after I consistently did it for an entire year. And I got to the end of the year - I always have reviewed my years. So I got to the end of the year and I reviewed the year and I compared it to what I set out to do at the beginning of the year. And when I looked back, I had hit every one of my goals that I set for myself. And I'll say more about the way that I set up goals in just a second, but I had hit every one of the goals that I set for myself. And I do goals all across the board. I have business goals. I had a goal last year to redo my dining room in a really colorful way and then host a dinner party with girlfriends. Like I have those kind of goals too. So I have goals all across the board. And when I looked back on this particular year, I think it was like three years ago, and I'd hit every one of those goals and I thought, well, how did that happen? Like usually I'll forget about one or just lose interest in it or whatever. And I realized that it was this monthly review that I was doing that was really making the difference because when you review every month, you never get too far off track. And so I decided to include that as part of my coaching. And last year in 2025, for the first year ever, I had a coaching group. And at the beginning of the year, we planned all of our goals. We did a vision board and then we planned all of our goals. And the way that I plan goals is I make the goal something that is a hundred percent in my control. So for example, I had a goal about my podcast. And instead of saying, oh, I want my podcast to get in the top 1%, I said, put out a two times a week podcast with a very simple process, the process for getting the podcast out. And the desired outcome, the result that I want is to get into the top 1% for podcasting. So if you do your goals that way and you put the goal as something that is in your control. So it's not how much money you make or how much better a relationship feels, or one of the other things I wanted to get results on this year was not feeling awful because of perimenopause. And so that isn't the goal, that's the result. And the goal was to find a new doctor and get new labs and try eating different macro combinations and see how that makes me feel. So I set up the goals so that I know for sure they're all in my control. And then I set up what I hope to get as the desired result. So in this course that I put together, we all did that together. We envisioned what we wanted for the year. We created a vision board. If that makes you feel scared, it's okay. I guide you exactly all the way through it. You create a vision board, you come up with the goals and the actions to take in order to get those goals that you're envisioning for yourself. And then you spread them out over the course of the year. So for example, there were a couple goals that I had in Q3 and Q4, and I just knew for the beginning of the year I didn't even have to think about those. So you've got these well-spaced goals to work on for the year. And then every single month we meet and we do live group coaching. And everyone before the class does this review that I'm about to teach you about, and then they plan for the next month. And that essentially means that you're consistently staying on track to hit your goals. And the other great thing is as women who are busy and overwhelmed and priorities change, you can go back and say, oh my gosh, that was the goal that I wanted at the beginning of the year, but I actually don't want that anymore. I'm just going to take that one off my list. Or you might have a brand new one that all of a sudden comes into view for you, and you want to add that in so you can just for the full year be flexible on what matters most to you at that time. So this particular class that I'm talking about that I've been leading this year called Your Best Year. And I surveyed the participants in this year's program. And the question that I asked them, because this was the promise, is how much did this program help you make consistent progress on your goals without overwhelm? Because making progress on your goals while still feeling overwhelmed, A, I think it's kind of impossible. And B, it takes all the fun out of it. And every single person in the class responded with a nine out of 10 or a 10 out of 10. They were able to just make this progress. And so I want to share with you today two things. One is this is going to be my Black Friday offer, purchasing this program for 2026. So if this has your ears perked up and you're like, wow, that sounds really nice. I would love to be gently guided through getting all the goals that I want for the next calendar year, my Black Friday offer could be for you. And it's the only sale that I have for the whole year. So it is going to be more than 50% off. So I want to tell you that. And then B, if you just want to give this a try for November, for the November to December transition, then I'm going to tell you exactly how to do this, how to do what we do inside of the group. Okay, so we have talked about why monthly reviews matter. Now let's look at how to actually do it. So when you're doing a monthly review, here are the questions that I recommend. Inside the group, we have a workbook and it has several questions in it. But if you were thinking of taking this and trying it for November, here are the three questions that I would recommend that you ask yourself for sure. These will get you a long way in the right direction. What were your favorite moments from this past month? You want to think of everything that felt like a win for you, big or small. So let's say you had like a huge win at work or a big parenting win, or maybe your family went on a great vacation, but also think of the little tiny thing. So for example, the other night I went to my niece who's in fifth grade. She had a school play and it was on a Thursday night, and it was like dark and raining and cold, and I was so tired from the day. And I decided that I wanted to go. So I just kind of went like in a blah mood, but I had said that I was gonna go. And I promise you, it was like one of my favorite wins from the whole month. It was so cute, and she was so happy. And their little fifth grade energy was just the cutest thing. So think big and think small. And when you look at the things that went well, what did you learn from them that you can take into the next month? Okay, so if I look at mine, I take that example of going to my niece's play. That for sure is a clue for me. I also noticed that the wins that I wrote down from a work perspective are things where I planned ahead and did things before they were due. My wins consistently, month over month, and best things from the month are always when I spend time with people who I love, especially my family. So every month I get to be reminded of that and to think for the next month. Okay, yes, what I can take into the next month is knowing that that is a very important way for me to spend my time. From a work perspective, if I think what went well and what did I learn from it, when I am very intentional and plan my work ahead and get it done before it's due, that always feels a million times better to me than when I'm last minute trying to get something done. And then the third question is to look at what didn't go well and what did you learn from that. And this isn't about shame. It's just really about insights. When I was writing this podcast, I looked back at each one of my months to read my what didn't go well and what did I learn from that. And it's essentially for me, it'll be like there were a couple weeks in this month where I didn't meal prep and that felt really stressful, or I didn't get to the gym as much as I wanted because I didn't plan the days that I was going to work out when I did my Sunday planning. Mine is always about how things go badly and feel badly when I don't plan them with intention. And yours might be completely different, but for me, that is it. And you would think that I would know that. And I guess I intellectually do, but unless I stop and take a look at it and review my month, I'm probably not even going to notice that. When you start to do this month over month and notice what really works for you and what really doesn't work for you, and maybe where you've overscheduled yourself, you can just over time slowly, and I think making change slowly is the best way to do it because then it sticks. You can change your whole life. So now that you've looked back on your past months, so in this case, maybe you look at look at November and you look ahead to December, you can ask yourself, what's my number one priority for this month? This can be a stressful question because as overwhelmed working women, we like to have a huge to-do list with 10,000 things on it. But what is your just number one priority for this month? I personally like to choose one for work and one for personal. You could do that, or you could just choose one goal. But that really helps me when I feel busy and overwhelmed to be like, okay, my number one goal for this month is X, is this one thing. So for me in December, my number one personal goal is to spend time with my family doing the one or two favorite Christmas things that we love to do. That's my personal one. And then the next question to ask is how can I plan ahead to support that? So one of the fun things that I love to do when I'm talking about our special family traditions, I think I've talked about this even on the podcast before, is we put on Christmas pajamas. My kids are 15 and 18, and they will still do this. And now we pick up my little niece who's six, and she also goes with us in her jammies. And we either get hot chocolate or sometimes we get those Chick-fil-A peppermint shakes. Oh my gosh, those are so good. We get those and we drive around and we look at Christmas lights. And so, how can I plan ahead to support that? Is I can text my sister-in-law right now and say, Hey, would this be a good day for us to go look at Christmas lights and then plan it with my kids on a day that I know they don't have practice or whatever else. So that is just one small thing. But when I look back and review December, that would be one of my wins for sure because it's special to me. Okay, so in summary, what I'm saying is if you consistently over time do this simple review at the end of your month and see what worked, what didn't work, and what those things are and how that can help you in the next month. And then you plan your next month, you will slowly but surely change your life and just keep going more in the direction of alignment and intention and having the things that truly matter in your life. This is exactly what we do in the your best year program. There is a full year workbook where you put all of your goals, you do all of your monthly reviews, we check in every month. One other fun thing about the group when I did this survey to get feedback on how the group went, one of the things I asked were what were some of the most helpful or your favorite parts about being in this group? And everybody said getting coached. So it's a group coaching. So sometimes, you know, people will say, Oh, I need help with this, and so I'll coach them on the group. So they said getting coached themselves, and then listening to other people get coached, which is also really helpful because you can be like, Oh, yeah, I should take that lesson. I think maybe Michelle's talking to me too in that. And then third, and these were an equal tie. Third was other women in the group supporting me and giving me suggestions. And I love that too, because sometimes when someone brings a problem and says, I feel really stuck on this, I'll give them coaching and then I'll say, What else do you guys have? What's worked for you? What can you share? So it's so much fun because we're all together moving in the direction of having more intentional, aligned lives. Like I said, this is my Black Friday offer. This is the only time in the whole year that I ever discount my coaching in any way, shape, or form. If you are listening to this and you're thinking, yes, this your best year program just sounds like something that I need in my life. I am opening up early access today just for podcast listeners. So you don't have to wait until Friday to get the Black Friday pricing. And the link is in the show notes. Grab your spot and then you can just stop worrying about 2026. We're gonna plan the whole thing together. We're gonna execute the whole thing together. I would absolutely love to help you create exactly the year that you want in 2026. And we will do it slowly, consistently over time while also not feeling overwhelmed and having fun. 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.
