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The Rejuvenating Health Podcast
Join Women's Health Nurse Practitioner, Lindsey VanSchoyck for a weekly dose of Precision Medicine as she addresses the hot-button topics specific to Women's Health, Fitness and Nutrition, interviews expert guests and hosts round table discussions with the team of dedicated functional health care specialists.
The Rejuvenating Health Podcast
E160 | Why High Achieving Women Get Stuck In Survival Mode
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You can be the dependable one, the high performer, the “I’ve got it” woman and still be running on fumes. We’re naming the pattern we see all the time: survival mode that looks like success. When your calendar is packed with work, kids, caregiving, and emotional labor, adding strength training, a daily protein goal, more steps, better sleep, and stress management can feel less like self care and more like another way to fail.
We unpack why this happens through the lens of nervous system capacity and the window of tolerance. If your body doesn’t believe a new routine is doable, it can treat even a good goal as a threat, pushing you toward freezing, rebellion, or the familiar all or nothing cycle. We also talk about the hidden stressors that keep cortisol elevated, why fear of labs and family history can stall your momentum, and how to reframe genetics as a blueprint you can influence with daily choices.
Then we get practical: the overloaded plate analogy, consistency before intensity, and how to build self trust by keeping small promises to yourself. We also dig into boundaries, delegation, and outsourcing so your health habits finally have a place to live, plus a simple capacity audit you can use this week to reduce friction and follow through.
If you know a woman who’s carrying everything, share this with her, then subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what habit you’re choosing to make sustainable right now.
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Disclaimer And Welcome
SPEAKER_01Any views, thoughts, and opinions expressed on the Rejuvenating Health podcast are solely those of the speakers and are intended as such. Please consult your trusted healthcare practitioner for medical advice. Let's go, girls.
SPEAKER_00Hello, ladies. Welcome back to the Rejuvenating Health Podcast. I am Mindset Coach Lakin, and as always, I'm joined by women's nurse practitioner Lindsay Van Shoyck. And today we are talking to the woman who is doing everything. These are the ladies that are running the house, taking care of the kids, supporting aging parents a lot of the time, managing a full-time job, and just keeping everyone alive and fed and scheduled and emotionally regulated and the household functioning and all the things. And then on top of that, we get it. You're told strength train three times a week minimum. Make sure that you're hitting a daily protein goal, walk every day to get your steps in, prioritize your sleep, manage your stress, all the things. And you know, you're like, cool, but with what time? With what energy? Like how am I supposed to handle all this?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it can be super overwhelming. And from the health side, this matters so much because we can give the women, we can give you guys the best supplement plan plan, the best workout plan, the best lifestyle medicine plan. But if there's no room in your life for the plan, if you don't have the capacity for it, it's not gonna stick. And it it doesn't mean that the plan is bad. Um, it means that we have to look at where you're at in life and your capacity. That also doesn't mean that just because you're busy, you can put your health on hold. I want to put in there as a caveat too, because this this is not a conversation that means, oh, I'm just gonna wait six months until things get better. Because that's not true.
SPEAKER_00Because life is always gonna be lifing. There's there's not gonna be, there's never an ideal season to prioritize yourself. It's that it needs to be a priority, but we also have to make space for
When Survival Mode Looks Like Success
SPEAKER_00it. So today's conversation is about why survival mode can tend to look like success. We're very programmed for that, and why your health goals may be outside your current nervous system's capacity, and how to actually build sustainable habits without turning them into, you know, one more thing that you're gonna beat yourself up over of not completing on your to-do list.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because I feel like that's the vicious cycle that we get in. So, okay, let's start here. Like for a lot of women, survival mode is disguised as being productive. So a lot of women don't realize they're in survival mode because you're like still functioning. You're still super productive, you're still getting all your tasks done, you're showing up for work, you're being super mom, you're doing all of these things, you're super successful. Like you're you're doing everything that you're supposed to be doing, you're taking care of everyone. But I will tell you, ladies, this your body knows the difference between being aligned productivity and survival productivity. Like I've seen your guys' cortisol levels.
SPEAKER_00Yes, I was gonna say, what do the cord what does the cortisol say? Like this is huge. Like a lot of women think that survival mode only looks like falling apart. Like they feel like they hear survival mode, they're like, that's not me, because I'm I'm doing all the things, everything's fine. It's like, but for high functioning women, especially, survival mode often looks like just your regular Tuesday. It's like you're just the one that ends up handling everything and you become the go-to person. Like you're the dependable one, the one who doesn't need much from other people, the one who always figures it out, the one who, you know, can always end up carrying more because you'll always just make it work. And that gets wrapped up in your identity a lot of the times. And we get a lot of really affirmative praise for that. So that's why it feels really good. And when you try to take care of yourself, then it doesn't just feel like adding a workout, right? It feels like it's threatening this whole system that you've built your entire life around, where I'm the one that handles everything else for everybody else. And so if I stop being the one who does everything, then what happens? Like, who will need me less or who will be disappointed in me? Or who's gonna step up? That's a big one. Like, who's gonna do it if I don't do it? And like we're always looking for what's gonna fall apart if we're not the one doing it all.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think there's a lot of guilt around that too. Worry, guilt, added pressure, you know, physiologically, that constant state of feeling like you're letting people down and worrying and sense of responsibility, it really keeps your stress response activated. And your body doesn't care if stress is from a deadline, if it's from caregiving, if it's from emotional labor, if it's from family dynamics, it doesn't care if it's from under-eating, it doesn't care if it's from being chronically sick. Stress is stress. Like no matter where your stress is coming from, it's stress.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think it's really important to understand that when we say this very clearly, you cannot survive in survival mode and flourish at the same time. So you can function, you can produce, you can perform, you can, you can do what you're doing right now, but flourishing, and what we what we mean by that is when you are actually doing the things that increase your capacity, when you are feeling your best, when you are your most confident, most comfortable, most rested version of yourself, that requires capacity. And that capacity requires space. We need space to be able to put these things in place that pour back into us. Yeah.
The Overloaded Plate And Capacity
SPEAKER_00And I we have this idea. I like to use like the plate analogy. We use this for balance plate also, but I like to use this when we're talking about nervous system and capacity too, because we see this pattern relentlessly. I I talk to clients about this, I feel like on repeat. A woman has a full plate most of the time and not like kind of full, like, oh, it's just a couple things on there. It's like Thanksgiving plate full. Like the food is touching the other food and touching the edges and stuff's falling off the sides. Like, and she takes that plate and then she wants to add a health goal on top of it, right? Or personal care or whatever we want to talk about as far as like self-care. And instead of asking, okay, if I'm gonna add something to this plate, what needs to come off so that this can fit nicely here? She says, Oh, well, I'll just add this too. Because that's what I'm used to. I'm used to just piling things on as they come to me. And so now the workout becomes not something that feels supportive to her or not even something that she's like looking forward to doing. It becomes another obligation because it feels heavy. Protein isn't something that is, you know, I'm I'm looking at as nourishment. It becomes something that, oh, it's just this other thing to track and that I have to check the box on. And sleep doesn't become something that I'm prioritizing my restoration. It's just another thing that I'm struggling with to manage my in my time. And this is why so many women resent these habits that are supposed to help them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's when you start seeing the inconsistency happen. It's not because like you don't care, but it's because you're just adding another thing that's putting your system over capacity. It was already at capacity, and now you're adding something else that's making it go over capacity.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yeah. And if your plate is already full, then your next healthy habit doesn't need more discipline first necessarily. It just needs a place to live. That's where we talk about when you're working with your coach and we're talking about meeting you where you are. We have to ask the questions of, okay, what's currently on your plate that can be delegated? What can be outsourced? What can be simplified? Just because we've been doing something the same way for a long time doesn't mean that there's not a simpler way to do it. What can stop being just yours just because it always has been? Like where can you ask for support? Because if everything is non-negotiable except for you, if you're the only thing that you're willing to negotiate on your list, then your body is going to eventually force the negotiation, whether that's through illness or metabolic disease or, you know, the myriad of things that we see, what happens with women when they put themselves on the back burner for years and years and years.
Fear Of Health Data And Genetics
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. I think another piece to address is a lot of things that come up around your health and taking this step is fear. There's this fear around I maybe I don't want to know what's going on with my health, or maybe I kind of want to ignore it, or there's this fear of genetics, and I know what my family history looks like, or there's a fear of what the lab results are gonna show. And like we hear women all the time say, Well, this runs in my family, or like my labs are trending in the wrong direction, or I feel like this is inevitable. And fear is also stress, like it also causes stress, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that fear can go one of two ways. Like one part of it is gonna say, Well, I need to do everything perfectly so I don't end up like that, where we like really resist it. And the other part we where we get a lot, it's like, well, what's the point? It's inevitable. So like why bother? Right? There's nothing I can do about it. And it is this kind of tug of war. But the reframe that I would offer you here is, you know, we talk about we've talked about this before in a previous episode, the fact that genetics are a blueprint, but your daily actions are the things that actually influence the build-out. So if you've inherited a template, like imagine that, you know, those those neighborhoods where it's like you have the homes that are similar, you get like the base template, and then you get to customize it as you go. Like, okay, so you're handed this template, but that means those are your predispositions. Like you may be predisposed to certain things that run in your family, and you have maybe some family patterns that are working against you, but your house doesn't have to look like your mama's house. So it's like your body doesn't have to express every single pattern that you've inherited genetically. You don't control the entire outcome, obviously. Genetics do play a role, but you do control the direction that you contribute towards.
SPEAKER_01I mean, genetics essentially, I'm sure you've heard this. What is it? What is it called? Anyways, I'm gonna say it that genetics load the gun and you have to pull the trigger. Yeah. So genetics, yeah, they're your blueprint. But it is the same as thinking like a map. Like genetics are your map, but there's a million different ways to go get to one place, right? Like if I want to drive to California, there's probably 25,000 different ways that I could take to get there. Your daily actions are what pull the trigger on that gun to your genetics, and that's where the lifestyle medicine piece comes in. Genetics matter. Honestly, I think genetics matter quite a little, to be honest, when it actually comes down to it.
SPEAKER_00I think now more than ever because we know so much more than we used to as well. Like we have so many more tools than we've ever had.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Like your sleep, your stress, your movement, your protein, your muscle, your lifestyle choices and the environment that you put your body in matters a heck of a lot more than your genetics do.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And the time between now and whatever destination you're going to or until that house is built is gonna pass either way. The same amount of time is gonna pass either way. I always say this to clients. So you're either spending that same amount of time feeding the pattern that you don't want or feeding the version of you that you want to become. That doesn't mean perfection every single day, but it does give you a general direction that you want to go in. And if you want to go in that direction, it should be very clear. This habit is taking me in that direction, and this habit is taking me further away from it.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I'll be honest, like we used to do genetic testing and rejuvenating health. Yeah. And I went away from it because I feel like it gave people an out. Okay, I did these genetics and you have all these FTO genes, and it says you're predisposed to obesity. It kind of gave people an out. Like, oh well, I'm destined to have these obesity genes and insulin resistance and all of these types of things. And then you kind of get that placebo effect from it too. Like I have I have genes to do this, so this is what it's like that that if you've ever worn a wearable, like I refuse to look at my loop before I go work out in the morning because if I look at it and it says that my recovery is 10%, I'm like, oh my gosh, I feel like crap, my workout's gonna suffer today. And I could be fine.
SPEAKER_00Right. Like right. It's like this cognitive bias. So it's it's can I can I check on that information regardless of what I'm doing? Can I separate it from what I know to be true that is going to get me toward the thing that I want, right? Regardless of what this information says. It can be useful information, but not if I'm using it against myself.
Nervous System Window Of Tolerance
SPEAKER_00And that ties really well into this window of tolerance too, right? So this is where we're looking at the nervous system's capacity or the body's capacity. Like a lot of women set goals that are outside of their current window of tolerance. So this means they'll say things like, okay, well, I'm gonna strength train, you know, four days a week to start and I'm gonna hit 10,000 steps a day, and I'm gonna meal prep all my meals, and I'm gonna go to bed by nine, and I'm cutting out sugar too, right? And the goal itself is great. Like, yes, will all of those things get you to the results that you want faster? Percent. But if it's too far outside of what your nervous system currently believes is doable for you, then your body is going to treat it like a threat. So for a few days, you might be able to do that thing, right? Maybe a week, but then it starts to feel really, really overwhelming. And then what happens? You end up freezing or you rebel, aka self-sabotage, or essentially you're retreating back into your old comfort zone, like your old default mode. And then we usually shame ourselves for that. But it's just that you overshot your current capacity. And again, that's why coaching is so important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that's why clinically we care about like your progression. Like we don't want you going from zero strength training to going and doing like this advanced CrossFit workout or spending two hours in the gym. Like you have to you have to do advancements and you have to expect your body to adapt without some friction.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and just like the body needs to be met where it's at, like with mindset, it's the same thing. Like the goal is not to jump from comfort zone to a complete transformation overnight. Like the goal is to work in the space between your comfort zone and your nervous system boundary. Anything outside of that boundary is not going to feel safe. It's not gonna register as safe. So it's the threat that sends us back to our old comfort zone. And anything that's inside of the comfort zone isn't necessarily getting us where we want to be. So the middle space is where the growth actually happens. Talk about this messy middle a lot. It's uncomfortable enough to stretch you, ideally. It's stretching that current comfort zone, but not so overwhelming that your system shuts down. And that's where all of our sustainable change lives. And that's where our coaches meet you. That's why it's important for them to gather information about you. That's why we talk to you about what we talk to you about in your intake. That's why we do our labs. That's why you talk to a mindset coach. Like we're getting all of these components of your life so that way we can look at it and say, okay, this is the prescriptive model that where we're gonna start with that actually will work for you until you can build confidence in this space and then expand from there slowly. So again, we can do that progression that actually works with you where you are and moves you in a sustainable way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I mean that brings into like the consistency before intensity. And that's what we want to do when we bring in a health plan. Like if someone's goal is to start strength training three times a week, but they're currently doing zero strength training, like we have to build on that.
SPEAKER_00It's like just start with one day.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00And I think that that's hard for a lot of women too, because you know, every overachiever out there is just like rolling her eyes, like, oh my God, one day isn't gonna do anything, right? But like one day done consistently consistently is gonna be way more powerful than three days done chaotically for a couple weeks and then abandoned for two months and then getting back to it when you get a fire under your ass. It's like, okay, well, one day weekly, every week until that becomes a new default is gonna have a way bigger compound effect. So we have to build the consistency before intensity because the first goal is not the workout itself, right? Like the first goal is actually the evidence to build that identity. We talked about this before too, of like embodying the identity of somebody that works out. But if you're trying to embody the identity of somebody that trains four days a week and you don't train at all right now, that's not a safe space for you to be in. And so it's not gonna feel that way. You have to prove that, like, okay, I'm a woman who shows up for this time, this one day. If you know, it might just be 15 minutes for one day a week. I'm someone that keeps small promises to myself. I'm someone who doesn't need perfect conditions in order to follow through, like the done is better than perfect, right? And as soon as we can start to be okay with adopting those components of our identity, then that opens up so many more opportunities to be able to progress it and adopt more things in from there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we can just like once your body adapts, we can increase. But this is most of the women we work with are very high achievers and they have this all or nothing mindset. And so you when you're on a health journey, you cannot be all or nothing. Like you, you have to be consistent.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, because what happens then? Then you overwhelm yourself and then you then you tell yourself, well, this isn't working.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Or this isn't gonna work for me. And you don't earn the right to increase because it's like you're putting all this pressure on yourself, right? Like you increase when that baseline becomes really stable. Like I said, when that starts to feel easy, when it's, you know, we use the with like the way that we coach a lot is like, could you do this on your worst day? You know, like could you can you guarantee it? And so if the goal is three workouts a week a week, but that feels impossible, for example, just start with the one. And if one workout feels impossible, start with just the warm-up. Like just put your sneakers on in the morning and like step out the door. Like if that feels impossible, just put on the shoes, right? It's like it's going back to that two-minute rule of can you do the thing that you can guarantee and then slowly progress it from there, even if you don't want it to count because it's really small. And it's not that you're lowering the standard, right? It's just you're making a standard for yourself that you can execute on regularly and then you can keep it going from there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
unknownYeah.
Turning Health Pressure Into Choice
SPEAKER_00And then we have the idea of like pressure over pressure versus choice when we think about applying these habits. And this is a big shift where you know, we're turning health habits from a place of pressure into a place of choice. And can we recognize that? Because if a woman already lives in a place of being obligated to do all the things that she has to do, and then her workout becomes one more obligation, it's there's gonna be resistance there, right? It's not gonna feel good. We have women all the time that say, like, I just want to want to work out, like I just hate it, I just don't like working out. It's like, well, it's not gonna happen if you keep telling yourself that it's this, you know, this big, insurmountable thing that you have to do, that you just have to like suck it up and do it, right? Like the language matters, ladies. And if you keep telling yourself that it's something that you have to make yourself doing, then there's gonna be a lot of resistance around that because we're using a lot of pressure language. So it's like the I have to create pressure, pressure creates resistance, resistance creates avoidance. And then when we avoid stuff, we feel really guilty about it, going back to what Lindsay was saying earlier with the guilt, right? And then what happens then? The guilt creates more pressure. So it becomes this really shitty, self-fulfilling prophecy that we keep keeping ourselves in this loop. And that loop is exhausting. So the shift that I want to offer you is shifting it from pressure to choice, right? It's I'm choosing this because it supports the version of me that I want to become. I get to choose to work out, I get to choose to start my day with protein, I get to choose to go to bed at this time, right? It's not because I'm, you know, I've done something wrong and I'm punishing myself for it, or like I'm, you know, I'm questioning my worth or I'm not enough or I'm behind. It's like I get to choose to do that because I want to embody that identity of capable and strong and feeling like I can do the things that I want to do and that I tell myself I want to do.
SPEAKER_01And I know like you're listening and you're like, okay, this sounds silly, like it's word talk, but you're the the way that you think about this and you talk about it, your body responds different to it, right? Like if you're telling yourself this is something that I have to do, your body's gonna see that as punishment and you're gonna have like a stress response to it, right? Where if you're seeing that as something that like this is something I get to do and it's something that's nourishing my body, it's your body is gonna see that more as it's gonna see it as something different and not have that stress response to it, right? So movement done from punishment is a lot different than movement done from care. And I know you're like, it's just a mindset shift, but your body responds completely different to those two thoughts.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we're ingraining patterns too. Like if I always associate moving my body with a negative input, right? If I'm always like, oh, I'm dreading this or oh, like I don't want to have to do that, I'm ingraining that pattern that says that, oh, this doesn't feel good. But if I were to focus on, you know, what does feel good around it, then I'm gonna start to look for that. Like the workout is not just a workout, it's a rep in the relationship with yourself. So it's like, how do I relate to myself when I'm uncomfortable? Do I pressure myself? Do I criticize myself? Do I quit? Right? Probably, because that's what a lot of people do. But again, it's a choice. So it's like, can I meet myself where I am? And can I work to build trust? Can I can I keep those small promises that I make to myself? That's really important. And then what I was touching on before about, you know, What gets amplified is what we focus on, and that's the direction that we need to go. This is where we've talked about, you know, our reticular activating system. And I like to some people I used to call this like the search and edit function in our brain, but I like comparing this more to a flashlight. Like whatever you shine this flashlight on in your brain is going to be what gets amplified. So if you focus on, like I said, how hard the workout is, or how it's gonna be how terrible it's gonna be, or how it's gonna be difficult to get out of bed to go do it, your brain is collecting all that evidence that working out is really hard, right? So if you focus on something that you're not good at, like this will happen a lot where women will have movements in a workout that they struggle with and they're focusing on that movement and dreading it and being like, I just really don't want to do that thing. It's really hard for me and I can't do it. That's what's going to get the attention in your brain is that, you know, we're not good at this. And if you focus on how tired you're gonna be later, your brain is gonna connect that with depletion. But if you intentionally focus on how good you feel after a workout, you can start attaching a different emotional response, right? Like reminding yourself, oh, how do I feel when I complete a workout? Because we've said this before, no one ever felt terrible after they get done with a workout, right? It's like, do you feel accomplished? Do you feel stronger? Are you proud of yourself for keeping that promise? Like I did something that I didn't think that I could. I showed up even if it wasn't the ideal circumstances or it wasn't what I had originally planned on. And all that matters because then your brain starts to feed on that reward system.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, like I don't have to, I don't have that issue of like going to the gym, but I can think of so many times where there's like a weight that I haven't been able to hit. And it's literally because my brain, like I've literally failed it, and so my brain's like, you can't do that. And then you do it once and you're like, oh my gosh, this is so easy, and you just do it over and over again. Or like when I first got my first bar muscle up, I tried for so long to get it, and I'm like, this is ridiculous. And then once I got one, I'm like, okay, that like it's like a mind, it was literally a mind game.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, holding you back. That's why, like, how many times have you like loaded a bar and not like intentionally done it so you didn't know what the weight was on the bar? Yeah, and you're like, I'll figure it out later, and then just kept adding and not adding it up, like not doing the mental math in your head, and then you'll hit a PR.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But I mean, that's why I like celebrating small stuff. It like and wins isn't fluff, like it really does teach your brain how to repeat stuff.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's like, you know, we get this all the time because we constantly ask for small wins, right? Like both in the mindset and the coaches side. And how much resistance do we get a lot of the times, right? Where it's like, oh, like, I don't, I don't know, I don't have a win, or it's like they think it's cheesy, but it's not. There's a reason why we do it. It's literally science. It is, it is good for your brain to recognize because we spend so much time of the day recognizing all of the negative stuff. And so we have to be intentional about reprogramming it to look for the good evidence. Like you're training your brain to notice the progress instead of only scanning for the failure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
Boundaries Support And Outsourcing
SPEAKER_01So then let's talk about like boundaries, support, and outsourcing. Because this is where I think most women need probably the takeaway and action of how to work with capacity, because most of the time you know you need to do something, and maybe you don't have the capacity to do it, but you're like, I don't have the support to give up anything on my plate to get this done.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes that's true. And I'm not saying that this is always the case, right? But sometimes support is available and we don't ask because of that identity that we've built around around like not needing support or around being the one that does all of it, right? Or sometimes we'll ask once, but then if we don't get the exact response that we wanted, or they don't do it the way that we would want to do it, we just decide, well, fine, I'll do it myself. And the truth is if your health requires space and your life has no space, then something has to be redistributed. It has to be that non-negotiable because if it were something for your kids, you would figure it out. You would make the space for it, right? And so that might look like, you know, your kids maybe establishing a more independent routine where you're not doing every single little thing for them all the time, you know, as obviously age appropriate, but it could look like asking for support with cooking dinner a couple nights out of the week or grocery shopping, or, you know, collectively as a family doing a 10-minute house reset after dinner instead of you being the one cleaning the house in the morning as you're trying to get ready for work and get the kids ready for school and all the things at the same time. It might look like outsourcing. That might be hiring a housekeeper if you if you're able to do that, right? It might be creating a backup workout day so that you know if if shit does hit the fan and you have a day that has unpredictable stuff that comes up, that you have a backup buffer for yourself. Like none of those are selfish things, and we have this negative association that they're selfish. It's just building systems to create space on a plate that has nothing there for you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, it is literally 2020. You can almost hire anything and anyone to get it done for you. Like Walmart will literally deliver your groceries to your doorstep. Like you're gonna hire anyone to do deliveries free. Like a lot of times you can get some super easy meals that are super cheap and it's not selfish and it's not anything like that. And it also is like being a good role model to your kids, right? Like, I want my kids for one, like I make my kids be super self-responsible. Like, I'm not doing their laundry, I'm not like you're you can do that yourself. You're gonna have to figure that out. You can do some of this stuff on your own, you can learn how to cook eggs, like you can do some of this stuff on your own. You can learn how to clean your room, you can learn how to vacuum, you can learn how to mow the yard, like you can pack your own lunches, but you also need to teach your kids to take care of themselves and break the chip pattern.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Yeah, because if not, then what ends up happening, what ends up happening, ladies, when you decide that you have to be the one to handle all these things all the time and that you don't need the help or that the help is not available to you, all that's doing the same way that I talk about when I talk about how boundaries teach other people how to treat us, you are teaching your family that your health is not something that is to be prioritized, that your needs always go in the back burner. Because if everyone benefits from you overextending yourself, that's not good. But the truth of the matter is that everyone actually benefits from you being a fully functioning, capable, comfortable, happy version of yourself. Right. And so that involves you protecting your capacity so that you can show up in that way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I guarantee your kids would rather you be around 20 years from now than doing their laundry. This, you know what I mean.
SPEAKER_00So for the practical version of this, what this looks like if you're if you're listening to all this and you're like, yeah, okay, well, what you know, how do I do this? So I like to do something called the capacity audit. And what I want you to do is I want you to write down the health habit that you're struggling with. So if that's trying to incorporate training into your schedule or if it's trying to do meal prepping or if it's trying to get your sleep back on track, whatever it is, write down that habit and then ask yourself, is this goal inside or outside my current window of tolerance? Meaning, does it stretch me a little bit outside of my comfort zone, but it still feels safe for my nervous system? Is it super overwhelming essentially? What is the smallest version that I can execute this week? Like be really honest with yourself here. What can I do like tomorrow, but definitely this week? Where will it live on my calendar or wherever it is that you organize your to-dos or keep your schedule on lock? Where is it gonna live and then put it there? What could derail it? So, what are the deterrents? What are the things that could come up? What is gonna throw you off so that you're aware of it in advance? What can I prepare in advance to reduce friction? So those two questions go together, right? So if I'm aware of what could derail it, then what are the things that I need to do? That might look like putting my clothes out for my workout the night before or putting, you know, a shake or my water bottle out, and everything is ready to go. So there's nothing that slows me down in that process. And then what needs to come off my plate or be delegated so that this habit has room, so that it has space. And then the last question, which I think is the most important, is am I framing this as pressure or am I framing it as a choice? Because if it feels like punishment, it's not going to last. It won't be sustainable for you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. And that's where we see what most women with like that has the most friction, right? So the takeaway today is this if you're struggling to follow through, don't immediately assume you need more discipline because I know you're a disciplined person. Look at your capacity.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Your problem is most likely not motivation, right? It we think that it is, but it may be that you're trying to build a healthy lifestyle on top of a life that doesn't have any space for you in it. And so this week, choose the one small promise to yourself, right? Like it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be a super impressive goal or compared to somebody else's goals. And, you know, can you keep that small promise to yourself? Make sure that you keep it. That's how you build that self-trust with yourself. That's how you, you know, can start to come out of this survival mode. And that's how your body begins to actually believe that you're working with it and not against it.
Small Promises And Closing Requests
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So if this episode resonates, share it with a woman who's carrying everything. You know, you type A ladies out there and wondering why you still feel exhausted.
SPEAKER_00Yes. So please share it with somebody. Like, review. We'd love to hear from you. If there's something specific that came up for you today that you're struggling with, please share it with us. We'd love to help you out.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. So next week is QA, which we know you all love QA. Um, and then we got some fun episodes coming up for you. So make sure you like and subscribe so you can get updates on all of our episodes when they come out.
SPEAKER_00Yes. See you next time.