Ep. 146: How to Break Free & Invest in Yourself Without Guilt

If you've ever struggled with guilt when it comes to spending time, energy, or money on yourself—this episode is for you.

Maybe you’ve thought, I can’t afford it, I don’t have time, or What if it doesn’t work for me? And that guilt? It keeps you stuck.

But today, we’re flipping the script. We’re talking about how to break free and confidently invest in yourself—without guilt, without fear, and without second-guessing whether you deserve it.

Because here’s the truth: When you invest in yourself, everyone benefits. You show up as a better version of you—for your family, your work, your life.

So let’s talk about exactly how to make that shift—starting right now.

Let’s go!

Resources mentioned in this episode: 

Free prioritizing download HERE

Lifestyle Inspiration weekly VIP emails HERE 

Summer retreat HERE 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Breaking Free from Guilt
• 0:30 The Benefits of Self-Investment
• 0:46 Embracing the Present as a Midlife Mom
• 1:25 The Key to Effective Home Management

Transcript

Well, welcome back to the Intentional Midlife Mom podcast. I am your host, Jennifer Roskamp. And if you have not listened to part one of this conversation yet, go back and check out episode 144, because today we're diving into the execution part of moving forward rather than staying in a place where you're just not investing in yourself and you and everyone around you is paying the high cost of how you're running on empty. Episode 144 is going to tell you the cost of staying stuck. So,

Make sure that you've listened to that episode and then come right back here and join us because we are building on, we're turning the corner on staying stuck. We're turning the corner on not investing in yourself. And we're going to be talking about what that could look like, what that needs to look like. So before we talk about what to do, we need to talk about how you think. I am a big supporter as a life coach in

teaching women all about how your brain functions. And so we're gonna talk about how you think because your thoughts about investing in yourself determine whether or not you ever take action. Every action that you do or do not take starts with a thought first. So let's reframe a few of the most common thoughts when it comes to investing in yourself. Number one, I can't afford it. Instead of saying that, ask yourself,

How can I afford it? We can get creative when it comes to affording things for our kids, our homes, and even that six or eight dollar coffee. Why not get creative for investing in your own growth?

Second argument, I don't have time. You need to flip it around. What is the cost of not making time? How much longer do you want to stay stuck here? And by the way, if you don't know the answer to what is the cost of not making the time, again, go back and listen to episode 144. I will tell you exactly what the cost is of not making the time to invest in yourself. Common thought number three, what if I fail?

Well, instead of thinking that, shift to what if this changes everything?

So now that we've gotten the thoughts out of the way, let's talk about some smart ways to invest in yourself. We're gonna talk about the action because investing in yourself doesn't always mean money. It's also about time, energy and focus. You also have to invest these things in yourself as well. So here's where you can start no matter where you are. Number one, free investments, free monetary investments.

You can listen to podcasts like this one here. They're free. You can read books. You can get them free from the library. You can journal. You can take walks to clear your mind. There are so many ways that are totally free that you can invest in thoughts, invest in processing your thoughts, invest in processing your emotions, learning more, investing in your growth.

There are all kinds of free ways that you can invest in your growth. Then we've also got some low cost investments. You can join a low cost coaching community. Now I've got a couple of these by the way. I've got some coaching that happens every single weekend with my VIP emails. Every weekend I send emails to those on my VIP email list and they learn about, they're basically a fly on the wall.

You can be a fly on the wall in watching me plan my week, watching me create my meal plan. I also give my VIP email subscribers a healthy focus for every single week, something healthy to focus on, something totally doable and simple by the way, but just a healthy focus like drinking more water. And then I share how to do that. My weekly VIP emails also include a coaching client story.

to help give you some inspiration and encouragement for what other women just like you are doing so that you can see how you can do the same thing. And then the final thing these VIP emails have is they have a mantra to focus on every single week. Just like you get a mantra every single Monday here on the podcast, I give a new mantra to focus on every single week to everyone who gets my VIP emails. If you are not yet,

getting my VIP emails, they are just $11 a month. I call them lifestyle inspiration and we will link to them down in the show notes. $11 a month for all four weekly emails. And when there's a fifth week in the month, well, hey, you get that one too. that's, what is that? Less than $3 an email? I mean, that's pretty incredible. So that's one product in one way that I have.

for you to get some coaching. I've also got a coaching program called Lifestyle Basics. That's just $37 a month for a bunch of coaching content. And then I've got my coaching community. It's called Accomplished Lifestyle. That's just $67 a month. And I've got plenty of other offers in addition to these. These are just some of the big ones. Some of the super simple yet powerful ways that hundreds

thousands actually of women are investing in themselves with my coaching in a low-cost way, but low-cost investments. You can join a coaching community, you can buy a course, you can attend a workshop. By the way, I teach monthly workshops inside my coaching community, Accomplished Lifestyle. It's just one of the perks that they get with coaching. It's a actionable, targeted workshop on one new theme every single month.

So these low cost investments, and then you've got bigger investments. If you're serious about a change, making this bigger investment will change your life because we value what we pay for. And the more we pay for something, the more we value it. And what does that mean? Well, the more you invest, the more likely it is you are to get in there and do the work, to roll up your sleeves and do the hard stuff. And so maybe you need to make a bigger investment in yourself.

You could hire a coach, you can join a mastermind, or you can enroll in a program designed to get you results. I'm actually hosting a retreat this summer, a weekend retreat that is all focused on coaching, but we're also gonna be doing plenty of important things. It's called the Healing from the Inside Out Retreat. We're gonna be taking power walks, we're gonna be having a guided workshop, one-on-one sessions with me.

I'm gonna have an on-site massage therapist, meals. It's going to be an amazing time of growth for just a handful of women who are focused on, again, moving the needle forward for women who are tired of staying stuck and staying the same. So there are plenty of these opportunities to make bigger investments in yourself as well. So whether you're investing for free at a low cost or at a bigger investment,

The key is to start somewhere because action builds momentum. Action builds motivation. So often we sit and wait to feel motivated, but the action comes first. But you've got to start somewhere. And so really what I want to give you here is a permission slip to prioritize you. I want to give you a permission slip to invest in yourself because here's what happens when you do.

Number one, you become a better version of yourself. I'm here to tell you something that I know you already know, but let me call it out. If you are running on fumes, if you are not firing on all cylinders, if you are burning the candle at both ends, if you are struggling in survival mode, you are not the version of you that you want to be. You have moments where you are

regretful of how you react or respond or what you say. You aren't experiencing the healthy, healthiest versions of yourself that you'd like to. Your relationships are not what you would like them to be. Your goals, you're not meeting those either. And maybe you're even to the point where you've stopped setting them because what's the point? If you are not

a better, if you are not working towards becoming a better version of yourself, you are sacrificing so many amazing things, so many powerful relationships, so many goals that you would go after if only you were a better version of yourself. And so when you invest in yourself, you can become and be working towards becoming that better version of yourself.

When you give yourself permission to invest in yourself, you also gain confidence in your decisions. If you are someone who is struggling in survival mode, you know you're there. You know you're running on fumes. You know you are over exhausted, overextended, over depleted, overworked, all of these things. And so because you know that you are struggling, you don't have confidence in anything that you're doing.

You question and second guess every thought you have, every action you're gonna take, because you know that you are barely existing. And so when you invest in yourself and you start to grow, along with that growth comes the confidence that you have in yourself for everything, especially in making decisions. And I don't know about you, but I make countless decisions.

big and small decisions of all size every single day. But if you know that you are not really equipped to make those decisions, you don't have lacking that confidence means you're gonna be, you're gonna be to make those decisions and to make good decisions. You'll be in reactive mode rather than proactive mode pretty much all the time. And so all you'll be able to do is basically,

Clean up in aisle three, whatever goes wrong, whatever doesn't go the way that you would like it to, whatever you're not intentionally doing, you're constantly going to be following yourself around and cleaning up after yourself. Cleaning up after these decisions that you're making that don't align with who you are, that don't align with what you want, that don't align with what you value. We want to make sure that the decisions that we make align with the best version of ourselves. But if you have no idea who that version is,

or what you're working towards, again, the decisions you make are not going to be the ones that create the life you want, that help you step into the version of yourself that you want. So a third benefit when you invest in yourself is that you show up differently. You show up differently for your family. You show up differently for your work. You show up differently for your life. Imagine if you had

confidence. Imagine if you had resilience. Imagine if you knew that you were equipped to handle whatever came your way. How would you step into everything that you have to do every single day? How would you show up differently? If you knew that you were equipped to do it, if you knew that you were the best version of yourself, you would show up differently. You would show up more consistently.

you would have that motivation you can't seem to find. You would feel that energy that always seems to be missing. When you are investing in yourself, you are experiencing from the moment you invest, you will begin investing, you will begin experiencing the path of growth that will take you to that best version of yourself that is always going to be a continual work in progress.

But again, you will have that confidence to be that person, to step inside, to step into that person and to get yourself back on track when you fall off track.

So what's a good way that we can invest in ourselves? I've got a simple thing that you can do today. I've got a challenge that I wanna leave you with. Here's that challenge. Do one small thing to invest in yourself this week. Maybe it's gonna be to grab the freebie that I tell you about in just a second. Maybe it will be to sign up to start receiving those weekly VIP emails that I send that are packed with simple ways to step

to start stepping into what it's like to learn from a coach, what it is like to grow with a coach like myself. Maybe those will be your first step. But here is a couple of things that you could do to invest in yourself. Number one, take 10 minutes for yourself each day. You decide what that looks like. Take 10 minutes for yourself each day. Low investment.

low time value, low resource investment. You're not investing a lot of time. You're not investing a lot of money. You're not investing a lot of energy or focus. It's just 10 minutes. Take 10 minutes for yourself every single day. Maybe this is something that you could do. What if you were to actually pick up that book that's been sitting on your shelf, that one that you've meant to get to? What if you actually started reading that book? What if you committed to reading some of that book every single day?

That would be a way, a very small yet powerful and impactful way to invest in yourself. Maybe you could do this to invest in yourself. Maybe you could sign up for that thing that you've been putting off, whatever it is. Maybe it's downloading a new app that's going to help track your time. Maybe it's starting to track your macros or watch what you're eating more carefully. Maybe there is a simple motivation app that you've heard about.

that you could actually sign up for. What could you sign up for that you've been putting off? Because the version of you who has the life she dreams of, she could from this point forward have made today you could make the decision to invest in yourself first. That version of you that is gonna be accomplishing those dreams, it has to start with investment.

And here's what I know to be true as well. You are worth it. So if you've been struggling to invest in yourself, make sure you know the cost of staying in that struggle. That's what I talked about all in episode 144. Here today in this episode, we talked about how to shift your mindset and simple and smart ways to start investing in yourself today. It doesn't have to be complicated. It just has to have a starting point.

And let today, let this episode be that starting point for you. Until we talk again, make it an intentional day.