The Intentional Midlife Mom Podcast | Simple, Practical Life, Home & Mindset Solutions for Moms Over 40

Ep. 154: Answering the "How did life get like this?" question

• Season 2 • Episode 154

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Today’s episode is for every woman who’s ever paused mid-chaos and thought,
 “How did it even get like this?”

Maybe your house feels like it’s working against you.
 Maybe your schedule is packed, but nothing actually feels meaningful.
 Maybe you’re just tired—of spinning plates, keeping up, and holding it all together.

If any of that hits home, you are so not alone—and today I’m sharing a sneak peek into something that has completely changed the way I approach my own life in mid-season chaos:
It’s called the Midlife Reset Framework.

This is just a teaser of what I’ll be teaching in depth inside the upcoming 3-Day Life Reset Summit—a completely free online event designed to help you get your footing again, simplify what’s not working, and reconnect with the life you’re actually trying to create.

So if you're craving some clarity...
 If you're ready for something to shift...
 Stick with me today.
 And then, go grab your free summit ticket so you can experience the entire Midlife Reset Framework—and the full lineup of powerful presentations waiting for you there.

Let’s dive in.

Resources mentioned in this episode: 

Get your free pass to the 3 Day Life Reset Experience, happening May 19-21 HERE

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We have a beautiful pdf download of the 6 Mantras For Intentional Moms you can keep or print. Request them right HERE.

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Well, welcome today. And if you're here, I know it's because something resonated with you. Something about your own life feels like you just need a little bit of a reset. This whole idea of a reset felt maybe a little bit refreshing to you. And if you know of another woman who also needs this kind of a reset, maybe you know she's struggling with some of the same things that you are, please share this with her.

She needs to hear this as well. And if you're here because someone shared it with you, well, you know that someone's thinking about you and you know that someone cares about you. So welcome, I'm glad that you are here under any circumstance. So again, if you've ever looked around your home or your life in general and thought, how did it get this way? You are so not alone. I still remember the moment that it all hit me was...

Picture this, there were school papers right on the homeschool lawn. There were school papers and they were stacked all over the table. There were dishes in the sink. There were groceries that were still sitting on the floor in bags and everyone was coming at me and everyone needed something from me in that moment all at once. We had just been through this wildly crazy busy season. There were unexpected curve balls. There were busy schedules.

And honestly, things truly had just gotten away from me. And so I had this thought that things are just too far gone. I will never be able to catch back up again. But here's the truth that I've come to learn the hard way, and I'm excited to share it with you. And that is that if you feel chaotic, if it feels like you're surrounded by chaos everywhere, know that it is not a sign that you are failing. It is a sign that your life

has really outgrown the current systems that you're working with. And if you're a midlife woman like me, this is when the fact that we've outgrown our routines and the way that we used to do things, it's when that becomes glaringly obvious. And so today I wanna walk you through just a little sneak peek of again, something that I'm teaching more deeply inside the three-day life reset experience. And it's all about this midlife reset framework. It's great.

for anyone. And so we're gonna talk about really what's going on underneath all of that chaos that you're feeling and how we begin finding clarity again. So we're gonna start off by talking about why life can feel so often so overwhelming. So especially for us as midlife women, you are carrying more than ever before, but you never really thought about it. No one really told you that you're gonna have to recalibrate when life starts.

looking a little bit different. Maybe your kids are older, maybe you're juggling aging parents, maybe your work is more demanding. Maybe it's all of the above. And for most of us, again, we're still using these same systems and routines that we created back when our kids were toddlers or when life was just different or life was just simpler. And now life has changed. The pace of life, the roles, the expectations, all these things have shifted, but your systems and the way that you do things hasn't caught up.

And beneath all of that, we're also carrying what I call the invisible weight. There's two main ways, two main pieces of this invisible weight that I wanna talk about today. Number one, it's the mental load. It's the keeping track of everything and everyone. And then there's the emotional load. These are things like guilt, frustration, maybe a little bit of uncertainty, lack of clarity, sadness maybe.

and really the pressure to kind of be everything for everyone. And so it's not just about the mess on the counter, it's really about the chaos in your mind. And there's really another thing that can kind of keep us stuck in a way of life that just isn't working for us anymore. And it's this whole myth of balance. When we hear the word balance, we think of, it kind of gives this illusion of all things being equal. And so we think about,

all of these different roles and responsibilities that we have. we think that the goal, we think that what we're supposed to do is keep all of these different roles and responsibilities and things that we're juggling all the things for all the people and that it's all supposed to be equal and that we just need to find more balance in our life. And if you've ever tried to find balance, you know that this idea just doesn't look, doesn't work. All of these things cannot be equal. And so,

Instead, what I like to talk about and how I teach it is this idea of harmony. And if you think about what harmony is in a piece of music, right? If you think about an orchestra, you have all of these different sections of musical instruments and they all have different pieces that they're playing to make, to bring this piece of music to life. And unless you're in playing a piece of music that is intentionally supposed to have some clash and some discord, for the most part,

All of these different sections are all working together to support one another, to create something beautiful that is harmonious and complimentary to one another, right? These different sections are, they're each coming with their own part to enhance the overall experience for themselves and everyone who's listening. And so I like thinking about what we're trying to do in our roles and in our priorities and in our responsibilities the same way. The goal is not,

this equality, but that they could support one another and that they could work together and that they have this also this ongoing awareness of one another, that we are aware of who we are and what is needed in all these different roles and responsibilities and they understand each other and they work together. Even if there's some equality at some point, right? Which there's going to be. In reality, when it comes to the roles and responsibilities and things we have to do and priorities, not everything can have

are equal attention. But everything, the goal is that everything gets intentional attention. Let me say that again. The goal is that not everything gets equal attention, but that everything gets intentional attention. Sounds pretty awesome, right? So if we don't need balance and if our routines and things aren't working, what do we actually need? How can we actually kind of start to step into this idea of reset?

You don't need a new planner and you don't need to do a weekend purge of your closet. In reality, you just need this reset. And so what is a reset? It is a grounded and grace-filled reset. Think of resetting your computer. Think of rebooting your computer. You need this grounded, grace-filled reset that helps you realign your mindset, your home, and your energy and resources, right?

your mental clarity, your mental focus, your emotional cup of resources, your patience, your thought processes, all of that stuff. We want to be able to align all of those together. And this really whole idea of alignment and realignment, it's really comes together as I'm gonna teach it to you here today in this midlife reset framework. And so here's a quick overview. There's four things that we're gonna be focusing on. Number one is to reset your mind.

You need to reset your mindset. Basically, you've got to reframe your internal dialogue. We need to, number one, do a few different things here. We need to let go of this all or nothing thinking that we all are naturally wired with as humans. It's not about being perfect or failure. It's not black or white. It's not all or nothing. So we need to reframe how we think about that. You also need to stop believing

that you're behind or that you're doing something wrong just because life is messy. Life is messy and it's not a reflection of how you are managing your life. Perhaps there's things you could do differently and that's why you're here. That's why you're excited about being here. But in reality, life in and of itself is messy. It's not a direct reflection of your mismanagement. The third way to kind of reset your mindset is to start asking, get curious and ask, what can I learn here?

instead of why can't I get it together? What's actually happening? What is it I need to understand? What is it I need to address? So that's all about resetting your mindset. The second thing you need to do is reset your routines. I mentioned this a little bit ago, reset your routines. And it needs to start with looking at what's working and what's not working. Chances are you've got different parts of your daily flow that are working okay. You've got certain routines, certain ways of doing things.

where pieces and parts of them are just fine, but then there's other things that aren't. And so we need to clearly identify what is working with the routines and what isn't. And a couple of things to keep in mind here is that you wanna simplify wherever you are stuck. Typically, if you are feeling like you are stuck in overwhelm, stuck in chaos, things are just too complicated. Simplifying is almost always going to be a smart and strategic move when it comes to figuring out how to make things work better.

simplify. And then you need to start creating routines that support your current life, your current season, your current needs. Not what life looked like 10 years ago, not the routines that supported you two years ago or maybe even two months ago. You need to have routines in place that support where you are currently. And the idea is that life is messy, so just allow it to be a little bit messy.

Allow yourself to be real in your own life and allow your life and these routines that you're creating and this reset that you're doing on yourself, let it be your journey. Don't try to step into another person's journey and think that that can be your own. So the third thing that you need to do is reset your environment. Your space should serve you.

So there's a few different things that you can think about here. Number one, it's to eliminate friction points. Even if it means doing things that don't make sense to others, what are the sticking points, the complicated parts of your day? We wanna try to eliminate those. The second thing to do is to focus on again, how your day flows from one thing to another, from one stepping into one role or responsibility into another role or responsibility.

And then you need to make sure that you are setting up your home in a way that works for you and not for Pinterest. It's not about what somebody else is telling you to do in order to manage or organize or clean or whatever your home. It needs to be something that you are focused on. What works for me? Those are all great places to get ideas, but it still should come back to you managing your environment in a way.

that helps you find peace in your environment. And then the fourth thing to focus on when it comes to this reset is to reset what I call your capacity, right? And this is a big thing. What we wanna do is we wanna work with your energy instead of white-knuckling your way through the things that need to be done. All of us have energy that ebbs and flows throughout the day. We want to try to align ourselves and ask ourselves to do things at the right time as much as possible.

So again, it's not about just trying harder and willpowering and white knuckling. It's a matter of trying to set yourself up where you are working with your natural tendencies and abilities instead of fighting against them all the time. But that's one way that you can reset your capacity. You can also build in buffer space. You need to have time to recover in your day.

where we're not, again, going from one thing to the next to the next to the next. And I fully understand there are days where that's the way it has to be. Appointment after appointment, thing after thing. And then there's this thing that also goes wrong. Just today, I got into one of the cars that we own that I don't drive very often. It's one of my kids' cars. And I got into it and I thought, man, it sounds like brakes are a problem. And my kids don't necessarily know what that sounds like or feels like. Did I have time to take it to the car place and say, hey, can you check this out? No.

But did I do it? Yes. And how I'm gonna be able to recover from this a little bit more easily is because I've got buffer space planned into my day. Would I have rather not taken it? Sure, I absolutely would not have chosen to fit that into my day today. But I do have buffer space in that makes that recovery easier to manage. And then the third thing that you can do to help reset your capacity is to protect your bandwidth like it matters.

because it does. A lot of times we say yes when we should say no. A lot of times we just willingly take on more and ignore the signals that our body is telling us. So protect your bandwidth like your life depends on it because honestly it kind of does. So these are things I talk with women about all the time. In my coaching community, Accomplished Lifestyle,

We do resets all the time in the work that we do. And we do it on a practical level when we talk about resetting your pantry, resetting your home. People know me as, I talk about my home reset that we do pretty much every weekend. I talk about that a lot. I share it on Instagram, other places. But we also do a reset, not just from what our eyeballs can see, but this internal reset is so important. But what you need to know is that it's not about doing a complete overhaul on your life.

by the Saturday, right? When we think about resetting things, we're thinking about one intentional reset. So here are some ideas that you can pick from, and I'm gonna give you three different ideas, and I'm gonna encourage you to choose only one of them. You're gonna work on this reset using one of these three tools, but just one. You're not picking all three, all right? So the first thing that you can do is to create a more or less list. And basically this is,

You sitting down and thinking, brainstorming, brain dumping, what do you want more of in your life and what do you want less of? Just list it all out. Don't think about how it's gonna happen. Don't think about this, that, or the other thing. Don't think about it on practical terms. It's just, if you were to choose, what would you say you would want more of in your life and what would you want less of? That's one tool that can help you with a reset. The second tool is to pick one friction point, one of these times throughout your day.

that feels especially chaotic. Maybe it's trying to get everybody out the door. Maybe it's trying to get everybody in bed. Maybe it's trying to get dinner on the table. Maybe it's when you get home from work. Maybe it's when your kids get home from school. Who knows what it is, but pick one friction point in your day. And then once you choose that one point, you're gonna create a two-step solution, simple, two steps. What is step one and step two that I can do to help release some of this friction that is happening

in this event. So what is one friction point and what is one two-step solution that you can take to help make that a little bit simpler? The third thing that you could choose from is to ask yourself, what can I say no to today? Look at your list for today. Look at your app for today. Wherever you've got your plan for today, look at what that is and say, what is one thing? If I were to tell myself, I have to choose one thing.

what one thing would you choose to say no to today? And if you want to take this to the next level, you could look at the way that your morning, your afternoon and your evening are, and you could say, have to say no to one thing in each one of these pockets. I have to say no to something I've got planned for this morning. I have to say no to something that I thought I would do in the afternoon and I have to do the same thing for the evening. But that's the next level. But when it comes to these reset, to doing this reset, these three tools, pick one.

and go with it. And this is one small shift. Essentially what you're doing here is you're taking one small shift and you're saying, I'm choosing to not be stuck here anymore. I'm choosing to move forward in one simple way. Here's the truth. This resonates with women all over the place in my coaching community, in my private coaching clients, in my text messages with my coaching clients because women largely feel.

like they are stuck, they feel like they're overloaded and they feel like, again, they're trying to achieve this unattainable idea of finding balance in their lives. But we have to start by first kind of giving ourselves a new starting point. And that's what a reset is all about. And that's what made me so excited to create this three-day life reset experience.

It's because this is what women are in need of. This presentation, this little excerpt from a presentation all about this midlife reset framework that I'm teaching in the experience, it's just one of my five presentations. And there are 17 speakers in all who are sharing amazing wisdom. A few of the specific topics are geared towards midlife women and this maybe stepping into this empty nest phase of life. And what does this look like?

We also talk about ways of all of the speakers talk about ways that we as women need to have permission to adjust our expectations and to be able to step into who we want to be in the lives we want to create. And so I invite you to come join us in this three-day life reset experience. It takes place live from May 20 to 21. And then on May 22, there is a bonus day with me.

where I'm giving you an implementation workshop where we're gonna take all these amazing things that you learned about, whatever they were, and we're gonna talk about how do I actually incorporate these into my life? How do I move from head knowledge to life knowledge and life change? How do I do that? And so that's what I'm sharing with everyone on the 22nd of May. So we've got information on how you can join for free. It is a free three-day event.

You have the option of purchasing instant lifetime access with the Summit Superstar All Access Pass. This also includes cheat sheets and transcripts, but that's just an option. This is a free event that you are invited to join. Check out the show notes below. So friend, you do not have to do life alone and you do not have to think that you are doing it wrong simply because life is messy and simply because life has changed.

What I've given you here today is a great way to start with this whole idea of a reset and just examining how can I do more of what works and what would that look like and starting to move forward just one small step at a time. So thanks so much for joining me. We'll talk again soon. Bye everyone.