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

Ep. 178: Finding the Good—Without Gaslighting Yourself

• Season 2 • Episode 178

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You've heard it all before—"Just be grateful." "Find the silver lining." "Focus on what you can control."

And if you're in the thick of it right now—managing aging parents who need more every week, grown kids who still need you in ways you didn't expect, a household that only runs because you're the one running it, plus work, relationships, and trying to remember the last time you felt like yourself—nothing stings more than being told to look on the bright side.

INTRO: But what’s actually happening inside your head - it’s time to unpack what’s actually making your brain so heavy. Let’s Unpack it on this episode!

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Well, it's no secret that you are likely juggling a lot, especially if you are in midlife. Again, we're kind of sandwiched between different ages of kids, right? Probably not a whole lot of younger kids anymore, unless you're like me and you have younger kids and older kids, but then you've got aging parents or other family members to care for and you're in the middle of it all. And your head feels like it is constantly swimming from the time you get up in the morning.

Here's what's actually happening inside your head right now. You wake up feeling already behind and the mental list, it starts running before your feet even hit the floor. You're thinking about the appointment you need to reschedule, the conversation you're dreading, the birthday you almost forgot, the bill that's due, the thing your kid needs that you said you'd handle three days ago, and you move through your day managing everyone else's needs and moods. You're tracking what's running low. You're remembering what no one else remembers.

You're carrying the visible work that everyone can see and the invisible work that no one notices, including you, and the emotional weight of holding it all together while not falling apart yourself. And then by the time someone tells you to just practice gratitude, you want to scream. And that is an amazing strategy, but it could just be that it's not the right strategy for you, at least not right now.

In reality, it could be that you are just in a hard season and struggling. It doesn't mean that you're not grateful if you can't just make yourself feel better. If you're in a hard season and you're carrying a lot, finding it hard to see the good just means you're exhausted. It doesn't mean you're being negative. You're just feeling the weight of how much you're actually carrying and it's hard to get out from underneath that weight. And it's with you all the time, especially during hard seasons because it's hard to really focus on anything

but that weight that feels like it's crushing you. And when someone suggests, just look for the good, it feels like they're asking you to pretend that none of that hard stuff is real. Like they're asking you to essentially gaslight yourself into feeling better while nothing else actually changes. But here's the truth that we're gonna be pulling apart today. If all you look for is what's wrong, that's all you'll find. And you'll miss what's quietly holding you together.

This isn't about gratitude journals or really toxic positivity. This is about pretending you're not, this is not about pretending you're not tired or minimizing what's hard. There's lots of nots there. Because right now your brain is building a case. Your brain is collecting evidence. And if the story it's building is everything is hard and nothing is working, that's the only reality that you will see. Not because it's the only truth,

But because that's the only truth that you're tuned into. That's the only truth that your brain is dialed in to observe. And the pattern of that is costing you a whole lot more than you realize. By the end of our time here today, you're gonna understand three critical things. You're gonna understand first why your brain defaults to seeing what's wrong and why that's not your fault, but it is costing you. Second,

You're going to learn what the difference is between toxic positivity and intentional perspective, because they're not the same thing. And knowing the difference, changes everything. And then third, you're going to know how to shift your lens without gaslighting yourself, without minimizing the real weight that you're carrying or pretending like everything is fine when it's not. Because here's what I know to be true after coaching tens of thousands of women over the past decade.

it might not actually get any easier, but you can get better at managing it. And the key is to be intentional in what you're looking for. So let's dive in. So we're gonna start here. Women are tired of being handed gratitude lists while they feel like they're drowning. This is what it sounds like. Just be thankful for what you have. Other people have it worse.

You should focus on the positive or what about at least you have your health or your family or a roof over your head. In every single one of those well-meaning statements, along with the people who said them, they might be technically true and designed to help you feel better. But in reality, during hard seasons, they can truly feel like a slap in the face when you're barely keeping your head above water. The truth is, is that you are grateful.

That's not the problem. It's not that lack of gratefulness that's the problem. The problem is that you're also over exhausted. You're overwhelmed. You're resentful that no one sees how much you're actually doing. And maybe you're even a little bit angry that you're supposed to keep smiling through it all while carrying the weight of 10 people. You don't need another person telling you to count your blessings. You need someone to acknowledge that the blessings are actually heavy right now and

You're tired of carrying the bulk of them alone. So here's the truth that most people miss. There's really this cultural messaging around gratitude right now. And I think it's become weaponized, especially for women. We've been told that if we're not glowing with joy and appreciation 24-7, we're somehow failing. That if we raise our hand and admit that we're struggling, we're being negative.

that if we name what's hard, we're being ungrateful. And that's just not true. And in reality, it's minimizing the load that most women today are carrying. Because the truth is this, you can love your life and still find it exhausting. You can love your life and still find it exhausting. You can be grateful for your family and still feel invisible inside it. Raise your hand if I just gave you an amen there.

You can appreciate what you have and still wish that it didn't have to feel this hard. All of these things that I just mentioned, they can be true at the same time and they likely are. But here's where the shift happens. And this is the part that most people aren't telling you. Noticing what's good, it isn't actually denial. So what is it then? It's data. I propose that it's just data.

In reality, as a coach, I know that your brain is always collecting evidence. It's always building a case for what it believes to be true. And if you believe that everything is hard and nothing is working, your brain is going to constantly be finding all of the proof of that everywhere you look. Not because it's the only truth, but again, because it's the truth that you're tuned into.

So think about it like this. Have you ever decided you want a certain kind of car and then suddenly you start seeing that car everywhere? It's not that there are magically more of those cars that have appeared overnight, it's that your brain has started noticing them. It's tuned in and the same thing happens with your thoughts. If you're constantly looking for evidence that life is overwhelming, that you're failing, that nothing you do makes a difference, your brain will deliver that evidence to you all day long.

Again, not because it's trying to hurt you or sabotage you in any way, but because it's trying to confirm what you already believe to be true. So I remember a season, a number of years ago when I was completely burned out. My husband was back in nursing school in his early 40s after spending 18 months in an accelerated program that he failed to pass one segment by less than 1%. Just.

six weeks before graduating from the program. We had to wait nine full months for him to retake that segment again. Nine months of limbo, nine months of financial strain, nine months of uncertainty, because you get one chance to fail in this program. And if it happens again, you're kicked out of the program for five whole years. And at that point, you can choose to start back over from the beginning again.

During that time, we had, I think, six kids in various stages of life and dependency upon me. And I was trying to start a business, keep food on the table, keep everyone emotionally okay. And do you wanna guess what I felt like in my head during this time? It was so hard to keep myself from completely unraveling since my own worries, my fears, my uncertainties, and my stress level were at dangerously high levels. And since...

I was either pregnant or breastfeeding a baby for 19 consistent years of my life, I know I was also physically growing or supporting another human being during that time. And let me just tell you, pregnancy over the age of 38, it's not like pregnancy at the age of 28. I know since I've done both. But during that season, everything felt hard. I mean, everything, every single thing felt hard. And in reality, everything was hard.

And the more I focused on how hard it was, the more evidence I found that life was truly impossible. The house was always a mess. There was evidence there. Someone always needed something. There's more evidence I can find. I was always behind. I could find evidence for that too. Nothing I did ever felt like enough. And you know what? I could find, guess what? Evidence for that too. I wasn't wrong. It was hard. It was objectively.

undeniably hard during this season, but I was so focused on what wasn't working that I stopped seeing what was. I stopped noticing the small wins, the moments of connection, the fact that we were still standing, the fact that my kids were okay, the fact that my family was solid, even when everything else felt shaky. And it wasn't until I started asking myself a different question. What's working right now, even if it's small?

When I started asking myself that question, everything began to shift. Again, it isn't because my circumstances changed, because they didn't. We still had to wait those nine excruciating months. The bills were still there. The stress, it was still real. But what happened is, when I remembered to ask myself that question, my lens changed. And when the lens through which I saw everything changed,

the way that I experienced my daily life changed. And as a coach for women, I remind women of this all the time, multiple times a week. You can always find evidence for what you believe to be true. And so the question is, what belief are you building evidence for right now? Here's the thing, your brain, there's nothing wrong with it if it's collecting this negative evidence.

Again, it's doing this because your brain is wired for survival. There's something called negativity bias. It's your brain's tendency to focus on threats and problems and what's going wrong. And it's wired to do that because its job is to keep you alive. Our ancestors, right? They needed to spot danger fast in order to stay alive. The ones who noticed the rustling in the bushes and assumed it was a predator, well, those were the ones who survived.

And the ones who assumed it was just the wind, well, maybe they didn't have any genes to pass on. And so your brain is naturally wired to essentially be hypervigilant about threats, to scan for problems, to focus on what's wrong so that you can fix it or avoid it altogether. Your brain needs for you to move your body and to get out of stressful or dangerous situations fast. But here's the problem.

Your brain can't tell the difference between a charging lion and an overflowing email inbox. And we can all agree that these are in reality two very different things with two very different elements of danger. But in reality, your brain, can't distinguish between this physical threat and an emotional one. And so when you're carrying the visible load, right, these are the tasks that everyone and you can see, things like meals and laundry, appointments, errands.

but you're also carrying the invisible load. This is all the mental tracking that no one, not even you, notices most of the time. You do all the remembering, you do all the planning, you do all the anticipating, you do all the managing. That's the invisible load, but you're also carrying the emotional weight, right? These are the feelings that you absorb from everyone else around you, their worries, their guilt, their resentment, their sadness, their responsibility, their disappointment, their grief, and...

For the record, we as women are often processing all of these emotions ourselves too. So you're processing them all for everyone else and you're processing them for yourself too. So we've got the visible load, we've got the invisible load and we've got the emotional weight. And with it carrying all of this stuff all the time, no matter the threat, your brain just goes into threat mode. And in threat mode, you see more threats, you see more problems, you see...

more evidence that everything is falling apart. So let me show you what this looks like in real life. You wake up and your first thought is, I'm already behind or crap, I got up later than I wanted to. And before you've even gotten out of bed, your brain has cataloged everything that you didn't finish yesterday, everything you need to do today and everything that could go wrong. and by the way, you are behind today because you got up late. And so it's going to be another episode of just trying to keep myself from drowning.

And then you walk into the kitchen and you see the dishes in the sink from last night and your brain says, see, you can't even keep up with the basics. You check your phone. There's three texts from your kid about this weird sound that the car is making. Great. One more thing you have to manage. That's what your brain tells you. Then maybe your adult daughter calls. She's stressed about work. And so you absorb her anxiety while trying to sound supportive. And your brain is probably saying you're not doing enough to help her.

and maybe your kid or your husband asks what's for dinner. And your brain says, why is this always my job? Why doesn't anyone else think about this? And so by 10 a.m., you're exhausted and you haven't even started on the actual work yet. This is what negativity bias is in action. Your brain is doing exactly what it was designed to do. It's scanning for problems. It's building a case of what's wrong and it's keeping you alert.

to threats, but here's what this pattern is costing you. Number one, you stop seeing what's working even when it is working. When you're only looking for problems, you miss the wins, the small moments of connection, the things that did go right, the evidence that you actually are strong, that you actually are capable, you don't even see them. The second thing that this pattern is costing you is that you feel defeated before you even start.

If your internal conversation or narrative is that everything is hard and I'm failing, you approach every task already exhausted. You're behind the eight ball because you've decided it won't work before you've even tried. And the third thing that this is costing you is that you've become convinced that relief, it's not even possible. So you stop looking for it. And this is maybe, and I think probably the most dangerous cost because when you believe that nothing will help,

You stop reaching for help. You stop trying new things or looking for different ways of doing the same things. You resign yourself to the fact that you are going to be eternally exhausted. You accept overwhelm as your permanent state of living. And so here's this common thought trap. Everything is hard, so nothing can be good. It's this.

Binary thinking it's this all or nothing black or white thinking either life is good or it's bad either you're winning or you're losing either you're succeeding or you're failing That's that but in reality, that's not how life actually works. The truth is actually more nuanced than that Because here's what it actually looks like Life can be hard and you can be handling it. Well, you can be tired and capable

You can be overloaded and still have moments of peace. You can be struggling with something and making progress with it at the same time. Both things and all of these scenarios can be true at the same time, but again, your brain doesn't operate in nuances. It defaults to this ongoing threat detection.

So if you want to see the full picture, if you want to see the hard and the good, if you want to see the succeeding and the failures, then you have to look on purpose. So here's my coaching challenge for you. What if the belief that nothing is working is the very thing that's actually keeping you stuck? What if your exhaustion isn't just about what you're doing, but also what you're telling yourself about what you're doing?

What if you're not actually failing, you're just collecting evidence that confirms what you already believe? So let me ask you this, can you widen that lens? Not to minimize the pain or any of the hard things, but just to see the full picture. What would life look like then? Because when you only look at what's broken, you miss what's actually holding you together. And what's holding you together?

That's the foundation that you're going to build from to keep your head above water in a new and better way. take out a piece of paper, okay, if you're driving, just do this later. Take out a piece of paper or open your notes app, whatever you want. And you're gonna write down these three questions, okay? Question number one, what am I currently building evidence for? What am I currently building evidence for? Another way of looking at this is what belief is my brain

trying to confirm? What belief is my brain trying to confirm? So what am I currently building evidence for? Or what belief is my brain currently trying to confirm? That's question number one. Question number two, what would I see if I widened my lens even slightly? What could I see? So what could or would I see if I widened my lens even slightly? Question number three.

What's one thing that's working right now, even if it's small? One thing that's working right now. I challenged everyone who gets my emails to answer this question this week. You don't have to have perfect answers. You just have to start noticing because awareness that there's something else out there other than failure, other than life is impossibly hard because awareness of that is the first step required.

into shifting to a reality where you can actually not feel like you're drowning. And so here's what I want you to hear. Looking for the good, again, this is where most people miss it. Looking for the good, it doesn't mean ignoring the hard. It does not mean ignoring that reality. What it does mean is refusing to disappear inside of that hard reality.

That was worth saying again. That's worth putting on a sticky note, okay? Looking for the good, it doesn't mean ignoring the hard realities. It means that you are going to refuse to disappear inside the hard realities. When you're exhausted, it's easy to let the hard stuff become the only story. It's easier to wake up already defeated, to move through your day collecting evidence that it's all too much.

to go to bed feeling like you failed again. But here's the shift that can change everything should you choose to accept this shift. It is 100 % true that you can acknowledge the weight that you are carrying and notice what's still working. Both can be true at the same time. Again, yes, you're tired and you showed up today. Yes, life feels overwhelming.

and you're managing it. Yes, it's hard and you're doing it anyway. Know that this is not toxic positivity. This isn't pretending that everything is fine. This is what I call intentional, one of my favorite words, intentional perspective. It's choosing on purpose to widen your lens so that you can see the full picture, not just what's falling apart, but also what's holding together.

not just what's draining you, but also what's sustaining you. Not just what went wrong, but also what went right. This is what I mean by looking on purpose. You're not waiting for good things to happen so that you can feel better. Because, and this is so important, if you are multitasking, if you are driving, whatever it is, if you are multitasking anyway, listen to me, okay?

You're not waiting for good things to happen so that you can feel better because if you believe that nothing is working, you've got the nothing is working lens. Remember how you find evidence for whatever it is you believe to be true? And so if you've got the everything is wrong lens, it is going to be next to impossible to see that anything is right in your world.

And so when you intentionally choose to no longer wait for good things to happen or life to get easier or life to feel easier or this person over there to do whatever it is that arguably would make your life better or easier or less problematic in some way, when you stop waiting for these things that are outside of yourself and are actively looking for evidence that things are working, guess what?

you're going to start rebuilding your confidence, your capability, and your contentment with yourself and your life. Because here's what most women don't realize. Whether you are experiencing contentment or happiness in your life or confidence in your ability to manage it all, it hinges on the lens through which you choose to see things.

When you only see what's wrong, you start to believe that you are incapable, that nothing you do matters, that you'll never get ahead. But when you start noticing what's working, even in small ways, you start to see yourself differently. And you don't see yourself as someone who's failing, but as someone who's doing hard things well. And guess what? You are the person who has to do all of those things that you have to do.

that to-do list, that schedule, that never-ending list of all the errands and all the things to remember, you are the one that does all of that, which is why the most effective way to manage any of those things starts with focusing on the biggest lever. And guess what the biggest lever is? It's you, right? And so if you can change the lens through which you see your life and yourself, everything changes. So here's my challenge to you.

Tonight, before you go to bed, find three things that worked today. Not huge wins, not life-changing moments, just three small, let's call them anchors, okay? Maybe you had a moment of connection with one of your kids. Maybe you made it through a hard conversation without shutting down. Maybe you made dinner, even if it was peanut butter and jelly, even though you didn't feel like it. Maybe you took...

five minutes to pause and catch your breath before you reacted. Maybe you asked for help even though it felt vulnerable to do that. These aren't just nice thoughts to think about. These are the things that are evidence, evidence that you're capable, especially if you're in a hard season. This is evidence. You're proving to yourself evidence that things are actually working even though they don't feel easy. This is the evidence that

You're not failing, that you are surviving a hard season day after day after day. But here's the question I know is going to come up because it always does. What if I can't find anything good? I hear this objection all the time. I hear things like, Jennifer, you don't understand. My life actually is falling apart. There is nothing good. And I get it. I've been trapped in that thought process as well. But here's what I've learned and what I've seen in client after client after client.

If you can't find anything good, it's not because there's nothing good to find. It's because you're not looking. Your brain has been so trained to scan for problems that it literally doesn't see the good anymore, even if it's right in front of you. And so what do we do then, right? Okay, Jennifer, what do I do? You have to retrain it. You have to retrain your brain on purpose. And it starts with asking better questions. Remember when I told you my story way back in the day and when I shifted?

my question to be, what is working right now? We have to shift that. so instead of only asking, why is everything so hard? Also, you can ask that. I'm not telling you to not ask that. You can absolutely 100 % ask that. give you full permission. But here's the shift. You have to follow that up with, why is everything so hard? But what's one thing that worked today? Instead of only asking, why can't I get it together?

Follow that up with, what did I handle well, even if it was small and even if it was still messy? Instead of asking, why does everyone else have it easier? Follow that up with asking, what am I doing right that I'm not giving myself credit for? These questions, this is how we retrain our brains. This is how you shift your brain from threat mode to evidence gathering mode. And when you start gathering different evidence,

This is so powerful. Again, focus on what I'm saying just here for a second. When you start gathering different evidence, you start seeing a different reality. I had a client recently, let's call her Beth. She came to me for some coaching, completely overwhelmed. She was managing aging parents who lived two hours away. Her mom had just been diagnosed with early stage dementia and her dad was in denial about how much help they actually needed.

She had three adult kids who kept boomeranging back home. One was going through a divorce, one had lost his job, one was struggling with anxiety and couldn't seem to get any traction in his life. And she was trying to keep her own household running, a house that never stayed organized, no matter how hard she tried. And when she first came to me, she said, nothing I do makes a difference. I'm failing everyone. I can't do this anymore. And so I asked her, what did...

work this week, even something small. And she looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. And she said, I can't really think of anything. And so I said, okay, did you help your parents deal with your mom's new health diagnosis in some way? Well, yeah, I did. I spent almost an entire day on the phone with various doctor's offices. And then I said, and did your doctor call you this week? And she said, she actually did. She called in to check.

she called in to check on me and to check in rather than just texting me about what she needed. That was nice. It was nice to actually hear her voice. And then I said, and did you actually eat this week? And she laughed and said, yes, I ate. So then I said, so what you're telling me is, I love to start my sentences with that with my coaching clients, right? So what you're telling me is you managed your mom's medical care.

You stayed connected to your daughter and you kept yourself fed while also supporting three adult kids and running a household. You can imagine what happened next, right? There was just this long pause. And so then she says, I guess when you put it that way, yes, this is what I mean by widening the lens. Beth wasn't wrong that her life was hard. Again, it was objectively undeniably hard, but she also wasn't giving herself

any credit for what she was actually doing. She was so focused on what felt impossible that she couldn't see what she was already accomplishing. And so once she shifted, once she started looking for what was working on purpose, she stopped feeling powerless and like her life was hopeless. She started seeing herself differently. Again, not as...

someone who's failing and dropping balls all over the place, but as someone doing hard things and navigating well, even when it never felt like enough. And so the shift, it wasn't in her circumstances, the shift was in her lens. And that lens changed everything. So let me talk you through what this actually looks like in practice, because I don't want this conversation to stay theoretical. It's way too powerful for that, okay?

So let me give you a scenario. Let's say that it's a Tuesday and you wake up at 6 a.m. already falling behind. You didn't sleep well because you were already mentally running through everything that you needed to do today. The old lens, the way that you would interpret that in the old way prior to listening to us today and putting this into practice, your lens would say, I'm exhausted before the day even starts. Today is going to be a disaster. But with this new lens, what you're gonna say is, you know what?

I'm tired, understandably tired, but I'm still showing up. Okay, here's another scenario. You walk into the kitchen, the dishes are still there from the night before, the counter is cluttered and you can feel the frustration and your blood pressure rising. And so the old lens would say, I can never keep up with this house. What is wrong with me? But your new lens will have this conversation. It will say, the house is far from perfect, but you know what? We're still functioning.

We ate dinner last night and the dishes are evidence of that. And that counts. That counts for a lot. Let's say that your mom calls. She's confused about her medication schedule again. And so you spend 20 minutes on the phone walking her through it again. The old lens would have this conversation. Why is this always my job? Why can't anyone else ever step in and handle this? But the new lens is gonna have this conversation.

It's going to say, this is hard and I'm the one she trusts to help her. I'm showing up, I'm choosing to show up for her even when it's draining. I've got two more scenarios. Let's say your daughter texts, she needs $200 for car insurance and you're frustrated because this is the third time this month she's asked for money. The old lens would say, she's never gonna get it together. I'm enabling her and I'm failing her and have failed her as a mother.

But with the new lens, you're going to say, I'm helping my daughter while she's struggling. I am going to work on setting boundaries some of the time, but for today, I'm choosing to help her. One last scenario. It's only noon and you're already exhausted. You've handled a work crisis. You've mediated a child conflict between two of your kids. And you've realized, I forgot to eat breakfast.

And so the old lens would say something like, I'm such a hot mess. I can't even manage to take care of myself. No wonder the rest of my life is a mess. But the new lens would say this, I prioritized everyone else this morning and I'm noticing that now. And so I'm gonna back up the bus, I'm gonna eat something and I'm gonna see what else I need before I just move on to the next thing. Do you see the difference here?

The external circumstances, they didn't change. The hard stuff is still hard, but the lens shifted. And when the lens shifts, your experience shifts. When you choose to shift your lens, you experience the exact same struggles, the exact same reality, but in a different way. You stop feeling like a failure. You start seeing your capability. You begin to trust that you are gonna be able to handle whatever comes next because you're already handling so many things.

because now you're starting to collect the evidence that shows you, you know what, I am capable. So everything we've talked about today, again, I want to just make a couple of things clear. Choosing to shift to a different lens, it does not mean that you pretend everything is fine. It does not mean that you stop asking for help. It does not mean that you accept dysfunction as a permanent thing.

It does not mean that you ignore your needs. It does not mean that you stay in harmful situations. And it does not mean that you are gaslighting yourself into believing that hard things aren't hard. What this does mean, what this shift in the lens does mean is that you acknowledge reality, the full reality though, not just the hard parts. It means that you give yourself credit for what you're actually doing. It means that you stop letting exhaustion

erase or cloud over your wins. It means that you rebuild trust in your capability with yourself one small piece of evidence at a time. Here's the hard truth that you also have to accept though. Clarity doesn't come clarity like this. It doesn't come before action. It comes after. You are not going to wake up. mean, spoiler alert, you are not going to wake up one day feeling less overwhelmed and then start noticing what's good.

You have to start noticing what's good on purpose even when you're tired, especially when you're tired. Because here's what happens when you stop waiting for your circumstances to change before you shift your lens. You stop staying stuck. You are no longer choosing to stay stuck in this endless overwhelm loop. You are no longer going to be proving that

that the evidence says that you are not able and that nothing works. And what's gonna happen is you miss these small shifts that could change everything. Let's think about it. How long have you been waiting to feel better before you can start taking care of yourself? How long have you been waiting for life to calm down before you try something new? How long have you been waiting for someone else to help out before you feel less overwhelmed? Your

Choosing to wait is the problem. It's not you that is the problem. It's the choice to wait until something with your external circumstances shifts. The reality is that life isn't going to suddenly get easier. Your aging parents, they're probably still gonna need you. Your grown kids are still gonna come back for support. Your household is going to need and require that it be managed. Your work,

is still going to demand your time and your energy. And so waiting for life and these external circumstances to change is a losing strategy. So stop choosing it. But here's what you can do. You can change how you see it and carry it and talk to yourself about it. And that's that internal shift that has the ability and capability of changing everything. Looking up when you are tired is the work.

It's not the reward for finishing it. You don't get to look around and notice when you're finally done. You need to look up and notice now. And this is the part that most women resist because it feels backwards. We think things like, I'll start noticing the good when there's more good to notice, or when I feel better. I'll start looking for wins when things calm down. I'll start giving myself credit when I actually deserve it.

But that isn't how this works. You have to start before you feel ready. That's what creates the shift. The woman who waits to feel better stays stuck in the endless same cycle. The woman who shifts her lens before she feels better, well, she's the one who breaks free from this. So another story from my life is that I'll never forget doing the 75 hard challenge the first time. I've done it four times.

For those who don't know, the 75 heart is this mental toughness program where you commit to daily strict, daily habits for 75 days straight. Things like two workouts daily, one of them has to be outside, a specific diet, a gallon of water, no alcohol, reading. And here's the rules. If you start, if you start and then you miss even one thing, you have to start over from day one again.

And so the first time I did it, I was about 60 days in, right? I had 15 left and it was late. I was exhausted. had already done my first workout early in the day, but I still needed to do my second one. And that was the outdoor one. It was almost midnight. And of course I didn't want to do it. Every part of me wanted to skip it and just go to bed because after all, no one would know. But I knew if I skipped it, I knew that I'd either have to lie to myself

or I'd have to follow the rules and start back over, 60 days gone in that moment. And so at 12.30 a.m., I put on my shoes and I walked around my property alone in the dark. My mom asked me the next day, why would you do that? No one would have known. And I said, I would have known. That's the shift. I didn't walk because I felt motivated. I didn't walk because it felt easy. I walked because I had decided 60 days ago,

that I wasn't going to let how I felt or even what my reality was override what I knew I needed to do. And that's what it means to act before you feel ready or when you don't feel ready. It's action before you feel ready or before you feel like acting. And every time you do that, every time you take action before you feel like it, every time you shift your lens,

Every time you notice what's actually working or give yourself credit or take the next step when you're tired, you're building evidence, evidence that you're capable, evidence that you can trust yourself, evidence that change is possible even when circumstances don't change. And just as a reminder, you're not gaslighting yourself by finding what's still standing on the shaky ground. You're simply grounding yourself on the shaky ground.

You're giving your brain evidence that relief is possible, that you are capable, and that even in hard seasons, there's still some good to hold onto. And that's not denial, that's choosing survival. That's building strength. So let me tie this all together. When you feel like you're drowning, you're not broken, you're not failing at life, you're not doing it wrong. In reality, you're likely...

caring a lot, more than most people can see, including yourself. And you're doing it without falling completely apart. And do you know why I know that? I know that because you got up today. And do know what? You got up the day before. And the day before that. But the reality is you want to feel different. And if you want relief and clarity and steadiness, you can't wait for life to change first. You have to start seeing differently. And so this week, as you go throughout the week,

Don't, here's another challenge, don't vent about only what's hard. When your brain starts on that path, do what I call intercept, intercept that thought and redirect it. Name what's still standing. Find three things every day that worked, even if they're small. Say them out loud, write them down, let them be enough because what you look for, you'll find. And if you want to believe that life can feel different or better,

you have to start seeing life differently or better first. You don't need a perfect life to feel steady, far from it, but you do need a different lens. And that lens is within your control. Right now, today, you can choose to make that lens shift today. So I've got a free guide, I'll link it down in the show notes. It's called Why You're Exhausted and the Three Things Draining You Most.

This download is gonna help you identify exactly what's draining you so that you know what to focus on first because you know what, you can't focus on everything. You can also go to whyimexhausted.com and grab the guide there as well. Another thing I would love for you to do is leave a review right here on the podcast. Let me know that you are committed to finding three things every day for the next week. Are you committed to doing that?

put it in writing here in the show notes, in the comments. And while you're there, leave us a five-star review as well, because that's what helps us get into the algorithm of episodes like this being found. And let me tell you, again, based on the tens of thousands of women that I have coached over the last decade, need to hear, they need to have this conversation. So before I let you go here today, let me remind you, you are more capable than you think. You are stronger than you feel, and you don't,

have to do this alone. This is what coaches like me exist for. We'll help you take what life gives you and help you manage it in a way that's not draining you. Because in reality, life may never get easier, but you can get better at managing it. And you can make the choice to start today. So until I see you again, have an amazing day.