Intuition vs. Anxiety: How to Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

What if the voice you’ve been quieting is the one that would change everything? Today we talk about the messy middle between “I can’t” and “I’m doing it”—where intuition lives, fear gets loud, and small, repeatable moves create outsized momentum.

 My guest is Amanda Riffee—bestselling author of Unleashing You, internationally certified expansion & empowerment coach, speaker, and host of the Unleashing You with Amanda Riffee podcast. After 18 years in corporate leadership (17 with the same company), Amanda hit burnout on repeat and made a radical, values-led pivot that turned into retreats, a hit podcast, a book tour, and a business that actually fits.

 If you’re on the cusp of a leap—or you’re done outsourcing your decisions to fear, ego, or someone else’s expectations—this conversation is your permission slip. We break down the difference between intuition and anxiety, how to take the first three steps when you can’t see the whole staircase, and how to use your values to decide what’s truly worth your energy.

What You’ll Learn 

• How to tell intuition from fear and ego (and why your first quiet signal matters)
• The “first three steps” method to start anything when you can’t see the roadmap
• Using values as a decision filter to avoid burnout-level sacrifice
• Boundary-setting in real life: “If it’s not a heck yes, it’s a heck no”
• Small steps → big outcomes: Amanda’s first retreat story and how she trusted the nudge

Connect with Amanda

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/amandariffee_coaching/

LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-riffee/

Website:
https://acrprofessionalcoaching.com/

Unleashing You Book:
https://acrprofessionalcoaching.com/unleashing-you-book

The REAL Change Kickstart is a 45-day 1:1 coaching intensive designed to help you:

• Identify the behaviors keeping you stuck
• Unlearn what is no longer serving you
• Create new patterns that align with what you truly want

Click here to get started.

Interested in longer-term support for making a significant change? Send me a message at meg@megtrucano.com to get started.

Want to learn more about the art, science, philosophy, and psychology of making significant life changes? Sign up HERE for my weekly newsletter and have the Changeology podcast delivered straight into your inbox!

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Transcript

@3:37 - Meg Trucano 

Welcome to the Changeology Podcast, Amanda.

@3:40 - Amanda Riffee

So good to have you here. Thank you so much for having me.

@3:43 - Meg Trucano 

Oh, is going to be a good conversation.

@3:45 - Amanda Riffee

Yeah, I can already feel it. Oh, I'm so excited.

@3:47 - Meg Trucano 

So, let's kick it off. You are what I would call a powerhouse woman. You are empowerment coach. You're a speaker.

You're a podcast host of the Unleashing You podcast. You're a wife.

@3:59 - Amanda Riffee

You're a mom. And now you are also a best-selling author. Yes, thank you so much. It doesn't get like when you hear people say those things back to you and I'm like, whoa, that's wild.

@4:11 - Meg Trucano 

Yeah, and you just finished a book tour.

@4:15 - Amanda Riffee

I did. It was a blast. Oh my gosh, like such a whirlwind in all the best ways.

@4:21 - Meg Trucano 

That seems like a real pinch me moment and it's on my own bucket list. So I'll have to I'll have to talk with you offline about my eventual book tour, but yes.

@4:31 - Amanda Riffee

Oh, my God.

@4:32 - Meg Trucano 

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm I'm obviously I wanted to invite you on because I think that the changeology audience can learn so much from not only your story of transitioning from the corporate world after experiencing burnout, but also really excited to dive into your area of expertise, which is intuition.

So your mission is actually to empower. Yeah. Ambitious women to trust their intuition, own their brilliance, and create success without the burnout.

So before we get into all of that intuition goodness, I'd love for you to walk us through how you got here.

So here on the Changeology podcast, we're really no stranger to burnout as a starting point and a catalyst for major change.

But I'd love to hear you speak to how you realized the life and the career you were in were no longer aligned for you.

@5:31 - Amanda Riffee

Oh, yes. I love that question. Yeah. So to kind of give you a little backstory on me. So I was in corporate for 18 years and not just in corporate for 18 years, but 17 of those with the same company.

So I was a very loyal corporate girlie and I had started out in what was like a temporary type of position where

You know, front desk at that company. And they said, you know, well, you can have the job, but we're not sure if we're gonna be able to hire you on, you know, full time, like, I just want to be really clear about that.

And I was like, number one, I really needed out of the job I had before that. And that was like, it just feels right, I can prove myself, I'll do it.

And so it turns out that worked out. And then they offered me a permanent role. And I just continued to move up within that company every couple years.

And so every time I would find that itch of like, okay, what's next? What's the next thing for me?

I was always able to find it within that company. So I never had any reason to do anything different, try anything different, go anywhere else.

And along the way, there were plenty of episodes of burnout, that cycle that like, I was very much and still am a high achiever.

And so I was always trying to do it. But it wasn't until a little over two years ago, or coming up on three here in a couple months, that I got that itch of like, okay, what's next for me?

I was in a leadership role over a learning and development team. Things were going really, really well. I had been in that job for a couple years.

Things were feeling easy. Things were working really well. And so I was like, okay, what's next? Like, I need the next challenge.

And at that point, I was like, well, actually, I don't really want my boss's job. I guess I could move to this team or this department.

But nothing really felt right, like it had before. And that was really the first time that I had experienced that of like, okay, wait, hold on.

Like, what am I supposed to be doing next? And I had this little whisper of an idea. And when you hear me talk, I'll talk about that a lot.

It always comes to me as a whisper. And we'll get into this. But hindsight, that was my Intuition-seeking to me, but I had no idea that's what it was at the time, and it was like, well, why don't you just use this to create another income stream for yourself?

Like, you've got some extra capacity. Why not do something for yourself and bring in some additional income somewhere else, and so I didn't just want to get a part-time job, and I was like, this could be my opportunity to, like, create something, but I had no idea what that would be.

Like, I was like, I have no idea. So I actually, and this is a great exercise that I think a lot of people can do.

I went to my calendar, because I use my calendar for everything. My whole life is on it. My kids' schedules, my schedules, projects, all the things.

And I said, okay, what are the things in my day that I actually look forward to?

@8:52 - Meg Trucano 

Ooh.

@8:53 - Amanda Riffee

And then what are the things in my day that I'm, like, secretly hoping get canceled? Or I would delegate that in a heartbeat.

So... ... If I could, you know, all those things. And so what came out of that was what I really looked forward to in my day was I looked forward to the one on ones with my team.

I loved the career growth conversations, the just the safe environments that we created, like I loved watching them grow within their careers.

And then I also was like, obsessed with anything personal or professional development. So any optional courses I could take, like I was signing up for all the things.

And those were the things I actually really look forward to in my work day. And so I like, okay, cool.

But like, seriously, how do I make this a job that I still don't know? And this was 2022. So I went to Google.

Now I'd probably go to ChatGPT and tell me what I should be doing with my life. But I went to Google and I was like, okay, what can I do with these skills?

And I just started searching the internet and actually did that for a couple evenings in a row and just, just kept searching and following every curiosity.

And was And what came out of that was one of the searches brought me to coaching, there was an opening for a coach somewhere.

And I was like, Oh, like what a coaches do. And so the more I started learning about coaching, the more I was like, Oh, my gosh, I think this could be it.

Like, I think this could check all the boxes. And still mind you, at that point, I was thinking I could get one to two clients here or there, keep my corporate track.

You know, just when we need some extra income, I can tap into this skill. And it would be something that would light me up.

And so I went to my husband, I said, I have no idea where this is going to go, if anywhere, but I feel like I want to get certified as a coach.

And that was September of 2022, when I started my coaching certification and opened my LLC. And I mean, that was what, two and a half years ago.

And so if you would have asked me then if we would be doing all the things that you listed off at the beginning, you know, podcasts, events, book tour, bestselling author, like I would have been like, you're freaking nuts.

But that's to me what coaching has really opened my eyes to as I realized through getting coached myself at that time, too, was that I was really putting myself in a box before of thinking I can do my manager's job or I can move to this team.

And once I started dreaming bigger for myself, I started realizing, like, maybe I could be somebody who could speak on a stage.

Maybe I could be somebody who could host a podcast one day. Maybe I could write a book at some point in my life.

And I just took those tiny, you know, those tiny plants of a seed to make me feel like, oh, my gosh, like I could be doing so much more.

And so that's actually what then spurred who I work with through a coaching company. Capacity, because I then saw so many women doing the same thing that had potential for so much more and had so much more on their heart, but we just don't think it's possible for us.

And so that's where I'm like kind of that living permission slip of like, if I can make this, you can make this, you have on your heart.

@12:19 - Meg Trucano 

I love that so much. And a couple things that I want to note here, and I think the first is the power of coaching as a modality.

And, you know, you and I are both coaches, we know how absolutely powerful this can be to have someone who is on your team, has your back, and their entire role in the relationship is to see you succeed and get what you want, right?

So there is a huge, huge, huge benefit to working with a coach. Both of us are coaches, we know this.

But for anyone listening in the audience, if you've ever considered it. And kind of shied away from it. I really encourage you to revisit that decision because it really does transform lives.

And the other thing that I wanted to point out in what you said is this tendency that we sometimes have, and I find this particularly in women, but we tend to sort of cut ourselves off at the pass.

We have this feeling or this intuition, as I'm sure we'll get into here in a sec, that there's something more for us, or we want to follow a little whisper, or we want to follow our interests, or we have a passion for something, but we let ourselves be limited by what we don't see as, quote-unquote, a straightforward path to get there, right?

And so when you're doing your Google searches at night, you're just kind of, like, collecting all this information. And that's one of the things that, one of the exercises I do with my clients is, like, we do a mind map.

Just get it all out. What interests you? What... You know, do you like butterflies? I don't know. Do you, are you super fascinated by historical, whatever, right?

So I think that there is tremendous value in that exercise as well, because we so often are self-centering.

@14:19 - Amanda Riffee

Oh my gosh. I love that. I, I love that idea because to your point, we, and what you said was you don't see a clear path forward.

And that's something that working with a coach or a mentor can start to put those puzzle pieces together for you because, and I think you and I both agree, like I will always work with a coach.

Yeah. Our own, because even like you can only coach yourself so much and your blind spots are your blind spots for a reason because you can't see them.

And so being able to have that brain dump or that, that mind map that you mentioned and just get it all out there, you might not see connections in those things, or maybe you do when you get it out of your head.

But a coach can absolutely start to see those connections and ask those really powerful questions to get you thinking about, okay, how could I make money at this?

Or what are some of those beliefs that are maybe holding you back from even thinking that that's a possibility?

There's so many times and I think you and I have talked about this before, where something like, Oh, I love doing that, but I can't make any money at that.

Or, you know, those things like you have to think you have to be a starving artist, or you have to like, there's all these things that we've heard time and time again.

And what we realized is like, wait a second, those aren't truths. Those are beliefs, like, they're just things we've thought for so long that we now think they're true.

And that's what I think is so powerful. Working with a coach is to be able to help you start to see at least the next couple steps of that path.

@15:56 - Meg Trucano 

Yep. Yep. And kind of coming off of this whole. Yay, coaching topic. A core principle of my personal coaching practice is coaching's goal is to give you, the client, the tools that you need to rock the out of your own life, right?

It is not, you know, for me to hear myself speak or whatever. So my primary goal is to lead a woman back to viewing herself as the person that she needs to please first and foremost, and to develop a sense of self-trust by listening to what she actually wants, despite all the noise, all the social conditioning telling her she can't, all of the people telling her that that would be silly.

You know, it's a nice message, right, to turn inward. Use that intuition, that self-guidance. But in practice, it's really, really hard.

And a lot of my clients have a hard time particularly distinguishing between that whisper of intuition and anxiety, ego, fear.

So can you share with us what intuition actually is, what it sounds like when you hear it? You've said it sounds like a whisper to you and what it feels like in your body.

And then how do you know that's not like anxiety talking or fear or your ego?

@17:30 - Amanda Riffee

Right. Like, yeah, what is it? Yes. Ooh. Okay. Um, so I want to start off by saying it's going to feel different for everyone.

So if somebody's listening to this, how it shows up for me might feel different than how it shows up for you.

So for me, it feels like, and this is the only way I can describe it is a small whisper of an idea, like a faint voice.

I'm not sure if it's mine or somebody else's or highest self or God or whoever. I have no idea, but.

But. It's this tiny little idea that I could easily brush off, and I could easily just keep going with what I'm doing, but now I tune in and I listen because I've gotten all of this proof and this evidence that's shown that, you know, when I listen to it, it works out.

For you, it might be a gut feeling. It might be you see something, like a vision. I also will do a lot of visioning exercises as a coach and with my clients, so something might come to you when you're doing, like, a meditation or a vision, you might see something.

So there's all of these different ways that it could feel for you. So a really great way to tune into your question on what's intuition versus, like, what's our ego or fear talking is, I always like to say, like, think back now because our previous decision...

All of those things are a roadmap, like we can learn so much from our past experiences. And so, and I actually had somebody on my podcast, who's a somatic coach, and we talked about this as well.

And it's like, what does the heck yes feel like? And what does the heck no feel like? So if you go back in your life, when was the time, so I'll use the example of way before I was a coach, I had this feeling that I wanted to, like my husband, I wanted to move to Colorado.

We grew up in Missouri. That's where our whole family was. And so I had this feeling, and I was scared to death to move our kids, uproot our whole life, and move to Colorado.

But it just, I had this feeling, had this whisper of an idea that Colorado's where you're meant to be.

So now when I look back at it, because we moved seven years ago, one of the best decisions we ever made, it was so tough, but so good.

So I can look back at that and say, okay, how did that show How up for me? At the very, very beginning, before I knew if anything was going to work out, how did that show up for me?

How did I know that that was a heck yes, even though I was terrified? And you can do the same thing when you think about a heck no, where you're like, I knew I shouldn't have done that, but I did it anyway.

You know, I went against my gut or I went against whatever. How did it really feel in your body?

How did it show up for you? And so you can kind of do that survey of your life to figure out what that feels like in your body.

And then you can start to use that muscle to guide your decisions. And so when can figure out how your intuition speaks to you, that is going to be so, so helpful.

The other thing that I'll say about that is usually your intuition is what speaks first. So if you are like, we'll, we'll keep that, that, that example about moving to Colorado.

I was really excited first. Like, Oh my gosh. Yeah. Okay. We could do this. We could do this. We'll do that, that, that.

Then just as quickly as that comes, all of the reasons why you shouldn't do it. That's a bad idea.

What are you thinking? What if it doesn't work out? Right? That's your fear and your ego trying to keep you safe.

So many times your intuition is going to be what shows up first when you're excited. And then your, and it doesn't have to be excited, but for this case, we're talking about big dreams.

So yeah, it's usually excitement. Um, and then your fear and your ego is what is going to come rushing in right after that or rain on your party.

@21:39 - Meg Trucano 

Uh, yeah. And I completely, I love this practical tip though, going, using your past as data for, um, you know, because looking, looking forward into a decision, it's like, there's that big fear.

Right. And like the just unknown. Right. And look. You can really kind of remember and refine. And yeah, I love that.

And for me, my intuition shows up. I'm a manifesting generator, say call, authority, and I gut feeling all the way.

It's like, it's instant. It's clear. And sometimes it comes in. I'm like, well, now what? Like, cool. I know what I'm like.

My intuition is telling me to do this, but I don't know. And so I think it can go, at least for me, in my practice, when I started to understand the mechanics behind it, when it would show up, I completely agree with you that the intuition comes first.

And the rest of the stuff, all your fears and your brain kind of tries to override your intuition, right?

But our brain's job, technically, is to keep us alive and safe. And it does a really Awesome job of conflating comfort and safety, right?

So to keep us comfortable, even if it's in a situation that we don't really like, we're still comfortable in that discomfort, if that makes sense.

But I want to ask you, is there a transformation maybe in yourself or maybe in a client that you've witnessed where they actually went with and trusted their intuition?

And it was, it was awesome. And it gives you chills to think about.

@23:34 - Amanda Riffee

Yeah. Oh, I mean, I have like a thousand. I mean, I literally think like that is how I have created every single thing that you listed at the very beginning of this call is by that exact process.

But we'll use my first retreat, for example, I love to tell the story. I tell the story in my book as well.

It's a chapter in the book on intuition.

@23:58 - Meg Trucano 

Surprisingly. can't.

@23:59 - Amanda Riffee

It's between and That's you? Okay. Don't you want to share this type of experience with other people? You should host a retreat.

And mind you, this was before my first live event. I had not done anything big at that point. I had a few one-on-one clients here and there.

I was really early on in my business, and I had taken the huge leap to even host this big annual live event.

And that was, at the time, in a couple weeks.

@25:28 - Meg Trucano 

I hadn't even done that yet.

@25:30 - Amanda Riffee

And so I was like, okay, why would I, like, can't I just wait? Like, why would I do this right now?

Like, I don't know anything about hosting a retreat. I don't know, you know, the first thing about that. I haven't even done this live event yet.

What if that crashes and burns? And then I just spent thousands of dollars on, you know, a mountain house that nobody's going to want to come to.

I was like, let me just entertain this thought for a minute. And so I sat there and I just dreamed up what that retreat could look like.

And I was like, I. I could envision it, I could see us in the mountains, I could see us journaling, collaborating with each other, you know, private chef, like the whole pampering experience, like I envisioned it all up, and I got out of the hot tub and I immediately sent a voice note to my coach, and I was like, this is going to sound crazy, but here's the big idea that I just had, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and what we ended up doing was I ended up launching that retreat and inviting women who are at my event to join at the retreat later that year.

Of course, I did not have it all figured out yet, but I learned along the way, and now retreats are one of my favorite things that I host because they're just so aligned with how I'm a projector and I just love the like intimate setting, the one-on-one, the really small group, that sort of thing, and if I had, again, gone back to that moment when I

No idea if it was going to work out. I could have very easily just brushed that off and maybe gotten out of the hot tub and like, oh yeah, that was a cool idea.

@27:10 - Meg Trucano 

I'll add it to my someday list and then nothing with it.

@27:13 - Amanda Riffee

And so I think what's important in that story is when I gave myself quiet and space for the ideas to come, because most of the time your intuition needs that space in order to be able to talk to you.

And then I put the fear aside because all of those limiting beliefs came rushing in at the moment. I put that aside and I told somebody that I trusted, which is going to help hold me accountable to really make that dream a reality.

And then the rest is history. But when I, from that day, when I was sitting in that hot tub, like I had no idea if it was going to work out.

And, you know, it was a Learning experience, and now, like I said, now I host retreats all the time, and they're one of my favorite things that I do.

@28:06 - Meg Trucano 

That's an incredible story, and I love that you honored your intuition and just kind of approached it like, oh, I'm just going to figure it out.

Like the intuition is the kind of – you've said it before, the seed, but like it's the emotion. It is the power behind an approach, an idea, whatever your intuition is telling you, and then you figure it out.

And I think as it relates to making big changes in your life, that's something that a lot of people struggle with is like, well, I don't know anything about starting my own business, or I don't know anything about being a writer, or I don't know anything about any of this.

And it's like, well, you know, sometimes when you make big changes, you have to have the courage to be a beginner and learn on your way, right?

You can't really expect to be a professional, you know, right out the gate. That's not reasonable. But I love that you took that approach of like, oh, I'm just going to see, I'm just going to see.

@29:13 - Amanda Riffee

And it worked out. Yeah. And I think what's helpful, and I was literally just talking to a client about this this week.

And, you know, many of us come from corporate backgrounds, or at least, you know, that's how we've been taught, whether it's through school or through our jobs.

Is you, you see every rung of the ladder, you know, exactly what you need to do in order to get to whatever your end goal is, when you're working in that type of environment, or again, even in school.

And so that's what we've been conditioned for always, is that we know what to do to get to that end result.

And as an entrepreneur, or as someone who just wants to create something that they've never done before. there is no exact roadmap.

You can't see all of the runs of the ladder. And that is what can really, really stop us from going after what we want is because we feel like we should be able to see all of that.

And what I think is so helpful for me is to just break down, and my coach did this with me with my very first event, and now I do it with my clients, I do it with literally everything that I create, was, okay, it's going to feel really overwhelming.

Like the minute you say, yes, I'm going to host this retreat, or yes, I'm going to write a book, or yes, I'm going to start a business, then it's like, oh my God, how do I do that?

And so, it's so helpful for me to just break down, what are the first three things that you need to do to create this?

And so, when I was creating my first event, we broke it down, and she's like, okay, what are the first three things?

All right, well, you want to name the Like, let's call it something. Okay, I can name the event. Find a venue and pick a date, right?

And create a way for people to buy tickets. That was all I needed to do at the very beginning was name it, have a date with a venue and a way for people to buy tickets.

That felt manageable to me. And so then once I did those first three steps, then it's like, okay, now what are the next three steps?

And you tackle those. What are the next three steps? And then a couple months later, I had hosted my first event that, again, when I started, had never done before.

I had no idea what I was doing. And so it is helpful to work with a coach or a mentor who, of course, who, you know, has maybe done that before can help you with that, but it's still on you either way to create it.

And for me, it's just being able anything, anytime you're tackling something new is just, okay, what's the, what's the next three steps that I need to do?

And make them. Super simple, like they might not feel easy, but what are the super simple next three things that you can do?

@32:06 - Meg Trucano 

I love that. That's such an actionable, accessible strategy for people when they feel overwhelmed. And I can see that applying to many, many things, right?

Change, starting your own business, writing a book, all the things. So right now, though, I'd like to switch tacks a little bit and talk to you about one of your, I don't know if you want to call it like a pillar of your business, but you've said before that success doesn't have to come with burnout, guilt, or sacrifice.

So I'm wondering if you can unpack that a little bit for us.

@32:44 - Amanda Riffee

Yeah, yeah, for sure. What I, and I was literally just on a call, um, last night with the mastermind group that I'm meeting and we had a guest teacher on that was talking to us about, uh, content creation.

And she had us all go back to our why of like, you know, why do you do this? Why?

Who do you want to help? You know, all of those things. And, you know, everybody went through and they had beautiful whys.

You know, I want to help, you know, mental health. I want to save lives. I want to, you know, help women.

I want to impact this and that. And they got to me and I said, you know, of course, I want to do all those things too.

But I also want to add something else in there that, that maybe we hadn't thought about was I wrote down, I was like, I want to do this because it feels really fricking good.

Like it feels really good for me. I've been there where I've been working because I felt like that's what I needed to do or what I had to do, or I had to prove something.

And so I say that because that's, that's my, that's my mission is to help women feel really fricking good in what they are creating and what they are doing.

I don't have the Sunday scaries anymore. And trust me, I definitely used to. And now I actually look forward to work.

So that's where I am today. But it was definitely not an easy road to get there. I found myself in just cycles and cycles and cycles of burnout.

I'll give you an example. I share this in my book as well is, I mean, there was a time where I was in my dream job in my corporate environment.

I was in my dream job. I had moved to from kind of that local regional type of job to a national level training role.

And it was huge visibility for me. It was actually what ended up catapulting the rest of my career with that organization.

And, you know, which then again, led to coaching. So all of these things. And I was a willing participant because this was like the opportunity of a lifetime.

do are 병wens different Why you catching on it. working that you know things group. time All of our training was in person, or most of our training was in person at the time, and the corporate company was based out of Atlanta.

Well, I lived in Missouri, and I was a new mom. had two small kids, and it was you travel to Atlanta to do these workshops and trainings, and then you get to work from home the other days.

I'd always had a long commute and always worked in an office. So to me, that felt like I love travel.

I can work from home sometimes. Like, this feels really good. It was exciting. It was new. And then after a while, the travel was a lot.

And by a lot, I mean when I added it up, basically when I decided I was start telling the story, I had to do the math and figure out how much I was really traveling.

It was 80% of the time. I was gone so much. Luckily, I had an amazing partner and my husband, all of these things.

But it was wearing on us. I didn't want to admit it. I Because this was what I had signed up for.

And this is what I thought I needed to do. And there were so many examples that I had seen in the world of, you know, the dads and the men traveling for the job all week long, and then they'd be home on the weekends.

Like that was not uncommon to, you know, have somebody who's in sales and, you know, traveled all the time.

And in my mind, was like, this is just the mom doing it this time instead of the dad. And, and the truth is, if that's not what lights you up and doesn't fit what you really care about and your values, it's not worth it.

doesn't matter if it's the mom, the dad, the whoever, it's not worth it. And so what I didn't realize at the time was I was just headed straight for burnout.

Um, and this went on for a while. And unfortunately, my brother passed away really unexpectedly, and it just rocked my world.

And I just began seeing things. It's from a totally different lens of like, what am I doing all of this for?

Like, I am, you know, I'm making all the sacrifice, I'm doing all these things, but for what? I'm missing time with my kids, I'm seeing them more on FaceTime than I am in real life.

And so something in me started to change after that. I started to speak up for more about what I wanted.

I went to work and I said, hey, this travel is getting too much for me and for my family.

And a couple of months later, we were able to add another person to the team and it cut my travel in half.

Oh, wow. So it's things like that, that sometimes we don't even realize the control that we have, the part that we play in this.

Like, I could have just kept going down that track and just been like, well, this is just the way that it is.

I could have gotten, you know, really bitter about my job and my company and all the things. But instead, I spoke up for what I needed.

I started setting boundaries. I, you know, there was many things that then came after that. Um, That I think is, is just an example, but things like that, that we feel like sometimes we have no choice and we always have some kind of choice.

It might be so freaking scary that we don't want to put that one on the table, but I would say when, when people ask like, and this was, um, I had done some interviews before I wrote my book, um, to just ask my ideal readers, like, what do you want hear about, you know, those types of things.

And, and one of the women that I interviewed, she said, how much sacrifice is too much sacrifice? Like, how do we know when we are sacrificing because, you it's that short term gain for, you know, that short term sacrifice for this longterm gain, or like, we shouldn't even like, that's just too much.

And so I really sat with that question. Cause the answer was not immediately clear to me. And so I did similar to what we were just talking about.

I looked back in my life and I said, okay, like when were the times that maybe I was focused more on one thing, but it felt really good versus the times where I was like.

And what I realized was each time that I was sacrificing something that I still felt good about was because it aligned with my values.

And the other times it was in direct conflict with my values. So when, you know, when I realized that that traveling was too much for me, I was missing that quality time with my family, I was missing that intentional connection with my family.

And so it was starting to become in direct conflict with my values. So I was never going to be happy if I kept down that path.

And that to me was too much sacrifice. So I love there's a values exercise in unleashing you in the book as well that that readers can go through to help identify what their core values are.

But I do that right away in the book, because when you can identify that that's going to help you get yourself kind of that personal roadmap of how do I make sure that I'm not sacrificing too much?

@39:56 - Meg Trucano 

Mm hmm. I love that. And how much sacrifice is too. Beautiful question. And I love that you have framed this in terms of alignment with values.

And look, coaches, we love our values, right? We love our values. But the reason they're so important is because if you take the time to go through and actually identify your values, that creates a filter through which you can throw any decision, any job opportunity that you want to take, any, you know, how does this align with my values?

And if it mostly does, am I willing to, to, to let go of this one particular, like, for instance, maybe you had been willing to give up that family time, right?

But you weren't. And so that's what helps you make the decision, right? If you don't know. What your values are, you're just kind of grasping at straws all the time.

You're like, this doesn't feel good. But like, how do I know if I just be sucking it up and continuing or like, it just becomes way too complicated.

Values are such a simple, effective way to help you make decisions. So big fan, big fan of that one.

So personally, I love how you mentioned boundaries. Also big on boundaries. So is there one place or one no that you most often kind of use to protect your energy and your, and your time?

@41:37 - Amanda Riffee

Ooh, that's such a good question. That's such a good question. Um, what immediately came to my mind, so I'm just gonna say this one is, if, if it's not a heck yes, then it's a heck no.

Because that is where I would really overextend myself with my people pleasing. I would just say yes because I felt like I had to or I felt bad if I didn't.

And so I would just completely overschedule myself, completely overextend myself. And so now I'm really kind of put through every invitation, every trip, every anything through that filter of is it a heck yes?

If not, then it's a heck no. If it feels like a maybe, if it feels like a maybe sometime later, then it's just a no for now.

And it might just be a no for now, and that's okay. But there's plenty of times recently where I have had to say, oh, my gosh, I would love to be at that thing or I would love to support you or would love to do this.

But I just I really am craving just time at home. I did that a lot right before my book tour because I was going to be gone for like 10 days, and that's a lot for me to be gone.

And so the weeks leading up, I was just really picky about where I was spending my time because I wanted to be spending as.

That's time as home as possible. And there's some things that I did still have to do. And so I had to, you know, anything that felt optional or anything that felt like, can we, you know, catch up after, you know, after I'm back from the tour or whatever that might be, I just had to say no.

And the thing is, when you have the right people in your world, they will get that. Like one of the days it was like literally like the night before and I was like, Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.

Like I just, I'm not gonna make it to this game night. You know, whatever it might be. And, um, the person that was supposed to, she's like, Oh my gosh, I totally, like, I totally understand.

Like you need to respect your energy. And like, so when you have the right people in your world, like they're going to understand that.

And if they don't understand it, that's okay too. It that's on them to not understand. But for me, it's so important that I protect my energy and protect my time.

@43:52 - Meg Trucano 

So yeah, it's not a heck. Yes. It's a heck. Oh, I love that so much. And that is possibly another way that you could sort

Lean into listening to your intuition, right? And again, I'm a sacral authority and boy, does she speak up when it's a, you know, the hell no.

So, okay, we are going to do my favorite section, which is the rapid fire questions. Um, these are just, again, from just, you don't have to make it a short answer, but, um, just kind of use, use your gut instinct, I guess.

@44:25 - Amanda Riffee

Yes. Well, and I'm a splenic projector, so I have no gut instinct, so we'll see what comes up.

@44:32 - Meg Trucano 

An adventure then. So, what would you say, if you could time travel and talk to pre-burnout Amanda, what would you say to her?

@44:42 - Amanda Riffee

Oh, okay. If I could talk to pre-burnout Amanda, I think it would actually be what we just talked about.

Like, I would teach her how to say no when she really means no and not just keep saying yes to literally everything and everyone.

@45:00 - Meg Trucano 

Mm-hmm. Good one. Good one. What's the one thing you hope listeners take away from this episode?

@45:07 - Amanda Riffee

That your dreams are possible. If you have a dream on your heart, say it's an invitation. It's not random.

Like, we don't all dream about the same things. So if you have a dream on your heart, it's there because it's meant for you and it's there because it is possible for you.

@45:25 - Meg Trucano 

Oh, I love that one. Okay. What advice would you have for a woman who's on the cusp of making a big, bold, badass life change?

@45:33 - Amanda Riffee

Ooh, I love this. I was just like, freaking go for it. Like, you are a badass. If you're going to do this, you're a badass and you deserve to be celebrated all over the place.

Um, but I will say I have tattooed on my arm. says, feel the fear and do it anyway. And so I feel like for that woman, like just, it's going to be scary as hell.

It's going to be so freaking scary. You're going to have to come up against so many limiting beliefs that you didn't even realize.

Right. That you've ever had, and it is so, so worth it. So just feel that fear, let it come along for the ride, and do it anyway.

@46:09 - Meg Trucano 

Oh, so good. So good. Okay, so final question. How can listeners who are interested in learning more about your retreats or your book, how can they connect with you?

@46:19 - Amanda Riffee

Oh, perfect. Well, my favorite place to hang out is Instagram. So if you are on Instagram, I'm at amandariffee underscore coaching.

If you're not on Instagram, you can just go to my website, which is acrprofessionalcoaching.com.

@46:35 - Meg Trucano 

Awesome. And be sure to check out Amanda's book. We will link that below in the show notes so people can be supporting you in that way and learning all of this amazing advice that you have.

But thank you so much for joining us today on the Changeology podcast, Amanda.

@46:52 - Amanda Riffee

was so great to talk to you. Thank you. I mean, I could talk to you any day of the week.

So I appreciate it so much. And thank you. Thank for listening to Changeology. I'll see you in the next one.