A Week of Indulging

The first thing I did this week was eat an Egg McMuffin. And that somehow managed to create a theme that I'll be exploring in this episode.

What happens when we decide to indulge ourselves? What happens when we drop a ball? How do we reconcile wanting to live a rich, full life with the fact that we have responsibilities that demand more of us?

I'm exploring all of that and more today. Be sure to listen to the end where I share the reframe that changed how I think about dropped balls, and why it has nothing to do with what we believe we deserve.

Transcript

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If you listened to last week's podcast, you know that I did a desire experiment. All of my spending was desire led. How did that pan out? It was a really interesting experiment. And if you have a moment, I would rec recommend going back and listening to that. Well, after last week, I decided to try something different this week. And by the end of the week, today, Friday, um, I really found so many different things that happen in our brain when we shift our perspective. So this week was my daily indulgence week. And I think today's indulgence was my favorite, but let me go through the whole week day by day for you so that you can see exactly what happened this week. So, as a side note, I also realized that I did this experiment during tax week. And I'm a CFP, and um sometimes my clients have a lot of things happening in tax week. And so you will, as you will see in this episode, maybe things didn't exactly work out for me, but every op every challenge is an opportunity for growth, right? An opportunity to look at how we're living our lives and how we respond to things and the ways in which we view ourselves. So even when things don't always go perfectly, I think that it's not a bad thing. It just gives us that opportunity to really reflect and understand ourselves. So let's start with Monday. I woke up Monday very tired. My husband had left for a trip on Sunday, and last weekend was one of the busier weekends that our family has had in a long time. We had my brother and sister-in-law in town. We did a surprise baby shower for them, which was so fun. But it also was the weekend of my daughter's play. She's in a performing arts um company, I guess, and she played the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland. And so her play was Saturday and Sunday. So we had that kind of two full weekend of costumes and getting there in time for rehearsal and buying flowers, all of the things. And then on Sunday, my son had a doubleheader football game. So as you can see, the weekend was like super jam-packed. So I woke up Monday, solo parenting, dropped my kids off at school, and the first thing I thought to myself was like, I want a sausage egg McMuffin. Like, I want a sausage egg McMuffin so bad. For some reason, I just could not get that out of my head. Like the English muffin and the egg and the cheese. And I was like, you know what? I also want a hash brown. And that actually was like the inspiration for this week of indulgence. I was like, maybe this week is just a week where I decide to indulge. And I don't know, maybe an egg McMuffin doesn't sound like an indulgence to you, but um, it's not something I have often. And you know, McDonald's always kind of reminds you of being a kid, so it feels special in that way. Um, and so I went through the drive-thru and got an egg McMuffin and a hash brown, and it was so good. It was delicious. The hash brown was like crispy and potato-y, and the sandwich was delicious, and I ate it, and I felt zero guilt, zero regret, 100% happy with that. And I was like, Yeah, this is what we're doing this week. We are doing an indulgence week. So that was kind of the start of the week. Raise your hand if you've ever gone to McDonald's for an egg McMuffin. I told my daughter about it after school, and she was like, Can we please go right now? Because I want one too. And I was like, sorry, you gotta get there before 10:30 a.m., girl. So anyway, that was my Monday. Um, and it felt good. It felt good. So moving on to Tuesday. Tuesday was kind of a normal day. I didn't really think too much about the indulgence experience experiment. And then Tuesday evening, when my kids were getting ready for bed, they were like, Mom, can we read to you tonight from your bed instead of you reading to us? Because every night, you know, my husband and I will read each of us will read to one kid, or if one of us is gone, the other one will read to both kids, like in the stairwell or in one of their rooms. And we've done that since they were babies, and it's just we still continue to do that, and I kind of love it. So they wanted to read to me, and I was like, okay, that sounds fun. Even though it was past their bedtime and I knew it was gonna take longer. I was like, this is probably the perfect indulgence for today. So I sat and they read to me, and my son read The Hobbit, and my husband has read The Hobbit to the kids multiple times, but I realized as he was reading that I've never read The Hobbit, and so it was really cool that I got to hear my son read The Hobbit to me, a book that he's had read to him. And my husband growing up, his dad read The Hobbit to him, and so it was a really cool full circle moment. And like I just I didn't realize I'd never read the book before. We watched the movies, and so that was fun. And then my daughter read me the a library book she'd gotten from school, and it was just really sweet to hear her little voice reading to me and you know, mispronouncing some of the bigger words, and I just it's not something we do very often, so it felt really special. And in that moment, I was like, yes, this is indulgences. Great, great way to live life. Let's keep going with this. And here's where things kind of maybe fell apart a little bit. So Wednesday, um, some a couple of moms and I, we and on Monday we were at the playground and we were like, we should all hang out more. We should go out for cocktails. And we're all looking at our calendars, and none of us had like any free time. And then one person was like, Well, I'm free Wednesday morning. And we were all like, Oh, I'm free Wednesday morning too. I'm free Wednesday morning too. We all happened to be free Wednesday morning, so we met up at 11 a.m. Um, to go to this rooftop and have cocktails and lunch. And let me tell you, that felt like such an indulgence. Being outside on a sunny day at 11 a.m. with a cocktail in hand, eating French fries, chatting with friends, knowing that like we're not on a girls' trip, we're not on vacation. It's literally just Wednesday. Um, and we decided, all four of us decided to just have this moment. So it was, I would say it was like a pretty cool, this is what life gets to be like kind of moment. And I made sure to have like a lighter cocktail and drink lots of water so I didn't hose the rest of my day. Um, and that was really nice. And so got home, hung out, um, you know, put the kids to bed. First thing that happened, I realized I left the kids' backpacks on the playground. And I don't think this was cocktail related at all. This was many hours later, but I had also let the kids, second indulgence of the day, I decided to let my kids stay on the playground as long as they wanted, which ended up being until 6 p.m. And so at 6 p.m., I was like, okay, now we actually do have to go home and figure out dinner, and we kind of rushed out and so forgot the backpacks. Well, I wake up Thursday morning and I'm going through emails and I see that one thing I have to go rewind is that that Wednesday, the rooftop cocktails day, was also tax day. And I wake up Thursday morning and I'm going through my emails and I see that a client's CPA had emailed me and I needed to get back to them by Wednesday, and I missed it. Oh my gosh. You guys, the like pit in my stomach in that moment. And the first thing that popped into my head was like I should not be indulging because then things will fall through the cracks. Like it was just like this direct line between me having this like enjoyable moment and something bad happening. Luckily, I was able to kind of zoom out and see, like catch myself in this thought pattern and be like, okay, is that actually what happened? Is this like some kind of like universal consequence where it's like, oh Mira, your things are too good. I'm gonna throw something bad at you. Or is this just me recognizing that I need to optimize my systems a little bit? And so I was talking to my husband about it, and he was like, Oh, yeah, I have, you know, Gemini, which is the Google AI tool. I have Gemini just make sure that any like individual email directed towards me gets highlighted and bumped to the top, and so I never like miss anything important because yeah, my inbox is just flooded with marketing emails, and you know, when you're a financial advisor, people are always trying to get you into their investments and you know, their different funds, all of these different things. And so it's a lot of noise. And if I'm not on it every single day clearing out the noise, then it's easy for things to fall through the cracks. And so I felt guilty about this. I realized, okay, I don't need to blame this on me having this indulgent experience. Instead, I can find a solution, I can become a solution-oriented person because that's at the end of the day, that's kind of just what entrepreneurship is just becoming as solution-oriented as possible. Okay, this happens. How can we prevent this from happening in the future? Okay, I want this result. What are the things I need to do to get there? It's all just walking through what are the possible solutions that exist before me. And so this thing happened, I got myself feeling regret, feeling guilt, and then realizing, okay, Mira, maybe this needed to happen so that you could implement a better system so that in the future emails don't get missed. Because guys, there have been weeks where I've been working my butt off and I've still missed a client email, right? So clearly the problem wasn't the indulgence. The problem was that I needed a better system. And so that was, you know, that was a little bit of a wake-up call for me. I talked to my client, I talked to the CPA, it's all resolved. It's really no big deal. Um, but now I have a better system set up so that if it was something that was a big deal, I wouldn't miss it. It wouldn't fall through the cracks. And I'm curious, I'd love to hear if you guys are listening to this and you want to send me an Instagram DM or something. I would love to hear if you've ever experienced anything like this, where you take a step toward a more pleasurable life, and then something tries to pull you away, and you use it as an excuse to like, I don't deserve to experience that. I don't deserve to have that. That's not meant for me. That's irresponsible. Just curious if anyone else has a similar story, because as I was experiencing it in real time, I was thinking that like this is this is something that I can see, this thought process, I can see this coming up for other people as well. I can see this coming up in my clients' brains as well. So, are other people experiencing something like this? So that was my Wednesday, my little indulgence, and then kind of, you know, kind of got through that, and then got into Thursday. And Thursday I woke up really wanting to go move my body, so I went for a run, and at the end of the run, I'm like almost home, and I see a man standing there, and I get closer, and it's my husband, and he's got we have this bucket bike. It's like a bike with a bucket on the back that the kids can sit in to transport them all over town. He's got the bucket bike, he's got my helmet, and he's like, Hi, I'm back for my trip. Get in, we're going on a date. And it was just like a magical fairy tale moment, and I crawled into the back of the bucket and put my helmet on, and he took me to one of my favorite coffee shops, and we had pastries and coffee, and we sat outside, and it was just like one of those moments where you don't plan for it, and it just feels so perfect. And so for Thursday, that was my main indulgence is that we just like had this completely magical little day. I thought he wasn't gonna get home until that evening, so it was such a huge surprise, and so perfect, just so perfect, and then leading up until today, and so oh, there's my phone ringing. Um, leading up until today. And so today, I woke up this morning and we took my the kids to school, and then I met a friend, and we went for a nice slow long walk. A new friend who just moved to Boulder. We I got to tell her about my favorite things about Boulder, and we talked about life. And right when we finished our walk, um, I got home, and just a few moments later it started snowing. I decided to sit on the couch and just read a book, and the next thing I know it's noon, and I realized that I haven't even opened my computer, and it's 12 p.m. And that was probably the most beautiful indulgence of all of them. And especially if you're, you know, an online-based entrepreneur, somebody whose work revolves around their laptop. It can feel, I don't know, it can feel like that's just like your anchor into your work world. And so not opening your laptop is it's like such a little rebellious act. I have friends who are doctors and nurses, and they're like, we don't even have laptops, but it's just like such a little rebellious act to be like, I'm not going to open my laptop for the first half of my day, even though it's tax week and there's lots of like things. But as I've been thinking about this week and zooming out, I'm realizing that I have spent a lot of years in the trenches of my work, building things for my clients, accomplishing tasks, doing things that maybe are outside of my actual role, um, in an effort to be enough. And I'm finally reaching a season in my career where I don't feel like I need to constantly be proving to myself and my clients that I'm enough because I feel confident in the work I'm doing. I feel confident in the deliverables that I'm giving to my clients, and I also have gotten so much better at time management. And so I can sit there and batch workout for my clients, I can get everything done in a morning or an afternoon and then feel comfortable taking the rest of the day off. And I really think that's the biggest lesson of this week of indulgence is that just because you are not always grinding doesn't mean you're not producing good output. And actually, if I were to do a comparison, I would say that the work, the value that my clients are receiving me, receiving from me right now is so much bigger than what I was previously offering to my clients. So much bigger. The experience that I have now, the research that I've done, the systems that I've created, the dashboards that I build custom for each client so that we have it like a crystal clear view of everything in their financial life. All of that stuff is what allows me to meet my friends for, you know, a brunch on a Wednesday morning and still stay on task. And of course, there's gonna be little hiccups, there's gonna be little things that come up that I miss that fall through the cracks. That doesn't mean I'm bad at doing my job. That just means that there's another layer of optimization, there's another layer of automation that can happen so that my clients can receive an even better experience. You know, I think that when we allow ourselves these indulgences, we start training our nervous system that life gets to look good, life gets to be pretty and beautiful, everything that we want, we're allowed to have because we are doing the things that we should be doing. So for your for just so you guys know, I'm also there's another thing happening in the background. I'm I'm working on building a community for female entrepreneurs to take control of their money, to lean in, to actually have the tools that they need to be surrounded by other women who are also really excited about growing their wealth in a way that feels aligned, in a way that acknowledges their mindset and their nervous system. And if this podcast is at all landing with you, let me know. Um, I want to start this community really small, so it's not, I'm not trying to like you know, blow it up into anything crazy, but I'm really excited about the idea of more women coming together and really making positive changes with their money so that they can live a life full of these mini indulgences that just remind them of purpose, right? Remind them of why we're here, remind them of what this is all for. All right, guys. So this is my indulgence week. Um, I'm so happy you're here. Thanks for being here. If you enjoyed this, please follow along. Uh, what am I supposed to say? Like, subscribe, leave a review. Yeah, that would be cool. I would love to see to hear a review from somebody. Um, that would be amazing. And I hope you have a really good weekend, really good week, and I will see you soon. Bye bye.