Less is MORE!

Hey guys, welcome back to the Made for More podcast. On this week’s episode, we’re giving ourselves a permission slip to notice the everyday moments in our lives where we can find rest and restoration within our busy schedules.

We’re also reminding ourselves that sometimes doing less is actually what gives us MORE!

I want to break this cycle of feeling like we always have to chase hustle culture. Instead, I want to encourage us to stop idolizing being the busiest person in the room—the one who burns themselves out so completely that there’s no energy or time left for the things that matter to us the most.

So consider this episode an awakening & an invitation to do things differently! To recognize that sometimes choosing to do less in certain areas actually allows us to experience MORE in the places that truly matter.

In a world that celebrates doing the most, we’re choosing something different! Why? Because we were made for more,  and we always have been!

Xoxo- Miranda Hammock 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey guys, welcome back to the Made for More podcast. It is your friend Miranda Hammock, and I'm so glad you're here. Whether you're a first-time listener and you're like, I have no idea what this is, I would like to invite you in to a space, a creative space where we connect, we reflect, we work on things like habits, mindset goals, internal shifts, and we try to connect ourselves so deeply so that we can step into a life of more and whatever that looks like for us, and that's gonna be individualized to each of our own journeys. But I believe that we truly are people who are made for more than average. We are made for more than the lives that we're living, and it's just um a place where we try to figure out what that looks like in all areas and in all aspects of life. So thank you so much for being here. You know, today's episode, I was thinking about just how often a lot of us feel very, very busy, and we wear a lot of hats and we wear a lot of rolls, and we we are a lot to a lot of people around us, and we're trying to accommodate all sorts of tasks throughout our day-to-day. And I often feel like, um, especially for women, I'm sure men feel this way too, but you just feel stretched and pulled in all sorts of directions. And so today I want to invite you into this opportunity where we can learn how less is actually more and how less is giving us more. So I don't know if you're driving, walking, on a run, if you're in the carpool line, wherever you are, I want to actually invite you at the very beginning of this episode. I want to invite you in just a second to press pause on this episode. Yes, I'm telling you to press pause. I want you to go completely silent wherever you are, and if if you're available to do so, and take a few really deep breaths. You can even close your eyes, but don't scroll, don't have on music. Just stop what you're doing, press pause, take some deep breaths, notice how you feel, and then come right back. Okay, welcome back. Did you do it? Because I actually did it myself even as I was recording. I pressed pause and I took the deep breaths. And I just wanted to show you what it looks like to actually halt everything that pulls at our distractions and to take a moment and to like recenter, regroup, find some peace, and to give yourself breath. We don't even realize like how powerful and connective our breath is. And a lot of times how we hold our breath and clench our jaw or we're short of breath because we're just busy-minded people. And so I am in a place in my life where I have just really there's just been some really big perspective shifts and goal shifts within 2026. I think I've hinted at that. But I have just decided less is more, and less is actually giving me more. And what I mean by that is I am just kind of done with this idea that I have to hustle so hard to be successful, or that I have to overwork to be successful, or that I have to earn my rest. I'm big on thinking that I have to earn my rest, or I can rest when it's all done, when the house is clean, when the phone calls have been made, when the emails have been made, when all these things have been done. And I'm just learning that throughout my day, I can take little bitty moments, just like the one we just took together, and just that is considered rest. I don't know if you realize that, even though it's 30 seconds or a minute, that is considered rest and recovery. And in a lot of times in our life, when we hear the word rest or relax or recover, we think like fall out flat on the couch and lay down and melt away. And a lot of times even thinking about rest can cause us some confliction because it just sounds like work to get there, right? Like in my head, I'm like, well, I can rest after I vacuum and then mop and then do this and do that, and then I will rest. And I just feel like that couldn't be more further from the truth because we can take little moments throughout our day to find rest by just taking those deep breaths to recover, or just taking moments like when you're in the car rider line at school, or even if you're in a drive-thru line, just turning off your music, choosing not to scroll, choosing not to make a phone call, and sit there in silence, take some deep breaths, allow yourself to connect with your own thoughts and inner dialogue because we are so busy being consumed and distracted by all the things that we have access to. Like we're always like scrolling, or we gotta call this person, or we gotta listen to this podcast, or we gotta listen to this documentary, and we are constantly just absorbing, absorbing, absorbing, absorbing. But how often do we take time to refill ourselves? And I do think that I have noticed that by taking little time, like little bits of time throughout the day to refill and almost recharge, it allows me more in my life, more energy, more clarity, less anxiousness. And so I just want to encourage you to try to figure out what that looks like, and it's going to be individualized through all of our different individual stories because no nobody has the same task and roles. We live in different areas, but everything's going to look different to you. If you can find ways where um you leave work for five minutes and walk outside, fresh air, sunlight, no phone, no, no co-worker with you. Go outside, breathe, get some sunlight on your skin, fresh air, something like that. Or, like I said, pressing pause on things, not taking your phone with you to the bathroom, not taking your phone with you if you're gonna go sit outside. I chose to do this the other day, but just like I've taken a few moments where I go sit on my front porch or back porch if I'm home and just allow myself to sit and feel that sun on my skin and to like regroup. And that is hard to do when you're a person that feels like very busy or that rest has to be earned, or you're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do that after I do A, B, and C. But I'm telling you, if you want to serve and take care of people around you better, if you want to be everything for everyone, if you want to thrive, if you want to have the energy to win, you have to stop and to pause and to take care of you. And if you don't learn to do that, you will have to learn to do that because too much stress on the body is not a good thing. Too much stress on the body can cause so many issues. It can cause hair loss, it can cause um high cortisol, it can cause inflammation, sleepless nights. And I think small little resets throughout your day really, really help reconnect yourself, give yourself a pause and a rest without you having to lay down on the couch for an hour or two, especially if your schedule doesn't allow that. If your schedule allows that and that's how you relax, great. But I also want to remind you too, I was thinking about this, I was like, well, I I I kind of love to relax by like scrolling, to be honest. But here was something that I remembered. I track a lot of my health through aura ring. And I remember when I first got aura ring, I was very fascinated by it. And I was scrolling one night before bed because I thought that's just my way to relax, like the last 15 minutes or so. And I noticed my aura ring said I was in a high state of engaged stress. And I remember thinking, well, no, I was laying down, I'm um, no makeup on, no, you know, like I'm relaxed and I'm scrolling. And I looked into it. Did you know that your body doesn't know the difference between the stress of watching a murder documentary and the stress of watching somebody unbox a Sephora hole on Instagram? Like your body just absorbs stress as stress. So even if you don't think it's stress, your body recognizes that it's stress. So although we can tend to think that scrolling is um a downtime or like us unwinding, like a lot of times, like just not being on your phone and not absorbing and not feeling like you have to consume and absorb as much fun as it is. And I I love I love scrolling. I love doom scrolling, I love seeing what everyone's doing and what they're out and about doing or what their day's like. But we can't control what we see, right? And so oftentimes things things pop up, like a GoFundMe or diagnosis or something sad, and so that triggers your body into a stress response. So what I'm telling you is it doesn't have to be a long time, but just find increments throughout your day. Like just start with like two to three increments of five to ten minutes at a time of silence, deep breaths, eyes closed or open, whatever you have to do, but just to reconnect, breathe deep, like unclench your jaw, like let your body relax, reduce the stress in your shoulders, and to find time to become somebody who's going into a restorative state so that you can carry all the roles that you are going to carry and wear all the hats that you are going to carry. I don't know what it is for me, but this year something is different. Like, and I don't know what's coming, I don't know if it's like God's way of preparing me, but like I am so like my goals are so different. As someone who's like been running full force and feels like I want to do the most, whether it's with my business, a lot of it is business related. Whether it's this podcast, whether it's fitness, whether it's having the cleanest house or whatever, like I'm just constantly running after things. This year, it's not that I don't care. I think there's a big difference between not caring and like letting everything fall off. But I feel like everything else besides my family, my immediate family, like my husband and my child, everything is taking a little bit of a step back. And I like my value and my priorities and my hustle is to be 100% for them, to be more present, to be home for dinner, to work less, to be home to do homework, to have energy when I get home and not have like little droplets left to give my husband the attitude or to give my daughter the short-tempered mom. I don't want to do any of that anymore. I'm sick of being stretched in all these areas and maxing out in all of these areas and then giving my household my less. So I have just had some goal shifts, and it is scary taking some steps back from work and take making some adjustments. And honestly, your brain tells you, I can't do that, I'm gonna lose clients, I'm gonna lose money. And I'm just in this place where I'm like my number one priority is like my mental health and my family. And I just want to be an encouragement and a reflection to everybody that the opportunity is there for you too. It just might look differently, but I think there's nothing more important in this world than your family and your people. And I just want to be an encouragement to remind you to put yourself first. And by putting yourself first, it starts with little moments, practical moments where you are saying, you know what, I'm not going to overconsume, I'm not gonna be part of hustle culture, I'm not gonna be a part of burnout culture. I I just I think somewhere along the way, we have made it so idolized to do the most and to be the most, to stay up the latest, to get up the earliest, to do the most clients in a day, to max ourselves out. It has become an idol in a lot of areas. And as women, we have like idolized busyness. And as as people, it's like we want to, I don't know, feel like we're the most accomplished because we're the busiest person ever. And I'm just saying no. I think that we should say our quote unquote idol is to show up as the best versions of ourself. And what if stepping into our more actually looks like doing less of all these other things that drain us? What if our more is our time? What if our more is our health, our mental mindset, our recovery? What if our more is being more available for our people, being more present, more clear, less consumed? And so I'm just saying I'm done with like the whole hustle culture and making sure I'm not doing things to like feel like I have to earn my rest or earn my worth because of my busyness. Like, you don't have to earn anything. You are so worthy of being exactly where you are, and you are worthy of rest and recovery and downtime and peace. Like we all are worthy of peace. And I'm just in a place where I want the people around me to get the best version of me. And you know what? The best version of me looks like a less wiped-out version, looks like a less consumed version, looks like a less pressured version, a less hustled version. And I have just made some changes and adjustments, and sometimes that comes with a lot of no's, telling people no, I can't hang out, no, I can't do that, no, I can't participate in that. And yeah, so I'm just in this really clear space where I have just decided I want something that looks really different for me. And as we talked about last week, keep keeping me different, like be okay, being like, Yeah, I'm I'm actually so good not being the girl that takes 10 clients a day. I think I'm gonna take three or four. Yeah, that sounds crazy and really foreign in like a um industry that tells you that hustle is like the goal, but I'm just not doing it anymore. I'm not buying it, and I'm gonna trust that God provides every single time we take a step of obedience. And if he's telling me to take my step of obedience is to take care of me first, my mental health, prioritize my family, prioritize things like time that you can't get back, I'm going to do that, and he's gonna provide the rest. And I have what I have seen in the shift within myself is that I'm more energized for my people, I'm more present with my people. I feel so much better just making small shifts and taking time for myself, pulling back from work and then taking these small little gaps in my day to find rest and recovery, going on a silent walk. I'm a big advocate for this, even if it's just one lap around the street or one lap in your work parking lot, like going and resetting. I want to just be such an encouragement to reset, to refocus, to find calm, to find clarity. And I promise you, you're going to be just just in a better state, like such a better state. And like not only do you deserve that, but the people that love you deserve to see you like that. They deserve to see you less frantic, less scattered, less stretched. And I'm just like just trying to be a voice of just encouragement for that. So I hope that this encourages you this week to find moments of calmness and to recenter. And I hope that you know that sometimes less is more. And I hope that you know that stepping into your more sometimes means reducing other things in your life. It doesn't mean chasing more. It sometimes means subtraction. So as you go in this week, ask yourself what you can do to find rest, recovery, reflection, relaxation, and ask yourself what your true priorities are and see how you can make little shifts within your day, within your dialogue of how you speak to yourself, the habits that you have formed. What can you subtract? What can you reduce? Allow yourself to sit with your thoughts, to be still, to be calm, and to be kind to yourself because at the end of the day, you were made for more, and you always have been.