3 Steps to Doing Less and Having a Better Experience: How to Build a Strong Foundation, Without Piling on More Knowledge

Do you relate to being rewarded for doing more? Maybe you were noticed more at home, school or work when you pushed harder. We are all here to experience God's blessings, which doesn't mean only focusing on the outcome. Physically are not all created to work long hours or produce more. We have different gifts.

In this episode you will learn why doing more isn't always the answer. There will be examples, including elements for a strong foundation so that you are able to have better experiences without piling on more knowledge or certifications.

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Transcript

Sarah Swift 0:10

Welcome to the Integrative Mother Experience Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Swift, wife for 27 years a mother of three teenagers. I want to have conversations about why so many mamas wearing multiple hats, working, serving others, or owning a business, especially in the beauty industry, feel like they need to choose between their work and their family. We'll also uncover common causes of overwhelm, lack of wellbeing and joy. I am here with over three decades of experience working in the beauty industry. Owning several types of businesses starting in my twenties, and sharing stories to help other mothers avoid feeling that they're always missing out. Time is an asset. We can't get back. I can't wait to dive into these deep conversations. I hope you will join me. Don't forget to check out my free checklist for joy and fulfillment on my website, the integrative mother experience.com, and join my free private community of mamas supporting each other. Today we're going to talk about how to build a strong foundation. The three elements of this conversation are going to be what is the next best step? Inner work, first versus more doing, and experience versus knowledge. Let's dive in. So, as many of you know, I've been a mom for over two decades. I started one of my businesses in my early twenties. I've had several, and I've been a stylist in the beauty industry for over three decades. So experience is definitely I something I have in a ll of these areas, and I also have been rewarded and acknowledged for doing for sure. That was something early on in my life that I noticed. It was like if I did more, I was definitely praised and acknowledged. And it's interesting, you know, it feels good to be acknowledged and rewarded and continuing to do and do, and do, just seemed really normal. So when I started to experience things that just weren't working, whether it was in my personal life or in my career path or business, I started to question this and I really had to ask myself, can I trust myself if something feels off? That was really the first step when I look back, and as I got a little bit older, I started having self-respect for myself to question things, and that was really helpful because when I started to choose for the long term and not survival in the moment, things would definitely shift in a positive direction. I didn't tend to continue down those paths. I would revert back to the chaos and people pleasing, and that was a pattern that continued. So really until I had the emotional regulation and I started working on myself with my nervous system, that's when things really shifted. So I believe that building a foundation that's strong from the bottom up before adding more knowledge and doing more is essential. I believe also that when you try things, that's how you can discern what's working for you. So when I noticed my own pattern of somebody needs something, I would just react. I would people please because it was easier, or I did it out of fear because I just didn't want to deal with that person's personality and without rules, whether it's at home with your kids or business decisions. Things are going to be chaotic, and the foundation is going to have a crack and everything's going to leak out. You're not going to be able to hold that integrity to yourself. So I did things backwards, like I said, and I learned along the way. But truly, if I could give advice to anybody now to the young moms out there just starting out. Finding that structure and stillness within yourself and creating from there before piling on more knowledge, more classes of any sort. It's going to help you actually in your learning process as well, and I wish somebody had taught me this. Unfortunately they didn't, and I learned along the way. And the trial and error system did work for me because I'm in a wonderful place right now and I'm really, really thankful for that, but you don't know what you didn't know. When I finally decided that peace was a choice and then I honored my inner work, everything began to shift. So I allowed myself to receive rather than constantly overgive and that was really foreign to me. I was not taught that to be normal, it seemed selfish. And now when I have equal relationships, it's so interesting because it's so joyful to give and I'm giving from the right place. My creativity can flow, at work and at play. I have the first ever hobby I've had in my life this past year, I decided to take up golfing, which I've wanted to do since my twenties and just haven't allowed myself to do it. But I'm allowing myself to receive joy, and I am realizing that everything isn't about giving to others because you can't give from an empty cup. So as I began to become more quiet and still and question some of the patterns that I was repeating and realizing that advice from those around you that may have really good intentions, they might be self-destructive patterns that they picked up along the way too. So really be careful who you're taking advice from and learning to trust yourself became the cornerstone for the work that I started to do. And I was able to find that if I actually asked the right people for advice and paused when I was getting unwanted advice or shoulding and judgment, that I actually could find the answers. Prayer of course, is always a big part of my life and having that slow morning where I journal and take time to have gratitude before I start my day really also sets the intention. I definitely have noticed the pausing between my day. I usually walk around 12 or one o'clock in the afternoon if I have an office day or I'm at home just to break up the demands of running a house with a dog and children and laundry and everything involved. And then I also pause between my clients at work. I am definitely doing less better, and I have for several years, and that changed everything. So I am actually able to give from a place of creativity and joy, and the receiving recipient is getting the best part of me, and I'm really conscious of my time and conversations with those people or tasks at hand that I might be doing. I definitely started to use voicemail more, not responding to text every time my phone would buzz and discouraged, frequent, unexpected drop in visits, um, that just didn't feel aligned and good. So those are some of the things that I've done. I have also learned that because doing things in the extreme method, you can do things that maybe are too strict. So when I first started my journey after COVID and I had to restructure my business, which I will go deeper into on another episode, but I was basically choosing to either keep my business or not. It had gotten to that point, for a variety of reasons, and I started working on the business structure and it was something I definitely needed for sure, but I wish that I had the inner work done first. It would've been so much easier, so I went a little bit extreme with my contact at home and didn't have my phone on, and I missed, the call because my phone was on silent and I wasn't checking it, when my son was actually in the er, had been ambulance there and was scared and alone and he was there for quite some time before I even realized it. So that's my example. Just being vulnerable as far as trying different things to feel out what's going to work best for you and your family. I definitely want to be professional when I'm at work and I want my clients to feel that they have my attention and doing less better has definitely changed that aspect of it. I couldn't be happier in my business than I am now, and the feedback that I get from my clients is, it's just so heartwarming. But being a mom definitely is such a high priority that I had to have a different system, and we do now. So I definitely have a way that they can get ahold of me if they need to, and everybody's been very respectful in the salon when this has happened, which has been very rare, but it has happened a few times and because it's not a constant interruption, you know, it's just something that people understand. Again, back to the foundation being number one, different examples from my life where I've really learned to build a strong foundation is when I was in my young twenties and I got married and it was not the honeymoon stage, let me just say that, we will go into that in a different episode as well, but rebuilding from a place of a strong foundation was very necessary, and then it just made everything so much better. And I think you can look at the different aspects of your personal and professional life and use this reference as a foundation in every area. My health, same thing. My health was declining and it took me down the path of looking at natural ideas, and that's been an entire journey in and of itself. Had my health not been declining, I don't know that I would be choosing what I choose today, which I think is such a blessing. I think that my children are much healthier than they would've been otherwise. And I definitely know myself and my husband have made much better choices and feel much better from all the knowledge and experience combination that I've learned when I built a stronger foundation in my health. When things definitely started to take over in a better way, for me it was because I was pausing, and I was allowing some of the decisions to come through with more space. And so I was building this foundation of what am I allowing others to have their opinion on and just being okay with that. They don't have to agree with everything that I feel, and that's okay. Everybody can have their own opinions. We don't have to argue about it. We can have a conversation if it's necessary and if not, honestly, it's just none of my business. They can tell their stories, we all know the telephone game and how misconstrued things can get when stories just keep going down the line from one person to the next. And I've seen that in my own life, personal and professional. I've seen it in my children's life at school and with friends. And it's just such a dangerous place to be when you're just believing gossip and stories and not going to the source if it's a necessary conversation that needs to be had. So having that foundation of what I am actually going to allow in is, not getting involved in situations like that. I just know for me, that I want to be myself and I feel safe when I can be around positive people and not feel like I'm performing. And I see the ripple effect positive and negative when people are performing in any given situation and it doesn't feel good. So I have to ask, is it my responsibility to fix the problems that aren't mine? I don't think it is. It also takes two in any given relationship. Again, that's work and professional or family. So it takes two people and if only one person is working at something that foundation's not going to be strong for sure. You can't go on people pleasing and serving everyone without abandoning yourself and that's not living in integrity either. So I have to also ask myself, is it all up to me or do I allow that feeling in because maybe everything isn't up to me, and maybe some things can just be let go. I have to consider the source, like the telephone game I talked about a little earlier. Is the advice or the opinions coming from a source that's trustworthy? I don't know. Have they given me the full truth in the past? Do they tend to live in integrity in general? And can we have an honest conversation or am I going to just move on and sometimes that's the best thing you can do. So how I regulate myself through consistency, so that I'm not living in this chaotic turmoil where I am late for everything, sloshing my coffee around and acting like a ping pong ball just reacting to the loudest person or demand in the room, is I have consistent AM routines. I walk every day, and I also have the ability to adapt when things are going haywire around me, and that often has been the case. So I've seen that reflected now that I've done the inner work and that is my foundation and that is what I recommend to all of you, and that is what I'm here to help with. So the takeaways for today are the freedom to have fun and experience joy. Ask yourself, am I choosing to say yes from fear or guilt? And saying no can be self-honoring. Have a blessed day. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you found this episode helpful, please follow or subscribe to the Integrative Mother experience on Spotify, apple Podcast or wherever you listen, so you're notified about the new episodes coming up. Please also take the time to leave me a review. This really does help me. I would love to see your beautiful faces. If you want to take a screenshot of this episode, I would love it. Take me on Instagram or Facebook at time with Sarah Swift, period between the word time on Instagram, so then I can reshare your post. You can also start today by grabbing my free checklist and check out some of my favorite things on my website, the integrative mother experience.com. Until next time, my beautiful mamas, thank you so much.