091: Your Schedule Is Full. Where Does Taking Care of Yourself Fit?

“Let me get through this week first.”

How many weeks have you been saying that about taking care of yourself?

When your calendar is full, movement, rest, and time to yourself can become things you’ll get to later. But there is usually another busy week coming.

In this Wellness Reset Thursday episode of the Limitless Living Podcast, Fredricka Davis helps you look at an ordinary day and find a realistic place for your own care.

We’ll talk about:

• Identifying where your day leaves you feeling depleted.
• Giving a helpful practice a specific place in your schedule.
• Adjusting movement as daylight and routines change.
• Creating an ending to the workday.
• Asking for space or support instead of silently carrying everything.
• Deciding what needs to come out of an already full calendar.
• Having a workable option for demanding days.

This Week’s Reset

Choose one point in your day where you need support. Decide what you’ll do, when you’ll do it, and what needs to change to make it possible.

For example: “After lunch, I’ll walk for ten minutes.” Then consider what you need to arrange so that time is available.

Reflection question

If I keep waiting for my schedule to clear, how long am I willing to wait?

Join Fredricka this Saturday

The Midlife Reset Experience takes place October 17, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Massage Wellness & Beyond in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.

The day includes guided reflection, breathwork, movement, a workbook, and support developing your own practical thirty-day plan.

Registration is $197. The experience is limited to 12 participants.

Visit FredrickaDavis.com and choose Experiences for details and registration.

Listening after October 17? Visit the website to explore upcoming experiences.

Continue the conversation in the free Facebook group, Limitless Living for Women Who Are Becoming

Know someone who keeps putting herself last on the calendar? Share this episode with her. A rating or review also helps other people find the show.

Grab Your Free Reset Guide and more at www.fredrickadavis.com

Continue the conversation inside the here: Limitless Living community.

If this episode resonated with you, you can also send Fredricka a message through the Fan Mail link in the show notes. Your questions may be featured in a future episode.

And if you know someone who needs to hear this conversation, please share the episode with them.

Your reviews mean the world to Fredricka and help other women discover the show.

Transcript

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If I asked you to make an appointment for someone you love, I know that you would probably find a way to do it. You would look at your calendar, look at their calendar, you'd coordinate the whole thing, get it all done, move something around, figure out transportation if you need to. And it would get onto that schedule. But if I asked you when you're going to make time for something for yourself, something you need, well, let me get through this week first. How many weeks have you actually been saying that? And I'm asking you honestly, because I know all too well how easily this happens. There's always something coming up, something that needs to get done, or somebody who needs you. Meanwhile, you're getting through the day, but you're really tired. Maybe you're stiff from sitting too much. You haven't been outside much. And by the time you finally have a minute, you're feeling like you just don't want to do anything. Where does taking care of yourself fit in when your schedule is already full? We're going to get very practical about this today. Welcome back to the Limitless Living Podcast. I'm Frederica Davis, your host, and this is Wellness Reset Thursday. This is where we talk about taking care of your health and well-being in ways that work in your everyday life. Now it's the middle of October already. I can't believe it. It goes so fast. The days are getting shorter. And if your calendar looks anything like mine, there are already things on it for November and December. For me, it's work and family plans and appointments, the holidays. It just, you know, kind of goes on and on. Workshops, this, that, and the other thing. And these are a lot of things I said yes to a month ago or months ago, even, that are just all of a sudden feeling like they're happening next week. Can you relate to this? And all of a sudden you're thinking to yourself, okay, I guess I'll just, you know, have time for myself again by the time I get through the holidays, you know, maybe in January. So today I'd like to ask you to reconsider that approach because you still have to live in your own body between now and January. You still need energy to do the things that you want to do. You want to be able to enjoy some of this season as well. Now, I'm not going to suggest you add an elaborate wellness routine or some giant new program right now to a day or a season that already feels really packed and impossible. You might need to do some rearranging before you can add anything. That's the part I want to help you look at. It's also one of the reasons I created the midlife reset experiences happening this Saturday, October 17th, here in Lansdale. Sometimes you just need time to step away from the usual demands in every direction so that you can see what's happening in your life right now. Whether you're joining me or listening from somewhere else, you can begin looking at that today. Let's start with the actual day that you have. Not the day you wish you had, not the version where you wake up early and feel wonderful, nobody interrupts you, but your regular normal day. When do you get up? What happens first? Where does your time go? Maybe you start answering messages before you've even gotten out of bed. Or maybe you're getting somebody else ready, then you're rushing to get yourself ready. Or you get to work, you sit down, and before you know it, you've been sitting down almost the entire day. How do you spend your day, a regular day? Do you spend the whole day on your feet taking care of clients or on the phone taking care of clients or whatever it is? And then all of a sudden, by the time you get home, you are done. You've got nothing left. The advice you need specific to you is going to depend on what your days are like, not somebody else's. If you're already physically exhausted from standing all day, the advice, just get some more steps, may not be the most useful place for you to begin. And if you sit for hours and barely move, your body may be asking or even screaming for something different. So pick one ordinary weekday and walk through it in your mind. Where do you start feeling depleted? And what is happening around that time of the day? For example, maybe you feel reasonably good in the morning, but by three o'clock, you're stiff, distracted, and you know, you're reaching for another coffee. Have you had any kind of break? Have you moved from the chair that you were sitting in? Have you been outside? Or maybe you're fine until you get home. Then all of a sudden there are more questions, more decisions, more things to do, and you find yourself getting impatient. Do you have any transition between moving from work to home? I don't mean a 45-minute ritual either. I mean, do you ever get a few minutes where nobody needs an answer from you? Like at all. That's worth noticing. Before we decide what your routine should be, we need to understand where your day is wearing you down. I know how easy it is to fill time. I have multiple businesses, I'm creating things, I have friends, I have family, I have my own health to consider, and I have my own health challenges to consider. And seriously, if I have an open space, I can absolutely find something to put in it. Now, can you relate to that? Where you think, oh, I have 20 minutes, I can get this done. And sometimes, really, that's useful. But when every open space becomes another task, when does your body get anything it needs? A walk can get easily pushed aside because you feel like you need to answer a few more emails. Or maybe your bedtime gets later because you feel like you could finish one more thing. And then after a while, you fall into this trap of thinking that your care is just dependent on whether or not you can find a day where you have absolutely nothing else to do in it. Now, that day is probably not coming. So here's something I want you to try instead. I want you to look for one point in the day that's already fairly predictable. This could be right after you get dressed or after you finish lunch or you get home when you put your phone on the charger at night, maybe. Then ask yourself, what could you reasonably put there? What could you start doing there? If you've been wanting to move more, for example, why not take your 45-minute lunch and say, okay, I'm going to eat for 30 and then I'm going to walk outside and walk at least for 10. That's a great way to start incorporating it in and you're attaching it to something you already do, making it easier for it to become a habit. If your evenings feel really frantic, then why not start taking a few quiet moments when you get home before you start the next round of responsibilities? And here's the deal: if you can't do that in your household, it just does not work. Why not take a little longer to get home? Maybe drive a couple of different roads to come home with the music up and singing and just releasing energy or in complete silence, just relaxing before you get home instead of rushing to get home to the next frantic situation. If you stay up scrolling at night, why not try charging your phone outside of your reach? So when you go upstairs, plug your phone in, put it on the charger, get ready for bed, and it will be outside of your reach when you get into bed. And instead of scrolling, begin your window with a book or some breath work or quietness. Choose a place in your day where the action is going to make sense. Now I can tell myself, I'm going to walk sometime today, but sometime has to compete with everything else. Or I can say, I'll walk after lunch. That gives me something I can actually plan around. You see the difference here? It doesn't guarantee that all my days are going to cooperate, but it's a whole lot better starting point. And let's stay with movement for a minute. Because this is one place where I think we can really make routine unnecessarily difficult. Honestly, we make it this big production. You might have a picture in your mind of what your exercise is supposed to look like, and that you have to change your clothes, go to the gym, spend an hour, shower, get back, all the different things, you know, block out an hour to go to the yoga studio or to do it at home or whatever it is. But that's simply not really the case. If there's something you enjoy and you can make the room for that and do it any of those ways, kudos to you. That's wonderful. But if you can't or you don't, what else might be a good workaround? What else might be available to you? Could you walk around the block when you come home before you walk in the house? Make that your transitionary time? Could you do a few movements in the kitchen in the morning when you first get up and you're waiting for your coffee to brew or your water to boil? Could you use a chair for support and start working on simply your balance before moving into the next thing? Could you get up between appointments or between meetings and move around instead of sitting throughout the day? Could you get a standing desk that allows you to stand and sit, stand and sit, and maybe march in place when you're in the standing? It is really that easy. Those are real options to start incorporating it in, especially if you're starting from very little or nothing. For me, walking is something I keep coming back to. I also make room for strength and weight-bearing movement. But what I do on a particular day has to account for how I feel and whatever is going on in my day or in my body. And I'm not going to pretend that living with autoimmune pain has no effect on me. If you have a condition or an injury, you might need help choosing what's appropriate. Get the guidance. You don't have to guess your way through pain or challenges. But what I'd like you to do is consider whether or not you've dismissed all movement because the version of movement you had in your head and that you planned simply won't fit for you now. Maybe you can't do the longer session today. Could you still do something useful? And with the daylight changing, think about timing. If you keep planning to walk after work, but now all of a sudden it's dark after work, your old plan might need a little adjustment. Maybe you move it to lunchtime, like we talked about. Could you go earlier? Could you walk at your desk somehow to get more steps in? Could you get up and walk to the water cooler, walk wherever it is you need to? There's an adjustment that is likely going to work for you if you begin to look at things that way. And each season we need to make adjustments. We have a seasonal adjustment happening right now, summer to fall, and then it's going to be fall to winter, another adjustment. So instead of getting frustrated with yourself over the next several months, why not look at where you can adjust? And another place I'd look is at the end of your day. What tells you that you're finished at the end of the day? Now I'm asking this because for many of us, nothing tells us our day is done. The phone is still there. We're still looking at it. The kitchen still needs something. For me, it's often dishes. If you're a business owner, you know there's more that you could keep doing. Maybe you remember a message you didn't answer, and boom, you've spent the evening extending your workday. Even if you're on the couch, you might still be working. Maybe the laptop's there. Maybe you're doing it for your phone. You know what I mean. You're probably watching something sometimes, but you're answering messages at the same time. You're researching something, or you've got six tabs open. For me, it's like 52 tabs. Everybody laughs at me. And then I wonder why the computer wants to run slower. But there you are. And then you wonder why you don't feel like you had a break. Again, I can do this too. So one practical part of a wellness routine might actually be deciding what time you stop being available for things that can wait. And that time will be different for you than it is for me, than it is for the next person. It can even be different from day to day, depending on your life. You may work evenings, you may have other caregiving responsibilities. I'm not suggesting everybody can shut everything off at seven o'clock. But look for what is within your control. Could one message wait until the morning? Could you close the laptop instead of leaving it open or turn the phone off instead of looking at it? Put it on Do Not Disturb after a certain hour. Could you write down what needs to happen tomorrow so you don't keep rehearsing it in your head? Try giving yourself a clear ending of your day. I've talked before about how I like to write everything down that I need to do for the next day, the night before. It's part of how I end my day so that I can rest well. And it's also part of how I wake up fresh and focused. Now, something as ordinary as putting your dishes away or changing clothes or turning on a lamp can actually help mark you moving into this different part of your day. It won't solve a sleep disorder, but it might help you stop adding work to the hours you meant to use for rest and actually help you have better rest. There's a quieter part of this too that matters. When do you get to hear yourself? If you go from conversation to podcast to television to phone, you can spend the whole day taking in something. I am very good at this. So I consciously choose moments to not do this because I will listen to podcasts all day, catch up on the news, catch up on the financial reports, the stocks, the this, the that. I will be listening to an audio book. I will have conversations with people all day long. I will be researching on the computer a lot. And by the end of the day, it can be very easy for me not to have had any quiet time in my so I consciously choose those moments, those time periods that I get that. Whether it's driving around the car a little bit longer, just in the quiet and allowing that to just settle in before transitioning from home to work, or whether it is walking the dog and saying, nope, no earbuds, no conversation. I'm just going to go out and be present with you, nature, and so on. Whatever it is for you, sometimes you need a little space where there isn't another voice telling you what to do. Otherwise, how will you be able to recognize that something's really bothering you and process through that before letting it turn into some big thing that pops up later where you're short with somebody or it turns into a resentment if you don't have the quiet, the moments with yourself to do so. A few minutes can give you a chance to really check in. You might sit quietly with your morning drink. I've talked about this before. I start my day with at least a few quiet moments with my warm lemon water, and it's my check-in. You might go outside for parts of your day, whether it's 10 minutes at lunchtime or with the dog walking, whatever it is, and get that there. Or sit quietly somewhere and just take a few comfortable breaths, asking yourself, what do I need before I start the next thing? You don't have to force deep breathing or do a complicated technique. It's just a break. It's just a pause that feels comfortable. And if you have people around you that are used to having instant access to you, you are very likely going to need to explain what you're doing a little bit or tell them something as simple as saying, hey, I need 10 minutes, then I can talk. This can be surprisingly hard to say, especially for women. Especially if you spent years being the person who answers right away. But people can't know what you need if you never tell them. Now, we need to talk about something that wellness advice often skips. What comes out of your schedule? Because if your day is genuinely full, which for most of us it is, we can't keep adding walks, quiet time, movement, and earlier bedtimes without making some decisions. Maybe there's something you can stop doing. Maybe something can just happen less often. Or you need help with something that you've been doing all by yourself. It could be a commitment that maybe you just don't want to do anymore. You've outgrown it, or it's too much, or it just doesn't fit. Maybe it could be the amount of time that you spend on a task because you keep trying to get it exactly right and you're stuck in that perfectionism trap. Or it could be an evening habit that takes an hour without giving you much back. And don't assume that everything that has to go is going to be everything that you enjoy. It's not the case. You need enjoyment. If seeing a friend gives you something important, don't automatically cut that out so you can get more work done or get a walk-in and call it taking care of yourself. Look honestly at the time. Could you still see that friend and combine it with the walk? Would that work? What leaves you glad you did it and feeling better? What do you keep doing mainly because you've never reconsidered anything else? Some responsibilities cannot simply disappear. I a hundred percent get that. I've been in the trenches as a single parent, caring for a parent, keeping a business going. I get it. If you're caring for a child, a parent, or somebody who else who is unwell, there may genuinely be very little flexibility. Then the conversation may need to be about support. Where are you getting support from? How can you get some support? Who could take one part? What could be what could be made easier? Do you need a system that can make things easier? Is there somebody you need to ask directly? You may not get all the help you want or need, but trying to create a wellness routine while ignoring the amount of responsibilities you have will only get you so far. So I don't want this to be unrealistic. This needs to be realistic for you. And this is some of the work we'll be doing at this Saturday's midlife reset experience. We'll look at what is working and what isn't. You'll have time to think about the areas of your life that actually do need attention. Instead of trying to squeeze in moments like that to figure things out while you're doing other things like working or answering messages or taking care of somebody else, it's really hard when you don't give yourself the space to figure it out. There's going to be breath work and movement and guided activities. They'll all help you sort this out. Figuring out what you need to do, what might need to change, and how to even begin. And then we'll put it into a plan. You're going to leave with your blueprint that's personal to you to carry you through the end of the year. It was really important to me when I created this day that that very practical piece was included. You can have a lovely experience doing something and going to a workshop and feel inspired when you leave and still go home with no idea of how to use it on Monday and how to implement everything. So I want you to leave knowing what you're choosing and where it could actually fit in your life. And we'll talk about what might get in the way too. Because you're going to go home to the same responsibilities you had when you arrived. The plan needs to account for those. Whether you're joining us on Saturday or doing this on your own, there's one adjustment I would also encourage you to make. Have a version of your routine for a demanding day. We all have them. We have those days that where we just get derailed. It's just overly demanding. So say you've decided to walk after lunch. On a day when you have room, maybe you take the longer walk you enjoy. But on a packed day, maybe a day that's easily derailed, perhaps you go out for the shorter one, even if it's only five minutes. And that's the deal you have with yourself. And if the weather makes all of this completely impractical, what will be your alternative? Have a plan ahead of time. Decide what you're going to do. Will you walk at your desk? Will you stand and march? Will you stretch? What will be the alternative so you just don't eliminate it entirely? The same thing applies to your evening. Maybe your usual plan includes a shower, some quiet time, and getting to bed at a certain hour. And then all of a sudden you have a late appointment or a family situation. What can you still do? You can put the phone away and maybe you can get yourself to bed without adding yet another hour of more to do. You can adjust without abandoning the whole thing. And be honest about what a shorter practice can do. A few minutes of movement won't provide everything a fuller exercise routine is going to give you, of course. But it can help keep the movement available on a day when the longer option doesn't fit. It can help prevent you from losing the gains that you've already gotten from your exercise efforts. It can help you release stress. It can do a lot of things, even for that shorter, modified, simpler routine. It can help you stay healthy, keep yourself well. And approaching things this way makes it easier to work with your schedule as your schedule changes. And it will. I also want you to check whether the routine you're trying to keep belongs in your life right now. You may still be measuring yourself against something that you did 10 or 20 years ago. You have a different schedule now. Your body might be different now, different responsibilities. Or maybe you're borrowing a routine from somebody you saw online whose day is not. Nothing like yours. She may have help you don't have. Good chance she's doing it for a living. You don't need to arrange your morning around somebody else's video. What matters is whether your choices are helping you. Are you getting a chance to move? Are you allowing enough opportunity to rest? Do you have any space to settle between demands? And is the way you've arranged it realistic enough to repeat? Those questions are more useful than whether your routine looks impressive. And if something consistently doesn't happen, investigate it. Get curious. Ask yourself why. Maybe the timing is wrong. Maybe it requires more preparation and you just haven't accounted for all of that. Maybe it's more complicated than you really are prepared for it to be right now. Maybe you don't even actually enjoy the activity you chose. That really matters. You want to enjoy it. If you're not really crazy about the walk that you planned, could you change the route? Or could you listen to something you enjoy or walk with somebody else? If quiet meditation is frustrating the heck out of you, it does often with people in the beginning, especially. Perhaps a few minutes outside or gentle movement done quietly would be a better, more accessible starting point for you. You can make choices for the things that you need within the life that you have, the body you have. Let's put all this together for the week. Take out your calendar or a piece of paper and look at one of your ordinary days. Choose the point where you most need some support. Maybe it's in the middle of the workday because you barely moved yet. Maybe it's arriving home because you go straight into taking care of everyone else. Or it's the evening because you never quite stop. Choose one thing that you can place there. Be specific enough that you'll recognize the moment. After lunch, I'll walk for 10 minutes. When I get home, I'll take a few minutes before I start dinner. At nine, I'll put the work away and begin getting ready for bed. Use whatever time and action makes sense for you. These are just examples. And then ask the question that often gets missed. What needs to change for me to make that possible? Do you need to plan to finish the task earlier or tell somebody? Or do you need to put something within reach? I will give you, for example, as the weather has changed, I have added some sweatpants, a little windbreaker, and a sweatshirt to my walking pile that has my sneakers, my socks, my bike shorts, or leggings or whatever. So it's all right there. I have a pile. Now keep it downstairs because sometimes I'll race in the door or sometimes I'll be in something else and I want to go. And it just makes it easier. I change very quickly out the door, I go. Not a problem. So whatever it is that you need when you have these things readily available to you, sometimes that can take one of the difficulties out of the mix and help you follow through. Another thing I'd like you to do is stop treating that time as available for every request. Make that adjustment too. Otherwise, you've written another intention without giving it anywhere to live. Try this over the next few days. Notice whether the time works. Notice what gets in the way. You don't need to evaluate your entire life every night. Just pay attention enough to make a useful change. Here's the question I will leave you with this week. If I keep waiting for my schedule to clear, how long am I willing to wait? That's a goodie, isn't it? If I keep waiting for my schedule to clear, how long am I willing to wait? Because the calendar may get quieter for a little while, but there will be another busy day, another busy moment, another busy season. I'd rather you have a way to take care of yourself during that planned out ahead of time. Something you can use on an ordinary Thursday when work ran late and you still have things to do. And if you know you would benefit from time away to work through all of this with some guidance, I would love to have you join us this Saturday, October 17th for the midlife reset experience. We're meeting from 10 to 4 at Massage Wellness and Beyond in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. You'll have a workbook, guided time to look at what you need, and you'll have support creating a practical plan that you can take home. It's a small group experience limited to 12 people, and registration is only 197. So you can visit Fredericadavis.com, click on the experiences tab for the details and registration information. I'll put the link in the show notes. If you're listening after October 17th, you can visit the website, see what's coming up next, join any of our wait lists for any of our future programs. And I know setting aside a day can feel like a lot when you've just likely told me as you were listening how full your schedule is. But look at what it would require. If it's workable for you, you're allowed to make that arrangement for yourself. And if this Saturday doesn't fit, please still use what we talked about today. Choose a place in your day where taking care of yourself can happen. Make whatever adjustment gives it a chance. I'd love to hear what you choose in the Limitless Living for Women Who Are Becoming Facebook group. I'll drop the link in the show notes and you can join right on my website, FredericaDavis.com. If somebody came to mind while you were listening to this today, share this episode with her. She might be in the same boat, just thinking to herself, gosh, let me just get through this week first. And if you haven't already given the show a rating or review, I would really appreciate it. It helps other people find the show. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. And until next time, be rooted, be resilient, and be limitless.