Hello my friends and welcome to another episode. I'm so excited you are here. If you were here last week, we started talking all about where burnout comes from and, well, not really burnout where the productivity culture and all of the different ways in which we have been conditioned to believe that we have to work our little booties off all the time.
And I sort of wanted to do that as a precursor to discuss something that I've recently done and sort of my thought. Process behind it and sort of, I dunno how it's been going for me. Uh, 'cause I think I'm learning a lot of lessons and it might be illuminating to some of you. It might be helpful. So I wanted to talk about how I have decided to take Fridays and Mondays off in my business.
So the goal is to only work Tuesday through Thursday, which is kind of the dream, and to have basically four day weekend, every weekend. Um, and I wanted to talk about this, like I said, for. A lot of reasons and a lot of things that were [00:01:00] fascinating to me when I made this decision. Um, because I think it really relates to burnout and productivity and how we think.
And I think if you, if you haven't listened to last week's episode, I would highly recommend listening to it. But I wanted, one of the things that was interesting about this decision for me is that like I have done a lot of this work on burnout, on teaching it, on learning about productivity, on really. Uh, working against this hustle culture.
I'm not new to this. I've been doing it for a lot of years and I've been actively working on. Uh, deprogramming. I don't know if you know Uncondition. What are the words? I don't get it. Like getting, freeing my own mind from the beliefs that were sort of rooted in me. And I know that that is a very imperfect practice.
I realize that I likely will never get away fully from what this culture kind of has steeped in every. Aspect of our culture of overworking and over productivity and proving your [00:02:00] worth. There's just no escaping it. And part of what I wanted to talk about today is that like there isn't a need for perfection.
We don't have to do this perfectly. We just have to start figuring out where can we make some changes. And so I say this to say that like, I have been doing this work and yet. Every time I do something new, it is so difficult for me. It is so hard, even though I know why I wanna do it or why I should do it, or, you know.
How all the other stuff is kind of BS that was fed to me. I still run up against so many mental blocks and I wanna sort of normalize that because I think that there is this belief in self-help or personal development that there is a place where you can just quote, unquote, heal yourself or you just kind of get rid of these, um, things that have been holding you down and then you're gonna ride off into the sunset.
And live this merry happy life. And it doesn't work that way, unfortunately. I still think that it is absolutely worth [00:03:00] it because you can make such big differences in your life, but you sort of will always be butting up against whatever ceiling you've created for yourself and then you, you sort of move that ceiling of what's possible.
You're like, well, maybe I could do this, or maybe I can do that. And then you get to the next ceiling and you start butting up against that. And that's okay. That's not like. You did something wrong or like, I think a lot of times I hear from my clients like, why can't I just remember this? Or Why can't I just let this go?
And it's like, because you have a human brain and you've believe you've practiced one belief for so long and it's been seeped in so many things that you don't even notice, like so many things that you don't even realize that of course you're not gonna just let it go. And that's okay. So I sort of wanted to give you guys this example.
Because I also think that on social media, like I talked about this on social media, that I was gonna do this. And I think a lot of things can look really like, oh, it's so beautiful and wonderful and that, what a great decision and how fun. Of course, everybody's on board like, wow, Fridays and Mondays, that's the dream, but that's [00:04:00] never the reality.
The reality is always so much messier and murkier and um, not as pleasant. And so I wanted to share that part of this kind of journey, uh, with you guys. Okay, so. Just like by way of background of how this came about, this was actually a super random decision for me. This wasn't something that I planned ahead and I've been planning for months now that might have been smarter.
Maybe I would've prepared myself better. Uh, usually not my ammo. What I've realized about my brain and what I teach everybody is like, you just have to learn how your brain works. My brain is. Either I'll rum about, ruminate about something for months, or I'll just be like, all right, we're doing this.
There's no in between. There's no like, let's think about it for a little bit of like, you know, a normal period of time and just act and make a plan. Nope, I'm either jumping the gun and being like, we're just gonna try it. We're gonna throw it against the wall, see what happens. Or I'm like, let me obsess about this for two years and never make a move.
And those are the [00:05:00] two modes that I have, and I'm okay with that. It is what it is. That's how my brain works and we love her for it. Um. With this, what was fascinating is that I've been talking a lot on the podcast, if you've been listening, that like I'm in this season of transition and I've been really thinking about what is next and what do I wanna do with this business, and where do I want it to grow.
Do I want it to grow? Do I wanna do something else? And so I've been thinking a lot about what I want in my life and what I don't want. And one of the things that I did really want more of is just a little bit more space for myself. And I think that, I'm sure that's something that most people want, especially, um, actually for everybody.
It doesn't matter what your situation is, everybody wants more space. I know for me it's, I actually do have more space, I think, than most people because I. I, I've created that. I've delegated a lot of things. I've eliminated a lot of things. I'm a lot better at saying no, I'm a lot better at doing things that I wanna do, even if other people don't understand.
And yet, [00:06:00] I think motherhood just comes with a level of like, your life is not yours for a little while. Um, and your time is not yours. Um, you add a business to that, you add a marriage to that, you add family to that, and it's just, you know, there's just always gonna be things that are calling for your time and your attention, and that's okay.
But I was realizing that like, I don't think burnout is the right word, but I was getting to this place of like. Even when I'm doing a lot of fun things, like with the kids and stuff, there's just my tension and my focus and my time is very spread out on everything else, um, outside of me. And there isn't really a lot of time for like the things that I wanna do.
And even on the weekends, even though I have space for rest, a lot of it is spent either with family or doing chores. You know, doing the stuff for the upcoming week, grocery shopping, whatever, meal planning, all of that stuff. And I just. Really sat with like, what am I craving more of? What do I need more of?
And part of my thought process was like, [00:07:00] well, maybe I don't wanna have this business because I want X, Y, and I want more time for whatever. And so I started challenging that and thinking like, well, if you want more time, how do you get more time? Right? How do we make that work? And. I sort of very randomly was like, well, what if I just don't work Fridays and Mondays?
And I will say this, I have sort of slowly worked up to this in the sense that like a couple years ago, maybe a year or two ago, I decided that I would no longer schedule calls on Mondays and Fridays. And so all of my calls are between Tuesdays and Thursdays. And I did this so that like Fridays and Mondays.
Um, really are just my own schedule of like what I wanna do on admin time. So if like I do have to take half a day, or if we're on vacation and I'm gonna, you know, usually if I'm gonna go away for like a longer weekend, it's one of those days I'm gonna miss. It won't be as hard to like, reschedule things.
It's really just the things I need to get done on my own it. Um, and so I'd already sort of blocked that off and. I'd already gotten used to, like, [00:08:00] there were a lot of weekends where we take like a longer weekend to go on a trip to go see family. So, you know, I, I'm not new to this of like taking a Friday off, taking a Monday off, and I'd sort of really loved creating my business in a way that that was possible.
But one of the things that I've noticed is that I had create, I have a belief about myself. That I am not productive and that I need a lot of time to do things. Um, I don't particularly like, like sitting my booty in the seat from eight to five. Like I'm someone that like, just needs space within every day.
And so I had sort of convinced myself that like I would rather give myself. Six hours instead of three hours because it lets me kind of procrastinate in the middle of it. It lets me get up and go, you know, get a snack or go for a walk. And it allows, like I. Like that time more than I would where it's like three hours of like sit down and do work for three hours straight.
I have a really hard time focusing like that. I also even felt like it throughout the book. I [00:09:00] would think I would rather work four hours a day and work five days a week than, you know, bring it down to three days a week where I'm working, let's say eight hours a day. Or something like seven hours a day or something.
Um, and so I had sort of decided that, and I did like working like that. I do like working like that. I think if all things considered, like I do like having more spaciousness every day. I have a hard time like going hard and then resting hard. Like I have, I need more of like things in smaller bits. And so that is how I generally work better.
But one of the things I had to reckon with was. Okay, but can you work another way? Like you don't love it, it's not your favorite, but you do want more spaciousness. And what I was realizing is when I have things kind of spread out, there's never really. Longer pockets a period of time for me to do things that might require more time, right?
For me to leave the house and, you know, go for a hike or whatever it might be. Um, it was more of like, okay, I have an hour between this call [00:10:00] and the next call. Maybe I'll just scroll my phone or I'll go get, make a snack, but I'm not gonna leave the house. And I was realizing like, I'm stuck in the house five days a week.
I'm feeling really kind of like, um. Uh, there's no word in English. There's a word in Farsi, but like, it's not, it's not like, I don't know how to explain it. Stir crazy. Maybe like I'm in the house and I'm kind of stir crazy. Maybe that's the best way of saying that word. And so I was like, well, if I wanna, if I'm craving more of like being out in the world and doing things that might take a couple hours, it might take three or four hours for me to like.
Go down to the beach and go for a walk and come back. Um, how do I create that for myself? And so I really had to like reckon with this belief I had about myself that like, I can't do things in a shorter period of time. And I just had to question like, is that true? And of course it's not true because I've spent.
The majority of my life in a society that required me to sit for very, you know, um, pressured amounts of time and do work like whether it was in school or whether it was working as a lawyer, I clearly can sit for eight hours and do the work I need to [00:11:00] do. I just choose not to. And, um, I was realizing like, well, I can make another choice and I can try it this way.
I can see that like maybe I won't like those three days as much because I've, I'm then now cramming everything into those three days. And so it will require me to be more productive. It will require me to do a lot more work on those days, but maybe that will be worth it because then I will have Fridays and Mondays to myself, like when the kids are in school, um, where maybe I won't be doing chores and I really have the time to kind of leave the house and do things like maybe it'll make it worth it.
Now, here's. The most important part about that is I don't know if it'll be worth it until I try it. I might try this and be like, nah, I actually hate this. I cannot do the three days of like eight hours sitting in a seat. Like it makes me my skin crawl and I would rather spread it out over five days and so we're gonna go back to the other way.
Fine. At least I know, right? What was exciting about this is it was like, well this could be exciting 'cause this could up open up a lot more for me. So I [00:12:00] guess I'll just give it a try. Like it really was just more of like, huh, let's just experiment with this. Maybe it'll be exciting to have full days off.
Right? Um, and I just did it. I didn't really like, make a huge plan for it. I didn't really make, I, I should have probably planned more, but I was just like, oh, let's try this experiment for a couple weeks and see what happens. Um. That's all to say. The second thing that I've sort of learned about this or myself, and I think maybe what's different with me than other people is that I never expected to kind of be perfect at it from the beginning.
So it wasn't like I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this, and then the first Friday or Monday that gets there and. I realize I forgot to do something and I have to do 30 minutes of an email. I don't like go into a tailspin of beating myself up, of like, see, I know you can do it. I knew we just don't have the capacity to not do any work, and we never remember things like, I just don't engage in that anymore.
I'm just like, [00:13:00] oh yeah, I totally forgot about this. I probably should have planned a little bit better. All right, we'll try again next week. And I didn't make it something that's like, again, all or nothing. It was like, okay, well. I can't take the whole Friday off because I have to do this one project, but like that's an hour.
I still have most of the Friday off, right? It's still like we're getting 80% there. Maybe we're not a hundred percent. Could that be okay? And I say this because I think for so many people that I coach, unlike time management, or they're starting trying a new calendar thing or whatnot, it's like, well, I tried it and I just wasn't able to do it.
And it's like, okay, well what parts, why? What worked, what didn't work? Can you try again? Can you keep trying until you're able to do it? All of this stuff is just growing your capacity for a new skill. And that skill isn't just like innate in you. It's not born in you. Um, and so I just, even in the last couple weeks that I've been doing it, I've literally messed up probably every week at some point.
Um, and some of it I just wasn't [00:14:00] able to because I didn't plan it out well. Not that I didn't plan it out well, but I'm just saying I didn't plan it and so I was like, oh, you know, like this week I'm actually taking like a Thursday off because I have to go on to a conference or so like obviously I'm gonna work that Monday.
Okay. You know, like we're moving things around. It's totally fine. I think that when I give myself that level of like flexibility of like, this is gonna be a work in progress and there's gonna be a lot of times that I mess this up. And I'm still working towards that. I'm working towards a place where I can block off my Fridays and Mondays and know that those are gonna be kind of.
Um, sacred and I'm gonna get to do whatever I want. And I will say this, like even if we look at this from another perspective of me, like failing my way forward is like, even when I have those days off, I'm not really doing all of these like, incredible things that I thought I was gonna be doing or these incredible things that I want to do with my time.
Like I'm still getting used to it. So I find myself like, well, let me just finish doing this chore. Or I just end up scrolling for like an hour and I'm like, wasn't I supposed to leave the [00:15:00] house? All of that's okay. Like it's progress over perfection. Every time I'm just like, Hey, can I start blocking off these days?
Can I take it off? Mostly part of it is me lying to myself. I'm like, well, I'll just do this one email and I have to catch myself. And I'd be like, no. Why do you have to do it right now? Like, why can't this state for next week, what thought do you have about that? Because it's like, well, they're expecting it and I don't want them to be mad at me, and I just wanna get it done and it will feel better if it's done.
And I have to battle all those thoughts to be like, no. It's okay if it feels bad, it's okay if it, you know, we're not gonna fall into this trap because then it's never truly done. Then there's always something else that you can do that will feel better for it to be done before next week. And then we don't get the rest that we want.
And so I'm sitting and looking at like, what is my brain telling me? Like what are the thoughts that keep coming up? 'cause until you're actually doing it, those thoughts don't come up. And then when you're doing it, it's like. There's a, your brain's really tricky, really good at this, where it's like, oh, that seems like a really rational thought.
I really should get this done. And you have to sort of [00:16:00] catch yourself and be like, Nope, co, we decided we're not doing this anymore. Right. And I say this because like, okay, I'm doing it with Fridays and Mondays, and that sounds, I'm. Beautiful and wonderful people do this with like, like I said, like in the last episode, like taking 30 minutes to lay down in the middle of the day, or like an hour, you know, nap.
Let's say you really want rest, and you're like, what? I'm gonna start implementing and you can do this, like implement one slow thing where it's like. Saturday mornings, I am not gonna do anything but sit with my coffee and read for the first hour. That's what I wanna do to kind of ease into my weekend.
That sounds really like luxurious and glorious to me, and so I'm gonna implement that. Great. You're gonna fail a lot of Saturdays if that. And it sounds like such a simple thing. It sounds like it should be easy to just sit and read and have a cup of coffee, but you're gonna try it and then like your kids are gonna want something and you're gonna be like, you know what, it's just easier for me to get up and, you know, make these pancakes real quick, or it's just gonna be easier for me to get up and, you know, put that laundry in the.[00:17:00]
Um, washer so that it's done later, whatever the thing might be. And you're gonna have to get, catch yourself to be like, no, it's not easier because then, then this pattern never ends. So it's going to be me saying like, no, I can't get you those pancakes right now. You can eat something else, or you can wait an hour, or, you know, whatever the, the case may be.
And it's going to be constant practice. And iteration, constant reevaluation of like even for the smallest things, truly like it's crazy that you think. I should be able to just like, sit on my couch without my brain screaming at me and, you know, watch a show. But when you're not used to that, rest feels like shit because your brain is just screaming at you the whole time to be like, get up.
Don't do this. You, we have so much to do, whatnot. And you have to like, let that be there and decide like, no, we've decided we're taking today off, and so I'm gonna let it yell at me and I'm not even gonna enjoy it. I'm not gonna get to have this like wonderful resting time, [00:18:00] but I'm gonna train my brain that it's safe to do this, that it's fine.
Nothing's gonna happen. The world is not gonna collapse. And the more I do that, the more my brain will kind of calm down and then I will be able to enjoy it. And so. I say this because like right now, when I'm going through it, it's so funny, like if I say this on social media, it's like, of course taking Friday and Monday seems like the dream, but it's not.
I'm in the middle of like, this sort of sucks. 'cause my brain's just yelling at me with like, we have so much to do. Are you insane? We can't just start this now on a whim. Okay, let's just start with one day. Let's just do Fridays. Like let's take off Mondays. 'cause it's too anxiety written into not work on Mondays when other people are emailing us.
And I have to constantly combat that. And be like, I know it feels like crap right now. We're still not gonna work. I don't care if we just sit here and scroll all day. We're not gonna work 'cause we're gonna teach ourselves that it's okay to not work these days. That it's okay to like leave everything that you will get it done, that you have the capacity to get it done, that you have the ability to get it done Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Like I have to [00:19:00] retrain all of the beliefs I have about what I can get done and what I can't get done and how much I can create in that time. And so I want you to know that, um, a lot of this won't be fun in the beginning, even if it sounds like a fun thing, right? Like another example I can give is like, people wanna let maybe have more fun in their lives, and so they wanna create, um.
More girls nights, let's say with your friends, or you wanna go on your first girls trip. I know I had this problem when I first went. It sounds so wonderful. It's so amazing and it's gonna be so fun. But then as you're going, your brain is screaming like you shouldn't really leave the kids. You're kind of a bad mom for doing that.
What is everyone gonna think about you? Who do you think you are? And you're gonna have to battle those thoughts. And then even when you're going, you're gonna feel guilty and you're gonna be like, is this, I'm causing so much? You know, um, more work for everybody else. I need to like tag in all these people in the village to kind of help me make this two or three days work.
You know, my husband now has [00:20:00] all this extra work, whatever it might be, and you start convincing yourself that like you're a bad mom or you're a bad wife, or you're a bad person or whatever, you shouldn't do this. And so I think a lot of people think like, well, I wanted to go on a girl trip and it was supposed to be fun.
But it's not even fun, so I shouldn't do it. But the reason it's not fun is because you haven't created the new beliefs yet. You don't have that new identity yet as someone who leaves and takes care of themselves and fills their own cup and takes some time off, and it is worth it. It's just that you have to sort of get through this muck.
You have to get through this, these thoughts that are gonna feel terrible until you get to the place where you're like, I love leaving. It's so much better for me. It's so much better for my kids, so much better for my husband. Everybody benefits. And I don't feel guilty 'cause I left and I came back and I saw they were fine and nothing happened and I don't need to be there all the time.
And that's actually a really liberating and freeing thing. And so you wanna sort of like. Understand just before you go into something like this, like when you are choosing to take time off, when you're choosing to reduce your burnout, [00:21:00] it is going to feel crappy in the beginning. It's gonna be feel crappy to say no to people or to disappoint people or to, uh, take time for yourself because you were trained to believe that you aren't worth taking that time or who are you to deserve that?
Or you should, other people don't get to do this, so why should you be allowed to, right? And you, it it's gonna take, um, more time than you think to overcome those beliefs. The last thing I will say about kind of this decision for myself and what I've learned from it is what was fascinating about how this decision came about is I've seen a lot of people take Fridays and Mondays off.
Um, in my industry, in the coaching industry, I've watched a lot of people talk about having kind of three day work weeks, and I don't know why I honestly wasn't even conscious about this. I had always thought like, oh, that sounds amazing for them. I just did not think it was possible for me. Like it wasn't even that, like I was like, oh, I wanna do this, but I can't.
It just wasn't a belief that that was available, and [00:22:00] I don't know why, because I work for myself like. It has been possible for a really long time. I just never allowed myself to believe that because for whatever reason, I bought into this belief that we have to work five days a week, which is completely made up, completely just a fabrication of someone's thought at some point, and we've all just followed it along.
And what was fascinating for me was like. I remember over the summer when I made this decision on a whim, it was just a flip, like a light switch, where I was like, why don't I try this? And it was, it was so weird. 'cause I was like, how have I never thought about this? It was like as if this thought came for the first time, even though I've seen plenty of people.
Of course I knew it was a possibility, but I was like, huh. Could I just not work Fridays and Mondays? And when that, I mean, it was very obviously exciting because it was, it would solve some of the problems that I felt like I was having. Um. But it was interesting for me to really like [00:23:00] reflect on why did I not think this was available.
Now, part of it was what I talked about in the beginning that like I thought my brain works a certain way, like I don't focus enough, so I don't have enough time really like to do it just in three days. I don't make enough money. Like there's always this, like once I get to there, like once I have a big team and once I make this much money, then I can limit it once.
I'm not doing a lot of this stuff by myself, but I had to sort of like. Investigate that and be like, is that true? Could I do it with what I have now and still make more money and still grow my business and still do the things I wanna do? And um, it was interesting when I sort of got to this place where I was like, of course I could.
I'm just scared because it's gonna require some sacrifice and it's gonna require me to do things differently and it's gonna require me to deal with all these beliefs that are gonna come up and. Um, I'm gonna, it's gonna require me to like, deal with people's judgments. [00:24:00] Um, am I willing to do that? And for me, over the summer, I was, and I was like, you know what?
Let's just give it a try. Let's see what happens. And it's been a fascinating experience. I have not perfected it to say the least. I don't think I've had a single Friday, Monday where I've fully taken off, um, without having to like check an email or whatnot. But I'm getting there. I'm getting closer and I have proven to myself that I can mostly get everything done between Tuesday and Thursday.
There is a couple things, like I've been trying to create systems to be like, oh yeah, I forgot this last time. Like, make sure next week I don't forget this stuff. For the most part, I think I'm doing a okay job with it, but it it been interesting to think like what was just. What is something else that's just made up that I've sort of decided that this is the way it has to be, and it could be completely changed, but I just didn't even believe that that was possible for me.
Like what was interesting with this experiment for me is like, huh. There's so much that we're just randomly doing because people tell us we have to do, what else could I maybe not do that I [00:25:00] don't wanna do? Right? What else is just completely made up that I can change and do it the way that I want? Um, what else do I need in my life?
What else am I craving? What else is, you know, a problem? And so I, um, challenge you to do the same thing to really think about, like, I know for some of you, obviously you're employees and so you might not be able to take Friday and Monday off fine, but what else is there that you can do that maybe you've sort of.
Just accepted. 'cause you thought like, well this is just the way it is and it's like, is it, is it the way it is? Or is it just the way that you've always done it and now you wanna do something different? Right. Whether that's at home with your kids, with your family, whether that's how you spend your free time, whether it's something with business like maybe it's, I don't wanna answer emails until 10 o'clock, you know, or until I've done like until the afternoon and you've sort of decided that you can't do that.
Is it true that you can't. What are the actual consequences, right? Maybe it's just that you don't want people to like think badly of you, but you'd rather not be in your inbox until afternoon. So like you need to really answer the question of like, is it something that I possibly can [00:26:00] do? Maybe you wanna start like an hour later and you think you can't do that.
Is it true that you can't do it? Can you talk to your boss about it? Is it possible to shift the schedule? I think there's so much more possible, especially now online, like working from home, doing all these things that we don't really allow our brain to even think is possible. And so this is just a reminder to me that I am still sort of.
You know, swimming in this water of like nine to five and 40 hour work weeks, and I still sort of act like an employee even though it's my own business. And I'm slowly still dismantling like what that means and how do I wanna work. And I will say this, like, I don't even know if this experiment's gonna last.
I may realize like, you know what? I don't like doing it like this. I would rather work three or four hours a day and be done by noon. Maybe. I try that for a while. Um, I know a lot of people in, in this industry that I've, um, talked to, like, they like to like not start until 11 or 12 and then work, you know, until four maybe [00:27:00] if you don't have kids.
Like, there's just so many different ways of doing this. And I know with this it's just sort of opened me up to really think about like. What is it that I want? Um, what do I want more of and what can I do? I, it's all made up. It's all made up, all of it. Every rule that we follow is just made up. And sometimes it requires you to like really think outside of that box of like, if I wasn't gonna do it this way, what is one way that I would do it, that I would choose to do it?
And really just seeing like, is that a possibility? And maybe it's not. Maybe right now it's not a possibility. Maybe it's something you work towards. But that's what I got for you. I. I think if there's anything that I've learned from this is that, um, we get to just decide to try things. It doesn't have to be perfect.
It doesn't have to go the way you think it's supposed to go. Um, you can keep kind of working at it and you can decide to start it or stop it whenever you want. Nobody actually cares. Nobody is like, I think a lot of it's like, well, if I do this and then I have to go back to five days a week, [00:28:00] people are gonna judge me.
People are gonna judge you anyways, so you might as well just try something as an experiment, see if it works, and let it go. If it doesn't, right, like I'm very open to the fact that like, this may not work. I'm okay with that. I'll go back to doing however it was before, um, and maybe it will work and it'll be amazing and I'll get to work three days a week and that would be awesome.
Oh, the last thing I will say is I talk about this a lot with burnout with my peeps in the Quitter Club. And so this was just another example of it for myself. A lot of people tell me like, I can't not give a hundred percent. I can't not give 10 outta 10 I, you know, can't not overwork or whatnot because like, that's what the job requires.
And I get that. You think that, and I, this is a lot of times we have this conversation 'cause we talk about the standard that we hold ourselves to. Like I have to do things perfectly and I try to get people to, in my community, it's all about B minus work. And how can you do B minus work? I'm not gonna get into that here 'cause I know a lot of people are gonna have a lot of thoughts about it, but.[00:29:00]
That's sort of what I teach. And I always get people saying like, well, I can't because I work, you know, in healthcare, or I help people with this very serious issue or whatnot. And then I always ask people like, okay, but you are telling me you're gonna quit because you're burned out. You're telling me that you can't keep doing this anymore.
So the question becomes not, can I give 110% all the time? It's like. Uh, versus can I give 70%? It's like, can I give 70% versus giving 0%? 'cause I'm gonna quit 'cause I'm gonna leave. Like, do you wanna be in this industry and to keep helping people? If so, then you sort of have to change. Um. How you approach it, right?
You have to change what you're doing. I know for me, one of the reasons, one of the impetus that helped me start, like to think of this was that when I'm thinking about transition and I was thinking about like, well, maybe I do something completely different. One of the things that stopped me is like, well, I don't want to just completely let this go, and so what is it that I need that would allow me to keep doing this work?
To helping people [00:30:00] to like creating things that can. Create better lives for people. And part of it was like, well, I just need a little more space for myself. I need more space to like do things to even figure out what something else would be to figure out how I wanna impact the world. And so this kind of was born outta that, where I was like, well, I would rather work three days a week and keep this up and be able to do this and be able to show up the way that I want.
And still have time for myself, and still have time for my family, and still have time for all this other stuff. Then to give it completely up because I'm like, you know what? It's too much at this point. I've done it for seven years. I can't do it anymore. Um, and so that's sort of where this idea came up for me, where I was like, well, let's just try this with three days a week work and keep you in the game.
Um, and so we're trying to. We're out here trying it, my friends, and I hope that you try it as well. It doesn't have to be something as big as taking completely Fridays and Mondays off. Find one thing that you can do. Find one thing where it's like, like I said, I'm gonna pick one hour in the morning on a Saturday that I'm gonna keep for myself, [00:31:00] or I'm going to take my lunch break and I'm actually gonna eat my food away from my desk.
Or I'm gonna go for a walk after my lunch break every day so I can get outside or I'm gonna not answer emails. You get the point like. Pick a thing where it's like, this is the thing, I'm gonna stop working at six o'clock. I'm not gonna, um, you know, I'm gonna turn off my Slack notification at seven o'clock, whatever the thing is for you.
Pick one thing. Do it imperfectly. Just see how it works. See the thoughts that come up, work with those thoughts. Allow it to like be bad before it's good, and then watch how that slowly starts changing. How you see what's available to you, how you see how much more control you have over your life, how you create more space, how you get outta burnout.
Part of it is like a, like pushing yourself to do the uncomfortable thing to create the space that you need in your life. Okay, I hope this was helpful. I'll be back next week with another episode. Bye my friends.