End of Year Overwhelm for High Achieving Women | Ep320

End of Year Overwhelm for High Achieving Women | Ep320

Vanessa: [00:00:00] Beginning October 1st, there are about 90-some days of the year left, and if you're anything like me, you've already mentally assigned about 300 things to them. And I'd bet very few of those 300 things actually belong for you.

You're listening to the Free To Be Mindful podcast, the space for high-achieving women who give their best to everyone and are ready to keep some of it for themselves. I'm Vanessa, licensed therapist, speaker, and mom coach. I know what it takes to build a life you're proud of without losing yourself in the process.

Each week, we get honest about ambition, identity, and the parts of ourselves that we quietly set aside. Here we go

Hello and welcome to episode 320 of the Free to Be Mindful podcast. I hope you're feeling good, looking good, and doing better in this world than you were yesterday.

So my birthday was last week, and every year it's the thing that kicks off the busiest stretch of my entire year.

And that is because a week after my birthday, then it's [00:01:00] my dad's birthday, followed by a couple days after it, my son's birthday. And then somehow October's also when half of my friend's kids' birthdays are also happening too. And I'm pretty sure that's because that holiday love from the year before starts catching up to all of us.

And then there's homecoming at my college, which, yes, I do go back to every year as a past homecoming queen.

And after that comes Halloween, Thanksgiving, my mom's birthday, all the holiday prep, the holidays themselves, and then my brother's birthday to close it out. And that's only in my personal life before I've even opened up any of the business calendars. Which on October first turns into Q4, the push to finish everything that we said the year was gonna be about.

And today we're talking about what the season asks of us at work and in our personal lives.

And I'll start with the part of Q4 that most people seem to have figured out already. I have so much admiration for the people who are already done, or even just started thinking about [00:02:00] holiday shopping. and then every December, They're the ones relaxing with a cup of hot chocolate while the rest of us are in a store a couple days before the holidays hunting for one thing on our kid's list that's probably sold out everywhere, or is that just me?

So maybe these folks are onto something, and I'm not ready to join them just yet, but I do see them.

And since you're listening to this, I am guessing that you're a high-achieving woman, which means you're getting everything the calendar brings all of us, plus a whole second long list from work.

And Q4 has its own rhythm, right? There's the year-end reviews maybe, where you have to write about yourself in a way that sounds impressive without sounding braggadocious.

And then there are the annual numbers that you're trying to hit while someone else is already asking for next year's budget, so you're finishing this year while building next year all at the same time. 

And for insurance, there's open enrollment, which is maybe a work task, but also a family decision that follows you [00:03:00] home.

And then maybe you have the PTO that you've been saving up all year for, and now you have to use it or lose it, and you haven't found one week in all of these months where it even feels possible.

And if you work in an office, there's a good chance that someone's already asked you to help plan that holiday party.

And then if you run your own business, Q4 is the push to close out the year's numbers and get ready for tax season, which I'm sure nobody would call festive.

So we've got two sprints here starting in the same week, and what makes it heavier is that each side, work and home, only sees half of it.

The people at work see us hitting deadlines and have no idea that we were up until 11:00 the night before gluing a costume together.

And then the people at home see us planning Thanksgiving and have no idea that there's a performance review due on Friday.

And then for those of us who own a business, it can even be quieter since there's no coworker down the hall to notice anything, only clients who get a quick [00:04:00] reply to their email at all odd hours of the night.

We, me and you, are the only ones who see the whole picture, which means that most of the time we're the only ones who are carrying all of it.

And part of why Q4 feels so heavy is that it's when promises we made at the beginning of the year are due.

And I'll admit, I don't do the January thing the way most people do it. I look at my year in four quarters, and then my new year, my personal new year, starts now since my birthday was just last week. So while everyone else is heading into the last quarter, I'm kind of at the start of mine.

But regardless, whenever we set our goals, most of us feel the pressure to start fresh on a Monday or in January.

And social media fills up our screens with vision boards and word-of-the-year posts, and it starts to feel as though if we didn't name our goals for the entire year by January 2nd, that we're already behind, which is so far from the truth.

But regardless of that, [00:05:00] we write them down, we mean every word, and then life happens for the next nine months.

Now we're here, walking into Q4, and I do wanna ask you something. How are you feeling about those goals now? Maybe there's a goal on that list that feels like someone else wrote it, someone else completely different. Because the woman who said it in January didn't know yet what this year was going to bring.

Or maybe there's one that you forgot about completely until I just said the word goals a minute ago, and you felt that little drop in your stomach. I know that feeling all too well.

Whatever it was that came up for you there, just hold onto it for a second, because that's what we're working with next.

When we feel that drop, our instinct as high-achieving women is to push harder. We look at three months that are left and start doing some crazy math, as if getting up an hour earlier and working through weekends, then you start thinking, "Well, maybe I can get all of it done so that the year counts." [00:06:00] And we try to do that math in the busiest quarter of the year with two sprints already running, and then it sucks the life out of us. But yet, we push harder.

And I want to give you permission to do something completely different first, and that is to stop and take a breath, and then to look at your list and ask of yourself, " Which of these goals even fit?

Goals change because we change, and a goal that made complete sense back in January can stop making sense by mid-March. Forget October. Without anyone doing anything wrong.

And one of the clearest ways to tell how you feel about the goal is imagining yourself crossing it off the list without finishing it, and imagining that nobody would judge you for it, and you wouldn't be letting anyone down. Imagine what that feels like. And if what you feel is relief, then that tells you [00:07:00] a lot. 

Sometimes the only thing keeping a goal on our list is worrying about what people would think of it if we dropped it.

And another way to tell if it maybe shouldn't be there anymore is how long you've been avoiding it. If a goal has been on your list since the spring and you feel a flash of guilt every time you see it, that avoidance is usually telling you something about the goal itself.

And some goals don't need to go anywhere, but maybe they do need a new shape. Maybe the goal was a book a month, let's say, right? And you've just read three all year. Keep the part of the goal that you loved, which was ending the day with a few quiet pages before going to bed. Let the goal be smaller. 

So before October really gets going, look at your list and sort it into what you'll finish this year, and then what moves on next year with no judgment, and what you're done [00:08:00] carrying.

As high-achieving women, we're so used to measuring ourselves by what we finish, that letting a goal go can feel as though we're failing at it. But some of the time it may mean that we've simply outgrown it, or we've grown into someone that the old goal just doesn't fit anymore. And making that type of call on purpose is the kind of decision that we'd respect in anyone else. So why not start trying it on for yourself?

And if you're hearing all of this and you're thinking that you'd like some support through this season, I do work privately with high-achieving women who give their best to everyone else and are ready to give some of that to themselves. You can find that information in the link in the show notes.

So before we wrap up, I want you to take a couple of moments just for you. If your calendar is nearby, go ahead and open it as you're listening, and if you're driving or walking or multitasking, just picture it in your head instead.

Look at the next few weeks with everything [00:09:00] that's already on those little boxes. And find one block of time that's going to be all yours. It's not to catch up on something else, but it's just time for you. And it doesn't need to be a big block of time. It can be half an hour on a Saturday morning or 15 minutes in the car before you walk into the house. For me, it's usually the time once everybody else has gone to bed. And now think about what you're actually going to do with this small chunk of time. Be specific as you can. Whether it's a walk without your phone or a cup of coffee while it's still hot and nobody needs anything from you.

And we need to be specific about this, and we need to name it, because if we leave it vague, that time has a way of just turning into folding laundry or catching up on an email or emptying that closet that we said we were gonna do and we haven't done in three years

 And when you do find that time, put it on the calendar the same way you'd put a meeting with a client or a deadline at [00:10:00] work. And if someone asks for that time later, tell them it's taken, it's filled, and do not give up that time because you deserve it. That way, when the season gets loud, it'll be right there on your calendar waiting for you.

Vanessa: And if you feel as though you need accountability, feel free to shoot me a DM @counselorvdejesus and tell me what is that time for you? What are you going to do with that time? And I will check in on you.

So as I start my own personal new year, the week after my birthday now, and walk into the busiest stretch of the calendar year, i'm going to let go of the idea that everything at home has to be done and look a certain way and be put away before I get that small chunk of time for myself. And as I'm taking out some time for me, I'll be over here cheering on you early holiday shoppers from a safe distance.

Thank you so much for tuning in. Please share this with a friend who needs this [00:11:00] message. And as always, remember, in a world where you are free to be anything, you are always free to be mindful. Catch you next time. ​