In this episode Pam & Sarah discuss:

Links, Corrections, and Whatnot

The book Pam mentions is Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening by Joseph Goldstein.

Other Ways to Listen & Subscribe

APPLE PODCASTS

SPOTIFY

Transcript

This transcript was generated by AI so please ignore any weird errors. If there is anything really terrible, let us know.

Pam: , [00:00:00] …and it was like this situation where I’m my own boss and I’m a terrible boss, because I’m not letting myself take any downtime or have a vacation. And that has changed drastically for me over the last three years

{Intro music}

Sarah: My family and I went to Mexico and this is a kind of trip that we don’t typically take like a beach holiday. But we went and it was warm and we hung out by the pool and on the beach and ate lots of tacos and it was great. Good. Yeah, it was very much a stop working. Just be fully present in the vacation mode, so I really appreciated that.

Pam: So I was actually going to ask you a little bit about that and take a topic detour before we get into our normal check. Cause I was thinking about [00:01:00] how when I came to you for coaching , one of the things that I remember telling you was, . I can’t go on vacation or on a trip because I have overwhelming anxiety the whole time that I’m there, that I’m missing an email or I’m not gonna get back to someone in time, or shit’s gonna hit the fan and I’m not gonna be in front of my computer to deal with it.

Pam: And it was like, This situation where I’m my own boss and I’m a terrible boss, because I’m not letting myself take any downtime or have a vacation. And that has changed drastically for me over the last three years that now, I just went on this trip and our travel was completely screwed up by this storm.

Pam: We actually ended up having to leave a day early. So I. And the power went out at our Airbnb. So I had an entire day where I could not check my email if I wanted to. I was in airports and, all over, and it was super chaotic. So I had an entire day, a Tuesday [00:02:00] when I normally would’ve at least been checking in and making sure everything was going okay and I couldn’t do anything.

Pam: I didn’t check email and it was. I didn’t have the anxiety about it and it was such a night and day difference from my last trip before the pandemic it, we went to Chicago for the week and I was just like this the entire time and it was like just so stressful. And it was a night and day difference between those two trips.

Pam: So I, I wanted to have a quick chat about what is your experience with going on vacation as a self-employed person and how you deal with completely disconnecting and. , any tips or ideas even for people who aren’t self-employed, just like how do you take a break and not let work stress infiltrate?

Sarah: It’s such a great question and I wanna hear more about your journey and the steps that it took you to get to this place. But I would say I’ve had a few. like vacations that felt like real [00:03:00] vacations and they were really successful in that ways in that way. And then I’ve had other times when I’ve traveled and it hasn’t been successful and I thought, oh, I can do it.

Sarah: Remote working and it’s not a big deal to just pick up, a call or connect with a client while I’m away and it hasn’t felt reward. , so I think, and then this particular trip that we just went on over Christmas too, we said Okay, because we learned, my husband and I learned over the summer, we took a month long road trip and then I had ended up getting a client, a great client just before the trip.

Sarah: So we said we’ll keep going with the trip and I’ll just still do these calls and it will be fine. And it ended up being really stressful for me cuz I felt that I wasn’t doing my best work. But then I also. Fully able to enjoy the moment with my family. And then it also put Adam in a position where he was doing a lot more scrambling cuz we were moving from place to figure out, okay, we’ll get the kids out of the room at this time, where will we take them?

Sarah: Et cetera. [00:04:00] So a number of factors on that trip. We just thought we came back exhausted. and realized, oh, it was like one foot in work, one foot out, and then one foot traveling in a place that we didn’t even know where we were. . And so it wasn’t a, we had a lot of debrief conversations about that trip and realized it didn’t, we didn’t nail it.

Sarah: We didn’t nail that trip. And one of the things was, okay we should just stay home when we need to work . Yeah. And then when we travel completely. Give ourselves permission to not work. It sounds obvious, but it’s almost like another expression of. . It’s just a lack of boundaries and I think you’re, it’s so great what you’re saying, like as a self-employed person, it can feel so hard to have that.

Sarah: Similarly, working from home, sometimes I’m, I’m working, making dinner, chatting to the kids, not doing anything well, and then feel horrible. Yeah. I feel I didn’t [00:05:00] achieve anything and I wasn’t present, like I didn’t enjoy it to answer your question, I think I’m becoming a lot, it’s not perfect, but I’m becoming a lot more intentional about, okay, this is a hundred percent when I’m doing this, I’m working right now, or I’m not working.

Sarah: My computer’s downstairs, my phone is downstairs. I’m not attempting to fix something, chat with someone, do anything. And the same thing with vacations. It’s really like a mindset shift to say, okay, this is this time and that’s that time.

Pam: I like that you brought up boundaries because I think that is something that is really important, not just for self-employed people, though it is extremely important there, and not just for people who work from home, but just in general.

Pam: Even if you are an employee, being able to have that boundary that this is my vacation time, and it feels really scary, I think for a lot of people to do that. I know when I was an employee, if I took a day off, there was a lot of guilt around it and a lot of. You know that even if you are on vacation or [00:06:00] taking a day off, that you still have to keep up with what’s happening there because when you come back, you’re gonna have an inbox full of a million things and know, you might have dropped the ball on something.

Pam: And there was a kind one of the mindset shifts that I had really had to come around email because it’s constant, right? . Yeah. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, what day of the week it is, there’s always emails coming in and there was a lot of pressure to respond quickly and to be available because we can be, you can get email on your phone, you can, you don’t even have to have internet.

Pam: You have your cell phone service, like whatever. You can get email anytime. So we have this pressure to respond no matter what, and. The, I think the biggest shift for me was in realizing that no one is like sending you an email and then staring at their inbox and waiting for you to reply , like they’re sending it and you’re going to get back to them.

Pam: When you get back to them. [00:07:00] They’re not waiting, for your reply immediately, which sounds so silly, but it does feel that way that it, when you get an email, it’s I have to respond and no one is sitting there waiting for your reply to. . Yeah.

Sarah: Except for when they are.

Sarah: Sure. , when you’re, especially with like dms, right? Yeah. Anything Slack or any of these channels, when the messages are coming in, there’s an expectation often. I think that needs to be managed, but there can be an expectation to respond quickly right away. But the challenge with that is that energetically suddenly there you are.

Sarah: Yeah. So it’s never just, oh, one minute. , you’ve brought your whole system and all of your thoughts to this place of work.

Pam: Yeah. So communication then is how you handle that is like I, like these are my boundaries. I am out of the office and here is when I’ll get back to you, setting expectations of you.

Pam: You will get a reply from me, but it won’t be until this date. [00:08:00] Yeah. ,

Sarah: What did you, how did you journey then from somebody who had a really hard time turning off for vacations and now you’re able to do it guilt free? What was your,

Pam: There’s a lot that went into it. But I think the major steps were one, working with you on identifying my overachieving and perfectionistic tendencies because those two together made me need to be.

Pam: available constantly and need to be perfect in my communication and need to never let anyone down, which is what being late in responding felt like. Like I was letting people down. . But the other thing was priorities and figuring out do I actually care about this thing? And, that sounds bad to talk about. Do I actually care about this thing for my job? But you can’t care about your work 24 7 and your family 24, like you can’t have that as your top priority all the time. So it was like, in this moment, what is my priority and what do I care about [00:09:00] right now? And. is as soon as you shift that priority, you’re take, like you said, you’re taking the attention away from what you wanted to be focusing on.

Pam: So having that intention of what my pro, my priority was. And then the last thing I would say was

Sarah: just.

Pam: Knowing that I have systems in place, so I have a task list and I have things that I know X, Y, and Z still have to get done even when I’m out of the office and I have done those, I have checked the things that could go wrong. I can’t control anything else. .

Sarah: Yeah. So this isn’t about just being irresponsible.

Sarah: And just throwing it all to the wind. It’s about saying, I’ve, I’ve done what I can do and now I’m making a choice. Yeah. And I, okay. So I love that you brought up the overachieving and perfectionism, and I think that will be a great segue to our main topic for today. Yeah. But before we go there, I wanted to touch on your second point, which was [00:10:00] around, you said prioritization.

Sarah: And you said, we can’t care about, we cannot care about everything at one. . And something that came up for me when you said that is Yes, you’re right. And yet I think right now there’s this myth that, the myth has been around for a while, but I think during Covid and work from home, it’s grown, this idea of multitasking.

Sarah: Yeah. We can just do it. I can just have a conversation while I’m making a sandwich. Yeah. And that one might be possible. But the point is more, working while you’re getting things done at home, while you’re having a meeting while you’re driving. Yeah. Planning something while you’re, helping your kids with something, so I think that has become so, , like expected. For many of us. And sometimes that’s imposed on us from the workplace. Yeah. But the challenge is then, yeah, that’s normalized. And then how do we, the prioritization Also, what I was [00:11:00] thinking when you were describing that is about presence. It’s saying I’m gonna be fully present for this.

Sarah: I’m gonna be fully present. I’m here with my sisters and my mom in the Grand Canyon. Of course, I don’t wanna be, checking in on. Small work tasks, I wanna be fully here and enjoy it. Yeah. And that’s a, more significant thing. It’s a trip and it took a lot of planning, but you could say the same thing about dinner with CK or whatever it is.

Sarah: I wanna be fully present for this moment in my life and I’m not, if I’m doing something else at once. That’s something that really became abundantly clear to me over the pandemic I felt, and there were so many, it wasn’t my fault. There were so many challenges with having. and the kids at home, but I thought I’m, I don’t feel fully present in anything that I’m doing.

Sarah: , because I’m doing many things at one time. Yeah. And it was really deeply unsatisfying. I. ,

Pam: I completely agree with that and have had the same experience. And journaling is one of the things that I think helped [00:12:00] solidify that perspective because when I look back at my journal, the things that I remember writing about or the things that were impactful were the moments with my loved ones or the times when I was really present.

Pam: And so I’ve started thinking like, what do I want to remember? From this time in my life and in five years, what’s actually going to matter? And right now for me, what is going to matter is time with my mom, time with my loved ones, time with time that I can’t. get back in the future, right? I can work anytime, , I can’t necessarily, in 15 years, maybe I won’t be able to spend time with my mom.

Pam: So now that is the priority. And yes, there has to be balance, of course, in life. You have to you have to continue to make an income. But you can, through mindfulness and presence and trying to try to focus more on doing one thing at a time, [00:13:00] you can be. at all of the things that you need to do if you’re able to focus and put your energy into one thing rather than Yeah.

Pam: Having chaos. I love

Sarah: it. Yeah. You can be better at what you’re doing and you can enjoy your life more. Yeah. And I love the question you posed. What do I wanna remember? , and we could say that about every day. I think that’s actually a great segue to our topic, which is, how to celebrate without winning.

Sarah: How do, what did we say? Winning without wins. Yeah. How do we celebrate every day? Yeah. So this idea of what do I wanna remember about today? I don’t wanna wait until I run a marathon to celebrate and remember the. . I don’t wanna run a marathon ever. , . So if I’m waiting for that or any kind of version, like I don’t wanna have to wait for that.

Sarah: Yeah. I

Pam: think there’s a lot of people that struggle with that, which is, I’ll be happy when I will enjoy life when [00:14:00] and. , there’s two ways that can go. Either. Maybe you never get to that win. . And so then you are never happy. Or you do get to that thing that you said, I’ll be happy when, and you get there and then you’re still not happy.

Pam: Yeah.

Sarah: So happy for a short time and then it wears off,

Pam: right? And then the goalpost moves and you’re like, okay, then I’ll be happy and then I’ll be happy. So we need to figure out how to be happy Now, how to celebrate. now how to enjoy your life while still going after whatever you wanna achieve. It’s not to say you just go, oh, I’m happy so I’m just not gonna do anything

Pam: It’s what is that balance of today was awesome and I didn’t really do anything special. , that’s okay too. .

Sarah: Yeah. I didn’t really do anything special. Yeah. You know what I love about this that I think really strikes me is this idea. . If we think about the concept of winning the it’s.

Sarah: If somebody’s winning, then you think [00:15:00] somebody’s losing. Like it’s if there’s a competitive nature to the concept. Sure. So why I think the whole premise is flawed because we’re thinking I have to be better than someone in order to feel good. I have to be the one that achieves

Pam: this. That it’s a zero sum game.

Pam: Yeah. .

Sarah: I have to be more special to feel Yeah. Worthy of loving myself. Yeah. And to feel worthy of celebration. So I like what you said even though I didn’t do anything special, I celebrate myself today and I celebrate the world.

Pam: there’s the concept in mindfulness about how everything changes basically. , that, that is the idea of mindfulness, that anything that can arise can also dissipate or disappear. So we have this idea that, like I said, [00:16:00] that when some, when you get something, when you achieve something that you’ll be happy.

Pam: But if you kind. sit in the presence of that happiness can arise no matter what else is going on. And unhappiness can arise even when everything is going right, like there. Anything can arise at any time and the circumstances actually don’t have anything to do with. you respond or how you feel about it.

Pam: You can be in almost any situation and you have control over how you respond to it and how you either like clinging to the idea that you need to achieve a certain thing or or do, make more money or run faster or whatever that goal is. You have the control over. , how you respond to what’s happening, what’s arising, and whether you clinging to dissatisfaction or unhappiness or whether you choose to [00:17:00] just stay more in a flow and let things come and let things go.

Sarah: .

Sarah: Yeah. And speaking of that, there’s something around what? Yeah. Re releasing this idea that we can control, yeah. That we can, sure. Like we need to know, I need to know what I’m gonna do in order to feel good, or I need to know that I’m gonna achieve these things before I feel good about myself.

Sarah: , there’s something around, yeah. This idea of flow and acceptance that’s very powerful.

Pam: So if you had a client come to you , because you do work with goal setting and figuring out what people want to achieve and how to get there. So if you had a client come to you and you worked on goal setting and figuring out what their plan is how would you, inc. That they’re setting a path and you can be happy now on the way to achieving those

Sarah: things. ? , great question. So yes. A huge part of my work is, and business is [00:18:00] around helping people achieve their goals. whether those relate to communication goals or various other professional leadership goals or life goals.

Sarah: So that’s its own journey of excavating alignment with the goal, with the client’s true values and purpose and ensuring that it’s resonant and that it’s really meaningful and sustainable long term and is gonna give them the desired impact that they want. Certainly one part of it.

Sarah: And then the second part in terms of how to, in terms of how to encourage you not to fully rely on that goal. Cuz the challenge is don’t wait until you achieve the goal to love yourself. Love yourself. Now whether you hit the goal or not, right? The achieving the goal is something you wanna do cuz you’re a human and you wanna grow As humans, we wanna grow, we wanna change, we wanna evolve.

Sarah: That’s great. We. . So that’s in service of expressing ourselves as humans. [00:19:00] The danger though, is when we tie our worth to achieving that. Yeah. So do that. And at the same time, let’s talk about how you’re worthy of accepting yourself for who you are. Flaws and, all right? Yeah. Accepting yourself for what you do bring to the world for what you have overcome for the impact you already.

Sarah: in your own world, your individual world your family, your community, your workplace society, whatever it is, let’s celebrate you for who you are and practice not tying your worth to this achievement. And both can happen simultaneously and they both support each other. The more we love and accept our ourselves, the more willing we are to go.

Pam: big goals. Yeah. I think that I, and probably most people think that it’s the other way around. , they think that you achieve the goal and then you get the happiness and the confidence. Yeah. But it’s actually the other way around that you have the happiness and confidence and that allows [00:20:00] you to achieve the goal.

Sarah: Yeah. You’ve experienced that, haven’t you?

Pam: Definitely. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think that the biggest. Example for me is just in my career, obviously it’s taken time for me to build the confidence that I have. I’ve been doing what I do for 20 years, but I know if I go into a sales call, for instance, or if I go into a difficult call with a client, if I come in with confidence and positivity, the call goes better If I went into it with fear and being meek and worried about what the outcome is going to be it’s not going to go as well. So how you approach a situation and the confidence that you go in with, even if sometimes you have to fake it, , it does set you up for a better. . But I think two of the things that you mentioned in there were really interesting to me. One I noted that being mindful [00:21:00] of your accomplishments on a day-to-day basis, no matter what they are, even if they’re not aligned with your goal, if it’s just something else that can build your confidence as you’re going. G. journaling and anything there where it’s reflection on what you did or what you achieved or what went well that day. Not even a win, just like I made, a really tasty dinner, , anything like that. Absolutely . Yeah. Yeah. Anything like that makes you focus on the positive because we do have negativity.

Pam: At the end of the day, it’s very easy to think about all of the things that went wrong and to ignore all of the things that went well. So we have to put intentional focus on what went well so that we can manifest more of that. Yeah. Rather than manifesting more of the things that don’t go as well.

Pam: Because what you focus on grow. . .

Sarah: . Yeah, you’re right. And we have to take control. We can’t just allow our brain [00:22:00] to, to focus on what it wants to focus on because it’ll focus on our mistakes. . Yes. Always. That’s why we’re still replaying the dumb thing we said two weeks ago .

Pam: Or 20 years ago.

Pam: Or 20 years ago. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I I have a quick anecdote about that, which something that I started a few years ago was telling people the stories that my brain retells. So there’s like embarrassing things that you’ve done in your life, and the more you keep them private, , the more they like wake you up at night and tell you what an idiot you were for doing whatever it was.

Pam: . So I started telling people my embarrassing stories. Okay. I actually went on Instagram and I told some stories of things that are like just the dumb things that, like you, you don’t think about for five years and then all of a sudden you think about it and you’re like, oh my God, that was so embarrassing.

Pam: I can’t believe I did that. Yeah. Those kind of things that are harmless, but they stick in your brain. Yeah. As soon as you tell them to [00:23:00] people and get ’em out there, they lose their power. Yes. So Yes, it’s true. It’s true. It’s so true. Yeah. One of the other things that you said was focusing on your values and how those are involved in what you wanna achieve.

Pam: And I think that it’s really easy for people to make that association of this value has to do with this goal that I have in the future. But we also need to think about how those values are at play every single day in your life. And make that connection of, one of my values is, , and I was not honoring that value by making myself so anxious that I couldn’t take a vacation

Pam: I thought I was doing the exact opposite of what I value the most. . Intentionally focusing on what do I want today? Yes. What do I want a year from now? What am I working towards? But what do I want today? How do I wanna feel today and [00:24:00] every day?

Sarah: . Yeah. And it. That cumulation, those become the wins.

Sarah: Yeah. That becomes, what do I wanna remember cuz it’s the small things we talked about that last time as well. How it’s often the small things. So by focusing on your values and focusing on creating small wins every day for yourself to celebrate that’s a great path forward that will bring.

Sarah: more joy every day, more ha more fulfillment every day. Versus waiting for one big thing. Yeah. To celebrate.

Pam: Yep. So a lot of times people talk about enjoying the process and feeling wins as you go, rather than waiting for the big win. And I. Two sort of parallel things that I can talk about along that vein.

Pam: And one is that last year I decided I would start running, which is not something I enjoy , but I had the goal of burning a trail race because CK likes to run trail [00:25:00] races. So I thought that’s a goal that I can have. I can try and do this. . I had this huge goal of being able to run a 5K in, up and down hills and through rocks and, all kinds of crazy stuff.

Pam: But I would go out three days a week in the morning and I would run what I could. And whatever I could run that day was fine. There wasn’t any oh, I didn’t go fast enough today, or I didn’t go far. It was really hard. And the shift for me was realizing that it has to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, I wasn’t working hard enough to achieve the goal.

Pam: So some the reason that was a big it’s like

Sarah: it’s supposed to be hard. It is supposed to be

Pam: hard.

Sarah: Yes. . Yeah. This is how

Pam: it’s supposed to feel. Yeah. This is how it’s supposed to be. It’s not a problem.

Sarah: , right? Yeah. Because

I

Pam: think, we start doing things and it’s this is hard and you quit.

Pam: And at least I, I have that story for sure. I’ve done that many times where I pick up things and I’m not immediately good at it. , which I have no reason to immediately be good at it, but for some reason we think that we should be [00:26:00] able to just magically do new things and be good at them.

Pam: And so the kind of mantra that I had when I was running was, this is supposed to be. This is supposed and if it’s not hard, you’re, you have to make it harder because that’s the only way you get better is by doing harder things. Running further, running faster is how you run further and faster.

Sarah: it’s so amazing. It’s so simple, but it’s true because as humans we don’t want something to feel hard. We wanna feel

Pam: good. and I think I have a lot of friends who were overachieving students. , we went through. grade school, high school, maybe even college, not having to work that hard.

Pam: Like classes came pretty easy, homework was easy, and we coasted through and then you’re an adult and it’s oh, we’re not in school anymore. Things are hard now. And so we didn’t get that muscle of having to work hard to achieve things. So then when we try, it’s really [00:27:00] easy to give. because we didn’t learn how to work hard at

Sarah: Yeah.

Sarah: That’s something that is not uncommon that I’ll hear from clients. Yeah. For whom they might already be excelling at work and a lot of their professional achievements haven’t felt like that much of a stretch. Whereas learning a new skill or improving a relationship or going in a new direction, maybe making a pivot in their career feels.

Sarah: uncomfortable. Yeah, because really it is starting like at a be at a beginner level. Yeah. And that’s very. . Absolutely. Yeah. And it, and we can feel overwhelmed oh, can I actually do this? Is it possible for me to learn this? Yeah. And will it get easier? Because when we’re in the moment and it feels so uncomfortable, it feels like it will never get easier.

Sarah: But it does. But you’re right, it is that you had that commitment of three times a week or whatever it is every day or three times a week frequent. forcing yourself to do it or committing to doing it. And then it does become easier, right? [00:28:00]

Pam: So you have to learn to think of a win, not as running the race or even for me, it couldn’t be running a mile every time I went out.

Pam: That couldn’t be the win. The win had to just be, I. . I went out and I did what I could today. . And that had to be enough, because not every day is going to be a great run. You’re not gonna feel amazing every day. You’re not gonna be able to accomplish everything every time you do it.

Sarah: Yeah. So you’re celebrating your effort, not your result.

Sarah: Yes. Or you’re reframing your result. Your result is showing up. Yep. Exactly.

Pam: . Yes. So then recently I decided to relearn to play the piano. I played it when I was a kid and then quit. And so I was like, I’m gonna relearn to play the piano and I’m not very good at it yet because I just started again.

Pam: It’s been 35 years since I played so . It’s very humbling. So with that, my win is I did the. , [00:29:00] it might not have been good, but I did it. So it’s the same thing I put in the effort, and an important thing there for me is having a limit on what that effort needs to be. , I could very easily get into a cycle where I sit down and I did one lesson and it went well.

Pam: So I’m gonna do a second lesson, and that went well and I did a third lesson. Like you can really get wrapped up in it. So I actually, I put a limit. I’m only allowed to do one lesson, so no matter how well I’m doing per day. So you do it daily? Yes. Okay. And no matter how much I’m enjoying it or how much, or how well I’m doing or whatever, I have to.

Pam: when I finish. We’re

Sarah: keeping your little hyper achiever

Pam: in text. . I am , but it’s a tip that I actually got from listening to how professional writers approach writing because a lot of them will have a dedicated time where they sit down or a certain number of [00:30:00] words that they write every day, and they write that many or for that amount of time, and no matter what is happening at the end of their.

Pam: they quit. Even if they’re on a roll, even if they’re doing really well, they quit at the end of that commitment because they know that anything after that is, it’s either not going to be good or they will exhaust themselves and yeah. So it’s just this commitment that this is what I’m gonna do.

It’s

Sarah: Like it’s setting yourself up so that you show up again tomorrow. Yes.

Pam: . and you can apply that to anything. You can apply it to work, you can apply it to family time, you can apply it to whatever you’re trying to achieve, that this is what I’m, this is what I’m committing to. And you know when that time ends, when that commitment ends.

Pam: So you don’t feel the guilt of, I didn’t put enough time in with my kids or whatever. , whatever your thing is, because you made a certain commitment and. [00:31:00] honored that commitment. . So at the end of it, you can say I did it. I love it. Okay.

Sarah: So what we’ve been talking about is celebrating effort, celebrating showing up versus a particular result.

Sarah: Yep. We talked about celebrating with gratitude. Yep. I also just wanted to say that we can, celebr. just to again, remove this needing to achieve things. In order to celebrate. We can celebrate other, cuz celebration is such a nice, joyful thing to do. It feels amazing. We can shift the focus and we can celebrate others.

Sarah: Yeah.

Sarah: We can say, okay, how can I celebrate others? How can I make someone’s day today? . , celebrating we can celebrate the world. We can celebrate the city or country that we live in or world that we’re part of, or community we’ve chosen. We can celebrate somebody that we look up to.

Sarah: How can I promote them today? , or show my appreciation [00:32:00] for them.

Pam: Yeah. I really like that because it does feedback. on you. When you celebrate anything, it makes you feel better. And again, when you feel better, you can do better.

Sarah: Yeah. And why does it always have to be me? Like I didn’t think we’re celebrating like it’s so in a way.

Sarah: You’re letting yourself off the hook and saying, wow, I don’t have to be responsible for creating all of the sources of celebration. I can look around me and see. So many people and so much information and so many things we’re celebrating. Yeah. I’m

Pam: not the center of the universe .

Sarah: Absolutely right.

Sarah: Yeah. But again, that’s the mindset shift, right? That’s like telling yourself, cuz your brain will say that you are. Yeah. I brain will say that I am. Your brain will say that you are and that you’re not doing enough. Yeah. That’s just what our brain does. So instead, , yes. Celebrate ourselves.

Sarah: Acknowledge ourselves for showing up, but then finding ways [00:33:00] to feel excited and get that boost from looking around at other senses of inspiration. Yeah. And awe and marvel. We don’t have to be the only source. We can’t be. And how boring would the world be? , I think it’s a mindset shift is saying, oh, I’m, this is what I’m doing right now.

Sarah: I’m choosing to celebrate. , this person. Yep. This beauty, this work of art, I’m gonna honor it in some way and really appreciate it and experience joy from it.

Pam: And I think that goes back to what you were saying about it not being a zero sum game. Because if you are taking that time to appreciate something that someone else has created or done, you’re taking that competition out and you can really.

Pam: see the greatness everywhere and not think about I have to win, I have to be the greatest or whatever.

Sarah: There’s, I have to be the one who’s being celebrated. .

Pam: There’s this [00:34:00] book that I’m reading by Joseph Goldstein it’s called Mindfulness, A Practical Guide to Awaken.

Pam: And he talks about ways in your mindfulness or meditation practice, if you are struggling. And one of the things is to take the emphasis off of yourself and to think about that you are being mindful for the greater good. Yes, it benefits you, but ultimately the practice is to show up better in the world and to do better for everyone else.

Sarah: So it’s really about your impact on making a more positive impact on the world.

Pam: Yeah. Yeah. So I think that’s the same kind of concept here is the things that you want to achieve in your life. The wins that you’re going for are probably not just for you. , yes, they are for your family.

Pam: They’re for your loved ones. They’re for [00:35:00] whoever you’re creating your art for or whatever it is. So taking that focus off of yourself and that pressure off of yourself to be the one achieving that, that thing you can think about it more in, in a global perspective.

Sarah: I like it. We’ve talked about some of the different ways that we.

Sarah: Celebrate without official big wins. , right? Broadening our understanding of what celebration different ways we can bring more celebration to every day. Now what I’d love to hear from you, like what are actual ways that you would celebrate? What does celebrating even mean to

Pam: you,

Pam: So I think for me at this point, , I used to be the kind of person where celebration had to be an event, right? So we would go out to dinner or drinks or some sort of an event like that. The pandemic obviously changed a lot of that. But I think for me now the celebration is, in the [00:36:00] moment and being present for it as it’s happening.

Pam: Using the cooking a yummy dinner example, because it’s an everyday thing that we have to do if you are present in the moment and actually enjoying it as it’s happening. The impact of the win is so much greater than. Breezing through it and then later going, oh yeah, that was really great.

Pam: I did that thing. So it’s the presence and what you were talking about being fully in the thing that you’re doing.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s like an awareness or a naming of it. Yeah. I’m doing this in celebration of yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that resonates

Pam: with me too. How do you celebrate?

Sarah: Similar. I also, I love I love nice dinners, , right? I do. So I do love that. Going out or going to a nice place, trying a new place. So there are those and. And becoming more and more fond and aware of the [00:37:00] daily rituals and how meaningful that can be. So yeah, spending the time to make a nice meal, which is something I didn’t do for years.

Sarah: , really stopped cooking when I had kids. Like I, I would prepare things. . Yeah, we eat, but I stopped, getting a recipe and following it cuz I just thought I don’t have time or I’m choosing not to not spend my time on this. Yeah. So now rediscovering that, oh, I actually do know how to read recipes and it’s worth it sometimes to follow this and have a nice meal.

Sarah: So that sort of thing. Or buying myself flowers to put on the table or cleaning up so that everything. Fresh for the next day or taking a moment to enjoy my dog sitting on my feet and , reading my book. Yeah. So it is those daily moments and I have a lot of awareness of saying, okay, this is me right now enjoying my life.

Sarah: Yeah. This is me making a choice to take a pause and do this thing. , [00:38:00] which I love, which is reading historical fiction on my sofa. Which if I don’t make a point of doing it, could feel like such, such a luxury, right? Yeah. So a lot of it is that awareness and the naming

Pam: piece, and that is important, what you just said there of taking a pause because I think you can.

Pam: caught in the momentum of I just accomplished this thing. What’s the next thing I can accomplish? Yeah. And it’s, it is important to stop and appreciate what you have accomplished and then recharge, fill your tank Yeah. So that you can accomplish the next thing. Yeah.

Sarah: And it’s reminding me, I. I can’t give credit cuz I don’t remember where I read it, but it was like a billboard and it said self-care isn’t the reward.

Sarah: Self-care is the journey. And I think you could replace self-care with any number of words that [00:39:00] feel resonant for you. In this case we could call it celebration. Yeah. And by celebration it’s like appreciating life. Yeah. It’s. the reward. It’s the journey. And that’s not to say we’re not working hard and we’re not being responsible.

Sarah: We are doing those things. And at the same time, how can we do that? While cultivating appreciation and joy and ease and a sense of fulfillment.

Pam: Yeah. , it takes us full circle back to the vacation thing because I think so many people, work themselves to the bone all year long to have this one or two week vacation.

Pam: And so they’re like stressed out the entire year and then they go hog wild on vacation and drink everything and eat everything and just, and they then, come back from vacation with like vacation hangover and then it’s like back to the day to day and it’s like how do you take all of that celebration [00:40:00] in your one or two week vacation and spread it out throughout the year?

Pam: How do you get that equanimity so that you don’t feel like I’m just working to get to the vacation? Like, how can you enjoy every day in tiny moments? Yes.

Sarah: Tiny moments, one of our themes that’s emerging. It

Pam: is. It is. I was reading an article this morning about how the most important phrase for the success of a relationship is.

Pam: Thank you. Simply saying Thank you. So it’s just tiny moments.

Sarah: Thank you note noting that one to use later with my husband. Many times. all night. I may be thanking him for everything.

Pam: Yeah.

Sarah: Let’s see. We

Pam: talked a little bit about my hobbies, but I think that’s one of the things that is [00:41:00] harder and harder as. get older is having hobbies. Time is scarce. Learning new things is really hard and so we don’t, and I think that having a hobby can be a really great way to have wins and have celebration and do something that is not tied to work, not tied to achievement, just something that is pure.

Pam: Fun. And it can be anything. It could be reading. It could be playing the piano, it can be whatever. But you can use a hobby as a way to have daily celebration, daily wins, daily enjoyment and fun that isn’t tied to some. Grander goal or,

Sarah: yeah. And the good thing about a hobby is that it’s already predetermined for you because sometimes like your activity or your celebration can be predetermined because [00:42:00] sometimes where we can fall is we get overwhelmed I don’t know what to do.

Sarah: Yeah. Where I don’t know fine, I should take time for myself doing what? I don’t remember what I like anymore. So if we say , I wanna work on art like a lot of people who I work with want to express themselves with writing or with painting or with collage or something tactile with the hands.

Sarah: I have someone she’s doing pottery. And I love that kind of thing as well. So if you decide in advance, this is what I’m going to. Diving into for the next little while. This is a hobby I wanna explore then you’ve already made that decision. You can get the supplies, you can get what you need.

Sarah: Or I wanna read, I wanna, get back into novels. This is something I did a few years ago. I’ve just gone right back into novels. It’s brought me so much joy. So I know I buy a whole bunch. I stack up from the library and then I’ve got them. . Same thing that you can do with a new hobby, whatever it is.

Sarah: Or if it’s, taking cla care of plants or if it’s new learning a new langu language, you can get the [00:43:00] app. You can set yourself up so that you know when it’s your time for fun. You know what to do already. ,

Pam: and you have to go into it knowing that. , you’re not gonna be any good at it at the beginning,

Pam: And that’s okay. Just doing it is the win. Just doing

Sarah: it is the win. Yeah. Just doing it is the win. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I like what you said about hobbies and yeah, so for me, reading has been a big one. I’m getting back into cooking and also learning Spanish. Very beginner . As you said, , I have to know that I’m not good at it.

Sarah: I’m officially not. Yeah. But it’s been fun. I think it’s been fun and also making things. I’ve started, my daughter also loves making things and so we’ve been making candles and yeah, I bought a bunch of stickers and it. Very satisfying to be making things with my hands.

Pam: And that’s a great combo there of having a hobby plus quality time with [00:44:00] family.

Pam: That’s a double win.

Sarah: It is a double win. It is a double win. And I appreciated what you said before about as adults it can be hard. And I was thinking about this cuz we actually. Were somewhere and they had tennis rackets. And so we were all my two kids and my husband and I were trying to, hit the ball back and forth.

Sarah: And I said, you know what? I would love to learn tennis because it’s something that we could do. And as we continue on in our years, we could be like a fun thing that we could do together as a couple and stay fit. And it’s not super competitive. And yeah, you don’t need to buy a ton of gear. and then, and the kids said, oh, we wanna learn tennis too.

Sarah: And then I’m thinking, okay, for you guys, there’s, tennis camps, there’s tennis lessons, there’s anything a bit, should we choose to invest in that? Should we be able to and choose to invest in it? There are many options for them, yet for adults, it’s, there’s not that much available if you’re not already part of this community.

Sarah: And you know how when you’re part of a [00:45:00] club like. They could go for an intense, a whole summer, every single day. They don’t have those kinds of things for adults. Yeah. So it really takes a lot more effort to learn a new thing. Or my younger guy is, he’s going to be taking a camp and biking.

Sarah: I’m actually not very confident. Biking. I’m not either. Yeah. And I’m thinking, do they, do people just assume all adults. love biking, and we don’t need a camp, whereas he can just go

Pam: to learn the skill.

Sarah: Yeah. It’s much, it’s practically much harder for adults.

Pam: It’s practically harder, and then also just taking the time out of your day and saying, I’m gonna make it a priority to do this thing.

Pam: That’s not adulting, it’s not working, it’s not cooking, it’s not cleaning. Strictly fun or

Sarah: strictly fun.

Pam: Yeah. And if you think of it as if you have, if you [00:46:00] struggle with that, if you struggle with setting aside time for a hobby or something fun, . If you think about the way that it will benefit the rest of your life, it can be a little bit easier to make time in your schedule for it because there’s, this concept of the plasticity of your brain and that the more you learn and the more diverse skills you pick up, the better you become at everything else.

Pam: So it, it’s hard to think about it. playing tennis or learning to be better at riding a bike could make you a better leadership coach. So you can think of anything that you learn as benefiting everything else that you do.

Sarah: I love that. I love that. And I love the reminder that everything is connected and nothing.

Sarah: wasted. , which is something that, a thought that I’ve gone back to over the years because I’ve done so many different things. I’ve lived in these places, tried different careers, and really experienced a lot of things. And I haven’t always, [00:47:00] it’s my path has felt more circuit circuitous than linear.

Sarah: Uhhuh often. Yeah. And so then I remember yeah, that’s what made me who I am. And that’s how I have the range of perspectives I do. was ever a waste. Yeah. So I like what you’re saying. Same thing about pursuing new interests and like following your urge. Oh, this feels interesting.

Sarah: Yeah. Do it. And I also, that sort of little diversion about how hard it is for adults was really meant as an acknowledgement that a, I think what you said is true. Number one, it’s hard to take time out of our schedule. We have a lot of demands. We have so much with work and taking care of life outside of work.

Sarah: So then to carve out time is one thing. First challenge, and then the second challenge is how do I even do it? What? Yeah, how do I figure out how to learn how to do this thing? What’s the best way and what are the tools? There are a number of steps, and I guess what I wanna leave people with [00:48:00] is the encouragement that it’s worth it.

Sarah: You can figure it out. You are creative and resourceful. And if you feel stuck with what should I do and how should I get started? Ask someone to help you brainstorm because it’s worth it. Yeah.