Want More Joy? Stop Crunching Your Time
Remember that saying, “when mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy”? As a kid, was it as true for you as it was for me?
Ladies, you all know what happens when we fall apart – the foundations supporting everyone around us start cracking as well.
Conversations with Vixen women show that eight of 10 of them can’t remember the last time they felt pure joy. Nine out of ten don’t have enough time for themselves.
These stats are staggering and problematic.
Women are the foundation of their families, most businesses and society. Yet 80-90% of them are silently suffering. If you don’t take care of yourself, what does that mean for our collective future?
It means:
- Creating a distance between yourself and your spouse/partner
- Having a harder time performing at work
- Losing/having less patience with your children
- Having a reduced desire to socialize/have fun/get out of your routine
- A decline in mental health (ie, anxiety, depression, etc.)
- Increased physical stress symptoms (ie. headache, stomachache, difficulty sleeping, etc.)
Vixen women are not only the backbone of family life, but they’re also the backbone of their professional lives as well. So when they’re not on solid ground, the trickle-down effect impacts two groups of people.
How can we change this trend?
Recognize the Problem
Throughout the last month, we’ve been hosting weekly, hour-long High Impact Business Awakening events in which we chat with business owners/executive-level women about how to reclaim this loss of time and joy.
This event was slated to run once…yet it continues. Why? Two reasons.
- Women are hungry for a solution to this loss of joy/time paradox
- Many of them feel isolated by this loss of time/joy and how it’s impacting their life
I’m naturally a positive person so these facts are difficult to share, but I know that by sharing them, women will know they’re not alone in this struggle. Ladies, you are not the only unhappy ones! WebMD recently noted that women are the least happy that they’ve been in the last 40 years.
"There's a tremendous amount of stress and pressure put on women: being parents, being daughters, mothers, wives, professionals,” according to Randy Kamen Gredinger, the psychologist and life coach specializing in women's issues who was quoted in the article. “All of these roles combined leave many of us not taking adequate care of ourselves -- which is what sustains us and gives us the energy to take care of all these other responsibilities that we have.”
We’ve talked about how helping yourself (leaning into self-care and self–love) helps others. But how do you do it?
Take Action Toward a Solution
Have you ever heard the quote, “The problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn” by Gloria Steinem? One of the most clear-cut solutions to this joy/time challenge is to unlearn some of the things you’ve learned that have likely become habits.
They might include:
- Packing your schedule SO FULL that meetings and events overlap
- ALWAYS putting other people first
- Saying yes when you mean no (or later wish you’d said no)
- Feeling “bad” or guilty about taking time for yourself
- Ignoring your intuition
- Making decisions based on what others need rather than what you want
- Beating yourself up (falling into a cycle of negative self-talk) when you fall short of your goals
- Not having boundaries or letting them be crossed repeatedly
It’s so easy to suggest “unlearning” habits, right? But what does that mean practically?
Consistent changes over time. That’s what it means.
Interested in learning more about how to reverse these trends? Join the waitlist for our next, complimentary High Impact Business Awakening.
