44. How to Eliminate Overwhelm

Hi, friends. Welcome to Fearless Infertility a podcast for women struggling with the mental anguish that comes with infertility. My name is Jenica and after suffering in silence for too long I was able to pull myself out of the dark, take control over my mind, and create joy during my infertility experience. I’m here to help you do the same, sister. Let’s dive into today’s show.

The Fearless Infertility program doors are open. I am so excited to get to welcome you into our program starting in January. The workshop in the program will launch for goal setting. And throughout the entire month of January I will be walking with you through a new way of looking at goal setting that you’ve never heard of before.

It is a way that will allow you to accomplish your goals, not burnout, not quit, and allow you to feel really really great through the process. And these can be any goals whether that be growing your family in the year 2022, to improving your relationships, to getting the job you love. Any goal that you want to accomplish in the year 2022 is possible for you and I will show you exactly how to do it. So please join me in the Fearless Infertility program at fearlessinfertility.com. I’m excited to see you in the program.

Hey friends, welcome to episode 44 on the Fearless Infertility podcast, how to eliminate overwhelm. I am so excited to share with you in this episode a tool and a mindset that has helped me immensely this year in being able to accomplish my dreams and goals. Both of starting to grow my family again and adding another child to our family, as well as in my business and literally every other aspect of my life. So stay tuned.

Hey, friends, how you doing? It is Christmas week 2021. We made it, I’m so excited for us and everything we’ve accomplished this year. And if you’re like, “I didn’t accomplish that much.” Yes, you did. Don’t give me that crap.
We’re going to be talking a little bit more about that specifically on the podcast today. But we did it. I’m so excited for another beautiful year that will start next– Well, let’s see, I guess we got what, two weeks, a week when you’re listening to this?

And I will be doing a really incredible workshop in the Fearless Infertility program in January. And we will be talking about how to accomplish your goals. And in the way that I will be teaching it, I would probably imagine you haven’t heard of this way in approaching it before.

So if you are the type of person that like literally the rest of the entire world wants to accomplish goals, wants a new fresh start in 2022, then I would suggest that you sign up for the program when the doors are open. And I’m excited to teach you this because you will be able to feel better than you ever have before in accomplishing your goals. And you will be able to continue to move forward and not expect perfection out of yourself, but you’ll be able to really see the progress.

So please join the Fearless Infertility program if you’re interested in that. And I would love to work on that with you. And what I love about the program is that not only is it helpful for us with infertility, it will help you in literally any area of your life. So whether that be relationships with anybody, your spouse, your sister, your mother in law. Whether that be work and your career, or setting goals for 2022.

The principles that we teach and then work together on are principles that can be applied to any area and you will be able to have the best year that you have ever had in the past. I’m so excited to get to know you better.

I also wanted to say, this has nothing to do with a whole lot honestly, but if you’re following along on Instagram, I just feel very proud of myself because I have taken upon myself the goal is to do 50 pushups every day. Now, am I doing them on my knees? Absolutely. Do I have impeccable form? Absolutely.

Tyler and his friends are doing 100 pushups every day. They did it for the entire month of November. And like the smart man that he is, he took a picture of before and he took a picture after and I was like okay, maybe I’m going to get in on this. He said that his posture is better. He said his shoulders hurt less, I kind of have a little bit of shoulder issues.  So if anyone wants to just join me in that you are welcome here in the pain. I’m excited to have you here with me.

Before we get into today’s podcast topic, which I’m so excited about, I wanted to share with you a podcast episode review. And if you are new here, I choose a winner every single Monday when a new podcast is launched to give away a pair of my pj’s and socks to.

And these pajamas and socks to the most buttery situation that your body will ever be in. And they took a year to design because I’m a perfectionist, for better or for worse. In this situation it’s for better. And they’re amazing. And I really love giving these to you because, A, I feel like you deserve to be treated and I think life deserves to be fun, and life should be fun if we choose that for ourselves.

 

 

And in sharing the podcast and in rating and reviewing the podcast, it makes this podcast more searchable and viewable for women who are experiencing infertility who have no idea who I am. Who have no idea that these resources are available to them, that they can be able to more easily find this podcast. So you’re helping to bring more sisters into our family. And you’re going to get treated along the way. So make sure you leave a review if you haven’t done so yet.

This week’s review winner is Andrea Marcum, she said, “You need this. I really appreciate the uplifting spirit of this podcast, such a bright light in a hard journey of infertility.” I definitely hope that’s how everyone feels here. And I hope that you are using these tools to help you know what’s possible for you.

And then if you want to take these tools to the 10X and actually apply them, then please join the Fearless Infertility program when the doors are open and we can work together and be each other’s accountability partner. And actually apply what you learn here to your life to make it better and exactly what you wanted more than any other year and any other time that you have existed and been alive. I’m so excited to get to know you better.

So Andrea, thank you for your review. Please email me at [email protected] with your size and address and I’ll get those pj’s and socks sent out to you.

Okay, my friends, one other thing. If you are interested in a free class and you want to grow your family in 2022 and you also want to enjoy your life in 2022, it is possible and I’ve created a free class for you. So you can sign up at fearlessinfertility.com/webinar.

If you’re not able to make it live, then it’s not a problem at all, I will email it to you after the class is finished. And I think that these tools will help you to really have a great foundation for starting out 2022 with confidence and knowing that you can reach your dreams of growing your family while also enjoying your life and enjoying the process in getting to your goal.

This week’s podcast is something that has helped me a lot this year. And as someone who naturally has higher levels of anxiety, I have been diagnosed with anxiety from a doctor and it is something that is genetic in my family. But also something that I can also see the benefits to. And if it’s not maintained or harnessed in the right way, however, it can be kind of paralyzing and hold me back.

And this year, this specific principle has really helped me to thrive even more than ever before because I am able to see that I don’t need to do all of the things at once when it comes to new goals. And this kind of applies too, to 2022 when you have your new goals and you see this big objective that you want to reach in your life.

And it can seem kind of intimidating at first, because a lot of us are fully aware and accept the fact that as human beings, we have these big goals, we have these big opportunities that lay in front of us, and we are here for it. But then it gets a little bit hard. And sometimes we can question ourselves. And sometimes we can feel very overwhelmed by looking at that whole big picture all at once.

And what I want to offer to you is a really incredible way to approach reaching your goals and getting things accomplished in your life that you want to do in order to become the person that you want to become. And that principle is the next right step. And for me, this principle has really helped me to instead of looking at the whole big picture, to really step back and say I don’t know how that’s going to be accomplished yet. We will get to that eventually. So what I need to do is focus on that next step.

And so from keeping my perspective very broad to really bringing it in, and that feels a lot more manageable for me. And even things in my life, this can apply to anything, and I’ll talk about it in relation to infertility here in a minute. But this can apply to anything in your life, whether that be organizing your home, like I’m doing. Or whether that be trying to find a really great new job that you feel fulfilled in.

And for me specifically, I’m in the organization mode of my home right now. I was very ambitious and I actually feel great about it still. But I ordered basically the entire Container Store. And it showed up on my porch and I was like, okay, first of all, thank you to all the delivery people who have managed this situation and made this possible for me. And thank you for my past self for really believing that I could do it. But also, this is a lot because every closet in my house needs to be organized, every drawer.

And I know that once I get that done I will be able to more easily find things, it will be less stressful when I’m trying to get ready in the day because I know where everything’s at and everything has its place. And I know that it takes maintenance. Like my pantry, I had my pantry organized, I think it was probably two or three years ago at this point. And it’s been amazing.

It’s stayed organized, I’ll have to do a quick cleanup every now and then because people– Not people, I don’t keep people in my pantry. Because items will get piled up or I’ll have to throw out some things that maybe have expired. But when a good system is in place, it really helps you to be able to live a more seamless and easy lifestyle when it comes to finding things and saving time. So that’s my goal right now.

But I started to get very, very overwhelmed because I have these big dreams. I literally measured my office closet, both my children’s closets, I’ve actually almost finished my closet already organizing. But like the spice cabinet, I mean, it’s like a situation. It’s the house, you know what I mean? It’s big picture, the whole house is overwhelming when I think about all of the things that I need to do to organize it.

And when I think about it that way, I literally feel paralyzed because I’m like, this is a lot to get done. So I think about where I’m at right now and I think about what needs to get done. And I’m in that gap of oh my gosh, will it ever happen? It’s very big and it just feels paralyzing.

So I started to realize how much it was paralyzing me truly, because I have all these baskets literally just sitting in my front room. And I decided to really ponder about applying this principle to organizing my house as well, because it’s really helped me to apply it to my business. It’s helped to apply it to other areas of my life.

So I thought, well, why can’t it apply to this area of my life? This is the perfect situation to be able to take that next step in. And I think to myself, well, I can do that. So for example, I need to unbox the little spice jars that I bought on Amazon. And I need to unbox those and get those all cleaned so that I can then fill them with spices. And I’m like, you know, I can do that. I can do that next step, so I’ll get that on my calendar.

And the next step doesn’t feel as overwhelming because I can zone in and look at that next step and that next baby item on the to-do list. Versus thinking that I have to organize all the entire house, all the cabinets, all the closets, all in one day.

I was recently reading Will Smith’s new book called Will. And, you guys, I’m just going to say it, I am not a reader anymore. When it comes to reading self-help books, I am a listener. So honestly, had I started listening to it, I probably would have read it two times by now. But I’m probably about, I don’t know, an eighth of the way through. I brought it on my vacation and I just love to listen now, I’ve decided. Thank you Audible.

Anyway, I’m about an eighth of the way through it. But the part that I have gotten through had a really good story that he told about his dad. And I’m not saying we should repeat everything that his dad did, because he sounds like not the best in terms of he’s a little– We won’t go into all the details. Anyway, all of us have good in us, all of us have bad in us.

But one amazing thing that his dad did teach him was when he was young, him and his brother, he wanted them to build a wall. A brick wall. And I don’t know how big the wall is, but from the book it sounded like it was fairly large and very intimidating. And him and his brother kept asking his dad, “How is it possible? How are we going to build this wall? This is huge. We’re little boys, how are we going to get there?”

And his dad got mad at him one day and said, “Why are you talking about the whole wall? You need to lay this brick.” And I loved this analogy because it really applies to organizing our house. It applies to conceiving a child or adopting a child in the year 2022, like a lot of us want to do. And the big picture feels like too much. But when we think about laying that next brick, what is that next thing that we can do?

And so I wanted to run a model through this specific scenario of wanting to have a baby in 2022. And when I say want to have a baby, this can mean growing your family in anyway. So you can use this analogy to apply to either adopting, surrogacy, having a baby, whatever way you plan to grow your family in 2022 you can apply this to.

So the circumstance is I want to have a baby in 2022. If I think there’s a lot that needs to happen in order for that to happen and I’m looking at the big picture, then I feel overwhelmed. And when I’m overwhelmed I tend to stress, I ruminate on it and think about it over and over again. Think about how it’s stressful. Think about the ways that that is true. Think about the bad parts about it. And I really search for and can find the hardness in that circumstance. And as a result I’m over stressed and I’m not getting any closer to having a baby in 2022.

So let’s contrast that with I want to have a baby in 2022, the circumstances are the same. And instead, I’m going to think I’m capable of taking the next step and making that happen. And when I think about that it makes me feel peaceful. Another feeling maybe could be determined, but it’s not overwhelmed. I feel calm, because I know when I choose that thought I’m capable of taking the next step to make that happen, that I feel peaceful, and I feel determined.

So if when I feel peaceful, for example, about the circumstance of wanting to have a baby, I feel calm enough to make choices from my prefrontal cortex versus reactive choices. And so what I would do in this situation is maybe make a plan about what needs to happen. That may be call my doctor and ask them the next steps and outline that for myself and I’ll be able to move forward.

And the result in thinking I’m capable of taking the next step and making that happen for myself is that I’m confident in moving forward and I’m happy where I’m at. And I realize that I am capable of taking that next step.

And so it’s fascinating because a lot of these thoughts feel like they’re justified, right? That does feel justified saying a lot needs to happen in order for me to have a baby in 2022. Can we prove that that thought is true? Sure. But when we see what it’s actually doing in our lives, we can see that it’s not actually benefiting us and we might actually want to choose another thought to get us to our goal.

So for me thinking I’m capable of taking that next step when I’m feeling that calmness, it will then in turn get me to my goal of having a baby in 2022 much more quickly than entertaining ideas that yes, may be true if we want to prove them true. But will also not get us the results that we want as quickly or as easily if we choose thoughts that serve us. We can take that next step.

And something else I want to bring up here as well is the idea of 50/50. And I’ve talked about it before, but as applied to here I really want us to be able to live in the present moment. I think it’s very normal to want to skip forward to the “good part.” And when we realize that life is 50/50 here, we have 50/50 in terms of we’ll just say bad and good emotions, feelings, experiences here, as we do there in the future when we reach our goal, then it helps us to be a lot more comfortable where we’re at.

And it helps us to know that it won’t be blissful and happy at all times there, just as it’s not blissful and happy at all times here. And that thought really helps us to slow down and not be in such a rush to get to our goals. And from that space, we’re then able to enjoy the process so much more and truly enjoy our life here in the moment so much better.

So thinking about how we can take that next step, another angle is not needing to know the exact how right now. And I think that this thought that we need to know how we are going to get to our goal exactly is a dream killer. I think more than any other thought is that thinking that we need to know the exact steps in order to reach that goal really can eliminate us from even wanting to step forward because we can’t possibly know.

And so expecting ourselves exactly how the entire process will be in order to reach whatever goal that is, is honestly impossible. And I’m going to give you a couple examples to really help reiterate the fact that it’s so common to think this and yet it’s so crazy. I’m like, how did we start to think that this was normal to think this way? It’s a very crazy thought error.

So for example, all of the amazing big things that have happened in this world, really incredible developments, both in science and in engineering, and in all aspects of life and development, they have been developed without knowing in the beginning how they would happen.

If I knew exactly how to build a multi-billion dollar business that would also save the Earth and prevent global warming, then I would just do it. You know what I mean? So for example, the Wright brothers, they were the people that built the first airplane, if they thought they needed to know how to build the plane before they started building it, then they never would have started. There was a lot of trial and error. And so for us to think that we need to know the way before we actually do it is an insane thing to think.

And so I want you to know that it’s normal to not know how, but I want you to know that it’s possible for you to reach your goals. And anyone who has ever reached an incredible goal, in the very beginning maybe had somewhat of an idea on that first step. Somewhat of a gray path on how they might get there. But in looking back, the path was different than they expected it to be. Because there are certain things that will come into your path that you don’t even know exist right now.

And even in building Fearless Infertility and wanting to create this space for women with infertility to provide you with the tools to thrive in your life and to take back all of your power, I knew that I had this vision on what I wanted it to possibly look like. But I didn’t know about email marketing. I didn’t know about memberships. I didn’t know about any of these things, but I had this vision on a space that I wanted to create.

Had I expected myself to know all of the things, I wouldn’t have even tried because I didn’t. And so that’s the whole process of life, is moving through life and taking that next step. And then at that point, saying, “Okay, well, what’s the next step from here?” And I’ve been able to build and grow and gain the knowledge that I’ve needed to.

And I’m sure that you can think of situations in your life, in any aspect, whether that be in infertility, or in your career, or in your relationship where you had goals and you didn’t know the next step. You didn’t know what would happen at the start. And that’s a part of being a human being. And that is not a problem. And that’s not a mistake. That’s how it was meant to be.

So in our example of wanting to have a baby in 2022, we’ve never had this baby before. We’ve never grown our family in this way before. So of course we don’t know exactly how it’s going to happen, but we can take that next baby step in figuring it out.

There is a book that I read recently that I love, and it is called The Gap and The Gain by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy. And I found myself accomplishing a lot of my dreams and goals in my life, but always looking at what I still had to accomplish and always looking at the things that were left undone. And I actually brought this to my business coach, Jody Moore, and I asked her about it because I saw that it was a problem that was holding me back but I didn’t know how to fix it.

So she recommended this book and it’s been really incredible. If you’re interested in reading it, I can link it here in the show notes. And it talks about a high achievers guide to success and happiness. And I’m like cool, I’m in. I’m interested in learning about it. And so essentially what the book talks about is what the gap is, is acknowledging the gap between where you’re at now and where you want to be.

And there will always be that gap. And when you get to where you want to be, there’s going to be a gap between where you want to grow from that point. And that’s the nature of being a human being, we will constantly be growing, we will constantly be learning every single day of our life. And it’s fine to want to have goals and dreams, but when we’re focusing on that gap of what needs to be accomplished, it can really hold us back from being in a positive energy in order to be able to continue to move forward.

So they talk about being in the gain, and specifically how you can get in the gain is to look backward and say, “Okay, well, I’m here right now, where have I been in the past, or even this morning, or even last week and what have I accomplished?” And focusing on the things that you have accomplished.

And that can give you the boost to be in that gain mindset where you can see where you’ve come, what you’ve accomplished. And focus on that positive energy to be able to be in the gain, to have an understanding of yourself and a positive energy that it takes to continue to move forward in really hard things, in really hard goals, and in life that can be very challenging.

So as a recap, I just wanted to reiterate that you do not have to know the entire picture. And in fact, it’s impossible to know the entire picture when you start out. It is impossible to know the end when you’re at the beginning or the middle. And in expecting ourselves to know that and in expecting ourselves to look into a crystal ball and see into the future, it’s insane. It’s crazy, and yet all of us do it. So I just want to remind you of that.

And then I want to remind you when you’re feeling overwhelmed, to think thoughts that will allow you to feel peace. And those thoughts of peace and determination versus overwhelm will get you your result much faster than if you look at that lack.

The next baby step, the next step is what I want you to focus on when you are reaching for your goals because you can do the next step. You know what that next step is. That next step might be asking someone. That next step might be calling someone. And figuring out what that next step is, is doable.

So I want to share that for you today, that’s something that has been so helpful for me in my life this year, specifically. And you’ve got this. I love you friends. Make sure to sign up for my free class, The How to Grow Your Family in 2022 and Enjoy Your Life at fearlessinfertility.com/webinar. I will see you there. And I love you. Merry Christmas, my friends.

The Fearless Infertility program doors are open. I am so excited to get to welcome you into our program starting in January. The workshop in the program will launch for goal setting. And throughout the entire month of January I will be walking with you through a new way of looking at goal setting that you’ve never heard of before.

It is a way that will allow you to accomplish your goals, not burnout, not quit, and allow you to feel really, really great through the process. And these can be any goals, whether that be growing your family in the year 2022, to improving your relationships, to getting the job that you love. Any goal that you want to accomplish in the year 2022 is possible for you and I will show you exactly how to do it. So please join me in the Fearless Infertility program at fearlessinfertility.com. I’m excited to see you in the program.

Thanks for listening to Fearless Infertility. If you want the best infertility support and community on the planet, visit fearlessinfertility.com. See you there.