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Full Transcript
Kelly Nolan: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bright Method Podcast, where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up the bright method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all personally and professionally.
Let’s get you falling asleep, proud of what you got done today, and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow.
All right, let’s dig in.
Hey. Hey, and welcome back. So today I wanna talk about an interesting discussion that came up on Instagram, and particularly in my dms last week when I’m recording this, probably a couple weeks ago now. And it relates to the all or nothing mentality that I think a lot of us likely have to a degree. And I think that it often is formed a bit when we’re younger, like I’m sure younger than this, but really highlighted in the early twenties when we typically tend to have a lot less responsibilities and can [00:01:00] kind of adopt a all or nothing approach.
And it works okay, but we carry it into, you know, later in life when we just have more responsibilities, whether it’s more responsibilities at work. Responsibilities at home, whether you have kids or caretaker or do something else in your life, it takes a lot of time, and yet we still hold ourselves to this all or nothing approach, even though it’s pretty untenable.
So what I’m gonna focus on today is kind of working out health, that kind of stuff, and mainly just because this discussion arose in that context. But what I want you to hear is that it goes far beyond that context. I think it applies to probably a lot of other areas of our life. And so even if you are like me working out at, this isn’t for me, I encourage you to listen to it because I think it’s just really interesting and thought provoking and might help you catch some tendencies you have.
In your own life in the same way that I definitely used to do and still catch myself with sometimes. So to give [00:02:00] context, last week I shared a story on Instagram just about that. I’m like starting to work out at Orangetheory. And for those who are unfamiliar with Orangetheory, it’s like a workout class that involves, it’s like part running, part strength training and part rowing.
And I really like the, I think it’s called two G, like two group ones where you spend half the time running and half the time between strength training with weights and the rowing machine. And the reason I shared on Instagram was just because. I mean a few points. One, I candidly wasn’t sure I was gonna be able to run again after having two kids.
I wasn’t a big runner before by any means, but it is a good form of workout. It’s a good thing to just have in your daily life, even like chasing kids or you know, just running in daily life. And I had done like little runs with. Like chasing after kids or things like that. But I had not run, like run, run in a long time, like since kids, so eight years.
And even that first class I was like, we’re gonna find out if I can do this. And [00:03:00] it was really cool to be like, oh, I can, like, it took some focus and I’ll, and I’m learning, but like I could do it again. And that was really just kind of fun. So I like felt like sharing it. The other reason that I wanted to share.
A couple more was that I used to love workout classes. Like I’ve never been a big workout person. I don’t love working out, but if I have to work out, I love a class and pre-kids, particularly when I was practicing law in Boston in like circa 2012, I was really into using Class Pass and it got to go to all these different classes across all these like boutiquey workout places in Boston and really enjoyed it.
It was so good. I just loved it. Working out around people. I loved the accountability. I loved kind of getting it done in a really like efficient way. And it was just fun to like kind of explore and see different places and things like that. And so being back in that kind of environment now so far later, but it like tapped back into some weird joy of [00:04:00] that for me.
And that was really, I mean, it was just, again, it was like a fun thing that I wanted to share. And then the bigger thing, like the real impetus to share was that I like pass me, would’ve loved to know that at some point I could get back into this. Like it took me four years from the birth of my second and last kid to do this, to run, to take a class to just like exert my body in that intensity again.
And I know some people can do it faster than that. I really couldn’t. But you know, between the physical stuff and then just the time commitment that kids are and all this kind of stuff, it just like, it wasn’t in the cards for me and it felt really impossible. Very, like that was a different chapter of my life or like different life when I thought about it, like for a long time.
And so it was just kind of fun to share that like, wow, if Pass me is reading this, how fun to know that. I could just relax a little bit more during those phases when it was too challenging [00:05:00] and really get to enjoy, like knowing that I was gonna be able to come back to that at some point. And just to be clear, like the past four years, I still live a relatively active lifestyle.
You know, I walk all of twice a day. I do at home like 15 to 30 minute workouts between one and four times a week probably. And you know, I’m just run around after kids a lot. Obviously that’s not the same as like running hard for 25 minutes and then doing 25 minutes of waits, and I just would’ve wanted to know that like, you know, you hear it all the time, it’s a phase, you’ll get back to it, but it’s, it’s a little conceptual and theoretical and it’s like really fun to see a concrete example of it happening and I just wanted to share.
It was like fun for me to do that. What was interesting, and this is the whole point of why I wanted to talk about this today, but you needed that context, is I shared that I was doing it. I signed up for Orange theories once a week package. You can like just, you can kind of buy packages [00:06:00] by once a week, twice a week, maybe more, and then unlimited.
And so I just shared that. That was my plan. I’m gonna do Orangetheory once a week and then I’ll still do some of my at-home workouts. When I was at Orangetheory signing up for it, they did give me. Like some very friendly, not pressury, like nudges to sign up for more. And I really had to go through that analysis for myself.
Like I’d already gone through it with orange theory of like, no, I really can only do this once a week. Right now when I really factor in the getting dressed, the getting to the car, driving parking, taking the class, driving home again, needing to usually eat food and like relax for like a, just a little bit, like even five minutes.
And then take a shower and get ready and then sit down. Like that’s a big commitment. That’s like, you know, if you add it all up, it’s an hour and a half. Like the class is an hour, but like it’s an hour and a half to two hours probably somewhere in there. And when I hold that up in line, like in the context of my [00:07:00] calendar with all the other things I need to do during my limited work hours, ’cause for me, this stuff has to come out of childcare hours, which has to come out of, that’s like my work hours when I hold that up against all those things.
I can’t do more than one time a week right now, and that’s okay. Like I still wanted to do it. It was still really enjoyable, really fun. I still had hopes of what results it would give me, and I really, I was excited about it and so I was sharing it in part to be like, and you can do this once a week. What got really interesting is hearing people’s reactions.
Now I wanna really, really clarify this. Every single reaction was kind, every single reaction was encouraging, and there was a lot of. Reflection in a lot of these. That is, I think, the point that I’m trying to share. Like a lot of the women sharing comments with me were aware of this reaction that they were having and talking themselves through it.
So I just wanted to throw that out there that this isn’t me being like, then they had this reaction, can you believe this? And like, [00:08:00] that’s not it. The reason I’m bringing this up is all these women were really aware of what was going on in their heads when they read all this. We had a lot of like really interesting, vulnerable, brave conversations around it.
Just, and I, I mean, I don’t mean like brave like it was, you know, I know, but this stuff is hard to acknowledge. Like it’s hard to acknowledge that we have these thoughts and to share it and to talk about it. And so I think it’s worth continuing that conversation because. These women are definitely not the only women having these reactions.
And I have these reactions too sometimes, and I know that I’m not the only one either. And what the reactions were, were really about that once a week thing. And someone even, and I’ll just, you know, this really captured a lot of what. People were saying it wasn’t just her. There were many people who responded and someone responded, said to shout out to the people like me who have a tendency towards all or nothing thinking.
Part of me was like once a week, what’s even the point? But wiser me says the point is that Kelly likes it and it’s working for her, and one day a [00:09:00] week is plenty for her right now. So shut up. All or nothing thinking lady, and I love that. I think that is so fascinating because other people responded too.
They were like, wow, I don’t sign up for anything that I can’t do three or more times a week. Or I wanted to sign up for a once a week thing at this yoga studio near me. And I just thought, what’s the point if I can only do one time? And then I had a few even very encouraging comments like, and you can build on this and you can like go more over time.
And all very encouraging and. So sweet and I love all of it, but it, whether people are aware of it or not, there’s this undercurrent to all of it, whether, you know, and again, a lot of women were self-aware around it of, well, you can do more over time. Once a week is not sufficient. And I wanna really dig into this today because I think we definitely about working out, but in other areas of our life.
Hold ourselves to such a high standard. [00:10:00] And I think it’s worth really talking about so that we can catch ourselves when we’re doing it to ourselves. Like I don’t think we do it to other people very much, or at least we don’t talk about it. But we do do it to ourselves. And that’s what I really wanna talk about today.
I feel very, I mean, again, the comments we’re so kind. I add that this through. I feel very comfortable with my decision to go once a week. So there wasn’t ever any need to be defensive. ’cause again, everyone was kind. I don’t feel offensive about like offended by it. By anything that people said, but it’s still, it’s almost like easier for me to talk about it in this context because I think the absurdity of what we hold ourselves to is highlighted when we’re talking about it with someone else, like towards someone else, like towards me in this scenario versus towards ourselves.
’cause we are so hard on ourselves. Even if you don’t have like a lot of negative self-talk, the standards that we hold ourselves to can be so high that I think it is worth just really highlighting here so that we can see it in a way that we might be able to see [00:11:00] it. ’cause again, it’s directed towards someone else.
And then catch ourselves when we do this to ourselves. ’cause I know that we do because I do too. But I’m gonna really spell this out in a really blunt way just to really highlight the absurdity of it. And that is. I shared that I had not run in eight years. I had not run in eight years, and that I’m gonna run again and I can run and I’m gonna do it once a week.
And instead of, I mean, um, and I shouldn’t say instead, people were very supportive, but for some people, their initial gut reaction before they caught themselves was, is why isn’t she doing more? Why isn’t she running three times a week? And that’s crazy. That’s crazy. And again, I’m saying this because we do this to ourselves.
We treat ourselves to this high standard. And I wanna tease out part of this stuff today because it’s really important. I mean, first of all, [00:12:00] me going from not working out, like running for eight years to running more than once a week. I mean, I’m sure some people can do it, but like, I don’t know, seems like a recipe for injury and disaster to me.
Like even just from a, like set aside, the motivation, the like emotional side of it, the physical side of that. I mean, the first time I ran the first class I went to, I did not work out at all again for a week. I could not move. The next time I was able to do it was the next time I went to the Orangetheory.
It has gotten progressively easier. Like I really could probably work out now that I’ve done it, I think five weeks, four weeks, I really could work out the next day again, and I’m, I mean, I’m sore and stuff, but I could, like, it’s feasible to do it, but I could not have done that right outta the gate.
There’s no way. And so I just wanna throw out there that sometimes we hold ourselves to a standard that is not feasible and might be harmful. Like really might have injured me if I had tried to do that. [00:13:00] And so to have that reaction of, well, why aren’t you running three times a week after eight years of not running?
Just realize the actual implications of what that would be. And again, what are you holding yourself to in that way? I also wanna throw out there that. Sometimes the calculus in our head is like zero or three times a week. I’ve talked about this before, but that’s such a vacuum effect. ’cause it’s like deciding that in a vacuum without appreciating everything else you have going on in your life.
And for me, and I just, you know, I already said this, so I’m repeating myself a bit, but when I’m analyzing what can I give time-wise to this. I’m not just looking at the hour long class, I’m looking at that getting ready car drive, park, class, drive, shower thing I just talked about. And in that, and again, that could be like, let’s even just conservatively plan that it’s even, or actually, let’s take the other approach.
Let’s say it’s just an hour and 45 minutes. I think that’s probably a realistic amount of time [00:14:00] that, and that’s fast for showering, getting ready and driving. In that time, probably more like two plus hours, and that’s a big time commitment. I mean, you can whittle it down by showering there and things like that, but at the end of the day, it’s still a really big time commitment.
And if I were to plot that out in my calendar and I would have to dislodge and move work, things that I had to do, I would have to move things into evenings, onto the weekend, things like that. And like that is something you can do. Like, I’m not knocking it, but really understand the limited, I mean, you know, I talk about this all the time, like our time is limited.
It’s not zero or three times a week. It’s zero or three times, or one or two or three times a week and working evenings or not showing up for my clients in the way that I want to, or taking away time from kids or all these kind of things. Not saying those are bad by any means. Like I definitely think if you need to take some time away from kids, if you have [00:15:00] them to do this type of stuff, to take care of yourself, that’s wonderful too.
But it isn’t. Zero or three times in a vacuum. There are implications on every other part of our life. And so for me right now, it’s a big deal to carve out that amount of time for a workout like this when the alternative is a 15, 20 minute workout at home and then a shower, or sometimes not even a shower, because I don’t sweat that much during those.
And so I just wanna point out, I know that’s a little different than my last point, but really recognize that. Even once a week can be really hard for you, but it’s more doable than three times that. And so starting at a place that actually is doable, that still ha has life feel the way you want it to feel, that’s not squishing everything out of the way and making you feel a little more scrambled and frazzled, like that’s a great place to land because the next point here that I wanna share is that it’s effective.
I think that what’s interesting about the all or [00:16:00] nothing approach is it’s like I’m not gonna get the results I want unless I do it three or more times a week. And that’s not true. I know everybody’s, every like body is different and all sorts of stuff, and everybody’s goals with working out are different.
But my goals are, I mean, I really wanna be healthy. I want my heart to be healthy. I want my lungs to be healthy. I want my body like getting me through a long time. I also wanna be strong because my children still like me to pick them up, and I need to be strong to do that, and not just my biceps, which currently are very strong, but the rest of my body to.
To be able to do that. And I would like to lose a little bit more of this postpartum weight just to, it’s not even the weight. ’cause I actually am gaining more muscle that I don’t think I’ve lost any weight, but I just feel leaner. I feel stronger, and I look leaner and stronger. I don’t have a scale, so I don’t know.
But my guess is I haven’t lost any weight because of all the muscle gain, but I just feel like I like how I look a little bit more in a way that feels good to me. [00:17:00] I’m a little bit blurred what I was saying of what I wanted to get out of this, but once a week, especially after eight years of not doing this, it is effective.
Like for me, my impatience can really kick in. Like, would I like the results, the three of these workouts a week give me probably like, I would like that and I would like to get there faster. But I’ve also learned over eight years of all of this that results are slower sometimes than we want, but they still happen.
And being able to plug along towards a goal at a slower pace and still progress on that goal. Sure. Beats like burning myself out and then giving up on the goal entirely. And so more to my point, what I’m trying to say is once a week plus these other little workouts at home has been really effective.
And so. That all or nothing approach is wrong in the sense that like you need to do all or nothing to get results. You know, again, timelines might be different and things like that, but [00:18:00] that we just need to be really skeptical of that voice in our head of, I need to do all of this where it’s not worth it.
Like it, you really could get a lot of progress and in again, a way that you’re getting that progress and life feels the way you want it to feel like. That’s pretty great. I’ve talked about this in the health context before, but. I really think we, or I’ll just speak to pass me, it was like if I can’t work out right, what’s the point?
I had to find, right? Or if I, you know, ideally or perfectly or well, or whatever kind of terminology your brain uses. Like for me it’s like right, for some reason and if I can’t work out right then I’m just not even gonna try. And that right was defined again in my like twenties when Sure. I was working in big law and I was working a lot, but my responsibilities outside of that were like much less, like I had a lot more time freedom.
And so of course I could work out four or five times a week back then. But now, you know, not all the time, like if work got busy I didn’t. But [00:19:00] when I could, I did. And if I’m holding current me’s life to that standard, there’s no way. I mean, there’s just no way that I’m gonna get there or I’m gonna feel really crummy.
’cause I’ll have lost a ton of sleep. And this is me personally. I know some people can make this work. This, I’m just talking about me personally. More to the point, if you are holding yourself to standards, you set in your twenties when you are now 35, 40, 50 years old and have other responsibilities on top of it.
I just think we have to be really skeptical of that because it’s a wrong assumption because we actually can get results. Just by following a different path. I heard this guy, his name is I think Sahil Plume. I might be saying his name wrong. And the quote is a little bit cherry picked from different things he was saying in this conversation I was listening to.
But he said, we think an ambitious people, especially we allow optimal to get in the way of beneficial, [00:20:00] but anything above zero compounds. And I just think that’s so. Correct. It’s something I’ve had to really deconstruct in my own life over time is I can’t do things optimally in quotes, as I defined in my twenties, but I can get benefits, and those benefits might come from doing things in a suboptimal quote unquote, not ideal.
Approach. But if I’m getting the benefits, who really cares? Who cares? You know, I think that we have to be careful, this is a little bit of a tangent, but I was having a conversation, this was not in a work context, this was outside of work. And this woman said, you know, we were kind of having a bit of a disconnect over what we were gonna do for a particular role we were in.
And she said something along the lines of, well, you know, when I sign up for something, I do 300%. And I was [00:21:00] like, I don’t, when I sign up for something, I’m gonna do that scope well, but I’m gonna do a hundred percent maybe, I think I said a hundred percent, but like I might do, depending on the role, it depends on how much I care.
Obviously, if it’s for clients, I’m gonna do it a hundred percent, but in other roles in my life, I’m very comfortable doing a hundred percent or even like 80% if it’s not a critical role. In my life. Like, that’s fine. And it was just interesting to watch this woman grapple with that because I have been there, like, I’m not saying this from a, like a, can you believe it?
Like, it’s almost vulnerable to watch because you, I know how that feels and it’s confusing to be like, well, do I need to do this? Because I could tell the way she was saying it, there was almost a level of, I, I don’t think there was pride, but it was like, like I was supposed to be impressed by that.
Instead. I was like, that’s exhausting. That is an exhausting place to operate from because we [00:22:00] cannot do everything much less this very not important role, 300%. And I think this all or nothing mentality of I need to work out at least three days a week for it to be worth it or all these kind of things.
Like it’s the same thing. I think we all need to realize. That our workloads are already impossible, like so high, and holding ourselves to that standard on top of all of that is really challenging and exhausting and something that I think a lot of our workload issues are not something we can necessarily, it’s not on us all the time.
That’s not what I’m saying. But sometimes we make it harder on ourselves by holding ourselves to these 300% or all or nothing, or defined in our twenties standards that just can’t hold up anymore. And as I said, aren’t even right, because we can get results by doing a lot less. And so I just wanted to throw that out there.[00:23:00]
And I wanna give a shout out to the woman who said the shout out comment, because she was aware of this. She was like catching herself in this initial gut reaction thought she had, which is fair. Like all of us still, like even if you really come around on this, like you’ll probably still have these first initial gut reactions against herself or something else.
And it’s really the walking yourself through. The other alternative, you know, this woman, I’m just gonna read it again. And she said, shout out to the people like me who have a tendency towards all or nothing thinking. Part of me is like once a week, what’s even the point? But wiser me says, the point is that Kelly likes it.
It’s working for her, and one day a week is plenty for her right now. So shut up all or nothing thinking lady. And I wouldn’t say shut up to the lady, but that voice in our heads, we can say Shut up to. And I think sometimes we do need to have that kind of second voice come in and shut down that first voice and be the wiser, more mature person and the more realistic person so that we can not only structure a [00:24:00] life for ourselves, that is the pace we want, that feels the way we want it to.
And that might involve doing things a little bit less because we will still get the benefits from it. Anything above a zero compounds, and I’ve seen that play out and. How wonderful to be able to get benefits that we’re looking for and have life feel the way we want it to feel. So let’s set ourselves up for a success.
Let’s embrace this reality, because I’ll tell you, like signing up for once a week has been really awesome for me. Not just for the benefits I was talking about, but also just my whole approach to it is so much calmer, like. I’m motivated. I go in once a week, I do it, and then I get to ride this high for a week of being like, I did that and I get to do it again in a week, but I don’t have to do it again for a week.
That’s awesome. Versus had I signed up for three times a week, I would never have gone that much. I might’ve given up entirely because I would been beating myself for not going, I would’ve felt like I was wasting [00:25:00] money. I would’ve, you know, judged myself, all that kind of stuff. And instead I get to again, have life feel the pace that I want it to have.
It’s been great. And it’s still really fun. It, it keeps the potency of the fun of it versus, as I said, just kind of setting myself up to fail. Like set yourself up to win, embrace the reality of your life and own it and schedule things in a cadence and frequency that works for you. And sure, life chapters will change and maybe one day I’ll scale up, but I’m not planning on it right now.
And that’s okay. Like I’m just really enjoying this for this phase of my life. And it has a, like, you know, putting it in my calendar each week is confirming. That’s really all I have time for. And that’s okay. That’s okay. I mean, it’s so much more than I did two months ago, so I’m just enjoying it for now, and we’ll see where it goes.
But I also don’t have to have an, you know, ramp up plan either, and can just enjoy it for [00:26:00] what it is right now. All right. That’s all I got. I don’t know if it was useful. I think it’s useful just in so far as like, I think self-awareness can be such an important part of change. Having different narratives to talk yourself through is so important and useful.
Having a workout example, it sounds silly, but it’s like gives a, you know. Graspable framework that you can, like analogize, whatever else you’re going through into this. Are you asking yourself to go from eight years of not running to three times a week, or are you missing out on any benefit because you don’t do anything versus doing it three times and you can’t do three times, so you do zero?
Or do you try to do three times a week and then you burn out and you end up back at zero? Not necessarily in this context, but are you doing that in other parts of your life? And what would shifting that look like? And just try it out. You know, the beautiful part about all this is, is it’s an experiment.
Try it out. See if you still get some of the [00:27:00] benefits and see how the rest of life feels as well. ’cause it’s not in a vacuum. I would love to hear what you think. Definitely reach out, send me an email, send me a DM on Instagram. I would love to know and thank you for being here and I’ll catch you in the next episode.
Links you might enjoy:
- πΏ Free 5-Day Time Management Program Get five short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.
- π± Follow me on InstagramΒ Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working womenβlike reminders to set mail holds before travel, anonymous day-in-the-life calendars from other professional women, and behind-the-scenes looks at how I manage my own time.
- β¨ The full Bright Methodβ’οΈ programΒ If you’re ready for a full time management system that’s realistic, sustainable, and dare I sayβ¦ fun, check out the Bright Method program. It’s helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their timeβand their peace of mind.
