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Sometimes we have a goal that’s worth pushing hard for. Most of what I talk about here is doing less – getting your workload in line with your capacity so life actually feels manageable, but there are times when the goals we want for ourselves mean deliberately making our lives harder for a while. Let’s discuss four criteria to think through before committing to a push season.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Episode 19 (how to prep for a busy season)
- Join the 10-week Bright Method program here: https://kellynolan.com/the-bright-method-time-management-course-with-kelly-nolan
Links you might enjoy:
- ✨ The full Bright Method™️ program: If you’re ready for a full time management system that’s realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It’s helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.
- 🌿 Free 3-Day Time Management Program: Get three short, practical video lessons packed with realistic strategies to help you manage your personal and professional life with more clarity and calm.
- 📱 Follow me on Instagram: Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like 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.
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. This is the first one I’m recording after being gone in Colorado for a bit of time and now settling back in, and the kids are in school, so I’m feeling good. I’m really excited to record this one. I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I’m excited to get it out there and hear what you think.
So a lot of what I talk about here is kind of under the umbrella of doing less, and that makes sense in that a lot of the women I work with are incredibly capable, successful women who over time have accumulated workloads because of that, that simply don’t fit their capacity anymore. [00:01:00] And so a lot of what we do in The Bright Method is getting clear on that capacity, getting clear on the current workload, and talking about how to bring them in line, like figuring out what needs to come off the plate so that the workload matches the capacity and so that life feels the way you want it to feel.
And as a side note, I completely get that for some people that sounds like slowing down, taking your foot off the gas, letting go of ambition a bit, and I really need to dig into all that because I couldn’t disagree more. I think that bringing your workload in line with your capacity and making hard decisions not only exhibits leadership just by making those decisions, but also you are better when you have time and energy to do things well.
And I’ve seen it time and time again with clients who knock things out of the park and get better feedback at work, along with being happier in life when they do this. [00:02:00] That’s a whole other episode on how I think our thought process around doing less is really counterintuitive and wrong, but that’s not really what I wanna dig into today, even though I’m tempted to get derailed by it.
What I wanna talk about is the other side of this that I don’t talk enough about publicly. I do in the programs and individually with clients, but less here, and that is sometimes we have a goal that’s worth pushing hard for. We wanna go for a promotion. We want a different job. We wanna build something.
We wanna shift our focus at work. We wanna learn something new. We wanna do a hobby that you might wanna do. It doesn’t have to be just work-related. Sometimes the goals we want for ourselves mean deliberately making our life harder for a while. It involves, like, temporarily exceeding the workload that you would ideally want, or, like, you would consider sustainable as a baseline. [00:03:00]
And so today I wanna talk about that. I think of it kinda like, I don’t know, like a push season, a stretch season, a harder season that you’re intentionally choosing, and I wanna dig into when is that worth it. So I have about four points. The first is, just off the bat, I wanna clarify that I believe a reasonable workload should be your baseline. And then sometimes going after goals means deliberately making a season of your life harder because you’ve decided that what you are pushing harder for is important to you and worth the cost of that push.
So that’s just really the first point — I really wanna clarify here that I do not mean muscling through and grinding indefinitely forever and ever. I think that, as a side note, we kind of adopted that, like, in our younger lives — college, grad school, high school even — that whole, like, muscling hard. [00:04:00] And the reason I think it worked in those scenarios is ‘cause you had an end date. You had an exam, you had some sort of end of semester thing, and then you had a break.
And if you were like me, you would, like, get sick at the break because your body needed that recovery time and was kinda holding it back and waiting. I’m not necessarily advocating that as the healthy approach, but it worked in a sense. When you’re an adult, though, there are no end semesters. There are no end dates like that.
It’s just indefinite. It’s like this open expanse of time. And if you’re grinding like you did in college and high school, but you aren’t grinding towards a break, that’s just a recipe for, you know, overwhelm, over-commitment, burnout, all that kind of stuff. So more to my first point here. As we talk about push seasons here, I just want to be really clear that I do mean a season, like the emphasis is on the season here, that your baseline goal should be a reasonable workload, and that this push season is an intentional choice. [00:05:00]
Okay. Point number two is you choose it. You choose it. It relates to a goal you truly want. I would emphasize here, like, the want element of this. To me, that’s… Your goal is going to get you closer to the way you want life to feel, not look. And I share that for anyone like me who can veer into prestige, ego, and what’s impressive to other people versus what do I really want for myself in terms of how do I want my life to feel.
So grounded in that, you choose it because it’s a goal you truly want that relates to how you want life to feel, and the cost that might be required for it is worth it for those goals. And this point I really just wanna emphasize — it’s not just happening because everybody else keeps handing you things, and that’s why you get overstretched.
And, you know, you’re just accepting what people are giving you. It’s something you’re intentionally choosing, you’re intentionally deciding on for your life, and there’s a concrete payoff that you genuinely want. It’s not just prestige and ego, or I should, and proving I can handle it and all that kind of stuff.
It’s that you genuinely want where that’s going. [00:06:00] Point three — and then I’m gonna give some examples to bring this to life, but I just think it’s helpful to kind of frame this out first — is point three to me, the other criteria as you’re thinking about a push season: is there an end in sight?
I think there should be an end in sight if you’re gonna do this. I’m not saying an exact date. Like, I think a lot of things we go after, we don’t know the exact day it’s going to end. Sometimes we do, but often we don’t. But I do think it’s very important that there is an end. So there’s an end in sight.
You might not know exactly where it is, but you know there’s an end, and that at that point, one, hopefully you can get some recovery time in there, and then life should go back to that reasonable baseline. Now, I don’t pretend like, you know, life is perfect every minute of the day, but, like, you’re not in that push season coming out of it. [00:07:00]
And point four is you prep for it. You acknowledge that if you’re going to push harder, certain other things are gonna have to give. And I have a whole episode on, like, prepping for a busy season, so I’m not going to dig into that a lot today. But just knowing, like, if this is a season where you’re going to really push hard for a promotion or something else in your life, owning that it’s not going to be the season perhaps where you see friends all the time, or you work out five times a week.
Maybe you scale back to two or three times a week. Whatever it is, there’s no right or wrong here. Own what it means. Don’t just do that New Year’s resolution thing where we’re like, “We’re going to do this big thing,” and not acknowledge what has to give to give you time and energy to do this thing — to do it at all and do it well in the way that you want, because if you’re going to go for it, let’s go for it.
Let’s do it really well. [00:08:00] But acknowledge what has to give for it to allow it. I would also say if you don’t want as much to give, is there more you can outsource to create more capacity? What I mean by that is, like, you’re freeing up capacity from some of the other things on your plate so that maybe you do wanna see friends, but maybe you are gonna outsource more laundry, cooking, that kind of stuff, so that the capacity allows for all of it.
Okay, so to bring this to life a little bit more, I’ve shared this before, but it’s kinda my, like, touchstone of the first time I made some really intentional decisions to overwork myself to get where I wanted to go. And so back in Boston at my first law firm, the firm had this culture, which I think is really cool, that empowered associates to get to kinda choose who they worked for, at least in the litigation department.
It was a large department, many partners, many subspecialties, lots of people needing help. And, you know, it’s not all puppies and rainbows. You still had to bill, you still had to work hard, you were still getting reviewed. [00:09:00] I would say the more respected you were, the more partners would both want you to work for them, but then also, you know, because of that, also go to bat for you more to protect you in a sense.
So it wasn’t clean. Like, there were still a lot of pressures, and I worked really hard while I was there, but there was some level of autonomy of, like, who I worked for. But in the beginning, you’re kind of just saying yes to everything because you don’t really know, and I got really overloaded saying yes to everybody and continuing to say yes to everybody ‘cause I wasn’t totally sure my plate was full, and I was working for a ton of different partners, lots of different subspecialties, and, you know, pulled in a lot of directions.
And after a year or so, I was overwhelmed, and I started using The Bright Method roughly around there — like version 1.0 of it. And I saw the overwork. I saw, you know, how much work was on my plate, and it was outstripping my capacity. And on the one hand, I knew I needed to say no to more things. [00:10:00] But I also didn’t wanna just start saying no to everything across the board.
I wanted to make decisions about where I started working more so that not only was my workload reasonable, but the workload on my plate that I had was what I wanted. Like, it was for the people I enjoyed working with, it was the subject matter I wanted, and start kind of like, I guess, you know, crafting my practice area in a more intentional way.
And that’s where I really started trying to hone in on the IP group. Not only did I love the substance — which was a real shocker for me, I thought I hated IP law. I remember in law school a friend being like, “I’m taking a trademark class,” and I was like, “Ugh.” It was really funny that I ended up loving that world.
But in addition, I loved the people in it. I loved the lifestyle of how they practiced. They were parents of young kids. They didn’t want to be just sitting around the office all day long either. They wanted to get in, get out, get the jobs done. At the same time, they were very interested in developing me as an attorney.
They really helped me learn how to take depositions, think through case strategy, all of that. [00:11:00] So I loved their work style. I loved how they were investing in me. They gave me great opportunities. They would coach and develop me. They would spend time with me, but it wasn’t a lot of fluff time — I just loved it.
And so what I did is I intentionally not only said yes to their work whenever they asked me, I would — even when I was overwhelmed — go ask them for more work. “Do you guys need anything? Do you need me on a different case? Do you need me to take on anything else?” And I would take, take, take from them. For a period of time, that meant I was overloaded because I had all these other cases for other people.
But as those cases sunsetted off and those same partners would come back to me to ask me to be on more of their cases, I would say no. And I had not only the evidence to back it up because of my workload — the more I got in with the IP department, the more they would go to bat for me as well, saying like, “No, she’s fully stretched with all this stuff.” [00:12:00]
And what I want you to hear really importantly is over time, my workload became more and more closer to reasonable, and eventually a reasonable workload, because of how I kind of made a longer-term play to make my workload reasonable with the work I wanted. And again, it required overcommitting in a sense, or, like, stretching myself in a sense, for a period of time with the goal of getting rid of everybody else’s work and going in with this IP group over time.
And it was incredible. I loved it. I loved my time there. I loved having a reasonable workload. I loved the substance and all the other things I mentioned. I won’t belabor the point. And just returning to the criteria I think about here — obviously at the time I didn’t have this in mind, but I think that it all plays out. One, a reasonable workload should be the baseline.
I had not experienced that yet when I made that call, but making those decisions I just talked about got me to a reasonable workload over time, so that checks out. [00:13:00] And I was deliberately making a season of my life harder to get where I wanted to go, not just for the reasonable workload, but for the type of workload I wanted.
Two is you choose it and it’s a goal you truly want that’s important to you. Definitely checked out in that scenario. Three, there was an end in sight. Again, I didn’t have like an end date necessarily, but there was a goal with an end to then make my workload reasonable at the end of it. And four, you prep for it and, you know, understand that certain things have to give to facilitate it.
That season, I will say, I’m not sure I did that quite as much as I would need to now, that I was single. I didn’t have kids. Candidly, there was like less… I could flex in a way that I can’t now in the same way. And had I known, I’m sure there were things that gave during that season of life, like workouts, cooking meals, you know, trips, seeing family even. [00:14:00]
I remember having some, like, issues there. But it was worth it for the ultimate goal of, like, a longer-term play of having that reasonable workload and the workload I wanted. And I’ll share a more recent story. When I dig into things and go through a push season, I definitely have to be more intentional around it because there are just, you know, more factors in play now, and that’s okay.
It’s still part of the equation. So I’m currently in a push season that I’ve opted for, in that I’m kicking off my program every year.
September and October are very busy times in my business because we reopen the program. A lot of people wanna jump in. I do feel like it’s, like, particularly like working mom New Year is this time of year, and a lot of people are interested in learning the Bright Method right now.
And so historically, it is already a very full time. In addition, I’m taking on more women this year just because I can. I worked out the kinks last year. I feel really solid about that. [00:15:00] But going, like, in August, looking into September, I already knew it was a full season. And as an aside, but related, there are skills that I know that I need to develop professionally and personally in my life that I’ve seen having gaps in.
Like, I can feel the pain point of having certain gaps in my skill set, in, like, my toolbox of skills. And recently, in I think it was mid-August, I found a program for one of those skills that will affect my personal and professional life that I really think is a good fit. And it starts now.
Again, it already started, like, a couple weeks ago, and I’m… You know, as I’m sitting there looking at this program thinking, “This is not the right time to do this.” Like, it’s a very full time of year, and yet it is a skill that I need in my personal and professional life. And it’s something that I’m not really willing to wait another year for.
I just see — short-term, it would make my life easier not to do it, but long-term, there’s an opportunity cost there that I don’t wanna pay. I don’t want to lose that opportunity now. And so I decided to jump in. [00:16:00] I spent $23,000 on it. I will say that I’m not always in a program. I’m not constantly trying to improve myself, but if there is something specific that I know I need help with that would give good payoff, I will absolutely do it.
I have taken dozens of courses. It is why I have my business. I use it in my professional and personal life too now, and this is a skill I need, and there’s personalized support to tailor it to me, and so to me, the decision to do it was a no-brainer. The timing of it was the tricky part. What was tempting — and this is just so easy to be tempted by — the woman whose program I jumped in, she has a ton of free content: Instagram, YouTube, podcast, all of it, and I was really tempted to piece it together myself. That’s even assuming all of it was out there to be pieced together, and now that I’m in it, definitely not. [00:17:00]
But honestly, I was thinking about it, and I was just like, “It’s gonna take me more time to try and piece it together, and I’ll never be sure if I’m doing it right.” And I’m an impatient person. I want the clarity. I want the results as fast as I can so that I can move forward with those results in my life.
So to me, investing is worth it in that area, and I will say investing like that means committing. I’m paying $23,000 for this. You can be dang sure I am going to commit and get the value out of it. So I jumped in. I know life is going to be full, and I am making it fuller. So going back up to the beginning of my criteria here, one, my workload is reasonable at baseline.
This is going to be a push, particularly in the next few months. It’s a year program, but I would say, like, the first three months are gonna be, like, a real push, and that’s okay. [00:18:00] So this busy season I think of not as, like, an all-year busy season, but probably like a three or four-month commitment of, you know, pushing myself beyond what I view as sustainable most of the time.
And I say that because — and I’m kind of jumbling in my criteria here — there are certain things that will give to do this, and I’m leaning more on my husband for more of the household stuff. He’s fully taken over cooking and all this kinda stuff. But I will not give on client experience. And if it’s ever a conflict between clients and this program, clients win.
So my give, in a sense, has to come from other places, and that might be, like, Instagram engagement, which is a business activity, but doesn’t rank compared to some of this other stuff. On the home front, as I said, it’s, you know, re-shifting some of the, like, workload on the home side of things. There are other decisions that go into this to facilitate that, and I’m kinda jumping ahead, so let me go back to my criteria.
One, my workload at baseline is reasonable. Two, I am choosing it, definitely. It’s me choosing it. [00:19:00] It’s a goal I want. It’s a gap I’ve seen for a while that I really need to go after, and it is gonna get me closer to the way I want my life to feel. Three, there’s an end in sight, definitely by a year, but definitely before then.
It’s really just the next, like, I think, three or four months that’ll be more challenging to make it all happen, but it’s worth it for me. That cost is worth it for the payoff. And four, we’re gonna prep for it, and we already have made some adjustments to do that. And so I’m excited. I think that’s what’s fun about most scenarios that I’m talking about here, like these push seasons.
Because you’re the one opting for them, because they’re not forever, they’re a definite period of time, even if you don’t know the exact, you know, limitations of it. But because you want it, it’s exciting. And, like, for me, this push season, yeah, it’s a little daunting, but it’s exciting ‘cause the payoff is there.
Like, I want it. I want the results. I want to do it. I’m excited to really dig in. Now that my kids are in school, I can, like, more fully dig in, and I’m amped to do it. [00:20:00] And so I guess my takeaway here is, yes, the general approach with The Bright Method is bring your workload in line with your capacity. That is the way to have life feel the way you want it to feel. And just know that there are seasons where you can push yourself on the capacity, so long as certain criteria are met.
And if you have other criteria, I would love to hear about it. Now, like, I’m just kind of trying to, you know, piece this backwards based on my own recent decision-making and thinking back to that law firm one. Like, when is the push worth it? When is it worth being in a, like, a really hard season? And those are two examples that are worth it to me and, like, weirdly exciting.
I think that sometimes chasing after things can be just awesome, as long as it’s not that you’re muscling through at baseline — like, you’re always in that mode. I think even when you’re excited about goals, if you’re always in that mode, it’s hard to maintain that level of enthusiasm without sacrificing too much else in your life. [00:21:00]
And so anyway, I would just love to hear what you think, like, in terms of the criteria of what to think through when a push season is worth it. So again, baseline reasonable. Number two is you pick it, and it’s worth it to you. It’s not reactionary. It’s not other people throwing it at you. You want it.
It’s worth it to you. Three, an end is in sight. And four, you adjust to give yourself the capacity to do it. And let me know if you have any other criteria. And along these lines, taking a Bright Method program might be a push season for you.
You know, when life is so full, bringing in more is a lot, and I completely get that, but this is a skill that is foundational of how the rest of your life feels. Everything comes back to time, and so if you can be managing your time well, the ripple effects are incredible. It is a skill well worth developing.
And yes, you can keep listening to podcasts and reading Instagram and reading articles and trying to piece it together among pieces that aren’t all fully out there publicly. [00:22:00] But if you’re ready, if you want this full system in your hand so you can move forward with it and get back to focusing on other things with the clarity and calm that will serve you so, so well going forward, just jump in the program. kellynolan.com/bright.
I would love to work with you. And just as I know me in 12 months will be so grateful I put in the work to do the program I’m in over the next 12 months, future you will be too. Join me at kellynolan.com/bright. Thank you for being here, and I’ll catch you in the next one.
Links you might enjoy:
✨ The full Bright Method™️ program If you’re ready for a full time management system that’s realistic, sustainable, and dare I say… fun, check out the Bright Method program. It’s helped hundreds of professional women take back control of their time—and their peace of mind.
🌿 Free 3-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.
📱 Follow me on Instagram Get bite-sized, real-life time management tips for working women—like 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.
