Ep 97. How to Avoid Burnout as a Busy Mom Entrepreneur

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you. can't do it all yourself. And when you try to

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do it all yourself. That is the fastest path

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to burnout. Doing it all yourself is the

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fastest path to burnout. You are now tuned

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in to the mom CEO suite podcast. I'm your host,

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Felicia, wife, mom, and entrepreneur. In

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this podcast, I'll be sharing my mompreneur journey along with

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strategies that will help you build your online business operations

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in a sustainable way. The goal is to help you build a business that

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fits into your lifestyle as a mom who values putting family

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first. We will also hear the experiences and expertise

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of other moms with service based businesses. You'll get a peek into

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our journeys, so you'll know that you aren't alone. Motherhood

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gets hard. Entrepreneurship gets hard. But together,

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we can do hard things. Welcome to

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the suite.

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Hey friend, welcome to another episode. Thank you so much for being here. So

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today I wanted to talk a little bit about burnout

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because it is something that lots of moms.

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Experience. And transparently, I have not

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experienced burnout. Um, I have had periods

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where I might feel tired or overwhelmed, but I've never been in a place where

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I've, experienced a burnout. And so I want to kind of have this

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conversation today from that perspective. I want to

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share how to avoid burnout as a busy mom

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preneur. And so just so we're all kind of on the

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same page, what exactly is burnout? This is how

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it's defined. Burnout is a state of physical, emotional,

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and mental exhaustion. Caused by

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prolonged stress. Typically from trying to

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meet excessive demands over an extended period

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of time. So burnout is not like, oh, you feel tired for a

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day or a couple of days. This is really like

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prolonged extended periods of times. Um, it

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often results from feeling overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and

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then unable to meet constant work or personal

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life expectations. All right. And then when I looked

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up, some of the symptoms were. Um, it's

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broken down into three categories and.

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So physical symptoms. Our fatigue, headaches,

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sleep disturbances, and lowered immunity.

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Emotional symptoms might be feeling detached.

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Feeling hopeless, irritable and unmotivated.

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And then mental symptoms. Might be.

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Decreased productivity, difficulty concentrating,

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and a sense of any effectiveness. And so,

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um, if you're feeling any of these things, Even if

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it's not in a prolonged state, right? You want to catch

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it before it gets to this burnout phase. But if you have

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identify any of these things, That might be an indication that you

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just might want to evaluate what's happening. In your

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life so that you can rectify a situation.

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Change some things before you get to a state of burnout.

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And there've been people in the podcast in the past. Who have

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shared, you know, specifically what burnout or even what

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like anxiety has looked like for them. So I

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will try to find those episodes and link them in the show description.

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But of course it looks different for everybody. If you

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feel like again, you are experiencing any of these symptoms, definitely

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go, um, seek professional help or find somebody to talk

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to. There is no shame in that. So I want to

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give just really quick three specific

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ways that you can, well, not that you can a

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hundred percent avoid burnout, but that can help you avoid burnout.

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Okay. So number one is saying

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no. My sister joke with me. Um,

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That I say no too much. But. As a

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mom in business, there are so many.

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Different things that are competing for our

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attention. And we cannot always say

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yes to all of the things. Like at the same

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time. So if you're trying to mess you say you're in a

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season when you, you have little ones, it might not make sense for

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you to be, um, in this state in your business where

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you are hustling and you're doing the late nights. You

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know, there's lots of conversation on social media, from moms

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who would prefer to have a coach who was also a

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mom who also understands the lifestyle of being a mom and having

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little kids. Because the capacity is different. It's just different.

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And we're not able to do the same things in the same way.

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Right. We can't stay up, you know, until midnight, all the time

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working on the business or burning the midnight oil. Because we're

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probably tending to kids. If you have a baby, your baby might be waking up

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in the middle of the night, you might need to get your rest. So you

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can wake up in the morning to be able to be present for your kids.

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And so having to say no, We'll

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help you to avoid a situation where you're burnt out, because remember

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going back to how we kind of define burnt out. It's like feeling

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overwhelmed by, um, all of these

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expectations and Expectations that are unmet, you

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can't keep up with it all because it's too much. If

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you feel like you are doing too much, then that means you have

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said yes to too many things. Right. And

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you know, I don't, I don't subscribe to this, this thinking, but

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there's. This idea that women. Or moms

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are super women and. I'm not a fan of it. Like we don't have

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to be superwoman. We can just be human. Right.

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And with humanity comes weakness. It comes

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frailty, you know? And so we don't have

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to always be on 100% of the time.

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So it's okay to say no to things. No, you

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can't take on more work for this client

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or. No, you can't do a speaking engagement.

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No, I can't do this collaboration right now.

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Um, and it's not that you, you won't ever be able to do. It's just

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a right now. if you know what your capacity is, if you

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have taken the time to truly understand. All of the things that you are

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responsible for. Uh, if you've taken the time to truly understand what your

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priorities are. Then you'll know what your capacity is.

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and I talk more about that in the harmony private podcast.

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But knowing your priorities and then saying no to things that are

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not in alignment with your priority. We'll help you to

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avoid a situation where you are.

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Um, not able to meet excessive demands. Okay.

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And you have prolonged stress. So that's the first thing

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is saying, No. The

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second thing. And I, I kinda talked about this a lot on

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social media. But you want to have some type of

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daily. Rhythm. Some people might call it a routine. I

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prefer rhythm because it's more flexible. A routine is a little

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bit more rigid and it's time-bound whereas a rhythm is

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just more so a framework. And it's flexible. It

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allows you to flow in and out, but you still know what. Nice to get

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done in the day. Now sometimes when we don't have these

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routines or rhythms. Uh, we have not given our time

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any assignment. And so we may find that we end up

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doing things that are wasting our time. We may find that we are

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doing things that again, We don't necessarily need to be doing, we

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shouldn't be doing because they are not in alignment with our priorities.

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And so you just want to, Take some time to create whatever your daily

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rhythm is going to be. What does that look like for you? And

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your family. And again, this is going to look different for everybody.

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I always recommend that. However you choose to do it, whether

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it's, you know, very detailed. Or just very light,

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do some type of time study. So you can really identify where

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your time is going, how you are spending your time. And you might

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find that. You've spent way more

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time doing things that were not important, or you spent way more

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time. Uh, focused on things that were not

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your priority. And you'll be able to make changes. You may

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find that the things that you do consider priority take

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you longer than you actually expected.

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And so when you know, How long things actually take you

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and, you know, your priorities, you'll be able to create a rhythm that makes sense

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for your family. Um, and this will kind of eliminate

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time wasters and eliminate, think slipping into your

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day. That are not going to be beneficial to you that are not going

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to bring you peace that are not going to allow you to be

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productive. Um, and that are not just in alignment

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with your priorities. So that's the second thing.

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And then finally. You want to delegate? So.

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You definitely can have it all. Right there. Some people

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believe that you can't have it all. I believe you can have it all, but

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you can't do it all. Now, what does this look

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like? This looks like. Figuring out a

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way to duplicate yourself, or figuring out

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a way to, have another person do what it

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is. That you do. So you can

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delegate to. AI artificial

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intelligence. So I talked about this a lot in the past

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episodes where I share how I use AI to support me.

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Um, both in life and in business. And AI can

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do so much. And it. It really allows you to save

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time and maximize the time that you have. If

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we're talking business. In terms of your content, because

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content is a huge piece of an online business.

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It can create tons of content for you. It can give you

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creative ideas, it can repurpose your content for

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you. And so things that might have taken you. Hours

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to do. AI can do literally in

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minutes and seconds. Okay. And so you want to find a

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way once you have identified and mapped out what your

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process is for doing a particular thing, then you want to

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look and see, okay.

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What can I. Kind of push off of my plate and where can

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I push it to. So you can push somethings to AI

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tools. You can push somethings to. automation and automation

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is different than AI. automation is when

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a software is, completing a repetitive tasks. You

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have to pretty much program it to do that repetitive task. And

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so, again, saving you time because you are not manually every time you

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have to do this thing, you are not manually doing it. The

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automation is handling that for you. So you can push things off

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to AI. You can push things off to automation, and then you can also just

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push things off to other people and not like in a bad way, but,

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you. know, share the load with someone else. If you're not in a position

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to. higher. Um, you can ask your

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family for support. You can ex. your friends or

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other community that you might have for support, whatever that might look like, And

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so I did an episode talking about delegation. I

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will link that also in the show description.

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Um, but you. you. can't do it all

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yourself. And when you try to do it all yourself.

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That is the fastest path to burnout.

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Doing it all yourself is the fastest path to burnout.

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Now you might be saying, I don't have family support. I don't

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have, you know, any employees or contractors.

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I get it. I understand, you know, I'm in a

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situation where. My family is, they're not

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far from me, but they're not close. You know, I just can't

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go. Um, around the corner or 10 minutes

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away. To visit family or have them come and watch the kids. For

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me, it has to be a plant thing. You know, they're like two and a

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half hours away. Most of my family. and I don't really have

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a community here yet. And so it is pretty much just me

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and my husband with the kids. And as the primary caretaker inside

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the home, her husband works outside of the home. It's the

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majority of the time. It's me. So I get it. And even with the

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business, I've talked about this before. Um, how I still

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consider myself a solo preneur and I

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hire contractors here and there, but for the most part, it's just

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me. Now while the majority of the time it is

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just me. I'm still not doing all of the things because I have

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leveraged what I told you. I leverage artificial

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intelligence. Okay. Chad GBT is like the bestie. I

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leveraged automation. Y'all are y'all hear me talk about

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automation. all the time. Okay. Um, and even

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delegating things. Your grocery shopping. Delegate

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that. When you use Instacart, instead of going to the store

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yourself, somebody else's. Is doing your grocery shopping for you or taking, A

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little bit of that task off of your plate. So that is

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considered delegation. All right. So just think about different ways

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that you can. You know, take some of the responsibilities off your

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plate so that you are not setting yourself up

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to, to be burned out. And from what I hear again, because I

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have not personally experienced it from what I hear.

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Um, when you are burnt out, it just takes a long time

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to recover. And that's very challenging

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again, as a mom, because.

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Our families are relying on us for so much. So it

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seems like it's a double-edged sword. Our family is relying on us for so much.

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But again, we need to have some boundaries in place. We need to get some

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support. wherever we can. So that, that

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responsibility in that priority that we have in the home

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is not burning us out. All right. So I would

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love to hear. if you've ever experienced burnout, what was that

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like for you? And how did you? kind of recover? Feel free to shoot

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me a message over on Instagram. And then from what I talked about

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today, right? If you've never experienced burnout, like what are the things that you are

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going to put into action from today? Are you going to

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start saying no more? Are you going to create a rhythm?

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For your family. Are you going to delegate to

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either AI automation or another person? Like what is

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the number one thing that you are going to take action on from this

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episode? Shoot me a message over on Instagram. I would love to chat

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with you and I'll see you in the next episode? Thank you

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for listening to the MomCEO Suite Podcast. If you

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enjoyed this episode, can you do us a favor? Leave a review on

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Help us spread our message and empower others who are at this intersection

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of motherhood and entrepreneurship.