Ready to Ditch Time Management and Focus on ENERGY Management?
Oh my friend, today, I think you will learn a lot because it’s all about managing our energy and not time! Hello! I know I can relate to this. I can certainly use more energy. We’ve all learned about time management or even time blocking, but does that really work in the long run when we’re not paying attention to our energy?
My guest today, Heather Chauvin helps women courageously and authentically live, work, and parent on their own terms.
Heather started her career as a social worker helping adults understand children’s behavior.
But it wasn’t until 2013 when a stage 4 cancer diagnosis pushed her to take a deeper stand for change, uncovering how cultural expectations sabotage our dreams. She has been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, Real Simple Magazine, Mind Body Green, Google, and more.
In this episode you’ll discover:
- Why is it important for women to focus more on energy management than on time?
- What is the impact of incorporating this process into your personal life?
As you dive into today’s episode, take this scripture with you:
That energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure. – Philippians 2:13
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Connect with Heather:
https://www.instagram.com/heatherchauvin_/
https://www.facebook.com/heatherchauvincoaching
https://heatherchauvin.com/podcast
https://heatherchauvin.com/book-order
https://heatherchauvin.com/lifequiz
Listen to the full episode here:
Or read the full transcription:
Introduction
Hey everyone. Welcome back to this show, and today we are going to take a different twist on the term ‘time management’. We’ve all heard about time management. We have been told and taught time after time to manage our time if we want to grow a business, especially if you are a mama who is raising a family.
But my guest today, Heather Chauvin, is here to talk about her perspective on time management. And it’s not about managing time, it’s about managing your energy. ENERGY MANAGEMENT! So when she approached me to be a guest on the show, and I saw this in the blurb, I thought, “I got to have her on the show because I’m really intrigued to hear about this.”
So, Heather, welcome to the show. I’m really excited to have you here and before I jump into my questions, I would love for you to introduce yourself, like give us a little background on how you got into business and how you got into managing your energy and not time.
Heather: Mm. Okay. It’s like, how long do we have here.
So I’m excited for this conversation. Thank you. Thank you. It’s one of my favorite things to talk about. I think a lot of people are becoming aware that their energy matters, like how they show up matters. But even that can be very overwhelming considering that we’ve never been taught this.
As women we’re taught to serve and give and nurture and it, it runs deep. Right? It runs deep. And we have to realize that in order to become successful, we have to change our identity. And to change our identity, we must take different action and to become a different type of person. So my background is in social work.
I have three boys. They’re currently 18, 13 and 10. And I was a young mom. I was actually 18 when I became a mother, and that was my first aha moment into of course, motherhood. But I jumped into mothering feeling like I was already failing.
I was doing things wrong. I was doing things backwards. Everyone was telling me I was going to become a statistic and a failure and the expectations of the teen mom, and, but there was something inside of me that was like, no. , I, I don’t want to become a statistic and that drive inside of me and not wanting my, my child to ever feel the way that I did or that I was letting them down ignited that that hustler, it ignited that overachiever.
So here I am, young parent. Overachieving, and I wasn’t like that before. I got pregnant. I was more like on the depressive side and lack of motivation. Um, not because I was unmotivated, but because the weight of the world just carried on my shoulders and I didn’t know how to manage my energy, my mental energy, my physical energy.
Energy Management from a Scarcity Mindset
And of course I didn’t have any mentors around me to really help me do this. So I started. Doing and hustling and achieving from a scarcity, fear-based energy. And Alison, guess what the world was telling me. Look at you. You’re supermom. Wow. Mm-hmm. hats on the back. And there was this part of me that little whisper that was saying, not this, not this, this can’t be it.
And I was scared. I was so scared. So then I started to seek out professional help. I was like, young with no money. Finding resources like free therapy and like I was the one seeking the resources, and those professionals were telling me that this is motherhood. This is adulthood. Welcome, welcome.
And that scared me because I could see the train wreck happening in my future. So I started educating myself both traditional ways and non-traditional ways. And as after I became a social worker, put myself through school, I fell in love with again, wanting to like, See and understand children’s behavior because not only was I stressed out and overwhelmed, but now my son, who I only had one at the time, was starting to project his anxiety and anger as children do.
And I didn’t know how to manage it because I didn’t know how to manage my own. Hmm. So as both of those came together, I wanted to make an impact and not just do paperwork or, you know, like suck it up buttercup. I really wanted to make a difference in the world, so I started my business, didn’t know what I was doing.
started teaching meditation and mindfulness to children, and then it, I was like, oh, these parents don’t know these skills, so now I’m going to teach the parents, and it was just following the breadcrumbs. Then nine years ago, as I’m building my business, operating from that place of push and fear and uncertainty and go, go, go and get things done.
As I’m learning about personal development, I get diagnosed with a stage. Cancer. And it was an interesting moment because people always want me to talk about the cancer diagnosis and think that was my clouds parting awakening. But my awakening happened nine years before. I was seeking help, both traditional and non-traditional ways.
But what I actually wasn’t doing was the integration of like looking deep with. and realizing that I was running away from my feelings, like the feelings that I was avoiding. So I talk a lot about this. The podcast is called Emotionally Uncomfortable, but Managing Your Energy is not just about like, Putting exercise on your to-do list.
Energy Management
It’s about managing and having boundaries with your emotional energy, your physical energy when you’re about to do the thing that scares the crap out of you and you know you’re resisting it and you can mentally hear yourself being a perfectionist and kind of self-abuse to catch yourself and say like, uh, no, I’m going to manage that mental energy, or I’m going to close my eyes for a moment and be like, All right.
I know you’re scared right now, but we know if we want to get to where we need to go, we need to send that email. So I’m just going to close my eyes and I’m going to be like, you are worthy. Just write this first shitty draft. Get it out. It’s okay if it’s imperfect. So managing your energy, not time is not just about physically putting things on your calendar, but managing all parts of you.
And looking at that first and then realizing that’s how we get time freedom. So as you were talking about, Managing energy and digging into, it’s almost like going through the thought process. What came to my brain, and it’s something that I’m trying to do because I’m a mom and building a business and I have an 18 and a 15 year old and my husband, you know, works late nights.
Uh, I will find. Frustrated with things, frustrated with the late nights, frustrated with, you know, how my kids react, and I heard someone say on a podcast, I can’t remember what it was, that you need to stop and catch those thoughts and try and change the perspective from, change your frustration into appreciation.
Frustration into Appreciation
And when I heard that I was. Wow. Because frustration, if you stay frustrated, it drains you. It drains your energy. But if you can change it to an appreciation where I can appreciate my husband working late nights for us to be financially stable, you know, I can appreciate my son’s reaction to something because he’s coming into his own self.
He’s a teenager. Mm-hmm. He’s going to test the boundaries. So I want to know from you. because I’m sure this process of, you know, catching those thoughts, how did you come up with that process? I’m sure it wasn’t like an overnight thing, like oh, mm-hmm , this is how you manage your energy. Like, can you give us an overview of the process of putting this into action?
Self-awareness
Yeah, and I love that because yes, we need the self-awareness to, um, I take it like it from a little bit of a different perspective, from like an emotional intelligence or emotional freedom perspective. It’s what did that trigger within us, right? So anger, frustration, resentment is typically because we’re not feeding a desire within ourselves.
So the first thing that I did, I mean, I went from. This space. There was, uh, Daniella Port who’s still around today. She, her book, uh, came out around the time of my diagnosis. And before that, again, I was supporting parents around their children’s behavior and seen and understand their children’s behavior.
But what I was hearing from a lot of the women I was working with was, I don’t have time to implement these strategies. I don’t have, like, I’m overwhelmed. I’m this mm-hmm. , my marriage is falling apart. I hate my career. And I was like, , but that’s not what you hired me for. , you hired me for your children’s behavior, but you keep bringing up your own stuff.
Hmm. And I was like, oh, okay. So this is the block that we need to work on for you to be present to understand what’s really going on with your children. So I’m like, everything is connected. It’s not that our children’s behavior is a reflection of us, but they’re triggering something within us.
But sometimes it is just the child who’s struggling, right? But if we’re constantly projecting onto the child, we’re actually seeing them through the lens of like our own stuff and not just seeing them for what it is, which is why our children trigger us differently than if we go to a friend’s house and we see them doing the same thing.
It’s not the thing you want, it’s the feeling
We have a different experience. So to back it, Danielle Laport in her book Desire Map said in a nutshell, it’s not the thing that you want, it’s the feeling. Hmm. It’s not like, let’s say you wrote down, I want a bigger house. I want more money and more time. to just frolic on the beach. I want this, I want this, I want this.
Everything was a feeling. What do you like? What is a bigger house going to give you? Status. Like what is it? Space like freedom, expansion. Like what is the feeling that you’re after you want to lose weight, why? What is the feeling that you’re after? So that feeling thing really got me because when I was literally had nothing inside of me, like I was, I was at my bottom, I had no energy.
I’m literally on my deathbed, um, having a moment of like paralyzed in fear. Instead of living through the lens of fear, I had to live. I had to ask myself, Heather, how do you want to feel? You don’t want to feel dead or feel worried. You don’t want to feel fear. So I had to train my brain to shift from that emotion to what I did want.
And so I’m like, I want to feel alive. I want to feel alive. I want to feel alive. Great. What does an alive type of person do? , well, they wouldn’t be crying in fetal position on the bathroom floor and just staying here for 24 hours. They would probably get in the shower or go outside or like push challenge themselves a little bit.
So I did become the type of person that embodied the feelings. So what I started doing on a practical level, and this is what I encourage everybody to do, and I tell this all the time, this, um, journal prompt, wouldn’t it be nice. Wouldn’t it be nice if, give yourself five minutes and just start writing?
Wouldn’t it be nice if, wouldn’t it be nice if, wouldn’t it be nice if, then take one of those things and ask yourself, what’s the feeling that I’m after? Freedom Lightness, expansion. Awesome. Now ask yourself when. Have I felt those things? What activities have I been doing? And if you have no idea, you can’t remember a time in your life when you felt those things, ask yourself, what do those types of people do?
Be Your own Energy Management Detective
So then I had to become this detective, and I started physically putting these things on my calendar first. Hmm. Number one, I put them on the calendar before my children. and so I started with a clear calendar. I physically put these things not a lot of time, but let’s say 30 minutes a day or here there, sprinkle it out.
Then I put the kids’ stuff, then I put other things on the calendar. I had to choke out this busyness, overdoing, and eventually my identity started to shift to like, how do I feel today? What do I. And that was how I started shifting, managing my energy, not my time and my to-do list. But that stuff still gets done.
It just gets done more efficiently. That was just beautiful. So I want to make sure that the audience really heard that, because as you were explaining that I know probably majority of my audience, including. , we do the opposite. We look at the blank calendar the next month, and what do we do? We immediately fill in our to-dos for our business and our lives and our appointments, right?
Then we’ll squeeze in the stuff for our kids, and typically what’s left is nothing, nothing for us. So I love how you said, put in the things. First, that is the desired feeling that you’re trying to achieve or get to. So for example, and I know this is going to sound, it might sound silly to some, but for me, I have an expensive hobby photography,
I’m not doing it because I don’t, I, I’m, I’m going to say it, I don’t have time, but all I want to do is take my camera and go out and do, I love nature photography. Mm-hmm. , I. , but I’m not doing it because I’m doing it backwards. I’m filling my calendar with all my business, all my kids, and I now have no time left over for what?
Because that desired feeling for me is just creating something beautiful through my eyes. Mm-hmm. and I, and I love that, but I’m not doing it. So I love your perspective on focusing on. The energy that’s going to give us the desired feeling, then family and kids next. And then it’s all the other work. And I love that because you said it’s going to get done because now we’re in a different energy space and we’re coming from a different Yeah, and the interesting part is as you start putting these things on the calendar, , of course you’re going to feel like your emotions are going to come up.
You’re going to feel guilty, you’re going to feel mm-hmm. , you’re like, you’re going to watch excuses come up, you’re going to watch it, resistance come up. But the interesting part is, if you, let’s just say all of that doesn’t, is not there, and you’re like, oh, this is easy. I’m implementing it. You’re filling your cup. A k a yourself with how you want to feel.
You then become less angry, frustrated, resentful. You are then showing up more presently for your children, for your family. They are watching you. They are learning emotional regulation skills and self-fulfillment and like having their own sense of identity. . And then people’s problems started going away where they’re like, give me a strategy on how to get my child to listen to me.
Like specifically what are the communication or the words? And I’m like, I could tell you that. But if you sit there with the energy of like, okay, honey, let’s do this, but you are still angry and resentful inside, they can feel that. Mm-hmm. , your energy doesn’t lie. And the magic is, people started doing this in my work.
Like I teach people how to do this. What they were telling me, they’re like, Heather, I came in because I had frustration. I felt like I was failing at home because I’m a, I’m a working mom and I’m, I have to make money. Like I don’t have the privilege of not making money. I’m the breadwinner. And she’s like, I, I just wanted to like, not yell and, and somehow I got a promotion at work and somehow like my marriage has improved and somehow, like that chronic pain I had.
Change your Energetic Level
Gone and my hormones have improved, like what is going on? And I’m like, yeah, you’re managing your stress, but you’re also becoming a different person. You’re taking more responsibility for many areas of your life and you’re watching what is not for you leave and what is for you come into your life because you are changing on an energetic level.
Wow, that’s so powerful. So I want to know from you, because I know we’re going to. Listeners go, okay, this sounds like amazing and that’s what I want, but they might have just all of this stuff going on in their minds. How can they start incorporating this process in their life, whether it’s personal business, like, can you give us a few first steps of what they can do?
Mm-hmm. , I think I just did, which is like, get the feeling that you want. Wouldn’t it be nice if. , understand what that list is. Because wouldn’t it be nice if is like your actual desires? Mm-hmm. . It’s not like, what do I have to do? That’s really what you are desiring and craving. Wouldn’t it be nice if I could take Fridays and go do my photography?
Right? What’s the feeling? Expansiveness, whatever it is. Great. Now take that, put it on the calendar, and then rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. I’ve been doing this for almost 10. And it’s still a challenge. You have to think of it as a practice because then what happens with the implementation part of it is that’s where the work really starts, because that’s where like, All your perfectionisms going to come up, all your shame is going to come up, all your, um, overwhelm, all your, not enough is going to come up the stories, like that’s where things get a little bit louder and then that’s where you get to like, process through all of that.
Feed your desires
But it’s like, it’s like coming up and out, like what is, what, what is for you? is a desire and it was put inside of you. So if we’re feeding those desires and feeding, like the fear, the doubt, the perfection, the this, um, guilt less, we’re kind of choking it out. We’re not paying as much energy, you know, giving it as much energy and attention.
It’s like, I see you, but I really have a strong desire to do this photography, so I’m going to lean into that. And I’m going to feel like that less of that overwhelm, I’m going to be like, okay, overwhelm you get to hang out today, but I’m, I’m feed feeding this for a little bit that you’re training your brain on what to focus on.
And that’s the practical side of it. So it sounds like we’re. Those feelings of guilt and overwhelm, they’re not going to necessarily go away. Right? But we can train our brains to say, well, it can take a backseat. And then we’re going to start putting practice into the more positive energy, the feelings that we desire.
And along with that practice, that’s what we’re going to make progress. Mm-hmm. . And that will come over time. . Yeah. And, and then your identity changes. So like there’s a whole form, like a whole process that I teach, which is like, Habits because some people are so overwhelmed that come in. I’m a huge fan of micro habits I’ve never met, and I’m going to call, I’m going to label it as an ambitious woman.
10-Minute Energy Management Habits
I’ve never met a woman who actively wants to pursue better things in her life, whether it’s personal or professional, she takes action. Maybe she’s overdoing it, but who knows? I’ve never met somebody that’s like, I’m like, you must do less better. . We implement these what I call 10 minute habits, and it’s about putting little buckets of energy towards what you want.
And typically the response is, this is too easy, so I’m going to stop doing it because we have this all or nothing mindset. Yeah. But if we’re like feeding into it a little bit with consistency and momentum, you were going to surprise yourself that one day you’re just going to be like, oh my gosh, things have changed.
right? Rather than avoiding it completely. Like what you can’t see if you’re watching the video version of this is there’s a huge pile of stuff over here that is like outside of the view of the camera. If I commit to 10 minutes a day to putting just 10 minutes a day to putting stuff away in this pile, by the end of the week, the pile’s going to be gone.
If I avoid the pile, it’s just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So it’s the same with the life that we want to. We’re so used to and bought into this all or nothing mentality. I’m either on the couch or I’m running a marathon. I’m either not working or I’m like hustling. Mm-hmm. , what if there’s like this integration?
I have implemented this into my life in the last year, like. Really implemented it, but I’ve been like working up to it for the last decade. Um, people are like, oh my God, how do you get so much done? How do you do all of that? And I’m like, first, I’m at a point where I do have support and help, but like, , I’m doing less better.
Doing less better
I’m not doing all the things that you’re doing. I probably do 20% of what you do, but 80% of what you do is busy work. And also, I’m empowering my children to become independent people. So if they don’t do something by natural consequence, , it doesn’t happen, right? So it’s like, oh, your clothes aren’t clean.
How come because you didn’t clean your clothes? I’m not going to become anger and resentful at you because you didn’t implement the life skill. I can teach you and coach you. But yeah, you don’t wash your underwear for a month, you’re not going to have any underwear to wear. So now you must wear dirty underwear,
That is the natural consequence. So I do less. and I do it consistently and with this energy of ease, I still experience guilt. I still experience fear, but those emotions don’t run my actions anymore. I’m like, Ooh, there you are. Fear. Okay, I’m scared I can rest and take a break or avoid, but I’m still going to lean in.
That’s so good. And I think this is something that I have been trying to do in my life and business, but I didn’t realize that I was doing it is recently I have shifted things. I used to be the Monday through Friday work at home Mom. Hustling on my computer doing all the things that I thought I needed to do in my business.
But recently I just finally looked and go, well, what can I eliminate because I’m not feeling fulfilled in my life anymore. Like, this is just ridiculous. So, I don’t work Fridays anymore. and I felt guilty for that for a while, but now I, I have a different perspective. I volunteer for a half a day at my son’s school and they appreciate me being there so much.
I only work half days on Mondays now and the rest of the day I’m like prepping meals Yeah. For the rest of the week. So then I can spend more time just hanging out with my family and I don’t feel like I’m in the kitchen. And I feel like when I do sit down on Tuesdays in my. My mindset is in such a better place because I’m just ready to attack what I need to do that day because I, I feel like you must give yourself that rest and reflection time.
Rest and reflection
Hundred percent. Like you just have to, and oh my gosh, it’s, yes, a hundred percent and we will always have battles with those inner stories and conflict. Mm-hmm. and. Because I think especially in the personal development world, like I’m very woo woo like I’m very energetic, I’m intuitive. I can feel things.
I always tell people, your behavior is a language. People don’t have to tell me things. I can read it on them before. They open their mouth just by how they show up. So example, um, a woman will say, this is like in business too, when they talk about like, objections, right? Someone’s like, I can’t afford it. I have flat out had people say, I can’t afford working with you.
And then, you know, my earlier days, but even current I will say, awesome, what feels good to you? And then they’re. Oh, this price. Oh, whatever. And I’m like, cool. Like in my earlier days, you know when you’re trying to figure things out and I’m like, okay, yeah. Like you give them a big discount. I can’t afford it meant.
This is not a priority for me right now, or I’m not even open to figuring it out. Like not even open, like, Hey, are you open to a possibility of how you can make this happen? Like is it a number one priority? And I’ve had flat out people say, I used that as an excuse and then came back to you two years later because you scared the crap out of me.
And I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. And I look in my own self as well, where I’m. , what am I? I, sometimes I would go and I would time log, like even for a day, and I’m like, what did you spend your time doing? Mm-hmm. . I’m like, Heather, you spent three hours today prioritizing social media. Scrolling. Mm-hmm. . Yet you said you didn’t have time to work out today.
Be willing to call yourself out
You didn’t have time for a walk. You didn’t have time to do this critical task in your business. , but you’re committed to working 40 hours a week, but you want space and freedom. So sometimes you must learn to call yourself out. And when I started in personal development, I was big into manifesting, and then I realized a lot of people in that energy.
Close their eyes and they manifest and they’ll, they’ll meditate. You know, they’ll do the meditation, but there is some action required. And if you don’t take the action, I think sometimes we don’t take it because we’re feeling a feeling that we don’t want to experience like. Resistance, frustration, fear, overwhelm, and we’re like, oh, this isn’t the energy of manifestation.
When you realize that’s just like a little roadblock along the way. So it’s really balancing how do you want to feel? Like let’s really work towards that energy, but also realize you must. Drain out. Like if you’ve been living your life through this people pleaser lens or this like over giver, overdeliver.
Rescuer, like chronically rescuing other people. And then the second you’re like, I want freedom, I want abundance, I want this. You have to like have boundaries with your emotions and your feelings and you know, maybe. , maybe you’re changing your credit card numbers so that you’re not buying things on Amazon late at night or you know, doing takeout, and you have to sit with the feeling of like you’re buying another pair of $200 shoes, or you’re just buying your kid that toy because you feel guilty.
Maybe you need to sit with the guilt. Like my children, three boys. I will never forget this, my oldest. Like we live on a, on a lake city like water. And so everyone has boats, . And he’s like, I want a boat. I want a boat. And I could feel the guilt of like, you’re going to be the family. Like he’s going to have this complex of like everyone else had the, he’s going to grow up with a boat just because he didn’t have one when he was little.
And I’m like, honey, Having a boat is not a priority for us. It doesn’t mean we can’t afford it, but I could feel that, like what I’m going to call emotional manipulation, where I was like, oh, oh my God, I need to provide the best childhood experience for him. And I’m like, I, we are not boat people. We are like camping people.
We cottage people. We’re not boat people. I don’t want to be out on a boat all the time. I, I’ll go with a friend occasionally, but that’s just not our vibe. . So I could feel that where I was like, Ooh, I got to feel those uncomfortable feelings. But I was like, honey, just because you don’t have something doesn’t mean you can’t afford it.
It’s just not a priority. And we need to do that with our time and our energy as well. Is it that you actually don’t have time, or you are not prioritizing your goals and your vision, and then when you are and you’re kind of out of that survival state, I’m in a state where I’m like in Arial State and I’m like, okay, what’s your focus for 2023?
Prioritizing your energy management
And then something else, someone else like, do you want to come to this event? Do you want to do this? Do you want, and I’m like, oh my God, that’s not a priority this year, and I want to go so bad. And then I’m like, but what is, what are you trying to feed by going, is that a distraction? Like there’s just so many things.
It’s all about self-awareness. I love that you said that how we need to move from surviving to thriving. Because I’ve been approached several times to be in summits and I really had to like sit down and. Sounds awesome. I want to do, it could be great opportunities, but I, I had to ask myself that, that question, this is a priority right now in my life and business.
And you, and like you said, you have to sit. with those emotions for a while. You must get in the mindset. You also have to think of like the strategies that you want to take. But I think the last part of that, like you said earlier, is you must take some sort of action or you’re constantly going to stay in that survival mode.
Yeah. So I love that. Going from surviving to thriving, channeling into your energetic time management. Everything you have shared today has been. . Just like mind blowing and just different ways for me to think about when an opportunity does arise or when that, um, because I’m very creative. Oh my gosh. All those projects that come in my head and, you know, I get one person.
I am wildly creative. I had to like, have boundaries with that, but also have very unstructured space. Mm-hmm. . And I’ve realized that I also, um, Sorry, I was like, cut you off. Cause I got a little, I got excited , but I realized I have had to fuel my creativity outside of my business. I can be creative within my business, but if I add too much creativity in my business, I’m screwing it up and my team gets really mad at me.
Harmonious Business Cycle
And when I was a sole proprietor, like at the beginning, I could do that and I could get away with it, but as it was growing, it was like, how can I infuse that into my business? outside of it. . That’s really cool. I love that you say you love being creative and I think we need to allow space for creativity because there’s, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of this, it’s something new in my business that I’m trying to do and it’s something called the Harmonious Business Cycle where you allow yourself to be in that creative zone and you just jot down all the creative things you want to do.
You journal, you just stay. Space. And then you kind of decide, well, all the things that you put down in your creativity mode, what can you create and be consistent with? So then I kind of shift over to a consistent zone and be like, okay, now I’m going to stay consistent with it, prioritize certain things in my business.
And then after that I kind of think to myself, well, now that I’ve been consistent with it, is it sustainable? Will can I continue? , does it make sense for my business? Mm-hmm. , is it going to help my business grow? And then I allow myself to go into a rest and reflection kind of space, and now I need to analyze everything I’ve done.
Then I kind of start that cycle over. And I kind of do that every quarter now, and it seems to help me prioritize what’s important in my business and the future of my business. And it also kind of helps too in my personal. . So I don’t know if that kind of relates to what we’ve been talking about today.
It kind of seems like it is. I, I love that. Like I tell people I created this for me, and I’ve been able to quote unquote template it, but I ride the line well with. Strategy and then the creative. I would much rather live in the creative space a hundred percent of the time and not have a lot of structure or strategy.
I do like to have it a little bit, especially cause I’m, as I’m getting, not getting older, but I, I’m just like, ooh, I love routine and all of that. But I love a good adventure. I love an unplanned trip. I love, I don’t need to plan everything downto sit in front of a calendar all day. . But I love it when I know what’s going on and when I’m just like, here’s my calendar link and I don’t have to think about it.
And it’s structured Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, space on Mondays and Fridays, so I get that. Um, and but it’s like, take what the world is telling you and then make it your own. And that is creativity. Mm-hmm. like when people are like, am I doing this right? And I was like, again, you’re going through this lens.
am I right? Is it perfect? And I’m like that. What do you think? Like so many times I’m asking people, how does that feel to you? And to be honest, as a seasoned business owner, this year has been incredibly challenging because last year I was scaling and I was in a scale growth year, and so I told myself this story that I don’t know how if I, I got to seven figures, I’m like, I’ve never, I don’t know.
I’ve never been to seven figures before, so I need everyone else to tell me how to grow a seven to eight figure business. Mm-hmm. And then so I start listening to everybody else and implementing these strategies and I’m like, This feels off. This isn’t working. Mm-hmm. , I feel like I’m losing a lot, like I’m a lot of learning opportunities.
So now I’m coming back to this space of like, what worked, because there was some stuff that worked, what didn’t work? Okay. , what feels good? Then I go back to my journal prompt. Wouldn’t it be nice if, and I just focus on business, and I’m like, okay, don’t focus on your whole life. Just focus on wouldn’t it be nice and write down your business list.
What’s the feeling? All right. What in your business doesn’t feel that way? And so I use the same strategy for my clients who are personal clients, parenting relationship, and then if they are business clients, it’s. . All right. We’re constantly realigning and at the end of the day we can get the tools, the strategies, the mentors, all the things, but you must come back to yourself and ask, does this feel aligned?
And if it doesn’t, you got to create the space to just test and tweak and pivot a little bit. I love that. And I love that prompt. And if I think we might have some listeners who might be going, wouldn’t it be nice? Sometimes people just don’t know how to get out of their heads and almost dream, so couldn’t they take that prompt and just apply it to that day?
Yeah. Today. Wouldn’t it be nice if just maybe focus on that day in the morning having your coffee? Get that journal out and just go today. Wouldn’t it be nice if, and start seeing that shift in the priority into the energy of that feeling? And it’s simple things like, wouldn’t it be nice if I didn’t argue with my teenager when he slept in and didn’t get up on time?
Wouldn’t it be nice if. I didn’t react when the boys didn’t like what was served for dinner. And then I go through my day and then when my son sleeps in and I’m like, Hey honey, I’m just going to tell you once like your alarm went off, you’re not waking up. And then I get to sit. with my emotions and he’s going to be astonished and be like, oh yeah, she’s not going to rescue me anymore.
Mm-hmm. . And I’m like, oh look. Yep, you miss class. Yep. You keep missing class, then what happens? You fail. That’s a natural consequence. But let’s, I’m going to, but we’ll do some work. Uh, let’s go see what’s going on, why the sleep cycle’s not working. And then we look at the brain, then we look at the behavior.
But I don’t need to be, so I don’t need to project my anger and frustration onto my children. I can see them through a different lens. Um, yeah, that it’s about owning your energy and knowing that people will affect your energy. But when they trigger you to look and be like, Ooh, what did that trigger inside of me?
Rather than being like, I don’t like them anymore. And then, you know, creating drama. Right. . Well, I have to say, Heather, this was just such an awesome conversation and I’m looking forward to identifying in. Those feelings and those desires, and how I can shift my energy and prioritize my energy in a better way.
Final comments
Not only will it better myself, it’ll better my family, it’ll just better my business, it’ll just better my life overall. So I want to make sure that my audience has a chance to connect with you. Check out your podcast. Mm-hmm. , um, let me know where they can reach. So I have this cool life alignment quiz and it talks about like these four inner leadership pillars.
One is boundaries. One is I am always screw up when I say this. Boundaries, uh, time and energy management, uh, purpose, and then emotional freedom. And we briefly talked about it, survival momentum, thrive. So when you take this simple quiz, it will show you which area you need to focus on first and kind of which kind of level you’re living in.
Are you in a state of survival, momentum, thrive, uh, because it can be really overwhelming when you start doing this inner work. And then I kind of give you some like strategic how-tos on where to start. So you can go to Heather Chauvin, c h a u v i n.com/. Quiz, um, and then check out the podcast Emotionally uncomfortable.
And then my book, dying to Be a Good Mother, uh, can be purchased anywhere books are sold online. Awesome. Well, I will make sure that all those links are in the show notes for the audience. And thank you so much today for being here. This was an awesome conversation, Heather. Thank you, Allison.
