← Call Her Creator with Katelyn Rhoades
Call Her Creator with Katelyn Rhoades
153. Why Ambitious Women Secretly Want to Burn It All Down (5 Shifts To Make To Prevent Burnout)
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This episode is sponsored by Shopify, HomeServe and Fora Travel. Shopify. Starting a business sounds exciting until you're actually in it. The website, the products, the emails, it's a lot. That's why I love Shopify. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand's style. And HomeServe. Owning a home is amazing until something breaks. And it's never anything small. It's always those expensive, worst timing situations. That's why I love the idea of HomeServ. It's like a subscription for your home, helping cover those unexpected repairs and plans. Start at just 499amonth. And Fora Travel, are you the one who always plans the trips, hotels, itineraries, all of it? You're basically already a travel advisor. You're just not getting paid yet. With Fora, you can change that. From building your business to protecting your home to even getting paid to plan your next trip. These are the tools that make it all easier. Launch your business with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com.com CHC and HomeServe. Protect your home systems at homeserve.com or become a fora advisor at foratravel.com CHC that's F O R A travel.com CHC welcome back to Call Her Creator, the podcast that helps you create the life you actually love. And today, we're getting painfully honest up in here, because every few weeks I have this fantasy where I plan to sell everything. I plan to disappear into the woods and I plan to become a mysterious vineyard woman. Okay, picture this. I got a chic cabin, you know, but it's functional. Functional log cabin, big windows, cozy blanket. A suspiciously aesthetic sourdough starter on the counter that doesn't have gluten in it. Minimal technology, maybe one emergency phone and then a TV that only plays Netflix. I've got a vineyard out back. Because apparently in this fantasy, my family and I, we make organic wine now, and somehow it pays our bills. And if you're laughing because you've had your own version of this fantasy, welcome. You're my people. Because here's the thing. I really don't actually want to burn my life down. I, I, I love my life. I've built this life very intentionally. Call her creator. Call her the creator of an intentional beautiful life. Especially because I did not grow up with peace. I grew up in chaos. So creating safety, stability, freedom, beauty. That wasn't accidental. For me, that was Intentional. But sometimes ambitious women like me, like you, we become so good at building beautiful lives that we accidentally become the infrastructure holding every part of them together. And that is when the vineyard fantasy shows up, guys. Not because we hate our lives or we're ungrateful or because we secretly want less, but it's because we're carrying too freaking much. We're carrying the business. We're carrying the family logistics, the emotional labor, the planning, the fixing, the remembering, the being the one on all the time because we're capable. Everyone starts expecting that version of us all the time. You almost feel like you have to be on all of the time Sometimes we start expecting that version of ourselves all the time, and we become the woman who can handle anything. But she's quietly becoming emotionally crispy. Okay, she is burning out over there. So if you've recently fantasized about disappearing, changing your name, moving to Europe, opening a wine bar, becoming a florist, or simply just becoming unreachable for more than 72 hours, this episode is for you. It has found you in the most perfect time. Because this isn't really about wanting to burn it all down. It's just about how your nervous system might be trying to tell you, hey, before you burn out, let's face this conversation. So today, I want to walk you through some shifts that I'm working on as an ambitious woman that I think you guys could work on, too, before you hit that wall. Because I'm telling you, I have hit that wall before. It sucks. It doesn't feel good. And there's things that we can do to avoid it. I promise there are things we can do to alleviate some of that pain, some of that stress that you could be feeling right now. So before we get into these five shifts, I first, like, it's so important for me to make this quick side note for my girlies that are listening. So if you are a man, honestly, give me, like, 90 seconds to two minutes. Just go ahead and skip ahead because, ladies, we gotta talk about something. The luteal phase. I swear, some of these burn it all down and move to a vineyard thoughts hit significantly harder during that window of life. Actually, it's almost like always, always that third or fourth week of the month. And if you don't know what the luteal phase is, it's basically that phase after ovulation and before your period where your hormones shift so much. Like your progestero rises, your estrogen changes, and for some women, your tolerance for literally anything. Everyone's nonsense. It Literally falls through the floor. Like the sound of someone chewing. Feels like a personal attack on you. Your husband's breathing. Jail. An innocent slack notification from an employee. Absolutely not. What are you doing? Are you crazy? And I'm kind of joking here, but there's actually a real reason that this happened. So during this phase, our nervous system can feel way more sensitive. Your body's under different hormonal demands. Your energy. If you're anything like me, it dips completely. Your mood can shift. I literally cried yesterday. What movie was I watching? Reminders of him, which actually, it was a sad movie, but holy lordy, lordy, I was crying. My husband's like, oh, my God, I know what time it is. Your patience can be thinner. Stress can feel louder. So if you've ever found yourself looking around your perfectly normal life, thinking, actually, I would like to disappear into the wilderness and just start over. You could just be hormonal, so please think about that. I've now been adding that to my calendar, my luteal phase, so that I have it in my head, like, hey, Caitlin, you're not being too emotional right now. You're not losing your mind. You're just. Your hormones have shifted and you're working with the best that you've got. I also got a. An aura ring that kind of tells me like, hey, you're about to start your period. Like, you might want to take it slower today. And it's really helping me just to be aware of everything that's going on. But I think that, like, a part of being an ambitious woman is learning to understand your body and your rhythms instead of making every emotional spike mean that your life is falling apart. And, mamas, please teach your. Your. Your daughters this, because I know as a teenager, I wish that I could have known that, hey, little Caitlin, you're not a crazy psycho. Your hormones are shifting. You're on your period, you're PMSing. And I just think that us women being more aware of that, can actually shift a lot of things and shift a lot of decision making. So not every thought deserves a life decision. Okay, hormone corner over. Now let's get into the five actual shifts that you need to make so you're not burning down your business. Okay, so this is how we're going to slowly shift the way we think and stop wanting to secretly burn down everything every month. So number one is we have to stop being the default for everything, right? And I say this as someone who's actively working through this myself. A lot of ambitious women don't just Become the default. We accidentally train everyone around us to make us the default. We feel obligated. We answer the text. We solve the problem. We remember the birthday. We pick out the Mother's Day gifts for our in laws. We respond to the family chat about the next family dinner. We schedule the appointments. We follow up with the team. We check on the kids. We know where the permission slip is. We notice when the toothpaste is low. We respond faster. We care deeply and we fix things. And at first, it feels super productive, and it feels faster, like we can get it done in half the time as someone else. But then one day, guess what? You're gonna wake up and you're gonna realize, holy shit, everything rolled up the hill to me. Here's the hard truth. Being needed all the time can feel validating. It can make us feel important and control, indispensable. But guess what? Being indispensable is not freedom. In fact, being indispensable sounds really powerful. But until you realize being indispensable means you're actually in a cage when everyone needs you. You feel important. You're trapped. You cannot fully rest because someone might need an answer from you. You cannot fully unplug because something might fall apart. You can't take that vacation because your phone is basically a second child. You can't have a day off because you've become the emergency plan. And I think this is where a lot of ambitious women get confused. We think that freedom is building something that proves we're capable. But real freedom is building something that can breathe without us. And that's hard because being needed can become addictive, especially as a mother. It feeds that little part of us that wants to be the one who saves the day, right? The one who has the answer. The one who keeps it all together. The one that everyone trusts. But at some point, being trusted will turn into being depended on for everything. And that's not a partnership. That's not a quote on motherhood. That's not leadership. That is over functioning with a prettier name. And I say that with my whole chest, because I have absolutely done this myself. I have built systems where I was still the secret system. I have delegated tasks but kept the mental ownership. And that's the worst part. I have told people I wanted them to take initiative while also making the final checkpoint for every little thing. Be me. And then I wonder, like, oh, why am I tired? Well, Caitlin, because you are running everything through your dang self, girl. Be so honest right now. Because I was still holding the Whole house up with one hand while pretending I had help. So when I say indispensable is not freedom, I mean this. If people can't make decisions without you, you're not free. If the business pauses when you pause, you're not free. If home life only runs smoothly because you are constantly anticipating everybody's need, not free. If you have to disappear to get peace, you are not free. And I don't say that to shame anybody. I say that because sometimes the thing we're most proud of is the same thing that's quietly draining us. Being capable is a beautiful thing, and so is being reliable. Being the person that everyone can trust. Like, that's so beautiful. I want to be that person because I had a lot of moments in my life where I couldn't trust anybody. But being the only person who can keep everything moving, that is not a badge of honor. That's actually a warning sign. So right now, I want you to start asking yourself this question. What have I normalized that never should have became mine in the first place? Because a lot of us aren't burned out from life. We're burned out from over owning life. Instead of answering every question immediately, start redirecting questions. Instead of becoming the human Google document, start letting people solve things on their own instead of emotionally managing everyone. Maybe tolerate imperfection every now and then. Maybe delegate without hovering. That's been a huge game changer for me in business. I realized I had built a company where I was needed too much, where too much still touched me. And it's not because my team wasn't amazing, because they are the most amazing, talented humans on the planet. But it's because I train myself to be in the middle. And if everything depends on you, that's not a business. That's a very expensive job that you have. All right, Shift number two, which is one of my favorite and most important to me personally, is to regulate your stress before it regulates you. Okay, I have a question for you. Are you the friend who plans everything when it comes to trips? Like, you're comparing hotels, finding the best spots, building the itinerary, and everyone else just shows up. If that's you, you've prob probably already thought like a travel advisor. You just haven't been paid for it yet. And that's exactly what Fora is built for. Fora is a modern travel agency for people who love planning travel and want to turn that into real income. They give you everything you need. The training, the booking tools, and a full community of advisors. So you're not figuring it out alone. And what I love is how simple it actually is. As a fora advisor, you get access to over 7,000 travel partners, everything from luxury hotels to boutique stays. And you can offer your clients perks like upgrades, resort credits, and late check out things most people don't even know how to access. And every time you book a trip, you earn commission. So if you're already the one planning the trips anyways, this is one of those why am I not doing this moment? Now's the time to turn your love for travel into something that actually pays you back. Become a fora advisor today@foratravel.com CHC that's F O R A travel.com CHC and make sure you tell them that we sent you Let me ask you something. Have you ever had an idea for a business but you immediately thought what if? No, nobody buys? Or what if I don't know what I'm doing because I've been there? When I started my business, I didn't have a full team. I didn't have the perfect systems in place. I just had an idea and the willingness to figure it out as I went. And honestly, having a platform like Shopify would have made that process so much easier. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and literally powers 10% of all E commerce in the US so whether you're just getting started or scaling, it grows with you. You can build a beautiful online store with their ready to use templates, use built AI tools to write product descriptions and content, and even run email and social campaigns all in one place. And one of my favorite parts, that shop pay button. It makes checkout so seamless, which means fewer abandoned carts and more actual sales. So if you've been sitting on an idea or you're ready to take your business seriously, it's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.comchc that's shopify.comchc a lot of ambitious women have normalized functioning in a mildly stressed state 247 maybe you are checking text messages or emails or slack while you are answering a text message, while you're mentally planning dinner, while you're remembering you need to follow up with someone while you're half listening to a podcast, while you also have Netflix playing in the background. You guys, that's just me. And let me tell you how bad it is. So I order hellofresh as a convenience because one I signed up so that I can just have my stuff delivered for dinner. Dinner is like one of the hardest things because it's at the very end of the day. I'm tired, I've spent, I've given a lot of myself out already, and I don't want to make a decision, so I like just having it sent to me. The ideas are there, the instructions I follow. Done. Well, every single time I cook, I think that I can manage two to three other tasks as well. So I'll start cooking. Got that? You know, asparagus going on the. The oven. Oh, I gotta post that reel. Let me post it real quick. Oh, shoot. Google home. Can you play Sabrina Carpenter? Oh, shoot. I gotta start Beckham's dinner. Cause he's picky and he only eats chicken. Next thing you know, guess what's happening. The alarm is going off because my asparagus is burning. And now my husband is yelling at me. And then I wonder why. I feel on edge. That's overstimulated. Snappy, emotionally exhausted. Guys, our nervous system was not designed to live in constant micro emergencies. In fact, I don't think our nervous system was built for today's technological advances. Honestly, like the. The scrolling and the TV and the computers, it's. It's a lot. But one of the biggest things that has genuinely changed my life with this dress is walking. And I call it money walks. And before you think this is some cheesy like, let me help you manifest your million dollars while you're power walking thing. Like, kind of, honestly. But no, a money log is just my intentional morning or evening or both walk where I get out of the house, I move my body, I clear my head, I feed my brain something helpful. I will do it in the evenings if I get extra time. Just as bonus steps, I really like to get in 10,000 steps a day. Plus, like, if I do it in the evening as well, I'm able to release the stress that I had from that day. Um, sometimes I'm listening to a business podcast. Sometimes I'm listening to something about breath work. Sometimes I'm healing my trauma. Sometimes it's mindset. Sometimes it might be absolutely nothing. I'm walking with my husband, but those walks are really healing for me and they really distress me. And they're more about becoming the best version of myself who can think clearly enough to make better decisions for my husband, my team, my family, my kids. And science actually backs it up too. Walking actually helps lower cortisol, which is your body's primary stress hormone. It boosts endorphins, which literally helps improve mood. Walking increases circulation and supports your lymphatic system, which actually depends on movement to function properly. And then there's studies that have shown walking can improve creativity and problem solving, which honestly makes total sense because have you ever sat at your desk spiraling over a problem and then you go for a walk and suddenly, like, the answer just appears? That is not woo woo. Even though I am all for the woo woo. That is literal biology. I cannot tell you how many times I've started a walk feeling very overwhelmed or depressed or resentful, irritated. Emotionally fried, basically. And after the walk, I come back with so much clarity. And it's not because my problem has disappeared, but it's because I've regulated. Okay, real life moment. There is nothing more humbling than owning a home and realizing, oh, I'm responsible for everything. Like, when something breaks, there's no landlord to call. It's just you, Google and a potential $2,000 problem staring you in the face. And you never know what it's going to be. It could be a water heater going out or a burst pipe. It's always unexpected and it's always expensive. And the worst part, a lot of those things, the plumbing issues, the H vac breakdowns, they're not always covered by your standard homeowner's insurance. That's where HomeServe comes in. They offer plans that help protect against those kinds of repairs, starting at just 499amonth. So instead of scrambling to find someone last minute, you can call their 24.7hotline and get connected with a local, experienced technician. It's super simple. You just choose a plan that fits your needs and your budget. And if something on your plane goes wrong, you just call to start the repair process. And honestly, that is a peace of mind for me. If I needed something like this, HomeServe is what I would use. HomeServe has been helping homeowners for over 20 years with a network of 2,600 local experienced contractors and over 4.5 million customers. So if you want to help protect your home systems and your wallet from covered repairs, go to homeserve.com, find a plan that's right for you. That's homeserve.com not available everywhere. Most plans range between 4.99 to $11.99 a month. Your first year terms apply on covered repairs. So if you are the ambitious woman listening to this feeling like everything is a little too much, I want you to know before you go burn it all down before you convince yourself that everything is going wrong. Go take a walk. Seriously, I want to challenge you to create your own version of a daily money walk. Honestly, go take a money walk. Walking will not magically solve your life, but it will regulate. It will regulate you as a woman. It will help you make better decisions than a dysregulated woman. And if you want, actually, I'm going to do it. I'll link my money walk playlist in the show notes because apparently we're all just trying to not just emotionally file for bankruptcy before noon. So my money walk playlist kind of gives you some different podcasts you can listen to while you're on your first money walk. But I live by a money walk. And if you are listening to this episode today while walking, please do me a favor. I want you to take a little selfie of yourself right now, and I want you to post it on your Instagram stories. And then I want you to screenshot this episode and add that image on top of it and do a hashtag money walk and tag. Call her creator. I will share you to my stories too, because we need more women walking. We really do. We need more de stressing. All right, shift number three. Learn the difference between. Oh, this one's so good. Learn the difference between resting and escaping. So I actually had to talk to myself about this one because for a long time I believed if I was sitting down, I was resting. But sitting down with your phone in your hand, scrolling on Instagram or Reddit halfway watching Netflix online shopping, that's not resting. Your body's being still technically, but your nervous system is on girlfriend. And we have to understand escape and rest are not the same thing. Escape is I need to numb out because I cannot handle one more thing. Rest is I am intentionally doing something that helps my mind and body recovery. Very different energy. So scrolling Instagram while comparing yourself to strangers, that is not rest. Drinking wine because you need to take the edge off, that is not rest. Been watching three episodes while mentally replaying an argument. Not rest. Even online shopping, that's not rest. That is dopamine to cover your feelings. And I'm not shaming anybody. I am not above a good couch rot. I love a mindless Netflix day. And I'm not saying that every second of your life has to be optimized, but if your only coping mechanism is to escape, then eventually your body will force the conversation. Ambitious women, especially, are so used to the go, go, go, go, go that when we finally stop moving, we don't actually know how to recover. So we default to numbing. And that's the phone, that's the tv, that's the snacks, that's the wine, that's the distraction. Anything that helps us temporarily not feel but restoration actually looks a little different. What real rest looks like is a walk or Pilates or breath work, or sitting outside listening to nature, grounding your feet in the frickin dirt, praying out loud. A bath without your phone in hand, going to bed earlier, a conversation that fills your cup up instead of drains it. If your version of rest leaves you feeling a little more anxious or overstimulated or guilty or drained afterward, that's not rest. So I want you to honestly be very aware of how you're resting and make sure that you're not just avoiding. I think this matters because we tell ourselves that we're taking care of ourselves while we're actually just disassociating in aesthetically pleasing ways. So here's your question. Does the thing you call rest actually restore you? Because if it's either of those things I said earlier, phone, tv, snacks, wine, distraction, that is not restoring you, and you may need a little more time off, you may need a better recovery plan. All right, shift number four. Oof. Let things be good enough. This one is the one that quietly drains ambitious women the most. Because perfectionism is expensive. Like financially expensive, emotionally expensive, mentally expensive, relationship expensive. It's a tax. At the end of the day, perfectionism sounds super noble. It wears this cute little productivity outfit. It says things like, I have high standards, I care about excellence, I want things done right and same. But I love. I love excellence too. But perfectionism is sneaky because sometimes it's not actually about standards. It's about fear. Oh, how's that feel? You're worried about judgment. You're worried about getting it wrong, or disappointing people, or not being seen as capable. So instead of finishing the thing, you tweak it. You rewrite that email six times. You overthink it. You spend three hours adjusting a caption no one's even gonna freaking remember. You delay the launch, you micromanage people. You don't start the thing. You redo work that has already, you know, been. Honestly, it was completely fine in the first place. You're just redoing it. I. I actually don't really do this. I'm not a perfectionist. In fact, my husband sometimes will be like, take your time more. But he's a perfectionist. I'm. I'm more so like, oh, got it. Done. Check mark. It's off my list. It's out of my loop. I'm the type that like, I just want to close that loop. So it's off my list. But there are some of you out there that honestly need it to be absolutely perfect. You might hold on to things because you think that your way is the better way. You want to check one more thing, you want to approve one more detail, you want to fix one more caption, you want to hover over your team. But then you wonder why you feel mentally exhausted. It's because perfectionism doesn't just steal your piece. It. It steals your capacity. And then the tax there. Perfectionism costs you opportunities because while you're obsessing over getting something exactly right, someone else is out there launching the thing, testing the thing, posting the thing, learning the thing, adjusting the thing. Done will get you feedback at the minimum. Perfect gets you delayed. So in my opinion, perfectionism is often just procrastination and a nice savvy, you know, blazer. And it doesn't just show up in business either. It can show up in motherhood. I do struggle with this one, thinking about every birthday being magical. I. My daughter's turning 6 and I. I truly am. I'm overthinking her birthday. This Friday we have her birthday, and I'm. I'm going way above and beyond for this stinking birthday because I want it to be Pinterest worthy. I want every memory for my children to be meaningful. But what we have to remember is that our kids probably remember how you felt way more than if our balloon arch was perfect. Right? They remember if mommy was happy. Some things do deserve excellence. But not everything deserves obsession from you. Some of your emails, they can be shorter. Some of your dinners can be a little simpler. Your house chores, they can wait. Some things can be delegated. Some of your over expectations can die. So if no one's told you this lately, good enough is sometimes the healthiest decision in the room. Because ambitious women don't usually burn out because they aren't capable. They burn out because they try to carry life at an impossible standard. I'm gonna tell you this and. And write it on your forehead. Done with peace beats perfect with resentment. All right, last shift to wrap us up. Delegate more responsibility. And I know some of you are listening, thinking, cute. I would love to delegate if people did things right. And I hear you on that. But delegation done poorly creates more stress. Delegation done well creates freedom. And I'm not telling you to delegate by just saying, like, here Take this. And then not giving them zero context or zero expectations or zero ownership, because then you're gonna be annoyed and it's gonna come back messy. That's not delegation, though. That's panic passing. So if you want to delegate in the right way with social media, that's not telling me what you need. A better delegation would be, hey, I need our content calendar finalized by Thursday. I want three approved real ideas. I want captions written, and I want graphics ready for review. You see how that removes the chaos? Like they know exactly what they need to do and then explain what done actually looks like. What's obvious to you isn't always obvious to someone else. So what does success actually look like here? Do you have a deadline for me? Do you have a quality standard? Do you have deliverables? Do you have a brand voice? Do you have decision boundaries? And then give ownership, not dependency. Don't say come to me for every question you have. Nope, you gotta say, hey, bring me solutions, not just problems. Otherwise you're still going to be the bottleneck. And it's. There's no point in delegating. I also want you to accept that someone may do it differently than you, and this is an ego check. But different doesn't mean wrong. If the outcome is achieved, let it breathe. Because some of us aren't bad at delegating. We're just bad at surrendering that control. So this will be like your. You know how you gotta work out your muscles? You gotta work out this delegation. And don't yank back too early. This is what ambitious women like us love to do. We delegate, then we get uncomfortable, and then we micromanage, and then we take it back. Back. See, it's even easier if I just do it. I'm actually at this issue right now where I delegated a specific task to someone, and I'm honestly kind of wanting to take it back over, but I'm trying to wait it out for a little bit and give her a chance to do the thing that she does. Because her way is not wrong. It's just different from my way. So this is one that I'm working on. And it's. I mean, this stuff is not easy, guys. It's. It's not easy, but it's worth it. It really is. I think it's worth it. Delegation is not getting someone to do it exactly like you. It's creating a system where the outcome happens without requiring your constant involvement. And I read this quote and it really resonated. Resonated with me and I wanted to share it with you guys. Freedom requires tolerance for imperfection. I love that. And this has been huge for me because I realized I was not delegating. I was just assigning things to my team while still emotionally owning everything. So that's when I had to take a step back. All right, listen. None of this came from me sitting on some mountaintop with life perfectly figured out. This has all came from real life, real conversations, real moments of feeling overstimulated, stretched too thin, overwhelmed, asking myself, holy sh. Is it me? Is it life? Is mercury and retrograde again? Is it my luteal phase? But there's one thing I hope you take away from today's episode, and it's this. Wanting to run away doesn't always mean your life is broken or awful. Sometimes it just means, like, maybe your systems are broken, maybe your boundaries are broken. Maybe your nervous system needs support. Sometimes you've just been carrying too much for too long. And we are really good at doing that. But being capable doesn't mean you're meant to carry everything. So if this episode felt like a conversation you needed today, please do me a favor and send it to a friend. Send it to that ambitious woman in your life who's holding everything together but secretly dreaming about disappearing into a cabin in the woods with suspiciously good organic wine. And if Call Her Creator has become your little weekly Big Sister pep talk, I would be so grateful if you left me a review. Because reviews help this podcast grow so much. It helps more women find these conversations, and it means the world to me when you take the time to do that. And if you want to continue this conversation with me, please come hang out with me over on Instagram. Call her creator, send me a dm, tell me which of these shifts really hit you in the stomach. Do we have a fantasy alternate identity? I want to know. I need to know I'm not alone. All right, I love you. I appreciate you, and I will see you next episode.