“If you’re starting to feel an energy of wanting to retreat more and feeling deeper feelings, do not deny yourself of that. You are entering your fall season.'”

It’s a common misconception that as highly driven career women, we need to achieve at the same rate year round.  

Sure, we know to take breaks (hopefully). Long weekends happen here and there. Maybe even an annual long vacation.

But how do you know if you’re truly honoring your seasons so that you can thrive when it makes the most sense for your body and mind?

In other words, do you know your seasons of life?

I’ve talked about the seasons of life in other episodes and have previously covered winter, spring and summer. Today, it’s time to talk about fall.

Even though I’m releasing this episode as the actual season of fall is upon us here in my home state of Texas, it may not be your fall yet. Your own life seasons may or may not line up with the seasons of nature, and that’s ok. Just remember, this is about honoring your own cycle. 

I FOR ONE KNOW THAT I AM ENTERING MY FALL SEASON. ARE YOU ENTERING YOURS?

• Do you still feel a burst of energy from summer while also feeling the need to slow down?
• Maybe you’re even feeling a little burnt out?
• Do you feel like you need some time just for you?
• Are you already starting to think about next year?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are likely entering your fall season. It’s not quite winter, which means we’re not yet ready for the new year, but it’s on your mind.

In this episode, I’m going to teach you how to honor all of the feelings you’re having so you don’t let the burnout get the best of you. I’m also sharing what I’m doing to honor my own seasons in my life and in my business.

Let’s get ready for what’s next. Listen at the top of this page.

POST EPISODE RESOURCES:

Full Transcript:

Episode 133: SLOWING DOWN TO SPEED UP

How to Avoid Burnout

This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 133, Slowing Down to Speed Up.

[music]

Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fear-facing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife, mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. We can’t fear the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman you were meant to be. Let’s do this.

[music]

Hi there, Ms. Unstoppable, welcome to another episode of the show. If you’re an avid listener of the show, you know throughout this past year, I’ve done some episodes around the seasons of life, specifically around nature seasons, like spring, summer, fall, and winter. Today, we’re going to be talking about the fall season, particularly on this topic called, Slowing Down to Speed Up.

Just to give you a little background, if you haven’t listened to those other episodes that we go through seasons, not only in nature but as human beings, especially as women because we’re so intuitive and so connected to our planet, which is also referred to as this feminine being of Mother Earth. Every year, we have the season where we’re really visible and we’re out there, and we just feel like the best of the best of us, and that is considered your summer month.

Those months may be right around when you’re experiencing summer, wherever you live in the world, or it may be another season for you. It doesn’t have to be in alignment with nature, but typically, you spend about three months really just feeling out there and visible and ready to show your best work. Then, there is spring. Spring is like you’re really opening yourself up and getting into that season of eventual summer, like you’re moving a little bit faster. You’re putting yourself out there more, but you don’t quite have the intensity like summer has.

Then after summer happens, you get into fall, which we’re going to talk about today, which is slowing down, really starting to shed some layers that are no longer serving you, and getting prepped in essence for your winter, which is when then you’re fully shedding everything. I think that that episode is like a Cut the Clutter, I think is what the winter episode is called. You’re cutting everything. You’re shedding all of the things and going into a hibernation, recharging. Again, maybe doing some internal work, so then in the spring and summer, you can really be at your peak.

Today, as I said, we’re going to talk about fall and what this season is like. This season is hard to put your finger on a little bit, like spring. It’s like summer and winter, you can definitely feel. Summer, you’re like, “I have so much energy. I’m ready to put myself out there.” Winter, you’re like, “Ooh, it’s the opposite. I really want to just hibernate and sit back and sleep probably more than normal.” Some people even may call it a seasonal depression. I mean, it’s up to you how you define it. Those two seasons feel really strong, but then we’ve got, spring and fall where we feel in the middle.

Fall typically feels for me and a lot of people that I coach, and I know, it just feels like a time when you’re just starting to slow down as you’re starting to recharge a little bit from your summer months, you’re starting to really think through, okay, what worked, what didn’t work. If you do follow the nature cycles and you’re here, and I guess what it was called, the Western hemisphere where, right now, and September, October, November, typically when you’re starting to feel fall, then you’re starting to really analyze too of this next year, this next calendar year.

I know for many people, there they’re like, “Oh my gosh, but it’s so early. We have many months left in the year. Why is it that I’m already anticipating next year?” I just want to offer you that that’s because you’re already starting to shed. You’re starting to see, “Oh, okay. What isn’t working for me anymore? What is it that I need to do in these next few months to shift my way of being? Maybe shift some things around me so that when I come back out of my shell in spring and summer, I will be ready for what it is that I want to do next.” I hope that makes sense.

Again, it’s if you’re feeling fall right now, which is when I typically feel fall, which is in alignment with the seasons of where I live here in Texas, then you’re starting to feel this energy of just wanting to retreat a little bit and wanting to maybe even feel some feelings. You may be denying yourself of that. I know for a lot of people who haven’t done really deep work, either in coaching or therapy or anywhere else, they avoid that. You’ll even see this in our society of, in the fall, people will start drinking more typically alcohol, and you’ll see people really focusing in more on sports a lot of times too.

Just those things, those distractions that are beautiful things in our world, I’m not denying that. Instead of turning within and seeing the work they need to do internally, they’re avoiding hits and they’re turning to distractions. Distractions are things you do, but you don’t really want to do them at the end of the day. Again, it’s like get a blanket, snuggle, and watch some Netflix. In moderation, that’s a beautiful thing. If you’re intentionally deciding you want to spend an evening cuddled in, watching Netflix, great.

It’s when you’re, in essence, putting yourself in front of a TV or something else, then later, you’re like, “Oh, why did I just spend all that time doing that? I really didn’t want to be doing that.” That’s where you know you’re avoiding feelings and you’re turning to distractions instead to avoid those feelings.

With fall, it’s a huge opportunity for you if you want to take it, a time for you to start to slow down so that you can speed up eventually later. They will say this year, for some reason, I have my theories that I’ll share with you in a minute. For some reason, I’m feeling it more so now than ever that I have to slow it down. My theory is because we’ve had COVID, we’ve had a global pandemic now for a year and a half.

Many of us, especially as moms, we’ve had a lot on our plates. Of course, healthcare workers, teachers, anybody really has had just different things thrown at them more than normal this past year. We’re at a stage where it’s like, “I’ve got to slow down.” You may even be feeling something called burnout. “I really want to be working,” or “I really want to be showing up with my family this way,” but it’s just feeling too hard. I am with you on that. I am feeling like I have got to slow down. I’ve got to take some time to really just be for a while.

That’s the beauty of fall, of allowing yourself to be. You’ll hear a lot of people talk about this when they describe fall. It’s like, “I just want to be out in nature. I just want to slow down for a little bit and enjoy this season.” That’s exactly the beauty of fall, to be able to slow down and to do some reflection and some thinking, and you’re looking around you. Again, if your fall is with nature of seeing the leaves falling and seeing the flowers start to die a little bit, right?

You’re dying and you’re shedding as well, and this is the time to do it. This is the perfect ideal time to start to shed. This is the time I love signing new one-on-one clients because in my coaching process, the first three months, what we’re doing is we’re shedding all of the things that are no longer serving them. These are the things that are keeping them from reaching the goals that they want. Although it’s not the sexiest work, it’s very, very fruitful work. It’s life-changing work. It’s a beautiful time to do it in fall or their fall season, I guess, because nature is supporting them enough or their body is supporting them enough of, “Yes, it’s time to shed. It’s time to get rid of this stuff.”

As I said, for many people, they’re feeling this either subconsciously or even unconsciously, the need to shed. They’re not answering that call. They’re turning, as I said, to distractions to help them numb that out. What’s beautiful about hiring a coach like myself during this time is you feel supported in that, and too, you put your money where your mouth is an essence of like, “I’ve got to make this a great investment. I’m not going to waste my money here.”

Not only do you feel supported in that decision to shed and to feel and to let go of whatever needs to be let go of, but you have some accountability in that too of, “Okay, I’ve really got to do this thing because I’ve put my money on the line here to make this happen.” I share all of that with you. You may be like, “Lindsay, what am I here to gain?” I will say, if you are listening to this podcast, major props to you because there are so many people who do not want to slow down, they don’t, in essence, want to dig deeper into their lives, and they don’t want to feel their feelings.

I even just had a consult recently with someone, and she wants to really up-level in her career, and I told her, I said, “Oh my gosh, we can absolutely do that. You’re right on the cusp of that, but to do that, you’ve got to go in and we’ve got to feel some feelings. We got to do some deep inner work so that you can get those outer goals hit, and too, you sustain them, and you keep them long term because you may look at other coaches or other things, and they’re like, ‘Yes, we can get you these up levels,’ and they can, but can you sustain it.”

It’s like if we’re looking at nature, we can get a flower to bloom without strong roots, and maybe not pruning it and all the things, but the bloom is going to be so much shorter-lived and just frankly, not as healthy as if, unless we went in and really did some work on the roots and to really prune some things away and get it really, really healthy.

All right. Again, it’s like, what I want to offer you today is this likely very short podcast of just giving you permission to slow down, telling you that if you’re feeling this in your life, right now, there’s nothing wrong with you. It is okay to slow down. It is okay to feel your feelings, but I really encourage you to find some support and not to go deep in it. What I see a lot with clients, and if you’re an avid listener of the show, you know Kaycee Joy is somebody I work with closely as a fellow coach in my coaching practice. I have my clients work with her, and then also she coaches me.

What we see a lot is women who, yes, they feel their feelings, but they don’t really feel the depth of them. They just spin in the same loop again, and they say, “Oh, but I just feel sad all the time. I feel mad.” It’s like, “Yes, you do because you have to really learn how to feel the depth of it, and you’re not getting the proper support to, in essence, force your brain and body because your brain really hates feeling those feelings, even though it’s what we’re meant to do, and the way to process feelings is to get through them, but the brain hates that, and so you’ve got to have somebody that supports you in that and really gets you to dig deep in that so you can come out of it on the other side.”

I know for me, where I’m at in my journey, I’m starting to feel these feelings of fall is I’m prioritizing my own wellness. Last fall, I did not do this, and I paid the price of it in essence. Fall and winter, really, I was putting out two podcasts a week for a while. I was taking on a lot of new clients. I had a new program called Living the Dream at the time that I was working with the beta group. I was also only getting to work on Sundays and on Wednesdays, and then in the evenings because I had my then two-year-old son at home all the time because of COVID, and so it was just a lot.

I’m glad that I made it through that period of time and have the beautiful blessings that I have today from that season, but my brain and body right now is like “Whoa, Lindsay, you’ve got to slow down and you’ve got to properly take these seasons this next year so that in spring and summer, you can fully bloom,” because what happened is, yes, I had a beautiful year but on that note, when I was hitting my spring season, I was like really wanting to be visible and stuff, but I was so tired.

I felt this push-pull the entire time of intuitively wanting to be out there, but just physically not having those strong roots, in essence, to really support me in that. Then summer too is the same. It was like “Oh man, I really want to be out there and be visible, and although I felt pulled to do that, I experienced a lot of anxiety in that process because again, I needed more healing work to have happened and to slow down, even more, in my fall and my winter.

Now, I will say that not only do we experience these seasons throughout the year, we also, as women, experience them throughout the month. If you have never studied your cycle, I encourage you to do so. I read a book recently called Period Power by Maisie Hill, and I have been stalking her to get her on the podcast, but she does very little interviews. That book is very eye-opening to show you your own seasons you go through every month.

It can be a lot to take in of, “Well, we’ve got these seasons every year and every month too,” and I will say it, it is. It is a lot. It’s is a big FU to society in a lot of ways. If you don’t know, we are in this patriarchy where it’s always, “Push, push, push, go, go, go,” energy forward movement all the time, and as women, we just don’t work that way. It can be a lot to really just take in of, “Oh my gosh, yes, I can’t continue to push myself. I can’t continue to act, in essence, like a man to get what I want. I can, but I’m burning myself out in the process.”

I know for me as I’ve started to really accept that and shed that, there’s been feelings of anger with that of, “Oh, I hate the society we live in, and it’s made me feel like there’s been something wrong with me,” when really, the reality is, there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m just a woman and my cycles need to be honored. Then too, even sadness in that of like, “Oh, I hate that.” I have to be the one to, in essence, go a different path than the way a lot of different people work, especially different women because if people think, “Oh, well, these women are going out there, and they’re pushing all the time in, doing all the things in forward movements, then why can’t you Lindsay?

It’s like, “Well, they’re not honoring their cycles. They’re not honoring the flow of life,” and so I feel sadness with that a lot of times of like, “Oh, I wish we could all collectively know as women how we work best so that we could collectively stand together and say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to put up with this treatment anymore because even when we have, just some of us out there pushing and working all the time.” Again, the patriarchy really supports that of, “Yes, well, these women can do it, you can too.”

We’re seeing this statistically, right now. I will say there’s a huge awakening going on, especially with women of so many women have left the workforce this past year, and it’s not because they don’t enjoy working, they don’t love their jobs. They’re just hitting some boundaries with themselves, or like, “Hey, I need my job to be more flexible. I need to have a position where I can raise my kids and be really successful at work,” and too, a lot of women are experiencing massive burnout right now, and they’re like, “I’ve got to take some time off and recharge.”

Again, I’m feeling you if you’re in that space. I just want to encourage you to take this time off, if possible. I know that’s something of privilege and of luxury to be able to slow down, but I also want to offer you too is maybe in this season of life, you’re not making more money, maybe you’re not hitting these external goals, but what I’ve typically see with myself and with my clients and other things in the world is that we have to slow down to speed up because that’s the analogy, I said, of the roots. You’ve got to have strong roots to really have a big, beautiful full bloom of a flower. Yes, you will bloom likely if your roots aren’t strong, but it won’t be as impactful.

What I see with my clients, especially we’ll spend these three months of really digging deep and shedding some layers and shedding some, in essence, trauma, even if it’s just little traumas along the way of somebody making fun of you or something. We shed all that stuff, and then what happens is we’ve built such strong roots for them that then the next three months, they just bloom and blossom and grow in beautiful ways. They achieve even more success than what they thought they would by coaching with me.

Again, I just want to put that out there that this next season in your life, whenever you’re feeling your fall, if it’s now or another time, to honor that, to slow down if you’re getting a lot of scarcity mindset thoughts of “Oh, but the money, oh, but the opportunities, oh, but this, oh, but that.” That’s your mindset work to do. That’s a great opportunity for you to hire somebody like me to really dig deep of why is it that you feel like you need to push yourself all the time and to put yourself out there all the time, and to, in essence, heal some stuff of why you’re having that scarcity thinking.

For a lot of women I work with, they’ve become successful or they’re on their way to becoming massively successful in their careers, and they’re not there financially. Even if they are, they still have what I call money drama because maybe they grew up in an environment where they didn’t have a lot of money or different financial things happened to them.

I have had many clients everything was peachy and awesome and their family, and then their dad lost a job or their parents got a divorce or something like that, and then the finances changed drastically, and so again, they feel like “Oh my gosh, I always have to have my own back. I always have to cover my tush with my finances and make sure everything’s in alignment.” They just keep pushing themselves for more and more and more money. What they’re doing is, in essence, yes, maybe they’re making that money now, but they’re cutting themselves off from future money sources.

I’m reading a book right now called We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rogers. It’s hands down my favorite money book I’ve ever read. I encourage you to go get it. Again, We Should All Be Millionaires by Rachel Rogers, amazing book. In that book, she talks about broke-ass decisions and rich-ass decisions, in essence. The broke-ass decisions sometimes look like– she didn’t call them rich-ass, she called them millionaire decisions, I think, but anyways, the broke-ass decisions at the time seemed like the millionaire choices like, “Oh, I’m just going to work really, really hard all year long, push myself to the max.” If you weren’t honoring your seasons, because, “Oh, I’m going to just grow my business by this much or really rocket in my career or I’m going to really achieve balance this way if I just do all these things.”

Then, what happens really is then they burn out, and then they’re really blocking themselves from bigger opportunities by pushing themselves so hard. I’m even seeing this with my own business is that my business grew a lot this past year. It was beautiful and it was amazing and all the things, but my business hasn’t been growing the past few months, and it’s because I’m tired. I’m feeling burnouts. It’s just reminding me again of, “Lindsay, you’ve got to take a fall season this year. You’ve got to slow down and allow yourself to recharge so that you can put yourself out there in a stronger way next year.”

I believe that me taking this time to slow down in this fall and this winter is next spring and summer, it’ll be even bigger than what I did this year. I will find and just further prove to my brain that it’s okay to slow down. It’s okay to take these seasons. This is just the way that nature works. This is the way my body was intended to go through this every year. There’s nothing wrong here. In essence, this is what’s setting me up for massive success in my spring and summer months.

All right. With all of that said, I will make this announcement now that I’m actually going to be taking a hiatus from the podcast for at least November and December, maybe a little bit longer, I’m not quite sure. I’m just going to really feel into how long this hiatus needs to be, but you will see there’s going to be some episodes coming out the next few weeks that are interviews. Those are episodes that I am recording right now here in the middle of September as I’m recording this episode, and they will just come out in the next few weeks. I’ll be sharing even more so on one of those episodes about some healing I’m going to be doing in this fall and winter season of my life so that, again, my spring in summer can be even more fruitful.

There’s been a lot of things that have led me to this choice to take some time off. I think, again, the biggest one is just I didn’t honor my seasons last year as much. I did honor them, they just weren’t as much as I typically do. I really felt the impact of that in spring and summer. It’s so funny. I was just thinking about today is that many times when we’re making a decision in the moment, it doesn’t quite impact us in the moment of the impact of that choice, but it impacts us later down the road, typically six months to a year later. They even say in business money times of what you’re doing today is what you’re going to see the impact of in six months to a year.

Just I really encourage you. I even give you permission if you feel like you need it to slow down so that you can speed up. I’ll leave you with the stories. I just got off the phone last night with a client who, man, she was working all the time, all the time, all the time. It was hard for her even to take a vacation because she’s just on a very demanding job. As we’ve worked together, we’ve shed some layers, she has seen how toxic it’s been that she’s been working all the time, and we set some boundaries on her life and done some healing work. Again, done that first three months of shedding that I’ve been talking about.

Now she’s like, “Oh my gosh, Lindsay, I’m way more productive at work. So many opportunities are coming my way. I’m shifting out of this role into a consultant role where I’m going to be making even more money. I’m just so glad that I trusted the process. I slowed down, even though it felt really uncomfortable, and now I’m setting myself up to fully have the life that I want to have for myself. Of course, I still have some doubts and some fear around this shift, but just I feel so in alignment. I’m so glad I’m taking this.”

I will say I’m feeling very similar as I’m slowing down and doing some deeper work right now. Again, I’m so grateful I have my coaches and some other healing professionals in my life to really help me through this season. I can’t do this alone, and so too, if you feel you’re wanting some extra help during the season or another season in your life, whenever you’re listening to this, I really want to invite you to consider me to help you along this journey.

If you’re listening to this episode live or somewhat live, I am limiting the amount of one-on-one clients that I have over the next few months. I’m only going to take on 10 new women. These women are the people that I’ve really started to understand do very, very well with my work. They just have typically done some other self-awareness work, either they were just born a self-aware person. Self-aware means they’re questioning why a lot of times like, “Why am I doing this? Why is this the happening to me?” That alone has built self-awareness for them.

Many of my clients they’ve done other personal development work, be it with a therapist, with a career coach, maybe some executive coaching, or something at work. Maybe they’ve worked even with other coaches or they just listen to podcasts and read books, or maybe they’ve done some different workshops and things of that sort, and they’re just like, “Man, I’m just ready for more. I’m ready for really big transformation. I just feel I’m right on the cusp of it and yet I feel so stuck at the same time.” They hire me to really help them do that.

I have noticed too that my most successful clients tend to be enneagram ones, twos, and nines. I have a very successful enneagram eight right now, and I’m trying to figure out the formula of what’s made her successful versus my other eights, who I’ll be completely honest, were some of my hardest clients to date. I’ve really found that ones, twos, and nines are the enneagram numbers that I work best with. Now I do work with other enneagram numbers, but I think there’s just something special. I’m still trying to put my finger on what it is about one, twos, and nines for them to be fully successful in this work.

Many of my clients too, they’re coming to me again and they’re like, “Oh, Lindsay, I’m just ready for an up-level in my career and up-level in other areas, maybe health, relationships whatever.” Most of them have that career drive of there’s something that needs to change here. I’m here to help them. I will say too, many times people think, “Oh, you must just work with people who are already super successful in their careers.” I do have some of those clients. I have executives. I have CEOs. I have doctors. I have lawyers. I have Emmy winners even, but I also have people who are just starting out.

I have one client who is just right out of college. Now, she is doing very well. I wish I could tell you her title, but I don’t want to give away her identity. We’re not at that point yet for me to talk about her stuff because she hasn’t given me that freedom to, but she’s doing very well. I have another client who, again, just recently graduated college and was trying to find her first really authentic career choice for her. She’s been working in just random jobs, and now she’s ready to up-level that.

It doesn’t matter where you are in the career journey. Just the common quality is for soft self-awareness. You just feel resilient. You have a belief in yourself. You’re ready for more. You’re driven to that. For whatever reason, you just feel called that, “Oh, this could be the  great fit for me.” If you feel called, the first step is always to apply for a consult. You just go to lindsayepreston.com/apply, and we will go from there. All right. That’s all I have for you on this episode. I hope you have some takeaways, and I will see you in the final interviews before we go on hiatus. Until next time, my friends, bye.

[music]

Hey there, Miss Unstoppable. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend. Send them a picture of this episode via text, via email, share it on social media, I’m sure they would be so appreciative to know these strategies and tips on how to accomplish your dreams. If you are ready to guarantee you’re going to accomplish your goals and dreams, then it’s time to start coaching with me.

In my nine-month simple success coaching system, I am going to walk you every single step of the way to ensure that you get the goals and dreams that you want. The first step is to apply for a free 60-minute consult call. Just go to LindsayEpreston.com/apply to get started. As always, my friend, remember, you’re only as unstoppable as you believe you can be, so believe in yourself. You got this.