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Permission to Pause: Why Rest is Essential for High Achievers
29 Plays17 days ago
In this episode, Leanna explores the importance of rest, particularly for high achievers who often feel pulled in many directions. She discusses how the constant push to "do it all" can lead to burnout and why prioritizing rest is essential for long-term well-being and success.
Leanna shares insights into the benefits of rest, including reduced stress, enhanced decision-making, and better overall health. She provides practical tips for setting boundaries, unplugging from devices, and identifying rest strategies that truly recharge your mind and body.
If you've ever felt guilty about taking a pause, this episode offers a refreshing perspective: rest isn’t indulgent—it’s essential.
Perfect for anyone juggling multiple roles and responsibilities, this conversation is a reminder to pause, reflect, and recharge as you prepare to step into the new year with clarity and intention.
To sign up for the January Reset for High Achieving Women, visit coachleanna.com
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Host
00:00:08
Speaker
Welcome to the Executive Coach for Moms podcast, where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leanne Alaski McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach. Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for joining me today.
The Importance of Rest
00:00:36
Speaker
It is December 26th, we made it. If you celebrate Christmas, then Merry Christmas. I hope you had a great day yesterday, great Christmas Eve. And hopefully today you are taking some time for some much needed rest. I know that as moms, as executives, the holiday season,
00:01:03
Speaker
feels like an endless to-do list. It feels like there's just so much going on all the time. And we are needed in so many different areas in so many different ways. We're pulled in all these different directions. And so today I want to talk about something that you may not naturally prioritize, but something that you absolutely
Prioritizing Rest Amidst Demands
00:01:26
Speaker
deserve. And that is rest. I know that prioritizing rest is really difficult it feels like there's always so much to do. And that is true. I'm here to tell you that list is never going to be complete. It is never going to end. There will always be more to do. If you just sat and thought about what needs done, you could easily make it to do a list that is quite long. And that is always going to be the case. There's always going to be more to do. And so we,
00:02:01
Speaker
need to be the catalyst that says, I'm going to take a break. I'm going to rest. I'm going to step away from this because otherwise we're just going to spend our whole lives going through that to-do list and chasing the end of that to-do list, which is never going to come. I just started working with a new client this week who said, I just want to have enough energy at the end of the workday to cook dinner instead of ordering in. And I think,
00:02:31
Speaker
It is just so common for us to really feel like there's just so much for us to do and we don't have any energy to do it all. And it can be really draining and depleting. So that is why I want to talk about the importance of rest. I feel very fortunate to have always worked in fields where the week between Christmas and New Year's Even though it was the end of our fiscal year, we were able to take that time away from work. And so I might ask to step into something or I might have to close out a few things or respond to some client things, but I feel fortunate to have been able to kind of step away a little bit this last week of the year. And I hope that that is the case for you too. I know that that is different in different fields.
00:03:27
Speaker
I know that in some fields, this might be your busiest week at work, but if you are able to rest, whether that's this week or next week after the close of the fiscal year, I just want to talk about the importance of that and the benefits of that and just make sure that you feel empowered.
Health Benefits of Rest
00:03:49
Speaker
to take some rest. Why does rest even matter? So I just want to talk a little bit about some of the kind of science and benefits of rest because I think often in our society, we have this belief that rest is indulgent or that it has to be earned or that we don't deserve to take a rest until we've done XYZ. And I think that That is very much based on how our society is set up and our hustle culture and our always be doing, always be moving, always be going and progressing forward kind of culture that we have, especially here in the United States.
Burnout Risks for High-Achieving Women
00:04:33
Speaker
But the reason why rest is so, so important is that it reduces stress, it improves decision making, creativity and overall health.
00:04:42
Speaker
It improves our cognitive function, it enhances our mood, it increases energy, and it supports a healthy immune system, among other things. Those are just some of the things that I think are so important, especially to us as executive moms, like our kids are bringing home sicknesses left and right from daycare and school. And whenever we're not resting and taking care of ourselves, we're much more susceptible to catching those.
00:05:09
Speaker
There's also the risk of burnout when we don't rest and the negative long-term impact on our physical and mental health, especially after an emotionally and physically taxing holiday season. I think that in our childhood years and in our twenties, we can go, go, go and not burn out. I mean, I used to pull all nighters working. I used to work.
00:05:35
Speaker
60 to 80 hours a week. And I didn't feel burnout like I can now. But I think whenever we get into our thirties and forties and add more responsibilities, we add kids to the mix. We change some of our different life circumstances. And so we need to make some adjustments and do some things differently. It's like we realize that life is a marathon.
00:06:03
Speaker
And we've been going at a sprint pace. And if we continue going at a sprint pace, we are going to burn ourselves out and we're just not going to really enjoy it as much. And we're not kind of planning for the long-term as much. I don't think I ever really thought about that in my childhood or in my twenties about the long-term implications of my overworking.
00:06:30
Speaker
and you know being in total workaholic. But I think it's just the reality that our bodies, our minds, our hormones, and our priorities are changing and evolving as we grow and age. And now that we're in 2024 where research is finally being done on women specifically, and we're not just being lumped into the test group of men or boys that researchers are using, new research has shown that we need more sleep than men, according
Advocating for Personal Rest
00:07:04
Speaker
to research. And I wouldn't be surprised if more research comes out to show that we might need more pauses or rest than men as well. I think that we probably have all experienced some level of burnout or maybe seen someone burn out in
00:07:21
Speaker
The people who are most susceptible to this are high achieving women because we have such high expectations of ourselves. We push ourselves as far as we can possibly go. Our employers get used to that. And I think employers in general aren't very good at understanding or recognizing how much capacity a human has. And so as we do more, we will get more added to our plates. So it's very easy for us to get burned out. And I do not want that to happen for you. So I think what I would encourage you to do or maybe just the invitation here is to embrace this in between week to recharge rather than rushing into planning for the new year.
00:08:13
Speaker
rather than rushing right back to work as much as you can.
Breaks Enhance Creativity
00:08:17
Speaker
And I know it's not always possible, but I think the reality is that unless we advocate for ourselves and say that we need rest and take that rest, no one's going to give it to us, unfortunately, in the systems and society that we're in. Have you ever been working for hours on a project until your eyes are like crossing and hurting and you're just kind of stuck. So you decide to take a break for dinner or you go to bed and when you wake up in the morning or when you get back to your desk, you have the answer. You know how to move forward or you know, you kind of feel less stuck and you're able to make progress. I think that putting things down and stepping away
00:09:08
Speaker
is a very healthy and necessary part of the process for progress. I think that so often we think of it as a disruption or as something that is going to halt progress. And i I think there's an opportunity for a reframe of how we look at it when we take a break and take some rest, because I think that it is actually contributing to the progress.
00:09:37
Speaker
I think that it is actually an essential component to moving things forward. And not only are we able to get back to work and continue producing and progressing after a rest, but we're also able to do it with fresh eyes, a fresh mind,
00:09:56
Speaker
and a different level of creativity, a renewed sense of purpose and energy that we might not have had before. And so I think that it is just so important and essential to take rest and to take breaks and to look at them as just part of the process, just to work them
Mindful Rest Practices
00:10:20
Speaker
in. And I think other countries, other societies have done this much better than we have here in the United States of factoring that in to the human experience. So, you know, taking a six week long holiday, for example, is kind of unheard of here in the States, but so common in other Western countries. And I think that's because they're looking at the workforce as humans and not robots and humans need rest and recharge.
00:10:51
Speaker
So I just want to share a few very simple actionable tips. Number one is just to set boundaries. I'm sure you hear that a lot. Sometimes that can feel a little bit daunting, um but I do think it's so important to unplug from work sometimes and devices as well. A lot of times whenever we look at rest,
00:11:17
Speaker
we still feel like we have to be doing something. And so sometimes we will then just like scroll on our phones. And the reality is that that might not be recharging for us. That might not give us the outcome that we are desiring. So I would highly encourage you to check in with yourself.
00:11:39
Speaker
about what you're doing for your rest, like how you're resting and what is working for you to feel truly recharged. If laying on the couch and watching Netflix, you know, is what you're choosing for your rest. And then you do that for a few hours and you realize like, actually don't really feel any different. Then that's just data that you can use and say like, Oh, maybe I'll try a different kind of rest next time. For me, I have found that scrolling my phone actually does not provide any kind of recharge for me. It takes my brain off of whatever I'm doing, but it doesn't actually recharge me. So I know that it's, it can be very habitual and easy to reach for our phones and start scrolling whenever we feel tired. And I think it's important to get mindful about that and get some consciousness around that, be aware of what we're doing and
00:12:39
Speaker
notice what is having an impact and what isn't, just like we would at work. I think there are so many skills that we implement at work that we can use in our own personal lives, right? We try things at work and we see what works. We take the data from it to determine our action steps forward and we can do the same in life.
00:12:59
Speaker
whenever we're deciding how we want to rest. So I just think it's so important to set boundaries, not only around our work and our workplaces, but also around our devices. The second thing is to take some time to reflect. I find one of the ways that I enjoy recharging is to journal. I find that so energy giving rather than energy draining. So,
00:13:29
Speaker
journaling about maybe moments of gratitude, wins from this past year, memories that we want to etch in stone from the year, you know, highlights, things like that. I think that reflecting on the year looking back is so important before we go running into a new year. And then the third thing is just practicing self-compassion.
00:13:55
Speaker
and giving yourself permission to take a pause and also not expecting to be a perfect restor. I
The Essential Nature of Rest
00:14:06
Speaker
think as perfectionists, we wanna do it all the way. And so we're like, I am going to rest and I'm gonna do it perfectly. And then something from work comes up and we decide to spend some time on it. And then we're like, oh, we're total failures. We don't know how to rest.
00:14:25
Speaker
ah So I'm just going to invite you to use some self compassion, not expect perfection of yourself in this area too. And just like in every other area, but give yourself that permission. And
January Reset Program
00:14:40
Speaker
that is really what I want to make sure to convey in this episode is just that you deserve rest. It is important and essential. So please take it.
00:14:52
Speaker
And then once you have kind of taken that rest and taken some time to reflect on the past year, I would love to invite you to my January reset group coaching program. This is something that I started last year. That was so much fun and so rewarding for everyone who participated, but my goal with it is really to bring a group of high achieving women together.
00:15:21
Speaker
and bring us together so that we can kind of look back on the past year together and look forward of how do we want to spend 2025 and set some intentionality. I just love to start the year off strong. I love the beginning of the new year because I think that it offers so much potential, so much opportunity, so much hope and excitement and a fresh start. And so I would love to invite you to that program once you've had a chance to recharge a little bit. And if you don't recharge, you can still come to the program, of course, because what I want to do is just to help you to really channel that energy into creating a fulfilling and intentional year.
00:16:10
Speaker
So we'll be working on resetting priorities, goal alignment, mindset work, and just really kind of getting you into a good place to start the year off really strong. So if you go over to coachliana.com, you can register for the January reset for high achieving women. And if you use the code podcast, there is an exclusive discount just for my podcast listeners. I would love to spend January with you. We will be meeting.
00:16:40
Speaker
every day for one week. So it's January 6th through 10th. And there will be replays in case you can't make it at that time on that day. And we'll be getting together and sharing some space and kind of bringing together some collective energy to start the year off strong.
00:16:59
Speaker
So I just want to thank you so much for your time, for your trust in me over this past year. I can't believe it's the end of the year already. And I just, again, think it's so important to take this time to rest because just remember before you can lead others, you must first lead yourself. Rest is not a reward. It is a strategy. By
Rest as a Strategic Foundation
00:17:24
Speaker
taking time to pause, reflect and recharge,
00:17:27
Speaker
You're going to set the foundation for a year of intentional choices and aligned actions. So please give yourself permission to rest now so you can step into 2025 as your most vibrant, powerful self. Enjoy the week, everybody, and Happy New Year.
Show Engagement Encouragement
00:17:49
Speaker
Thanks so much for tuning in to the Executive Coach for Moms podcast. Please like, subscribe, or follow the show so you'll be notified when the next episode is available. I hope you'll join me again next time. Take care.