I have a really, really good episode for you. You’re going to want to listen to the whole thing because it’s a little bit of a soapbox and I just want you to know, as you saw by the title, that it is so important to invest in yourself and this might not be what you’re expecting.

I’ve got a couple of places in our lives where we really don’t invest in ourselves. And that can be a big, big problem, especially as it accumulates over time.

What I see so much, especially with women and mothers, is we put ourselves last and we’re socialized to do this. We really are told that we should sacrifice ourselves and we should give away everything.

We earn less, we work more. It just seems like we do so much to keep other people happy. And that is really something that…it’s weird because it’s validated in some ways, like a good woman, a good mom, gives and serves and does all these things and then in other ways it’s so invalidated because we just don’t…nobody’s really there congratulating us for cleaning the toilet for the most part, and doing some of those things.

So we really need to do it for ourselves. And I noticed that. You know, this is funny because we put ourselves last in so many ways, and I want you to think, where am I putting myself last?

I have a lot of examples. I do this a lot and one of the places is, I tend to eat last at our house, so I will generally, so I stay home. I work from home. My husband works out of the home. We have a lot of kids. Um, my kids are getting older. They do sometimes help with dinner, but a lot of times I will cook and then call everyone for dinner and they will come and I will kind of even sometimes just step out of the chaos that is everyone getting their food.

We do buffet style a lot just because there’s so many people. It’s easier. But I will oftentimes end up with cold food or the last food, or I get the tacos and there’s no tomatoes left, or whatever it is. But I do that to myself. Like nobody said, Mom, you need to eat last. But it just kind of happens, right?

And then I was thinking today, like many of you have gone through my jeans and I’m realizing a lot of my jeans do not fit. Am I going to buy myself more? Um, I need to, but I, you know, it’s hard, right?

But if the kids are like, oh, Mom, I need new pants. Of course, I’m going to get that for them.

I even saw an ad today for a really cute bathing suit. My husband and I were talking about cruises because some of our friends went on a cruise. And of course, since everything’s listening, I have these bathing suit ads and I saw this really cute bathing suit, actually wasn’t even that expensive, and I just thought, I have a bathing suit. I don’t need two bathing suits or I don’t need another bathing suit. I’ll just keep the one I have. It works. It’s great. I’ve had it forever. I wouldn’t do that, you know, unless I really think about it and think it’s okay for me to get a new bathing suit.

So I want you to just think about this for yourself.

Where are you putting yourself last?

Where are you not investing in yourself?

What are some of the places where you maybe want to do something but you won’t do it?

I could go on with examples forever. I have a group of friends and I love them, and we’ve been talking about going on a girls trip for so long, but I don’t know if it’s ever going to happen because it costs money and it takes time. And we need to figure out childcare. We’re all moms, and I’m sure you have that too, right?

You probably have a group of friends and you talk about getting together and you don’t do it. So what I want for you today is to kind of see, and again, we don’t want to ever judge ourselves. We don’t. We just want to notice, Why do we do this?

What is going on that stops us from investing in ourselves?

There’s three areas that I think are the most prevalent for moms to not invest in themselves, no matter if you have living kids or not.

But the three areas I think, our time, energy, and money.

Let’s go through each of those really quickly. And then if this kind of resonates with you and you’re thinking, yeah, this is me and this is a problem, then you need to come talk to me.

Coaching with me, especially on learning to invest in yourself, learning to take care of yourself, it is so powerful.

It’s one of the best things you can do though for yourself because you have to fill your tank and you have to take care of you. We only have one life. I have been seeing everywhere so many signs, like so many red flashing lights saying life is short.

Life is short. Stop waiting for someday. Stop waiting till the kids are older. Stop waiting till you have your rainbow baby. Stop waiting till you have everything perfect to do the things you want to.

We have to do it now. I’m  actually feel kind of emotional. This message has been so strong in my mind lately and it’s not like some doomsday, like I think that my life is going to be cut shorter or anything.

I just look around and I see so many people not living their life. And they’re putting it off and it’s like, you don’t know. You don’t know what’s gonna happen. So you have to live today and you have to invest in yourself because nobody else is going to do it.

That’s been proven over and over. You might have an amazing partner or family or people in your life who are going to force you to do this, but for the most part, if we don’t do it ourselves, like nobody is going to do it for us. And that’s okay because you know what? You are the perfect person to do this for yourself.

So let’s talk about time. Time. Do we not put ourselves last in time? Do we not go to bed last? And get up the earliest and do we not give so much time to so many things and good things, great things. We’re volunteering, we’re helping. We’re helping other lost parents and friends and family and work, and we’re giving our time.

But what about doing the things that you want to do?

I live in a really small town and we haven’t had a ton of options for workout classes, but they recently started a yoga class, and maybe I mentioned this recently, but I look at that class, it’s once a week for one hour, and I really, really want to go and have I gone?

No.

Why? Because I have not invested the time and that’s something I want to be better at is making time for me and making it be okay.

I think a big roadblock for a lot of people is our time doesn’t feel like our own because we put ourselves last. And if somebody has basketball and somebody else is late home from work and somebody else, you know, we need to do something for this and that, well then I’m not gonna make time to go to yoga.

That’s a choice I’m making now, but in your example, like whatever you’re thinking of for you that you’re not investing time in, notice how over your life, over time, that is going to start to really wear on you when you don’t give yourself the time you need to do the things you want because you don’t feel like you’re worth it or you don’t want to put yourself first, or you don’t want to hurt anybody else, or you don’t want anyone to think like, what would people think about me if I chose to do something? I want to invest time in things that I want to do. But there’s a lot of fear of judgment.

So just notice.

Where do you want to invest time?

This is our year of magic.

Where do you want to invest time?

What time do you want?

Do you want an extra half an hour before bed to take a bath?

Do you want, you know, time to work out, time to take care of your body?

Just anywhere that you feel like you need time and we can always say like, I wish there was two of me and I wish there were more hours in the day.

No, listen, we all have 24 hours in the day and we need to take back control of our time and really own it and make decisions that align with our values.

So if you’ve been feeling out of alignment in how you’re using your time, maybe you’re wasting a lot of time. I know there are days where you’re just scrolling and hour goes by, right?

Is that where you to put your time or do you want to put it somewhere else? So no excuses.

If you’re saying, I don’t have time, that is a lie. That is not a thought that’s going to serve you. You have time. You just have to make adjustments so that you can get what you need. It is okay to stand up and say, I need more time.

I need some time to myself.

I need time to really do a good job on this project.

I need time here or time there, and then do it. And sometimes that means we have to talk to the people in our lives and we have to communicate and say what we need or we can invest in hiring someone who can help us with our time.

If you can’t do it all and you have the means, then hire someone. Get help. Get someone who can help you do something faster, right? Like I have built my business entirely by myself, and I wanted to do it that way because I wanted to learn, but it is slow to build your own website from a YouTube video, but that is what I did because at the time, I didn’t want to spend money and I, so I used the time, but a lot of people don’t want to spend the time building their own website, so they’re going to pay somebody.

It doesn’t have to be money either. You can trade services. There’s all kind of ways that you can get the time that you need back into your life. So I highly encourage that.

The second place that we do not invest in ourselves or that we need to invest in ourselves is our energy.

I think energy is so important.

Where are you investing in your energy?

What are you doing to recharge yourself?

How are you lighting yourself up in your life so that you have the energy you need, or are you just draining and draining and draining, like everything is taking away from your energy and you’re not refilling it even in grief, even if you’re in early grief, and that grief feels like it is sucking everything you have, you can still replenish your energy when you invest in yourself.

This might mean you hire a coach, you go to therapy, you go to yoga. You learn about your nervous system, but how are you going to invest in your own energy?

How are you going to invest in replenishing that and creating systems so that you aren’t feeling totally drained all the time?

This is what we do. It’s like we’re riding a bike up a mountain. And we could just stop and get in a car, but we’re like, nah, I’m on my bike. I’m doing my thing, I’m struggling along. I don’t want to stop, get off my bike, park my bike, get into a car. No, I’m just going to keep suffering.

You don’t need to do that.

There are ways to use your energy differently, but you have to do the thing. You have to make the choice, like, I’m going to stop just spinning my wheels and I am going to invest in something that’s going to get me where I want to go even faster and in a much more comfortable way. Right?

Because our energy is another thing that is so precious, like it’s so precious, just like our time.

We have a certain amount of energy and we want to be a certain kind of person. And when we are drained, we just can’t be that person.

So I want you to really ask yourself, where do I want to put my energy? What is most important to me? What are my priorities? And does that line up with where I’m putting my energy?

You can even write a list. This is a really powerful. A simple but powerful exercises. Write down your top five priorities, and it doesn’t have to be in any order. You don’t have to put your partner above your children or whatever it is, just five priorities in your life, and then write down the five places you are spending most of your energy and see how those line up if they line up.

If they don’t, you might want to take a look at that and see where you need to shift. Right?

And a lot of times we’ll say, well, I’m giving all my energy to my family. My family’s my most important thing. But is it really? Are you giving your energy to your family or are you giving your energy to all the things that come along with having a family? It’s really, really important to invest in your energy, whatever that looks like.

And I want you to take a breath.

After this podcast is over, even just sit still and listen to yourself and say, what do I need to do to invest in my energy? And what do I need to think? What story am I telling about my energy? Am I saying I’m just always tired and there’s nothing I can do about it, and you feel really helpless and powerless?

Or do you want to tell a different story where you take your power back and you take care of your energy because it’s so important.

And the last thing I want to talk about that we really need to invest in ourselves, and it’s so hard, again, as people socialize as women, and especially moms, is money.

When we talk about investing, that’s kind of the first thing that comes to mind is money. But you are valuable and you are worth it. Like the examples I said at the beginning, you deserve a new swimsuit.

I’m not saying that you should go on a shopping spree. We’re not going to try to use shopping as a way to feel better about our lives.

But notice the places where you think about spending money to make your life better to improve your life, your mood, or just something that you want and you don’t want to do it. What does it feel like? Like what’s something you’ve been dreaming of or thinking about or something that’s been in your Amazon cart for a really long time?

What’s something you’ve wanted to invest in? It could even be investing, right? Like maybe you wanted to get into stocks, or start your own business, or fix up your basement so that you can cut hair down there, or craft or start an Etsy store, whatever it is. But you’ve been afraid, right? Or you felt like, I can’t do that, it’s going to take away from my family. What if that’s not true? What if investing in you is the best thing that you can do for your family?

You really need to question these thoughts because, this whole episode is about investing in yourself because you deserve it, and you are going to be a much better version of yourself, your life is just going to be more enjoyable for you and for everyone around you when you invest in yourself.

I grew up with a single mom. Finances were tight. I know that like, as I record this, eggs are like a zillion dollars per egg. I know that budgets can be tight and I am not even talking about just wasting money, right? That’s not your favorite version of you, just out there wasting money and taking it away from your family and making bad choices.

But I am talking about how so many of us are so scared of investing in ourselves. Like most of my examples, I would buy jeans that fit me last and I would buy it for anybody else, right? I will buy Christmas for everybody and maybe get me a little something or whatever. I sometimes get myself Christmas presents because it’s just better that way. Or would you hire a coach? Would you hire a house cleaner? Would you hire a web designer? Would you invest money in your own business? For a lot of us, we won’t, but if you really want to move forward, you have to believe that you are worth investing in and that it is a benefit to you and it’s a benefit to your family, and it doesn’t matter what other people say.

And it doesn’t matter if it’s scary because we’ve never done it before.

I added a question recently to my connection call form. When you come on a connection call with me, there’s a link in the show notes or on my website, www.smoothstonescoaching.com. But if you’re thinking about coaching a lot of people, this is the first thing they want to know.

“Well, how much does it cost?”

And here’s the question I have for you. How much does it cost to not invest in coaching?

How much does it cost to not invest in your mental health, in your happiness, in your healing?

There is a cost.

When you’re burnt out, there’s a cost. You’re eating junk food. You’re not just eating out, you might be buffering, you might be online shopping to feel better. A lot of times we waste a lot of time.

That’s where the time and the money comes in, right? Things are really slower. You might be miserable much, much longer if you don’t have a coach. I mean, I absolutely believe that everyone listening to this can have everything they want on their own. I just think that coaching and working with me is going to get you there a lot faster, because you don’t have to do it alone because we’re going to look at what’s going on in your brain and we’re going to figure it out. And I am really, really good at that.

And I’m going to show you what is happening and then we’re going to work on it.

Just answer that question. What is the cost of me not investing in myself in any of these areas? Right.

Our health insurance has really been pushing preventative care, they will pay for a gym membership, and a lot of us do this, we won’t pay for gym membership, but we will pay that $50,000 bill for having a heart attack.

And it’s that whole thing. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And so that’s why I asked that question.

When people want to come talk to me, are you willing to invest time and money to get what you want? Because so many people aren’t. But if you are, if you are ready, it is amazing just making that choice.

I will invest time, I will invest money, and I will invest energy to get what I want faster, because staying stuck takes time, energy, and money. But we’re used to that.

We’re not used to stepping forward and saying, I’m not going to live like this.

So if you’ve been thinking about coaching, you have to come talk to me.

Like I said, there’s a link in the show notes, but I feel incredibly passionate about this and I am so happy that I had someone who said, Amy, you matter. You’re not just there to serve everyone else and to give up everything and sacrifice everything. It’s okay to do something for you.

And I have a great family.

Like I am not like my life was good and yet in so many ways I put myself last. I don’t want that for you. You are incredible. You’re magical. You’re shine like a diamond. I love you so much. I want you to invest in you. And if you’re thinking about investing in coaching, you definitely should come talk to me.

I’ll see you next time.