How to Stop Putting Your Want-Tos on the Back Burner

Do you constantly find yourself prioritizing everyone else's needs before your own? It's about time we break that chain. Join me on a liberating journey toward understanding why so many of us feel compelled to act this way. From the fear of judgment to the struggle of setting boundaries, we're diving deep into why we neglect our own needs, the factors that influence this behavior, and the significance of overcoming these barriers to prioritize self-improvement and care.

Let's explore how to prioritize YOU. I'll share my personal experiences and tools you can start using today to shift your focus to what truly matters - fulfilling your dreams, saying 'no' when you need to, and setting healthy boundaries. Let's empower ourselves by stepping into the world of prioritizing our needs. Get ready to question the subconscious reasons that have stopped you from putting yourself first and prepare for an empowering transformation.

In this episode, I talk about the following:
1. The common challenges and reasons why people struggle to prioritize themselves. 
2. Exploration of deep-seated beliefs that make us feel guilty.
3. The importance of inner work and mindset shifts in overcoming the "good girl syndrome" and the importance of absolute acceptance.

______________________________________

[FREE TRAINING]
How high-achieving women can
DITCH anxiety in as little as five minutes a day
www.brave-method.com/anxiety

Which of these results do you want and inspire you the most?
www.brave-method.com/testimonials

💗 Dr. Steph
@DrStephanieLopez
www.brave-method.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:45

Hi, I'm Dr Steph and I'm here to guide you on your journey to healing from a difficult relationship with your mother, whether she was narcissistic, emotionally immature or just plain toxic. I want you to know that you are, in fact, not broken and you do not have to suffer from anxiety or explosive emotional reactions like lashing out. You can break the cycle. You are a strong, capable woman who can handle any challenge that comes your way, and I'm going to show you how to have the ultimate control over your reactions so that you are unstoppable. Welcome to the Broken to Brave podcast. Welcome back If you live in the US. I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving and, if not, I hope you had a wonderful week and that this week is off to a great start. We spent time with Ed's family for Thanksgiving, which was great, and I'm actually recording this in advance, so I'm assuming it's going to be great.

Speaker 1: 1:49

But today I want to dive into prioritizing yourself. This is something that comes up a lot in the community and this is for you. If you notoriously put yourself on the back burner, while this might show up for you behaviorally, is constantly doing what others want you to do, constantly doing what you think will please others or make them happy, saying yes even when you really want to say no and telling yourself, and maybe even others, that you'll prioritize your own wants and needs when things calm down or when you fill in the blank. But then that never happens. Things never calm down when never comes. So if you heard that and you automatically were like okay, this is me, then I recommend just jot down a note right now to go to two previous episodes. One is titled Breaking Free of the Good Girl Syndrome. I released that one in July and the other is putting everyone else's needs before your own, and that was a recent one that came out in October.

Speaker 1: 3:00

Before I dive into a few recommendations for you, let's review why women tend to put themselves on the back burner, and these are the rational reasons that I hear from people. What I essentially always hear is time, time, time, time. There's not enough time, and sometimes also hear money not having enough of it. And then kids, time, money and kids. And these are legitimate reasons, and I'm going to approach this episode obviously from my own awareness and my own understanding. So, full transparency. I have two children, so while I'm going to say you know, we can't really use kids as an excuse. I don't have five kids, for example. So you know, just take what you can from the episode, learn what you can, and I think, no matter what your socioeconomic status is, no matter how many children you have, you will be able to get something from this episode. So, again, these are legitimate reasons, especially when you compare yourself to your life before having kids, for example, to your life now, or maybe you compare yourself to others. They're legit.

Speaker 1: 4:21

Things can feel tighter and you can feel pulled in a million different directions, and I totally, totally get that. By the way fun fact I can't remember if I've ever shared this on the podcast episode before, but often you will hear advice like oh, don't compare yourself. Comparison is the thief of joy. But here's the thing One of the primary processes of your mind is to compare. It is there for a reason that's not going away. No-transcript. Here's the shift that you can make rather than trying to fight your mind and fight the natural automatic processes, just give yourself the opportunity to let go of accepting the comparison as truth. Let go of your tendency to accept whatever your mind says as the truth. That will get you very far.

Speaker 1: 5:10

Okay, a couple weeks ago, one of my clients told me that one of her favorite quotes for me is life doesn't have to feel so hard, and you may have heard me say that before on a previous podcast episode and as you listen, it can be pretty easy to gloss over that if you haven't worked with me to really help make that your reality. Prior to working together, this client really felt like life was hard, like all the time In her relationships with her kids, with her small business, and what we uncovered was how she was unintentionally creating much of that in her own life Not all of it, but much of it and she was actually making mistakes that she didn't realize were causing the issues that she was experiencing. And now, when I talk to her, she no longer feels like life is hard. She no longer feels that way, and I just wanted to share that with you because that is possible for you too. So if you're listening today, feeling like I can't prioritize myself, life is too hard, I'm spread too thin, there's not enough time, I don't have enough money for the next few minutes in this episode, allow yourself to take in what I'm saying and see what's applicable to you. Okay, now I won't be able to guide you through a breakthrough you know, through the root cause of your issues in a podcast episode, without speaking with you. I do, though, I do want to share several things that may be getting in your way and as you listen, just ask yourself is there even a small chance? This is me, and as I walk through these five items for lack of a better word, five things I will share how this has impacted me in my life to help illustrate what I'm really talking about. Okay, let's dive in. Number one prioritizing others is part of your identity. Now, these are things that are getting in your way. So, if you are, if prioritizing others as part of your identity, well then, of course, it's going to be difficult for you to prioritize yourself.

Speaker 1: 7:36

Okay, so if we rewind back to, let's say, I think it was like 2015 timeframe, I felt stuck. I was working full-time at NASA and I was working part-time for consulting firm, and I essentially worked non-stop, like Totally burning the candle at both ends, and I wasn't enjoying life and I wasn't having as much fun as I wanted to. Here was the predicament sticking to my commitments, being a hard worker, doing what I said I would do, showing up as responsible, etc. Those were all part of my identity, that was so deeply embedded in my identity, and those qualities were actually things that I loved about myself. They were the things that I thought made me who I was and really like mattered, and then, at the same time, they were the very things that kept me stuck. This is no longer an issue for me, because what I've done is the inner work to improve Myself-worth and to also activate choice so that I no longer feel stuck.

Speaker 1: 8:49

All right, that's number one. Number two is you struggle to identify the top priority priorities. Everything seems important and required, and this was me too. I would run around what's that thing? Like a chicken with my head caught off, trying to do everything for everyone. Let's again go back to my NASA days, and I was a leadership coach and advisor and I and I served a substantial a number of clients across a number of different directorates, and what this did was it left me With a high number of meetings every day. I would probably average like six meetings a day and sometimes as many as eight, and, as you can imagine, I had a little time to actually do the work that I was discussing in those client meetings and and everything felt important. I wanted to help everyone. That was my job.

Speaker 1: 9:46

So what did I do? Well, I would often come in early, sometimes as early as 5 30 in the morning, and I would stay late to get everything done. I that was before I had kids. It did not look that way After I had Annabella. I would work less hours and she alone helped me figure out how to prioritize my work. That's a story for another day. Now, recently, one of my clients said to me she was like I don't know how you do it all, and I was like I don't. I work less than I ever have before and I also get to go on adventures with the girls.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Now and now, what I intentionally do is I drop the balls that are not glass. I drop the balls that are not glass every single day, and even though I do that, it doesn't impact how I perceive myself. It doesn't impact my self-worth or my self-esteem, and that has taken inner work. Getting to this point really required analyzed data so that I could see how I was getting in my own way, activating choice, so I didn't feel stuck and really stepping into absolute acceptance, which is the exact thing that I walk clients through now. Okay, that was number two.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Number three you feel guilty for prioritizing yourself because you fear that you will look selfish, and I received a lot of messaging in childhood around what selfish people do and how it was so wrong, and this might be true for you. It became deeply embedded in my belief system that it was not okay to honor myself and not okay to do the things that my heart desired, and instead everyone else was the priority and I should follow what I should do, whether it was small things or even the career that I should pursue, and that resulted in a lot of guilt that kept me from doing what I actually wanted to do. Now fast forward, where we're not in childhood anymore. One Valentine's Day, when Ed, who is my husband, and I were dating, I decided I was gonna spend Valentine's Day with him and not drive two hours to go home for the holidays and home, meaning my childhood home and I was told by a family member that I was selfish for making that choice, which I imagine if you are listening to this, you're probably thinking that is nuts, and I'm with you on that, and you may have also experienced things like this from one or both of your emotionally and mature parents, which has resulted in putting yourself at the bottom of the priority list. So I want to be the devil's advocate here.

Speaker 1: 12:39

Are there people that prioritize themselves to such an extent that they are not thoughtful about others? Yes, and the meaning that we may put on that is that they are selfish, and you may be afraid to turn out like that, but here's the thing those individuals are not listening to this podcast and they are not doing the inner work to improve themselves. So I just want to give you a little bit of comfort there that you may be looking at this as all or nothing, like you can't prioritize yourself at all or you're selfish, and there's just like so much gray in the middle. It's not one or the other, and one of the biggest assets in breaking through this fear of being selfish was getting comfortable. This is for me and if you resonate this, this is for you to getting comfortable with other people not being happy with my decisions, and building the skills to feel grounded and regulated when they are not happy with me, because people are not always going to be happy with you and that's okay. It's okay and it's going to happen. So this really comes down to absolute acceptance. Now, that was number three.

Speaker 1: 13:56

Moving on to number four is you don't believe that you're worth prioritizing yourself. Okay, this one is really deep and absolutely something that I struggled with too. It was reflected in my behavior and I want to share those with you to see okay, am I showing up like this too? If so, that may mean that I don't deep down. Part of me doesn't believe I'm worth prioritizing Okay. So how it showed up in my behavior is putting everyone else's needs before my own in a really hard time, saying no even if I wanted to, neglecting self-care because I was always working and doing for others, struggling with negative self-talk, putting my dreams about opening the business that I have now on the back burner for seven years, and guilting myself when I did prioritize myself. Do any of those resonate? What I'm saying is that if you struggle with these behaviors, part of you doesn't believe that you are worth prioritizing. That was true for me. Some of the most foundational work that I do with clients is guiding them to rebuild their self-esteem and their self-worth so that they no longer have these struggles. That was number four. Let's move to number five your nerves about how people will react when you set boundaries.

Speaker 1: 15:25

I've talked a lot about boundaries in a previous episode, maybe in two previous episodes, if I remember correctly. This is something that I heavily struggled with for a few reasons. First, setting boundaries was never modeled to me. I didn't have the practical tools for how you do that. But I also struggled with it for several of the reasons that I mentioned earlier, including being afraid that setting boundaries was actually self-centered, which it's not. I was also afraid of how people would respond. They judge me, would they like me? And so I've done a lot of work there to overcome those fears and now guide clients through exactly that. So I want to pause for a second and ask you how are you resonating with this? Can you relate to number one, number two, number three, number four, number five? Maybe maybe a few of them, maybe all of them.

Speaker 1: 16:24

Here's the thing If you find yourself saying that you cannot prioritize yourself due to time and money, what is actually stopping you from prioritizing yourself is very likely deeper. As I talked about with a few examples a few minutes ago Now, research in neuroscience and psychology suggests that a significant portion of human behavior I'm talking like up to 95% is influenced by the subconscious mind. You can think of the subconscious mind as like the backstage crew in a Broadway show, and the conscious mind is the actors on the stage. They receive the spotlight, the actors and the attention. However, the subconscious mind is working behind the scenes, orchestrating everything, making sure that everything is possible. So, while it may seem that you just don't have time or money to prioritize yourself, or that the kids are the issue, there is very likely more going on below your awareness level. I just want to give one more example.

Speaker 1: 17:33

So a few minutes ago, I mentioned that I wanted to start my business for seven years before I actually did, and I made all kinds of rational reasons or excuses not to. Nasa is my dream job and, by the way, it's an amazing place to work. Another reason was I need to learn more in my craft. I won't be able to make enough money doing what I want to do in my own business. There's too much risk in owning my own business. I had some family members really struggle with their own business, which scared me, to be honest, and other reasons. What else? I don't know how to get started. You know, the list went on and on and on. To be completely honest, and while there is some truth to all of the reasons. It wasn't the real reason that I stalled.

Speaker 1: 18:25

And so, as you're listening to, this, I want to think about, I want you to think about. What reasons do I give myself, and is this the real reason I'm stalling? Ask yourself that Is this the real reason? Here's the thing for me, the real reason was fear. I wanted to have A through Z figured out before I would feel confident enough to jump. And, on a deep level, honestly, I didn't trust that I was capable enough to pull it off. And doing the inner work is what allowed me to break through and prioritize myself in small ways, like not burning the candle at both ends and allowing myself to rest, and it also gave me the tools and the confidence to follow my dreams. And I suspect that doing the inner work will do this for you too. I mean, to be honest, I more than suspected. That's why I'm here, but you know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 19:22

And your dreams? I just feel like this is really on my heart, so maybe this is going to resonate with you. Your dreams are not your dreams for no reason. The desires of your heart are directly tied to your purpose in life, which, in one way or another is to help people, probably. So when you listen to this inner calling, when you prioritize yourself, when you take action in alignment with the things on your heart, everyone benefits. Everyone benefits you. Becoming a better version of yourself benefits the world, everyone, and I firmly, firmly believe that and I bring all of this work that I've done on myself to my clients inside of the Brave Academy.

Speaker 1: 20:07

And the program includes more than six tools across three different pillars analyze data, activate choice and absolute acceptance to guide you to break through the root cause of what is holding you back from prioritizing yourself.

Speaker 1: 20:21

So, whether you want to prioritize yourself for the quote unquote small things like saying no when you want to, or the big things like pursuing your dreams, these are the foundational tools and shifts that you need to do just that Now. I'll end today's episode with one of my favorite quotes of all time, and that is whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right and I want to try something new. If you have any questions for me, leave a quick review with the question inside of the review, and I will answer it for you in a future episode. All right, that's it for today. Thank you for listening and I will see you next week. Thank you for listening today. If you're ready to heal, so that triggering situations no longer control you and so that you can feel empowered, brave and thrive in any situation, dm me the word brave on Instagram and I'll send you a training where you will learn three of the most common mistakes driven women are making that are keeping them stuck in negative emotions, and what you can do instead.