Podcast Episode #240: The Myth of Balance & “Doing it All”

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You’re listening to the Balanced Bites podcast episode 240.

Welcome to the Balanced Bites podcast with Diane Sanfilippo and Liz Wolfe. Diane is a certified nutrition consultant, and the New York Times bestselling author of Practical Paleo, The 21-Day Sugar Detox, and co-author of Mediterranean Paleo Cooking. Liz is a nutritional therapy practitioner, and the best-selling author of Eat the Yolks and The Purely Primal Skincare Guide. Together, Diane and Liz answer your questions, interview leading health and wellness experts, and share their take on modern paleo living with their friendly and balanced approach. Remember our disclaimer: The materials and content within this podcast are intended as general information only, and are not to be considered a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Liz Wolfe: Hey everyone, Liz here with Diane. Hey buddy.

Diane Sanfilippo: Hey.

Liz Wolfe: How are you?

Diane Sanfilippo: I’m doing well, how are you?

Liz Wolfe: It sounds like you’re at a park with a fountain full of, like kids playing in a fountain. Like at Crown Center in Kansas City.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s pretty much it. It’s about 80 degrees here in San Francisco today, so the entire four surrounding neighborhoods have emptied themselves into the park across the stress. {laughs}.

Liz Wolfe: Lovely.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. It’s pretty nice, actually.

Liz Wolfe: Let’s hear from our sponsor.

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1. News and updates from Diane & Liz [2:22]

Liz Wolfe: So, Diane, what’s going on besides the block party in the park?

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} So, we have been doing some fun stuff over on Facebook; and by we, I mean me, myself, and I. I don’t know who “we” was supposed to mean! {laughs} Facebook, for those of you who don’t know, has live video now, so kind of similar to what Periscope was doing. But if anybody follows me on Periscope, you know I’m kind of ticked off at the whole app situation; there’s lots of crazy spam and troll, and they kind of take over when you’re trying to broadcast and it gets very frustrating when I want to chat with you guys. So, make sure you're over on Facebook. If you want to interact live; you don’t have to be there if you don’t want to be. If you’re looking for pretty much one place to connect, it doesn’t have to be in any social media.

My next little update is really that in the coming weeks and months, I’m going to be recommending that you guys; of course, we talk about having you on the emailing list because we obviously can directly communicate with y’all on fun stuff that’s going on, but I want to take it old school. Liz, you can tell me what you think about this; I want to bring back blog commenting.

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: I feel like we’ve gotten {laughs} so far away from it. No, I’m serious, because I’m like, I can’t keep up with the questions and the comments that are all over social media. It doesn’t mean that we’re not still going to post on social, but I know you guys want answers to questions really often, right? People are like, “oh, where is that video you said you had,” or where is this or that, and I feel like if you come to my house I can show you where it is much more easily, where as if we’re all over the place I can’t link you; you know, it’s just… it’s so disjointed. And it just occurred to me the other day that I know folks like Robb Wolf and Chris Kresser, they still really do have pretty active communities of folks commenting on their blogs, and I feel like that’s just an easier way for me to keep track of your questions, to make sure that I’m answering them. And to my own discredit over the past maybe year or two, it’s not something that I have kept up with, but it’s something I’m putting out there. So you guys can let me know what you think about it as you interact elsewhere, let me know what you think of this idea that we can kind of collectively chill out, I guess, with being everywhere. And if you want to come talk to me, come to my house, and that will be the blog.

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: So, {laughs} that’s it. Not my actual house, there’s not room for all of you, I’m sorry. We live in a one-bedroom apartment. Anyway, I was saying Facebook live, you can click the subscribe to get notifications when I’m live. It’s not; you won’t get a notification every time I sneeze, don’t worry, it’s just if I’m doing a live, interactive video. Which, those are super fun, it’s almost like 10-20 or 30-minute live little Q&A workshop type of thing, so super fun you guys if you want to ask questions. A really cool way to interact.

And then the only very quick update is just a reminder, if anybody is coming to PaleoFx and you want to come to our little Master Mind, we’ve got that linked on the Balanced Bites event page. It’s not that many tickets left; I think fewer than 10 tickets remain. So if you want to do that. And then, of course Liz, you know our Master Class is moving along. We have a little leak of information to give you guys. We are probably going to have a beta launch, and it will be a really small early launch for just a handful of people to get in on, so stay tuned for information on that. I’m not sure exactly how many, but it’s going to be super limited. We might have some availability for podcast listeners, but there’s a lot of you guys, and definitely not as many beta tester spots. But of course, when we roll it out to everyone y’all will find out first and foremost. You’ll hear it here first. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Cool.

Diane Sanfilippo: So those are all of the updates.

Liz Wolfe: I actually, now that I think about it, the blog comment thing; I like that. Because you probably find this as well; it’s almost like a screening for people that maybe ask questions on Facebook without reading the blog post, you know. I’ll put something about something, and a little comment; and here, read more at my blog for details. And folks will come to the comment section and ask a lot of questions, just based on that little summary, but never actually make it over to the blog to read what are often answers to the questions that are there already.

Diane Sanfilippo: Right.

Liz Wolfe: So yeah, I mean, it’s kind of a good way to vet folks that really need some help and are willing to read up to see what you have to say on something before asking a question. Which, a lot of times, we just miss those comments because now it’s just so super saturated on Facebook, a lot of times people have questions that we can’t even get to.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. And it’s really hard to go back and find them.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: And the last thing I know we want to do is; we don’t want to leave people hanging. I think worst case scenario, I can always track back in my blog comments and see what’s come in in the last week or so, and on Facebook it’s really hard to do that. And this is also kind of tacking onto the video I put up a couple of Sunday’s ago where I’m talking about boundaries for myself, and as much as I want to answer questions from everyone all over the place, I have to dedicate my time and energy more to creating resources and content that helps more people, you know, than one at a time. And in the long-term, that’s going to help that one person because it will answer that question.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: But it will just be more thorough, and more thoughtful. Yeah, I think it’s just going to be better for everyone. So I think it also kind of feeds into our topic today about balance.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: So we’ll get into that in a second. But yeah, anyway. I’ll talk about that when we get into this topic a little bit more. Updates from you? {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: I’m alive, I’m here. {laughs} It’s been a rough week.

Diane Sanfilippo: Most important update.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. Ok, so January, February, March; I’ve been out of my house now for 3 months, and honestly, my husband and I had a discussion about this recently, where we feel like we’re in this funk. Our heads are all over the place, we’re totally scrambled, and he said something like, “we just need to get back in our house.” And I was like, “No! We can’t be those people that need some ridiculous physical anchor to be normal humans.” You know what I mean, I was like, “let’s not blame it on the house. Let’s just get it together. There are plenty of people that can thrive in any situation.” But I just feel like, right now, we just need our home back. My kid wasn’t even walking when we left our house, and at this point, she’s like walking, talking, she’s all over the place. I feel like we need our home base back. It’s just getting to the point where I feel like just my energy and the molecules that make up my body are just drifting apart from one another. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t think you're crazy.

Liz Wolfe: No?

Diane Sanfilippo: Nope. And again, on our topic, I mean this is totally relevant.

Liz Wolfe: It is, yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: But, I talked to somebody else about this a while ago, and I honestly think that this actually feeds into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Yes, you have shelter, but there’s an element of feeling like you don’t really have a home that isn’t creating a foundation for you to kind of move forward with other things. So, you know, you’ve got the basics of breathing, and food, and water, and sleep, and all of that stuff. But security of home is next on the list. Security of body, security of resources, things like that, property; that’s next on the list up, so everything else not feeling totally sturdy, I mean you’re not crazy. And I know what you mean, when you’re talking to your husband, it’s kind of; a lot of times people say; well, when we get through this, or we get through that, or next year, next month, or after this, or after that. Right? It’s always not living in the moment and just being ok with the moment. But the truth is, there is some reality to not feeling like you’re settled in a home, and for the people who meant, not feel settled in a home that is their home that they live in, I think that’s a good point to call out. That we have to do that; we have to figure out a way to get settled. And while you’re waiting, maybe it’s just the getting through it, you know.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Do the best you can. And not beat yourself up.

Liz Wolfe: You know what, my friend Katrina said that to me last night; she listens, so Hey Katrina! Hey girl, hey!

Diane Sanfilippo: Hey!

Liz Wolfe: Thanks for being my moral touchstone. She’s the best. She said that I should be nicer to her friend, Liz. And I was like, you know what? I think you’re right. Because I’ve been really hard on myself, just feeling like everything is a little bit harder to deal with. Like, my kid sneezes and I’m like, “Oh my god! Oh my god, what’s going on?!” You know? Because for some reason, everything feels a little more shaky right now, forgetting things, it’s harder to keep the schedule, it’s just harder to put all the pegs in where they belong, and also feel like we’re just taking advantage of other people’s generosity week after week after week. So yeah, I’m glad you see what I’m saying a little bit. Because it’s been tough. I’m really grateful, because I’m very blessed to have shelter. But it doesn’t change how it feels.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. I mean, I’m kind of also; I don’t know, I’m just letting you know that it all makes sense.

Liz Wolfe: Thanks, friend.

Diane Sanfilippo: It totally makes sense and {laughs} you’re not crazy!

Liz Wolfe: Thank goodness.

Diane Sanfilippo: I mean, you’re crazy for other reasons, but {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: This has nothing to do with my living situation.

Diane Sanfilippo: No.

Liz Wolfe: So this does dovetail nicely into today’s topic.

Diane Sanfilippo: It does.

2. Today’s topic: balance and doing it all [11:55]

Liz Wolfe: Today, we’re going to talk about the myth of balance and being able to “do it all.” This is really coming out of the last few episodes that we did on adrenal fatigue, and this episode was inspired really by a question that came in; question/comment that came in from an Instagram user, Catting with Alice, and I guess she was commenting on the adrenal fatigue episode. She said, “I learned so much, I really related to the story about the woman who continued to drive herself back into adrenal fatigue because she just wouldn’t stop. I think us ladies have a really difficult time accepting rest and allowing our bodies to heal. Almost every woman I know is in a hurry to lose fat, lose inches, increase mileage, increase workout days, etc., and it’s so damaging. We just don’t know how to be and trust the process. I’d love you and real food Liz to channel Oprah and do a Super Soul Wednesday episode.” Do you mean Super Soul Thursday? Am I missing something on this Super Soul thing?

Diane Sanfilippo: Ours would be Thursday. Maybe we can come up with a different alliterative title, because hers is Super Soul Sunday. {laughs} So.

Liz Wolfe: Turbo Brain Thursday? Turbo.. eh. Anyway.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: She goes on to say; “as a woman academic, I’m always trying to figure out how to balance career, which is very much like being an entrepreneur, and wife, and my expectations about my own success get in the way of my rest, healing, peace, etc. I’m a Gretchen Rubin Questioner, so, yeah.” So this will be a fun one today, we’re going to talk about this.

Diane Sanfilippo: This is kind of meaty, and I think everybody has a different context. You know; list you’re talking about your situation right now, and that’s going to change in the near future, right?

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: So your context is going to change, again pretty soon. But we each have to deal with it in a different set of circumstances all the time, and there are probably certain things about our own life balance that remain a little bit constant in terms of; if you’re an entrepreneur, for example, you will always have certain things that you kind of have to deal with, right, and keep your head above water on certain things. But, for example, also if you are moving, that’s not something that’s going to happen all the time. And it’s going to add a huge amount of stress, but it’s not something that’s a consistent constant chronic stressor. Eventually, it changes. Right? Eventually, you do get settled somewhere.

We moved last year; I am really good at underestimating how physically and emotionally stressed I will be by things like moving, things like deadlines, big projects, etc. I am very quick to kind of write it off, which is pretty much like everyone else. {laughs} You know? But, I think it will be good for us to both discuss different things that we do in our own lives, because we do have very, very different life balances. You know, you have a kid, I do not. The way that I run my business is totally different from the way Liz runs her business, and I think it would just be nice for us to talk about the kinds of things that we do, the kinds of things we think about, places where we maybe stumble a little bit. Just like you were talking about a moment ago; mostly in the mindset thing, you know?

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t think; you’re probably not doing “anything wrong”, it’s just I think sometimes we get in a mindset that we should be doing something differently or better or whatever, then that can really throw us out of balance. But yeah, I thought that would be fun if we just kind of get into that and give people a little insight as to what we do, and hear what they do. Because we don’t {laughs} we certainly don’t have everything all figured out, we just do the best we can, right?

3. Dealing with the worry [15:41]

Liz Wolfe: Yes. So, here’s a question for you, before we get started.

Diane Sanfilippo: Ok.

Liz Wolfe: Ok, so my issue tends to be not so much the not doing of the things, because I’m very good at not doing things. Mine is the inability to turn my brain off to stop worrying, to stop the fear, to stop the feeling that I didn’t get this done, this is the works and I have no idea how I’m going to tackle it; what’s going on with the kid, what’s going on with the house. I just can’t calm my brain. I know it sounds like maybe a separate issue from this “trying to do it all” thing. But I don’t think it is. I think it’s that; both sides of that coin have the weight of expectation and the weight of just not creating some space. Like a moment of total quiet, where you can just kind of catch up a little bit on; I don’t know, on what. Catch up on the health of your psyche? I don’t know. I don’t know what that would be. But my problem isn’t so much in the doing, it’s in the never letting my brain stop worrying and all that. So I think that is physically taxing, as well.

Diane Sanfilippo: Mmm. 100% agree that that is physically taxing. So what I believe her name is Alice was alluding to here being a Questioner, and I know Liz you were pretty sure you're an Obliger.

Liz Wolfe: Will you review that for me real quick, the Questioner versus Obliger?

Diane Sanfilippo: So you do really well with outside expectations and deadlines and things like that.

Liz Wolfe: Ok.

Diane Sanfilippo: And I know you usually, if we’re working on a project together, it’s like, you need to give me a deadline. Questioner will be ok with an expectation if it runs through their own personal filter, and they’re like; ok, I get it, I understand why I need to do that, I agree with it. They’re not quite a quick to say ok to the thing that someone else is asking of them. They really need it to be approved by themselves, first. So, I don’t think that’s you. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have a filter, it just means that the way that you really do operate best is that someone else is waiting for something, and you’re like; ok, I’m doing this because I have to get this to them.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, cool. I like fulfilling expectation.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, so that’s definitely more of an Obliger.

Liz Wolfe: Ok.

Diane Sanfilippo: So, what I think; look. I am not a psychologist or anything, but I think what happens with what’s going on in our brain, this is a lot of what I talked about in the video that I did a couple of weeks ago on Facebook. I’ll find a way to get this onto my website, because again; come to my house, watch the movie. {laughs} I talked about boundaries and expectations and this is a little bit of what Brene Brown talked about in a video that I saw and shared recently, where I think sometimes we sort of over commit or over expect of ourselves, and then we hit a point where we can’t deliver on any of it really, and we almost don’t even want to.

So I know for work reason, I know you have at least 2 big projects kind of on your plate with Baby Making and Beyond and also our Master Class; and then there’s every other life stressor, and then there’s also kind of running the blog and everything else. Unfortunately we get ourselves into a situation, and I’m no different, I have some big projects I’m working on outside of our Master Class as well where we have committed to things, and we’re not going to sort of renege on our commitments, but there are other things that will have to fall by the wayside because we cannot; we can’t prioritize everything. I feel like; I don’t know if I said this on the podcast or where I was talking about this recently, but I was listening to this book Essentialism, and I didn’t get through it all yet, but one of the things that the author talks about is that the word priority was never intended to have a pleural form. That priority should be singular {laughs}.

Liz Wolfe: {laughs} Oh man.

Diane Sanfilippo: So, what we try and do is make it priorities, but inherently, that’s false. One thing is the priority, and everything else lines up after that. So I think that we try to make everything priority, but what’s true I think for all of us is that one thing is the priority, everything else will have to fall behind that. So if you’re feeling like, and this is all of us, and all of our listeners; we feel like we have 6 or 7 things that we feel like we need to be doing great at all the time, right?

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: Whether it’s a couple of work projects, taking care of family, taking care of spouses, taking care of ourselves, our food, our workout, our sleep, everything. And we just…

Liz Wolfe: I mean, those are all the things.

Diane Sanfilippo: Right, and we just; the thing is, we can’t, it’s impossible to do all of it perfectly all the time, and I think that the minute we tell ourselves that it’s possible to do all of it perfectly all the time, we’re lying to ourselves because it’s not possible. It’s just not possible. I don’t know anybody that can do that. If you can, and you want to tell me how…

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: Come tell me! But I really don’t think it’s possible. I really think that there are ways that we can balance it by taking short cuts here and there. So maybe this is where you and I, Liz, were kind of joking about not eating perfectly paleo. Not that we care if we do or we don’t, but somebody who is listening who is trying to; who may be new to paleo and really give it a shot; maybe life is too stressful right now and this thing that you’re trying to do is putting too much undo pressure on yourself and you need to put your focus and energy on something else.

I don’t know, that’s kind of a lot in one thought about what’s on our mind. But here’s a practical way to resolve that. I think, and we all have to approach this differently. I am not always good at following up and being consistent with the way that I use a planner, a calendar, a to-do list, any of it. It’s like, in theory I love being super organized and detailed about the way I’m executing on tasks I need to complete. But in reality, I’m not a super neat and organized person, my brain doesn’t work in a linear fashion {laughs}. But I will say this. Anxiety comes from a lack of action, so when we feel like we have 7-10 things that we’re trying to do, and we end up doing none of them well, I think we have to break them down into small things that we can do and we have to not expect more than about an hour; for some people who maybe don’t have kids or don’t have a lot of other things going on, it could be 2. Like I can get 2 hours; maybe you can only get one hour at a time.

So instead of having, and I’m just going to throw this out there, and I think people can apply this to their lives, and how this may work for whatever tasks they need to complete that are big. For you; let’s just say you’re working on a module for Baby Making and Beyond. I mean, I don’t know how it’s all broken down, all of that. If the task is, complete the written portion of the module, and that’s just going to take a long time, that can’t be the task. Because it will be overwhelming, anxiety producing, and it won’t get done. You know? So it has to be something that you can actually say, “ok, I can probably get that done in an hour,” and it gets written onto a calendar. I think that; if that’s the way I can get something done, and it’s almost impossible to figure out how to get myself to do something, I think that that could work potentially, for a lot of people.

Now, for me I don’t necessarily have to owe it to someone else, but I kind of do. I need someone else to be waiting on me for me to turn it in, and that’s a little bit of an Obliger thing, so most people tend to be Obligers. Most of us do well when someone else is waiting on something from us. Because we want to deliver. We don’t want to let other people down. So that’s one way. I just got a paper planner a few weeks ago; it’s really helping me get things done that I need to get done. Do I get them done by the day that I wrote that I needed to? Not necessarily every time {laughs}. But I least I see what is burning, you know. What is the urgent priority that I really have to deliver on that, and what can I write down that really, I can get that done in the next couple of days and it will be ok. I don’t want to forget about it; it’s there, but somehow writing it down on the page, it honestly diffuses the stress.

And I don’t know if that would help you, but I think it’s worth a shot. I think it’s worth a shot for a lot of people to do, just getting it on a page. Just getting it down and saying; ok. At that point, you know you won’t forget it.

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: And it will get done.

Liz Wolfe: You know, it’s funny because I forgot something yesterday that was written in my paper planner.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Something fairly large. So…

Diane Sanfilippo: Were you not looking at it all the time? What happened?

Liz Wolfe: No, I have it sitting open on the kitchen table, and I looked at it, and then I forgot.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Well, it’s, you know it happens.

Liz Wolfe: But it could have been a lot worse if I hadn’t written it down. I guess.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Liz Wolfe: No, but I do, I love paper planners.

Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know, that’s just one idea.

Liz Wolfe: It’s a good idea.

Diane Sanfilippo: So maybe it’s trouble shooting for yourself. What do you think could diffuse some of that anxiety?

Liz Wolfe: Ok, so I think the challenge for me, and probably for a lot of other folks is figuring out what you can let go. Because, we’ve had this conversation many times, where you’ve been like, “ok, what is not central to your mission. You’re going to have to let that go.” And I’m like, “I can’t let it go. It’s important for this reason, or it’s important to these people who are enjoying it,” etc. But what about figuring out what you can just offload and stop doing, you know?

Diane Sanfilippo: 100%. And I think, for me, that’s part of the way my life is set up in my business right now that I am able to have a team, and as much as humanly possible I will think to myself, “can someone else do this, or can I empower them to do this? Can I train them, can I teach them, can I ask them if they want to.” Running through, how can I have someone else help me with it. And I think that’s one of the big things. A lot of times we don’t want to ask for help.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: it seems like we are weak or incapable or, I don’t know what. We just don’t ask.

Liz Wolfe: Bothersome? You don’t want to bother people?

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, maybe that’s it too. I know that there are a few elements of our Master Class that I’m like; ok, I need you to help with this. But I won’t ask people for help unless I really need help, and then of course I know that that puts more pressure on you, but I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to. But then we also have to work; everybody has to work together to be like, ok what’s a realistic expectation. And I think sometimes we set unrealistic expectations for ourselves, or we say we can do something that we can’t. And sometimes we have to find a way, and sometimes we have to figure out a way to make time and push certain things to the side, like we were saying about certain business things that maybe just aren’t priority at the moment. But I think, we don’t have to mourn the loss of it, you know. It can come back at a certain, later time.

Liz Wolfe: Sorry, you can probably hear the dog barking, huh.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} Yeah. It’s ok.

Liz Wolfe: Sorry about that. I don’t know if we can do anything about it, this isn’t my house. {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Somebody walking around across the street.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} They get all excited.

Liz Wolfe: They’re super excited. Probably going to wake the baby, too.

Diane Sanfilippo: Harper’s passed out, has no care in the world about anything that’s going on right now, so.

4. Choosing the top priority of priorities [27:57]

Liz Wolfe: Harper! Alright, so what about just stopping doing something. So, we talked about priorities, and I know you can’t have multiple top priorities. That makes total sense to me; that completely blew my mind. But say you have something like, things you do every day. Working out, doing say a podcast, and you have these different things that are all priorities in different maybe parts of your life. Now, if you are weighing the Balanced Bites podcast against working out; one is for your health, and one is for the benefit of other people, which would you let go if you had to let go of one? These are the decisions that people are trying to make. They’re impossible decisions.

Diane Sanfilippo: So, I guess so. I think for me, I think for me sometimes the decision, if it did boil down to I didn’t make time in the rest of my day and I know people are juggling a lot of different things, but I think there are certain days where we just squander time. I mean, I think we all waste time, even, I just think everyone’s got moments that they think; wow, I probably could have been a little bit more thoughtful with the way I spent that time.

Liz Wolfe: And sometimes that’s out of fear of all the things that you have to do, but I guess squandering is squandering, right?

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah. It can be anyone. So anyway, if I left myself only a couple of hours, and we had said we’re going to record the podcast, for me I have an obligation to the listeners, I have an obligation to our sponsors, and I have an obligation to you as my, you know, podcast partner. I would let my workout go, because my obligation to myself in that moment is not going to win because it’s just not. {laughs} I mean, it’s just not. And I think part of that is because the way I will self identify. And I think this might be different for everyone, but the way I will self identify is that I deliver on the things that I promise in terms of who I am as an entrepreneur, and I think that part of that is making sure that I plan my time so that I don’t then not have the workouts.

So, like today for example, I cut my workout short when I looked at the clock and I realized, when I added up what time it would be for you, I was like; oh, shoot I have an hour less than I thought I did. So I had about 45 minutes or 40 minutes at the gym, and I was just going to pididdle around and take my time, but then I realized I can’t take my time, I better hurry it up. And so I cut the workout short because I needed to come home and get this done.

So, you know, I just think we have to do what we can to make things work, and then part of that for me is not beating myself up for either not planning better, not getting a better workout in, whatever it is. Sometimes good enough is good enough. Sometimes done is good enough, right? It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be done. And I think that’s another big issue. Do you find that you struggle with the perfectionism, or having something done a certain way that Liz would do it versus just getting something done and being able to get the ball rolling?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, I just don’t; the difficult thing for me is that I just don’t see any other way to do it. So for example, a lot of the things I do involve writing. Writing about; writing for Baby Making and Beyond. Writing about pregnancy nutrition, that type of stuff. If you phrase a sentence one way, or even a set of two or three words one particular way, it can completely change the meaning of what you’re trying to say. And maybe to some people it looks like the exact same thing, but to me, I have to rearrange words until they’re exactly perfect for fear of conveying a slightly different meaning from what I’m actually trying to convey. So, it’s just kind of like reading the same page over and over and over again. It’s like I’m reading the same stuff over and over and over again to ensure that everything jives with the science; just everything that I know. So, that’s a real issue for me.

I also want to just throw out kind of the wicked alter ego of what you were just saying, which is, you were talking about; you figure out how to get it done, right? You figure out where the workout goes, you figure out where the other stuff goes. If you kind of flip that, and you do the wicked alter ego of that same thing; don’t we have a little bit of a clue why people stop taking care of themselves? You know what I mean? Because it’s like, ok these things have to get done, I’m going to show up for this because I committed to it, and maybe the workout falls off today. Maybe the sleep falls off today. So it’s that issue of figuring out what’s more important and how to fit everything in, compounded by perfectionism which leads people to prioritize the things that are done for other people and the quality of those things, and then maybe they stop doing the things that take care of themselves because the only person they’re accountable to is themselves.

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5. How to handle the expectation [33:50]

Liz Wolfe: Such a slippery slope.

Diane Sanfilippo: But, what you're talking about also plays into this idea of how we handle expectations, and the people who need expectations from other people to make things work are the people who don’t go to the gym by themselves. You then have to have a friend, maybe, who you say you’re going to meet for some gym; a gym class or something like that. You know what I mean? So this is the thing that I know that in this whole framework of how we handle expectations, that’s the thing that we can set up for ourselves so that we can set ourselves up for success.

So for someone like me, it’s really difficult to figure out how to get myself to do anything, because I don’t really answer to expectations at all. I answer to my own, “what do I want to do”, and that’s scary. But, when somebody has a personality where they are an Obliger, or even an Upholder, which are both people who do really well with somebody else expecting something of them or; it’s just so funny how much we talk about this framework, but I do think that it just applies to so much. Or the Questioner, who just needs to get some questions answered, and then they can go ahead and fulfill that. I think that can help us be more strategic about what it is that we’re doing.

But the perfectionism thing like what you were talking about with writing, I don’t know what the answer is for that. I know that there are two things that I thought of as you were saying that. One is, when you’re working on something like a book or an online program, and you are writing something about nutrition, and science, and people are going to take that and run with it and you want to make sure it’s really accurate; I don’t think you’re wrong to have that perfectionism drive there. I have the same thing, and that’s what causes so much extra emotional stress from that work, because it means so much to you that it’s done right, and it’s done really well.

But here’s the thing; if that’s the part that has to be done really well; so this is the priority. For our listeners, think about the thing in your life that, this is the most meaningful to you. For some people, maybe it’s the way that you take care of your kids; for some people maybe it’s the way that you do your job. Whatever it is, and Liz I know for you and for myself, the way that we convey nutritional scientific information is really important to us.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: We don’t want to overstate things, we don’t want to mislead people; we want to make sure that it’s as accurate as possible without overstepping. You know? Then other elements need to go to a less perfect place. Maybe it’s design is a little less perfect. Maybe it’s the website or the video; whatever other elements. Maybe there’s 8 things or 10 different elements that feed into this program. If the most critical thing for you is that it really is written the right way, then other things, that can’t be your expectation. Perfection can’t be the expectation of every single thing. Because it’s just not realistic. We know there’s always going to be an error in something. There’s always going to be one. So that’s the only thing I was thinking of. You have to pick and choose your battles; and if you want to choose that one, then ok, that’s the one that you choose. And I think as a writer, also, it makes sense to me that you would choose that.

For me, as a designer, design is non-negotiable. As I look at things getting designed and I see something that doesn’t look right, it’s non-negotiable. But how something is worded, of course for accuracy I’m always going to be like; no, that’s not accurate. But if it could be worded differently and sound a little bit smoother, I’m like; whatever. I am not a writer, so I don’t have that same; you know, Liz, like you probably wouldn’t see something that’s one pixel off, so you would let that go.

Liz Wolfe: No. Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: And that would be fine. So I think that’s where we just have to pick and choose our battles, and maybe we list. These are all the things that are feeding into this project that we’re working on; this is priority for me. The writing is priority. Everything else, I can let those things not be perfect. We can fix them later if we want to. We can change it, whatever. I don’t know, it’s just what I’m thinking about with that project.

Liz Wolfe: Ok, so I have some bullet points…

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs} You have some questions. You’re so funny!

Liz Wolfe: No, so I’m listening here and I’m trying to figure out how; taking this to ground level. How can I apply what we’re talking about in this podcast to my life to try and make it better.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Liz Wolfe: Because I think a lot of people understand, there’s a point at which something’s got to give. You’re either going to drive yourself into adrenal fatigue, you’re going to have a breakdown, or something’s going to change. So which is it? Adrenal fatigue, breakdown, or change. And I think most people would say; alright, yeah if you put it that way it’s got to be change.

Diane Sanfilippo: Well, most people go through it in the order that you just listed.

Liz Wolfe: This is very true. {laughing}

Diane Sanfilippo: You know what I mean {laughs}.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah. This is very true.

Diane Sanfilippo: Most of us don’t change until we’re broken.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm. So let’s try not to get it to that point. If we can rescue a few people from that point with this episode. So I’m trying to pull out the questions that people can answer as they’re, whatever they’re doing, listening to this podcast.

Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.

6. Questions to ask yourself [39:21]

Liz Wolfe: And these are the questions that I’m going to try and answer for myself, and there’s 6 of them that I’ve just put down, in no particular order. So the first one is; who’s expectations are you fulfilling? This is particularly poignant if you’re an Obliger, right? And also, are their expectations really what we think they are?

Diane Sanfilippo: Mmm.

Liz Wolfe: So we’re talking about one pixel.

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s good!

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah, totally!

Liz Wolfe: Or one word. Who’s actually going to know, Diane, that pixel that you were; whatever a pixel is.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}

Liz Wolfe: I thought Pixar when you said that. I was like, “I love Pixar!”

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: So, do people really care if that word is to the left or to the right of that other word? Do they really care if that pixel is wherever it is? Or, as it is in my case; is that sometimes just a way to mess around with something that you have control over in that moment instead of moving on to something else you need to get done.

Diane Sanfilippo: Totally! Mm-hmm.

Liz Wolfe: So, answer that question. Maybe that can give some more context about the next question, which is; what can I let go. And if your first answer to that is “Nothing”.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: Chances are, there actually are things that you can let go.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yeah.

Liz Wolfe: And even if you’re not ready to really go there, ask yourself what would happen if I did. What would happen if I did let that go?

Diane Sanfilippo: Oh yeah.

Liz Wolfe: Whether it’s an expectation or an activity, or a commitment or whatever it is. What if you have to break up with somebody that you’re supposed to do a project with. What would happen if you did that? Really, what would happen? Would the world end? Could people find the help that they need somewhere else, that type of thing. Ok, go ahead.

Diane Sanfilippo: Ok, so I think for the, “whose expectations are you fulfilling,” and” are their expectations really what we think they are?” Part of this, probably, and I don’t know how I got to be the advice giver in this scenario, but maybe it’s because, I don’t know, because I picked this topic. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: And I’m feeling a decent balance and maybe you’re feeling not in balance.

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: So maybe that’s the way this is going. But I do think that a lot of women, especially, we put a lot of stock in what other people think. Whether it’s our customers, whether it’s our readers, our friends. All kinds of things. I think it is about boundaries. We have to know our own expectations of ourselves and what’s sort of good enough for us, and at some point I don’t know what the story is going to be with this, whether it just comes with age because I do think that part of it for me; part of it for me is that I’ve mostly not cared what other people thought for most of my life {laughs}. But, it doesn’t mean it didn’t affect me. But as I get older, I also find that I care less and less, if that’s even possible. I really don’t want to do something, I say no to it.

Here’s a crazy example that people may or may not relate to. I for the most part will say no to going to funerals. I did not want to go to my grandmother’s funeral; I was really, really close with my grandmother. This is like a super personal thing, but this is real, and this is how it works for me when it comes to expectations. I had a close relationship with my grandmother, I spent a lot of time with her while she was alive and in her last several years, and different people handle death differently. For me, it’s actually the worst thing in the world for me to handle. It causes the most anxiety and the most stress and emotional trauma for me, and going to funerals does not do anything for me to feel connected to the person who has just passed, make any kind of positive impact on my life. All it does is cause more stress and anxiety. I mean, literally I get panic attacks about this stuff.

So, I said to my mother, who luckily is really understanding and doesn’t put demands on me. But if she did, I mean she could try to, and I stand in my ground. I said I don’t want to come to a service. I just don’t. If anybody in the family has something to say about it, they can take it up with me. Because this is not about them, and it’s just one of those things where, you know, I don’t even know what they expect to your question about “are their expectations what we really think?” I have no idea what they expect, and I really don’t care. Because this is between me and my grandmother, you know?

So I think that’s partially, we need to figure out who is this agreement, whatever the agreement is. Maybe it’s your work agreement, your relationship with your husband, your child, whatever. Who is the agreement of what you're doing between, and how do you keep the expectation fulfilling to as small a group as possible, if that makes sense. So my mother is not disappointed by the fact that I did not want to attend a service for my grandmother, because she knows me and she knows my intentions and all of that. So I was not going to let the expectations of people beyond that little circle affect my decision. I know that’s kind of a different scenario than a work-life balance, for example, but I think it does apply the way that we consider how much. The more we let expectations of the entire world impact every decision we make, the less honest and true we’re being to ourselves, the more we fluctuate on the boundaries we want to be setting, and the less positive we feel the less we can show up for everything we want to do.

So what can I let go, and what would happen if I did? I mean, I think that we have to consider what the ramifications are of everything that we want to choose, and for a long time I’ve been the type of person who’s like, well think of the pro and con list, and what’s the worst case scenario? Honestly. What is the worst case scenario, and can you handle that. You know what I’m saying?

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think a lot of people think that thinking about the worst case scenario is a negative way to think, and I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s actually very healthy and positive and it’s more empowering. Because when you realize the worst case scenario; maybe for a work commitment, the worst case scenario is losing a bunch of money or having to pay someone a bunch of money to get out of something or do something different. And can you handle that? You know what I mean, and if you can and you’re like, you know what; I’ve definitely been in situations where I’m like, the worst case scenario is I forgot to book a flight, now it’s going to cost me more, can I handle that? That’s what we have to deal with sometimes. And if we can’t handle that, then we have to figure out what else to do, what else can we handle. I don’t know if that makes sense.

Liz Wolfe: You lost me a little bit at the end there {laughing} But I think we’re both just coming from our own experiences, so there are going to be people who relate to what I say, and to what you say it’s going to ring pretty true with their experience. So, for me, it’s like; what can I let go, what would happen if I did, can I tell this person that I can’t do XYZ, like you were talking about with your grandma’s funeral, and what’s the worst that would happen. I’m starting to see where you’re coming from now; the worst that would happen is somebody would be ticked off and think you were a bad person. Well, ok. Do you think you’re a bad person? No, you’re not a bad person. I’ll deal with that part if I can make that choice.

Diane Sanfilippo: And does their opinion even matter?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah, good one.

Diane Sanfilippo: For some people, that person’s opinion really doesn’t matter. Maybe it does, but maybe we’re just upholding this idea that it does, you know?

Liz Wolfe: And truly, this maybe exposure therapy, if you say; alright, if this just really makes somebody really mad at me, I’ll handle that and maybe the next time you have to make a tough decision you won’t make it on the basis of you don’t want somebody to be mad at you. You know?

Diane Sanfilippo: Yes!

Liz Wolfe: Just maybe over and over again, you have to make those decisions and realize that somebody being upset, that’s just going to happen. It’s not the end of the world, you’ll get through it.

Diane Sanfilippo: Yes, and I think that’s kind of what I was alluding to with getting older. You kind of get exposed to this stuff, because you just do.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: The more years you're here, the more you’re exposed to, right?

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: So it’s true. I mean, where we were, all of us 5-10 years ago, we’re exposed to so much over those last 5 or 10 years, and it just changes every single time. You learn from every mistake we make, and part of the mistakes that we make is over-committing ourselves or not being able to say; I’m just going to stop right now. But sometimes it seems impractical to stop, right. If we need to earn money, we need to have a job {laughs} you know. We need to take care of ourselves. It’s not like we can stop feeding ourselves all the time. We’re talking about things that we actually have to day and maybe we even want to do them, but we’re overwhelmed by them. And that’s where I think the stuff I was talking about before with; can we really break it down and get ourselves to not be so overwhelmed and not freak ourselves out. What is it that we’re really talking about, you know what I mean?

Liz Wolfe: I think so.

Diane Sanfilippo: I don’t know.

Liz Wolfe: Well, ok, you threw something in there about; the next question was, where does self care fit in all of this, and you just kind of alluded to that a little bit. So I think this is, the most concrete strategy I can give for where does self care fit comes from the fact that I’m not doing this but I know I should be; really starting the day with one thing or two things, just jamming in some self care first thing in the morning is probably the only way I’m going to set that tone, and probably the only way it’s going to happen at any kind of repeating interval during the day is if I start at the very beginning. So, that could be 10 seconds of doing a sun salutation or something, or you wake up and you stretch and you just find your center before you go to the crying baby, or whatever it is. You fix yourself a decent breakfast; something. It’s kind of like getting your workout in at the beginning of the day. Maybe for me that would be like 10 air squats, because {laughs}.

Diane Sanfilippo: Whatever it is, man.

Liz Wolfe: Maybe that’s what I can manage right now. But I think that’s pretty much the answer to that one.

Diane Sanfilippo: One of the things I was trying to do with the Great by 8 hashtag that I had months ago when I was really getting into my morning workouts, and I was trying to think about what would help people to build confidence and help people to feel more like they’re in control of their day and they can take on whatever is happening, and that was really where that came from. I was like, if you can do something great for yourself, it doesn’t matter what it is. You feeling great about it is all that matters; so if your 10 air squats, if you're not doing any air squats right now, then 10 is great, and there’s no shame in that.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think a lot of times we have this; even for myself, saying I went to the gym and kind of cut my workout short. That’s fine. Getting to a place where we are ok with doing something; here’s the thing about making choices like that. If we don’t make a choice, and this is really big. This is a really pivotal thing; if we don’t make a choice about how we spend our time, how we think about something, if we don’t make a choice about whatever the work we do, the commitments we make, someone will chose for us. The decision will be made one way or another.

So that’s where I was coming at the whole planner, figuring out how to execute in a way that feels ok for each of us. Writing things down; and look, you might miss it one day, that’s fine. It’s not going to be perfect, but I do think that helps us choose; when are we getting these things done? And if we said we could do it a certain time, but we really can’t, we just have to communicate that. I think a lot of times we don’t want to communicate because we’re afraid to disappoint somebody, and I’ve definitely been in this situation too where I’m like; I want to say no to this thing that I’ve already said yes to, but the reality is, I don’t want to say no to it. I just wish I would have communicated sooner that I either needed more time, or I needed more information or something. So sometimes it’s a matter of the expectation, sometimes it’s a matter of communication.

Boy there’s a lot more we could talk about on this topic, and I know we’re eating up tons of time with it already. {laughs}

Liz Wolfe: The Balanced Bites podcast is sponsored in part by the Nutritional Therapy Association. The NTA trains and certifies nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants, including me, I’m an NTP, emphasizing bio-individuality and the range of dietary strategies that support wellness. The NTA emphasizes local, whole, properly prepared nutrient dense foods as the key to restoring balance and enhancing the body’s ability to heal. Nutritional therapy practitioners and consultants learn a wide range of tools and techniques to assess and correct nutritional imbalances. To learn lots more about the nutritional therapy program, go to NutritionalTherapy.com. There are workshop venues in the US, Canada, and Australia. Fall registration will open June 2016. I know the price is increasing next year, so do not wait. If you see the NTA as part of your future, get started now. You won’t regret it.

7. Where is the threshold [53:05]

Liz Wolfe: So I’m going to; we actually probably need to wrap it up.

Diane Sanfilippo: Mm-hmm.

Liz Wolfe: I am going to throw in this one last one, which I think is probably the question we all need to ask ourselves. What is your threshold for this 1000% effort you're giving, or at the very least; maybe not 1000% effort, but this 1000% output where everything is just going out, out, out; all the energy out whether that’s through worry, fear, or actual work. {laughs} When does that have to stop for you? What’s the threshold there, and once you identify that, start making meaningful strides to figure out how to take some pieces out before you hit that threshold.

Diane Sanfilippo: I mean, I think the practical situation here is that when we’re dealing with worry and fear, that action in some way is always the answer. It doesn’t mean action is a workout.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: It just means action could be a decision; action could just be a plan.

Liz Wolfe: Yes. Yes.

Diane Sanfilippo: You know what I mean?

Liz Wolfe: Yeah.

Diane Sanfilippo: It could be, like I said. I had been sitting and feeling anxious and worrying and being fearful about work I had to do on this project that I’m doing right now; and really, the action I needed to take was to get a plan in place so that I would feel less overwhelmed, and I would feel like, this I can do. These small things I can do. The big thing, looking at it, I cannot do that.

Liz Wolfe: {laughs}

Diane Sanfilippo: That’s literally how I felt. I was like; oh, I can’t do this. Why did I agree to this? I don’t want to do this! Why did I say I would do this? I don’t want to do it. It’s the worst, it’s painful, I hate it, it’s stressful. And then breaking it down, I’m like, well I really do want it to be done, and I want to do it, but now taking that action to break it down and be like; ok, what am I really capable of. What’s realistic. What can I tell this person who is waiting on stuff from me; what can I tell them, when can I deliver by each of these things? And if it’s off by a day or so, maybe the next time something is early a day if this time something was late a day, that’s ok. {laughs} The world will not end, right? Like you were saying; and what’s the worst thing that would happen, the world would not end.

But I think for the most part, we do feel better when these things are on our mind and we actually get them done. It’s just that most of the time what we’re trying to get done in our brain is too big to get done. It’s not an actionable step. We have to make it actionable.

So that even becomes, the person who is like; well, I want to lose 20 pounds. You can’t think, “I want to lose 20 pounds”, because losing 20 pounds, you can’t check that off today. You know what I’m saying?

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: So what you have to check off today is, I’m going to sit down to a healthy balanced breakfast and I’m going to find a way to move today. That could be step 1 for a week, it’s that. And then I think what happens is as we create new habits for ourselves and we find what works for us, then we can create what that’s going to be. But in whatever way it is, we have to take an action, we have to move something. And I don’t think it’s just about saying yes or saying no, I think it’s about making this stuff really practical every day, because I have days where I, too, will sit. I was in the house all day yesterday, and I was like; I have to work. But I really should have set my day up differently, and I should have created time to take a break, because I was not more productive sitting inside feeling anxious like I had to get work done than I was today leaving the house for certain amounts of time and focusing my attention and my energy on the thing I really needed to get done for a few set hours.

I mean, that’s kind of a lot and I know that our listeners are probably trying to decipher some action plans out of this, but I think most of the time when we talk about topics like this, it’s just a matter of; you hear a nugget that really clicks with you, and we all know what we can do in our own lives to make this stuff shift. So everyone’s got to take the nuggets; and the car horn is beeping outside.

Liz Wolfe: Mm-hmm.

Diane Sanfilippo: Take the nuggets and kind of go with each of those, and maybe we can dig into this a little bit more. Because I do think that this stuff is really interesting, and I think that we can all find ways to; it’s not about… We said this was going to be about the myth of being able to balance and do it all. We can’t. We can’t do everything to the same level of perfection or what we might think is possible, so that was the perfect example today. I couldn’t do the workout I wanted to do today because I made a commitment to record the podcast at a certain time. But guess what; that’s ok. An effort and {laughs} some effort towards chipping away at those goals and being healthy and maintaining the fact that I want to be working out X number of days a week; we have to be ok with that. We have to be ok with good enough a lot of the time.

8. Try this at home: bite-sized actionable moves [58:32]

Liz Wolfe: Alright, so should this lead us to our “Try this at home” segment? I think that’s a really good one.

Diane Sanfilippo: I think so.

Liz Wolfe: Alright. So try this at home; the assignment is to break some tasks down or a few things in your life down into small bites to just give yourself a check in the win column. So, whatever it is, if it’s 10 air squats {laughs}, whatever, what have you. Break some things down into smaller bites to give yourself that win.

Diane Sanfilippo: Absolutely. And that, back to our question, trusting the process; that’s the process. Achieving whatever it is that we’re going to achieve in the long term, the big win, it starts with small wins. It starts with those small tasks that we cross off every day.

Alright guys; so tell us your small bites, how you’re breaking things down over in the comments on the @BalancedBitespodcast Instagram; or, even better yet, in the comments on the blog post for this episode, which is number 240 over at BalancedBites.com. Come tell us what you’re going to break down into smaller bites. I would love to see this conversation continue, because I think our listeners are all going to have amazing ideas for each other, and we’ll follow up with this in a couple of weeks on a future episode so we can share these ideas. I think that would be really, really fun.

Liz Wolfe: Alright, we’ll wrap it up there then. That’s it for the week. You can find me, Liz, at http://realfoodliz.com/ and you can find Diane at http://dianesanfilippo.com. Join our email lists for free goodies and updates that you don’t find anywhere else on our website or on the podcast. And please, visit the blog, leave a comment. And while you’re on the internet, leave us an iTunes review. See you next week.

Diane Sanfilippo: {laughing}