Achieving Work Life Balance

Treasa Fitzgibbon, a career coach and strategist for women,  gives clear, practical tools to find a balance in your work and private life. We discuss how to set boundaries, plan and create habits that will have a positive impact on both your career and your personal life. In this episode, we discuss the importance of core values and they affect our ability to move forward and be happy.  We discuss negative belief systems, sabotaging behavior and impostor syndrome and how to overcome these for work life balance.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:21

Hello, I'm Penny Meginson from the Meginson Method, and welcome to Penny for Your Thoughts, where we discuss how our thoughts and mindset affect our health and happiness. I'm joined here today by Teresa Fitzgibbon. She's a career coach and strategist, and we're going to talk today about how to achieve work-life balance. But first of all, welcome, Teresa. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, no, it's great. It's great. So what do you want you to tell the audience, the listeners, a little bit about yourself? What's your story?

SPEAKER_00 0:54

So my story is I grew up on the west coast of Ireland, but uh post post sort of 18, spent about 22 years in banking. Um so my career has always been on the finance side. Extremely fortunate to live in Dublin and then London and then New York, always sort of transferred by organizations and got those opportunities to try new jobs, new locations. Um and I loved it. It was a great career and it got me so much uh exposure. But to your point about mindset, I think um when I was living in London about 2013, I got stuck in what I would call a bit of a rut. I felt, you know, I was doing the same things, work was always taking priority, and I got this great opportunity to move to New York for a promotion. Got to New York, and about a year later, I realized I was the exact same person, just in a different city. I was behaving the same way, work was still the priority, and everything else in my life got what I call the leftover energy. So whether that was my family, whether that was my own health and wellness, my social life, work always took priority for me. And that led me to about 2015, I decided to get a life coach because I thought I really need to figure this out. How do I see other people who seem to have that work-life balance or seem to be able to create space for things outside of work? And I'm struggling with that. Sure. And I was just fascinated as I worked with this lady, you know, why are some people successful? Why are some people not successful? Why are some people so positive, some so negative? And I decided to go off and train to be a coach myself. So I did a coaching for transformation nine-month program, and it just taught me so much about myself. Um, I'd never had any plans at that time, though, to become a coach. This was just an interest, a fascination. And but as I started to do more coaching, obviously on the side of working in the bank, I just realized how how much more I was enjoying that. I never hated my career. I had a great career, I loved the people I worked with, but I was getting an awful lot more fulfillment and sense of purpose coaching than I was working in the bank.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Okay. So what did you say during that time was missing? What did you feel for?

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Yeah, I think I I did the thing that people say you're meant to do to be happy. You know, I followed that path of get a good career, be financially stable, go travel the world. And while it was great, there was definitely something not quite, it's hard to put your finger on, right? You're like, there's something missing here. And I sat down, I did an exercise that I do with all clients now, where I actually looked at what my core values were, and then how my life was aligned to those. And uh can honestly say there was little to no alignment because my family was my number one priority. I was living three and a half thousand miles away. Uh, health and wellness was my number two priority. That was sort of, you know, if I have time before or after work. Um travel, which I got to do, freedom was important. I had no freedom. I was either on a plane every week for work or tied to a desk. And I realized that was where this sense of being stuck or lack of fulfillment was coming from, is you've got all these values that are so important to you, but you're not allowing your life to them. Exactly. And what had changed though, and what I realized is I think I assumed the values you have in your 20s come with you into your 30s and into your 40s. And that wasn't my case, and I don't think it is for many. So in my 20s, my career was my number one priority, and I lived my life that way. But unbeknownst to me, you know, my subconscious was working, my values were changing, but my actual habits and behaviors were not changing in line with where my values were moving to.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yeah, no, that's so interesting because they now were saying, because we're sort of having longer lives, that it's going to be more and more common for people to have more than one career. So I think that it's absolutely true that in your 20s, and what's important to you in the type of work that you want to do changes. Um, and certainly as you get older or you have the family, then it really changes. And so that's really interesting. So, what do you think is the secret to gaining that work-life balance?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Yeah, so for me, you know, even after I had this epiphany of um I'm not living aligned to my core values, I didn't immediately say, okay, that's it, I'm quitting my job and I'm going to become a coach. I, there was a lot of baby steps in there. So the first thing I started doing was actually creating some boundaries around work. Something I realized I never really had boundaries around work. And that was both for the people I was working with. I was accessible to everybody whenever suited them versus me. And on the flip side, I let it bleed into my own life, as in in the evenings, at the weekends, etc. So I sat down and I looked at where I could create some boundaries. So the first thing I did, and it was tough, I'm not saying it was easy, but it worked for me, was I created the morning as a boundary. I was no longer going to get on calls at 7 or 8 a.m. That was going to be my time for me. So I didn't get up any later, but I chose to spend my morning in the gym or working out or going for a run, doing meditation, doing gratitude journals and easing into my day versus, you know, jumping out of bed at six, quick shower and out the door and into the office. Um there was a couple of exceptions. You know, I had a boss who wanted an 8 a.m. call every Wednesday. That was fine. We had that call. He knows to this day that I would take that call sometimes from the gym, or I would take that call walking to work. But we had had conversations around his boundaries where he had young children, so he went to the gym at lunchtime. So I committed, I will not put any calls or meetings in your diary for lunchtime if you put nothing bar that 8 a.m. Um so it was a direct conversation. We had a good relationship, but that was the first boundary. The second was I often stayed late in the office, but you would then go home and check your BlackBerry, log back on. Was I'm willing to stay as late as I need to to get the priorities done, but there will be no logging on from home when I go home. That is it. I will stay here as long as I feasibly need to. And I do think there's different work cultures in different countries. So in the UK, for example, I worked in the UK for 10 years. Everybody takes all of your holidays, right? If you've got 25, 30 days vacation, you take every single day that is owed to you. Rarely do people give back their holidays or carry them over. Oh, when I moved to the US and I was managing a team, and I remember somebody coming to me saying, Are you okay if I take two whole weeks together? And as a European, that was like, well, don't you do that every year? Like I didn't understand the logic. Or somebody would say to me, I only took three days' vacation last year. And you know, the thoughts that went through my head, which I will not share here, involved a lot of swear words of why on earth would you do that when the bank is actually paying you to take 15, 20, whatever your your number was based on your grade. So that was another bet I took every day's vacation that I was owed. And I would find locations to go to that meant I couldn't be accessible. So one year I decided I'm gonna hike the Inca Trail. You can't possibly find me. You can't find me. You cannot find me. My BlackBerry doesn't work. It doesn't matter what happens, it's irrelevant to me during that period of time. So they were all small and they weren't all at once, but I gradually started looking on where I can create those boundaries around this. And the boundaries that somebody else might have. So I've worked with women who have children, to your point, right? We're going through that family situation, their boundaries might be different, which is I have to leave at five every single day, but I will log back on at seven for an hour to make sure anything urgent that came in after I left is dealt with. So you find what works for you. But as women, especially, I find we have this tendency to, you know, imposter syndrome kicks in and fear kicks in of, well, I must be available all the time because otherwise I'm not a good enough employee. Somebody else will worry about how other people see us.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

And yeah, yes, exactly. Or there's a bit of people pleasing. So why don't you you mention the imposter syndrome? Why don't you explain that to the audience?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Yes. So imposter syndrome, I think, in theory shows up for everybody in some way or other in different parts of our lives, but I see it more with the women that I work with. And imposter syndrome is basically where that inner critic, uh, that little voice starts talking to you that you're not good enough. So I remember being in a particular job and my inner, you know, little brain telling me, you don't have a degree in this. Like you, you really someday people are going to figure out that you're underqualified for this role. And when that happens, you forget about the fact that, but actually, the output and how I'm performing in the job is far outweighing the expectations these people have. So that degree or that qualification is irrelevant. But it's phenomenal when that imposter syndrome shows up, that's when we start to go, I need to double down and work even harder to prove myself. And that's where the boundaries and the work-life balance disappear. Yeah. I had one year in my career, the year actually I studied to be a life coach, and I felt that I was probably 70 to 80 percent of my performance that year in work because I had this massive other commitment that took a lot of time. Nobody noticed, not one person. I remember sitting down with my boss at the end of the year for my performance review, thinking, oh, she's going to mention that I haven't seemed as committed or as dedicated this year. She hadn't even noticed. So it reminded me how much of that boundaries or lack of boundaries and that lack of a work-life balance were all internalized. They all came from me, not from other people.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

You know, I think that's so important, especially for entrepreneurs, because when you don't have the uh going to the office and coming home at a certain time, it's like, where are your boundaries? You could work 24-7. I know so many people who are just on their laptops all through the night. Um, and you're doing social media and the imposter syndrome of I don't know what I'm doing with this. Why am I creating a website? I have no idea what I'm doing. And it really gets into all of those little the inner critic, the all the things that you're not good at or you believe you're not good at. That story you tell yourself, absolutely. And I think how do you get it to practice? So you come up with these boundaries, but then how do you put it to practice and how do you stick to it?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

So a couple of what I would call practical tips. Um, at least where I worked, we all worked on Outlook, and everybody had access to your calendar, not to see exactly what meetings you had, but they could see when you were available. So I basically put a recurring meeting in my calendar every morning from 7 to 9 a.m. So anybody who would look at my calendar and be looking at my available time would say, it's not available until 9 a.m. End of discussion. And again, once I re once I did it, I realized nobody cared. It wasn't like anybody came back to me and said, How dare you be unavailable between these hours? They just found another slot in my calendar. Especially they were the people who needed me. They needed my input, they needed my guidance or advice. They were going to find a time. Um I also found I love accountability. And I think accountability is key to success when you're creating new little habits and behaviors. So I would sign up to a gym class. And it was one of those gym classes that if you didn't cancel at least eight hours beforehand, you were charged anyway. So I couldn't get up in the morning and go, oh, I don't feel like going roll over because it's like, well, I've just paid for this class. I'm going to actually get up and go. Or you get a trainer or you arrange to meet a friend in the gym, and you know you're going to be more likely to do that than if not. But I also talk about it openly at work. I talk to people, obviously, knowing the people I could trust and the people I could have that conversation with, but you know, I talk to my team about it and how they should be doing a version of it that worked for them. Because my version isn't somebody else might be, I'm happy to come in at 7 a.m., but I really need to get out at five. Well, fine, let's accommodate that as many days of the week as we can do. So yeah, the accountability, the scheduling, you know, I am definitely, I think as women, we are phenomenal planners. So put those things for you in your calendar the same way you would any other commitment, because we don't tend to put the gym in if that's your thing, or maybe yours is a music class or a dance class, whatever you love to do outside of work. But that's sort of like if I get out, or if I can make the time, I'll do it. But actually, if you schedule it like you would a call or a meeting, you're going to make that no matter what happens. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

So it's really just taking that leap of faith in the beginning and just saying, I'm just going to book this, whether I and once it's there, I just have to stick to it.

SPEAKER_00 13:55

And you do because, you know, there's a fabulous book out there. If anybody wants to read it, um, I love it called Atomic Habits. And it's by James Clear. And what he talks about in it is it's not just about self-awareness, right? Self-awareness is great, but there's this um term that actually I think came it came out about 20 years ago, but it's called the G.I. Joe fallacy. And the G.I. Joe fallacy, I know for anybody who grew up with G.I. Joe in their past, especially in the US, you know, there was always a public service announcement at the end that said something like, you know, look both ways to cross the road. And then he would end with, now that you know, that's half the battle. And the GI Joe fallacy is that knowing is not half the battle. I can know many things about how I should do my life differently, but the battle is actually implementing the change. Knowing it is, you know, I don't know what the percentage is, but it's not half the battle. I I'm an ex-smoker, I quit 10 years ago. I knew for years I should quit smoking, but I didn't do anything with that information. So therefore, it's not half the battle until I actually start implementing the change and the habit behave change and the behavior change.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Sure. Yeah. So it's really taking action. It is. And maybe that first action, probably the most important, I guess, because then it makes it easier to keep it going. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

And I often share with people, you know, vision boards became a big thing sort of five, 10 years ago. And while I'm not anti-vision board, there's no action involved in a vision board, right? Um, and as I like to say, you know, I can put a vision board in front of me with some fabulous lady with six pack abs. But if I sit here eating Cadbury's while looking at my vision board, I'm not going to achieve it. So create the vision board, put all your passion and energy into it, but then actually sit down and figure out what are the behaviors that I need to be doing daily, weekly, monthly to achieve that vision. And, you know, for me, that would be okay, well, if I want six pack abs, which I don't, by the way, but if I did, I have to do this exercise or this exercise this consistently, I have to choose to eat this way, I have to choose. But breaking that down to actual habits really helps you implement that. And or if you decide you want to run a marathon, well, then I probably need to be running three days a week, right? Where am I going to fit that into my already busy life? And then booking it so you actually stick to it.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

Yeah. I agree. I agree. I think vision boards are great for inspiring you and staying motivated, but you've got to do that implementation, probably right at that moment where you're feeling really inspired. So it's there and it's in the diary, and you can't change it, and you have to stick to it whether you like it or not.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

And um, and those are just I do a presentation for some corporate companies called The Myth of Motivation and the Power of Habits. And the reason I say it is I think, you know, especially in the social media world we live in, it's very easy to look at people online and go, I only wish I was as motivated as them. I only wish I, you know, had that inspiration. But what we realize is motivation is an intrinsic activity, right? It's not something you see. What you're actually seeing is that person's habits and discipline, but you're perceiving it as motivation. And I use the example like I love sports, so I often use, but like Usain Bolt, I am sure he did not get every morning thoroughly inspired and motivated to go train, but it was a habit he didn't question. It just was the norm of how his day went. So if we take a step back and say, you know, motivation, we all wait for motivation to strike, but actually how motivation works is you take action, and that action is inspiring, and that action drives momentum, and that's what we see or we describe as motivation.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Yeah, yeah, I like that. Can you think of a client that you've worked with that could really help inspire someone who's listening to this on really how to transform yourself from where you are to where you want to be and have that real balance and change of lifestyle.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Yeah. I mean, I've worked with a couple of clients who I would say what's interesting coaching is generally what you end up coaching and somebody comes to you with is not the original reason they come to you. Um, so I've had a client recently who came to me and said, you know, sort of thinking of career change, not quite sure where I want to go. So we sort of take a step back in that, right? Because it's very easy when you have that thought to go, okay, strategy, goals, action, let's move forward. But actually, let's take a step back and figure out, you know, what are those core values? What are the beliefs that you have that are positively helping you or potentially holding you back if they're self-limiting beliefs? How is self-sabotage showing up in your life? Because we all self-sabotage, whether we recognize it or not, subtly in some way or other. But what's interesting is say this particular client, when we started digging in, it wasn't actually a career change she was looking for. It was a shift in mindset. She had got stuck in that rut, like I described about myself earlier in her career, and thought that if I change career, that'll solve all the problems. But what we talked about is you can change jobs tomorrow. You're the same person. So you are going to behave the same way, you are going to act the same way. So, like myself, when I described moving to New York, I thought that would change, fix all my problems. I behaved in the exact same way. My brain went with me.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

And client needs to change. What was making her feel unfilled?

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Um career. Everything went into career. So she was spending all of her time with career. Uh, she was very well regarded, very senior in the organization, but one of the very few women at the top end of the table. So she felt like there was no ability for her to take her foot off the gas and still keep her seat at that table.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

So we started to actually question that. How much of that is coming from your belief system and how much of that is actually fact. And similar to what I shared about myself, the year I took my foot off the gas, she realized that when she started to create these small boundaries, they were really small to start with. She left once a week on time to go to a trampoline class, was our first boundary. But she realized nobody noticed. Nobody noticed. And if they did notice, they didn't care. And most of them were like, that sounds amazing. Tell me more about this trampoline class. That sounds like something I might like to do. But in her head, there was going to be this negative reaction from people. So then it was, okay, what other boundaries do we need to create? Let's put that career change on the back burner until we figure out is that really what's driving this emotion or not? Can we find that sense of fulfillment and sense of purpose where you are? And what she decided for her in the end was she actually stayed where she was, but she found other tasks within the company that she could delegate and tasks that she could take on that brought out her passion and fulfillment. So she was passionate about mentoring junior women, whether within the organization or outside. So all of a sudden, being one of the few senior women, she set up an internal community for upcoming women. And that's what fulfill that passion. Exactly. So she realized I don't actually need to change my careers. I'm phenomenal at this. I actually enjoy what I do most of the time. But if I can get rid of the tasks, and which I should be able to as a senior woman, that I don't really enjoy doing and can delegate them and take on activities that really inspire me and motivate me and give me that sense of purpose and fulfillment, then I can stay where I am and still have a lot more joy and happiness in my life.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

I think that describes a lot of people, actually. So that's that's really interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

And I think most of us think a quick change whether, you know, we're coming up to the end of the year. New Year's resolutions are going to be all over the place. I'm actually hosting a webinar later in December on this topic because. I think what happens is we all set goals and resolutions that are what I call should goals. You know, society tells me I should be doing these things. Yeah, they're not yours. They're, I need to lose weight. I should be reading more. I should have a better work-life balance. But what I would say to you is the minute you have a should in your goal, it's not your goal. It's somebody else's goal that you think you should be doing. You want goals that are like, I want, I need, I can't wait to. Well, why on earth would you be motivated on January the 1st to go after that goal when it's for other people and it's not for you? Okay. Changing that mentality to why do I want this goal? I had another client recently who came to me, she wanted to lose weight. She, and when we dug into it, actually, it had nothing to do with weight. She did not want to lose weight. What she had was a triggering moment where her mother is in ill health and is lacking independence in her later years due to what this woman has perceived as neglect of her health. So actually, what she wants is to improve her health so she maintains independence into her 60s, 70s, and 80s. Very different thing, and much more motivating to make healthier choices in your life when you're motivated by my health and wellness and my longevity, then I want to lose 10 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So what would be two or three tips that you could give our listeners?

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Who are, especially after COVID, I think people are now really taking life in a different sort of view and thinking about their job situation, their lifestyle situation. And what are some tips that you could leave them with?

SPEAKER_00 23:56

So the first thing I would say is take some time to look at your life and compare it to what I consider your core values. So look at where it's aligned, which is great, double down on where it's aligned, spend more time there. But when it's unaligned, you may not be able to change it overnight, but you can start taking baby steps to find ways to start aligning. So if that is your health and wellness, maybe I add a 15-minute walk every day. If it is more time with my family, how do I carve that out and plan it and actually put it in the schedule as we talked about? The other is as you come up with those goals, that things you want to change, things you want to do, plan, plan and plan. Create the habits. And there's a big myth out there that it takes 21 days to form a habit. And that is not what the research shows. The research shows it takes about 66 days, on average, two months. So be um be patient with new habits. We live in an instant gratification world, right? Where I've decided today I want to lose 10 pounds and I ate a salad. So why am I not seeing the results quicker than I want to? So be patient, be consistent with your habits. Don't give up immediately. I use the example, you know, because of the instant gratification, we want to all the ads you see on Instagram or Facebook are how to lose 10 pounds in two weeks. And we all know that's not healthy, but we want it because it's it's quick and it ticks our box. I use the example. If I I love chocolate, if I give up one bar of chocolate a day for the rest of the year and change nothing else in my lifestyle, that's 200 calories, say. So within 17, 17 and a half days, I'd have lost a pound of fat. In the instant gratification world, nobody's willing to wait 17 and a half days to see a one pound drop on the scales. However, it's a tiny change that I can sustain. And over the course of a year, that's 20 pounds. So that's just a small example of consistency and patience, is going to get you the results. Don't focus on instant gratification, something that's not sustainable over the longer term. And then finally, is um a big tip I use is habit stacking. So say you have three or four new habits you want to implement. Don't necessarily try and do them all at once because that's setting yourself up for giving up because it's too much of a commitment, but start adding one. So if I brush my teeth every morning and now I want to start meditating, I tie that new habit to an existing habit I already have that I don't think about. So I don't think about getting up and brushing my teeth. It's just something I do. Now I'm going to brush my teeth and meditate. Because the two are tied together, I'm less likely to forget or I'm less likely to not follow through on that one. Later on, I might add a third one. So for me, I have four or five habits I want to do every day. I stack them in the morning. I literally do one straight after the other, after the other, and by 9 a.m. they're done. And that's it. The rest of the day flows. I don't have the pressure of God, I'm meant to go work out, or oh, I said I'd meditate today and a half-inch, or reading's a big one for me. Oh, I'm too tired now, I'm not going to do it. I've already done the four or five of them first season.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

I always refer to it as a morning ritual. So you put all of those together and it's just what you do, like brushing your teeth or having a shower. You do it every morning, and then you're done. You can it doesn't matter what direction your day goes in, you've already done those things. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So that's great. Thank you so much, Teresa. And how can our uh listeners get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Yeah. So uh my website is probably the best location, which is www.trasafitsgibben.com. Um I'm on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, all of those as Trasafitzgibben, but feel free to reach out. There's some free resources on the website, especially around core values. If that's an exercise you want to do, I have a good resource there that just helps prompt you to think about the right things to do that exercise.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

That's great. Thank you so much. And as always, so we'll see you next time. And uh thank you very much. Thank you.