Dr. Celia
00:00 – 00:18
Hey Biz Mom, before we dive in, just a reminder, what we’re talking about today is educational purposes only, not therapy. If you’re dealing with anxiety, depression, or any other mental health concerns, please talk to your doctor. This work complements professional care. It does not replace it.
Dr. Celia
00:20 – 00:42
So in the last episode, we talked about how your productivity isn’t really about your to-do list. It’s about the little girl inside of me who learned that love was conditional on performance. Today, we’re going to talk about what that looks like when you seek support for your mental load, because not all hope is created equal. And I’m going to give you a deeper reflection exercise to help you understand what’s really driving your productivity.
Dr. Celia
00:44 – 00:55
So here’s what I see happening everywhere. The productivity guru is telling you to time block better. The organizational expert is telling you to color code your calendar. The business coach is telling you to just hire a VA.
Dr. Celia
00:56 – 01:08
And you’ve tried it all. You implemented their systems, you followed their frameworks. But six months later, you’re right back where you started. Maybe even more overwhelmed because now you feel like a failure at following their simple systems.
Dr. Celia
01:09 – 01:25
Those solutions are treating your symptoms, not the source. It’s kind of like putting a band-aid on a broken bone. Like, sure, it might make you feel like you’re doing something, but the underlining problem is still there. When I work with mom business owners in my Biz Mom Balance Blueprint, I don’t start with their calendar.
Dr. Celia
01:25 – 01:33
I start with their beliefs. I start with their thoughts. I start with like the whole picture. I take a comprehensive assessment similar to what I used to do in psychiatry.
Dr. Celia
01:33 – 01:45
I need the full picture before I could actually recommend what the right approach is for you. And here’s what makes this different. Most people look at your calendar and see time management problems. I look at your calendar and see patterns.
Dr. Celia
01:46 – 01:57
Why are you scheduling back-to-back meetings with no breaks? That’s not poor planning. That’s someone who doesn’t believe that they deserve rest. Why do you have three different business projects running all at the same time?
Dr. Celia
01:57 – 02:06
That’s not bad organization. That’s someone trying to prove their worth through productivity. And why is your personal time always the first thing to get sacrificed? That’s not just being busy.
Dr. Celia
02:06 – 02:23
That’s someone who’s learned that everyone else’s needs comes first. As a psychiatrist, I was trained to see the whole person, not just the presenting problem. A patient might come in saying they can’t sleep, but the real issue is the anxiety that they’re carrying about not being good enough. Same thing with your mental load.
Dr. Celia
02:23 – 02:41
You think that the problem is too many tasks, but the real problem is the beliefs driving why you keep saying yes to those tasks in the first place. So what does real support look like? Real support addresses these three things. Number one, it first acknowledges your nervous system.
Dr. Celia
02:42 – 02:53
Your overwhelm isn’t a character flaw. It’s your nervous system responding to decades of programming. Any solution that doesn’t account for this is doomed to fail. Second, it looks at your whole story.
Dr. Celia
02:54 – 03:15
What messages did you absorb about work, rest, and worth? What did you learn about being good enough? Those beliefs are running the show, whether you realize it or not. Third, it meets you where you are, not where some productivity expert thinks you should be, but where you actually are, with your ADHD brain, your people-pleasing tendencies, and even with your perfectionistic patterns.
Dr. Celia
03:16 – 03:39
This comprehensive approach is exactly what we do in Visma and Balance Blueprint. We address the root programming first, and then build sustainable systems that actually do stick. So this is what I would like you to do, and this is just a tiny snippet of the assessment I do with my clients in the Visma Balance Blueprint. These questions are going to dig a little bit deeper than your typical self-help exercise.
Dr. Celia
03:39 – 03:58
That’s intentional, because the beliefs that are driving your mental load are not sitting on the surface. They’re woven into your story, and we need to gently uncover them to create real change. I want you to sit with these questions, not what you think about them, but to really feel into the answers. And I also want you to take your time with this.
Dr. Celia
03:59 – 04:10
You can always pause this episode and come back to finish this. If you need to write it down on a piece of paper, that’s awesome. If you need to take out your phone and do a voice memo, that’s awesome too. And if you’re driving or busy, that’s okay too.
Dr. Celia
04:10 – 04:27
You could just listen to the episode and come back to this at a later point and try it out. So the first category we’re going to do is like your work and worth programming. So the first thing I want you to do is think back to childhood. When did you feel most loved and appreciated?
Dr. Celia
04:28 – 04:49
Was it when you were helping, achieving, or being good? The second point is, what did you learn about rest in your family? Was it earned or was it considered lazy? And the third thing I want you to consider, complete this sentence, I feel most valuable when I am…
Dr. Celia
04:53 – 05:03
The next section is your control and responsibility patterns. So the first point for this is growing up. What happened when things went wrong in your family? Who fixed it?
Dr. Celia
05:05 – 05:20
The second point is, what role did you play? Were you the helper, peacekeeper, the responsible one, or a different role in your family? And the third point is, when something goes wrong now, what is your first thought? And where did you learn that?
Dr. Celia
05:23 – 05:48
And this is the last category we’re going to do in this little audit. And the first point in this category that we’re going to explore is, what happened when you disappointed someone as a child? The second point is, what did you learn about saying no and having needs? And the third point is, who in your life taught you, directly or indirectly, that other people’s feelings were your responsibility?
Dr. Celia
05:49 – 06:18
And this is if you fit into the people-pleasing origins. So for each of these three categories, along with the sub points, the category of your work and worth programming, your control and responsibility patterns, and your people-pleasing origins, I want you to actually answer this question for each category. Ask yourself, and how is this belief showing up in my business today? Journal or voice memo it to your phone and see what you come up with.
Dr. Celia
06:20 – 06:42
And if you want these questions in a written form, they’re going to be on my episode website page, which I’ll put the link in the show notes. So why does this work matter? Because until you understand what’s driving your productivity, you’re going to keep trying to solve it with the wrong tools. You cannot organize your way out of a belief that your worth comes from productivity.
Dr. Celia
06:42 – 06:54
You cannot delegate your way out of trying to control what’s happening around you. You cannot time block your way out of people pleasing. The beliefs have to shift first. That’s when the strategies actually work.
Dr. Celia
06:54 – 07:18
And this is why I created Biz Mom Balance Blueprint. Like I got tired of watching brilliant mom entrepreneurs burn themselves out by trying productivity hacks when they really needed was to address the root programming driving their productivity. In the blueprint, we take the assessment even deeper. And then I give you particular tools to transform these beliefs and build systems that work with your brain, not against it.
Dr. Celia
07:20 – 07:42
So I hope you find this helpful, and if you have any questions, feel free to send me an email or a voice memo. And next week, in our final episode of this series, we’re going to put it all together. You’ll learn the three-step process I use with my clients to go from overwhelmed and reactive to calm and intentional, without sacrificing your success or family time. Until then, do this deeper reflection work.
Dr. Celia
07:43 – 08:12
I know it might seem like a lot. I know you may think you may not have time, but this will actually give you the awareness and the steps to undo what you’ve learned that’s not serving you and actually find a way to be more productive in your schedule and in your home life and business life. And if this is resonating with you, I would love to hear which belief patterns feel most familiar. Send me an email or a voice memo, like I read every single one, and I often share insights about these conversations in future episodes.
Dr. Celia
08:12 – 08:16
Yours could actually be the next topic. So I’ll talk to you next week.
