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How to Reclaim your 5-9pm

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Quick Spin:

• What's missing? The 7 human needs
• Concept: the 25% CEO
• 3 steps to rightsize work into your life

10 spots just opened in my group coaching community for November. If you're a multi-hyphenate (juggling work + life) and struggling with focus or growth, check out Office Hours.

Joining Office Hours unlocks:

• A community of multi-hyphenate solopreneurs
• Weekly live group coaching to hold yourself accountable to your goals
• Weekly live workouts to increase energy and create space for ourselves
• Monthly deep dive workshops on money, brand building, personal growth and morning.
• A highly engaged slack community to support you every step of the way
• Quarterly challenges
• Access to my resource vault of 50+ videos to grow a business and a life
• In person retreats and more!

♟️ MY TURN:

Recently I found myself in a groundhog day situation.

I’m a very routined person to reduce cognitive load.

But my days were stringing together in a blur.

I woke up feeling pretty blue one day so I stopped to take inventory of my needs.

Every human has 7 needs:

1. Energy: Humans require adequate energy (physical, mental, emotional) to tackle daily challenges and pursue their passions. Some roles in our life give us energy and others take it away.
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2. Growth: Continuous personal and professional growth is essential for people to expand their capabilities, learn new skills, and fulfill their potential.
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3. Significance: :Feeling valued and making a meaningful impact in our own lives and the lives of others provides humans with a sense of significance and purpose.
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4. Connection: Humans crave meaningful connections with others, fostering relationships that bring joy, support, and a sense of belonging.
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5. Stability: A stable foundation, encompassing financial security, emotional well-being, and a sense of predictability, is crucial for humans to navigate life's uncertainties with resilience.
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6. Fun: Engaging in enjoyable activities, hobbies, and experiences adds color to human existence, promoting happiness, relaxation, and overall well-being.
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7. Responsibility: Taking ownership of one's actions, obligations, and contributions to society cultivates a sense of accountability and integrity.

When I looked at the majority of my day, I realized that the roles I played day-in and day-out (parenting, work) were feeding 3 needs:

• significance
• responsibility
• stability

But what about fun?

What about energy?

What about rest?

The 25% CEO

For many of us, work takes up the majority of our day and we squeeze in everything else around it.

But let’s do a little math.

Many of us are in what I call the peak “Adulting” years of life: the roughly 40 years (or 2,000 weeks) we get to take the clay of life and mold it into the statue that will live on beyond us.

40 years is about 14,000 days.

But if you think of work in the container of a 9-5pm - it's actually only taking up 25% of those 14,000 days.

Your job is actually only 25% of your adult life but we let it consume way more.

The goal is to teach you how to love your ambition and honor it without losing 10,000 days of your life.

So how do we fix this?

Keep reading.

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♟️ YOUR TURN:

If you find your weeks feeling like a string of rinse & repeat days, it’s time to reclaim your 5-9pm.

Rather than letting work seep into every nook and cranny of your life to the point where fun, growth and connection only happens on the weekends….

let’s take back 75% of your life.

Here are my 3 steps to rightsize work into your life....

Step 1: The Right to Disconnect

Australia recently passed a law called the “right to disconnect”.

I know America hasn’t adopted this but it’s essential that we don’t lose our entire life to work (that’s the fast track to burnout). There are ways for you to set boundaries with work.

At 5pm I set my Slack away message to “Focusing on kids and health from 5-9pm. If this is urgent and can’t wait until tomorrow, please text me at _______”

Guess how many times I’ve been contacted?

2 times.

What would happen if you did this?

Are those answers real or actually limiting beliefs or people pleasing in disguise? (Caveat: aware those in the service, hourly and care industries don’t have this luxury)

Step 2: Honor the Transition

To rightsize work in the container of a work day, I want you to adopt a transition sequence.

This is a ritual that you will use every day to signal to your brain “work is ending, it’s time to shift modes”.

Many of you know about my “commute baths”. It’s something I started doing in the pandemic when I needed to transition into mommy mode after being on work calls all day and the kids were home waiting for me to come out of the bedroom.

For 15 mins at 5pm I would take a bath to “become a mommy”.

What is something you can do to signal the end of the work day?

A walk?

A specific snack?

A commute bath?

A dance party?

Switching your phone mode?

I challenge you to see what signing off and transitioning into your other roles in life would look like.

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Step 3: Create a 5-9pm Rhythm

You've now got boundaries and tranisitions.

The last step is to time to reclaim your 5-9pm.

This ensures we are not living our non-work life just for the weekends.

The goal for your 5-9 planning is to separate from work mode so that 25% role doesn’t seep into the rest of your day…..or life.

Let me give you my examples:

My Weekly 5-9 Schedule

Monday 5-9:

Solo time - after the kids go to bed, I retreat to my bedroom and my partner gets a night of video games.

Tuesday 5-9:

Tuesday nights are for Taco Tuesday and quality time with the kids. We make dinner together and talk and play games or turn on music and dance. It’s my intentional night of fun with my kids amidst a busy week.

Wednesday 5-9:

Wednesdays are for date night. Whether I was single, casually dating or in a committed relationship, I tried to go do something that would make me feel young, sexy and alive in the middle of the week. This met my need of energy and fun.

Thursday 5-9:

To gear up for the weekend I use Thursdays to be lazy and binge a show and go to bed early. My kids are included in this Thursday ritual - we are more intentional about decompression time.

Friday 5-9:

To start the weekend I love to schedule something for Friday like a dinner or workout with friends. I want to be home by 9 or 10pm so I can be rested for the weekend but I’ve always found that getting out on Friday after work gives me the momentum I need to be out and about on the weekend. A socialite in motion, stays in motion.

Do you see how you can have intentional imbalance in the micro but it leads to a more balanced life in the macro?

Work no longer feels like it’s taking over every moment of our lives.

And it's back to the 25% role that it should be.
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♟️ Let's Win Together.

​Claire Wasserman, founder and author of Ladies Get Paid, is hosting Take Out Your Mind Trash, a 28-day live virtual coaching program to give you customized tools and accountability to help you clear your inner noise, get grounded, and get moving. Think of it like a workout plan for your self-worth with a personal trainer
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The program starts November 17th with 10 spots reserved just for Amanda’s community. Learn more here.​
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(PS It’s open to all genders but specializes in women-specific issues.)

113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205
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