A LOT with Audra

Ep07
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Audra Dinell: [00:00:00] Hey, welcome to A Lot With Audra. I'm so glad you're here. Every week, this has just been so much fun to bring this to you, to talk to you. I'm getting so much feedback that I'm really, really grateful for. So thank you for being here. We are dropping this every Monday. These are bite sized episodes to help you build a life that feels good from the inside out.

Every episode is 20 to 30 minutes. And thank you for listening. Okay. So today we're [00:01:00] talking about something that's relevant to me right now, which is a busy season. And first of all, I guess I should just say I really, really, really hate the word busy. I hate when people answer the question, how are you with the word busy?

Because in 2025, it feels like we are all busy. And you've probably heard like me, this whole thought of wearing busy, like a badge of honor. And so I've intentionally tried to change my language. Instead of using the word busy, Oh, life is busy. The season is busy. I feel so busy. Even mentally change my language to the word full.

So talking about how my life feels really full right now, or Kristen on my team likes to say my plate is as full as I'd like it to be right now. So I [00:02:00] just want to attack that word busy and what we've turned it into and how we answer and how we think that being busy is important when it's really like.

Yes, I get it. I succumb to that too. I love the adrenaline rush I get when I've got, you know, a full list of things to do for the day. And I also know that living on that adrenaline isn't sustainable all the time. So I just try and banish that word busy from my personal language. I will say, I thought about using it as a podcast title because I feel like that is just like the natural language that people are using when we're talking about busy seasons.

I used to work for an accounting firm. I was in their marketing department and they had a busy season. It was tax season. And that's where their accountants had to meet certain requirements that were not the norm for the rest of the year. I think it was [00:03:00] like 60 hour work weeks or something like that.

January through April was busy season. And it's just not sustainable. Busy, right? So I'm, I am putting emotion in place that we change our language to full. My week feels full. My life feels full. The reason I think I like that so much better is because it just feels intentional, you know?

And sometimes it is, and sometimes it But thinking about my plate, I just think that Thinking about how my body reacts when I use the word full. When I'm thinking about my plate, and I guess I'm saying plate metaphorically, I mean my calendar, my schedule. When I say full, my body sort of like feels like it submits a little bit more to that word.

When I use the word busy, my adrenaline sort of just like spikes up. [00:04:00] So I know I'm not explaining this in any real scientific terms or anything, but just wanted to kick this off by saying, let's not use the word busy. Let's not wear busy as a badge of honor. And we're all going to have seasons that are full.

I am currently in one of those seasons in my life. And I'm not talking about like the normal fullness that is. Life running a business and being married and being a human and parenting two children. I'm just talking about it feels elevated from the norm. So I know for my business, it's kind of seasonal.

It goes a little bit in waves. Quarter one tends to be a high wave. Quarter two is a little bit of a dip just in terms of what we're being asked to do. Quarter three spikes up again, and then intentionally quarter four goes down again.

And when I was building my business, I really [00:05:00] thought, first of all, I was going to say when I was first building the thread, my kids were, we moved to the Midwest when my children were four and 18 months and my business, I really kicked it off when they were four and about two. And I was really intentional in that setup season.

I didn't have anyone in elementary school yet, but I knew that was coming. And So, what I was really intentional about was the holiday season. I always knew that, you know, the holiday season is a season that I really want to be with my people. I want to relax. I don't want to build a business that demands a lot of me during that season.

And here's the thing. Sometimes you can't choose that. If you have a heart for retail and want to open a cute little shop. You're going to be busy over the holidays. It just is what it is. But in my line of work, professional [00:06:00] development, I feel like I can kind of choose. And I chose not to have quarter four, October, November, December, be a busy season.

Okay. So I'm saying all this to say, don't use the word busy. And I just use busy like 10 times. Quarter one is always really full for us. And here's kind of the wave that we ride, or at least I ride. January, I'm like on it, ready to go. Not every year, but many years. And then by February, the fatigue kind of starts to hit in.

Right. Cause like we've gone all out in January. We get to take a little bit of a breath, but really we're still in our full season. In February and March. Okay. So what the podcast is going to be about today is like how we can work on our mindset during those seasons, because we all have them regardless or not.

If your full season looks like my full season, we all have them. And I was [00:07:00] listening to Suzy Welch's podcast the other day, Becoming You, and Suzy Welch is near and dear to me because I don't know her, but when I first started getting into professional and personal development in 2008, Eight, I think. So this was even before I was really fully diving in.

Her book 10 10 10 was one of the books that I very first read and discovered that, oh my gosh, I can work on myself as a human. So I was listening to her podcast the other day and she was talking, she just made it so clear to me. She was talking about how oftentimes the demands of our career are happening at the exact same times the demands of parenting in our life are happening.

So, You know, my kids are almost six and eight. They are in a season where it's not so much like the physical caregiving of having little babies, but there's a lot of emotional needs that they have and that, you know, I need to be there for them [00:08:00] for there are definitely shuttling situations, practice this night, et cetera.

Like learning, homework, social development. I mean, I'm definitely in it when it comes to parenting, but I'm not as, I'm in it in a different way than I was when my, my boys were babies, but I'm still needed. Like my, my children still need me fully. They need my 100%. And also I'm in a season of my career where my career needs me.

So last year I got the privilege to sort of like push pause on any new initiatives and just kind of kept the business running status quo. We, we worked on some of the foundational pieces of my business last year, but it was not a year where we were heavily seeking growth. We really weren't seeking.

Scaling and growth in, in the sexy ways that I think of. Now we did grow in a [00:09:00] lot of super sturdy, unsexy ways that now are sexy to me, right? Like, growing our financial acumen. Last year I was in this season that didn't require as much of me for my career. But now in 2025, I find myself sitting here in February, looking At the calendar, I'm so excited about what's happening in my business and my career and I am on fire.

I wake up every day excited and also I'm so excited about where I am in my parenting journey and these two sweet little babies and just their growth and the challenges even and just full on there, right? So Susie Welch put it really well and said, oftentimes we're in these seasons where Our parenting demands 100 percent of us and our career demands 100 percent of us.

It's a marathon. Like we're not going to be out of that for a [00:10:00] long time. You know, she has older kids and talks about how, when her started to become like juniors in high school, 11th grade, right, that's when sort of like they needed her less then they went to college. So anyways, I just thought that was a really cool perspective for me because I'd never.

Really thought of it like that. I always thought of it that that was a problem, I guess. If I wasn't like really putting my lens on my thinking here, I was always thinking, oh gosh, you know, it's always just this tug of war, family, career, family, career. And the way she framed it to me made so much sense because it's like, I'm going to be doing this tug of war for many years to come.

I've been doing it for many years in the past and making my home, making my peace, you know, with this tug of war that we do for our family and our career. So I'm getting ready to come up on this full season, not only in my business, but also with my family. We've got a lot of [00:11:00] travel planned.

We, there's spring break coming up, all of these out of school holidays. And I choose personally and have the privilege to be home with my children or travel with my children most of the time during the times they're out of school, especially for these short little five day breaks or the spring break.

But if you're like me, like, it's so fun to think about that. And you might think, oh, it's so clean and perfect. You know, she works when our kids are in school and then she's with them when they're not. And that has been so intentional to set up. But also the reality is. Oftentimes it's so messy and it feels so messy, right?

Because just because I can plan a ton of stuff around the schedule I want, it doesn't mean things always fall that way. Sometimes life bleeds into one another. Work bleeds into family time. Family time bleeds into work. Okay, so here's mindset number one I want to share with you. And that is to [00:12:00] Just give yourself permission to let it bleed.

We are in our eighth cohort of the thread here in my hometown market. And at the end of the year, we had a mentor come and just share about this topic of this work life integration, right? It's such a hot topic. Always has been, always will be, I think. And she is a woman who has grown children. And she was saying that she just, Never pursued some sort of quote unquote balance that she just always, she gave her permission.

She gave herself permission to let family bleed into work if it needed to, and work bleed into family if it needed to. And so that's mindset number one. If you're approaching a full season like I am, where work is ramping up and family life is ramping up. My boys are getting ready to start soccer. I'm giving myself permission to let it bleed.

Typically, I [00:13:00] like to get my work done while they're at school. That's not gonna always happen for the next two months. Typically, I like to, be fully present with them when they're home and do the family type stuff, unload the dishwasher, switch over the laundry, work on our finances, take the dog for a walk.

I like to keep that. In sort of the family time bucket. And as I'm saying that I'm realizing that's not always true because I do a lot of that during the day too. But in general, it's like, okay, I'm not going to do X, Y, Z until I get, you know, the top three things done for work today. And, you know, this morning I started off my Monday at the bank handling, you know, something that we're working on and dropping off the comforter at the dry cleaners on the way home.

And I'm just giving myself permission in this season, in this very full season, to [00:14:00] let one thing bleed into another and not have expectations on my time in the way that I normally do. I have expectations of how I show up as a parent, of how I show up to my business, but I'm gonna remove sort of like the framework or the structure around my time that I normally have.

So that's the first. Mindset shift. I want to share that I'm embracing during a full season. Another mindset and sort of logistical thing that I'm doing is focusing on my priorities. This work week, it's three things. And what that means is, I have to say no to things that don't fall in those buckets.

Things that I would normally like to say yes to. What that means for me [00:15:00] is that I have to push some projects at home that don't fall into those three work buckets. For example, My younger son is turning six and we wanna do a room refresh for him, and I'm excited about that project and I really wanted to get it done this month, but I've decided to let that project take the whole quarter, because I can't do it all, and I want him to have a sweet, updated room for his birthday.

And it's okay that it doesn't happen in his birthday month. So I'm choosing to focus on my priorities. I'm choosing to say no to things that don't hit those this couple of months, I had some friends reach out to see if we could do a double date night. And I was almost embarrassed to say, but I did say it like, Hey, we can't, we can't do it for six weeks.

Gosh, I don't [00:16:00] love living like that, but I also know I'm in this full season and I can't do it all. I want to see these friends. And also I have these time sensitive priorities that I am focused on at work. So. That's what I did. One helpful tip that I have here is if I know I'm getting ready to come up on a full season and I know I've got to focus on a certain priority in this season and kind of say no to other things that I would normally love to say yes to, I have a little note on my phone app that has just a little script of how I'm going to share with people that I'm not available, you know, until whatever timeframe it is.

And so it's usually something like, Hey, you know, thanks for reaching out. I would absolutely love to do this right now. I'm focused on executing XYZ. Can you circle [00:17:00] back in April or whatever it might be? So I just have a little template that helps me remember, Oh, it's okay. It's okay to say. Not right now, even to something I want to do, even as someone I love.

And I have a template that kind of helps me remember that. Okay. So those are the first two mindset tips. Another mindset tip that I have is know that the end is in sight. So I've talked several times already on this podcast about when we're in a full season. Like when I worked at the accounting firm, their busy season ended on April 15th.

If I'm remembering correctly. And obviously that's tax day. That's when taxes are due and they did a couple of different kinds of taxes, but I think that's when most of their end of busy season happened. And then they had a party and I got to plan it. And it was always a hoot of a time. So have an end in sight. So for me, I know Okay, I'm living like this. I'm letting sort of [00:18:00] my different spheres bleed into each other. Even more than normal. I'm giving myself permission to do that. I'm giving myself permission to focus on just these priorities. And I'm also doing it for this amount of time.

So there's other projects that I'm really excited about at work in particular, that I just emailed. My team today saying, Hey, I want to set some stuff up starting at the end of April. Can you be working on this in the backend while I'm focusing on these priorities for quarter one? Now I'm not saying April 1st, I'm saying towards the end of April at the earliest is when I want to step in and work on these projects.

But I do have that end in mind. And I think here's a thing that can get really tricky when we are just living life. It's so easy to always live in these full seasons. And for me, that is burnout city. I have burnt out so many times in my life and my career, and it [00:19:00] always surprised me to learn that I can burn out doing something that I love.

Because I sort of believe this lie that when you're doing what you love, You know, you're not working a day in your life and you'll never burn out. And I am doing what I love. Absolutely. And I've absolutely experienced burnout as a business owner, even when I've delegated all the things, even when I have, a solid schedule in place, I can easily burn myself out if I keep going at 120 percent for too long.

So while I don't necessarily believe in the concept of work life balance. I know for me, as a human, there is a level of balance that I need. I don't need it all the time, but I do need to know if I'm in a full season that there is an end in sight. So that is one thing I would offer to [00:20:00] you with your mindset is like, Think about, you know, who you are right now and what the world, your life looks like right now isn't always going to be the case, but then you actually have to hold true to that and put a deadline on, all right, we're going to get this done.

And then we're going to get this done. And I'm not making plans after that at this time, because I'm just going to see the state of where I am and adjust accordingly. So the last thing I wanted to share on this topic is something that I learned from Brooke Castillo. She is the life coach. She has a great podcast.

She introduced this concept to me called Choose Again. Or it might be decide again. And the thought behind it is we always get to decide again, like who we are, who we're going to be, how we're going to show up in the world. So often I think we like chain ourselves to old [00:21:00] ideas or old concepts or old ways, the things that have worked for us or old habits

old characteristics that don't work for us anymore. So I just want to encourage you, if you're in a full season, you can always choose again. So one thing that I've done in my life, I'll use this example as a parenting. When my oldest was in kindergarten, I, you know, took him to school at nine, picked him up at four.

And those were my working hours. Now, when he was in first grade, I took him to a before and after school program. The funny thing is, I had all of this stuff in my head about it, and he, like, he wanted to go. He, in kindergarten, was like, Mom, I really want to go to Latchkey. And I was like, oh, yeah, but Mommy, built this business and designed this life so that you don't have to do that.

Right. Like I get to pick you up from school. And I was thinking that he wouldn't want to, I was thinking he [00:22:00] would have to go if I, you know, worked a typical nine to five, but this kid wanted to go so great. So I'm like, okay, well, I mean, why would I say no to that? My youngest was in pre K at the time, preschool at the time, he was a little guy.

And My oldest wanted to go to the before and after school program. And so I said, yes. And I decided again in that season to structure my life that way. And it gave me so many freedoms. I really, really enjoyed. And then the next year he said he didn't want to go. And he's not the ultimate decision maker in the house, you know, but like I mentioned on the last podcast, I think about what do I want?

What does he want in this situation? And what's best for our family, three. And Also as a part of what I want, like I included my husband in that too, of course, but I got to decide again that like, Hey, we did latchkey for 18 months. I think he actually did it all the first grade through half a second grade.

And then we were at a season where I decided [00:23:00] differently and decided that I wanted to spend more time with him. I wanted him home after school. And we chose to exit the program and he's not doing it again this year. So that's just one example of like, I know when I was growing up, I feel like things were a little bit more consistent.

And like, I went to the same babysitter, you know, from this grade to this grade and went to this elementary school, then this middle, then this high. And it was like, stair step. My sister followed in my path. And now I feel like we have so many choices and sometimes that can be detrimental for sure, but. We can always choose again.

We can always choose again. So if we don't like the pace that we're working at in this season, or if we don't like all the sports we've signed our kids up for in this season, or if we don't like pulling out our laptop before bed as a [00:24:00] habit, like we can always choose again. So that's going to be the last mindset tip I leave you with in this episode.

Just remember, you can always Decide again who you're going to be. Take agency in that. Take ownership of that. You can always decide again. You are not stuck. So if this pace isn't serving you, when can it end? Get your mind right while you're in it. Focus on your priorities. Trust that the people in your life will accept that.

And then know that you can choose again for the next season. Okay, I hope this was helpful to you. I love doing this. Thank you so much for your support. I would absolutely love if anything resonated with you. If you would share this episode with someone else who might be in a full season. I would love if you would [00:25:00] review the podcast and share what you're loving about it.

I'd love if you would subscribe. Thank you just for listening. That helps me continue to get to do this and I, I appreciate every single one of you who has reached out personally. You can find me on Instagram. You can also find me on our, on our website and get my email. Email that way, but I've just really appreciated every single person who has reached out and shared how this podcast has impacted them.

So thank you. I hope you have a wonderful week and just remember you get to decide you have the agency. You've got this. I've got this. We can decide again. [00:26:00]