Ep 140. Stop Being Busy and Start Being Productive

I am Kym Showers and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 140, Stop Being Busy and Start Being Productive.

Welcome to the Reinvented After 40 podcast. I am your host, Kym Showers, and I’m a certified life coach for women in the second half of life. Each week I’ll bring you direct advice and inspiring, practical wisdom to help you live your very best life and create a future you’re absolutely obsessed with. It’s going to be fun, let’s get started.

Hey my friends in podcast land. Welcome back to the pod. Happy week after my May 2024 retreat, my third retreat that I have thrown as Kym Showers Life Coach. The Kym Showers retreat was a phenomenal success and I loved every minute of it. I learned so much. My clients learned so much. And we connected and we celebrated and we up-leveled and we encouraged and we inspired and we motivated. And it was the best two and a half days I could have ever imagined.

It’s one of those things that I know for sure is going to be even better than what I could have planned out. And after my third one, I just feel like a pro. I feel like a pro at it. It was so special, so colorful, so vibrant, so filled with life and laughter and so many hugs. And I’ve just gotten so much good feedback and I couldn’t be more thrilled. So if you didn’t get to come to this retreat, I am going to have my fourth retreat, my next retreat will be one year from now. It will be next May 2025 and you will have opportunity to come to that retreat. It will be in Avila Beach, California in May of 2025.

But in the meantime, I would love for you to come work with me either one-on-one or in my next group, which starts July 9th, Tuesday July 9th. It will be Tuesdays at nine o’clock in the morning. It’s already a phenomenal group. And oh my gosh, you guys, nothing beats group coaching. One-on-one is amazing, but group coaching, there’s nothing like it. I get the best clients. I get the best women. They get the most progress in groups.

And really, truly the retreat just confirmed again how special it is to be in groups of women wanting the same things that you want in the second half of life. It feels so right and so good and so validating and empowering, because sometimes we feel like we’re alone. And when you’re in a group with me as your coach, you find out real quick that you are absolutely not alone. And that all your dreams and wants and wishes are all extremely, I mean valid and you should be wanting everything that you want. And you absolutely can curate and create anything that you want in your life.

So today I want to talk to you about dropping the word ‘busy’. We say we’re busy a lot and I don’t think busy is a useful word. Busy just to me, I just picture a little hamster on a wheel. There’s no real direction. There’s no real reason, we just stay busy because that’s what we’re used to saying and that’s what we’re used to feeling is just being busy. But I want you to consider dropping the word ‘busy’ and picking up the word ‘productive’ and that’s what I have done and it has been so powerful in my life. I live a life of intention. My life is very intentional.

At 63 years old, it is such an optimistic, positive forward thinking life. I do not drag a bunch of stuff with me. I don’t drag people with me, nor do I drag a bunch of un-useful past stories with me. So I just love thinking and curating and creating very productive days on purpose. And at three o’clock every day, Jeff and I close down both of our jobs and we go out and we walk together and it is the best time and you know why? It’s because we both feel very productive.

We talk about our day and how productive we were and how we only talk about positive things. And we have this real deep connection and exchange and we actually get to walk by the water, the ocean. So of course we have that going for us too. Sometimes we stop at one of the cute little restaurants up the street and have a cocktail if it’s at the end of the week. So we started this practice since we moved to the bungalow. Jeff always walks at 3:30 and I never have because he just goes off by himself and it’s never really appealed to me.

But since we moved to the bungalow and we’re so close to the water now, I just close up shop because I feel so productive. And then I go walking with him and the weather’s been so beautiful. The ocean, of course, is very stimulating and also peaceful. There’s just something about the feeling of having a very productive day and I feel like that every single day. That’s why I can’t wait to get up in the morning because I don’t feel like I have a busy day. I feel like I have a very productive day.

And even one of my clients this week said she decided instead of telling her co-workers that she was busy, because they were wanting something from her. She just said this week instead of busy, she said, “My day is scheduled.” And I loved that because scheduled feels productive, feels like I’m the boss of my time. I’m the boss of what I choose to do and what I choose not to do. I’m not going to do a bunch of busy work to keep people happy. Busy work is just a hamster on a wheel that feels exhausting. There’s really no reason for busy work.

There is intentional work that feels productive because we have a goal at the end of the day, at the end of the week, at the end of the month and at the end of the year. And everything that I choose to do, put on my planner. My plan tomorrow today planner is lined up with who I’m becoming, where I’m headed. And that’s how I want you to think. So I never tell anyone I’m busy, I’m super busy. I have people say, “Oh, Kym, you must be so busy.” And I always go, “No, I’m not busy at all actually but I am very productive.”

Because to me productivity is work, is creation on purpose. I have a reason for everything that I’m working on, there’s an end game, there is a goal. And so everything is something that I’m choosing to do and it’s everything I’m wanting to do and everything about it makes me so happy, makes me feel like I’m living the exact life experience that I’m choosing to live. So I’m being very productive about my days and my weeks and my months and my years.

So let me give you some examples. So when I wake up at 3:45, that feels very productive to me. I get up, I make my cappuccino. That’s productive. That’s a choice. I answer my emails. I post on my Instagram, very productive. I put on my workout clothes. I drive to Orangetheory, I lay it out for an hour at Orangetheory, extremely productive, I come home. I take my shower, wash my hair every four days, very productive and then I get to work. So my days are extremely productive. I record these podcasts.

I record videos for my Instagram videos, videos for my emails, copy for my emails. And I’m just constantly producing, creating, curating. So there is an input and there is an output, and it feels so powerfully productive in my life. My days are so filled with joy and movement and productivity, and there’s not a better feeling in the world than those feelings. So then I have planned after I get everything checked off like I’m chopping wood every day, I get everything checked off. I make my green juice. Very productive. I make my scrambled eggs or my protein shake. Very productive.

I eat my greens. Very productive. All my intake of my food is extremely productive for me. And then the walk with Jeff, so productive for our relationship and for our souls and just our connection is just so filled with happiness, our walks in the afternoon. Right now we are remodeling our house so I have a lot of extra things that are on my schedule. I go up to the house every day, I check on the progress there. That feels very productive.

I, of course, was super extra productive right before my retreat because I had a lot of that work to produce every day, to curate, to create every day. So that retreat was extremely productive and it was more than I could have thought it would ever be. And it’s given me so much motivation and inspiration and encouragement as the aftereffects. And then I consider my rest in the evenings as productive. I plan that. I love to watch my shows. Very productive. I go to bed at seven and sleep till 3:45. My sleep is very productive.

So I want you to see everything that I choose I consider as productivity, even my rest and my sleep, can you see that? Even watching my shows, can you see that? I love thinking like this. I don’t think I’m busy. I have such a generous amount of time, space and energy in my everyday life. I never feel scrunched or pushed or haggard or exhausted because I live my life on purpose and it feels very productive to me.

So I want you to see the difference between using the word ‘busy’, what that word ‘busy’ feels like in your body. And practice dropping it, stop saying it, stop thinking it. And either say, “My day is scheduled”, see what that feels like, or, “I’ve been very productive today.” When someone asks you how your day was. Very productive. And there’s no better feeling than that.

And then also I’ve had this epiphany this week about another way that I feel productive. So we all have hard things in our life where we feel pressured. Maybe something doesn’t go the way you thought it was and maybe you’re disappointed. Maybe you’re surprised by it and maybe you feel a little taken back by it or maybe you’ve taken it personally. Maybe you feel a little pressured financially or relationally. Maybe you feel a little self-doubt.

So I want you to know that’s all very normal and every woman in the second half of life is always dealing with something like that. And what I want you to know and what I really want you to hear from me today is that that work when we are feeling negative feelings, when we’re in a situation that we just really want to get out of because it doesn’t feel great. I want you to know that can be the most productive work that we ever do, so here’s how.

So let’s say that something happened and you wish it hadn’t happened, but it did. And I want you to take it as information. I want you to look at it all as information. And I want you to realize that being able to own the whole experience, take responsibility for all of it, not making yourself wrong or shaming yourself in any way. But just looking at it objectively and as if everything’s kind of neutral and now how do I want to be in this. And actually own the whole experience without blaming anybody or any situation outside of yourself.

We don’t have to make anyone wrong. We can just realize how we’re thinking and feeling in this hard place right now. And then the magic comes when we own it, when we take responsibility for it, and we realize our role in creating it. So our thoughts create our reality. So whatever hard place you’re in right now, you somehow created that by the way that you thought, felt and showed up to your life in this particular situation. And this is what’s happened with me, particularly this week.

I just looked at something that felt really hard and I was like, “How did I create this? How do I want to own it? How do I want to show up in it and not blame anybody outside of me for it and not blame myself for it?” So I did that and that’s where the juice was. That’s where actually the productivity came. So it’s self-sabotage if I decided to blame someone or something outside of me, which we all really want to do. We don’t want to own it. Our first inclination is to go, “Well, they caused it. They did it, they were the wrong one.”

Or then we turn it back to shaming ourself, but I didn’t do any of that. I was like, “This happened, now, now what? What would my best self, my highest self, my future self do here?” She would own this whole thing. See how she created it, own up to it, apologize for it. And then what do I want to do moving forward?” And that’s exactly what I did. I was so proud of myself. I didn’t blame anybody for it. I just took ownership of it and that’s where all the productivity inside of me came from. It felt so productive that this experience happened.

It just grows my belief in myself, my sturdiness moving forward, my ability to not shame myself or blame myself or shame anyone else or blame anyone else. This is all part of life. It feels so emotionally mature. And this is what we all want, we all want to be emotional adults. We want to be able to own our part in every exchange, in every situation, without blaming anyone else. Because what happens, if we blame someone else, you guys, that is just self-sabotage. That’s just a wasted experience for you and for me.

I don’t want to waste any experience. I know that everything that happens is here to teach me. Every bump in the road, every detour, every kind of unexpected, what feels like maybe a negative situation really is happening for me. And if I can accept it like that, oh my gosh, it’s so productive in my life as far as my emotional maturity growth goes. So I want you to see productivity like that as well. Every hard situation is an opportunity for you to grow into the next level of emotional adulthood for you, becoming the highest version of yourself emotionally, there’s not a better feeling like that.

So we only self-sabotage when we try and give credit, which is blame to somebody else for our emotions, for our emotional experience. We don’t ever want to do that. We don’t ever want to give our power away by blaming someone else, so we just take ownership of it. There’s no shame or blame needed for anybody. And we’re like, “How did I create this? How do I want to be in this? And how do I want to move forward from this?” And it takes a lot of vulnerability to do that.

I promise you, you will feel so productive afterwards. You’ll feel so proud of yourself. You’ll also feel a lot more confident and safe being you. That’s what you want. You want to be safe, being you. And it’s okay if you screw up. We all screw up all the time. When I own my screw ups, it’s just all information for me. It’s not to make me feel like I’m not good enough. It’s to make me know that I’m a human and I’m doing big things in the world. And of course I’m going to screw up and I can just own the whole experience and apologize when I need to apologize. And who do I want to be now? And how can I take action to move forward and learn my lessons from this experience? That’s what I call the best productivity of all. Nothing’s wasted. We only waste it when we complain and blame somebody or some situation outside of us. That’s just a wasted negative experience. We don’t ever want to do that. It’s just these are the circumstances, who do I want to be? And how can I make it a productive experience for my emotional growth?

So that’s what I learned this week and I had this great epiphany about it. I’m so proud of myself. I love the way that I handle things like this, the way that I handle hard situations. I have come so far and I want you to be able to say the same thing. So I’m going to make you an offer again to come work with me. We can work on this exact thing where you’re just so proud of the way that you show up mentally, emotionally and physically to all of your relationships.

If you want to build a business, if you want to get a healthy body, if you want to create a marriage that you’re just so thriving in, if you want to create an abundant mindset, a more optimistic mindset, I am your coach. I am your girl. This is my genius. I’d love you to come work with me and come work with me one-on-one right now for two months or you can work with me in my next small group for six months. And you’ll get my private website. You’ll get lots of time with me. You’ll get lots of tools from me, lots of practice.

Either way, either choice will be completely productive for your future self. You’ll be so glad that you committed and invested, you committed to your future self, and you also invested right now in your own emotional well-being. So I love you so much for showing up today. Drop the word ‘busy’, pick up the word ‘productive’ and just watch what happens, my friend. Have the best week and I will talk to you next Thursday.

If you love this podcast, I invite you to come work with me. Go to kymshowerslifecoach.com, sign up for my next group and retreat, and let’s create your dream life together.