The Childcare Business Coach
The Childcare Business Coach
Unraveling Mental Fatigue: Balancing Entrepreneurship and Self-Care
Feeling drained even after a full night’s sleep? Join me, Evelyn Knight, as I unravel the mysteries of mental fatigue and its sneaky ways of creeping into our lives. From the frustration of irritability to the rollercoaster of eating habits and insomnia, mental fatigue can mask itself well, but it's crucial to recognize its signs. I share my personal journey preparing for the NACI conference in Anaheim, where I confronted these challenges head-on. Together, we'll explore the underestimated impact of decision fatigue and how constant choices can sap your vitality. Armed with insights into sleep patterns and screen time, we'll tackle how to maintain well-being amidst the chaos—because understanding these elements is the first step toward effective leadership.
Shifting gears, the episode also delves into the delicate balancing act of being an entrepreneur while nurturing oneself. Reflecting on my experiences, including the emotional toll of caring for a terminally ill spouse, I emphasize the critical role of taking breaks and trusting others with responsibilities. It's about more than just surviving—it's about thriving. For those on an entrepreneurial path feeling cornered by challenges, I introduce the visionary circle, a community to uplift and guide you through business complexities. And for a hands-on experience, I warmly invite you to a transformative event in Napa, California, where empowerment and growth are at the forefront. Whether you’re eager to share your thoughts on the episode or excited to connect further, I’m just an email or message away.
Monday everybody. Happy Monday and welcome to the Child Care Business Coach podcast. My name is Evelyn Knight. If you are listening to the podcast, I really appreciate you taking the time and I would love for you to give me a five-star review and let the world know if this podcast has been helpful for you. Thank you so much once again.
Speaker 1:And today I have to say, I'm really tired. I am on my way to the NACI conference in Anaheim and I'm both nervous because I have a lot to do, I have a lot of work and I'm also really tired. So today I thought well, let's talk about mental fatigue and what happens when we go through these periods of just being overwhelmed and tired. And, by the way, my name is Evelyn Knight and I am the founder and CEO of Child Care Business Professionals, which brings you this podcast and sponsors this podcast. So give us some love, go to childcarebusinessprofessionalscom and check us out. Or, if any of this resonates with you, please send me an email or send me a message if you're watching live, I will put it up on the screen where you can see to send us some emails at admin at childcarebusinessprofessionalscom. I love hearing and I do appreciate hearing from you A lot of times I get pretty lonely over here on the side of the camera.
Speaker 1:But let's talk about mental fatigue and just be exhausted. Do you wake up just feeling exhausted at times and just like you haven't slept at all? You could be suffering from mental fatigue. It also could be your habits and your sleep schedule and really diving into those habits to see what is going on. Am I creating more of a problem for myself? It's always a good idea as well, but mental fatigue is the state of feeling of being worn out or drained due to prolonged stress, right, just that feeling of being absolutely drained, and no matter how much sleep you get, no matter how much you do, you just can't feel energized. You might start taking supplements or doing some other things to help you to feel more energized, but nothing seems to work. That is mental fatigue. So you may be feeling that, but one of the things I really want you to realize is, if you're in this state, it is going to affect your behavior. It is going to affect how you show up in the world and how you show up as a leader, and a lot of this needs to be just something that you are aware of.
Speaker 1:Mental fatigue will actually show up in your physical self. It'll show up in how you behave. It'll show up in how irritable you are, right. So if you're more irritable than normal, maybe you're exhausted, maybe you're suffering from mental fatigue. Ironically, it shows up in your eating patterns, right. It might make you feel more hungry than you normally are, so you might feel unusually insatiable when it comes to needing to eat, which is where it can cause some weight gain issues. It can also show up in insomnia, which I find it so ironic.
Speaker 1:You're exhausted and you can't sleep. For me, that is 100% how it shows up. I just can't sleep, I can't turn my brain off. So I am physically exhausted, mentally exhausted, and then I don't feel satiated and I want to just eat and eat and eat. So I have to really watch myself. I'm also very tired, and the things that actually help the most, like being able to go for a run or just my physical activity, I'm so tired I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1:So know what it is that you need to do to take care of yourself. First of all, identify am I just mentally fatigued or maybe I just have some bad sleep hygiene? Maybe I'm on a really bad schedule. That doesn't work for me. But I'm forcing my body to do something that isn't natural. That isn't work for me. But I'm forcing my body to do something that isn't natural. That isn't working, and that's really what's making me exhausted.
Speaker 1:Right, I work with a lot of people in a lot of different situations and I have a sleep disorder myself. So sleep is a big deal to me and I've done years and years of studying sleep, since I do have a sleep disorder and a lot of times where people will think that they have some mental fatigue or exhaustion, it's really the patterns in their life and how they're treating sleep and what their sleep hygiene looks like. They say they can't sleep, but sleep hygiene is a real thing. It's a big deal and it's something you should really really look at Like. For just a quick example, I'm not going to really get into this, but do you have screen time before you go to sleep? That is one of the worst things you can do to interrupt your sleep patterns for the brain. So that's just an example of something you can do to help your sleep patterns and not really mix up what is actually mental fatigue and what is just. You're not giving your body what it needs when it comes to sleep.
Speaker 1:Mental fatigue also will lead to something called decision fatigue, and this is a really good way that you can tell whether you're just not sleeping properly or if you are mentally exhausted. So what is decision fatigue? Decision fatigue is when you have so many decisions that you need to make that you become crippled and you cannot make those decisions. It's fascinating, because studies actually show that humans only have so much capacity to make decisions in one day, right In a 24-hour period. We can literally only make so many decisions. That is just how we're wired, and so if you're going over that a lot of decision making, you're going to have decision fatigue.
Speaker 1:It's something that I often struggle with. I make a lot of really big decisions, so even the small ones become hard and, ironically, oftentimes it's the small ones that push you over into that decision fatigue. It's not the big decisions that you have to make so much that push you over that line, it's the small decisions every day, and they just add up and add up, and add up and add up and there is literally has been proven a quantitative amount of decisions your brain is capable of making in a day. So how can you pull back and not make so many decisions in a day? How can it be so that you make it not so difficult? And this kind of might be a little bit hard to imagine if you've never experienced this. So let me explain a little bit more about this decision of fatigue aspect.
Speaker 1:Like for me, I know I wake up in the morning and I try to go straight into a routine. I do the same thing every morning. That way, I don't have to make a decision about what comes next. Do I make a decision on am I going to go out for my run today or am I going to go do weights? Right, it's no. Every day this is what I do. It's the same thing. Monday is this, tuesday is this Tuesday. So I'm eliminating those decisions. Otherwise I'm probably going to say no, I don't want to go. You know, I mean, I love doing it when I'm in the act, but getting there can be difficult.
Speaker 1:So the second thing is what do I wear today? This is something that sometimes I'm just like I can't make a decision right. How hard is it? How hard is it Put on a shirt, put on my blazer and a pair of pants? But I will second guess and question myself for no reason. There are times that I work from home and I am not talking to a single human being, right, other than my family, and sometimes I am literally on Zoom. Or I don't talk to a single person and I still have a hard time deciding what to wear today. That is decision fatigue. It should just be quick and easy, right? So then when the big decisions come, they feel crippling. They feel like they're going to just overcome me and take me out. Feel like they're going to just overcome me and take me out. That is really hard when it comes to making decisions and suffering from decision fatigue.
Speaker 1:So what decisions can you eliminate from your life so that you don't suffer from decision fatigue? For me, I have to eliminate things like what am I going to have for breakfast, what am I going to have for lunch? What am I going to have for dinner, on a daily basis. So on Sunday I'm going to prepare my menu for myself, right, and I'll even do some food prep so that it's just there and I know Monday I'm eating. This Tuesday meeting, this Wednesday meeting, this Saturday and Sunday I'm not making a whole lot of decisions, so it's easier for me to make those decisions on that day. I will also lay out my clothes for the week and down to my shoes, because I tell you guys, I even I struggle with what socks I'm going to wear today. I will sit there and look at what is the weather, what is this, what is that? That is decision fatigue. It shouldn't be so hard. So if you find yourself really having a hard time just what do you want for lunch it should just be quick and easy, right. When you find that it's really hard to make all these decisions, you might be just mentally exhausted, you might be overwhelmed and you probably are suffering from decision fatigue. So what decisions can you eliminate from your life and what can you do? Well, taking breaks is a big deal, even if you have to take five minute breaks where you go for a quick walk. I know at my childcare center we go for quick walks around the preschool parking lot right Just to get out of the building. We go through these quick walks. There's a lot of little things that we do throughout the day. Just to give yourself a break. You might need to schedule some more days off. You might, and that's okay. There is nothing wrong with that you might and that's okay, there is nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1:When I was in recovery after my husband's death and just it was very long when he was first gosh, he was 2012 when he first became really ill and started his bouts of in and out of the hospital and then we had four years of him being extremely ill and terminally, basically terminal. So those four years were really hard, really hard, and then when he passed, it just intensified right. So I was exhausted and my neurologist and my therapist both prescribed a week off every month, every month, and I didn't think that was possible. How on earth am I going to take a week off every month, every month? And I didn't think that was possible. How on earth am I going to take a week off every month? But what I have come to find is that when I do, I actually get more work done and I don't take a week off every month anymore. But I do take quite a bit of times when I start feeling that exhaustion, because what I find is I'm paralyzed and I can't get work done anyway. But if I take the time and I do go and rejuvenate my brain, then I can be on it again and yeah, sometimes I do need to go back to a once a month pattern, right, sometimes that is my reality, where I do have to go back because I make a lot of really big decisions, and I know so many of you that I'm working with right now.
Speaker 1:You're in that place, too, where you're making a lot of big decisions for your life. Right now. My visionary circle people are entrepreneurs, right, those of you who work with me and are in the visionary circle. It is overwhelming sometimes because we go from this life where you're making these decisions. You know, when you're a home provider, you're making these decisions that are five $6,000 a month. And the next thing you know, you have a center and you're making these decisions that are 70, $80,000 a month. And then you might get multiple centers and suddenly you're making these decisions that are $200,000 a month and all of that is in your shoulders, right, it's just bigger. Am I going to expand now? What? All of the moving pieces become bigger and bigger and bigger and more overwhelming.
Speaker 1:So for my entrepreneurs out there who follow me and my, my people in my visionary circle who are just growing and adding businesses to their portfolios and adding real estate to their portfolios, it gets heavy and I will be the first to say, because I'm doing it myself it gets overwhelming and I have to put myself in check. I have to put myself in check. When I start feeling it bubbling up where I'm irritable, I don't want to exercise, I don't want to take care of myself, I become passive, aggressive and I get insomnia pretty bad. And so when I know these things are happening, that's when I know it's time for a break, because I also can't create, and I am a creator. That's who I am. I'm a visionary who loves to create, and when my brain cannot create, I'm not happy. So I need to give myself that break and that time so that I can create. But I also have to balance it on a daily basis. So limiting the amount of decisions I have to make on a daily basis is very important to me.
Speaker 1:Delegate a lot of the stuff. If it doesn't have to be on your plate, it doesn't have to be on your plate. I'm telling you that right now. Delegate it. There is no way you're going to scale and grow. There is no way that you're going to achieve your dreams.
Speaker 1:If you are a visionary, if you want to go from being a business owner to an entrepreneur, you cannot do it alone. You cannot do it alone. When you look at the people that you admire the most and you want to get to the level they're at, do you think they did it alone? No, it takes other people and it takes knowing how to delegate to them, knowing how to give it over and trusting them, sometimes with your baby. And will things go right all the time? No, they won't, and that's okay. Will they do it exactly the way you do it? No, they won't, but sometimes they do it better, so that's okay too. So, just really watch yourself. What are you doing?
Speaker 1:If this is something that really resonated with you, if you are an entrepreneur and you're thinking Evelyn, I want to be there, but I just don't know how. I'm on my fourth or fifth childcare center and I'm doing great, but I'm having a hard time juggling it all and I want to expand into other things, like real estate, investing or crowdfunding or whatever it is, but I feel stuck. You probably need to talk to me about becoming a member of my visionary circle. We're actually having an event, not this Thursday but Wednesday, but next Wednesday in Napa, california, and I'm telling you right now you need to be there. If this resonated with you I know many of you have so many excuses yeah, but it's too short notice, I can't right, or it's expensive, I can't. If you knew you could be a part of a community and part of an event that would help you 10X your life, your time, your finances, all of it would you drop everything to be there? I would hope so, because if you truly are stuck and you know you're that entrepreneur, you know you have that entrepreneurial spirit that is just being squashed and you just want to let it out. You're trying to fit into a box that just doesn't fit you, but you don't know how to get out of that box. You need to be at the visionary circle event.
Speaker 1:I actually tell some of my clients and I'm getting nothing out of this when I tell them this but you need to treat this as if you had COVID. Right, because when we had COVID and we had to stay away, we found a way. How many of you tell yourself I can't be away from my center, I can't take a break. You don't understand, evelyn, I can't, but you have. You have figured it out before. Each one of us has.
Speaker 1:I remember when I had COVID, I thought my first time I had COVID, I was one of like what? It was so new. I got it. It was like a late April, early May of 2020. And at that point in my life I was like, oh my gosh, my center can't live without me, right? And then suddenly I was so sick sick as I've ever been in my life and I missed about two weeks of work. And they figured it out without me and I figured it out. That is the bigger thing you need to figure it out. So if you are tired of living in this box that you have allowed to create around you, it's time. It is time. Make it happen.
Speaker 1:November 13th, 14th and 15th in Napa. Come on, who doesn't want to be in Napa in November? Thank you so much, everybody for joining me. If this resonated with you, send me an email. Admin at childcarebusinessprofessionalscom. Again, it's admin at childcare business professionals. If you're watching me on Insta or Facebook, just send me a message. I would be happy to chat with you about the upcoming events or whatever. Just hey, this really touched me today. I really appreciate that too. Let lets me know that what I'm doing is doing something for the world. Have a wonderful day, everybody.