Episode 32: The Threshold

Here's the thing about the threshold, it's not definitive... So, how do you know if you're there and it's time to make slight adjustments to finally surpass it? I share some tell-tale signs of what I think it feels like, some fun analogies to make it make sense, and where I believe I'm at in my WFHM journey! 

Connect with the host, Brittany Drake:

• On LinkedIn @copywritingbritt
• Visit Momhomie.com to read the blog for more WFH Mom realities
• Email any inquiries to momhomie@copywritingbritt.com

Thanks for listening, and you're doing great, mama!


Note: Looking for the WFH Survival Guide?... Well, I've been ashamed to admit this, but it's not done yet. However, I am ready to confess because if Netflix can fail hard on their live stream of Love is Blind Reunion (with a whole production team and crew) and ask for forgiveness, so can lil' ol' me.  Thank you for your patience, and it will be done very soon! 

Transcript

Brittany 0:00

Hey, and welcome to Mom Homie, a podcast that advocates for work from home moms who want to balance their careers with their little ones in the mix. I'm your host, writer, and fellow mom and family woman, Brittany Drake. Every two weeks I share my experience, what I've learned, and ideas and hopes of easing and affirming feelings about the work from home mom life. In continuation of this month's theme about ego transformation and the threshold, I ask, how do you know you're at the threshold of transformation? Running a business, being a creative, or even working corporate positions doesn't always paint a clear picture of progress in just how far our potential has taken us. While time and metrics exist and you start to meet goals more often because of the systems you have in place, it's hard to know you've pushed past the threshold. And so it's like, am I just here? Have I transformed? Am I a butterfly with my wings now? Can I go fly off somewhere or am I still in the metamorphosis phase? So I wanna know more. How do we know where we're at? How do we know we're at the threshold? So I wanna dive into this because once you're up against that threshold, I believe it's time to adjust your systems to account for more growth. For example, if you're a weightlifter who sustains exercising four times a week, but you're not gaining any more muscle mass, does that mean it's time to adjust your systems and work out five times a week or to start lifting heavier weights or both? Again, it's just hard to know where you're at, but I do think that if you were just your systems and you start to notice more progress, then that's a cue of like, oh, okay. Yeah. Like this is where I need to make a little minor change. Right. But before we dive into that, let's have our affirmation, which is I will surpass the threshold and into my idea of compounded success. I say compounded success because as you all know, I'm reading James Clear. I know. I keep talking about that. You guys are like, oh, she's so annoying. She's a habits expert now. I'm not, I still recommend you read the book. But just my interpretation of it, the reason why I say compounded success is because James Clear talks about small compounded habits bringing you to big changes, and a lot of the time success is relative and fluid, so meaning that. Success isn't just made up of one thing. So the affirmation is, I will surpass the threshold into my idea of compounded success. So go ahead and let that marinate for a moment. I will be right back. Hey, Brittany here. This is not a commercial. It's a moment for you mama to take a break and go pee, grab a snack or take a breath. So go ahead, put me on pause. I'll wait. Okay, so let's go ahead and dive right in. How do we know we are up against the threshold? The first thing that I wanna look at is current systems and habits, and do they feel second nature? I think the decisions that we make in our actions all comprise of routine and habits that we've made for ourselves. Whether those habits are good or bad. So with that said, some habits may start to feel second nature, like drinking a cup of coffee every morning, brushing your teeth or waking up at the same time every morning, regardless of the time that you went to sleep. While these particular examples are not as intentional in our adult lives, we've all had to start somewhere and not much can change with those habits now that we've reached this point in our adulthood. However, habits like daily meditation, stretching, and proper nutrition can improve. So it's important to recognize when something feels second nature and whether it's time to take it up a notch. So let me illustrate what I mean by this. Maybe your daily stretches are really easing tightness in your hips back neck, but you notice other parts of your body could use some love, too. you build on your current habits of stretching to include your thighs and your arms. And adding them at first may take some time to get used to, but the point of stretching is for overall mobility, right? And if you truly want to have that, you have to build upon your small habits or systems that have been working so that you can surpass the threshold of overall mobility. So when I say changing your systems or your habits, I'm not saying scrapping them all together, I'm saying building upon them so you're not gonna stop stretching all together because that would be counterintuitive. It would take away everything that you've worked up so far in terms of your mobility, but. because you know that you can be even more mobile. It's like, Hey, let me go ahead and start adding in some stretches for other parts of my body so that my whole body feels good and not just parts of my body. And maybe it took a while for you to get to that point because you were focusing on your major pain points before you were saying, oh, okay, now I can add these in too. But whatever it may be, adding on to the systems you already have just a little bit, may be the adjustment that you need to get over that threshold. And in this particular example, maybe you do something like, add bands or blocks or you know, again, more stretches, whatever it is, so that you can reach your ideal mobility and physical potential. The second thing I have as a queue is you think, or you feel you have the capacity to adjust your systems. I don't think that we give our intuition enough credit. Josh, aka my husband and I have been discussing when we would be ready to welcome another child. In my heart I know I want another one if the universe wills it, but I think about my mental, physical, and emotional state, and I wonder if I could handle having another child, right now. Generally speaking, I think I can, however, my intuition is telling me to wait a little bit longer because there is no rush. My intuition is also telling me that I want to experience some things for myself before welcoming another. I wanna be in shape. I want to travel. I want to eat sushi. I wanna read books. I wanna accomplish a few career projects like the Work from Home Survival Guide, which is coming out April 6th. I want to finish this feature length script me and Josh been writing for about two years now, and I wanna start a possible YouTube channel. There's some things that I wanna do for myself before I welcome another, and overall I wanna set myself up with regular revenue system that will allow me to afford the support that I need, take more breaks, and also just have some lifestyle upgrades, like a bigger car and a house. I say all of this because passing the threshold is partly dependent on our intuition and also how healthy our ego is so that we know logically what the next step is, regardless of fear and knowledge. So if you feel like you have the capacity to adjust or add to your systems because your intuition is leaning that way, make a plan to test it out and remember it's a small adjustment, but that it will be mighty. The last cue I have on here is that you've sustained your systems for a while, but nothing is changing. You sort of reach the ceiling of change, and I saw a great interview yesterday with, um, the c I believe she's the COO of t. I a a, which is an insurance company for teachers, and they do way more than that. I'm giving you Cliff notes version, and I will actually be telling you more about this woman in the interview in my next podcast, uh, episode in a couple weeks here. But, um, one of the things that she said was, that imagine being in a container. She got this from her mentor. Imagine being in a container, and when you're in that container, you're starting in the bottom and you have, you know, room to reach the sides and you have room to reach the top. But as you grow in this role, or with your company, you start to fill up that container and at some point you're kind of hunched over. Maybe there isn't as much room to say what you need to say or do what you need to do, and you've sort of outgrown that container. She says, then it's time to move on to the next career move. So with that said, thinking of this container and thinking about your systems and how much has changed, if you have been doing a system for quite some time and you're noticing that after six months to a year there hasn't been much movement, then it may be time to add onto that system, whether that is making a complete career change or adding in, you know, something to your habits or whatever it may be, so that you can continue to get over that threshold and continue in your transformation. So it may take time to adjust those systems. Maybe you've taken on more projects, you're expanding your reach, you're hiring support, your upgrading systems, whatever it is, reflect on the past year and see how much growth you've had in the beginning and how much growth you have now and the momentum that it has throughout. Were things really fast and steady in the beginning and then they slowed down. Or is it something. where you've seen steady growth, or is it something where it's really slow to start and then it's sped up? Just sort of look at it and see what patterns come, and that way you can decide, you know, is this a pace that you wanna be at, or do you need to turn it up a notch? Are you completely stagnant? Whatever it may. Make sure that you are being realistic with yourself and that you are challenging yourself, but you're not overworking yourself. And again, that's balancing the ego there. Moms, do you have something to say or add about the work from home mom life? I'm looking for a diverse array of guests who want to share their experience, knowledge, and support to offer solutions that make work from home mom life easier. If this sounds like something you want to be a part of, contact me using the info in the show notes. Thanks. Now back to the show. All right, so to conclude today's episode, many people who find success don't actually recount a specific moment where they said, or thought I finally gotten my big break. Rather, they fall into it and they reflect on where they saw consistent strides to their success. when I think about the threshold, I. I'm kind of a nerd about this show. You might have heard me talk about it before, but I think about American Ninja Warrior. I also think about how there are those thresholds throughout your career, like in American Ninja Warrior where you have to beat the wall. If you've never seen the show, just watch one episode and you'll know what I'm talking about. Or just go on you YouTube, watch a quick clip and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. But either way, beating that wall, you still need to progress to the next obstacle or a k a milestone, and then you go up another wall and you progress several more obstacles afterward. However, I think the wall symbolizes everything you've done to get to that point. And the big boss challenge of what it takes to keep going So you can also use video game analogies for this. If you're like, I'm gonna skip American Ninja Warrior, but it's like Mario, when you're beating Bowser at the end of every level, before you get to the big, big level, which once you beat that game, you have transformed. Right? So in retrospect, I do think that I may be up against the threshold, but I'm not in a position to launch just yet. However, I'm going to keep sustaining my systems, adjust or add small habits, and I'm not gonna discount the conditioning I've done up until this point, and I hope you won't either, because I believe in your potential. So thank you so much for listening today. If you need help balancing the work from home mom life, there is a limited release of the work from Home Survival Guide right now. So go ahead and shoot me an email. I'll leave that information in the podcast notes for you and I'll be happy to send that over. It's just a couple humble pages and I am still working on it, but I would love for you to take a read and let me know what you think. Is this up your alley or is there some information that you would like that maybe that wasn't in there? Either way, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks so much again for tuning in today, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Bye.