Hi Explorers, it's Mariela and uh, I'm here with another monthly update of the Exploring Introvert Habit Research and Conversations to help you live a healthier and happier life. Here's a question that I get all the time. What habits do you focus on when things are really hectic and you have no time? So, uh, this month has been just that hectic. So I thought I, uh, would take you on a walk today and we can talk about it. So, I'm walking through a park, not quite spring yet, so not a lot of greenery, but it's really nice, really quiet. So. What has made this month so hectic is that I've taken on a project that I knew from the start was going to be a difficult project. So in personal coaching, I can be very picky about the people I work with, and I don't work with everyone. But this particular project that I've taken on involves a lot of different people. Um. There's a lot of emotions involved. There are some conflicts and um. I decided to take it on because I know that I can add value, um, to the people in this project, and it's really needed. You know, right now I'm the best person to help, so I decided to go ahead. Now, if you're working in a team or an organization, um, you may not always be able to pick your projects. So maybe you've been in a similar situation where you have a project. Um. Where you immediately know that it's going to be hard and what can you do to still do a good job and keep your sanity at the same time? So I've been thinking about that and I wanna share with you a couple of things. I think it's three, maybe four things that, um. Have helped me a lot, uh, with these types of situations and that I see our, my clients getting great results with too. So the first thing is accepting that it's going to cost more energy in these types of situations. It's going to be harder, um, to work in an easy flow. So you need to accept that it's going to take up more of that energy. It's likely that the inner critic will flare up more often than usual, and you need to give yourself space to like release whatever stress is building up. It's also good to realize that you might not get the same results that you would otherwise. Um, I know that in this project I will probably not get the same results as I know I can with my coaching clients. Uh, working one-to-one with clients. We have breakthroughs and, uh, real transformation over the two to four months that a foundation program with me typically is in this program. That's probably not going to happen. A good habit is to think beforehand about what your best contribution could be. Taking into account all of this and the, the difficult situation. So ask yourself, when would I be satisfied with my effort in this project? In my case, I decided to focus on the practical issues. I decided that my role is going to be to collect the information, which was extremely fragmented at the start of the project. Get everyone updated and informed, and from that, decide the best practical steps. That's my role. Anything beyond that, I leave it to someone else. If needed or if someone asks me, I can, you know, refer 'em to someone else or I can ask someone, uh, within, uh, the, the group of people already involved to help with other issues. But, um, that's my role and I'm not taking on anything beyond that also as a way to ensure that, um, the help that I give is the best that I can. Someone on a bike passing by. Little wave there, um, to ensure that, that the help that I give is the best that I can give and that I don't over ask myself, you know? So having boundaries like these, uh, in place about what your contribution, um, is going to be, is incredibly helpful, uh, to still do a good job in the project and, and keep your sanity intact. And, uh, the inner critic calm, you know. Another set of habits that have been helpful to people are, um, what I call processing habits and recharge habits. So processing habits are habits that help you to mentally process everything that's going on. Uh, and recharge. Habits are the ha are habits that help you replenish your energy. In general for introverts, processing habits usually have some form of reflection in there. For some people is writing in a journal. For others, it's talking things over with a friend like me talking, uh, to you right now or talking out loud to themselves, which is also me right now. Um, and recharge habits. Uh, are often, uh, come in a form of, of hobbies for me. I recently, uh, rediscovered drawing and I'm on a leaf cake right now. So, uh, I, I like to draw leaves, just random leaves, um, twigs, you know, whatever. Uh, and then I give them away of as, uh, as cards. And I brought my little sketchbook with me today. Um. That I can do some sketches after this recording here. Here are a few that I've drawn. Here are a few examples. If you're watching this on video, you can see a few of the leaves that I've drawn. Um, for you it might be sports, it might be walks in nature, uh, playing with the dog, knitting, cooking, anything that helps you to feel mentally refreshed. So I make the distinction between processing habits and recharge habits just on the basis of the role that they have, but. The habit itself can, um, fulfill multiple roles, right? Uh, for example, me, uh, being on this walk is helping me process, uh, and talking to you is helping me process a lot of the things that have been going on. Uh, but it's also recharging me mentally. And the final habit that I wanna mention that can also help is what I call your peace of mind area habits. Um. Or your peace of mind habits, your peace of mind area is an area of your life that when that area is taken care of, it gives you peace of mind. And there are specific habits that you can do in that area that will, um, help you to feel, uh, better able to handle your day, uh, especially in hectic times. For me, my peace of mind area is food. Um, I don't like cooking particularly, but I do an awful lot of it, uh, in my home. We like to have food available, you know, healthy, delicious food, snacks, whatever. And my guys, um, are very active and, and they have, they, they eat big meals, so. Sometimes it's quite a logistics, getting all the meals organized, so when I know that the food is taken care of, then it opens up so much mental space for me. One of my HA habits in hectic times is I cook dinner the morning either before or right after breakfast. I'll cook dinner and we reheat it later in the day. Some people like to cook the night before for the next day or the meal prep. I've tried all of those too, but cooking dinner in the morning works best for me. Your peace of mind area may be completely different. Here's some examples. Um, someone told me that. Um, when my house is tidy and organized, I feel so much better. Or, um, someone else said, when my finances are in order, I know that things are taken care of. You know, I have that, that sense of a peace of mind. And, um, someone else said, when I have a training schedule prepared for the next day, I feel, you know, more like myself, like better, more confident in myself overall. The point is that you focus on one single habit in your peace of mind area, so that you can feel supported in those hectic times and open up that valuable mental space. The overall idea here is not to do more, but to do the things that are the most meaningful. You need to realize that when you're dealing with a project that's taking up a lot of energy, but that doesn't give a lot back, you're going to have to do like some extra maintenance to stay mentally sharp and emotionally stable. And my mentor has a great analogy for this. Imagine that you are a fruit tree. Let's say an apple tree. I have an apple tree in my yard, so that one comes to mind. If you want your apple tree to have delicious apples this autumn, you're going to need to fertilize it, right? So nourish the tree. You need to check for parasites. Remove them, and you'll need to pull the weeds around the tree. If you leave the weeds to grow unchecked, they're going to pull away the nutrients from your tree and. Your apple tree will get sick. When you're dealing with a project that's sucking up a lot of energy, it's like leaving the weeds to grow unchecked. It will pull energy away from you, and ultimately you can become ill. So just like that apple tree. So be sure to pull out the weeds regularly by keeping in mind your peace of mind area, your recharge habits, and your processing habits. And thinking about your role beforehand and setting boundaries about how you can make your best contribution. I will see you again next month, on the first Thursday, if that seems like a very long time. Sign up for my mailing list, the exploring Introvert letters. I will send you my best eye-opening and empowering lessons twice a month, and you'll also get exclusive insider series and giveaways through the mailing list. Thank you for coming on this walk with me today. I'm gonna bike home now and uh, see you next time. Bye.

My biggest lesson this month is that learning to pace yourself is an undervalued skill. Yep. January was a hectic month. There were three things that made this month very hectic. My partner moved his gym to another location. We started the year off with a very sick little boy, unfortunately. And, um, I have been working on aligning the things in my business with the exploring introvert. Hi, Explorers! Welcome to The Exploring Introvert. I am back today sharing a monthly update with you. Um, this time, uh, January. Yeah, what did, what happened in January? Um, what have I been up to? Questions that I have, and lessons that I'm learning. And I talk about business. I talk about life and, um, navigating life as an introvert. If you're interested in more in a more in depth view on topics that are important for introverts, I invite you to sign up for my newsletter, the Exploring Introvert. I send an email every other week and I'll tell you a little bit more about a recent article that I wrote about the 21 day rule to build a habit a little bit later. So first thing, moving the gym. My partner is an IT developer by day and a fitness coach by night. And for the past few years, he's had his gym here, um, like in our shed, we have like a medium sized shed in our yard and that worked very well, but now his group was growing, which is great. So it was time to find another location. And he found one last November. So we've been preparing for the move, which happened in the beginning of January. Um, I wasn't involved with the move very much. Like he organized most of that with the help of his associates. Um, and yeah, our roles and labor division, um, as a couple, as a family has shifted over the years. And right now he's focusing on his two roles while I focus on my coaching business and our home. Um, And so my job was to guide the logistics of our family, uh, around all of this stuff that was happening. School runs, house chores, cooking. I'll be honest, none of those are my favorite things to do. But I do like it when things run smoothly. Um, In fact, I need things to run smoothly. It stresses me out when things are needlessly difficult. Emphasis on needlessly. Of course, there will always be unexpected things, um, and we can deal with that. But if you put in just a little bit of effort to prepare, um, and, you know, focus on the things that you can guide, uh, then life The year itself, unfortunately, started with a very sick little boy. Our son became very ill and needed Basically 24 7 care for nearly a week before you started to get better. But this has happened to a lot of families, um, that I know. Uh, flu season has hit our area really hard this year. So many people. They even had to cancel classes at our son's school because teachers were ill, too, and they always try to find replacements and they merge classes, um, if they have to. Most of the time, miraculously, they find a way, uh, but sometimes there's just no, no getting around it, um, and they have to cancel classes. It's a headache, like, for the school. Even more than for the parents, I can imagine. They alternate between the different years, and in the end, our boy only missed, only had to miss one day of school. And, uh, both my partner and I, we could clear part of our schedules to, to, um, to be there for him. He was with him in the morning while I got some work done, and in the afternoon, I took over, and he, he got some work done. And that way, we made it work. And, uh, Well, one of the reasons why I decided to start my own company is so that I could be more flexible with my time and be there for my kid. So despite all of this, I'm grateful that we are able to, to, to, you know, solve these issues this way. At the same time, my inner critic did flare up. Um, Criticizing like everything from my parenting choices to my work attitude. Saying things like, shouldn't you take your kid to the hospital? Why are you even working? You should be a hundred percent here for your kid. You're such a bad mom. Or, um, why didn't you get more done this week? Sure, your kid is sick, but you're a business owner and you should be getting after it. And then you make the mistake of going on social media. And then there's the. Look at that post. Oh, that person is doing so much better than you. I knew it. You're never going to make this business work. So I don't know if you recognize that, but have you ever noticed that when you're especially tired, the inner critic becomes super loud? Um, and it can get downright nasty, like comparing you to others, pointing out all the tiny mistakes that you're making, imagining that the world is going to explode if you don't, you know, do the thing, do that one thing right now. It's like a bully blasting his annoying song on repeat. My goal with work this month was to further align everything with the Exploring Introvert, which is both a newsletter and this podcast. So the content is very different between them now though. In the past it was more similar. But now in a podcast, I'm sharing these monthly updates with you. In the newsletter, on the other hand, it's more in depth about, um, specific topics that are important for introverts in their career, um, like how to stop tiredness, how to discover what naturally motivates you, um, and how to strengthen your relationships in a way that feels natural for you as an introvert. And, uh, in the newsletter, I like to dive into the research. and share practical tips. Um, sometimes, you know, dissecting myths. The last article I wrote is about the 21 day rule with the question, is it truth or myth that it takes 21 days to build a habit? Spoiler alert. This one is a myth. And in article, we talked about, um, you know, what the research says about how long it takes to actually build a habit and what to focus on instead of the number of days. If you want to adopt, have it successfully. In terms of aligning everything, I've made some good progress. You know, updating the home page of my website, rewriting texts that, you know, connect a bit better. Also connecting to how I help people in my coaching programs, and you'll now find the Exploring Introvert on all my socials. I'm mostly active on LinkedIn right now, but I've updated my other profiles. Um, so that it's consistent, you know, mostly I'll still be making some tweaks. I love tweaking things. So I'm constantly making small tweaks here and there. Um, but the general, the red, red thread is there. And I'm super glad about that. It was something that was like bugging me. Uh, and now I can see it coming together. I also realized during the holidays that I miss people and I want to hang out with people more. It was really nice to spend time with family, but you know, I work by myself a lot and I, I miss like the camaraderie of having colleagues. So as an entrepreneur, you have to create that for yourself. And I decided I'm just gonna invite some people, um, you know, to, I'm just gonna invite some people to hang out. So I'm organizing a New Year's event next month. I know New Year's has passed. But I feel the year is still young. Okay, February is still very early in the year. And, uh, I thought, why not? It's an invite only event. The invites went out yesterday. And, uh, already, uh, I've already received a bunch of RSVPs of people coming. So I'm really excited. Um, it will just be low key. Meeting together in a cafe, having some drinks, uh, some snacks and just, you know, reconnecting with people I haven't seen in a while. So I'm definitely looking forward to that. So, although there was progress, I didn't get as much done as I expected. After the holidays, I was, I was raring to go. I was like, come on. Um, so there is this initial disappointment when things don't exactly go to plan. But looking back now, it's clear why the plan changed, right? There were simply other important things that needed my attention and um, I'm happy that I could make space for that. And that brings me to my biggest lesson this month, that learning how to pace yourself really is an undervalued skill. I mean, right after I started work again, with everything that was going on, I realized I realized very quickly that I could not keep up the pace if I didn't slow down. It sounds contradictory, but knowing when to slow down is the thing that's eventually going to help you to make progress. A lot of us have been taught to push ourselves, right? When I was younger, I always learned that you need to work hard and you have to give everything you got. moving to another country at 18. I had to learn and adapt really quickly and I needed, or I felt that I needed to work harder than my classmates just to be taken seriously. So I'd be lying if I said that That work attitude hasn't been helpful. It helped me to achieve a lot of things. I got scholarships. I got an international internship and finished my PhD, uh, by the time I was 28, but towards the end of my scientific career and now as a business owner with a young family, that work attitude hasn't always been helpful because there's always more work to do. If you only look through the work hard lens, you, you'll never stop working, um, often until your body makes you stop. So learning how to pace myself is one of the most valuable skills I've learned over the years. I love this quote from Jim Quick. If you only have 40 percent and you give 40%, you gave 100%. It's a great quote because we often forget that giving your best doesn't mean that you have to give everything that's left in your tank. You can take a breath. You can give yourself space to recharge and to find your center. And when you take care of yourself in that way, you can give your best to others without having to give everything that's left in your tank. Most introverts have a strong inner critic. Mine also comes up from time to time like, you know, when our boy was ill and this little voice in my head criticized me for not getting enough done with work. And the inner critic can hold on to old patterns like this. It can suck up the little bit of energy that you have left and try to push you to do things that make sense on paper, but that typically take you farther away. For what you really need for a lot of introverts, that's proper mental rest and introverts need to rest in different ways. Then we're typically taught sleep is obviously important, but sleep alone is not enough to fully recharge for most introverts. We also need decompression time and quiet time. When you get proper mental rest, you feel energized. It's easier to connect with the people that you care about in a meaningful way and you feel naturally supported. And then having the proper support system or network of people around you that support you, that is the perfect combination to feel nurtured and to be able to keep going. So the next time you realize that you can't keep up the pace, give yourself permission to slow down. Going hard all the time only burns out the fire quickly. If you want to keep making progress in your career and feel more fulfilled doing it, it's really about knowing how to pace yourself, when to slow down so that you have space to feel inspired and motivated again. Thanks for hanging out with me today, guys, and I will see you next month.

Our first monthly update! It's January. When you're watching this, it is just in the new year. Happy new year. So last month, uh, was Christmas and it's always a busy time, right? Um, busyness really seems to ramp up during the Christmas and holiday season. And I also felt chaotic. Lots of things going on at school. Um, our boy is in second grade now. Is it second grade? Here in the Netherlands, they call it second grade. Uh, but where I grew up in Suriname, it was still kindergarten. So, um, he's five now. He's almost six and he's not getting like really structured lessons yet. They'll still get it. start that next year. Uh, it's still kind of like playing, getting used to school. What do they call it in a country where you're located? I bet it's different all over the world. Um, but anyway, so they had a lot of fun activities and, um, uh, leading up to Christmas. It was a bit chaotic. We also did some fun activities as a family and also visited family. When I need to physically be in a few different places each day, and I don't have, like, my usual freedom to plan my hours, it takes me out of my rhythm. And that kind of, um, I always feel a little bit of, um, uh, uneasiness when that happens. One of my dreams is to set up systems in my business so that it can continue to run without me even when I'm not physically able to work. And um, it was one of the goals that I started with when I started in 2020. One thing that I learned is that I still have a lot of work to do in this area. I wasn't able to prepare things as well as I would have liked to, um, so that I could fully like detach from work if I wanted to. I enjoy thinking about the topics around energy management, focus, um, introvert strength and habits. And I find inspiration like everywhere. So I don't fully detach. Um, but it is good to to detach from the day to day stuff regularly and it's really helpful to me to have Periods of time where I only like think about, um, direction and changes, long term, um, wishes and, um, long term goals and dreams and also, you know, your life changes, right? Um, kid growing up in the house, we go through developmental stages quite quickly and, uh, and you, you're having to, to adjust to that, uh, almost every. So having some time to, to detach from the day to day work and to think about all those things and how they, how they slot together. And, uh, that's very helpful to me personally. And I was not able to prepare well enough to be able to do that. So that's one of the things that I've learned. Still working on it. You know, we'll get there eventually. I, I. I assume, I'm sure, you know, but definitely not there yet. On the other hand, we've just made the shift to the Exploring Introvert, so it wasn't really a surprise that I needed to spend some extra time to get that firmly on the rails. All in all, I'm happy with how things went, and I feel that the Exploring Introvert is ready now, too. To really start exploring, so to speak. So that's a win. World Introvert Day. I don't know if you guys know this, but January 2nd is World Introvert Day. And I only found that out a couple years ago. I had no idea. Yeah, I think I was creating a piece of content and I just thought, Is there such a thing? Uh, cause you know, there's, there's these days for basically anything, right? Uh, and I, I just did a Google search and, and I found it January 2nd. And it still cracks me up that it is January 2nd, because that's probably the one day a year that everybody can understand an introvert's urge to. crawl under a blanket and not talk to anyone. You know, January 2nd is after all the festivities. Everybody's tired. We're all overstimulated and probably peopled out. So, um, I think that's a, it's a very good choice. Very good choice. And I found this year that they have a website, introvert. day. If you want to learn more about it, uh, go to that link. While I was absent from the podcast, I was doing a lot behind the scenes. I ran a new masterclass and I tested a new way to share behind the scenes of how I do things. I've named it Insider Series and it's exclusive for members of the Exploring Introvert newsletter. So, this year was the first test with the Insider Series. And the topic that I chose was everything that I was organizing and doing in the weeks leading up to the masterclass. And it covered roughly four areas, deciding the direction of the masterclass, setting up the tech like the landing page, gently promoting the masterclass to my mailing list, and then the final preparations and building the slides for the big day. It was so much work. It was so much work. It was way more than I thought it would be. And it became quite a lot of content also to, to, you know, to take in and, and a lot of videos to watch. I think it was about 10 videos, fairly short ones, but still, um, 10 videos spread over four weeks. There were also some personal issues like my partner getting injured and we had to shift a lot of things at home. So things didn't go exactly according to plan. In the end, we made it, um, ten videos recorded. Um, they're all on an overview page. And there's also a playlist on YouTube, um, that you can get access to. And then I taught the masterclass. The results were good too. By the time we ran the masterclass, these numbers are a little bit higher now. Uh, but by the time we ran the masterclass, the insider page was viewed 114 times, more than 60 people showed interest in the masterclass, 23 people actually signed up, 7 were live with me there on Zoom, which is amazing. That's usually the case, uh, for my masterclasses. It's usually a small cozy group that joins live. And I actually really enjoy that as well. 13 new people signed up for the Exploring Introvert letters, my newsletter, and very important to me, I got great feedback from people, uh, who joined the masterclass, including ideas about what to improve. And All, the whole thing, the whole process, the Insider Series, um, you know, creating all the content, thinking about how to explain things and structure things, it, it helped me to get better focus about what to do next. So to some of you listening, these numbers are very small, right? And they are. I'm really happy with them because my community, it's small, but the people are very engaged. Some of them I've had contact with for years already and they read my emails and send me messages back. I've even received like physical cards from people. Um, it's really just a very heartwarming and kind community. I appreciate you all so much. So I was really, really happy with, um, Just seeing that there's interest around this idea of the topic of the masterclass was, um, or is successfully planning your day for introverts. And we talked about three eye opening ideas to help you build no discipline habits, the introvert friendly way. So, lessons. The first thing is, the Insider Series was a lot. I think I might have added too much info. Um, I tend to do that. Sometimes I like to be very thorough and very in depth, but I understand that it can be overwhelming if, you know, for you to, to watch that or to, to take that in. And, uh, that's feedback that I get regularly. I am also a former scientist and we, we tend to go heavy on the, you know, going deep inside one topic. Um, so that's something I'm working on. Um, so next time I would probably keep it more focused around one, maybe two main topics. Uh, I also learned on a positive side that I really like the Insider Series format, and the feedback I've gotten so far is also very positive. People like the Insider Series, especially the vlog style videos of my day to day life, which I showed a bit more, uh, in that series. So, Maybe I'll keep it. Stay tuned to hear if we're going to do another Insider Series this year. If you want to see this first ever Insider Series, you, you can still access it. You can sign up with the link below, um, and you'll, um, you'll be able to see it. get access to the overview page which has the videos in. You'll also get a written summary of each week and a link to the playlist on YouTube if you prefer to watch videos that way. I probably won't do another insider series that's this extensive. So if you want to see it, sign up before it gets taken offline. All right, so summing up really briefly, My main lesson from last month is binding off more than you can chew. It's a real pitfall. Um, I'm sure you're familiar, but it's also a way that you can learn something, um, in depth and really develop a lot of different skills and then be able to choose what you want to keep and what you're going to let go. Which I think is one of the most important questions that we can ask ourselves. What do I want to keep and what do I want to let go? Yeah, I think that will be my main, like, takeaway from last month. To not be afraid to, to do things that kind of seem a little bit outrageous at first. And to not be, um, to not feel let down when you realize, oh, oh no, I've kind of, overestimated myself this time, because you, you'll figure it out. You'll always figure it out. And even if you sometimes need to just admit your mistake and be like, Oh, sorry, I won't be able to, I won't be able to do that. I said I was going to do this, but I won't be able to, I apologize and pull it back. That's okay. That's part of the lesson of what do I want to keep and what do I want to let go. All right, that's it for this month's update. Thank you for hanging out with me again today and I'll see you next month on the first Thursday for the next chapter of Exploring Introvert, the podcast. Bye!