Speaker 1: Good a. Thanks for joining us on the body and
Speaker 1: soul podcast called healthy Ish. I am your host, a
Speaker 1: Felicity Harley. Do you want to finish twenty twenty four strong? Yes?
Speaker 1: Hell yes, I'm talking strength of mindset of how you're
Speaker 1: feeling emotionally well. I'm joined today by business advisor and strategist,
Speaker 1: or as many call her, wingwoman, Michelle Broadbent, and she's
Speaker 1: going to share her well. Firstly, her genius approach to
Speaker 1: protecting your valuable time, admits the chaos of Christmas, and
Speaker 1: also finishing twenty twenty four in the best headspace possible.
Speaker 1: Make sure you listening to our chat on extra Healthyish
Speaker 1: as well, where she discusses how to set yourself up
Speaker 1: for your best year ahead and inspiring chat and well
Speaker 1: worth a listen. You can grab that one wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Michelle, welcome to healthy Ish.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: So nice too. Well have you well you were my
Speaker 1: last interview for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: I'm very on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well let's make it a good one. Hey, but
Speaker 1: I feel like so many of us are just limping
Speaker 1: to the end. I mean I am are you yes?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of your messages, which is really empowering, is
Speaker 1: about finishing the year strong. What's this all about.
Speaker 2: So, as we've just acknowledged, many people limp to the
Speaker 2: end of the year, and I think that it is
Speaker 2: because we tend to really over commit at this time
Speaker 2: of the year, more so than any time of the year.
Speaker 2: Our diaries are jam packed with all the commitments that
Speaker 2: our past selves thought were a really good idea to
Speaker 2: lock in for December, and all those people that have
Speaker 2: come out of the woodwork that want to catch up
Speaker 2: before Christmas, and you know, two months ago when they suggested,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I.
Speaker 1: Don't I know you're busy, but let's catch.
Speaker 2: Yes, I know it's but I haven't seen you since
Speaker 2: last Christmas. Let's make sure we do it again before
Speaker 2: the end of the year. And as a result of
Speaker 2: that kind of you know, the pileon, plus all of
Speaker 2: the other stuff that we deal with as women, as parents,
Speaker 2: as partners, as cares, as all the other roles that
Speaker 2: we fill in our lives, we end up with this
Speaker 2: ridiculously jam pack schedule, and because we're not protecting our
Speaker 2: own time and energy, we end up like skidding into
Speaker 2: the Christmas period, an absolutely strung out mess.
Speaker 1: You talk about the importance of finding white space. What's
Speaker 1: this all about and how can we get in our calendars?
Speaker 2: So this is this is like the contingency. Okay, so
Speaker 2: we've all seen that meme where why is it that
Speaker 2: when you're running late you always like catch your sleeve
Speaker 2: on the door on the way out. And the fact
Speaker 2: that this is such a busy, over scheduled time of year,
Speaker 2: like without jinxing it for everyone. But this is the
Speaker 2: way that it rolls usually is that this is when
Speaker 2: things go wrong. This is when you've got a day
Speaker 2: of back to back recordings and your child gets sick
Speaker 2: and there's no one else to look after them, or
Speaker 2: the uber is running twenty minutes late for the party
Speaker 2: and you have.
Speaker 1: Too many drinks one night and you've got to struggle
Speaker 1: together there the next day.
Speaker 2: Or you've got to go and pick up the car
Speaker 2: right like because you thought that you would drive and
Speaker 2: be sensible and then you leave the car behind. So
Speaker 2: this is why, particularly at this time of year, but
Speaker 2: really all through the year, it is so important to
Speaker 2: have white space in our calendar so that if something
Speaker 2: does go wrong, you have room to move things around
Speaker 2: in your calendar, and it happened to me a couple
Speaker 2: of weeks ago. I got really wiped out sick, and
Speaker 2: I this is my busiest time of year, and I
Speaker 2: had to move a whole heap of things around. But
Speaker 2: because I already had white space in the calendar, it
Speaker 2: was easy to do that. It's when you're trying to
Speaker 2: reschedule things when there's no space to do it, that's
Speaker 2: when you're just adding to the snowball.
Speaker 1: I feel like you're telling us to be a bit
Speaker 1: more ruthless about saying yes to things and no to things.
Speaker 1: I am how do we do that?
Speaker 2: Look? I think it's first of all, you need to
Speaker 2: start by identifying what is actually important to you, What
Speaker 2: is important to you, Who is important to you? So
Speaker 2: I talk about the VIPs and the vampires. So we've
Speaker 2: got the VIPs in our lives. Who are those people
Speaker 2: that you know they're really important to us? And for
Speaker 2: me that's my children, my family, my super important clients.
Speaker 2: But then there's the vampires, and it's those people often
Speaker 2: like the ones who will say, let's catch up before Christmas.
Speaker 2: Haven't seen you in a year, and it's like, there's
Speaker 2: a reason that I haven't seen you for a year,
Speaker 2: and those people that tend to suck the joy out
Speaker 2: of us, and identifying who those people are and making
Speaker 2: sure that we save the space, reserve our time and
Speaker 2: energy for those VIPs and get more comfortable saying no
Speaker 2: to the vampires. And that's not easy for everyone to
Speaker 2: say no. And something that I use is just having
Speaker 2: that sort of deflection response, having those canned response, so
Speaker 2: for emails and text messages, even having something pre written
Speaker 2: and saved in your phone so that when they come through,
Speaker 2: it's just copy and paste. It's like someone else's being
Speaker 2: the baddie, it's not you. I've got a lot of
Speaker 2: my clients have got assistants and people that actually manage
Speaker 2: their calendar for them, so they will say, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't manage my calendar. You need to speak to
Speaker 2: my assistant Rebecca and Michelle.
Speaker 1: How do you personally approach the end of the year
Speaker 1: professionally and well personally, I suppose yeah.
Speaker 2: So look, I wrap up my year doing a beautiful
Speaker 2: reflection exercise, and that's where I reflect on the year
Speaker 2: that was personally and professionally. So I've got some questions
Speaker 2: that I ask myself every year, just around the things
Speaker 2: that I loved are the things that I didn't love,
Speaker 2: the things that didn't go so great, the stuff I
Speaker 2: need to let go of, and the learnings that I
Speaker 2: got from the year. And this is something that I
Speaker 2: usually do in that break in between Christmas and New Year.
Speaker 2: So this time of year, as I said earlier, is
Speaker 2: pretty phrenetic, and so sort of taking that energy into
Speaker 2: doing like goal setting and planning and all that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. It's very like sort of frenzied. So what
Speaker 2: I am doing is just taking that time to do
Speaker 2: that beautiful reflection exercise to wrap up the year.
Speaker 1: I have heard that is actually called a neck de list,
Speaker 1: when you make a list of all your achievements this ye,
Speaker 1: have you got a highlight? Is there something from twenty
Speaker 1: twenty for that you're very proud of?
Speaker 2: Look think me personally, like, there's been massive growth in
Speaker 2: my business this year. I've got to work with some
Speaker 2: really incredible women. I sort of spontaneously put on an
Speaker 2: International Women's Day event this year that like sold out
Speaker 2: without even publicizing it, So that was a really big thing.
Speaker 2: It was kind of like one of those things it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: let's see how many people we can get and then
Speaker 2: before you knew it, have.
Speaker 1: You got one for twenty twenty five?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, okay, happening. It's going to be bigger. There
Speaker 2: will be like you know, more people will know about
Speaker 2: it next year, so.
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll watch your social media.
Speaker 2: For professional a big professional achievement. And then on the
Speaker 2: personal front, my eldest daughter finished high school, so we
Speaker 2: got through the HC and when I say we, it
Speaker 2: was there was a household supporting her through that.
Speaker 1: We're well done you and have a wonderful twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on healthy Ish.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much you too, Felicity.
Speaker 1: White space people, we need more white space in our lives.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning into this chat with Michelle. Make sure
Speaker 1: you listen to Extra Healthy Ish, where she well shares
Speaker 1: her very inspiring plan and ideas on how well not
Speaker 1: only she's going to achieve her goals in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: but how you can as well. I really enjoyed interviewing her. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you do want any more info, head to body
Speaker 1: andsoul dot com dot you follow us on socials. You
Speaker 1: can follow me or catch me at Felicity Harley. Grab
Speaker 1: our print edition which is out this Sunday in your
Speaker 1: local Sunday paper of course, or tune into the other
Speaker 1: episodes of Healthy Ish that you haven't listened to. There
Speaker 1: are many out there anyway. Thanks again for listening to
Speaker 1: this one, and stay healthy ish.