144. How to lighten the mental load of DECISION FATIGUE

Simple on Purpose | Intentional Living and Parenting

We hear a lot about the mental burden that moms carry. We have so many things on our minds about all the people and all the things that need to happen PLUS all the things we want to be doing for ourselves too. It is a weighty mental load that we are carrying around. I want to talk about a concept that will help you see some ways you can lighten this mental load. The concept is decision fatigue, which is the overwhelm we feel from having to make so many decisions in our day. And if you pay attention, you will notice how almost every moment we have another decision to make about what to eat, how to respond, how to spend our time, how to act, what to do next. And by the end of the day, we are exhausted by it. I want to talk about practical ways to manage decision fatigue, so it is one less contributor to your mental load as a mom. In this episode we cover: Three ways that having too many choices impacts us and our satisfaction The three ways we respond to too many choices How struggling with making decisions impacts our view of ourselves and our capabilities One guiding principle to deal with decision fatigue Practical ways to put that into action Helping our kids with decision fatigue Why deciding ahead of time is more proactive Products recommended here may include referral links to Amazon. If you click through and buy something I may earn a commission, at no cost to you. Links The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwarz The Paradox of Choice TEDTalk The Life on Purpose Workbook Homemaker, on Purpose Family rhythms A Simple Hack to Make Meal Planning Easy Moms 30for30 (wearing 30 items of clothes for 30 days) How having fewer clothes makes my life easier Tips for putting outfits together Planning your day (for moms) What Happened When I Took Away Half of My Kids’ Toys Practical Advice For Purging Kids’ Toys Decluttering with kids FREE MINIGUIDE The Live Your Values FREE WORKSHEETS The Live Your Vision FREE WORKSHEETS SIMPLE PLEASURE OF THE WEEK The very funny Instagram account I like to follow is Hayley Morris. Her skits of Me vs My Brain are so simple and clever and show so many great examples of our mental drama A fave skit from her: Calling to book a haircut FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited) 0:06 Hey Friends Welcome to simple and purpose podcast I am Shawna, your nerdy girlfriend and life coach. And I am a mom of three, practical minimalist, a life coach helping women live their lives on purpose. I'm also the author because I don't say this often enough, you guys are like what you have a book, I have the like on purpose workbook, and the homemaker on purpose book. And that homemaker on purpose book, it isn't about baking bread, and embroidering tea towels, neither of which I have skills to do. But it is about taking the mental drama out of housework, and learning to create simple habits that help you take care of your home. 0:43 So here we talk a lot about mental drama, because we are just walking around with our mind full swirling with thoughts and ideas and errands and tasks and feelings and avoidance of feelings. So our mental life is happening and our mental life matters. Because what's happening up there in our mental life, it seeps into how we feel and how we act. And there's a lot of our mental life that does run under the radar, this is called the subconscious or I just call it the autopilot. We might not even realize I didn't have that mental load, we're carrying that stress and anxiety until something happens. And we just snap, it's just gone too far. Or we just burst into tears. And we realize, oh, I've been carrying that all day. 1:32 And I know we've heard a lot lately about the mental load the mental burden for moms, we think about all of the things that we need to remember and pay attention to and do and the things that aren't being done. And it's just a lot to be carrying in our minds th...