Episode 354: Revitalize Life with Executive Skills

Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Green and I am very excited because I get to talk to the fantastic Jenny Kupchak. Jenny, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Rebecca, thank you so much for asking me to come on. I truly, truly am grateful for that.

And I just told Jenny it's very rare that I have met my guest before I got to record with them. So I had the privilege of meeting Jenny at an amazing Beauty Boost event. It was a women's wellness panel. Panel, and she was amazing on the panel. So I am honored to have her here today.

Thank you so much. I'm honored to be here.

And I want to tell you about this fantastic lady. She is actually from Pennsylvania but has been living in Western New York since 2017.

I, I actually lived here a few more years prior to that and then went back to PA, so I just look at my return when I came back in 2017.

Yes, I'm glad you're here.

Thank you. Glad to be here.

Jenny is a super grateful mom of two amazing teenagers. She is also super in love with her fur baby dog Sable. Um, her priorities in life are faith, family, and inspiring and empowering others to make a positive difference. She has an immense passion for educating, inspiring, and empowering others to become the best version of themselves. She is the owner of Total Health and Wellness 360. Jenny provides coaching and mentorship to individuals and families who are dedicated to thriving instead of just surviving. The coaching focuses on improving an individual's executive functioning skills. And I'm not gonna go into explanation of what that is, 'cause I'm gonna ask her about that. But we have a very exciting topic. I can't tell you how many moms have asked me about executive functioning skills. So let's jump in. And I want to start with asking you, tell everyone a little bit about your journey and what inspired you to be a coach.

Absolutely. So I'm a mom, obviously, and I've been a mom for almost 18 years. So there's been a lot of learning in this process of being a parent. I originally started out— I have my undergrad and my master's in education, so I was a middle school teacher for for a number of years. That was my first career out of college, and that passion of educating never left. And after a number of years in teaching, almost a decade in teaching, I started to just think about what else is out there. Teaching is the only thing I've ever wanted to do. And since I was little, I used to play school in my house and have my imaginary classroom and everything like that. So that has always been a passion and still is. Uh, another passion of mine has also been health and wellness. So I've been very big in the health and wellness world as far as my own personal journey, and then educating, inspiring, and empowering others to really take their wellness journey to the next level. And that was my starting point where I started to realize, wow, like there's so much more necessary, uh, focus when it comes to helping people achieve their goals. So it doesn't matter what their goals were, whether it's gaining weight, losing weight, putting on lean muscle. The whole idea of wellness for me, as I continue to really move on, is understanding that it's not just about what you look like on the outside. It's not about dropping that 10 pounds, getting into the jeans you want. True wellness encompasses your whole— I expanded my education and my training so I could really be able to not just coach people, but truly allow them to achieve what it was that they were trying to achieve and really go from being good with the way things are to truly thriving. And part of that wellness puzzle really includes, like I said, yes, your overall wellness, what you look like on the outside— people love that— but really what's going on on the inside. So through my years of coaching— so I've had my business since 2015, and over the years it has really evolved. So one of the things I realized when I was coaching my health and wellness clients is that I had some that were super, super successful Mm-hmm. And I had others that were not. And, you know, after a while I was really trying to reevaluate what was making my successful clients successful and what was the issue holding my unsuccessful clients back. Because I was thinking, you know, I'm giving them the same amount of energy and effort and coaching, so why is one working and one not? And what I realized over time is that the group that was struggling, Yes, that was a goal of theirs, but they had a really hard time just managing their day-to-day life. So it really made me look at this differently, and I could provide the best coaching, the best tools. I could be the biggest rah-rah for you, but if you can't put things together, if you can't stay organized, if you can't prioritize, if you can't show up on time, those were things that were really holding people back. So that was one area that I really shifted towards as far as that whole, and I would call it that executive functioning umbrella, just functioning throughout your day. And then another piece of that puzzle that I've incorporated into that is truly our thoughts. All right. So it's not just our actions, it's not just the food you're putting in your mouth or, you know, the clothes that you're wearing, but it truly, our thoughts are so incredibly powerful. And I worked with, and I still do work with, an incredible, uh, mental scientist. And I've learned a ton from him when he talks about our thoughts and how powerful they are. And one statement that he made to me early on really stood out. And he said that you can't focus on what you don't want and expect to get what you want. And he shared about, you know, we have over 60,000 thoughts a day and 90% of those thoughts are, are negative thoughts. And out of that, 80% of those thoughts are the same thoughts that we had yesterday. So regardless of what my client's goals were, it doesn't matter what you're looking to achieve. If you have negative self-talk, if you don't believe you can do this, if you don't believe you're worth it, or if you just have the attitude like, ah, this is the way I've been all my life, it's just gonna have to be this way, then that's what you're going to get more of. Yeah. So it is extremely important for us to truly understand our self-talk. And dig even deeper to understand where it came from. You know, if I'm working with people who have a negative relationship around money because of the way that they've been told, you know, money doesn't grow on trees, money is the root of all evil, then they're going to continue that and they're going to stay stuck in that mindset. So to kind of go back to where I started back in 2015 to where I am today, it has evolved tremendously. So what I spend my time doing is truly working with people who are at a point in their lives where they realize that there are so many moving pieces to a typical day that it's easy to get lost. So it's even harder to be in control of your day when you encounter challenges. For instance, I can't stay organized. You know, you might look at their desk or their car or their kitchen table. They simply can't stay organized, not just physical, but in their mind as well. I like to think of it as walking around with this heavy cloud above your head with a thousand to-dos. And you know, a lot of times as moms, you know, cuz I can speak, I'm a mom that we think being the queen of multitasking is, you know, a pat on the back. Like, look, all I can do. But really what we have to understand is that trying to have 10 doors open at the same time, you're not giving all of you to any of those doors. Whether it's being a mom, showing up as a mom, showing up as a wife, showing up as work, you know, whatever you do for a living, and just showing up for your own self-care. So once again, it is so important to understand that yes, we all have crazy busy lives and it's possible to thrive in the craziness. When you're faced with challenges like organization or time management, I know that I am a mom of two and throughout the years my kids have played multiple sports. There was one period of my life where my son was playing soccer for two teams, hockey, baseball for two teams, and then my daughter was playing softball and soccer. So there would be times in the car they're changing out of one uniform and into the next uniform and off we go. So time management can be really difficult if you let it get out of control. All right. Other things that can get outta control that help us to feel like we are just living in this heavy cloud above our head. Impulsivity, making decisions or saying yes. Being an over-yeser, saying yes to everything. I have found over the years I have completely done that. I'll never forget when I started coaching for my daughter's basketball game, which I was so grateful to be able to do. Before you know it, I'm on the executive board of the organization and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I don't know. That's about right. And once again, I'm grateful I had the opportunity to do that. I realize if we don't volunteer, these kids can't have these things, but it's okay to say no. Because every time we say yes to something, we're saying no to 5 other things. And a lot of times those other things include our self-care. It includes our quality time with our family. So we really wanna pay attention to that. You know, we have people that I work with that are queens and kings of procrastination. Let me put off this. And once again, that just makes the cloud above the head even heavier.

So true.

Yes.

You touch on so many things.

And that's the point, you know, and it took me a long time. It took me years into my coaching to realize that this isn't of, let me just fix this little piece of your puzzle. In order for you to fix this piece, we need to work on this piece. And, you know, I work with a lot of parents who maybe have their, you know, they're thriving and they are organized and they are great in time management and they run a good household, but maybe they have kids that don't fit that same mold. I've been very fortunate to be given the opportunity to work with a lot of teenagers and college-age students to really help them figure it out for themselves. It really does fall differently on their ears when it's not coming from mom or dad.

100%.

And the reason I can say that is because I'm using my own kids as an example.

Yeah.

So my daughter, actually, I had a great opportunity for about 10 weeks to spend at her school teaching this mindfulness class, and it was awesome. Now she already had this class. The previous semester, so she was not one of my students. And the funny part was, you know, she would come home and be like, oh, Mom, so-and-so said that, you know, whatever you talked about in class today, that, you know, they're doing it. And she's like, I have no idea what they're talking about. I'm like, yes, you do, because I am constantly sharing these tips and tools with you. But it can't come from Mom, right?

I know. Yes, Ella's taking a psychology class next year, and I'm just gearing up for her to come home and be like, Mom, Did you know blah, blah, blah that I had already told her? I'm sure it's gonna happen all next year.

Oh, well, my daughter actually just did that last week. She came down cuz she was overwhelmed with a bunch of stuff to study. She's like, mom, look what I just learned on TikTok. TikTok was exactly what I have been trying to have.

It's frustrating.

Yeah. So my whole entire point with that is I work with not just the teenagers and college students individually, but I also work with parents. To help them be able to help their children. Because a lot of times how we as a parent respond or react, um, it makes a big difference on the way your kids respond or react. So for myself, and once again I learned this as being a parent, when I was able to take a step back and realize I need to take the emotion out of some of this, I need to realize that as a parent I am the safe space. So when my kids are frustrated, sometimes, you know, it's frustrating for me too, but by me elevating my frustration, it surely is not helping them.

Not at all.

So once again, it's kind of two-prong where, yes, I work with individuals that are trying to really get out of that heavy cloud above their head of just the craziness of their day, and I work with parents who want to be more guided when it comes to how to respond to my children who maybe are struggling with some of these You know, heavy, they have their own heavy clouds above their head.

Well, I mean, you're doing absolutely amazing work that is so needed.

Thank you.

And I love that you have the teacher background to help even more. I mean, that's just extra amazing. Yes. And I want you to explain to everybody, cuz you've touched on it a couple times and I'm so curious.

Mm-hmm.

So you're talking about thriving versus surviving.

Mm-hmm.

Can you explain that more to us? Cuz that's really integral to, I think, a good life.

Absolutely. And I, what I find is in our busy, hectic worlds, we can get into the mindset that this is just the way it is. All right. That my family never sits down for dinner because as soon as they come home from school, they're literally grabbing a bar, going out the door to get to practice or a game or, you know, a dance recital, whatever it is, fill in the blank. One of the things over COVID that was a huge eye-opener to me is how busy we just allowed ourselves to become. When COVID happened and we couldn't go to practice and games and everything like that, it was like the brakes were on immediately. It was such an amazing opportunity to realize how grateful we were to have this quality time together. Now, I'm not saying that the hustle bustle of travel hockey and travel soccer— we have quality time with that as well, but it was different. It was sit down at dinnertime, have a conversation. It was really just being able to kind of shut out the outside and focus inside. So when it comes to thriving opposed to just surviving, you know, once again, we can get into the mindset that this is just normal. My kitchen's always a mess, the kids' bedrooms are always a mess, I have laundry piling up, you know, I just don't have time. And then even just sacrificing things like, yeah, I would love to go visit this family member, but we're just too busy, or I'd love to go visit this friend, but we're just too busy. And sometimes it takes something major to have you say, wow, maybe I'm not too busy. All right. The other thing is when it comes to the mindset of being able to survive over thrive, a lot of times we have the mindset or the self-talk where we're saying, you know, like, oh, I have to go to the grocery store or, oh, we have to. How about we change that to, you know what, I get to go to the grocery store. I get to. Cook dinner and sit with my kids. I get to. And that just comes off different and it really starts to set your mind in a different direction because so often we are very geared towards focusing on the path of negativity. Even if we think about the way the news is, okay, whether you're watching the news on TV, watching on social media, reading a newspaper, they start with something negative because it catches our attention. So we are in this perpetual focus of negative, negative, negative. So we need to break that cycle. And that's one way that we can switch from surviving to thriving. It's huge. Huge. But like I said, it's really a matter of understanding what's important to you. One thing I found early on with my clients is I can't want this more for you than you want it for yourself. Yes. So I've become very selective with who I work with because Once again, my passion is to help you truly achieve what you desire. I tell my clients right from the start, you can either have excuses or results. You can't have both.

So I love it.

We're gonna focus on results. We're gonna focus on change. We're going to focus on not perfection, cuz we're human. We are gonna get rid of that idea of perfection and we're gonna make progress and we're going to do it one chunk at a time. Because that heavy cloud I keep talking about over your head, we want it to get a little bit lighter and it's not gonna happen overnight. So those are some, those are a few things I tell my clients right up front. If you want to see changes and you're willing to put in the effort, you have me 100%. If you're going to make excuses, then I'm not for you at this point.

It's not gonna work.

When you're ready to allow yourself to, you know, and it doesn't happen overnight. It's truly undoing habits that we've built over decades. So not only are we, I'm teaching you new habits, but we gotta undo what you think, what you believe, and how you act. And then we can see profound changes. Good.

The mindset shift is what success is all about in every facet of our life.

Absolutely. Because what we focus on is what becomes. If our thoughts are constantly negative, if our thoughts are constantly worrying about, oh, I don't have enough money, guess what? You're gonna keep getting more of that. Once again, if you focus on what you don't want, you can't expect to get what you want. So whether it's your weight, whether it is your energy level, no matter what it is, if we're focusing on the things we don't want, we cannot expect to get what we want. So I work with people to understand, first of all, I need to understand what's important to them. Because like I said, this isn't my road. This is your road. So I'm here to walk next to you down this road. If you are struggling with keeping things organized, if you're struggling with time management, impulsivity, communication— communication is a huge thing, whether it's communication with your spouse, with your kids, with your coworkers, with your friends, communication with your own self. If you have difficult time prioritizing, if you realize that you are procrastinating, um, if you realize that you have a hard time focusing, or maybe you're so driven by your mood All right, we work on ways to help your thoughts. We work on ways to undo our thoughts, beliefs, and behavior so we can create new thought, belief, and behavior patterns for you to be able to get out of just surviving and that heavy cloud above your head and really being able to say, whew, it is a lot lighter. I look at it, I'm very visual. So when I'm explaining to people like how we can work together and how I can help you is I want you to imagine that you're standing in a huge conference room and you're all by yourself and there's about 10 doors all around you, so it's quiet. Now, one door opens in front of you and one person walks and stands right in front of you. And I would ask somebody, like, imagine who's standing in front of you. Tell me what color hair they have. And they'll say, you know, brown. Tell me what color shirt they're wearing. A red shirt. Tell me what color pants they have. You know, tell me if it's a guy or a girl. I can ask them 10 questions and they can answer it because their focus is on that one person. That's, you know, in their mind standing in front of them. So now I say, okay, let that person walk out the door. Now we're gonna switch thoughts and I'm going to ask you to imagine when I snap my fingers that every single one of those doors open immediately and people are rushing in from all 10 of those doors. So now think about where your mind is. I'm looking at this door and that door, the door behind me. It's loud. People are moving. That is how most of us are living our life every single day and don't even realize it because it becomes our norm. Now let's go back to even younger. So like, we're adults, but let's go back to our kids. I don't care if your kid is 8 years old or 18 years old or 28 years old for that matter, but think about a younger brain that isn't fully developed and they're thrown into school all day long. They're expected to sit, listen, not say anything, and then they get all this information from Class A, and then the bell rings and it's chaotic, you know, everything's going on in the hallway, and then they go to Class Number 2 and now they're learning a totally different subject more homework. So my goal is to help people understand that every single one of those doors, and when I talk about doors, I'm talking about like your to-do list or your tasks, but every single one of those doors are important. But I teach you strategies to be able to slightly close 9 of those doors and focus on 1. Allow yourself to focus and give 100% of that to door number 1. And then we get to a point where we can gently close number 1 and whoop, open number 2. Think about communication, okay? As a mom, and let's say I'm talking to one of my kids, but I'm trying to make dinner, I'm trying to check email, I'm trying to, you know, wipe the dog's feet all at the same time. I'm not giving that person, whether it's my kid or whoever, whoever else I'm talking to, I'm not giving them my full attention. So there's a big chance I'm missing things that they're saying. I'm obviously sending the wrong message to the person that's trying to talk to me, like they're not important because here mom is trying to do 5 other things because I'm the queen of multitasking. If they need to be washed right now cuz they're really muddy, then hold on, we'll start this conversation in a minute. Let me wash the dog's feet. If I'm in the middle of cooking dinner and it literally cannot be, you know, on the stove by itself for 5 minutes, hey honey, hang on a second, let me get this on the plate and then I wanna hear about your day. So I teach you how to get into the habit of closing every door except for one. And once again, the dog's feet still needed to be cleaned. The dinner needs to be cooked. You know, there's, there's other are important. So, so there, there's so many aspects of how I help people, and I love the opportunity to work with people who are at a point that they're like, you know what, I am done with this heavy cloud above my head, and I want to be able to thrive. And the way we can do that is getting rid of that heavy cloud. So it literally makes you feel lighter, and you show up differently for people. You absolutely show up differently. I am so much more comfortable now saying no And it's not because I don't wanna participate or volunteer. I respect my time more because I have allowed myself to realize how important that is. So when I'm talking to my daughter, I'm not going to be checking social media or checking an email or taking a phone. No, this is my time. So that's my goal is to really work with individuals who truly want to lighten the load in their cloud above their head and or help them help their kids learn strategies that literally can be put into place immediately and they can see a difference.

Can you tell us what exactly executive functioning is and why it's so important?

Absolutely. So executive functioning, I want you to think about it as, um, pretty much the way you function, the way you think, the way you organize your thoughts, organize your physical space. It can be mood management. So, you know, I could be super time manager. Like, I could, my, you know, you tell me to be someplace at 10 o'clock and boom, I'm there at 9:59. Like, super good with my time management. But then you could come over and see my desk and be like, whoa, how do you even stay organized? All right.

Yeah.

So everybody has their own strengths and their own weaknesses. So when it comes to, you know, how do we get from surviving to thriving, there are 4 specific things that I go through with each of my clients. And the most important one is developing self-awareness, because if you're not aware that these are struggles for you, then you're not going to do anything to change it.

Very true.

So developing self-awareness is number 1, and that's where we start because it's a vital first step to develop your awareness around what behaviors, what thoughts, and what beliefs that you have been carrying around for maybe ever. That is the first point where we start to really uncover and develop self-awareness about really what's been holding you back, keeping you stuck, or stopping you from achieving what it is that you desire. So without certain awareness, we can't make an effort. If we're not aware of it, then there's no effort going to be made. So we know that certain thoughts, behaviors, and beliefs are so incredibly ingrained that we spend a lot of our time on autopilot, unaware of how these things, our thoughts, behaviors, and our beliefs, are really standing in our way, slowing us down, or stopping us. From literally thriving. So whether it's a health and wellness goal of, ah, I've always been this weight, you know, I'm, I'm just, I'm never gonna get into the jeans I wore last year. This is just the way it has to be. It doesn't have to be that way. Or maybe, you know, I'm just such a disorganized mom. No, you don't have to be. I don't care if you have 10 kids or 2 kids, you can find ways and strategies to help that. So developing self-awareness is number 1, being intentional. So the intentionality is a huge piece to that puzzle. And the reason I say that is because once we become aware aware, okay, then we can become intentional with our actions, our thoughts, and our beliefs. So we can take that awareness and we can become open to learning and implementing new strategies to really uncover your potential. I can't stress enough, the learning and the implementation have to go hand in hand. Knowledge is awesome, but knowledge without action doesn't get you unstuck. It just makes you know a lot of things. Knowledge with action, so the implementation is huge because that will lead to significant movement. And when I say movement, everybody can define what success looks like to them. So implementation, like I said, is going to— when we implement something, we're going to achieve results, and then those results are going to deliver us profound changes. So once again, we can have all the knowledge in the world, but if we don't do something with it, We're going to be stuck. You're right. Yes. So I get into action with every single one of my clients. It is not about just sitting here and talking to or talking at you. It is literally you're driving the bus. I'm kind of guiding and going to hold you accountable for the things that we're working on, because if you don't put forth the effort, you're not going to see the outcome. And then the fourth kind of piece to that puzzle is really understanding deeper. So when somebody comes to me and says, you know, I have a hard time, let's just say time management, like I'm, you know, I'm scattered with all of that. Okay, that's an obvious challenge. That's obvious that, you know, people know that you show up late, but I want to help them dig deeper to understand the root of that behavior. Okay, because if we can understand that and we can cut it off at the root, then we're not going to have that same behavior occurring over and over again. So once again, none of this happens overnight at all because we're not learning just new strategies, but we're uncovering old ones. We have to be aware of them and we have to figure out how to break that cycle and be open to allowing in the new thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.

So if you take an example, like let's take either overwhelmed or time management or disorganized, whatever works for you. Can you share with them a concrete example of an old behavior, thought, belief that could be getting in the way?

So we'll just use time management as a quick example. No, I'm gonna use, I'm gonna use organization. So let's say that you grew up in a household that, you know, everybody just kind of was maybe messy. There wasn't really any specific organization. You know, you had, I know everybody has that junk drawer that just throws into, but let's pretend it's bigger. Let's pretend it's bigger than that. Okay. So maybe. You know, you always saw your parents, you know, the laundry just kept piling up until you literally had no underwear. You know, nobody did the laundry. Or maybe you just saw, you know, the house you grew up in, you know, yeah, you know, my mom always had, you know, and I don't know, I'm just making stuff up, but let's say your mom always had tons of magazines that she got in the mail every week and never threw 'em away. So, you know, there's piles of magazines everywhere, or they come in with the mail and the mail just kind of sits and gets scattered and then you get a phone call. And you wanna take a note, so you pick up one of the pieces of the envelope and you write a message and it gets buried underneath everything else. And that's just the way you grew up. So you start to think, this is just the way it is and you're functioning okay. Maybe now as an adult, you are like the queen of sticky notes. You write on a sticky note, boom, you put it on your desk, and then 2 hours later there's 5 things piled on top of that sticky note and you don't find that until 2 weeks later and be like, oh, I forgot to call the dentist. And if that's the way you've been functioning, that becomes your normal. And you may not even be aware that heavy cloud above your head is impacting you in so many ways. So I would identify that, okay? And we would then teach strategies to allow you to get away from that belief. So for instance, let's talk about the sticky notes in— or let's talk about, you know, instead of picking up the mail from 3 weeks ago and writing on the back and of an envelope that I teach you how to have like a whiteboard, and it doesn't have to be like an actual whiteboard. It can be a notebook, but you have a whiteboard where you're going to, you know, put those thoughts. So you identify one place it's always going to be. So it's not going to be 10,000 sticky notes. It's not going to be a piece of envelope, a piece of mail that got stuck under 5 other weeks of mail. It's going to, that thought or that to-do is going to be placed on my whiteboard. So it doesn't get lost in the shuffle. And then we practice that, we have it, and then you start to want more of that. Because the other thing that we have to understand is that our brains crave that stimulus. So if you are used to the stimulus of chaos, chaos and disorganization, you're gonna want more of that. So let's try to feed our brain something else that it's going to. So once again, we can take any of those challenges. It can be a health and wellness challenge. It can be, You know, I snack all the time at night. It's just something I've always done, you know, and we can start to really pay attention to your behavior. We can start to put a different habit in the place. So for instance, I come home from work, I put my keys on the hook and instantly open up the, the refrigerator. I'm not even hungry. Well, we can stick a different habit in there. So you hang your keys up and then we replace that habit with something you enjoy and you do it over and over and over again. And before you know it, you come home instantly, hang the keys up and boom. You're not looking in the fridge, you're actually doing something more productive. It is a matter of identifying that behavior, that thought, that belief, and really undoing that and creating new patterns that will lead you to a life of thriving opposed to just surviving.

Well, and I think you're gonna say similar stuff to kids, cuz I wanna move to kids for a minute because As a parent, you might have everything together, like you said. You might be organized and have good time management, and it's really frustrating to you that your kid— I mean, I know so many mothers who like don't know how to help their kid who is disorganized, missing assignments, failing tests. Can we move to how as the parent we can then help our children?

And you're absolutely right, Rebecca, that there are so many parents that do have their cloud above their heads very light, and they have a great handle on their executive function. They can show up on time, they're organized, and their child drives them crazy because they're not the same as them. So number one, and this is— if you take away anything from today, the number one piece of advice I have is do not compare your child with you or another child. Don't compare.

Excellent advice.

Unless you truly struggle with the same things that they're struggling with, you can't understand. You can't. I'll give you one example, and this doesn't have to do with dealing with kids, but I remember I was working in a sales business and I had a partner and she was out on maternity leave. And the first day back from maternity leave, she was coming over to my place so I can get her caught up on, you know, business. And I'll never forget this. She comes, knocks on my door, I open the door and I was so excited to see her and she started to bawl. And I was like, what is wrong? I could not even begin to understand how this new mom was feeling being away from her firstborn child for the first time. I could be empathetic. But I did not know until I was dropping my kid off for the first day after my maternity leave. And then I— it made so much sense.

Yeah.

So my point is, if you have a child who struggles with school, who can't sit still, who keeps a, you know, bedroom always messy, don't pretend to understand unless you have those same challenges. This is one of the worst things I see parents do. Their kids, you know, naturally are just messy. Their room is a mess. You ask them, just go clean your room. That is probably the worst piece of advice you can give your child. And the reason why is because you walk in, they have no idea where to start. Let's say you walk into a room and let's just pretend that there are toys all over this room. And I'm talking about like you can't even see the carpet. If I said to you, hey Rebecca. You have 4 minutes to go into this room and I want every single one of these toys to be picked up and put where they belong. And it, I'm talking, it's messy. You can't even see the carpet. As an adult, that might be a little overwhelming. Okay. Like, oh my gosh, I don't even know where to start because there's toys everywhere. So my suggestion, let's use the same scenario. I say to you, hey Rebecca, I want you, and I'm gonna literally point out one area of the room and it might be really small. So for instance, I'll use, You know, the top of your dresser. I want you to go upstairs, look at your dresser, and only the left side of the dresser. I just want you to put that stuff away. That's it. Celebrate that success with your child. Now, you as the parent may walk in and get like, I told you to clean this entire room. You know what? Allow the child to achieve success so their brain craves more of that. All right, because number one, they probably don't care their room's messy. They're only doing it because mom told me to. And number two, if it's not important to them, yeah, it doesn't matter. But show them that they can succeed and show them that it doesn't need to be perfect. Because let's say today they spend 5 minutes and it took them 5 minutes to just straighten out the left side of their dresser. Celebrate that, get them out of the room and go do something else. And then tomorrow, hey, let's go. We're going to set the timer for 5 minutes and we're going to clean the right side of that dresser. Celebrate that success. Be done. It might take a week to get that room clean, but I promise you, they will be so much more productive than if you just give them the, you know, go upstairs, clean your room, don't come down till it's done. It's not going to get cleaned. I know as a 52-year-old woman, you know, I go sit, try to clean something and all of a sudden I find a photo album. And before you know it, I'm like going down memory lane and now my room's even messier because now I have photos all over the place. All right, so we have to remember that there are so many distractions. Yeah. Okay, so we wanna make sure we are giving our kids something that they can succeed at. And as the parent, I want you to celebrate with them. I remember the first time I started having my kids do their own laundry. They were young. But I thought I was very overwhelmed and I took a step back and thought, why am I doing all of this stuff? That my kids are not too young to learn how to throw their clothes in the washer and dryer. The only thing that they had a challenge was actually reaching down in the washer. I had to do one of two things. Number one, I had to allow myself to let go of that responsibility because I like to have control. Mm-hmm. And number two, I had to realize that they're going to do laundry and it may not be the way I do laundry. Same thing with loading the dishwasher. I have a certain way because I'm like that. I had to let go when I said, okay, this is your job. So yeah, guess what? They do their own laundry and they have been for years. It took my son one time to have no clean underwear for him to realize, okay, mom's serious. Like I need to do my laundry and it, it's not perfect. So as the parent, it's important to get out of your head that things need to be perfect. Let's make progress and let's add a little piece to the puzzle every single time and celebrate the success, even if it doesn't look like how you would do it. We have to let go of control. One of my coaches said to me one time, the control that you're trying to have over everything is keeping you out of control. And I didn't really, and I didn't, I didn't catch it at first. I'm like, I don't know what you're talking about. And he's like, you want to be in control of everything. You want things done exactly the way you want them done. Let go. And once I did, I'm telling you, it was that cloud became less and less of a burden. And now, you know what? Some things are wrinkled. You know, when my kids take it out of the dryer that they left overnight sitting there and it's wrinkled, I don't lose sleep over it because at least they're dressed.

Well, and I'm trying to apply what you're saying to school.

Okay.

So I'm thinking about the child who's missing assignments, failing tests. And he's coming home and he doesn't have his stuff with him. And you— I love that you're saying start small, but can we teach people how to do that with like school?

Absolutely, absolutely. And I actually just did this with my daughter not too long ago. She had come home and she was stressed out because there were a math assignment and a Spanish assignment and English assignment. Think of a sink. Once it's clogged up, we need to unclog it. So we want to start teaching these strategies little by little so they can apply them to avoid getting that backup. All right. This is what I would share with the kids when I was teaching at her school. You know, let's prioritize. Okay. So when you come home, take a sticky note and put math, put the sticky note on the table in front of you, take another sticky note and put English, whatever subjects you have homework in. And on each sticky note, if I have math written here, I would say, okay, page 17, numbers 2 to 5. Okay, whatever you have. English, you know, read pages 30 through 35. Okay, and all that I'm going to ask you to do is I'm going to say, okay, looking at these sticky notes, is there any assignment that is due, like, tomorrow? Okay, because guess what? Math's not due till 2 days from today, but English is due tomorrow. So this is where I go to that big room scenario. So I look at each of these sticky notes as a door. Okay, so I have a math door, I have an English door, I have a Spanish door. English has to be done by first period tomorrow. So I literally have them take the other sticky notes and place them to the side. And the only sticky note that is in front of them says English, read pages 30 through 35 and write an essay. So I'm helping them learn how to close the doors temporarily because guess what? I still have math homework. I still have Spanish homework, but English is due first period tomorrow. Okay, so starting there, it allows them instantly to shut those other doors. Now, once again, they still know they have math and everything. Their focus is not on that. Their focus is on this, this assignment right here. So much less overwhelming. And then even to break it down more, all right, because if I already don't like— let's pretend this is a math assignment and I don't like math to begin with. I'm going to dread sitting down and doing it. Now, I love math. I used to be a math teacher. So my favorite subject. But anyway, if this was math and they hated it, you know, it's going to be hard for them to want to get started. So guess what? They're going to find themselves scrolling on social media. They're going to find themselves going down to the kitchen to get something to eat. They're going to find every excuse to not get to their homework. So set a small expectation. Say, you know what we're going to do? We're going to talk about things that you know are going to distract you. You want to play with the dog? Hey, go outside, run around for 5 minutes with the dog. Get that out of your way. Maybe you're hungry because you haven't eaten since lunch. Let's go grab a snack. Notice you're not forcing them to sit down and do the math. All right, you're letting their other needs be met within reason. All right, if you know that your child's phone is a distraction, which I think 99% of kids have a huge distraction, either A, you teach them, and once again, this isn't where you take control, but you teach them to, you know what, let's turn the ringer off. And let's set the phone over there. Okay? If they need the phone for homework, that's a totally different story. But, you know, help them to eliminate distractions. If they have their computer open and they have many tabs open, close those other tabs. Shut the dinger off that you get when you get a message. However it is that's going to help them stay focused. Let them go have a snack. Let them play with the dog. Let them know for the next 10 minutes, and we're gonna set a timer. For the next 10 minutes, I want you to make progress on this math assignment. So if I needed to do 10 problems and in 10 minutes I only got 3 done, celebrate that. Let them get 3 problems done. What my point is, is when we can set the expectation and let the brain realize that, ooh, this isn't that big of a deal. A lot of times kids will be like, oh, I have so much homework, it's going to take me forever. If they cut down on the distractions and they allow themselves to focus, I can guarantee you that the 10 minutes you put on that timer, there's a good chance that they'll get that entire assignment done. If you focus because you're allowing yourself to shut every other door, social media, hunger, the dog, whatever that looks like, and allow yourself to be 100% focused, you're going to be so much more productive. And when your brain knows that you're being productive, your brain wants more of that. The same is true when your brain is procrastinating, it's going to want more of that. There's so many little things that we can do. And once again, there's not going to be one thing that is going to be like the miraculous, you know, magic wand, like, voilà, I have this perfect child. That's not what we're going for. Because we're not realistic.

I think that what I kept hearing when you were talking is that I think our expectations tend to be too high.

100%.

What I'm realizing as a parent, and, you know, through so many of your examples, I'm like, oh geez, you really expect a lot.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's natural for all of us. We want to see our kids succeed. We want to be there to prevent them from making a mistake or falling and getting hurt. And there's times where we kind of have to let them go in, in within reason. And, you know, if your child's stressed out because they have 17 hours of homework tonight because they have all these assignments due tomorrow morning that they knew about for the last 2 weeks, but they didn't do anything. Okay, we want to avoid that situation, but if you're in that situation, we have to be realistic. And that's where you pick the sticky note that is either going to be the quickest thing to get done so you make progress, or the thing that is due first period tomorrow. What we can start doing is teaching them strategies to avoid waiting until the last minute so they don't have this pileup that is causing them so much more overwhelm, which causes them to even procrastinate more. And then you'll find them just, I'm gonna scroll on social media cuz it's something I can do mindlessly. Yes. And I can keep avoiding what needs to be done. One of the things, Rebecca, that I love about coaching is I am as real as they come. All right. I will never sit here and say that I have everything 100% together. I was working with one of my clients the other day and she was like, I have like 5,000 emails I have not opened. And I literally showed her my phone and I had 10,000 something. Emails unopened. Now that, is that good? No, it's not because that's part of the organization, the mental clutter. My point is I will be as real and raw. I am not judgmental. There's days my life's look, my house is running really well. And then there's other days where it's a complete hot mess.

Oh, I relate to, I relate to what you said and everyone thinks everyone else has everything together. And I want everybody listening to know that we all have our challenges.

We do. And as moms, it is so important to not get into the comparison game because just like you said, Rebecca, on the outside, especially with social media, you can pick up anybody's social media account. And I think about our kids doing this as well, and they can see, or we can see, like, I've done it, like, look at other moms and be like, oh my gosh, like, look how nice their house looks, and look how, you know, every time I see her on social media, she's always put together, you know. Here I am with like a ponytail above my head and Sweatpants on. Stop. Stop. And that's where I, I can't encourage you enough to focus on what's in front of you and what's most important and create opportunities for yourself and your children to succeed. And once again, when I say succeed, I don't mean the, the picture of perfect. I'm talking about, hey, I cleaned the left side of my dresser. I succeeded.

Yeah.

Hey, I picked one of my sticky notes and I'm going to spend 10 minutes on this math assignment. Success.

And what I'm gonna say is what I'm finding is different is that I'm giving myself the praise throughout the day. Like you're saying, celebrate. I'm like, oh wow, you got that done. Like, give yourself a pat on the back before you move on. You know, take the pause and say, wow, you did that so good.

Because think about typically, and I'm talking about our children, think about what they receive from us, maybe often, and it could be from our frustration. It can be from our expectation of perfection. It can be because my own brain is overwhelmed, so I have no space for your overwhelm garbage. So think about, you know, when you say, hey, go upstairs and clean your room, and you go to the grocery store and come back and you're like, oh my gosh, what have you been doing this whole time? Do you think that's going to encourage your child to want to clean more? No, they could care less to begin with. So how about you say, hey, I'm going to come back in 10 minutes and I want to check out the left side of your dresser, or just pick a side.

Yeah.

And come back and celebrate them for being like, hey, you know what? Awesome job. Because they succeeded. And then let them get out of the room and go do something else.

Yeah.

All right. So our expectation, we need to put that in check. We need to make sure that we are communicating with our kids in a way that makes them feel heard. Which makes them feel like, well, Mom, look at— I did— like, yeah, my entire room is still messy, but I did it. Look what I did accomplish. Even if it's a grade, these kids are under so much pressure with getting the best grades and taking the hardest classes. Pay attention to the effort they're putting forth because the effort is not always going to be an A+. And allow them to understand that you do fail sometimes and it's okay. And look at the solution. And once again, I go back to, if you focus on what you don't want, you can't expect to get more of what you want. So if you're constantly yelling at the kids like, oh, you're so lazy, you're such a mess, guess what? Your kid's going to keep being lazy and keep being a mess. Find something. And I am not at all a fan of everybody gets a trophy because that's not how it is in life. And I realized that all of us moms here listening, you know, I'm sure there's kids from babies through, you know, adults that have gone off to college and every place in between. And, you know, as a mom of an almost 18-year-old, and a 15-year-old, I can completely see the different challenges, the different wins, the different struggles from baby to now. And my biggest encouragement to every single mom listening is allow your child to be able to, to live and grow through us, because there's going to be a time where they're on their own and they're going to have to do laundry, they're going to have to boil pasta, they're going to have to clean the dishes, they're going to have to make sure that they have proper clothes to wear, because mom's not going to be there all the time. And I think we do our children an injustice if we constantly expect perfection and we're constantly doing for them and then expecting them to know how to do it. And that's one thing I'll go back to when I talked about having my kids do laundry. I'll never forget, my son was probably 9 years old at the time. And I was, that cloud I'm telling, talking about, my cloud was super heavy. And because I wouldn't let go of control, so my cloud, I was very overwhelmed and I was being very short with my kids. And it was when I presented the, you're, I'm done, you're doing your own laundry. And he looked right at me, not disrespectfully. And he said, mom, if you just show me how, I'll do it. Yeah. And I was like, wow, you know what? You're right. How can I get mad at you if I'm not ever expecting or teaching? So. My biggest thing is just getting to the point to understand that you can thrive, whether it's a health and wellness goal, whether it's just that cloud above your head, making it lighter, whether it's being an encouragement to your children, because our kids watch more of what we do than what we say. And if they see you celebrating little successes, if they see you with a positive self-talk, if they see you focusing on the things that you want instead of what you don't want, You know, like I love the idea that, you know, we're gonna have a great family dinner tonight. It hasn't even happened yet, but I love the idea. Instead of being like, oh, I have to go to the grocery store, I have to cook, I hate cooking. Or, you know, no, let's focus on what you want and really pre-pave the day that this is what's gonna happen. And even when you hear your kids say, oh, I hate school, or, you know, I'm gonna fail this test. I always just, if one of my kids say that, I'm like, you know what? You're right. You're right, because that's what you're thinking. So how about you say, you know what, I'm going to go in and I'm going to do my best on this test. Change that. Like, it totally changes your vibration in the sense that that's what you're focusing on. And it makes a world of difference. Absolutely. So the easiest way, and I will give you my cell phone number, and I will simply ask that if somebody wants to talk, if you just text me the word thrive, Okay, T-H-R-I-V-E, text me THRIVE, and I will send you my calendar link and you can choose a date and time that works best for you. And honestly, the whole purpose of that call is for me to get to know you and for you to share with me what your true struggle points are. And we can go from there because there are some people I'm honest, I'm like, you know what, I can't help you. I can't. And like I said, I don't just work with everybody, because I'm not in this to see, ooh, how many people can I work with? I'm in this to say, whose lives can I truly impact? Yeah. So it's somebody who wants to thrive, just doesn't know how. Somebody who's willing to put forth the effort, somebody who's willing to be vulnerable and be open. Because if you don't tell me the truths about your world, I can't help you. So yeah, if anybody wants to chat, simply my phone number is area code 814-969-1522 and simply text THRIVE and I will reach out to you with my calendar link. So that'll be in the show notes, my calendar link directly or my phone number. And yeah, I just, I would love to chat. I would love to learn more about you and if there's a way I could help. Like I said, that's my passion.

Well, I mean, I love talking to you. I love the work you're doing, and I want to do this again because I want to talk about the health and wellness piece.

Sure, absolutely.

And there's definitely not enough time to do both.

No.

You were so smart to be like, let's do this and let's do this. They're two separate conversations.

Yes, yes. And they're, like I said, this, I just so appreciate this opportunity to share what's on my heart, and I hope that you can see that this is I know I get excited cuz it's, this is a true passion and I've seen how powerful working on yourself can be when it comes to transitioning into what you desire. So thank you so much for this opportunity. I'm truly, truly grateful.

Well, thank you. We appreciate your time and we appreciate your expertise.

I'm happy to share.

This is Rebecca Green and I want to remind everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving.

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