Cara Harvey 00:00:03 Welcome to the Purpose Driven Moms show here at A Purpose Driven Mom, we believe that it’s possible to manage your home, work on your personal goals, and grow and scale an online business. Most productivity tips out there tell you to hustle more and make you feel shame about not being motivated enough. And we’re here to dispel this myth. I’m Kara Harvey, and I am on a mission to help work at home. Moms realize that they have the power to go after their dreams, take care of themselves, and manage their home without perfectionism, guilt, or having to sacrifice their sleep. If you’re ready to shift your thinking around productivity and get some practical tips to help you manage your mom life. Toss your earbuds in while you fold the laundry. And let’s do this!

Speaker 2 00:00:44 Welcome to the show! Episode 455. Sometimes I sit and I’m like, wow, we are really 455 episodes into this show. Thank you so.

Cara Harvey 00:00:54 Much to everyone who has listened. If this is your first time finding the show.

Cara Harvey 00:00:57 I’m Kara Harvey and I’m here to help. Work at home moms figure out how to manage their times, their day without sacrificing their family, their sleep, or having to hustle all the time. And today we’re going to talk about one of the hot button topics, which is motivation. I’m going to talk to you about why your motivation and your willpower is not going to save you, and give you some tips on what actually will. Show notes are going to be over at a purpose driven romcom podcast for 55, and I think you’re going to want to check that out, because we have some really great stuff for you today that I hope will get you out of that slump, of just waiting for things to be motivated. I’m saying in quotes. So if you’re not watching on YouTube, you can go to the YouTube channel. Watch me do it in quotes if you want to hang out with me, live. But I know that there have been times like this for me, right? I feel super motivated.

Cara Harvey 00:01:39 I made these huge plans a few days later. Life is happening and we’re going into what we like to affectionately call here at a may summer, right where it feels just kind of like the holidays feel as well. You ever feel that way where you’re like, why are there so many things happening in May? Everything is here. Everything feels heavy. And what am I supposed to do? And here’s the thing. Motivation is great, but. But it’s not going to get you moving forward. Very few of us are actually naturally motivated. I’m going to give you some strategies today to help you. And I know that we’ve been there. We call it the Monday mentality for a reason. We know this is why many people make their January resolutions and don’t get all the way there. It’s because we’re waiting for the perfect time is because we’re waiting for everything to slow down. How many times have you said that? Oh, when things slow down, I’ll get it together. And this year in particular has felt like it was on warp speed for me.

Cara Harvey 00:02:31 It’s the end of March when I’m recording this episode. It’s coming out in April, but I have had so much happen in such a 12 week period that I just sometimes sit and I’m like, what have I been going through? Right. I keep waiting for the slowdown. But the thing is, like, the slowdown doesn’t ever actually happen, right? Like it’s not actually coming. And one of the things that has helped me, I guess I’ll sneak peek tease a little tip here is like getting mentally over waiting for the slowdown, right? But let’s talk first about why motivation itself is unreliable. I know that we want to just be naturally motivated people, and I always tell people I’m very driven. I think you can ask anyone who knows me in real life, on the internet, life, any of those things, right? I’m a very driven person. I am not always motivated. I love to sit and watch my shows. I want to read my book. I want to have coffee with friends.

Cara Harvey 00:03:19 Like I don’t always feel like doing things right. Even just sitting and recording this podcast episode, I just got on a call with someone from on my team. We were talking and I was like, oh, I’ve really got to go run some errands. And I was like, but I have to record episodes today. She’s like, just go do it. Just go do the episodes right. Like, I have to create these tricks for myself to keep me motivated because I’m not naturally motivated. It is like it’s a spark. It will burn out so quickly because motivation itself is linked to the dopamine, right? That’s the good feel inside your brain, right? That neurotransmitter that’s like this feels nice, right? That thing that. What is it? Legally blonde. She’s like happy people don’t kill or people. What is it? Oh, yeah. Because exercise makes you happy. Like all that kind of stuff. That dopamine is what gets that spark in our brains going right. So when you set a goal, when you get excited about something, when you start to think about what you want to do, your brain will release dopamine in your head.

Cara Harvey 00:04:08 Okay. You get excited. This is why we feel so great January 1st. This is why when we come up with an idea, we spend all this time planning it out and we get in the dream mode and we’re like, yes, this is going to be fabulous. And when you get to it, you don’t take any action because once the excitement wears off, so does your motivation. It’s the way our brains are wired. But we think as a society, right? I’m just supposed to be motivated. I’m just supposed to do this thing. I’m just supposed to know and feel like I can get everything done. But it’s actually not how our brain is worked, right? Our motivation is tied to our emotions. Which I don’t know about you, but mine fluctuate minute by minute. I was going to say daily, but like perimenopause here, I don’t even know what I’m feeling half the time. Like I’m like up and down and up and down. Right. Research shows motivation itself. It’s fleeting.

Cara Harvey 00:04:57 Right? It fades over time. There is no one out there even the most, you know, successful quote unquote, whatever you would view. Success is the most successful person in the world, is not motivated all the time. It’s actually called this thing called the motivation wave. You know it, right? Highly motivated and you don’t maintain it. There was a study done at the University of Scranton that found that 92% of people fail to achieve their New Year’s resolutions because they just rely on motivation alone and not habit formation, which is what we’re going to talk about today. I see this in all of the moms that I’ve coached over the years. When you’re just relying on, it’s important to me, so I’m going to do it. It’s not going to get you there now. It’s a piece of it, right? The why? Right? We always joke about like the why needs to be bigger than your excuses and how I think that that phrase itself is a is a bit of crap, right? I have tons of why.

Cara Harvey 00:05:44 I have tons of reasons. I’m super excited about something, but the excitement is not what’s going to get me to take action by itself. You need excitement. Plus the things we’re going to talk about today. If you’re just sitting there thinking, I want to go run a marathon, I’m excited about this marathon. It’s not going to happen even when you have goals that are fun, right? I have some crafting goals. I have reading goals I want to get in my garden, things that feel fun, like saying, we’re going to universal in a couple of weeks, like we have. That’s a fun goal for me to plan this trip out. It’s not enough, but we think it’s supposed to be enough. We think the excitement and the why and the quick burst is going to be there, but it’s not there, right? We need to have a couple things in place because there’s two types of motivation, right? There’s extrinsic. That’s outside motivation. These are things like praise rewards the gold star.

Cara Harvey 00:06:30 It’s the reason why we as kids right. Loved the checkmark. My son his teacher has one of those clips, you know, in his class. And he can clip up to outstanding every day. He tells me about it, right? Because he gets so excited when he gets to have that external thing, that deadline. If you know what your love language is, right, that can be tied to your external motivation. And I always tell the women that I coach, you need to get some external motivation drivers while your internal motivation grows. That intrinsic motivation, right? That’s personal satisfaction. That’s passion. There are things that I do at my job that I do because it makes me feel good. I’m proud of myself. I’m like, I did that when I finished my workout in the morning. I’m like, woo hoo, right? Feels good. That has grown over years, right? I’ve been able to create that when I finish my workout and I feel good and I’m like, I’m really proud of you for being strong, right? But I also check it off on my list, right? I also check in with my accountability partner.

Cara Harvey 00:07:24 You you need kind of both those things. And the studies show that intrinsic motivation will lead you to longer lasting habits than just relying on the rewards. But I believe we need heavy external motivation while we get ready to be internally motivated, especially for us moms who there’s not often like external deadlines. A lot of our passion projects, right? It’s always like, well, my kid needs these things first. I can work on my garden, my book. Whatever my painting project, I could work on that later. And this was a hard transition for me when I went from becoming a teacher, which, now that I think about it, when this episode is airing, I’m almost 11 years out of the classroom, which is why I taught for nine years and I’ve been out of the classroom a little bit 11 years this June. Right? But it was one of those things that I did with my students a lot was I would give them that external motivation, external motivation, because it worked, and then we would slowly wean it away.

Cara Harvey 00:08:17 It’s why those potty training charts work really good with your kids. You give them ten M&Ms an M&M every time they pee on the potty, and Eminem and Eminem, and then it’s an Eminem every other time, and then every third time. And then soon you’re not giving them M&Ms anymore. You got to wean them off because it’s very hard. And that was the transition I made when I was teaching was I had all these external deadlines, I have IEPs, I had to write a special education teacher, I had classes I had to push, and I had lesson plans to review. I had accommodations to make. Everything was urgent and had a deadline. Well, now I’m home. I run my own business so I don’t have anyone that, like is quote in charge of me. I have my team. Thank goodness because I need to get things done for them. So it pushes me to get things done faster. But my home projects, all those things I struggle sometimes with because there is no external deadline.

Cara Harvey 00:09:02 And so I need to work on that. Marrying that mix of extrinsic plus intrinsic. I want to chat with you now, and invite you to grab one of my top free resources that have been downloaded almost 4000 times, and this is my ultimate weekly planning checklist. If you are ready to go into your week feeling less frazzled and more in control. This checklist is for you. It’s going to help you set up your week, save time running around, and plan out all the time you need for you, your goals, your family, your business, the whole thing. It’s the exact same checklist that we use in the Purpose Driven Mom Club every Sunday. And not only do I give you the checklist of what to follow to plan your week, but I will give you a Trello board if you want to use Trello with it. Absolutely free with a video tutorial, it is going to take you less than 30 minutes a week to plan the week and save you hours. If you want to go and snag this checklist, you can go to a purpose driven romcom checklist and it’ll be there absolutely free for you.

Cara Harvey 00:09:58 Again, go to a purpose driven romcom checklist and get your copy. And here’s the other thing about motivation and willpower being unreliable, right? Your willpower itself. It’s like like a battery. Okay. It is limited. The more decisions that you make, the more your mental energy gets depleted. This is why motivation alone isn’t enough. This is why we get to the end of our day. And I’m like, don’t ask me a question. I am thriving in the mornings. I dropped my kids at school. Come find me anytime before three, right? And then all of a sudden I hit 3:00. I recharge myself, I turn into mom. We start. We’re running around. We’re going to activities. We’re doing all these things. We finally get home. I can sit down for a minute and it’s 9:00. I don’t want to do a thing now. I used to have to work at night when I had my business. It was the only time I had to work because of the ages of my kids, and they weren’t at school and things like that, and it was so hard for me.

Cara Harvey 00:10:53 So yes, I did. I make sacrifices, it’s not my ideal time. My brain is not working. I’m exhausted. I am just over my battery, my willpower and motivation. Battery is is depleted. If anyone ever struggled with like night snacking, right? It’s one of the reasons why, like so many people joke like I eat healthy all day. I make good choices to get choices. I get to the end of the day and I’m like, I’m done. The willpower is gone, right? Why? I try to take a lot of my goals that are the ones that I’m struggling with and put them in the front of the day. So let me give you another tip that I have this later, but we’ll just add it now. One of the things that will help you is if you find your willpower and your motivation waning. By the end of the day, what I want you to do is I want you to put that goal that you really want to work on first thing.

Cara Harvey 00:11:34 Now, I did this with my cleaning routines. I was really struggling to get my cleaning consistent because I don’t want to do it. I don’t like cleaning. I’ve no interest in cleaning my house at all, but like we need to do basic cleaning. I don’t try to do anything fancy. I’m not doing my deep cleans. This is literally my daily cleaning tasks and my weekly cleaning tasks like the vacuuming, the bathrooms, dusting, mopping, washing my sheets, those things that I try really hard to do and I don’t always do every week. Right. And then I have my dailies. Well, I was putting my cleaning in my 3 to 6 block because my brain was saying, okay, 3 to 6. That’s my family time block. So everyone’s home from school, we’re getting, homework done. We’re getting dinner, we’re getting ready to get out the door. I’ll sneak in my cleaning because I’m home. It was never happening in that block because that was not the best block for it, and I was putting it off.

Cara Harvey 00:12:18 So what I switched and what I’ve switched around doing for the second quarter of the year is I’m moving my cleaning to the start of my day. My cleaning routine does not take me long, it really only takes me about 15 minutes. So instead of waiting to 3 to 6, I’m doing it first thing before my day starts. Now I have 930 meetings like 1 to 2 days a week. Besides that, I don’t start my day till ten meetings wise, right? So because I have a flexible schedule, I don’t have to sit. I don’t be anywhere. Right. Like I work on my computer, etc.. But one of the things I’m switching is I’m going to take those cleaning things and I’m doing them first. So I’m going to drop my kids off. And then there’s this concept called eat that frog. Right. And it’s like, you know, it’s the hardest thing you have to do every day is eat a frog, you know, do it first thing, and then the rest of the day is a lot easier, right? So your frog is that thing that you’re struggling with.

Cara Harvey 00:13:04 You’re like, I can’t get motivated. Do it early. Do it first thing. Get it done. So what I’m doing is I’m saying I’m going to drop my kids off, I’m going to come in, I’m gonna make breakfast, or maybe wait to make breakfast till I’m done with my cleaning. That’s probably a switch. I’m trying to doing some intermittent fasting, so maybe I’ll switch those two around. I’m going to get my cleaning task done first right away before I do anything else, because it is an unfavorable task. I do not want to do it. I don’t have a lot of motivation to do it. So the longer I put it off, the harder it’s going to be. So if you have that task that you’re like, I’m not motivated. I don’t want to do this. I have no my why behind doing my daily and my weekly cleaning is literally I need my house picked up, I’ll be less stressed and anxious if it’s a little bit cleaner and like cleanliness, like things need to get picked up.

Cara Harvey 00:13:47 It’s a need I have. No, I’m not one of those people. I have friends who enjoy cleaning. And if that is you, come to my house, right? It’s not me. I don’t enjoy it, I don’t care. I could care less if, like, aesthetically what my house looks like, it doesn’t bother me every once in a while. Like this morning, I was like, I need to mop. Like I can see it. The floor is sticky, like sometimes it bugs me. But most of the time, as long as my house is picked up, I do not care. If you come over and you’re like, your baseboards are dirty. I’d be like, I do not. I do not care. Right? Like we wipe down the sink, we move it on. Right. But some people really enjoy that. So because this is such a task that I have zero enjoyment and zero interest in doing, do not want to do, I have to put it first? So speaking of this willpower being like a battery, and by the end of the day you’re going to lose your motivation.

Cara Harvey 00:14:28 One of my tips for you today is if you’re finding you have a task that is unfavorable, you find yourself continually putting off or you’re not getting it done, don’t put it towards the end of the day. Put it as soon as you can in the beginning of the day. Make it one of the first things you do, because that way you will get it done and out of there. Now I want you to pay attention though, because sometimes what happens is we’ll put these tasks first and then we’re like belaboring the day. We’re like, oh, I can’t get to it. Oh, I’ll do like, we’re just sitting on it. You need to take action and we’ll talk about that in a second. Pay attention if you notice that happening. But by getting it done early, it’s going to help you get it off your plate. You’re going to then feel intrinsic motivation because you’re going to feel proud of yourself, right? You do it for yeah, I’m proud of you for mopping that floor right away.

Cara Harvey 00:15:11 Like, way to go. Way to get that done. You say that out loud to yourself, and then you take that motivation into the rest of your tasks and the rest of your day. Another one of the reasons that your motivation, like, isn’t going to be enough is because systems and routine, instead of just motivation like coupling those two together, are going to more likely help you achieve your goals. It’s the reason I love systems. It’s the reason I’m like a systems queen over here. Because by creating a system and a workflow around everything in your home, everything in your business, everything in your personal life. You are going to have a very clear plan on where to go, where to go. I always talk about these different levels of support with my students, like we put in all these different levels of support. It’s not just I make a goal, it’s I make a goal. Plus I have accountability. I make a goal, plus my wife. I make a goal, plus my system.

Cara Harvey 00:15:58 I make a goal, plus my plan, right? All of it together helps support your goal. So instead of saying something like, I want to read more, you set a system. I’m going to read ten minutes every morning. That’s what I do. So it becomes automatic. Your goal is to take these things that you’re doing in your life and make them more habitual, more of what I think it’s like 40 or 50% of the things we do every day are just habitual. They’re just happening. So really the goal is taking your tasks and making them so you don’t have to think about them. Right. So you’re not like, oh, I have to check this off. Okay. I want you to make systems around things so that it just happens. My Duolingo is an example here. I’m almost at At 365 days of Duolingo Spanish, which it’s been good. I know some vocabulary I found. Wait, let me look at my phone real quick. So I found this other app. Air.

Cara Harvey 00:16:45 Air. Learn. Air. Learn. I haven’t even tried it. I literally just downloaded it because I saw somebody on TikTok talking about it. That it’s apparently better than Duolingo because it’s more conversational. So I might switch there. But my Duolingo has become automatic for the past year. I’ve not missed a day on my streak. Why? I started with the supports. I created a system. In the mornings, I get up and I have my drink. I drink like a little apple cider vinegar. I’m no scientist. I’m no health person. I read once it helps with your blood sugar regulation and your cortisol in the morning. And I did some tests. I have high cortisol, so I do it. I don’t know if it’s doing anything. The point is I drink my little drink and I go through a couple systems I have. I go through my photo calling, which I do every day, where I clean out my photos on my phone depending on the day. So if today is March 26th, then I just search March 26th on my phone.

Cara Harvey 00:17:31 I go through my phone, then I do my Duolingo while I’m drinking my little drink and getting ready. Like to go work out. This has created a system, so now I just kind of do it. It is very rare that I forget to do it because I’ve made that system. I’m not waiting for the right time. I’m not waiting to get a burst of energy to go do it. I’m not waiting on the excitement of the goal. I’ve just created a habit that is moving me towards something and that helps. All right, so we get it. You’re like, I understand motivation doesn’t work. All these things don’t work. So what does work? Let me give you a couple tips now. I just kind of worked. I’m going to work a little backwards here. Small small sustainable routines. Tiny repeatable actions will make long lasting habits. Okay. Doing things in chunks is what has gotten me from going from no business to my successful business, writing my book in small chunks, getting my house picked up, doing my 15 minute pickup every single day.

Cara Harvey 00:18:24 Right? All of those little chunks are so much more sustainable than I’m going to wait till Saturday and I have three hours and I’m going to go, you know, set up my whole garden. I would love that too. But for me, I’m like, let me get my seeds planted today, okay? Let me go. You know, clean out my garden beds tomorrow. Small, small small chunks. If you find yourself struggling to work on your goal, I want you to ask yourself, did I break the school down enough? Am I trying to put too much in? I read every day for ten minutes. Okay. That’s part of my morning. I do my photo calling, I do my Duolingo. I read my personal growth book for ten minutes. Then I go do my workout. I’ve had the same routine for months. It works great. There are some days I don’t have enough time to do my reading, so I just do it later or I don’t do it that day.

Cara Harvey 00:19:07 But it happens most days. I would say like four out of seven days, like it’s happening very much. And it’s because I didn’t say to myself, I’m going to go read a whole book every morning. I’m going to wait until I have seven hours to do this thing, right. It’s because I said, what is this small thing that I can do, right? I can read for ten minutes. This is why I love doing multiple 15 minute pickups throughout my day. We do. I do one in the morning, like before the kids go to school, we do a quick pick up. We do one like before we go to activities, after the after school homework, book bags everywhere and then we do one before bed. I would rather spend five, ten, 15 minutes multiple times a day, then an hour trying to get everything picked up. So ask yourself, what small, sustainable routines can I put into my day? Instead of waiting for the right time to strike and the motivation to go deep clean my entire house type of a thing, I’ve been teaching my kids how to clean their room because one of the things I realized was I never taught them how to do it right.

Cara Harvey 00:20:03 And so we have a couple steps. First step is trash all the trash. Okay. Second step is stuffed animals. Third step is laundry. Fourth step is then we go into books and then it’s toys. So I give them like a little checklist. This way, by the time they get to toys at the end, there’s so much less on the floor for them to put away. It’s not like what I was doing before. Mistake I made, right? Go clean your room. That doesn’t work right. So now when the room does get really messy, we have to clean the room instead of us saying like, let’s go spend an hour up there, I’ll be like, okay, right now we just had snack. We’re going to go upstairs. I’m going to put a five minute timer on. You’re going to pick up as many pieces of trash, anything. Let’s trash for five minutes goes in here. If you finish trash before that you can move to the next step which is the stuffed animals.

Cara Harvey 00:20:43 Okay, so small steps, then we can go do something else and then maybe after lunch. Okay. Let’s go up. Okay. Now we’re on stuffed animals. Let’s do that. It’s just feels better. And it’s not all motivation, right? The other thing is making sure again that you’re creating discipline and systems over your willpower because your willpower is limited. But systems will make decisions for you. So this is like my meal planning. I do a dinner meal plan once a month. I create my plan for what we’re going to have for dinner for the whole month. It takes me the exact same amount of time as if I as if I did one week. So I would say as I did weekly. But if I do one week, the planning, it takes maybe 60 extra seconds. I’m not even joking to do a month, a monthly plan versus a weekly plan because I’m literally copy and pasting multiple things. So here’s my system for it again. System everything. System for it. forward.

Cara Harvey 00:21:30 I put in any dates that I know that we have. We travel for tier comps, we’re away for this thing, etc. then I go through and I pick one new recipe a week that I haven’t made in a while or before. Right. So I go through my cookbook because I have a couple really good cookbooks that I want to try, and it’s not always new, but maybe I haven’t made it in the past couple months. Then I go through and I put in one like tried and true recipe. I know we’re going to eat tacos, spaghetti and meatballs, etc.. Honestly, the rest of it’s leftovers. We’re just eating leftovers the rest of the week. Totally works for us. Done done done. Copy. Paste copy. Copy. Paste. I’m not retyping it right. So I’ve made this system. So I do that dinner plan. Then what do you do on Fridays is I go through. We keep on our phone, notepad and in the notepad. It has a shared grocery list.

Cara Harvey 00:22:13 I tried in Trello. My husband was like, nope. So we use the shared notepad okay for the grocery list, and if you’re on YouTube, I’ll pull it up real quick and you can see what I’m talking about. If you’re on the podcast, come over to YouTube and you can come hang out. So it’s a shared list. It’s right here inside, and it has basically all the things that we buy at the grocery store with a little bullet, you know, like that. You can check off by aisle at Aldi. Now, my Aldi just moved everything around, so I’m a little bummed about it because I have to go through and fix it. I put an asterisk, so I go through on Fridays and I go through the fridge or whatever. I both were on Fridays and I put an asterisk by anything we do not need. So this is like essentially a template. I’m template using this for me and my husband. So it’s like we always buy the same things. I know that when I get to that back aisle I get mozzarella slices, string cheese, a block of mozzarella cheese.

Cara Harvey 00:22:59 We eat a lot of mozzarella cheese. Can you tell some turkey slices for lunches? And I’ll buy like the chicken apple sausage that I throw in my air fryer for me for lunch? Okay. Now I don’t need those every week. So what I’ll do is like this week, for example, we had enough string cheese. I don’t need string cheese. I put asterisks by it. I don’t need the chicken apple sausage. I do that right. We didn’t need turkey, I did. We had enough. Right. So I just kind of go through when I inventory what we need versus don’t need which always change. And then at the bottom I create a section that says what do we need this week? So as I was making dinner this week, I ran out of minced garlic. As I was baking cookies, I ran out of vanilla extract. So I put those two things on my list. If I have a new recipe, that recipe, I said, I’ll go and I’ll put them on.

Cara Harvey 00:23:34 And then at the bottom I have a list of things we do not buy anymore just for myself, because I make them homemade now. And so I’m like, we don’t need this anymore. Just to show myself some data. So anyway, so on Fridays I go through this list. This is shared with me and my husband. So he like I’m going to Aldi today. Actually, it’s not a weekend, but I need to buy stuff because we’re traveling for cheer. So I want to get a couple of things to take with us. So I might get the minced garlic or the vanilla extract. Most of it can wait. Any of us can go to the store and what happens is you just go when you shop. I don’t have to think about what to buy because we literally you two. Right? You buy the same groceries every single week. I don’t have to be the only one to go to the store. I loved this two weekends ago, I was with my sister and we were talking about re-entry and I was like, oh, I gotta go home on Sunday and like, go grocery shopping.

Cara Harvey 00:24:14 And then I saw my phone go off and it was like, shared notepad. And my husband was at the grocery store and he was doing the shopping. And I was like, yes, right. Like it makes it so you can delegate. And now I don’t have to think. I’m not starting my brain from scratch again. I’m literally just using a template template ties systematize everything, right? I’m using a template and I’m checking off what we need that I do that Fridays. Saturdays I go to the grocery store, Sundays I’m meal prep. That’s my system. I don’t have to think about it right. I don’t have to decide what’s for dinner every night because I’ve already thought about it. So create systems for yourself to make your life easier. Let’s pause episode real quick so I can invite you to go check out our newest printable pack that’s over in the ePDM store, and that is our mental health, self-care, and gratitude tracker. This is perfect for you if you are looking for a variety of trackers to help you journal, reflect, and just take care of your mental health.

Cara Harvey 00:25:05 It’s got 75 printable pages. We’ve got self-care goal sheets, happiness logs, mental health trackers, mood trackers, affirmation, and some other journaling tips for you as well. I made this because I knew I personally needed to be doing a better job at tracking some of my moods, figuring out my mental health issues while I’m in between therapists. And while this isn’t going to replace your therapist, I think it’s a really good tool for you to just pay attention to how you’re feeling. You get the Self-care planner tips to help you be intentional about that. Guided reflection and gratitude pages, tons of journal prompts, and a variety of trackers just for your mental health. You can go to a purpose driven romcom mental Health. Check this out right now it is our newest printable we’ve got in the store for you. Go head over and grab it today. The other thing that is really helpful is accountability and support. I have an accountability buddy for my health goals this year. One of my besties we Marco polo multiple times a day to check in.

Cara Harvey 00:26:04 How are you doing on your water? What’s going on? Oh I’m struggling this weekend I was like, I’m traveling for cheer. I want to hit my my my health goals. I’m not going to be around. Can we brainstorm some high protein snacks I can bring with me? You know, or like, hey, I just I’m really struggling right now. I want to I’m trying not to eat at night. Right? And I’m like, oh, I want to eat right now. We have that support, have that person have a check in text or come to the mom club. Right? Or that’s exactly what we do is we create accountability and support for you. It helps you not only stay on track, but it will continue your motivation because you’re relying on someone else and they’re relying on you. And also create an accountability and support system that has you tracking. I think that if you don’t track something, it’s going to be very hard to change it. So if you’re working on saving money, if you’re working on whatever your goal is, check the boxes off.

Cara Harvey 00:26:48 This is that extrinsic motivation that we talk about, right? Give yourself extrinsic motivation by checking it off that check box. Like I’m the person who used to write shower, write on my list so I can check it off. Like do those things for yourself. Because every time you do it, it hits that dopamine center that we talked about in your head. And it’s like, I did it. And then every time you check it off, I want you to say, I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you for working out today. I’m proud every time I check off my work box. Way to go, Kara. Showing up. So to create that intrinsic motivation, that personal satisfaction by extrinsic doing it. Okay. And then also create this piece of identity based habits and mindset shift from I want to be motivated to. I’m just someone who does this. Like this is something about my personality. Like, again, I’m very driven once I like really have just said like I’m going to do something, I’m going to do it.

Cara Harvey 00:27:34 Once I said out loud, I’m going to write a book. I was like, nope, I’m going to write a book. Like, I just believe that I have this. There’s the fixed in the growth mindset, right? Fixed mindset says, I’m bored this way. This is how it is. This is my lot in life. It is what it is, right? Growth mindset says, okay, I can learn a new skill. I can figure this out. I’m capable of changing. I have a very big growth mindset and I’m honestly I’m like, oh, I’m going to do this thing. Okay, sure sounds good to me. I’ll write a book, whatever. Like once I fully commit, I just start saying, I’m someone who does this, so say it to yourself, right? Not someone who’s like, I’m trying to prioritize my self-care. I’m gonna work out to take care of my body. Like, start to change your mindset around being this motivated person and, like, thinking you have to be something that’s like, it’s not and just embody it.

Cara Harvey 00:28:17 I am a person who does these things. I’m a person who shows up for my goals. I’m a person who gets these things done and you know, not so much fake it. You make it, but fake it to make it right. Get there until your brain gets on board. So what I’d like you to do today is pick one small habit that is going to be so small, it is impossible that you’re going to fail. That is, towards one of your goals that you’ve been struggling with. Okay, I want you to set a reminder. Create a trigger, put a alarm in your phone, find a buddy to text, put your sneakers by the door, go do a walk. And I want you to take action today on this small goal. And when you are done, I want you to cross it off on some sort of list. And as you cross it off, I want you to say, great job. I’m so proud of you. This is how we make our motivation work for us when it isn’t always working or it’s run out.

Cara Harvey 00:28:59 Now I’m going to put show notes. There are going to be a purpose driven romcom slash podcast for 55. And if you are working on this goal today, tag me on Instagram at A Purpose Driven Mom, I would really appreciate it. And hey, listen, if you’ve been a listener for a while and you’ve never left a review, please go head over to wherever you podcast. Leave us a five star rating and review. It’s the best way that moms have been able to find our show and get us over 1000 downloads every week of people coming to the show. It’s because of you sharing it, talking about it, and leaving the reviews. So thank you so much! I cannot wait to see what you do and know that there’s nothing wrong with you. Your motivation isn’t broken. You just need to create systems and you can get there. Have a great one! Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Purpose Driven Mom Show. If this episode served you in any way, we would really appreciate it if you headed over to wherever you listen to podcast.

Cara Harvey 00:29:48 Hit that five star and leave a review and a rating. That’s how more moms can find us and we can grow our community. If you had a tip or an Make sure you come over and tag me at a Purpose Driven Mom on Instagram and share it with your friends. The best way for us to get this message out there of less hustle and less shame and more intentionality, is for you to share it with people you know need to hear it. Thanks for listening. We appreciate you and I can’t wait to connect with you more outside of the podcast.