138: Balancing Self-Care, Motherhood, and Business with Jess Massey

Sabrina: On today’s episode of the Shoot It Straight podcast, I have my friend Jess Massey back with us again, and today we are talking about how it is that we can balance this difficult season of motherhood and business and also making sure that we are taking care of ourselves. It’s a really great conversation because Jess is in a completely different season of motherhood than I am.

So we both bring some really interesting insight to the table, but we’re talking about how you can use rhythms and routines to have a space for self-care, what that looks like, how flexibility plays into things and, and what this looks like in different seasons of motherhood. I promise that if you are a mom balancing business, this episode is for you and you’re going to love this chat.

So let’s dive in. Welcome to the Shoot It Straight podcast. I’m your host, Sabrina Gehart. Here I will share an honest take on what it’s like to be a female creative entrepreneur while balancing business, motherhood, and life. Myself, along with my guests, will get vulnerable through honest conversations and relatable stories because we’re willing to go there.

We. If you are trying to find balance in this exciting place you’re in, yet willing to talk about the hard stuff too, the Shoot It Straight podcast is here to share practical and tangible takeaways to help you shoot it straight.

Welcome back to the Shoot It Straight podcast. My friends today is very exciting because I have one of my very favorite people. Jess Massey back with us today. And if you are an OG listener to the podcast, you will remember that Jess was on episode 45 and Jess, I don’t think you know this, but here we are, a hundred episodes later at like the 140 ish time.

You are still one of the top performing episodes of all time on this podcast. So I am honored,

Jess: like honored, stuttering over my words. That is. Special to me.

Sabrina: Yeah. It’s like people just loved you and resonated with you. So I’m so excited to have you back and on a totally different topic today, which is going to be so fun.

And I feel like, you know, I’ve, I’ve told you this many times, I love following you online, but I get a fun little sneak peek. ’cause now this is the fourth time we’ve interacted and I’m like, okay, so when are we meeting, like, when are we gonna get together? Coffee date gonna happen? Yeah, let’s jump straight to like getting together in person, but.

Anyways, before we get into this chat, in case you are under a rock and you don’t know who Jess Massey is, my friend, will you please introduce yourself to the listeners?

Jess: Yes. So first of all, thank you so much, Sabrina, for having me back again. Like it’s always an honor to be on anyone’s show at all, but to be asked to come back.

I’m truly beside myself because I just adore you and the work that you do is just such high quality and I’m like, wow, she wants me back. So I’m just so excited to be here. So like you said, I am Jess Massey. I am the founder and owner of what I call the Community Centered Productivity Company called Hustle Sanely.

And my mission is to help ambitious women pursue their goals while they prioritize their mental health and the important relationships in their lives. AKA, how to hustle, sanely. And I’m just so incredibly passionate about what I do because I so desperately needed it before I created it. And I started it back in 2018.

So it’s been quite a few years at this point. And. You know, I don’t know. Sometimes when you start an online business, you kind of just like roll with it, cross your fingers. You’re like, hopefully people need this out there. And it’s just been so mind blowing to see the impact that the message has had on people all over the world.

And I am so, so, so grateful for the work that I get to do. I’m also a wife to my high school sweetheart, and I am a toddler mom. My daughter is two, and let me tell you, she two is toing. I’ll just say that. Two is toing. It is such a wild, fun time every single day with her. Um, and those are my three, I would say, main roles in this season of life.

Sabrina: Yeah, that’s so fun. Twos are so fun. Threes are a wild ride. I mean, every, yeah, every season is different and crazy and. That’s kind of what we’re talking about today, and this is something I, I just, I’m really, really excited about where we’re going today because last time we spoke Everly was a baby, and I remember before we hit record, we were kind of talking about like, I am not in that season of life.

I’ve got teenagers and so like reminiscing on this where you were, and you were asking me some questions about being a new mom and it was just so cool. But now you have a 2-year-old, so you have made it two years into parenthood and. Your life and your routines and your rhythms and everything looks really, really different.

And that’s totally what we’re talking about. We’re gonna come to this chat from two very different seasons of motherhood and different perspectives, which is gonna be super, super cool. Uh, but you’re in the season of like a toddler and sleep routines and nap time and all of that. And I am in the season of big kids and a million extracurriculars, very late nights, college tours, and all of that.

Very different seasons. And regardless of where you are in motherhood, when you’re listening to this. The fact of the matter is running a business and balancing self-care is hard, and then you throw in motherhood regardless of your season, and it’s like Olympic level training status. It is so, so hard.

Yeah, and that’s what we’re gonna talk about today, which I’m really excited about. So. Give the listeners a little bit of a ba of your background of how you prioritized and handled self-care before you became a mom. Like what did that look like before motherhood stepped in?

Jess: Yeah, so I’ll kind of start, I guess, post hustle Sanely, pre hussle, sanely, a whole different story.

I was not caring whatsoever, which is why I needed hustle Sanely. Once I got my bearings in, I would say like 20 20, 20 21 is when I really started to feel like I was on the other side of hustle. Culture and self-care was pretty routine in my life. Pretty normal. I didn’t really have to fight for it mentally.

I wasn’t really feeling, you know, those feelings of guilt where I’m like, oh, like I need to be productive 24 7. I was like, Nope. Like it’s time. It’s time to rest. Like it’s time to pour into me. And so, you know, it was just my husband and I and I was an entrepreneur, so pretty much all of my time was my own.

Uh, my husband, he left his nine to five, the end of 2021. And so we were both really blessed to have a lot of time freedom and just time flexibility and so. Self-care was just, like I said, it was a very regular part of my day. I had, you know, daily rhythms, I had weekly routines, I had monthly routines, and I didn’t really have to think much about it.

Like, it kind of just was how I was living. You know, I had my morning routine where it was super aesthetic. Like I had my, uh, pretty cup of coffee, my little journal spread out on the table, like. My Bible study, like, you know, I could do an hour, hour and a half if I felt like it. Like everything was just very flowy.

So that’s kind of how I was with self-care before I became a mom. Like I didn’t, I had a very good relationship with self-care, having fought for that relationship, I will say. So I was kind of just in a season where I was enjoying what I had fought for mentally, and I was just kind of living it out.

Sabrina: Yeah.

Which is so amazing. I will say. I don’t think that I had that season. I went from working, I skip that one. Yeah, I feel like I skipped it. I, I went from working a nine to five, which I was obsessed with and I loved, and it was so good on so many fronts to becoming pregnant, to then becoming a stay at home mom, which lasted for like a year before I got bored and decided to start a business.

And I just went from kind of like what you did, pre hustle, sanely, like I just went from. Hustle to a different kind of hustle, to a different kind of hustle, you know? And I definitely did not prioritize or feel like I could justify any kind of self-care because it was like, well, I’ve got a baby and a household to run and a husband to help take care of, and a business that I wanna nurture.

And I will say that for a long time. I didn’t feel like I was missing any self-care because the passion and excitement of the newness of everything was like keeping me going. You know what I mean? Like the momentum, the adrenaline. The adrenaline of like, oh my gosh, people are paying me to do this thing that I love, and oh my gosh, I love having a baby and figuring this out.

Like I was just. On high. Like I was high for life. Yeah, no, I get that for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then all of a sudden it’s like, wait, wait a minute. Uh,

Jess: the high gets a little bit less high. Yeah. And the, the, the tiredness just starts to set in, you know? Yeah,

Sabrina: yeah. It’s hard. It’s hard. So, okay, so we know what.

Self-care and how you handled it and what it looked like before you became a mom. So then Everly was born, like what was the shift? How do you balance self-care now alongside motherhood, alongside business? Like how did you work out the kinks?

Jess: I will say something that I didn’t hear a lot about. Obviously I spend a lot of time online because I have an online business, and so I, and I feel like Instagram, that’s where I spend most of my time when it comes to the internet.

It just knows what season of life you’re in. So it was feeding me all the motherhood content and I was just like, okay. So when I was pregnant, I was truly preparing for the worst, like I. It was getting fed like that quote, hot mess mom culture content, where it was just like, okay, like now life is gonna be a complete crap show.

Like it’s just gonna be, you have no control over anything. It’s just you’re at the mercy of whatever your kid needs, whatever’s going on with them. And so I was like, oh, okay. So I started to kind of like mentally be like, okay, but I don’t want my motherhood to look like that. So what can I do now to prepare me for when she gets here?

I don’t know if it was that that made this next part that I’m gonna say happen, or if it’s just this is a lot of people’s experience. I feel like not a ton changed until ever really became mobile, and that’s when things kind of shifted for me. Because, uh, something that I say in the household Stanley community, and something that I’m a big believer in is that our schedules and routines are tools, not chains.

So with the routines that I had created for myself, I was able to carry them with me into fresh motherhood, having a newborn, because it was kind of just like I had a little sleeping sidekick with me all the time. You know, she was kind of in her, I, we, Adam and I call it like her potato phase. Like we kind of just put her around and she was just kind of with us, you know?

We would just make sure that she was getting her naps that she had, she was fed and she was kind of good to go. It was so, I felt like the shift wasn’t as drastic as I thought it was gonna be for the first, I would say, six months of motherhood. Like yes, it was hard. Yes, I was tired, but I was expecting those things so I wasn’t completely off.

It was when, like I said, I wanna say it’s between, I can’t recall exactly the nine and the 12 month mark. I was just like, oh, shoot. Like the way that I’m doing stuff, like it’s not working anymore. And so I kind of felt like I was walking on eggshells in my own life for that kind of like first nine to 12 months of Everly’s life because I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I was like, wait, things still feel pretty okay as far as like self care. When is it not gonna be okay? Like that’s kind of where my head is at. And that’s something that I’ve learned about myself in therapy that I struggle with in kind of all areas of life. Just kind of like if things feel good, I have to really be intentional about not going to that place mentally of like, okay, when is the other shoe gonna drop?

But I’m just real, like, I was in that place. I was like, okay, what is the other shoe gonna drop? And so when she hit that kind of like nine to 12 month mark, I think. I kind of just, especially with my morning routine, I just kind of threw it out the window for a good like three months because I was just like.

Bro, how do people do this? Right? How makes this a journal? When I have like an actual human being on my head, how am I supposed to journal and read my Bible and like actually soak in what I’m doing when I’m trying to make sure that my toddler is not gonna pour the coffee on her own head? Things shifted very quickly and I think I just like, I just didn’t know what to, you don’t know what you don’t know.

Like when I was in that sense of like, to me it felt like chaos when I was in it. I was just like, oh my gosh, like how am I supposed to show up for myself, but also kind of like manage and make sure that she is safe. We’re very big on independent play and letting her like do her own thing. But it’s like also at the same time, like we can’t just completely like turn our head because she was at that 1-year-old.

Like we had to make sure that she wasn’t climbing up on the back of the couch and gonna like fall off the ledge. You know what I mean? Like it’s just like a safety at that point. And so I gave myself three months where I was like, okay. Let’s just wake up and roll with it and see like kind of what happens, and then let’s see what’s working, what’s not.

I started treating my morning routine as kind of like an experiment rather than having these expectations on myself. When I shifted that, I didn’t really hit that mindset shift probably until like two months in to like this new season, and then I was like, wait a second. Okay, let’s just kind of neutrally assess how things are going every morning, because I know every kid is different.

My kid, she’s a morning person, like. Girly is up between five 30 and six 30 every day. So you know, you hear all those people like wake up an hour before your kids. I’m like, okay, so you’re telling me at four? Yeah. So that just wasn’t an option for me. And it’s like you hear all of these. Things, all of these well-meaning pieces of advice and you’re just like, totally like, that’s what I’ll do whenever I’m in that season and it looks good on paper, and then you apply it to your life and you’re just like, yeah, this doesn’t work for me, and something that I wanna say to everyone listening, and something that I had to remind myself, you are not the problem.

The routine isn’t supporting you, so it’s the routine that needs to be shifted, right? Like you are not the problem, your kid is not the problem. Like our kids are not distractions. They are a part of our lives, and like that’s our job as a mom is to make sure that they feel safe, that they feel seen, and that they feel loved and heard, right?

So I had to shift my mindset to like, okay, she is my why, not my why not. So I kind of had to get out of that all or nothing mindset. That’s something else that. I learned about myself in therapy. I am a very black and white thinker. It’s kind of like all or nothing, and I kind of had to shift that instead of being all or nothing, how can I be all in?

So for me, with my routines and self care and things like that, in motherhood, it looked like, again, like let’s just treat things as an experiment. Let’s try things. See if they work and not call myself a failure. If they don’t. Let’s try things, see if they work. See how Everly responds to me doing things a certain way, like kind of just going into it with, uh, open hands and a lot of grace for me and a lot of grace for her.

’cause I’m like, hello, we’re both doing this for the first time. Like, we’re figuring this out together. I am super grateful to have a very, very hands-on husband and he is super hands-on with Everly, very involved with her care. And so we kind of sat down and we brainstormed. ’cause he kind of got to the point too, where we love our day-to-day lives, but we kind of got to this point where it almost felt like Groundhogs Day, where it was like we’re kind of living the same day over and over and over.

And we were very reactive rather than responsive. And so we were like, okay. Let’s take a beat and let’s think about like, okay, where are we feeling drained? Like what areas of us are feeling drained? And so for me, I’m an introvert and I get very overstimulated very easily when I’m around other people like being touched, being talked at, like I have to have that time to recharge.

Or I will lose my mind. Mm-hmm. And so I was, and my husband, he’s an extrovert. He needs time. He needs to get out of the house. He needs to get out of here and be around his friends, other people, even if it’s strangers that he’s sitting at like a coffee bar with like just to chat with. Like he’s gotta get out these four walls.

And so. What we decided that really, really worked well for us, and I’ll go back to the morning routine. I know I’m kind of jumping around, but we started this thing where every Friday I don’t work Fridays and neither does he. So every Friday was Jess, like my self-care day, and Adam would spend quality time with Everly.

So I have. The whole of Friday to do whatever I wanna do. Whether I feel like, okay, I felt very like into a creative project that I was doing at work. I wanna work for a little bit or you know, I’m gonna go get my nails done, or I’m gonna go on a walk with a friend, or I’m gonna go to the bookstore and just sit in the silence and read without anyone touching me or talking to me like it.

Every Friday just kinda looked different depending on what I needed. And then Saturdays we would flip that. So I would spend time, quality time with Everly and Adam would go and like do whatever he needed to do. I. And I think that routine is really what kind of breathed new life into us as individuals, my husband and I, and in us as a couple honestly, and in us as parents.

Like, because we kind of had, you know, that whole like absence makes the heart grow fonder thing. And I know it’s only one day and obviously I would see her on Fridays. It’s not like it, I would be like outta the house at 6:00 AM and like I wouldn’t return until bedtime. Like I would see her in between.

It’s just Adam was, you know, kind of the more hands on care that day. Doing that, just kind of carving out intentional space in our week for ourselves. Really, really kind of got our feet back on the ground. We didn’t feel like every single day was like Groundhogs Day. We didn’t feel like we were kind of running on E.

And so that was a game changer for us. And a lot of people I know who I’ve shared this with, they’re like, okay, I love that for you, but like I don’t have a whole day that I can do that. Totally fine. Like get yourself like a chunk of time, whether it’s an hour or two hours or three hours or whatever, you can do a half day.

But just try to be consistent with like, to me, having it be on the same day every week. It just holds you accountable to doing it. Whereas if you’re like, okay, once a week for three hours. I’m gonna like have my me time while my husband or my partner, whoever, grandma watches the kids. But then Sunday comes and you’re like, oh my gosh, I didn’t do it.

And then you know, the next week that happens, happens again. So it’s like having that designated like day and time slot, really just at least for us, helps hold us accountable to the routine and filling up for it. So that was the biggest game changer for us. And then when it comes to morning routines. For me and I, it’s so funny because I’ve taught this to my students for years, Sabrina, yeah.

Years, and so it was just kind of like always this thing in the back of my head, but I was like, oh, I don’t need to do that. I don’t need to do that. I have to help other people do. Yeah. Yeah. This strategy is for people who aren’t good with routines, and I’m great with routine, so like I don’t need. And then I was like, wait, hold on a second.

I am not a mom. Am I great at routines? I dunno. Yeah. Yeah. So I have this thing called the menu method. And so what you do is you have your non-negotiables. And so I kind of, uh, I guess tweak this to really work from my season of taller mom hood, if you will. And so I have like my, and I have one for the morning and one for the evening, like my menus.

And it’s like, I have my morning non-negotiables, and these are things that I can do that make me feel whole, mentally, physically, emotionally, that I can do with Everly, hanging on my shoulder with her, hanging on my leg with her wanting me to hold her. They’re things that are just very, very simple that I can wake up and just kind of do no matter what’s going on around me.

And then I have my morning menu. So these are things that. Maybe I’m not able to do if Everly decides to wake up at five 30 or if she’s having a day where she does wake up at five 30, but she’s like feeling the independent play and like, I have like, you know, 20 minutes of like me time, I can do these things.

And so kind of having. The non-negotiables that I’m able to do, no matter what’s going on around me. Those keep me anchored, like those keep me grounded. And then my menu, those are extras. Those are like if I have the energy, if I have the capacity, if I have the time. But I no longer feel bad if I’m not doing those things, because before, like pre-baby, I would do the whole thing, like I was ordering everything off the menu and it wasn’t a problem.

Whereas now I can’t do that. That’s not sustainable for the life, for the season of life that I’m in right now. And so I had to kind of figure that out the hard way by feeling bad for a little while that I wasn’t doing my morning routine, how I used to and wondering like, what is wrong with me? Like I, like I don’t have the discipline.

Like why can’t I wake up at four 30 and do this? And then that me is like, why would you wanna wake up at four 30? It was just a lot of like mindset. Tweaking. A lot of trial and error. A lot of having to just be neutral and like I said this earlier, but like treating life as an experiment and just like.

Not getting upset with yourself because you’ve never done this before. You know? Yeah.

Sabrina: Yeah. You are so good about sharing your lessons and flexibility online, and I love how, you know, when you’re sick or when you’re out of town or whatever, like things shift and you, you share about that stuff. And I think that’s the biggest thing is like allowing yourself this flexibility with the different seasons that you’re in.

Because, you know, newsflash, you figured out your current season, but in a year it’s gonna change and it’ll be different, you know, and it’s constantly changing. And the season that I’m currently in is one that is. So fun, but I’m still like getting used to it. It’s really late nights and I really like sleep.

I really, I really like sleep and I really like to be an old lady and get in bed early and read and because I want to be there when my teenager comes home at midnight or 1:00 AM from something like I’m waiting up and how do I keep myself awake while I wake up? And then how do I recover the next day?

And so it’s, it’s a diff, it’s a shift in my timeline while also still having a 9-year-old. So it’s like I’ve got my toes dipped in both seasons. But for me, the biggest lesson and flexibility has been that my morning routine does not have to happen first thing in the morning, and like giving myself the grace to like, you know what, actually it’s better for me to work out first thing in the morning and then to make the kids breakfast, to get the kids to school, have some coffee, and then have my morning routine.

I had to, like you said, like I had, it was trial and error, like how am I gonna figure this out? I know I need it because just completely removing it doesn’t work and it doesn’t feel good. You know, skipping the morning workouts doesn’t feel good either. Like, I don’t want it to be one or the other. I still wanna do both.

But figuring out that like, you know what, journaling and time in the word is good anytime. And if it can’t be first thing in the morning, that’s fine. It, when can I fit, when can I fit it in? When does it make sense for the season I’m in? And, and that has been really helpful and I. We’ve also shifted that only three mornings a week.

Are we working out really early? My husband and I are in a season where we’re working out together. We wanted, we wanted like one more touch point together and we’re like, I’ve always been a morning workout. He hasn’t. Yes, I’ve been telling him. I’ve been literally telling him for years. Jess. Come to the morning, I’m telling you it’s gonna be good.

It, and he’s like, it’s too early. I, you know, finally this year he’s like, okay, fine, I’ll try it. It took like three days and he was like, you’re right, I have more energy. Yes.

Jess: Not with the energy. It is the best feeling in the world when you, it’s like two or three in the afternoon and you’re just like, oh, I need to do my workout.

And then you’re like, but wait, I already did it. Yes. That is the best. Yes. He’s, he’s

Sabrina: an attorney and so he’s just told me the other day. He was in trial all last week and he was like, this is the first time where I will be on a, in trial, on a trial day and I’ll get to like two or three in the afternoon and I don’t feel a slump.

And I’m like, it’s ’cause you worked out in the morning. You know? But we’ve, we’ve given this ourselves, this gift of only doing it three mornings because we get up at 5 45 and. I, we’re not gonna set ourselves up for failure and say we can do it every single day. When there’s some nights where I’m not even leaving volleyball practice with my daughter until 10 o’clock because they practice from eight to 10:00 PM Like, I can’t come home and go to bed at 11 and then also get up at 5 45.

Like that’s a failure, you know? So it’s the flexibility and like you said, like the mixing and matching. Where can I fit it in? What can I figure out that works? And then knowing. You’re gonna figure it out for a little bit. Maybe it’s a couple of months, maybe it’s a season or a semester of school. Maybe it’s a year, but it’s not gonna be permanent.

You know, that’s

Jess: so important and that’s why I’m so passionate about teaching frameworks and things that you can. Kind of mold your season into, because unfortunately, like you said, routines, they’re not just set it and forget it, like it’s, that would be awesome if they were, but that’s just not reality.

And so to think that that’s the case, like you’re just setting yourself up to be disappointed. And I love that you mentioned that you guys do, like you aim for the three workouts a week. That’s something that I started doing with journaling. So when Everly kind of hit that stage where my morning routine started to get a little bit more challenging, I just gave it up altogether for a couple months and I noticed.

Such a decline in my mental health, like such a decline. And I was like, okay, obviously this is not working. Like this is not good for me. It’s not good for her, it’s not good for my husband. Nobody’s winning here. So we have to figure out how to make it work. And so in my weekly habit tracker, I have journaling on there and I have X four.

So that I can see like, okay, we only have to do this for mornings in order for my brain to be getting the love that it needs, right? So then like for example, yesterday morning we woke up and Everly got sick. Our dog got sick, we’re, my husband and I are both cleaning up the throw up before, you know, 7:00 AM and I was like, this is not a journaling morning for me.

No. Like this is just not a journaling morning. And so I was okay with that. Like I wasn’t upset. I didn’t feel like I was. Kind of starting the day off on the wrong foot. I just accepted, I was like, good thing I journaled yesterday and good thing I can journal tomorrow. And good thing that goal is only to do it four times a week.

And it’s like you said too, like getting in the word journaling, like these things are beneficial whether you do them at 7:00 AM or 7:00 PM like it doesn’t make a difference. And so that’s another thing with the menu method I have like, okay, the mornings I’m doing X, Y, ZI would love to journal, like do my freehand journaling and read the Bible every morning.

Like that’s my ideal morning. But it just doesn’t work out like that. So in parentheses, like on my morning menu, I have like, okay, these two items, the journaling and the getting in the word. If you don’t do these two things in the morning. No big deal. We’re gonna bump those two the evening. ’cause those are important.

They are a non-negotiable, but they’re not a morning non-negotiable. And I think that’s so important to kind of be aware of.

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If you’re ready to join us, you can head over to sabrina gab hart.com membership and enroll today. Now back to the episode. I know that a big part of self-care is what we’ve talked about. It’s doing it, it’s uh, realizing what fills your cup. It’s having flexibility around it with motherhood and business.

But a big, big struggle is the time. It feels like we barely had time as women business owners. And then you throw kids into the mix and it’s like, okay, and now I have zero, zero minutes, zero seconds in the day to give to myself. How can we shift our, like, our mindset and our thinking around carving out time and making this a priority?

Jess: Instead of having to layer things on top because your schedule is already feeling like it’s bursting at the seams. Right. In this season of motherhood, business ownership, just being a human being, you know, like it’s a lot. And so something that I have started doing and I feel like it’s kind of like mm, a catchphrase on the internet right now.

It’s just like. Romanticizing your life. And so instead of trying to add more things into your day, like, oh, let me like add in a spa day or let me add in, like going to the gym, like leaving the house to go like, if you know that you already feel stretched thin, let’s kind of. Instead of going out and adding stuff on top of what’s already going on, let’s pause.

Think about what we’re already doing, and think about how we can elevate that experience to pour into ourselves a little bit. So example for me on my workdays in this season of life, everybody’s not in school yet, so I only work three days a week. I work Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Those days are jam packed because.

To be quite frank, three days is enough for me as a business owner to maintain the business that I’ve built, but it is not quite enough to add new things to my business. So I have to be like, eyes on the prize on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, like I don’t have time to play around. Those are days that I don’t feel like I have time for like the extras for self-care.

So I have like my regular rhythms and routines where I’m, you know, getting in my workout. I work out at home, so I don’t have to leave, I don’t have to go anywhere. I have 30 minutes where I walk outside, do my thing. On Tuesdays or Wednesdays, depending on, uh, how the hair wash schedule is falling, I will do what I call, it’s like a YouTube coffee shower, is what I call it.

And I do this whether I’m washing my hair or not. But obviously it’s more fun when I’m washing my hair ’cause I’m in there longer. But I’ll take my little phone. We have a window in our shower, I’ll prop my phone up in the window. I’ll put on a little YouTube video or Gilmore Girls or listen to an audio book.

I will make an iced coffee, bring it with me into the shower, and I am just in the shower vibing. Like I am gonna be taking a shower anyways, so why not make it an experience that I’m going to enjoy? You know what I mean? So it’s like think about things that you are doing every single day that like you’re not thinking about, like they’re just a part of your life.

And like let’s take a pause and be like, how can I sprinkle some self-care on here? Like I call them self-care sprinkles. And I know some people, um, maybe who don’t have kids or people who are kind of past the season of like, maybe their kids are a little bit older, things are less hands on, whatever.

They’re like, oh, like, that’s not enough self-care. Like, don’t let anyone tell you that, okay? Don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re not doing enough, because doing something is always better than doing nothing. You have to honor the season that you’re in. You have to meet yourself where you’re at. And if that looks like watching a YouTube video while you’re taking a shower and you’re sipping on your iced coffee, and it’s 10 minutes of pure bliss.

Let that be enough and let yourself enjoy that 10 minutes without feeling like you’re not doing enough. Always my biggest tip, my biggest strategy for people who are in a season where life is just really, really full and you’re just like, I cannot find any room. To add self-care in, think about what you’re already doing and figure out how you can make it a moment for yourself.

Sabrina: Yeah, totally. I, I have so many examples of that and I totally, I’m like obsessed with how the internet is feeding us, romanticizing your life. I’m like, why didn’t you feed me this 10 years ago? I could have been doing this the whole time. I love it. I love it. I’m here for it. But a few examples I have of exactly what you said of like taking moments that are happening anyway and then making them better is like.

You know, I’m a photographer. The audience knows that. So if I am editing photos, it’s something I spend a lot of time doing, I now will like light my favorite candle. I will turn on my favorite Spotify station and I am like, it is loud. I am like rocking out, having a personal concert in my office while I’m going about my editing.

Is it more fun that way? Yeah, does is it, would I define it as self-care? Probably not, but I’m enjoying the moment better, which is just innately filling your cup. Right. Another example for moms. So there was a season when all of my kids were elementary or younger and it was kind of in not quite the days where you are, you know, I had a couple more kids and, and older in the school run, but on the school mornings.

So in the season I was having a hard time finding all of the hours for like the journaling and the gratitude practice and all of that. So on the mornings that I took my kid to school, ’cause my husband and I would trade off my kids and I together on the ride to school would verbalize a gratitude practice.

It wasn’t quite the same thing, but it did fill my cup in the same way because it was like, okay guys, what are five things that you’re happy about today? What are five things you’re grateful for? And how cool that you’re demonstrating that for them. Yeah, that’s, yeah. And we would do it together. And I have such sweet memories of like the hilarious things they would say they’re grateful for, you know.

But it like did the job and it was a lesson in flexibility and like, how can I fit this in? I’m already taking them to school. We’re already in the car. And so I, I love that. I love that example. And there’s so many ways that we can take moments. I heard, um, a friend that was, we were talking about this the other day and she said, bath time.

Bath time with the kids. It’s like part of the nightly routine, you know, but like, how can you take it and elevate it? And it’s. Turn on worship music or turn on their favorite show and watch it together while you’re in the bath, like make it an a moment of connection, but that’s also more fun and more enjoyable for everybody.

That is soothing your soul, that is filling you up little bit at a time, like you said, those little sprinkles. I love that.

Jess: It’s just like bringing in tension into what you’re already doing instead of going through the motions. I feel like especially when we’re in these fuller seasons of life, it’s so easy.

To get swept up and just going through the motions, kind of just trying to get through the day. But if you just take a pause and think, like, I’m right now sitting in our, like half of it is like office and half of it is like workout shed and I just started doing Pilates and I bought cute Pilates workout equipment.

Was it a little bit more money? Yes, it was, but I am so much more excited. To go do my little Pilates workout with my, you know, little dumbbells that match my little ankle weights that match my little mat. And it’s just little things like that, like you said, just like romanticizing and just making things that you’re doing anyway, more of a vibe.

Maybe it’s not quote self-care, but it’s filling you up in one way or another. And in these kinds of seasons, like sometimes you just gotta fill up where you can, you know what I mean? It’s just like when I think of self-care as a mom. I think about just like the basics, like the building blocks of self-care.

Like maybe this isn’t a season for extras, right? So I am so focused on making sure that I’m getting the best quality sleep that I can get. The other thing that I’m focused on, so my main three when it comes to like foundational building blocks, self-care, movement, sleep, and nutrition. I need to make sure that I’m getting good quality sleep.

I’m not getting. A lot of good quality sleep all the time. Yeah. With a toddler. Okay. But the sleep that I am getting, I’m making sure that I’m not on screens right before bed. I’m making sure that, you know, I have like my little lavender diffusing to help me relax before bed. Like I’m doing things that are kind of positioning me to get the best quality of sleep that I can.

For my season. So making sure that, and then with nutrition, like something that I am so passionate about and I do consider this self-care. Maybe some people don’t and that’s okay. You get to decide what self-care is for you. I take a lunch break every single day, like when I’m working. I have short work days.

I have a short work week pre hustles, samely, Jess, I would’ve been like, oh girl, you don’t have time to take a lunch break. You only have three days to work. Like. You better barrel through, like head down. Do not leave your desk. Now I’m like, okay, let me take a 30 minute lunch break. Go have an actual meal.

Not another coffee, not a protein bar. Like that’s not a meal. Like let me have a meal. I. Eat it, read a little book, get some fresh air, go back in. I’m so much more productive when I take my lunch break, the second half of my workday, I get so much more better quality work done and I feel taken care of.

Like I actually fed my body. I gave it what it needed. So I think as moms, we have to kind of recognize that self care needs to be simple and. It’s not a season necessarily for all the extras. Sometimes you’ll have room and space and margin for those extras and that’s great. Take advantage of it when you can, when the kids are with grandma or you know, whatever.

I think just honoring the season you’re in and kind of shifting your mindset to not feel like you’re not doing enough when you’re doing the basics. Because the basics are the basics for a reason, and the basics are enough when you’re in a season that’s very full, in my opinion. Yeah.

Sabrina: Yeah. I love that.

And you know, another conversation for another day is making sure that. When you do find some margin in your life that you are prioritizing taking care of yourself because you can’t just get through the basics all the time for all 18 years until your child is outta the house. Right? Like Totally. Yeah.

For the mom who’s listening today, she exhausted. She’s burned out. She is balancing motherhood and business. Whatever season she’s in, she feels like she’s kind of barely hanging on. She desperately needs some time to herself, some way to fill her cup, but she can’t seem to find any. What advice can you give her today?

Where can she start?

Jess: I would say to the next day, when you wake up, pay attention to the flow of your day. Like I. Make note mentally, or if you wanna write it down, write it down. Just write down things that you’re doing throughout your day, like things that you know happen every single day. Like you, like we said, like we wake up every single day, hopefully, right?

Like you’re making a cup of coffee probably every single day. If you’re a mom, right? You are getting your kids ready for school, getting ’em off to school. If you are a toddler, mom, maybe your kid isn’t in school yet, like maybe you’re going to the park in the morning. Like, just make a note of the flow of a typical day in your life.

I know every day is different, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. Like just make a note of the flow of a typical day in your life. Choose one. Choose one of those activities from the morning. Choose one from the evening that you can tack something on to make it more intentional. And I think starting with that will make such a difference in your life over time if you commit to doing it for a week.

One week, seven days. That’s it. So maybe in the morning you’re like, okay, I make my coffee every morning. Whether or not my toddler is hanging off my leg, or if they’re sleeping in an extra hour, doesn’t matter. I’m always making a cup of coffee. When you make that cup of coffee, close your eyes. Take three deep intentional breaths and say three things that you’re grateful for, whether it’s mentally or whether you’re saying it verbally out loud.

That’s one thing, right? You’re already making the coffee. Just make it a little bit of a moment. Maybe in the evening time you’re having dinner with your family every night, right? Like maybe that’s the season you’re in, like you have a toddler. That that’s something that we do every night is we do dinner at home, Everly’s, not in like practices and all of that stuff quite yet.

Um, so for something that we’ve started doing every single evening is when it’s time. We, my husband and I both. Take our phones and we put them in our bedroom so that our phones are not, if they’re at the table, even though we say no phones at the dinner table, we’ll be like, oh, let me check this really quick, or Let me google this really quick.

Like if we’re talking about something and it just, it doesn’t work out. We don’t have the discipline. So we’re like, okay, phones are gonna go in the bedroom. And so we’re able to sit down at dinner and so we’re gonna be sitting down at the dinner table, table almost every single night. So we get rid of the phones and we ask each, all three of us, we go around the table, me, Adam, and Everly, we say, what was your favorite part of your day?

It’s such a simple, simple thing, but doing that over time, doing those two practices over time. It’s going to like, think of it as like depositing, like in your little self-care bank, right? Like, yeah, the single deposit every day might feel little, might feel insignificant, but over time it’s gonna build up, it’s gonna compound.

You’re gonna have interests like, and that is gonna be the catalyst for you to find more pockets in your day, to weave more in. Because when you’re filling yourself up, even in small ways, you’re creating more space to fill yourself up in bigger ways.

Sabrina: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I’m curious, uh, this question just popped into my mind.

I, I would love to know your thoughts on, so, you know, we’ve got, let’s say we’re, we’ve got a mom listening. She’s, she’s in the same season that you’re in. She’s got littles at home, maybe she’s got a couple of preschool mornings a week, but it’s not like full-time childcare situation, you know, she’s trying to balance work and, and everything.

And she’s, she’s doing the small deposits. She’s, she’s totally like jiving with what you’re saying. Let’s say she does have mother-in-law step in and say, you know what? I would love to take the baby on Friday. I feel like at least for me, my initial gut reaction would be like, oh my gosh, I have a whole day I can work.

Or I have a whole day, I can clean out the closets or run 700 errands that I’ve been putting off. But I know that the correct better thing to do would be like, you know what? I’m gonna give an hour to myself and then do these other things. How can we help change her mindset around how valuable her time for herself is when it is available?

Jess: Yeah. I love that you said that, like give yourself an hour and then do what you need to do, you know yourself. How do you act when you feel like you’re running on E? How do you act when you feel stretched so incredibly thin? I don’t know, I can’t speak for anybody else but myself. I am not pleasant to be around like I, when I feel like I’m at my wits end.

And the only way for me to not be at my wit’s end is for me to be doing those bigger deposits consistently. Right? Think about how do you treat yourself? How do you talk to yourself? How do you talk to your toddler? How do you talk to your husband when you’re not pouring into yourself in these quote bigger ways?

Versus how do you talk to yourself, your kid, and your husband when you are like, you show up different for your life. When you take the time to invest in yourself and I, that word is so huge, you have to view it as an investment. It might feel inconvenient when you’re doing it. It might feel inconvenient when you’re planning for it, but it’s an investment, right?

An investment is going to give back to you in the future, so you’ve gotta do it now to show up. Well for future you, for future your kid, for future your spouse, right? And so I think just kind of doing that mindset shift where you’re like, okay, I’m trusting that this is an investment in how I wanna show up next week, next month, next year.

And you have to be willing to trust the process. And it’s like you said, you don’t have to commit to an entire Friday of lounging around. You can if you want to, but if you just, that doesn’t feel good for you. For my self-care Fridays, I always use Hustle Sanely five to help me kind of like loosely plan them, then Hustle Stanley five.

It’s a part of my planning system and it’s five habits that we do every day to help us get things done while prioritizing our mental health and the important relationships in our lives. And so the habits are complete. Your focus three, move your body for 30 minutes. Tidy your space for 15 minutes. Say or do one kind thing for someone else.

Say or do one kind thing for yourself. And so I kind of, on Thursdays, I like look at Friday when I’m doing my little planning and I’m like, okay, self-care Friday. What’s the vibe for tomorrow? How am I feeling? Like what do I wanna do? Like I said, sometimes I am really amped up about a work project that I’m doing and like it feels fulfilling.

Some time on that. And I’m not gonna deny myself of that, but I’m like, okay, I don’t wanna spend all off Friday working, because while that sounds good in theory, I know that at the end of the Friday I’m not gonna feel my best. And then when the Friday comes, I’m gonna be like clawing on it. I’m gonna be like, when is it gonna be the next, you know, I don’t wanna get to that point.

So it’s like I use my focus three and uh, my kind thing for myself to kind of help me. Find a, a better balance or a better harmony between, like, quote, being productive and uh, or resting even when I don’t feel like I need the rest. You always need the rest. Okay. Even if you, you don’t need the rest, you always need the rest because it’s an investment in future.

You

Sabrina: and I, I love that you touched on like when you’re in the flow in something for your work, like it’s okay to do a little of that because it is rewarding and it does feel good just not going overboard and tricking yourself and to thinking that that’s the only thing you need because it’s not actually the only thing you need.

So, you know, you’ve been on the podcast before. I love to end with a couple of fun little questions just so the audience can get to know you a little bit. So I would love to know what is a hobby or something fun that you’re doing purely for joy this year.

Jess: So for me it is doing book videos on YouTube, which when I say that, people are like, what do you mean?

Like, what do you mean? So I am a big reader. Fiction, like reading fiction has really helped me in my journey, like in recovery from hustle culture. And so I love reading and I went down a rabbit hole. I think it was like in 2020 I started watching like people talking about the books that they’re reading on YouTube, and I just got sucked in and I was like, how fun would it be to do that one day?

But I always. Would tell myself, oh, that’s not a good use of your time, because it’s not making money, it’s not growing your business. Like it has nothing to do with hustle sanely. Like you can’t do that. So, uh, late last year I started kind of toying around with the idea of making them as a hobby, like just for fun with no expectation.

And so I carried that into this year and it is so fun. Like I look forward to making my little book videos and it’s just a really good time for myself.

Sabrina: Yeah, I love that. This year for me, I’m trying to prioritize more time like being social with people in the real world. Uh, you know, I’m in the season of life where so many of the women I coach and so many of the programs I lead, and so many of my friends, they’re all over the country.

And that’s awesome. And I’m so honored that I have communities everywhere, but like I also need people here. I can like hug and touch and see and talk to. And unfortunately I’m in the season of life where like I’ve kind of grown out of that anyways, so I’m prioritizing like in-person stuff this year and I’m like kind of getting the ball rolling and like making things.

And so this weekend actually I’m hosting. We’re bringing in an art teacher and I’m hosting a beginning watercolor class for a few ladies. How fun. And I only know one of the other women coming and they invited friends. And so like, that’s fun and I’m really excited about that. And then you’re gonna be obsessed with this at the end of this month.

Uh, myself and another girlfriend, we are hosting a girls’ night book Swap. And so it’s literally gonna be like, I know it’s literally gonna be, we’re telling everybody bring up to three books and you’ll get to take home as many as you bring. And it’s just gonna be this whole social thing where we swap.

And I’m super excited about,

Jess: I’m stealing that idea. My group of in-person girlfriends, we do like, um, a girls night once a month, and we rotate, like who hosts it and whoever’s hosting it gets to choose like the activity that we’re doing. For sure. Going to steal that for my next time host. Get on

Sabrina: if, if you have a TikTok account, you can like, like search, like Girls Night book swap and there’s all kinds of cute aesthetic vibes and games and all this.

I’m like so excited about it. Yeah, please lemme know how it

Jess: goes.

Sabrina: Okay, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, okay. Um, what is something that you are always

Jess: up to talk about? I’m always up to talk about books, that’s for sure. Um, but something else that I’m very passionate about and always up to talk about is fitness. Working out fitness has been a big passion of mine.

Gosh, I’m 35, I think I got into working out when I was 19, and I actually worked as a personal trainer in my twenties. And then I learned the hard way that it’s not something that I wanna do for a job. It’s something that I enjoy doing for myself. I still love chatting about, like, I went to a parade for like our local city, uh, two days ago with Everly and Adam, and you know, a girl like, she’s like, oh, do you work out?

And then we just started chatting and I looked down and it had been like 20 minutes and we were just chit-chatting about different types of workouts and like what workout does for like our mental. Date and you know, all the things. So that’s something that I can always, always, always chat about.

Sabrina: Yeah.

One of the things that I can always chat about is like biohacking and like all of the like natural wellness stuff. So I am about 10 years older than you, and so I’m now entering the season of like hormone replacement therapy and perimenopause and all the things. And it is just so fascinating. I’ve been on such a long journey with my naturopath and trying all these different things and doing all these things and.

You know, some things work really well for me and some don’t, and just the changes and I just think it’s all so fascinating how interconnected it is. Yeah, I can talk about that all day long. Okay. Um, are, uh, ultra human. Yeah, I know. I love it. I love it. Okay, so what is something that you have up your sleeve for later this year?

Jess: I am currently working on something that has been in the works for years at this point since I had Everly. I am launching, I don’t have a name for it yet, or I would tell you, but some sort, uh, it’s a course and it’s, I’m teaching people how I built and how I run my online business, but from a lens of peaceful productivity and creating a life first business and not just an online business that is going to require you to sacrifice, I.

All of your time, all of your energy, all the things. So we are launching that at the top of quarter two, and I am so excited, so excited. Like I said, it’s something I’ve been working on kind of like mentally for quite a while, and I feel like I’m just now like in motherhood and business ownership, having the capacity to actually bring it together and make it happen.

So I’ve been actively working on it since, um, I would say the end of February. So it’s, it’s actually in the works and I am so excited. The more that I pour into it, the more that I build it out. I’m like. I like run into the kitchen and I’ll tell my husband, I’m like, I wish I would’ve had this when I was starting hustle sanely.

’cause I had to figure all this out, like trial and error, Google University, like all the things. And so I’m just really excited to offer people a resource where they can go and get all the information that they need to start an online business that they’re excited about without sacrificing their mental health and the important relationships in their lives.

Sabrina: Yeah. Oh my gosh, I love that. I’m obsessed. People are going to like go crazy over it, so that’s very exciting. For me, I, I, I’m in a season where at the end of last year, I actually released some things that looked good on paper, but I felt intuitively like didn’t belong anymore. And so I actually created a lot of space, uh, for the second half of this year by doing that.

And I haven’t filled that space with anything yet. Like again, intuitively I feel like something is coming. But I don’t know what it is, but I’m excited about it because I’ve made, I say that’s an exciting place to be. Yeah. I’m excited to see kind of what’s next. Actually, just yesterday on a walk, I was boxing with my coach and like.

I started to kind of get some downloads of like, oh, wait a minute, huh. That might be interesting. So I’m, uh, anyways, I, yeah, who knows? We’ll see. We’ll see. Yeah, we’ll see. That’s awesome. Okay, last question. What is a business tool or hack that you’re loving right now?

Jess: A business tool or hack that I am loving right now is using Google Calendar tasks.

I have all of my recurring business tasks in there and I have like a like different color for business stuff versus personal stuff. And it’s just so nice to have all of my recurring tasks in there with my life stuff. ’cause my husband and I use Google Calendar to like keep track of what each other has going on.

Like we have a shared one. And so I added in like my work. ’cause before I was like, oh no, like work life balance. Like I can’t have my work stuff like mixed in with my personal stuff. Like, you know, as a recovering workaholic, like that’s just bad practice for me. But you know, now that I’m only working three days a week now that we’re parents, like our schedule’s just different.

I’m like, I need see everything together. Yeah. Yeah. Using Google Calendar tasks to help me just like have all of my recurring tasks dumped in there so that when I have my paper planner out and I’m like planning out each week, I can see like very easily like, okay, these are the recurring tasks that are coming up, and it is just created so much space in my brain and I’m so grateful

Sabrina: for it.

Oh, that’s amazing. I have not played with Google tasks, so I will be doing that. I’ll be checking that out. I love that so much. Um, my business tool, or actually it’s not a tool, it’s a hack that I always share is outsourcing. I. I’m in a season in my business where I outsource basically everything that I don’t need to physically be present for.

Yes, my expenses are very high, but I’m in a season where that is what I value. I value my time and being able to have more time to myself, even if it means I have a lower profit margin. I’m okay with that and I just, I’m constantly like, can you do this for me? Okay, great.

Jess: A gem of a hack, like a gem of a hack.

I feel like it’s underrated outsourcing and that’s the same thing with me. We, my husband and I were talking to my accountant and we were just like looking at our numbers last week and he was like, so, and I was like, I already know. I was like, listen, as a toddler mom, I said, I’m not in this to be making bank.

I am in this to work the least amount as possible while like keeping this thing running until everybody’s in school. And then, and then perhaps I will. Some of those tasks back, but for now about the season that I’m in, and like you said it, I value my time right now more than doing the tasks that I don’t need to do.

So I love that. That’s your, that’s huge. Yeah.

Sabrina: Outsourcing. It’s a game changer. This has been such a great chat. My friend I knew, knew, knew that it was going to be. Thank you for all your words of wisdom and your encouragement, um, and for your time being here today. I know your time is super duper valuable, so I’m honored that you would spend a little of it with us.

And that’s all I tell the audience where they can find you, because I mean, if they’re not already following you, like. They need to be stat.

Jess: You are just the best. Sabrina, I love your energy and every time normally, okay. I’m an anxiety girly. I have generalized anxiety disorder and anytime that I have like an interview or anything, I kind of get like, I don’t know, just a little bit nervous where I’m like, oh, like how’s this gonna go?

How’s this gonna be? I had no nerves coming into this and it was just so nice. I was like, this is gonna be such a good time. Like I just love getting your wife with you online. So thank you for being you. And where the people can find me online, I spend the most time on Instagram. My personal Instagram is at Jess m Massey, and then my company does have an Instagram too at Hustle Sanely.

And then everything that I do can be found@jessicamassey.com. So courses, membership, planners, all the things.

Sabrina: I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for being here today, my friend and guys. Send us a dm. Let us know how awesome this chat was today. We both wanna hear from you as Jess has her own podcast as well, and she can vouch for this.

Like we don’t hear from you guys enough, and when we do, it feels so good to know that we’re not just speaking into the. Yes. So send us a dm. Let us know how this resonated with you. And that’s it for today. We’ll see you next time. Thanks so much for listening to the Shoot at Straight podcast. You can find all the full show notes and details from today’s episode@sabrinagephart.com slash podcast.

Come find me and connect over on the gram at Sabrina Gehart Photography. If you’re loving the podcast, I’d be honored if you hit that subscribe button and leave me a review. Until next time, my friends shoot it straight.