Flourishing Flame: from Burning Out to Burning Bright

In this episode, Leah discusses decision making, decision fatigue, and frameworks to lessen the toll of decisions.

In life, there are many opportunities and decisions that arise, and it can help to have "unshakeable unbreakables" or frameworks based on personal rules, values, and priorities. These frameworks can help protect you from decision fatigue, over giving and depleting your energy, and keep you oriented towards the things you want in life.

With some decisions, having personal rules makes the decision for you before you face a question, which can help take the pressure off in the moment. Taking your priorities and values to make a framework can look like personal rules, time blocking, and personal purpose statements. Time blocking helps to balance life and work, allowing for focus on specific commitments in their dedicated time block.

With personal purpose statements or personal constitutions, you can compare opportunities to what your purpose is and see how it aligns with your values and priorities and how they fit into what you want in your life. In Leah's Burnout Buster Blueprint, she works with others to create their personal constitutions. Having your own personal purpose statement or constitution helps take the pressure off when opportunities and decisions arise, protecting you from decision fatigue and pressured yeses. You can compare opportunities to this framework and ask questions like "will this help with what I want in life or will it pull me away from where I want to go" or "does this align with my priorities?"

Having these frameworks already set in place can reduce pressure and decision fatigue while bringing relief, peace, and confidence, allowing for empowered nos and resounding yeses.

Do you have trouble saying "no"? Do you worry about letting others down or missing out on an opportunity because you say "no"? In this episode, Leah discusses saying "no", why it's important, and how to practice this in your life. When we say yes, we are also saying "no" to other things.

Sometimes situations come into our lives that are simple yeses or easy nos, but other times we may struggle with saying "no". Saying "no" is an important muscle that we need to exercise, not only for our own protection, but for others.

Expressing a direct "no" helps us to feel empowered, and it protects our time and energy while also being kind to the other person. We can use stand-up words like "I won't" or "I don't" when we say "no", and we can express our appreciation for the consideration.

Sometimes saying "no" can be difficult if our brains aren't used to it, so practicing with ourselves or friends can help rewire our pathways and make saying "no" easier when the time comes.

Learning how to say "no" and exercising this muscle is important since it protects and empowers us while showing kindness to those on the other end.

In this episode, Leah reviews some of the things we've learned about finding and setting our priorities. When we don't know what we should be aiming at, life can often feel like a game of Chutes and Ladders. You work so hard only to find yourself sliding back to where you were ten moves ago. That's why it's important that when we set our priorities, we are setting them with a clear understanding of our values and our roles.

It's also important that we are intentional about how we set our priorities and spend our time. If we don't establish priorities (and boundaries) we will often find that we are ruled by the demands of the day, and not the other way around. We can also find ourselves acting upon other people's priorities to the neglect of our own.

Now is a good time to figure out what your priorities are. Set aside a little time with a pencil and paper, follow with Leah as she guides you through the process, and refer back to other episodes as needed.

Life is chaotic. You've got a million things all demanding your attention and you feel like the things you really want or need to get done just never get done. You thought you would have time for them later, but that time has mysteriously disappeared. Where did it go? It may be time for you to do a time audit.

In this episode Leah walks us through the process of time auditing: tracking your time so you can find out how you are actually spending it. She discusses some of the reasons you may want or need to do one yourself. As it turns out, we tend to give ourselves more time for things that don't matter than we should, or more time for things that do matter than we really need.

One of the side benefits of time auditing is that it can reveal other things that affect our effectiveness, like our energy. When am I most energetic at my best? When am I feeling drained? When is the best time for me to do mental work?

Leah suggests that once we've tracked our time we can begin working to budget for the really important things, and let everything else squeeze in where they can.

Contact Leah at leahlittlebrown.com for a special offer on your DISC Assessment results!

Edited and produced by Beruna Studios - berunastudios.com

Have you ever felt stuck, not because you couldn't move, but because you didn't feel you could stop long enough to take a breath? Have you ever wondered how some people seem to know exactly where they need to direct their attention.

Priorities are tied to our values and our situations. Our values can inform us on which decisions will help us succeed, when all else is equal. But sometimes we encounter unexpected cicumstances that can create a complete shift in priorities overnight (for example, an serious injury or a promotion). Having a system for dealing with incoming tasks and changes in circumstance can help us keep thriving, and prevent things from getting out of control.

In this episode, Leah gives an overview of the four quadrants in First Things First, by Stephen Covey and Roger and Rebecca Merrill. She explains how we can begin to prioritize our work, and why we absolutely must. For those of us who feel like slaves to the urgent, knowing what is important, what is not, and giving attention to the tasks that will bear the most fruit in the long haul is key to not only reducing our overall stress, but helping us gain traction in our lives by helping us work on what really matters.

April 2, 2024

Flourishing Flame: From Burning Out to Burning Bright

Ep. 24: Knowing what comes first: Priorities Overview

When you have a lot to do it can be difficult to know what to do first. That is where priorities come in. In this episode, Leah offers an overview on priorities. They help you to make sure you are doing the right thing the right way - really the best thing in the optimal way.

Knowing our own priorities is important. If we do not prioritize our lives, we run the risk of the important things falling through the cracks and being super busy without getting accomplished what we truly need to do. None of us can do everything, so knowing our priorities can help us determine what is truly important and what is busy work that robs us of our time and energy.

Download your Values List here!

Contact Leah at leahlittlebrown.com for a special offer on your DISC Assessment results!

Edited and produced by Beruna Studios - berunastudios.com

March 25, 2024

Flourishing Flame: From Burning Out to Burning Bright

Ep. 23: Capacity: Knowing your limits

You know that feeling you get when you have more on your plate than you can comfortably handle? Or maybe you feel completely overwhelmed and you're just in survival mode. These are signs you may have extended yourself past your capacity.

Your capacity is the limit of what you are able to contain, or what you are able to produce. It is unique to each person and situation and is linked to our energy and our motivation. When other aspects of our lives (for example, our values) are in proper alignment, we find ourselves more motivated, with more energy, and therefore with a higher capacity for work and enjoyment. The reverse is also true. If you are making decisions that are not aligned with your personal values, you can find yourself feeling low on motivation and energy, and therefore with less capacity.

Knowing our own capacity is important. If we don't know our own limits, we risk overcommitting and burning out, or undercommitting and never really knowing our full potential. None of us can do everything, so knowing our capacity can inform us on when to say yes (and no) and how to manage our valuable time, energy, and resources.

Download your Values List here!

Contact Leah at leahlittlebrown.com for a special offer on your DISC Assessment results!

Ad music credits: Holizna - Poor, but Happy

Edited and produced by Beruna Studios - berunastudios.com

March 19, 2024

Flourishing Flame: From Burning Out to Burning Bright

Ep. 22: Personal Values: Motivation and Setting Better Goals.

How do I choose a career field? Who should I pick as a coworker for a project? How do I find motivation to pursue new goals? What should I do (or not do) next? Why do I sometimes feel conflicted when I try to get work done? All of these questions touch on our personal values.

Personal values are the standards by which we measure our own success. They are how we judge what is important and what is trivial. Everyone has them, and in the last episode Leah discussed some of the ways our personal values are formed. In this episode, Leah gives some examples of values and explains how they can affect our decision making.

While values might restrict our effectiveness in some areas (for example, someone who values excellence may have a hard time actually finishing a project or publishing their work), they can also be tools for motivation and evaluation. Perhaps you'd like to exercise more. If you value nature and solitude, it may be much easier to commit to a weekly hike than a crossfit class. On the other hand, if you value social connection and fun, then a class or group sport may be right up your alley.

When we live out of line with our personal values, we may end up feeling stuck, apathetic, or unsatisfied with our work and life situations. If this is where you find yourself, take a minute to reflect on your own values by clicking the link below, and ask yourself: am I making decisions that correspond to my values?

Download your Values List here!

Contact Leah at leahlittlebrown.com for a special offer on your DISC Assessment results!

Music credits: Holizna - Poor, but Happy

Edited and produced by Beruna Studios - berunastudios.com

March 12, 2024

Flourishing Flame: From Burning Out to Burning Bright

Ep. 21: Personal Values: What are they and where do they come from?

Where do our personal values come from? How do they help us understand ourselves and others? What are personal values? How are they connected to our experiences?

In this episode Leah will discuss some of the factors that help (or hurt) the formation of our values, including communities, generational differences, and even our historical moment. This can have a major impact on how we evaluate stories from other cultures and times, and even how we see our own story.

Not all values are received equally. Some we absorb and internalize completely. Others we hold only loosely, as guidelines. Still others may be rejected outright, or over time as we learn and grow and change. Some may be a reaction toward the values of others (for example, a person who grew up in a cluttered home might embrace minimalism).

When we understand our own values, we can learn to live in line with them and have a greater sense of purpose, peace, and fulfillment. We can also better understand our own motivations and ensure we are spending our time doing the things we actually want to do.

Download your Values List here!

Contact Leah at leahlittlebrown.com

Music credits: Holizna - Poor, but Happy

Edited and produced by Beruna Studios - berunastudios.com