Makena: Hello and welcome back, everyone. 

Gigi: Hi Makena. Welcome, everyone. 

Makena: Yeah, today we are going to talk about the end of the year. It’s approaching, and this is a great time to reflect, look forward, and really dream up what you want for the year to come—plant those seeds, right? 

Even though it’s a busy time, I think there’s a lot of… what would you say? There’s just a lot of reflection on what this year has been all about. You can really carve out those little windows, and we’re going to talk about that today.

Then, what do you use that time for in terms of really dreaming up your success in all areas and what you really want for the year to come?

Gigi: Yeah, and you’re so good at this. We’ve been doing this for years now, but I know you and also Sunny do such a great job with this.

You’re such structured people, which is so amazing.

Makena: Yeah, speaking of structure, a great way to do that—so you can find it in future years because it’s really fun to look back at your reflections and everything. 

If you use Apple products, you could do it in Notes on your phone or on your computer. Or I used to use Evernote, like something like that, where you’ll have access to it in future years. Or you could email it to yourself every year so that you could go back into your email.

Because it’s really fun to look at, like, “Oh, here’s the changes over the years. Here’s what I really was hoping for years ago, and here’s where I am now in these areas.” 

So yeah, thank you for that acknowledgment. 

But I know you also had ways that you did this way back in the day…

Actually, before we go into that, let’s just talk about why this is important.

In our mastermind right now, we are really working with the women around this. Can you share a little bit about why it’s so important to take the time out to plan and to reflect?

Gigi: One thing is, I think it eliminates a lot of the overwhelm, right? Because if we don’t take the time, it’s in the back of all of our minds.

I think it is. If you have your own business, I know it is. You’re kind of going, “Okay, it’s the end of the year, and trying to tie up all those loose ends.” 

And for us, we have seasons in our business, and that’s true for a lot of people. In those seasonal times, we know there are certain times when we really need to be focused and working.

So it doesn’t feel like there’s space to reflect. 

But when you know that you’re going to set that time aside, I think it gives you the chance to go, “Okay, I’ve got that handled, and I can put that aside for now.” I don’t have to feel this kind of overwhelming, “What about next year? What am I going to do? What are the next pieces? How am I going to grow?” 

I think that’s a key piece right there.

The other part is it gives you structure for your earning, for how you’re going to grow your business, and really looking at what has worked this year and what hasn’t. We’ll go into that. 

That is so powerful because it helps eliminate patterns or things in your business that may be leaking energy or money. You see it when you put it down on paper, and it helps you go, “Okay, I need to change some things next year.”

We see these “aha” moments often for women when we work with them, right? In the mastermind, when we make them really put it down—what are the numbers, what are you doing, what are the results? They’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve never looked at this!” 

There’s a huge amount of clarity that happens when you do that.

Makena: Yes, absolutely. There are a couple of different components to this. We’re talking about reflecting on the year that’s passed. There’s definitely a visioning and dreaming aspect for the year to come. I think that’s what we’ll focus on more in the episode today—kind of the reflecting and the dreaming.

Then there’s putting the structure to that. 

Okay, now how do we take those dreams and really map out what the plan is? 

What’s the flow going to be for the year? 

How am I going to spend my time? 

What are the projects I’m going to focus on if you’re in business for yourself? 

Or how are you going to focus your personal time?

That more planning aspect—we won’t go super deep into today, just because it’s a lot to cover. 

But I would really start with the reflection and the dreaming. That’s usually what we do this time of year. If you want to go deeper into the planning, I’m doing a class in January called “Focus and Flow.” I highly recommend coming to that.

It’s actually a two-day online class—two half-days. I don’t have the exact dates in front of me, but it’ll be sometime toward the end of January, on a weekend. 

The URL for that is wayofthemuse.com/focus.

It’s a super easy investment, and we’ll really look at a lot of these pieces.

I’ll tell you more about that in a little while, but I just wanted to put that in there that we’re going to start with the reflection and visioning piece. You want to have those pieces, like Gigi said, in terms of seeing what worked and what didn’t work this year and having that information to guide your next year.

And then also, as we talked about in some of our recent episodes, making sure that the vision piece is really exciting, that it aligns for you, and that it lights you up is also really important before you just jump into the planning and strategy. 

Because if you shortcut that and just go, “Okay, I’m going to look at what I did this year, and then make a plan for next year,” then I feel like there’s a little bit of a missing element there if there’s not excitement and energy behind it.

Gigi: And then also, what is the earning potential for what you want to do? You know, the projects and the different products or whatever you’re doing—is there the potential for the earning that you also want to make?

Makena: Yeah, absolutely. So, let’s go back, way back to when you first started doing this. Because I remember this from when I was young, that there were these big pieces of paper that were calendars, right? And you would paste them up on all the walls in true “Gigi style” and scribble all over them. Right?

Gigi: Yes!

Makena: So tell me a little bit about what visioning and reflecting looked like for you back then, just as kind of a fun example. Some people are more like that—they like the hands-on and the tangible.

Gigi: Right? Yeah, the creative, right? I love the whole mind-mapping. So, yeah, it would be those large calendars. You fill in the dates, and then I’m such a visual person. 

For me, I have to see it visually. When people talk to me, it’s like it goes in one ear and out the other. But if I can see it, there’s something about it—I buy into it. I don’t know why that is, but it is.

Well, I mean, we know what that is, right? There are different kinds of learning. 

So with the papers, what I would do is kind of see, first of all, the reflection piece—to really look at what worked and what didn’t work over the past year. 

Then, you can talk more about that, Makena, because I think you really have some great processes around that. 

But I would definitely do that piece of thing. From there, I’d see, like you said, what are some projects or ways of growing the business that were in the back of my mind and sitting there all year? I’d think, “I’d like to integrate some of those into my next year.” 

That’s where my mind mapping would come in. I’d mind map all my ideas out and then really look and see which ones felt the most exciting and, like I said, which ones would earn.

So that the aliveness was there, but also the earning potential. 

Those would kind of be my new projects. Along with that, I’d back up and first see, out of what I was already doing, how to place those into my year. As you know, always for me, it’s about the rhythm, right? 

So it’d be, “What would be the rhythm I’d want?”

At that time, I was doing 30-day trainings, and then we were up to sometimes four a year. That would basically be once a quarter. Then I’d look at where those would be—what part of the world—and how I’d spend my time in between there in terms of marketing and all of that to lead into those different events. Who would I need to activate in the different regions and around the world to support me in this? 

That was so great because when you can visually see it like that, then already I feel like, “Oh wow, I know what I’m doing this year.”

In that, then I can put in my time and space for when I want to take off, and how to integrate maybe the new project. Where would that be? Where would the time come in? How do I set the time aside for that? So I can put that into the schedule. 

But I think that’s the most important thing: to first see what you already know you’re going to be doing and map that out on your calendar.

Then, are there any special events or anything that I want to go to? Is there a time that I want to go be in Maui? Or is there a time that I want to go to this event that’s a week long? To make sure those fit into my year.

That’s the way I did it for years and years and years. There’s just something so comforting about that because there’s a plan in place. That plan, of course, could change. If in the second quarter I saw that something wasn’t working, then I could shift and change it up. 

But again, I already had my pieces of the puzzle pretty well fit together, and I could always adapt in there.

Makena: I really think it’s interesting, the quarterly thing that you’re talking about. My husband, Sunny, works with companies that are around the $5 to $15 million level in revenue. Something they do—and I think much bigger companies do as well—a lot is quarterly planning.

So every quarter, the whole team—or at least the executive team—gets together somewhere in person. They really look at things similarly. It’s kind of like they probably have their year plan, and then they break it down by quarter.

“Okay, now some of these things—what’s worked? What hasn’t worked? What are the initiatives for the next quarter? How are we going to adjust? What’s the plan?”

I like the idea of revisiting whatever it is you create quarterly. But at the very least, you know, we’re talking about visioning for your year, reflecting.

I like this idea that because there are different kinds of learners, you may be someone that needs to get pieces of paper up on the wall. So yeah, consider that. That might be true for you. 

If so, there are those sticky flip-chart papers. Those are great. You just stick them up all over your walls and get some Sharpies or whatever kind of marker.

You could look at it like: make one piece of paper “What worked this year,” one piece of paper “What didn’t work.” 

We’re talking about this largely in terms of business because many of our clients are entrepreneurs, but even if you’re in a career, you could look at your career: what worked and what didn’t work.

You can also take this into other parts of your life. 

You can really expand or contract this process as much as you want. It could be as short as an hour or as long as a day, or half a day, or something like that. I’d say usually we take at least two to four hours, something like that, to really take our time and reflect.

So you could do it on pieces of paper on the wall, or if you’re more like me and you do well with a computer, you can do it on your phone or in Notes, as I said.

One exercise I’d suggest is to ask yourself, “What’s working, and what’s not working?” That’s a great one. 

The other one I really like to do is rating the areas of my life to give me a snapshot view.

For example, “If I had to rate my relationship right now, what would it be? If I had to rate my health and how that feels, kind of on a scale of one to ten?”

What’s fun about that is I’ve done that for many, many years—not every single year; I’ve missed a couple—but for many years. I can literally go back and compare: “How have these things changed? What’s stayed the same over the years?” It’s really fun to see how the quality of life shifts.

So, some time for reflection—that’s a really big piece. Is there more you want to say about that?

Gigi: The reflection piece—if you’re like me and you’re visual and you do the big papers—then you might want to take a little more time. And because I’m a visionary person, not so structured, it takes me more time.

So it may take a couple of mornings or whatever. I also like to encourage you to go somewhere that really inspires you. If you’re going to sit down and make your plan, be in an environment that brings you alive.

If that’s somewhere with a beautiful view, a café, the beach, or even checking into a hotel for 24 hours, that time for yourself is really valuable. 

Or if you’re in partnership, like you said, meeting with your team in a nice environment and really getting together and planning. 

There’s something about going somewhere beautiful, and if you have connection, new ideas naturally emerge from being out of your everyday environment. We get so habitual in where we are all the time.

Makena: Yeah, this is part of why we always host our retreats—and you’ve done this for decades, Gigi—in beautiful places around the world. Because when people have a chance to leave their day-to-day environments, get somewhere, be in natural beauty, relax, and unwind, there’s a different kind of seeing that comes. There’s a different kind of inspiration that flows through.

Gigi: Yes, and there’s also stimulation from hearing what other people are doing and how they’re growing. That’s very powerful—to be in that kind of environment. Or, if it’s with your team, seeing people through new eyes when you get with them.

One of my daughters just did that with her team at work. She said it was amazing to see the growth in everybody and to really bond over four or five days. They got to know each other in such a deep way. That kind of bonding and growth stimulates not just the people but also the company.

Makena: Yeah, and I love the idea of breaking this up over a couple of days. That might work better for your busy schedule over the holidays. Take an hour one morning, a couple of hours another morning. Maybe you do the reflecting more on one day and then start to do some of the visioning and dreaming on another.

I also really like the idea of a mind map because it’s a more creative way to start before you get into your linear brain.

That’s something I see with people who are more structured, like me. It can be tough to access the dreaming part. It’s very easy to go into structure, like, “Okay, I’m going to do this, this, this, and this. Here are my goals, and here’s how we’re going to do it.”

But something gets lost there. Over the years, I’ve really learned to lean more into the dreaming part, but it used to be very difficult for me. I still see this with some of our clients. 

For people who are more linear and logical, expanding into the visioning and feeling part can be more challenging.

So something like a mind map—or like we had the women in our classes do. We just did this in Sonoma at our retreat in September. We had them dance, right? They danced, and then they did visioning.

Gigi: Yes, yes!

Makena: It was so fun. We had a whole room of women with flip-chart paper on the walls, dancing and then creating their visions. Everybody walked around and looked at these amazing mind maps they had made.

It was so beautiful to see the creativity.

Gigi: And when you do things like that, often you’re surprised at what comes through—things that would never have come to you otherwise. Moving, being in new environments, moving your body, and being in beauty—all of that creates a different kind of stimulation. 

It helps us be more creative and dream up our lives.

That’s why the quote, “When women relax, they become wise,” came to me. I’ve witnessed that for so many years. When women worked with us, they were in this more relaxed state, away from their everyday lives, and in a beautiful environment. 

All of a sudden, their dreams dawned. They could really see what they wanted.

That’s why the masterminds have been so much fun—supporting people to get to that point.

Makena: Absolutely. Okay, so taking the time out to reflect, to look at what this year was all about—maybe you rate the areas of your life—and then you get into the visioning. 

Go somewhere beautiful, and really get into that energy. If you could create anything this year, what would you create?

What are some other great questions that could prompt them? 

What are you longing for?

Gigi: What are you longing for? We always ask that one question: “If you had all the money and time, what would you do?”

Because a lot of times, whatever comes up in response to that is something you can actually add into your business or something you’ve been longing for or seeing as a possibility.

Makena: So those are more of the open-ended ones. Then there’s also the option to take this into different parts of your life, right?

You can really look at your business—which is a lot of what we’re talking about—or your career. 

You could also ask, “In my relationship, if I could do anything this year or have anything, what would that be?” Or maybe you’re calling in a relationship. 

Taking the time to look at the different areas of your life can really help stretch and expand you.

If you’re in business for yourself or even in your career, and you have a certain income goal, that’s a really important thing to look at as well. Because when you get to the planning part, you want to work backward from that and really see: How will you make that happen? What will create that? 

That’s where you start to break it down a little bit more.

Gigi: Yeah, exactly.

Makena: How do people really expand their thinking here? Because you have some fun stories of times when you dreamed something up—something you didn’t think would practically or realistically happen—but it planted a seed, like we were talking about. 

Can you share one of those?

Gigi: Yes, I’ve had so many of those in my life. One that comes to mind is when I moved to Amsterdam. My kids were basically grown, and I’d always had this thought that I’d love to live in Europe for a while.

Amsterdam—I loved the city, I loved the country. It was close to Germany and many of the places where I worked. 

I remember talking about it, thinking about it, throwing it out there as, “I’d love to live in Europe for a while.”

I’d been traveling and working there for 25 years by that time. I don’t remember the exact time frame, but an opportunity came up when I shared that. 

Within about 18 months, I ended up living in Europe—in Amsterdam, in a beautiful penthouse that I absolutely loved—having an incredible experience there.

If I had never thought about it, dreamed it, or thrown it out there, who knows? Maybe it would have happened, or maybe not. I wonder sometimes.

I’ve done that many times in my life. I’ve shared the story often about when I said, “I’m going to write a book.” Again, within about 18 months, out of nowhere, I got the opportunity. My book was published in Germany.

Another time, I talked about wanting to create a TV show. Then I got an opportunity with a production company. We didn’t end up selling it to a network, but I had spoken the dream first. 

I spoke the stretch first—I allowed it to be in my atmosphere. Through that, the opportunities came. Honestly, it wasn’t even that I took much action toward them. 

Sometimes, there’s just so much power in writing it down, speaking it to someone, and holding it in your vision.

Makena: Yeah, absolutely. There’s something about that. I don’t know if it’s the lack of action that created it, but maybe it’s the lack of stress or attachment that helped.

Gigi: There’s desire. We all know that the world of creation—where magical things happen—is about not having an agenda. 

It’s about having that desire, but in a way that’s innocent, where you simply own what you want.

And then, God, the universe—sometimes, there it is. Often, it just shows up.

A lot of times, we get in our own way.

Makena: Actually, that’s a good segue into what are some things that get in the way.

So, people take the time, they reflect, they vision. But what really happens then, as you’re going into your year? We all know the cliché—how many people actually create their so-called New Year’s resolutions, and by the end of January or something, 90% of people have dropped them.

So, what is that about? Why do people drop them, right? It’s not for lack of wanting to move something forward.

There are a few things I see. One is, we get busy. We just get super busy. 

Especially in January—I always laugh because we get into January, and it’s this frenzied energy every year. It’s like, “Oh my God. Everything needs to happen right now. Everything needs to happen this month.”

I feel like people just overdo it. They kind of get exhausted. And then, by the end of the month, they’re like, “Oh, whatever. I’m just going to go back to the way I was doing things before.”

So, that’s something to be aware of. The rhythm of your year—you don’t need to do everything in January, or even everything in the first quarter. It’s, like you said, Gigi, about creating a rhythm.

But there’s this thing of busyness, overwhelm, that we see frequently. I used to struggle with that a lot—at different times, and honestly, most times in my life—until these last couple of years when I really made a shift in that.

You really supported me hugely with this, Gigi, in terms of narrowing down and really getting clear on what’s the 20% of what I do that creates 80% of my results. 

Gigi: That’s Pareto’s Principle, right?

Makena: So, the 80/20 rule—it’s often called Pareto’s Principle. But still, you were the one who really continuously helped me hone in on it: “What are those things? What are my true gifts and superpowers, my zone of genius?”

And then, to really strategically see: How do I organize around that?

That was really the inspiration for the class that I’m leading in January—Focus and Flow.

Because now, that’s been so much more—it’s such a game changer for me and for so many of our clients, to be able to have time and space to really reflect and get support around that. 

To go, “What really moves the needle?”

And, “If I were freed up to be in my zone of genius, what would I be doing? How would I approach that? How would I approach growing my business this year?”

So, that’s really what that class is going to go deeply into.

And help you see—then make your plan. Not just to see what is that 20%, which is different for everybody, but then make your plan for the year.

And really help you move through some of that busyness and overwhelm so that you can create the big leaps. Because if you’re stuck sort of in the “doing, doing, doing,” or doing a lot of things that aren’t in your zone of genius, then it’s easy to spin your wheels—or just have that time go by and go by, and nothing really changes.

So that’s kind of a little bit more of what we’ll be going into there.

Then finally, the sales part, which is so, so important. And you taught me a lot about this as well, Gigi.

If you listened to our episode from the Unstoppable Woman Masterclass, Gigi shared her story about really when she made her first million and how she approached that.

And sales was a huge part of that, right, Gigi?

Gigi: A huge part of it. That was the key—knowing the game, knowing the numbers, and then going after them. In our businesses, we’re selling one-to-one, right? Or to groups of people. It depends on the kind of business you have.

Sales is so, so, so important in any business. It’s just—it’s a life skill. 

It’s something everybody needs. Sales is a life skill. It’s so important.

Makena: And it’s a word that kind of has a bad reputation. When people hear it, they go, “Oh, I don’t want to learn sales,” or “I don’t need to learn sales,” or “Sales is gross.”

We have this sort of association with it, based on whatever our worst experience with sales was. Or even if you haven’t had a bad experience, there’s that used car salesman cliché—the pushy person.

And to be clear, that’s not what we’re talking about when we talk about sales.

I always love to give the example of a kid who wants, I don’t know, a new Lego set. They are going to sell you and sell you and sell you on getting them that Lego set, right? 

They’re not going to stop. They’ll be like, “I want this,” and they’ll find every which way to convince you. That’s sales.

Or if you’re throwing a birthday party or some kind of event and you want a whole bunch of people to come, you’re making all these invitations, you’re excited about it—that’s sales, too, right?

So in that sense, we’re going to really reframe what sales is and help you see what an effective approach can look like.

We have a client in our mastermind who, just this last week, was doing some sales training with us. She was like, “Oh my God.” She had such a strong association with sales being pushy that she never wanted to follow up with potential clients for her business.

But once we started doing some of the training—which we’ll also cover in the Focus and Flow class—she had a pivotal shift. 

She said, “This is so different. It’s really about being in service to my clients and following up with them. And it can actually be fun.”

It was just this huge moment for her. You could see the paradigm shift happen.

I’m really, really passionate about this as well. 

So, in terms of moving your financial goals forward this year, I hope you’ll join me for that class. 

The link is wayofthemuse.com/focus.

Something else I wanted to touch on before we close, Gigi, is the idea of doing this visioning with other people, right?

You and I often do this together. You used to do it with former business partners, too. Can you share a little bit about why that’s so helpful?

You just talked about your daughter—my sister—who recently had this experience, where she did visioning with her team. 

What do you see there in terms of this creating a more fun and more impactful way of approaching their visioning and dreaming?

Gigi: Well, it depends if it’s in a business. If it’s in a business, it’s great.

If you have somebody who can structure the meeting and bring out the things in your employees—because often it’s not the owner that can do that. That’s where I do recommend getting support in that way, because then it’s not personal, and it’s really a structured class.

When people feel that sense of trust and being able to say things, they’ll start to really share what they’re seeing in their jobs, what they see in the company. And that’s so powerful.

To, first of all, have that open dialogue—a dialogue where you can share what you see, and you’re in an environment with other people that you work with.

Secondly, what it does is it creates more of a bond. 

And then you also start to tap the intelligence of the people that work with you, and that is so exciting. New ideas get formed from that—just from listening and being in that energy.

It’s kind of like the mastermind idea, right? 

When you put a group of people together with a shared common goal, there’s no resistance—nobody’s giving you a hard time. Then what happens is new ideas come from nowhere because there’s a supportive system.

So that’s in a company. 

As an individual, I think it’s fun if you have some people that you really enjoy or great friends that you’d like to get together with and do this together.

Again, it’s stimulating. Maybe people see something that you don’t see. You get to bounce ideas back and forth.

Dialogue—again, dialogue is so amazing. You don’t poo-poo anybody’s dreams. You just really ask questions and bring each other out.

There are all kinds of ways you can do this. You can do this as a family, you can do this in so many different ways. 

You can do this in your relationship, like you and Sunny do, Makena, with your partner.

It’s just fun. It’s fun when we can do it with people, right?

Makena: Yeah. So, I guess the big takeaway today is to take some time out, right? Carve some time out this holiday season. It’s always going to be busy; there’s always a lot going on.

But maybe it’s in that window between the holidays and the new year, or some kind of space where you take a couple of hours—or do it over two different days or something like that—and really reflect and dream.

Start with the dreaming, because from that desire comes the intent, the intention, the curiosity, the magic. 

And then you can really go and start to see how to structure, create your rhythm, and so on.

Gigi: These are not resolutions. Remember. 

Because when you sit down to resolutions, it feels like work a lot of the time. It doesn’t have that same energy.

So the distinction is that this is dreaming. Let’s make that distinction. 

If you want to do resolutions, that’s fine. 

But I’ll tell you, dreaming and reflecting—I think that’s so much more powerful.

Makena: Yeah. And it is that energy behind it. If you sit down and you’re dreaming, and it feels like hard work—like you were just saying—and you feel like, “Oh,” you’re very serious, or there’s no energy and inspiration behind it, then that’s your sign to maybe take a break.

Go for a walk or go somewhere beautiful—change up your state. Because that energy is where things build from. 

And we see this with our clients. Even when they have a big goal, which sometimes people can get very stressed or overly structured around, it’s the energy that makes the difference.

For example, one of our clients wanted to have a certain number of tax clients in the year. She’s done this for multiple years in a row now—setting these huge stretch goals for herself. And every time, she’s hit them.

But the energy behind it for her was always like, “Yeah, I’m doing this again! I’m so excited about it.” She would tell everybody—it was like a fun game for her, like you’re saying.

And what do you know? We have no doubt in our minds when she sets a goal like this that she’s going to reach it. That’s the energy we want behind it.

Gigi: Yeah.

Makena: Okay, that’s it for today. 

Gigi: Well, it’s towards the end of the year here, right?

Makena: Just a couple more podcast episodes left before the new year. So we’ll be in 2025.

Gigi: Enjoy your family, your celebrations, and we’ll see you in a couple more episodes—and then we’ll see you next year.

Makena: All right, see you next time.

Gigi: Bye-bye.

Makena: Hello. 

Gigi: Hello. It’s the holiday season. Do, do, do, do. It’s our time. 

Makena: I love your singing.

Gigi: Thank you. I’m going to sing again in this podcast. 

Makena: We’re going to have to start opening every episode with a song. I love it. 

Gigi: How was your holiday?

Makena: Very good. I love this time. 

Gigi: We saw each other, right?

Makena: Yes, yes, we did in Nashville. And now I’m heading to Sedona, leading a little retreat there for some of our clients, and looking forward to all the fun holiday family things coming up. 

Gigi: It’s super exciting. 

Makena: I’m also really looking forward to today’s podcast episode because this is a topic we’ve talked about a lot just between mother and daughter. And as I’m heading towards having kids of my own, I’ve been curious about your perspectives on it. It’s also one we hear from a lot of women–this topic of mom guilt.

Mom guilt shows up in a lot of different ways, and we’re going to talk about some of those today and why it’s so important to, as you’ve always put it, Gigi, “put the oxygen mask on yourself first.”

Why is that important? First of all, what do you mean by that? Some people get that right away. Some people might not travel very much, so maybe you want to describe what putting the oxygen mask on yourself first means.

Gigi: Yeah. You know, I started saying this, I think, 35 years ago, when I would work with women. They would put themselves on the back burner, and this is especially true when we become mothers and we’re busy–whether with our own careers, businesses, or whatever else.

What I mean by that is, if you’re flying on a plane and the oxygen mask drops, they tell you to put it on yourself first before helping the child next to you. And the reason it’s important is that if you don’t, you won’t be alive to help the child next to you.

It’s a very powerful statement, but it’s so true. 

When we don’t take care of ourselves first, we don’t have the energy, the vitality–our battery pack is low, our cup isn’t full. We don’t have the energy to take care of ourselves, and then we don’t have the energy to take care of our children and families.

It’s so counterintuitive to many people, which is funny, right? You’d think it would just make sense.

Makena: Has mom guilt always been a thing? This question is just coming to me in this moment. 

You became a mother for the first time at 18, right? And so, that was quite some time ago. 

Do you remember feeling mom guilt back then? Was it as big of a thing as it is now? 

Because I think it’s so rampant these days.

Gigi: I think mom guilt has always been a thing. Yes, I mean, through centuries. 

And I think you’re right–there is a distinction that now it has become a big thing.

Of course, as mothers, we often feel guilty about things, but the conversation around it has never been as big as it is now.

Makena: Do you remember experiencing that early on yourself? Personally… 

Gigi: Feeling guilty? 

Makena: Yeah, like feeling, “Oh, I need to put my kids ahead of myself,” or “I need to sacrifice.” Did you feel that pressure?

Gigi: I think it was a natural thing as a young mother that I would do because it’s what I saw my mother do. So I think that’s also how it’s passed on.

And as I developed and as I went into personal development and I really, really changed my life–and also was incredibly busy–that I saw the power and the reason to take care of myself first. 

So I could take care of and have the energy for my family and then also for the travel and the business and everything of us growing.

So I think if I wouldn’t have gone into personal development, absolutely, I think it would have been a direction that I would have really, really gone.

Makena: I think it’s worth saying because not everyone who’s listening to this episode has listened to other episodes of ours. 

Do you want to just share how many kids you have?

Gigi: I have five kids. And so, as you can imagine, as we’ll talk about a little while later, of course, I’ve had guilt with my children and challenges in that way. 

But the way I designed my career and life early on allowed me, for many years, to not have that guilt because I set up a world where that just wasn’t part of my conversation.

This is not what I did.

Makena: And you’ve got a lot of support and systems.

Gigi: Yeah, exactly. We can talk about that.

Makena: I think everybody listening probably knows, but I’m one of those five children. So yeah, we are a mother-daughter team.

Okay, so what’s one way that women can start–like a baby step that women can take–to start putting the oxygen mask on themselves first?

Gigi: Well, again, as we’ve talked about in many episodes, it’s finding what nourishes you. 

Make a list of eight things that really nourish you. 

And again, that’s something that makes you truly unwind–something where you really stop your world.

You feel like you get done with it, and you feel a lot more energy. 

And sometimes, that’s very different from self-care. It’s more about things that you enjoy.

For you, Makena, what is it?

Makena: Yeah, we’ve shared this before, which is reading fiction books. I just zoom through them–and fantasy books specifically. I can’t seem to keep them in the house fast enough to get through them.

I’m like, “I don’t have one right now. I finished one the other day. Another one’s not coming until Tuesday.” I’m like, “No!” 

Because that’s how I unwind, it really, really is.

If life feels overwhelming, I just need to sit for 20 minutes with my fiction book, and the world disappears. My body relaxes, and I really get this reset.

Gigi: For moms and young moms, if you’re taking care of your kids, your home, or you’re a stay-at-home mother, and they say, “I can’t do that; there’s so much to do.” 

I really encourage you to do it during nap time. Like you said, if it’s 20 minutes and then you run around and do all the other things you need to do, just that energy you’ll build there will last you and really make you feel so much more energized during the day than if you just put your kids down for a nap and then you run around and clean the house or do whatever you need to do.

And this is true, wherever you are. If you have a career, a business, or whatever it is, take that little bit of extra time. And that can even be your lunchtime during the day, maybe.

Or, if that’s for you–like for me–like, super nourishing for me are hot baths. They’re actually when I get out, I feel like a different person than when I got in. It’s really nourishing.

So you have to find what that is for you. And if you’re super busy, then you’ve got to find little bits of time because they add up over time.

Makena: Yeah. I mean, that’s how I started because I was so busy a few years ago and just overly packed my schedule. I had a big pattern around that, and we were running our business, and I had set my life up that way.

So, I started with lunch breaks in the middle of the day, as you said–just a short break while I was eating. I would read that fiction book, and it really gave me this reset, even if I just did it for 15 or 20 minutes. 

It just–again–everything in my body relaxed, my mind let go, and it really unwound me.

And a distinction around nourishers is that it can be anything, but it’s really something that you do for you. It’s something that unwinds you. It’s not going and doing something–usually not doing something with other people or for other people or anything like that. So really seeing what is that.

Gigi: I remember you used to – when you were still living in Austin. You would put your bathing suit on for a few minutes, go lay in the sun, and read your fiction books or your fantasy books.

Makena: Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes, it wasn’t as much of a nourisher if I did it this way, but I would do that while I was sending texts for our business or, doing a little bit of work. 

I’d go lay out there and get some work done, but I would also lay in the sun and get that vitamin D. That was super nourishing as well.

Gigi: Finding ways to slip those things in while you’re doing other things–that’s a crazy thing. Because we think of it as, “Oh no, I need this big, big stretch of time.” 

And that’s just not the way it works. If we’re super busy, there are times in life when you can do that, and there are seasons in life where you just can’t.

Makena: So one thing we see a lot is moms who have guilt about leaving their children. 

In other words, maybe they want to go on a little trip, like a bachelorette party, or maybe they just want to go out for the evening while they’re breastfeeding or managing everything else. 

And they think, “Oh no, I can’t leave my kids. I can’t leave my kids.”

So, of course, we want to say, first of all, with this episode, there are many different parenting styles and many different philosophies. You have to go with what feels right for you. 

But if it really is draining your batteries to a degree where you’re not able to be there as your full, nourished self for your children, that’s where we want to bring some of these topics in.

We want you to really take a look and see if maybe there are some shifts or a different approach you might want to try. 

So we’ll share our perspectives–or specifically, Gigi’s perspectives, since she has the experience with motherhood here. Take whatever serves you and leave the rest.

Gigi: I think it’s really important that we let you know, the listeners, again, we’re not giving you advice that you should do it this way.

It’s just one way. And if it doesn’t align for you, it’s completely okay. It’s–and, you know, what I’m sharing is from my experience, and your experience may be very, very different. So we’re not trying to make someone get something here.

But I think if you listen to the episode, maybe you can find one or two little tweaks that would assist you just in terms of, if you are having any kind of guilt, to maybe learn how to eliminate that or really not add more to your life at this point.

Makena: Absolutely. So what would you say to a mom who’s feeling that guilt around leaving her kids for any stretch of time? How can she approach that maybe a little bit differently?

Gigi: Well, I think, first of all, I would say, why are you feeling guilty about that? Like, what is it?

I know that for some of our clients, when they travel–we seem to attract the women who travel a lot, right? 

Some of them, small children, go on these trips, or they’re thinking about taking a trip, and then they feel like, well–they go on the trip, and then they feel bad about going on the trip.

And so I would really break it down and say, why do you feel guilty? 

Normally, it’s because, “My kids, they miss me.” And when I talk to them on the phone, they’re like, “Mommy, come home.” 

That’s what kids do, especially if they feel you have any guilt.

That’s what I would do. First, ask what the guilt is about, right? 

Makena: If the guilt is like, “My kids miss me,” or “They’re not going to be okay,” what do you mean by that? What would be–can you think of an example?

Gigi: So, like, “My kids miss me,” or, “I think they’re worried because maybe the kids feel alone.” Like, when you’re not there, maybe they’re going to school, and they don’t have you there. 

What it is is that somehow we put ourselves in a situation where, if we’re not the ones doing it, then somehow our kids aren’t going to feel strong in some way.

And so I really look at how you can set it up in your life. If you are going to take a trip and you’re going to be gone for a while, how do you set it up so your kids feel supported, and you feel supported, and you don’t make it into a big deal? 

Because that is one of the biggest breakdowns, I think that moms get into guilt.

And then, of course, the children feel that, and the children are going to act on that. 

Does that make sense?

Makena: Yeah, you often say, like, leading up to the trip, the moms will kind of have a certain energy, or they’ll say certain kinds of things. Can you describe that a little bit?

Gigi: Yeah. So leading up to the trip, it might be, “Honey, you know, oh, Mommy’s leaving. I’m sorry. I’ll be back.” 

And in the tone, there’s already this energy–this feeling of the kid being like, “Oh, my mommy’s going.”

Instead of going, “Hey, you know what? I’m taking a trip, and I’m going to be gone for a few days, but, you know, either Daddy’s here, and you guys are going to do this, this, and this. It’s going to be a lot of fun. And, of course, I’m so going to miss you, and it’s going to be so okay because I’ll be back in a few days, and then we’ll go and do this together.”

So, there are two very different tones. Do you get that?

Makena: Yeah, and I even think it could be fun to create a different narrative around it–take it a step further and go like, “I’m going to go on this trip. We’re going to miss each other, but the fun thing about missing each other is that it’s just a feeling in your body. And then when we see each other again, it feels so good–it feels even better, right?”

Or, “I’m going to go away, and I’m going to get so refreshed and recharged that I’m going to come back, and I’m going to be–yeah, like something like that.” 

Getting them invested in this, like, “Okay, you are going to have these feelings, but it’s going to be even better when we see each other again.”

Gigi: Absolutely. That’s beautiful, Makena. Really beautiful.

And so, when you start to have those kinds of conversations with your kids, it’s not something bad that’s happening or something unnatural that’s happening. Kids won’t know any different. 

You guys were raised like this. You were raised with a nanny. We traveled. You stayed at home sometimes. I would travel to Europe; you would be home. Sometimes, we’d travel together for three months at a time.

And I don’t think–now, this might not be completely true–but I think most of the time, you felt pretty cared for. Of course, we missed each other, but I never put it on you all like, “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

Makena: Yeah. Absolutely. As you said, there were also systems set up to make sure that we felt supported and that we were good there.

So, that’s just really thinking through with your partner or whoever’s caring for the kids and how that’s set up. 

And, again, I think that you feel settled as a mom, and they feel settled–as much as can be, right? It’s going to be out of their routine, but you can talk them through all of that.

Gigi: Exactly. When your child says, “Mommy, I miss you.” 

And you say, “That’s okay. It’s all right to miss me. And I’m going to be back.” Or, like you mentioned, “Hey, Mommy is here, she’s getting stronger, more relaxed. And so when we get back together, we can have more fun together.”

So, you can change the context. 

If you feel in yourself like, “Oh,” then your child is going to feel that. But if you feel like, “I’m doing this for me and my family, and I feel great about it,” then the kid will feed off that energy as well.

It doesn’t mean they’re not going to say they miss you, though.

Makena: And most people won’t go either, right? They don’t go on the trip because they feel like, “I can’t leave my kids,” or they don’t go to the dinner because they feel like, “They’re going to miss me.”

And I think that when they do go, they feel guilty about going, like you’re talking about, and then that energy goes into the kids. And that affects them, and it affects the mom.

And we’re talking about mom guilt specifically. I don’t know–I’m sure some dads have this as well–but we’re just speaking in terms of, you see it more commonly with moms.

There’s another story that you told me recently, and I loved it, from our mastermind program, Wealthy World Changers. 

We have a lot of moms that work with us. Can you talk about that story?

Gigi: There were a couple of moms talking about. They were traveling, and they were going to the retreat. 

And they were feeling like, “Oh, you know, it’s what, eight days or nine days?” Especially the ones that come from Asia, right? It’s probably a good two weeks for them, especially if they stop off somewhere else.

And finally, I just said to them, “You know, ladies, your kids need a break from you.” And they were just like, “Oh my gosh.”

Because a lot of times, kids have a lot of fun when you’re gone, right? And if you’re there and you’re not happy anyway, or you’re longing to be at the retreat, they’re going to feel that as well.

So, you can think of it as this time for you to nourish yourself and give yourself what you need to feed your soul and energy. So when you go back, you’re a much better mother, a much better partner, and so much better in your business.

Many of the women that have worked with me off and on for years know this. 

They’re like, “When is the next retreat?” They have no issues anymore–no more mom guilt. 

Makena: Absolutely. So, let’s talk about moms feeling like they can’t ask for support from their partners–or their partners are supporting in some ways, but they feel like they need more support.

We see this in all kinds of relationship dynamics. I especially see it in dynamics where maybe the partner is the main breadwinner because there’s even more of this sense where the mom feels like, “Well, if that’s their role, then my role is to take care of the kids. So, I can’t–or shouldn’t–ask for more support.”

And that could be support from your partner, or it could be hiring support, whatever form that takes. 

But what would you say to someone who is struggling with this? Like, how do I get support? I’m feeling overwhelmed. Should I even ask?

Gigi: I think I’ll just start with the one where, if you are a full-time mom, or you’re working part-time–maybe from home–but basically, you’re really managing the day-to-day of your children.

And it is true. I see this sometimes, especially with younger relationships, because the partner is the breadwinner, and the mom feels like she can’t ask for help or can’t get outside help, like spending money on it.

First of all, the act of taking care of children, especially young children–one of my daughters has two under five, right? And when I get with her and spend time, I’m like, “Oh my gosh.” Yeah. Because she doesn’t have a nanny or something like that. She does hire in some help. 

The amount of emotional bandwidth, physical bandwidth, and everything else that goes into it is unbelievable.

That job is such an important job. 

To feel any kind of guilt around that–you finally have to own your worth there because your worth is that you’re doing something to provide care and love for your children.

In many ways, women are sacrificing for a time building their careers, but they’re choosing it because they really want to do that. They may change that at a later date. 

So it’s so important to own that worthiness and then to be able to talk to your partner and see can they support you in some way?

One way of doing this is to see the areas that you really love doing, right? What is it that you enjoy? 

Like for my daughter, she saw that she really loved being with the kids. She just didn’t want to do the extra cleaning and picking up the house every day and all of that. So, instead of hiring somebody to take care of the kids, she hired support for someone to come in and really help with the household things. Because she loved being with the kids. By doing that, she chose to get the right kind of help. 

It’s really important to see what you want to do, and then also to notice what drains your energy. And see if you can get support in that area, right?

Then you can go to your partner, and you have this open dialogue about it. It’s really important in these situations to not go in complaining. I think, often what happens–is the breakdown of communication in this area. 

We feel tired or frustrated or whatever. We feel like we’re not getting the support we need, so we go in and complain: “I really need support, and I’m not feeling well, and I have to do everything.”

If you think about it, when you come from that place, nobody really wants to help you. 

So, you really want to get clear about what you want. Then, you go in and request your partner’s help to see how you can solve this together.

Does that make sense, Makena?

Makena: It does. I think that same process is really true, even for those who are not stay-at-home moms–where both partners are working.

It’s the same process of, instead of going in and complaining, really looking to see, “What do you want?” Then make a clear request and really be a team with your partner. See how you can make that happen together.

I remember–this was a funny example–but remember years ago when I wanted to get someone to clean our house once a month? And, you know, it could be quite expensive, especially in California.

I went to my husband–or I don’t know if we were maybe boyfriend and girlfriend at the time–but I said, 

“Listen, you know, I really don’t mind cleaning up throughout the month. We both do that, and we pitch in. But it really feels stressful for me, like the deep cleaning doesn’t get done enough. So I’d really love for that to happen.

I would either love that you and I deep clean the house”–I don’t remember if I said once a month or every other week–“or, if that doesn’t work for you, I would love to hire a cleaner.”

And he was like, “Great, let’s hire a cleaner.”

If I had just said, “I want to hire a house cleaner,” it wouldn’t have been as good of a conversation. 

But I was like–go ahead.

Gigi: Or you said, “You know, I’m so tired of doing this. This is not all my responsibility, blah, blah, blah.” 

Same thing is that, you know, “Well, too bad, you stay home,” right? Or whatever.

The way you approached that was beautiful.

Makena: So it could be a similar thing with your partner,where it’s like, “Hey, here’s where I’m feeling some stress, or here’s where I’m struggling. You know, I’m not sure.” That’s the thing too–you don’t have to bring the solution. Like, “I’m not sure how to get this handled.”

You can ask and then say, “Do you want to step in and do some of this with me? Or do you think we should hire some help?” 

Let your partner also help come up with a solution, because the reality is you just need whatever that support is. So, get really clear on what that is beforehand. 

Like with my sister that you were talking about–she really saw, “Okay, I want to be with the kids, but I don’t want to be doing all the cleaning up all week. I can’t do both with two small children at home. There’s constantly laundry, there’s constantly dishes, there’s constantly these kinds of things.”

And so, in that, she was able to make that request, like, “Hey, I would love to have someone in here, whatever that is–10 hours a week or something–to help with these other areas so I can really focus on raising our kids the way we want to be raising them, loving them, nurturing them, and feeling more, you know, sane and cared for.”

Yeah. So getting clear on what that is, and what would you love? Is that a certain number of hours a week or certain times? And really bring that to your partner.

Gigi: And if it’s something where you’re with your kids a lot too, and you really want to have more time with your friends or, get your nails done or anything, it’s the same approach. 

You say, “You know, I love being with our children, and I really feel like I need time and space for myself. And when I get that, I can be so much more present for our relationship and so much more present, you know, also with our kids.”

And so, “I’m curious–would you be open to taking the kids several hours a week or on a Saturday morning? Or should we get support? How should we approach this?”

And that’s dialogue, right? That’s bringing these things up–not coming from a complaint, but coming from a request–and then allowing the other person to really share what they see. And then, you’re choosing together.

Makena: If you need to complain first–because I know some people just have a lot of stuff built up in them, and they’re feeling resentful–do it. Like, journal it or something. Get a piece of paper, write out all your frustrations, write all the reasons your partner’s not showing up, or whatever it is you’re feeling, right?

Because you’re stressed, and you’re tired, and whatever else. Dump it all out on a piece of paper. Like you always say, Gigi–tear it up, throw it away. But you’ve gotten it out.

And then ask yourself–because you want to go into the conversation with your partner clear on what you want–ask yourself, “What is it I really want here? And what’s the result I would love?” And that’s what you go into the conversation with. Super, super important.

I want to talk about another one, which is the good mother syndrome. This is something we see a lot. And I think, more and more, too, as people are getting more educated about trauma and things like this. People want to make sure–I think it’s always been around to some degree–but they want to make sure their kids have good childhoods, that they turn out well, and that they’re not traumatized or anything like that.

And so, it becomes super stressful. I see this in some moms where it’s just so stressful for them because they’re trying to get everything perfect.

Gigi: Good mother syndrome, right? It’s trying to do everything so perfectly that you don’t screw up your kids. 

This is a conversation that is so everywhere today, which, again, was not true when I was raising my children.

We were just kind of doing whatever we were doing. And, of course, we made tons of mistakes. I do understand that being more conscious is a wonderful thing. And it’s also a gift that we have the time and the opportunity to be more conscious. 

But I do see that it kind of stops mothers sometimes from really just allowing themselves to be the kind of mothers that they are.

Early on, when I was raising my kids in my early years, my mentor at that time–so I was trying so hard to be a good mother, trying to do everything right. And one time he said to me, “Gigi, you’re not a good mother.” And I was like, “What do you mean I’m not a good mother?”

And he said, “It’s not the kind of mother you’re trying to be. That’s the mother that’s there all the time and doing all the right things.” 

And that’s true. I’m a mother that–I’m not. I don’t want to be home with my kids all the time. I’m not that kind of mother. I wanted to build my career and be with my kids–I wanted to do all kinds of things.

So, it was a very different kind of mother than the one I was trying to act like trying to be so perfect. 

And when I went more into who I was and started building my business and including my children, and designing my life around what I wanted to do–but also including my children–then that was really me being a good mother, right? That was my style.

And I think that because if you ask every mother, they’re going to tell you something different. We all have a different idea of what a good mother is. 

And so, I think to really, really relax around that and see what’s important for you.

I always say you’re going to screw up your kids. There’s no way around it. I’m just going to tell you right here: they will absolutely not be perfect.

And here’s another thing. I have five children. Every child has a different story about who I am. Some are very similar. Some are very different–very, very, very different. Because, again, we’re talking about the child seeing life through their perception.

The other thing is you’re going through different things at different times in your life. And at those different times, you’re a different kind of mother.

If you’re always trying to be a good mother, you’re basically not really present. 

You’ve got to really see–basically this: if you love your kids, and you’re good to your kids, and you keep them safe, and most importantly, foster their spirits in terms of who they are and what they want to do, then that’s all you need to do.

That’s it. Everything else is an added bonus.

Makena: Because otherwise, you see the kids that grow up, and they go, “Oh, my God, you tried to protect me too much. You babied me, you coddled me,” like, whatever it is. 

It’s like, no matter what–we did this, we did that–yeah, there’s always going to be something. There’s always going to be something.

And yes, to your point, I agree. You can be conscious, you can be aware, you can really look at what are the things that are important to you.

But to me, the good mother syndrome is anywhere you’re putting pressure on yourself because of what you–like, because of either trying to get it perfect, or because of what you think other people think, or because you think you should do certain things.

As opposed to, your point, Gigi, which is really looking to see what’s actually important to you. And what are the things that you can let slide because it’s just not that important to you? It’s really getting down to what’s your style, what’s your approach, and what really feels good.

Gigi: What your values? How do you want to raise your family? What are your family values?

And then, when other people are different, don’t make them wrong either. Because that’s what I see–there’s this, “Oh, they do it that way, so they’re wrong. And I’m doing it this way, and I’m special,” you know, whatever way people are doing–everybody mind their own business, basically.

Makena: Before we go to the last topic, we wanted to talk about, Gigi, could we just touch on the flow of energy in a relationship and a family?

If someone is in partnership while they’re raising their kids–and we know there are many single moms out there, so that’s a different scenario–but if there is a mother, children, and a partner, what is the flow of energy in that family dynamic ideally?

Because most of the time, I think what happens is that it’s from the mother to the children, and then the mother feels depleted, and then the partner feels may be ignored. And, you know, there start to be breakdowns over time.

Gigi: So, the proper flow of energy in a dynamic–and we’re talking about maybe, a partnership, male-female, let’s say, or it could be same-sex relationships–but it works like this: 

First, you take care of yourself. That is the oxygen mask on you first. And that’s key to being able to be present there for your partner and your kids.

But secondly, when you have children–and this is where it really shifts–a lot of times, when children come into the mix because they’re very loud and very busy, the attention starts going to the children first. 

And believe me, I do understand when you first have a baby or something like that, it’s almost impossible not to do that, right?

But it’s very important to set up the systems early on so that your relationship with your partner comes before the relationship and energy with your children.

Here’s what I mean by that: It’s very important to set up systems where you have a date night once a week, or you have time together away from your kids. And I know, if you can’t hire a babysitter or if it’s difficult, a lot of times family members will support, or friends that you have, so that you two have time alone and can care for each other.

And then, once you do that, here’s what happens: You feel refreshed, and then you put the energy into the children. And that is a beautiful way to build energy in a family system.

Because if you don’t do it, what happens is the couple will grow apart. They’ll start to grow apart, and then everything becomes about the children. Then they lose communication, and conflict comes in, and we basically ignore it. We just keep putting attention to the children, and this is how people grow apart.

I’m going to be very honest with you–I’ve worked with thousands of people and seen this dynamic. 

And it is this: This one piece of making and being responsible for your partnership with your partner comes before the care and time with your children.

Now, of course, you can’t say, “Oh, I’m going to go be with my partner and not take care of my children.” But you understand where I’m getting here–you set up the system. It needs to be weekly. It needs to be even more than that as the kids get older.

Otherwise, the family system will become weak. And even though you’re taking care of your kids, you don’t have this strong family system. And eventually, the kids feel that.

Makena: Any of these dynamics can cause breakdowns over time. So if you’re not putting the oxygen mask on yourself first–which is the first place the energy needs to flow–then what’s going to happen is you’re going to feel depleted. You’re going to start to feel exhausted. You won’t have the energy to give to your kids and definitely not to your relationship if you’re in one, right?

And that’s where resentment starts to build because people get overtired and taxed. And that creates this–it’s a break in the energy, a weakening, like you said, of the family system.

And then, very much, if you’re not, from there, coming from a place of, okay, you’re getting your cup filled, and then doing something consistent within the relationship to foster that, then, same thing–over time, it creates that weakening or breakdown or division.

And none of that serves your children in the end. 

That’s the thing that’s so powerful about this. People think, “Well, no, I’m sacrificing for my kids, or I’m doing all this, and I just need to focus on them right now.” But in the long run, the health of you, your family, your partnership, and the children–it’s so much about this energy flow.

Make sure that that stays strong.

Gigi: And it’s a cost to the family system–hugely. And I won’t go into depth. I see many more things about this, but for this podcast, we won’t go into that.

But this is so important for the health of your family system and the health of everybody.

Makena: This is where the communication skills really come into play. And we’ve talked about this on this podcast before–Gigi’s course, The Way of Growing Love.

If you don’t have tools for relationships, there are many places you can gain them. But if you are curious about learning from us–especially from Gigi around this, which is her genius–then you can check out that course.

It’s at wayofthemuse.com/growing-love. We’ll link it in the show notes as well.

I just wanted to touch on that because I feel like that’s such an important piece in terms of the health of the relationship.

And one last thing I want to say on that–or the family overall–is that I do know when people have young kids, they feel like, “Well, I can’t do date night because I can’t put the kids to sleep,” or, “What if the kid wakes up?”

And that’s where you can get creative and go, “Okay, is there a time in the day when your kid is usually awake–maybe on the weekend?”

Yeah, and that’s when you get some help, right? You know the kid’s going to be up from their nap, or maybe during their nap, and then when they wake up, some kind of time where you could get somebody in–whether that’s a family member, a friend, or hiring some help–and have that time with your partner, right?

So, you can get creative here. It doesn’t have to be a date night because I know bedtime is a big thing for a lot of families. But some kind of consistent time where you go with your partner.

Gigi: I just want to say, I know that when you get the kids to bed, and parents have been working all day, they’re exhausted–I get that.

But here’s the thing: if you set aside time and then make that time, set up your room with candles, and just go in and massage each other’s feet or something like that. That’s going to build energy. It doesn’t take energy. And this is where people don’t think.

Or you go in, and you put on some music, and you dance together. That’s going to build energy. It doesn’t take energy. 

Do you understand?

Yeah, and it’s in our minds–we think, “Oh, if we have to set aside time, then it’s going to take this energy.” You want to look at what are the activities you could do once your children go to bed.

Set up that time for intimacy–and intimacy is not just making love. It’s so many other things. It’s really spending some time together.

Get in and take a hot bubble bath together. If you’re going to do that anyway, have your partner come join you. Again, it builds connection and energy. It doesn’t take any extra time. It doesn’t take any extra effort.

Makena: Absolutely. Okay, one last thing. This is a really important one, especially for moms of older kids or maybe moms whose kids are grown. There’s often things about the past that come up where a mom thinks, “Oh, this time that we went through–that was really hard,” or, “I did this thing, or I didn’t do this thing.”

Or at some point, the kids start coming to you and saying all the things that you did wrong, right? 

Gigi: We had several. 

Makena: So, what can a mom do who’s struggling with mom guilt about something in the past?

Gigi: Yeah, this is a tough one. And I have to be honest–I went through this for a lot of years. Having five kids.

Makena: We put her through the ringer.

Gigi: Well, I put you guys through the ringer. I made a lot of mistakes during my parenting–many, many, many mistakes. 

There’s no excuse for that or whatever. I had guilt about it for many, many years and really couldn’t get myself up and out from under that.

So that, again, is why we teach it now–because I would love to accelerate that process for anybody else who’s going through it, so you don’t waste your time doing that.

Guilt is something that, as human beings, we feel, right? And then we beat ourselves up. 

When I started to transcend this, the first thing I had to do was, anywhere that I felt guilt, I had to really look and see: Was there something I could do? Was there something I needed to make right there?

And if that was true, then I would go to that child or to that person as much as I could. And I would apologize. I would talk through it and go through these really uncomfortable conversations. It doesn’t mean they always went pretty. 

They weren’t always easy–some were very difficult, some were very challenging.

In our family dynamic, for years, we had times where this was an issue, or that was an issue, or certain people were mad at each other. Like you said, I went through many years where one kid was upset with me because of things from their childhood, and then the next year, the next one was upset with me.

So, it was a lot. 

But what I saw over time was that, when I did that, it started to clean things up. And as I cleaned things up and made it right, the only thing I could do other than that was move ahead and try to be a better person–or, I think I’m a good person. I should say it differently–to do the things that were right or take different actions.

And so, I think for yourself, if you’re carrying around a lot, that’s the best you can do. The more guilt you have in yourself, the more you need to go and see: Is there a way to make it right with the person?

If there’s not, then write a letter. Burn it. If that person’s gone, they’re no longer on this planet, write a letter, pray–but do this in such a way that you do it consciously to allow yourself to let go of it.

That is the best you can do. That’s the only thing you can do, right?

Because when we carry it around–I was listening to this Alan Watts, whom I love–he was giving this speech. And he said, basically, that what we’re guilty of is that we made a mistake in life. That’s all it is. We made a mistake in life.

And everyone makes mistakes. We make mistakes all the time.

So, I just want to share with you: Everyone makes mistakes. Yes, they do. Your sister and your brother and your mom and dad, too. Big people, small people. Matter of fact, all people. Everyone makes mistakes, so why can’t you?

If everyone in the whole wide world makes mistakes, then why can’t you?

Makena: Wow, we got you singing twice in an episode! This is going to be the best episode of all time. We’re going to watch the ratings, and the ones where you sing are going to be the ones that are off the charts.

Gigi: So, if you want to know who sang that song, it’s Big Bird. You can go find it–it’s Big Bird, from Sesame Street.

But truly, that is the truth. You made a mistake. And, you know, Alan Watts talks about that. It’s almost like a badge of glory when we keep on rehashing and rehashing it and making a really big deal out of it.

Finally, the courageous thing to do for everyone is to let it go.

For me, when my kids would come back to me–and like I said, this happened a lot–I would go into this spiral of guilt. But as the years have gone by, now I just go, “Okay, here’s the next one.”

Maybe I feel a twinge for a little bit, and like I said, if there’s something to apologize for, I go for that. And then I have to let go of it.

I’m a different person today. My kids have no idea what I was going through at that particular time in my life. Our children don’t know our experiences or what we were dealing with at that time.

Then the other thing is to give yourself a break. Be kind to yourself. That kindness, and teaching your children kindness to yourself instead of guilt, is one of the greatest gifts in the world you can give them.

Makena: Absolutely. And you might need to create a little ritual around it or something, you know? 

After you’ve made things right in the way you can–in terms of apologizing or whatever it is you feel you need to do–create some sort of practice where you say, “Okay, again, I want to journal this out,” or, “I’m going to light some candles,” or whatever that is for you.

And really step over an imaginary line, whatever you need to do, to say, “I’m letting this go. I’m putting this behind me.”

And that’ll create so much space and freedom.

I’ve watched you do this, Gigi, over the years, and it’s been really powerful. I was thinking about that as we were talking here just a minute ago–that I feel like you’ve taught me this skillset.

Not only–I’m not a mom yet–but in life, how do you, if you do have guilt about something or you feel bad about something, how do you make that right and then come to peace? 

Because there’s nothing else you can do, and it doesn’t serve anyone for you to walk around carrying it.

Gigi: The hard thing is, when you do go and have those conversations–I remember a couple of them–there was a lot of anger and blaming me.

And I couldn’t resist that. You know, if you want to get in there, even if you feel like a lot of it’s untrue, you can’t go in and argue about it. I just took it and said, “Right on,” because for me, it was worth it.

It was worth getting that through and getting that out of our family. 

And in that–we talked about this the other day–in our family dynamic, we have peace in our family, in all areas. Huge peace.

That’s remarkable if you think about it–for five kids, and then four of you are married, with children and everything. 

We’ve really, really created a harmonious family system that has a lot of peace in it.

Makena: It’s taken years. It’s taken years and years.

Gigi: And of course, we’re human. We have little things here or there, but yeah, 

But this is the thing, too–we’ve all been willing to do the work.

Makena: Absolutely. So that’s our episode on mom guilt. I think there’s so much here, and hopefully, no matter what stage of motherhood you’re in, you can really listen, take something away from this, and maybe give your mom a little bit of a break as well.

Gigi: Yeah, absolutely. I say… I wrote an article years ago that said, “Give your parents a break, no matter what they did or whatever. Give them a break.”

Like I said, you have no idea what your parents were going through when they made the mistakes, or how unconscious they were, or how they didn’t even realize. 

You just have no idea what people are going through.

That’s a great thing about our work. After working with tens of thousands of people in different shapes and forms and writing books for them and things like that, you see the human experience. 

Most people have no intention of hurting other people. It’s not what they’re out there to do.

Makena: People are doing the best they can with the tools they have at the time.

All right. Thank you, Mama, for sharing your wisdom.

Gigi: Thank you.

Makena: Can I go share this episode with all the moms in my life? 

Hopefully, you listening will do the same–help us spread the word. If you enjoyed this, if you got value out of it, share it with your mom friends, share it in your mom groups–like, whatever, wherever you think it would serve.

Gigi: Yeah, yeah.

Makena: We’ll see you next time.

Gigi: See you next time.

Makena: Bye.

Makena: Hello, everyone. Happy belated Thanksgiving to all of you in the U.S.! 

Gigi: Hello, hello.

Makena: We are recording this episode leading up to Thanksgiving so we can have a nice holiday break. Gigi and I are going to be seeing each other in Nashville.

Gigi: Yeah, I can’t wait. We’re going to visit Brianna.

Makena: My sister lives in Nashville–so we’re going to spend the holiday there. We’re bringing our dog, Chloe, and it’s going to be lots of doggies, my husband, and it’s going to be super fun.

We hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving and everyone else in the world a great last week of November. 

Gigi: More into Christmas and everything, right? The festive times.

Makena: Yeah, absolutely! Or whatever holidays you celebrate. 

Today, we want to talk about a topic that came up in a coaching session recently.

We were both in a session with a client, and I was taking notes. I thought, “This would be a great topic for the podcast,” which is people-pleasing. 

A lot of people say, “I struggle with this. People-pleasing is something I do, and I don’t know how to shift it.” 

So we want to share some things that have worked for us or our clients and support you with this important topic.

What do you see, Gigi, around people who do a lot of what they call people-pleasing? 

Like doing for others all the time, maybe at the expense of themselves, or feeling like they have to say yes to everybody else when asked.

 What’s usually going on there? Tell me a little bit about this.

Gigi: Well, I think you should share what you observe because you’ve worked with a lot of people.

Often, I see resentment underneath–they feel frustrated and unheard. I think that’s the other thing. There’s resentment, and people feel unheard because they feel like they can’t say anything.

What about you? What have you experienced when you’ve seen it with clients?

Makena: There’s definitely this feeling of, “I do all this stuff for everybody else, and I’m not taking care of myself first.” 

This is something we talk about a lot on the podcast–the importance of caring for yourself first or putting yourself first.

Often, it’s a pattern. The main thing about people-pleasing is it’s a pattern. 

Somewhere along the way, when you were young, it was helpful. It got you attention or helped you feel more connected to your parents or feel loved. 

It’s not about making that wrong but being aware of it. Then it’s about asking if you want to shift this because you have to want to shift it to really make a change. That’s true of anything. 

But often, there’s something that people get out of people-pleasing too.

There’s the part that doesn’t feel good, but there’s also something you get from it, or you wouldn’t keep doing it. That’s really important.

Gigi: I see a lot of times people do it because they want to feel loved. They think that by doing it, people will reciprocate. 

And when they don’t, that’s when they feel disappointed or let down. It’s like, “I’ve done so much for this person or my family, and I don’t feel like it’s coming back to me.” 

Often, it’s done because we want to feel loved.

Makena: Loved or appreciated. I think a lot of times we want people to notice, you know, that we’ve done these things and maybe to feel more connected to them.

So it’s really important to look at what do you get out of it. 

Because then you can really take a look and see, is there another way you could get that? Or is it something you’re really willing to make a shift in? 

And so, one of our clients–we were on a call recently–and she really saw that she’s in this space in her life where her kids are grown.

And she really wanted to make a change in the people-pleasing department, or in her case, maybe it’s not just people-pleasing, but it’s putting everybody else ahead of herself, right? Doing all these things for the family, doing all these things in her relationship, and for other people in her life as well.

When we talked, she really saw that, oh, there was a part of her that had chosen to do those things. She really took responsibility for that and was like, “I made that choice,” and that was really empowering for her to see. 

It’s also about taking ownership of the fact that you’re choosing to do that in some sense. Maybe it’s an unconscious choice, or maybe it’s just something you’ve always kind of done. But if you’ve chosen to do it up to now, you can actually choose something different.

And we’ll talk more about that.

Gigi: And so what did she see, Makena, about how she wanted to change that when she noticed it and chose it?

Makena: The main thing is, she just saw that she was ready to make a different choice. Not that she didn’t want to do things for the people in her life, but that she wanted to choose more consciously the things she did want to do–let’s say for her family, or her partner, or her friends.

So she could really walk through and go, “Okay…” 

Maybe even write down–I don’t think we did this in that particular call–but you could write down, what are all the things I end up doing for other people, right? All the ways I end up people-pleasing or going out of my way for others. 

And then really ask, “What do I want to do here? What do I really feel good about?”

Because some of these things feel good to do for other people. I think you’ve said this, Gigi–that often there’s a component where people genuinely want to do things for others. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Gigi: I think it’s about making that distinction too. What do you want to do for people? 

If you want to do it for them, then shifting your attitude to come from a place of wanting to do it is key. 

If you don’t want to do it, then it’s about choosing differently.

It depends. If you have to do something, a lot of times, it’s about changing how you approach it. 

But I think it’s so important to see this because a lot of times people want to do things for others. 

I’m very much a service person. I love being in service to people. When I consciously choose how I’m in service, it brings me joy. I actually love it.

Sometimes, people ask me, “Why do you do that?” And I think, “I do it because I enjoy it.” 

But what gets in the way is when you start doing things you don’t want to do–or when you do things that bring you joy but you don’t feel appreciated. 

That’s when we can get resentful and make it feel like a chore.

Makena: There’s so much here we could unpack. Going back through some of the things we’ve already said, what do you get out of it? 

And not to make that wrong, either. If you really enjoy it, if it brings you joy, that’s one thing.

If you’re doing it to get people to appreciate you or love you more, then maybe that’s something to take a look at and say, “Maybe that’s not the healthiest or best reason to do it.” 

Do the things that bring you joy, that you enjoy doing for the sake of doing them, even if they didn’t appreciate it. 

Or, of course, they might appreciate it on some level, but even if they didn’t say it verbally or didn’t do something in return, that’s still a healthy way of giving to others or pleasing others.

It’s also about the language people use. I hear terms that have become very common in popular culture, and “people-pleasing” is one of them. 

It puts a negative slant on something that, for some people, isn’t all negative.

As you said so beautifully, Gigi, “I’m a service person. I enjoy giving to others.” As long as you’re giving to others from a healthy place, where you’re taking care of yourself.

Gigi: And Without expectation, because that’s what gets in the way. When we do something, we project that people are like us. 

And believe me, I’ve had that happen many times. I’m in service to people, and unconsciously, I don’t realize I have some kind of expectation. 

I think, “Oh, well, why wouldn’t they do the same?”

But that’s just not a healthy way to approach it because everybody is different. When I go into something with an expectation, it takes the joy right out of it because I’m waiting for someone to do something for me.

Makena: Yeah, and a barometer for that–a way of checking–might be to tune in and ask yourself, “Do I feel frustration? Do I feel resentment when I’m doing these things? Or do I feel joy?” Is it actually feeding your energy and increasing your joy, so to speak, or is it draining you and making you feel frustrated?

Sometimes, people will swing the pendulum the other way, as well. 

Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because people often go, “Oh, I’ve been giving, giving, giving to other people, and now I don’t want to do that anymore.”

Gigi: What I see there is sometimes people start being really rude. They’ll say, “No, I can’t do that.” Or it’s like when you hear people talk about boundaries–they start setting boundaries, and then they start saying, “No, I’m not going to do that,” or, “No, I’m not going to cross my boundaries.”

It’s the same thing with people-pleasing. 

Instead of coming from a place of, again, “What is it I want to do? What is it I don’t want to do?” and then really having a conversation and saying, “Listen, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

You don’t need to be really rude about it. You can say, “That is something I’d like to handle differently. Let’s see how we can get that handled without me having to do it.”

I think that’s what we do with our clients. We help them get really clear on what they want to do and what they don’t want to do, and then, again, we set up systems to help them make those changes.

Makena: Otherwise, it’s this thing of people–like you’re saying–they start getting, as you called it, a little rude. They start getting very abrupt with their loved ones, or they just say, “Well, no, I’m not going to do that,” or, “I don’t do that anymore. I’m taking care of myself first,” or something like that.

Versus, like you’re saying, the other alternative is to really be clear and say, “Here’s what I’m available for,” and to be in communication about that. “Here’s what I’m not really available for.”

And to your point, Gigi, if it’s something you’ve been doing for a long time and you suddenly make that switch with your loved ones, it’s going to be a big shift for them. 

They’re going to be like, “What?” You’ve basically developed this role, and you’ve helped establish a pattern. 

Let’s say it’s a child of yours, and they’re used to you doing certain things and behaving in certain ways. That’s a pattern you’ve created in your dynamic.

And then if you suddenly change that and say, “I’m not going to do that anymore,” they’re going to be like, “What is going on?” Of course, there’s going to be some pushback. 

That’s where I think a lot of breakdowns happen when people start to make these changes, versus really being in there and asking, “Okay, what is the need that I was filling before that’s not going to be met anymore?” 

And, like you shared, “What’s a system we could put in place? How can we approach this differently so that you’re on a team with your loved one and not just leaving them hanging and changing everything overnight?”

So, when we’ve done this with different clients, there are a couple of stories we wanted to share. 

For one client, her family members were coming and asking for money for different things. Do you want to share a little bit about what we did?

Gigi: So finally, we had that client really look and see–what did she want to do? How did she want to contribute financially to the different family members who were coming to her?

Because before, she was giving a lot of money and taking care of so many things. We had her reflect on what she was willing to do and what she wanted to do. 

She got super clear about where she wanted to give, where she didn’t, and where she wanted to stop completely.

She went in and had those conversations. They were a little uncomfortable, but it freed her up so much because, first of all, she no longer had those energy leaks–where she was feeling frustrated or taken advantage of. 

The other thing was the financial leaks. She got to decide where she wanted to allocate her money and how to use it for different things.

She really cleared up all these areas, and it strengthened her so much. She felt empowered in her life, and it gave her a skill set. 

Now, when people come to her, she thinks through decisions very clearly–whether it’s about giving financially or with her time. She decides exactly what she wants to do and then communicates it to the person, saying, “This is what I’ll do.”

A lot of times, people will come to you and say, “This is what I want,” and we feel like we have to bend ourselves out of shape to meet their expectations. 

But when you own it and get super clear about what you’re willing to do and what you want to do, it takes all that frustration out. It stops the resentment as well because you’re in the driver’s seat in your life.

Makena: And in this case, but also in many other cases of people-pleasing, sometimes the people who are asking for whatever it is–it could be money, it could be time, or it could be something else altogether–might make you feel a little guilty, whether that’s consciously or unconsciously.

There’s this thing of using maybe a story or bringing up something that might be true, but in a way that sparks guilt for you. Then you feel like, “Oh, I have to do this,” or, “If I don’t do this, I’m a bad person.”

What we’re talking about here is really getting clear in advance. If you know those kinds of things come up with certain people in your life or in certain dynamics, take time to get clear in advance on what you want to do. What do you want to give? What feels good for you? What feels like enough? Or do you not want to give anything at all? 

It completely depends on the dynamic.

Then, have that conversation with the person. Know that they may still come back and say the same kinds of things–or something else entirely–to make you feel guilty. 

You’ll have to sit with that a little bit but stick to your guns in terms of what feels really right for you.

Is there anything else you see around that?

Gigi: No, that’s good.

Makena: One other scenario I see a lot with people-pleasing is when someone becomes the person everyone goes to because they know they can ask for favors, or they’re always there to help or pitch in a helping hand. 

So, everyone asks–friends, family members–and that person often says yes. But then frustration starts building, or resentment starts building, or they’re just tired and overextended.

What would you say to that person, other than what we’ve covered already?

Gigi: I would say you have to step back and see what you want. In those situations, I find it’s often people who may have more time, and it’s kind of become known that they’re the person to go to because they’re willing to do it–simply because they don’t have “their thing.” They’re not taking that time for what they want to do.

It just becomes this bad habit of saying yes, but it’s a little bit of a distraction from actually taking the time to sit down and really ask, “How do I want to be spending my time? What is important to me? What do I need to do for myself? How do I want to spend my next year?” 

Instead of thinking, “How do I want to spend my next year doing all the different things for everyone else?”

It comes back to what we say about everything: looking to see what you want and making sure that you come first. 

When you do this, and you have a clear, grounded feeling in that, then you can’t be pushed and pulled all over the place. You choose very wisely about the activities or the ways you want to be in service or the ways you want to give that are, first of all, in alignment with your values. 

And second, in alignment with the time you’ve allotted to be in service, help, or support.

That’s a systems issue there. They have to create the structure for it. It takes a little time to sit back, reflect, and figure out what that is, and then work forward from there.

Makena: Yeah. I was just looking back to see if we had any podcast episodes that could help with that. 

We have: Your Greatest Gifts, Discover And Own Your Superpowers – Episode 21. We can link to those in the show notes. 

That’s really nice to really get in and see if you’re not sure how you want to be spending your time or what your focus or purpose might be. 

We also have What’s Next, Getting Clear On Your Direction – Episode 17. 

And I think the last one I would say is Become The Woman You’re Meant To Be Confidently Create Your Biggest Dreams – Episode 5. 

So those might be some interesting ones. 

If you do find yourself in that position–and of course, everyone’s busy, and everyone has things to do–it’s not that we’re saying you have nothing going on. It’s about really looking at what you want to put your energy into.

When you have things you’re excited about in your life, things you’re working on and moving toward, people will naturally stop reaching out to you all the time. Or if they do, you’ll have something going on and can say, “I’d love to, but I’ve got this going on.”

So that’s a really great perspective–another way of thinking about it.

Gigi: I think it’s super important, and it depends on where you are in your life. Are you retired? Are you doing a lot of charity work? Or is it because your family requires a lot from you?

But again, you have to ask, “What is the amount of time I have that doesn’t completely derail my life?” And then that’s the time you have. From there, you choose wisely. 

First, like we talked about, where’s the joy? Where do you want to give? If it’s your family, where do you really want to be in service so that you feel the person truly needs support and you want to be there and be supportive?

If it’s someone in your business and you’re busy, then it’s about asking, “Where is this in alignment with my values and the way I want to give back and be of service?” 

And a lot of times, another way to look at it is, “Where does it also grow me and serve me–whether it’s in my business, my life, or whatever?” That’s another important perspective to consider as well.

Makena: Great question. Someone asked me this years ago, and it really stuck with me. This was more in the sense of how you want to give back in the world and things like that. But when you’re feeling overwhelmed with all the different ways you feel like you could give or should give–and this could be true in your relationships as well–a great question to ask is, “What is mine to do?”

What is mine to do? Or, to your point, Gigi, “What do I want to do?” Between those two questions, I think you can really find what’s in alignment with your values or what you feel called to.

One other thing I see with people-pleasing is that there’s often a fear or a desire to avoid conflict or confrontation. That may be why the people-pleasing is happening. You don’t want to say no because you’re worried that people will get mad, or they won’t want to be connected to you anymore, or whatever that is.

It’s really important to make that conscious and ask yourself, “What am I afraid of here? If I say no, or if I say I’m not available for that, what do I think might happen?”

 In some cases, you might think, “Oh, I think they’re just going to get upset with me.” In other cases, you might think, “They would cut off the relationship or blow up,” or something much more dramatic.

It’s important to walk that through and think, “Okay, maybe that’s not a healthy dynamic in the first place if that’s true.” Or, maybe they would get mad and then come back later, and everything would be fine.

Being worried about conflict isn’t enough of a reason to keep going past what feels right for you again and again, because that’s not the foundation of a healthy dynamic over time.

Gigi: And again, the way you approach that is by saying something like, “I love you, and I feel like I’ve really been supporting you, but I’m in a position in my life right now where I can’t do that.”

So you don’t go, “I’m not going to do that anymore.” 

The way you approach it is huge. They still may get mad or upset, but at least you’re coming from a place of kindness and acknowledgment, not from being abrupt about the situation–like we talked about earlier.

Makena: Yeah. And I would really recommend the episode Harmony at Home to learn more about the skill of acknowledgment before you go in and have these conversations.

Gigi: Are you looking at a list? How do you remember?

Makena: I was before. I’m not now. That one’s off the top of my head. 

Gigi: Like, wow, we did a podcast on that. Wow.

Makena: They all start to blend together after a while in our minds. Earlier, I was like, “Let me look at the list and see what might be helpful.” 

But this one, Harmony at Home, is about conflict and having more harmony in your relationships. We do talk about the skill of acknowledgment in there.

And that’s something I wanted to highlight, or you mentioned earlier, Gigi, that when they come to this kind of conversation, if they have the tool of acknowledgment first, it can really bridge something. 

Because otherwise, if you go in saying, “Oh, I’ve been doing all of this, and I’m not going to do it anymore. I’d like to do it this way,” even if you bring it in a very respectful way, people can get defensive. 

They might say, “Well, I didn’t tell you that you needed to do this,” or, “You’ve always done this, and I do all of this for you.”

When you go in really acknowledging first–and we talk about how to do that in the episode–it can create a bridge to have the more challenging conversations.

Gigi: Yeah.

Makena: Yeah. So, one last thing we wanted to touch on here is how people can approach this. 

Let’s say you have a recurring dynamic of doing a lot of things for other people. We see this a lot in families, especially when the kids are grown now.

For example, let’s say the parents are planning a family trip. In the past, everybody just expected you to do everything, right? You plan the trip, you look everything up, and everybody else just shows up. 

How could someone approach this differently, Gigi? How do you see they could approach it differently?

Gigi: Yeah. How do you see they could–what could they do there?

Makena: The biggest thing is to get everybody involved and really make a request for what you would love.

Like we said before, it’s about getting clear on what you want to do and then inviting and involving everybody else. That could be done in different ways. 

You could think through all the different components of planning this trip that you normally take on. Then make a list of those components and put a little mark next to the ones you enjoy doing or would like to do. 

For the ones you don’t want to do, you call a family meeting. This could be over Zoom if you’re not all close together.

You might say, “Hey, we all want to take this trip–super excited about it. Normally, in the past, I’ve done a lot of the planning. I’ve taken a lot of this on. I’d love to approach it differently this time and get everybody involved. I think it could be really fun. Here are some things I’d love to get your support with. Here’s what I’d like to take on, and I made a list of the other areas I usually handle. I’m curious–who would like to volunteer to do this or that? What else do you see? What ideas do you have?”

By getting everybody involved in such a way, if nobody volunteers, you might have to assign tasks. 

For example, you could say, “Everyone takes a vote on who thinks this person should do that,” or something similar. That way, everyone is part of the process.

Usually, what we see is that people actually have fun with it. They enjoy being part of the planning process. 

This is true not just for family trips but also in other contexts like leading teams. People often want to help, but they aren’t given the opportunity because you’ve been taking on all the pieces yourself.

Gigi: Yeah, absolutely. You can say, “Here’s the budget,” and that’s a beautiful way to approach it. You can do that in your personal life, and you can also do it in business.

For example, if you have all these things to accomplish, you can ask, “Who wants to take on this, this, this, and this?” 

And like you mentioned, Makena, people are sometimes hesitant because they feel like they can’t do it, or they’re not going to do it the right way, or they won’t do it the way you expect it to be done.

So you have to really open up and let other people take control. 

You can even make someone else in charge of it. They can come to you and bring updates as they’re working on it, and you can give your approval along the way.

Makena: Yeah, and there is some degree of not micromanaging here too. It may not be done the way you would do it or to the degree you would do it. 

If there is something that’s really important to you, then you take that one on.

For example, if it’s really important to you that the restaurants are a certain way, then maybe you’re the one researching the restaurants. 

And then there’s acknowledgment–acknowledgment and appreciation for what others do contribute and what works. 

Recognizing how people are contributing is so important.

Call a family meeting

Gigi: Yeah, it’s great to have a family meeting.

Have everyone come together and see where you are in the project. Everybody gets acknowledged for what they’re doing and appreciated, and then they want to contribute even more. 

That makes for a fun trip.

It’s no longer about you having to do everything. It’s about everybody feeling like part of the process, and it makes for such a richer experience.

Makena: Yeah, and we just did this. Sunny’s parents were in town for about 10 days. 

As we did growing up, Gigi always called family team meetings, and then we would all do acknowledgments.

We would all share what we wanted to be acknowledged for–what we were proud of, or some way that we had contributed or shown up in a way we were proud of. 

So, we did that with his parents while they were here a couple of times. We’d all be sitting in the kitchen, making lunch or something like that, and I’d say, “What does everybody want to be acknowledged for?”

His dad would say, “I want to be acknowledged for this,” and then we’d all clap–wildly clap for each other–and then move on to the next person. 

Sunny and I do this in our relationship a lot as well. 

It’s something you could do even while you’re on that vacation: call everybody together and let everyone share what they want to be acknowledged for–what they did to help contribute. Then everybody claps and gets a chance to be seen.

Gigi: Yeah. Nice, nice. 

Makena: Yeah. Beautiful. Well, that’s a few notes on people-pleasing. 

So, we do want to share–today, the day this episode is coming out–is Black Friday. Yay! 

We’re doing something we’ve never done before, which is offering some amazing, amazing Black Friday offers on bundles of different courses that we offer. 

Be sure to check them out at wayofthemuse.com/BlackFriday. They’ll be up for just a few days.

Most of the bundles are about 70 percent off–somewhere in that range. 

This is something we’ve never done before, and I don’t know if we’ll ever do it again. 

It’s really an opportunity for you to jump in. If you’ve been curious about working with us or taking a course with us, you can get several courses in one.

We have smaller bundles and bigger bundles to support you on a lot of different levels. So, check those out at wayofthemuse.com/BlackFriday. And we’ll see you next time. Bye, everyone.

Gigi: Happy Holidays. Bye-bye.