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If you feel like you are not yourself lately, this episode is for you.

I share the “extreme recovery” strategy I used to get back on track after a 3-day event. I noticed myself scrolling at night, chasing chaos, and unable to relax while meditating.

The strategy I share in this episode is what got me back on track – and what I do to stay on my game as an entrepreneur, mom, and CEO.

Key Takeaways

• How to know when you need a reset, not more discipline
• How to make consistency your default mode
• A BTS on the exact strategies I use to reset as a CEO!

 ____________________________________

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh:

We are better than this. We’re not doing this. I am holding myself to the standard, but I know when I get myself to a regulated place, I will be able to do it easily, like without force. And I think that’s a difference. I’m always trying to demonstrate for you guys the difference between ease and force.

It’s like you still have standards and expectations for yourself, but you can do them from a place of ease. When they are in alignment and when you are regulated and when you are leading from a place that you know is the best for yourself. Embodied CEOs don’t chase trends. They pave the way. They lead from within.

Move by purpose, unshaken by noise. When you are the source, you do not need permission. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are having an amazing week. I’m coming off the snow. It was really ice. The ice mageddon in Texas, it was honestly really cozy and sweet. But we got ice, straight ice, like it was coming down like snow, but it was straight ice.

And so we had, our roads were just thick ice for two days. But my kids had the best time ever. It was the best. Like we live in a neighborhood, in a cul-de-sac and. All the kids were outside sledding and playing all day for three straight days. They didn’t have school two of the days and it was super sweet.

So it was great. And I’m gonna talk about my weekend a little bit and what I learned in that and some lessons I’m learning. So I thought in today’s podcast episode, I would share with you a few lessons that I’m learning right now because I always trust when I’m learning lessons and. Going through what life does and teaches us and we get better that somebody else could benefit from it.

So I also love to be real, like I definitely have the value of you can have it all and a super optimized life in all the different areas. And for the most part I do a really good job at that between being present with my kids and all my training and. The business and just like prioritizing different things.

And I also like to be real when I have like human moments. And so here are some lessons that are top of mind for me. So the first one is I was really struggling with my routines at the beginning of the year and really like probably for the last six to eight weeks, I went on a trip to California. And I stayed up really late on that trip.

And so between it being Pacific time, two hours before me and then also staying up late, it was like me staying up, if I stayed up midnight, California, it’s 2:00 AM and I was with my brothers and I was having a great time and so I stayed up really late and since that trip. For Thanksgiving, I have struggled with my routine of waking up early and doing my meditation and doing what I do in the morning.

And for a long time I was naturally just waking up when I wanted to. I don’t like setting an alarm. I hardly ever set an alarm for myself because I also train a lot and I need to get a lot of sleep. And I think sleep is. Like one of the most important things that we can do for our health. And so I don’t usually set an alarm, but I was naturally waking up at let’s say 6, 6, 6 30.

And I was, had a really good routine, super solid meditation practice after going to Joe Dispenza last year. And I would just naturally wake up and I would do that and it was like so dialed in and I fell off of it. Okay, so I’m being real here because like I preach my meditation practice and I fell off of it a little bit.

Like I would do it here and there, but for a month I was not consistent and it was the holidays and then my kids were home. Like all the excuses, right? And it’s okay. We fall off our routines sometimes. Like I, the old me would’ve beat myself up for that, but I now I realize just like it was just a little small season.

But anyways, I was really struggling going into the new year. I also went on another trip to California and so my time zone got off and then I just was struggling with getting up early. I was also staying up too late and I was scrolling. I don’t really watch tv. I pretty much never watch tv. So instead, I sometimes find myself scrolling and then it’s you know when you’re like, I need to stop doing this, and then you keep doing it, you’re like glued to it.

It’s so bad. I hate it so much. And so I would do that at night and only at night. It was like at night. I just needed the thing that would just be like numbing me out. I didn’t have to think. I would watch funny reels on Instagram, like just consume in a not healthy way, and I know it’s not healthy. And so I was really struggling with that.

And finally I had enough. I was like, this is getting ridiculous. You need to pull it together and figure this out because also it’s having struggles with wanting to go on my phone and I know when I’m doing that, it’s a dopamine thing. It is like you’ve been on your phone too much and so now your brain wants more because there’s the science behind it where.

You can, you get the dopamine hit and now all of a sudden that dopamine hit is not enough. So you need more and you need more, and you need more to be able to satisfy your brain. And so when you end up scrolling a bunch and you end up on social media a bunch, you go down this rabbit hole of your brain wants more and more of it because it can’t get the same satisfaction that it got from that first dopamine hit.

So this last weekend. I came off my event, which I always underestimate how much those take out of me, and I don’t train while I do a live event. So then I’m always like, I’m behind in the gym because I just took three days off from training. And also though, you just extended yourself like mentally your energy and poured it into a room for three full days and hosted an entire event.

And being me and the lessons I constantly need to learn. I didn’t really take time off like the Sunday after the event. I went and ran really hard and. I ended up feeling like I had a cold again, and then that week, just like a lot happening in the business because I also hosted the live event. And so while I’m hosting the live event, I’m not working in the business.

And so things pile up as if I was on a trip, even though I wasn’t on a trip, I was hosting an event. Things I need to fix in the future and better prepare for because I have this issue where I tell myself the story of it’ll all be fine and I’ll just figure it out and I’ll be able to do it all, but it’s not gonna work as I scale.

So anyways, I was feeling pretty burnt out by the end of the week, but also realizing like I was. In a pretty negative way, consuming because my mental capacity was so low. Like I couldn’t focus the same I was like getting distracted. Just not me. On top of this, the other lesson, I won’t go too into detail of this ’cause it’s like I don’t really even wanna talk about it ’cause it’s frustrating, but I injured my shoulder.

Right after coming back from the event, and as I’m saying this, I’m like it was probably your, partly your nervous system. I was doing qualifiers for a competition, and so you have to do these workouts that you film and then you submit them and you’re trying to qualify to get into a competition. That happens later on in the year, so they’re pretty challenging workouts, and so I came back Monday and did two qualifiers.

One of the qualifiers was a one rep max, so as heavy as you could go, jerk. So overhead with the weight and I was trying to PR of course, and I did. I hit my goal weight and then I went five pounds heavier. Failed it once, did it again, and this you had five minutes to do it, did it again. And as I went up, I felt like a pop in my shoulder and I hurt my shoulder.

It. Thankfully, I’ve been to multiple specialists and like all my people I have the best body workers and chiropractor and all the things. It’s not any sort of serious tear, but I did hurt myself and I’m doing everything I possibly can to heal, but it is taking a while. It’s been eight days. I still can’t hang from a rig and do pull-ups.

I can’t lift weight overhead, and I have a competition in three days. A big competition that I got into at the end of the year, and I’ve been training for three months. And so that was also weighing on me like I was, I’m frustrated because here’s what happens to me is I am somebody who likes to control.

And I like to be in control, and this is a strength of mine because it’s like I create this reality of I’m gonna go to this competition. I’m gonna crush it. I’ve been training for three months, like I’m ready for this. I also had it in my mind, I’m gonna make these qualifiers. I wanna make this competition because it’s in California.

My family can come watch. Like I had it, I had the plan in my mind, right of what I wanted and how I thought it should go. And the universe and my body was just like, sorry, that’s not how it’s gonna go. So last week I was really burnt out. So going into the weekend I was like, you know what? It’s the ice storm and I’m gonna take the weekend and make it like an extreme recovery weekend.

I deleted Instagram from my phone, which I need to do more, and every time I do it, I’m like, should I even ever go back? But I deleted it from my phone. And I spent the weekend, like I slept a ton. I read an entire novel, like not even a business book or a learning book. I read a novel. I played with my kids.

I, played games with them. It was the ice storm. We went outside the day before the ice storm. I took ’em to the coffee shop, like I did the sauna every day. I did red lights. I got a deep tissue massage. I did all the things to recover, and I felt amazing. Coming back Sunday I prepped for the week and came back on Instagram and it’s it’s so amazing how just like a 48 hour reset, reset everything enough to where I don’t crave it anymore.

So that’s my point in all of this. My point is when you fall off track to an extent where you’re like, what am I doing? And you feel out of control. You’re like, this is not me. Like me scrolling Instagram at 10 o’clock at night and then not being able to wake up early for my meditation is not me, but I’m sharing it because I’m human and I have those moments where I fall off, but I know how to get myself back so I don’t shame myself.

I did recognize like you hosted a huge event. You’ve had a ton going on. Like you went from a trip to like straight into a lot going on in the business, to hosting an event, to obviously kids, training all the things and caught up to you. Your way of coping right now is numbing out with dopamine in the form of social media and your phone, because being present feels hard.

It feels like effort, and this is not you. And what I know I need to do is, one, I don’t shame. Two, I don’t go, this is me. I’m not like, oh I’m just like in a season where I am not meditating or I’m not doing things. I still hold myself to the standard and say we’re be, we are better than this.

These are the conversations I have with myself. Come on, Emily, get off the phone. We are better than this. We’re not doing this. And you have to do a reset. You have to do some sort of like bigger than just I’ll try again tomorrow. And so for me, this last weekend was my reset. It was like, I am gonna take it to the extreme measure of recovery for my nervous system and being present.

I will invite myself into the opportunity of sitting in stillness even when it’s uncomfortable, because I find when I’m in those highly stimulated, dysregulated moments, being present really hard. Because my system is like chasing the chaos. It got addicted to the chaos, it got addicted to that. And so it’s hard for me to really be present.

And so I’m like, we’re gonna sit in this discomfort. We’re gonna take social media off your phone. We’re gonna take it all off your phone, and we’re gonna sit in this discomfort until it becomes easy again to be still. And so I did that this weekend. And I reset. Like here’s my simple habits that I’m committing to this week, and one of them is I can’t touch my phone or social media.

I can touch my phone, but like anything beyond just answering a text message until nine 30 in the morning. We’re gonna get back on track with our meditation, and then the phone goes away at 9:30 PM at the latest, and then I’m gonna do this weekend. I think social detox every weekend, I think is what I’m gonna implement.

But anyways, come into the week and guess what you guys naturally, this morning I woke up at 6:00 AM yesterday, 6:30 AM I did a 90 minute meditation yesterday, and I’m not having to force myself. Like it’s happening because I reset everything because I, I did a re a big reset and I focused on, on recovery.

I focused on resetting my system and giving myself that space to tune out the noise like that. That’s what I need when I get in that space. ’cause my brain is going okay, we gotta do this. And it gets addicted to that chaos. And the chaos is only amplified through being on social media. So I say this to share, I’m human.

I fall off track. That’s how I get myself back on track. And so if you’re there where you’re like, I got some habits, I got some things that are not really my, like highest version of me and how I wanna be showing up, do a reset, take it. Even if it’s one day, take one day. Tune out all the noise. It was a weekend too, so I had zero work noise, like no slack, no email, nothing.

I was just present. It was a bonus that it was an ice storm. And so we were home all day, but like we’re in like the, this vortex. And lemme tell you, by Monday I was ready to get outta my house, that’s for sure. But I really enjoyed it that the weekend that I had. And so do a reset, tune out the noise and you’re gonna be so surprised how clear you think when you come back.

Come back Monday. I did my meditation. I was working on something in the business, like a project that I have to work on right now or I get to work on, and it was like these just. Drops of clarity came in where it was like, of course. Okay, that’s what we’re gonna do. That makes sense. That’s the shift. This is how that’s gonna work.

Around some things we’re doing with our offers and things I’ve been really sitting with for two months and it was so clear. Clear as day in the most simple way, easy to execute, like didn’t have resistance, didn’t have force. And I know that the only reason that came in is because I took the weekend the way I did and I totally disconnected and.

I regulated my system again, and the best thing about it is that now getting up to do my meditation, putting my phone away at night, another thing I’m doing is putting my phone away and I’m reading a novel. For me. I really don’t enjoy tv. I know that’s weird. I actually think TV’s probably better than scrolling social media.

So it’s not even that I like hate tv. I do hate screens, but it’s. It’s better than scrolling social media. So it’s, I think our brains need some things that we don’t have to like, think to consume. A game is great, but we can’t just always play games with people. I would love to do that, but I’m gonna read my novels.

I used to read so much more and then. I think I tell myself like a novel isn’t productive and so I then, I wanna read the nonfiction books and the things that I can learn from. But the thing is, I’m not doing that at nine o’clock at night. I will read the same paragraph five times and not consume it because I can’t do it at nine o’clock at night.

So I’m gonna go back to my novel. And that’s what I’m gonna do. 10 pages at night before bed instead, and I end up reading more. Usually it’s the best getting buried in a novel that you can’t put down. That’s how I was this weekend. I couldn’t put it down. And I’m like, I read, 280 pages in two days, just like in the novel.

And all of these things now feel easy. And that’s the key is I’m not forcing myself to be like, you have to meditate, you have to do this. Like I am holding myself to the standard, but I know when I get myself to a regulated place, I will be able to do it easily, like without force. And I think that’s a difference.

I’m always trying to demonstrate for you guys the difference between ease and force. It’s like you still have standards and expectations for yourself, but you can do them from a place of ease. When they are in alignment and when you are regulated and when you are leading from a place that you know is the best for yourself, if that makes sense.

Like you’re not going, oh, I’m gonna meditate ’cause Emily meditates, but you’re like, what’s in alignment for me? How should I start my day every day? And all of this to say as well as a, not only business owner and CEO, but somebody who values, having it all and optimizing all the different areas of your life.

This is how you do it. Like you’re going to have seasons where one part falls off and the other needs more attention, and it’s a constant game of cycles and seasons and it’s not linear. Like every single day of my year is not the same. And I think we think that about people that we look up to as like I get asked all the time like, what is a day in the life of you?

I get asked that so much. Tell me exactly how you spend your day. And I get it. ’cause I’m curious about that of people that I look up to as well. And the thing is how I spend my day. Shouldn’t be how you spend your day. It’s also different all the time. If I am truly in alignment and in tune with myself, because where in my life needs attention is going to shift and change week by week, month by month.

And I have to be in tune with where that energy should go and where that time should go. And it’s the same for the business. Like I do not do the same thing in my business every day, ever. The only like same thing I do is communication with my team and then record podcasts, but I don’t have a repeated day because I’m constantly trying to be in tune with where my energy needs to go and where my time needs to go.

In order to be in tune with that, you have to be regulated and you have to be able to have the capacity. To ask yourself those questions and to feel into those things. And I have learned so much over and over again how life business, us as being, we’re not linear. We’re not black and white. It’s not here’s the schedule, do it every day.

And the old me wanted that, like I used to plan my day to try to have the same exact routine, the same exact schedule every single day. And now I have habits and goals, but when they happen, how they happen, it can shift and change. Sure. I’d like my meditation to happen every morning. Is there gonna be a morning?

I sleep in one day and I’m sick or whatever I needed to sleep. Yeah. And I have to allow for that within my life. ’cause that’s reality. So that’s a big lesson I’ve learned and I thought it’d be helpful to share in real time as I I rerouted myself back, back on track. And we are so back. We are so back.

And I feel amazing this week. And the second lesson I already talked about, but I will talk about again, is, CrossFit and training teaches me so much. It teaches me a lot. It teaches me a lot about myself and any sport that you’re gonna pursue to the max, right? Like I am constantly trying to walk the line of training.

The most that I can without injury. And then you add in competitions and the qualifiers and the things that I’m doing, and you’re at a risk for injury. And that’s the reality. And so when people say to me like why are you doing CrossFit? It’s CrossFit. That’s injuring you. No, if you’re gonna take soccer, juujitsu, anything to the extreme like that, you’re at a risk for injury.

Marathon runners, triathletes, like you name it. If you feel called to pursue that. That is a ri a real risk. But there’s a lot of lessons in that because I cannot force my body to heal. I can give it all of the best tools I can. I have done chiropractor, I’ve done hooked up to electric things PEMF machine peptides injected in my shoulder like you name it.

Natural. I’ve done it in the last week, eight days. It’s only been eight days, nine days, and it’s getting better. It’s getting better every single day, but it’s slow and it’s slower than they want it. And last week, so I injured it on Monday and I had till Sunday to finish the qualifiers. I had four more workouts that I had to get done that I couldn’t do because I was now injured.

And the day I injured myself, my coach was like, I think that you have to let go of doing the qualifiers. Like you gotta focus on the com other competition you have, and even if you got better, then you went and did this qualifier and you re-hurt yourself, now you’re out for the competition. It’s just not worth it.

And I was like, okay, yeah, whatever. And in my, I don’t even wanna say head, but like on the surface I was like, okay, I’ll surrender it deeper down. I was like, I am gonna be better and I’m gonna do these qualifiers this weekend. Gimme four days, and then I’ll do all four workouts in two days this weekend.

But on the. Surface, I pretended like I surrendered. It was like, okay, I’ll surrender it, like whatever happens. But deep down the story I was telling myself was like, no, you’re still gonna get to do these. You’re gonna push and I have enjoyment. And yeah, let’s do something crazy. Let’s get better in four days and then do four workouts in two days and be fine.

And still make it like that sounds so fun to me. But again, I was reminded on Friday when I finally did have to accept like. There’s no way that I’m gonna be able to do that this weekend. And on top of that, there’s an ice storm and my gym probably won’t even be open Sunday. So that leaves me with one day and I can’t, I literally physically can’t do it.

I can’t do the workouts, I can’t do the movements. And I had to surrender. And it’s a lesson in like the plan that you think should be, the plan is not always the plan. And. What I love is my kids, they are very involved in my CrossFit. They know, you know what’s going on and they do kids CrossFit class.

And I told them I picked them up Friday from Kids CrossFit. And I said, yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to do the qualifiers. And I’m so bummed. And my 10-year-old goes, mom, maybe you weren’t supposed to do them. And I’m like, yeah, I know. He’s maybe something bad was gonna happen to you at the competition if you did them or you would’ve gotten hurt, like you’re not supposed to do them.

Oh, it makes me like a little emotional saying that, ’cause I’m like, yeah, you’re right. You are right. I don’t know the reason why I am not supposed to do those, but I’m not, and I can, I get to just accept that because why? Why would I fight it? Like it is not up to me. My body is healing. It is taking the time that it needs and.

I am doing everything I can in my control to help it heal, but then I have to surrender and that is so much easier said than done. That is for sure. And I think that, I like to think that I’m good at that, but I’m, I really struggle because it’s no, I had a plan. I was gonna make this competition.

Like I already planned that I was making the competition, I was going to California for it, and my family was coming to watch like it’s done and. I couldn’t even finish the qualifiers, and I had to watch my score just drop as everyone submitted their score because I wasn’t submitting workouts and my son was right I don’t know the reason, but there is a reason why I’m not there.

And that, maybe it was, I don’t know. I don’t know. I could speculate all day, but I think that’s also just such a lesson. Let’s say business, when something doesn’t work out, you don’t hit a launch number. You don’t sign the client that you wanted. Something doesn’t go how you thought it was gonna go, how you had your mind set on it going as long as you did everything you could to.

In your control, which is how you showed up the actions that you took. As long as that was everything you could have done to get to that point, it doesn’t even matter. And this is the thing with goals, I’m saying this out loud and like processing this as I speak, because I think goals are great and I do set goals, but I think one reason I’ve had a harder time recently setting a lot of goals and I’ve kept it more simple, is it’s like.

I don’t know. I, if I am going to trust more of the unknown and I’m going to trust that plan while keeping myself accountable for actions. I don’t need all the goals anymore. Let’s make the target, the revenue or the, some sort of impact, and how many people you’re impacting. And from there it’s like how you get there is not up to you.

But you have to also be balanced with the accountability of doing everything you can. If I would’ve injured my shoulder and then just sat around and not tried to rehab it, not tried to do everything I possibly could, then I would’ve been disappointed because then I would’ve had the narrative of what if I could have done more Now, going into this competition this weekend, praying that I get to compete I’m making the call at the last minute.

Going into that, I know I did everything I could. I did everything that I could to make sure I could compete, and from there I have to surrender. I think it’s Dispenza who says, the what? You get to put out there and become the person who has that. But the win and the how, it’s not up to you.

And so I’m handed that lesson all the time, and I think it’s such an important lesson in business because you probably already have, almost could guarantee you have and you will have many more times. Things that don’t work out how you wanted them to, goals that you don’t meet, sales, that you don’t hit, numbers, that you don’t hit.

All of those things are going to happen as long as you can say, I did everything I could. To try to hit that goal, I showed up as the best version of me. I took the action. I did what I thought in that moment with the knowledge and the skills and the wisdom I had was gonna get me there. I needed the experience, I needed the journey, and then we learned through it, right?

Because there’s lessons for me here. Should I have done that one rep Max the way I did the day after an event? No. Like I’m gonna learn. I’m gonna take the experience. I’m gonna apply it next time. And as long as you do that, it’s everything else gets to be surrendered. And you have to trust, like my son said, you are not meant to.

You are not meant to hit the goal. You’re not meant to hit. I’m not meant to compete at that competition and I don’t know why and I don’t need to know why. But I can trust it. All right, everybody, hopefully you got something outta those life lessons that I’ve been learning. But I am back, I’m back in my meditations.

I am like fully recharged, inspired, and good to go. I’m sure I will have another time that I fall off, but like that reset, that’s how you get back. That’s how you get back is you’ve got the expectations. You know how you wanna show up. Like I know how the best version of Emily shows up and I know how to get myself there.

All right guys. I’ll talk to you next week.