Explore every episode of the podcast The Mental Offload Podcast

For many, October means the start of pumpkin spice season. But if you’re in the corporate world, it means something else:

Year-end review season. 

Along with it comes something most of us have a complicated relationship with: feedback. 

We all love positive feedback. 

But the prospect of critical feedback?! Let’s keep it real: wouldn’t you be happier to just skip it?

Feedback – especially the ‘constructive’ sort - can bring up fear, anxiety, and stress. Just thinking about it is enough to bring on dread.

And let’s keep it really real: women and people of color often need to contend with biased performance feedback.

There’s that old management saying, “feedback is a gift.” But sometimes, that gift can feel like it’s laced with poison. 

In this week’s episode of The Mental Offload Podcast, we’ll deep dive into how you can receive feedback with more grace and confidence, while still advocating for yourself.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why moving beyond the “A-student” mentality is key to receiving feedback well

• Techniques to stay calm, ask smart questions, and handle difficult feedback

• The art of pushing back on biased or unfair feedback

• The top quality to cultivate to receive feedback better

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Ever feel like managing your family’s calendar is a part-time job?

You're not alone.

Modern parenting = calendar chaos.

Your commitments, kids’ pickups, drop-offs, activities, medical appointments, parties—everything competes for your time.

It’s not just the physical running around. It’s the mental gymnastics of squeezing it all into the few precious hours left after work.

And even in 2024, women are still often the default family calendar managers.

Even the best calendar app won’t calm the chaos. Managing family time takes smart decisions and strategic planning:

• What deserves your family’s time?

• How do you share responsibilities?

• How do you create downtime in a busy life?

Today on the podcast, I’m joined by clutter coach and home organization expert Amelia Pleasant Kennedy, to delve into how to better manage the family calendar, in a way that balances family responsibilities and downtime.

This episode is full of mind-blowing gems that will radically shift the way you think about organizing your family time – and your role within it. 

What You'll Learn: 

• The essential step to prevent overcommitment, before you pull out your calendar

• Strategies to encourage your partner and children to participate in family scheduling

• How to use your calendar to set a more relaxed pace at home

• Setting “on- and off-duty hours” at home, for better boundaries and more downtime

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Mistakes. The word itself makes a high-achiever cringe.

Sure, we all know that logically, “mistakes happen to the best of us.”

But when you’re the one making the mistake? 

It feels like the worst.

And now, you’ve got two problems: the original mistake, and being knocked off your game.

The original problem is now compounded. You might spend weeks or even months in your own head, worrying about the screw-up. Ruminating on who’s judging you and how it might come back to bite you.

Your inner critic will sap your confidence more than any mistake.

What differentiates the highest performers is not a lack of errors. It’s how fast they get back on their game after a mistake.

This is a skill you can learn.

Whether it’s a minor “oops” moment or a major fumble, we’ll dive into how to gracefully recover from a mistake at work.

So you can lead with the relaxed confidence you deserve.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why cultivating an anti-fragile approach is useful

• A framework to help you step out of self-criticism, and into useful action

• 2 steps to recover from big and small mistakes at work

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Are you drowning in email?

Before you’ve even gotten dressed in the morning, your mind is already on the 117 emails that are sitting in your inbox. Waiting on a response.

Email is usually one of the first things you look at in the morning, and one of the last things you look at at night.

It seems impossible to get (and stay) on top of it.

Email and collaboration tools have transformed the way we work. 

Sometimes, it’s for the better: hybrid, asynchronous work on dispersed teams wouldn’t be possible without it.

But much of the time, it’s the struggle of the modern sisyphus: spending days pushing email out of your inbox…only to wake up and have to do it over, and over again.

Not only that, but it ends up crowding out the time we need to move forward your actual strategic priorities.

Taking control over how you manage your inbox is one of the best things you can do to create more sustainable and successful work habits. 

This week, we’ll explore how to make it happen.

What You'll Learn: 

• 3 principles for successfully managing email

• Why the “vigilant and diligent” mindset keeps you stressed, anxious and spread too thin

• Actionable tips for playing email offense vs. defense, and balancing email and strategic priorities

• What it takes to win the game of email “hot potato”

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Mother’s Day. 

It’s billed as the ultimate celebration of the work of mothers. 

And in a society that often gives so little acknowledgement, this one day takes on big importance: a recognition of how much you’ve given to others throughout the rest of the year.

We want the day to be perfect.

But so often, it’s a major letdown. A source of strife, even.

No, the Mother’s Day hangover isn’t what you get from too many mimosas at brunch (okay, well, that’s one kind of hangover). 

We’re talking about the emotional hangover.

The nagging feelings of sadness, resentment, or downright anger that can follow you around after a disappointing Mother’s Day.

A big part of it? That mothers are offered so little in return for a year of hard work at home. 

A nice brunch and a homemade thank you card are so small in comparison to all you do. So, when you don’t even get that, how are you supposed to react?!

Whether your Mother’s Day was a day to remember for all the right reasons or all the wrong ones, tune in for an exploration of what mothers truly deserve, and how we can get more of it.

What You'll Learn: 

• The no-win societal expectations that leave too many mothers with a Mother’s Day hangover

• How your “emotional hangover” provides important data, and what to do with it

• Why you should consider planning your own Mother’s Day (even if your partner gets it 99% right)

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Women are more aware of the mental load of the household than at any time in the past.

The dynamics of domestic labor and parenting have historically been biased. The expectation: women would and should do the work of running the home and raising children.

Even for women who work outside the home, the mental load often ends up squarely on their shoulders.

• Women put in 10 more hours of household labor than men each week (US data)

And this impacts their careers. 

• 57% of women feel that their careers are limited by their caregiving responsibilities at home (US data)

So many women want to rebalance the load at home.

But the advice that permeates so much of the social media sphere is blunt: there are “good guys” (who will willingly step up to the plate at home, if asked) and “garbage guys”. And if you’ve got one of the latter, you’re told your only option is to “throw the whole man away.”

As much as that phrase makes me chuckle, this way of thinking keeps a lot of women right where they started: shouldering an outsize burden at home.

It’s time to unpack our thinking about the mental load at home, and how we can drive more alignment with our partners.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why the unequal division of labor at home is also an obstacle to women’s career ambitions

• The “good guy” versus “garbage guy” binary thinking that permeates social media, and why more nuance is useful

• 4 partner stances to the mental load, and which ones are “good” or  “garbage”

• The two underrated skills that drive more alignment on the mental load at home

“Put on your own oxygen mask first,” they say. 

But that’s easier said than done, right?!

How much time do you get each day completely for yourself?

Add it up: time with no work concerns to attend to, no little humans to take care of. Purely to do as you want… 

That’s probably some quick math.

For most women, the number is small. And women get less than men (thanks, patriarchy!).

And for that little bit that we do take, we hear harmful messages that it’s selfish. Or optional.

So, you end up putting yourself last.

Far from being frivolous or selfish, “me time” is essential time that we need to recharge. In a world of depleting demands on your time and attention, “me time” is a refueling stop.

What would happen if you treated time for yourself as a necessary component of each week? Critical to your ability to lead at work, and at home?

In this week’s episode of the Mental Offload Podcast, we blow the lid off the idea that “me time” is selfish. And we dive into ways to take time for yourself  in a society that makes it easy to keep putting yourself last.

Time for yourself isn’t selfish. It’s a strategic necessity in leadership (and life).

What You'll Learn: 

• How “me time” is protective against burnout, and support mental and emotional well-being 

• How much “me time” do you really need? We’ll look at the evidence.

• The REAL costs of pouring from an empty cup, at work and at home

• How to get over internalized guilt and cultural messages that discourage “me time”

• A tactical plan to make more time for yourself happen

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Inbox zero is such a seductive proposition.

Inbox zero was popularized by productivity gurus as an efficient approach to email. The idea is that you want to maintain your inbox with zero - or as close to zero - messages as possible. 

For most people, this becomes a daily metric to track their own productivity.

And, I’d argue it’s a vanity metric. 

It’s seductive because it makes you think you’re being productive, efficient, and valuable at work. But it’s just a veneer of productivity.

Inbox zero comes with real costs. Namely, it takes away your focus from the work that really matters. (Which, in most jobs, is not responding to email.)

This week, we explore the lingering “productivity myth” of inbox zero, and better ways of managing your inbox.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why  inbox zero seems so efficient

• The real costs (and opportunity costs) of trying to maintain inbox zero

• Take a page from domestic management - would you ever try to maintain laundry hamper zero?

• Better ways to manage your inbox

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Presentation anxiety. It’s incredibly common, even amongst leaders.

There’s that oft-quoted statistic that suggests that most people’s biggest fear is public speaking.

And what are presentations, if not public speaking? Even when the scale is small (like leading a team meeting), the stakes rarely feel small.

As a leader, you might need to give dozens of presentations a year. In some roles, you might give dozens a week. 

What’s more, your presentation skills are part of your executive presence. You want to appear confident, calm, unflustered.

But how do you do that with your knees shaking?

In this episode, we’ll cover how you can conquer presentation anxiety, to show up with more confidence and more presence every time.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why the typical advice, like “fake it til you make it” is unhelpful (or downright terrible) for presentation anxiety

• The ABCs of anxiety - what’s really going on when you’re on stage?

• How to create an “anxiety management protocol” to help you perform at your best

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

We live in a world of plenty…and it’s overwhelming. 

There are so many options, and so much pressure to make the right choices.

And the sheer number of decisions that we need to make in a given week is mind-boggling.

Think about the time you spend in an average week researching, analyzing, and getting agreement on options. 

It’s exhausting.

But there is a way to win back some bandwidth and energy, too.

It’s the practice of decision constraint. 

And it’s incredibly effective for anyone feeling bogged down by the weight of the mental load at home (or stuck in analysis paralysis at work). 

Try it this week for better balance and more bandwidth.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why having more options doesn’t necessarily make us happier or better off

• What you need to know about how the brain operates, so you can reduce the cognitive load

• What kinds of decisions benefit from constraint

• How to implement decision constraint for better balance

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Is your work week best described as a daily grind?

Like, the kind of work where you are constantly working at max capacity, only to find yourself…slowly…grinding…down.

Most corporate jobs operate with a go-go-go mentality that keeps everyone in a permanent state of exhaustion.

This is disastrous for your stamina. 

And not just at work. The “hangover” of working like this usually carries straight into life at home.

Making you feel “wound up” and stressed, and less able to be present and relaxed.

You might be tempted to think this is just a side effect of a demanding job. But it doesn’t always have to be.

In this episode, we’ll discuss a technique for rebalancing your calendar, that can increase your stamina.

If you want more control over your calendar at work, and fewer evenings feeling drained, listen and apply this week’s episode.

What You'll Learn: 

• How can “sprinting” not be draining?

• The one trap you must avoid in setting up your work schedule (unless you like feeling fried)

• Are you people-pleasing with your time?

• Applying this to operational vs. strategic roles

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Albert Einstein allegedly said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.” Wise words, whether they come from Einstein or not. 

But how do you actually develop higher-level thinking skills? 

One technique I use is Superthinking.

It puts the amazing power of your human brain as a problem-solving machine onto your biggest challenges, and guides your brain to solve them strategically.

Super thinking is a meta-skill. It asks you to observe and direct your own thinking at the same time. 

But we’re not taught this powerful skill. And that leaves us at the whims of our brain’s default mode. Which is riddled with biases and glitches.

Your brain is a bit like ChatGPT. Its output is only as good as the prompts you give it.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to “prompt” your brain more effectively. For better, more creative, more strategic problem solving. At home, and at work.

What You'll Learn: 

• The value of Superthinking, and why it’s worth learning this meta-skill

• Why your brain’s “default mode” results in biased thinking – and how to correct for it

• How to conduct a Superthinking session

• 2 benefits of doing regular Superthinking in your life and work

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

The worst time to be a working mom? 

It might be 3am, when you bolt awake with anxiety.

What is it that’s got so many of us waking up in a panic in the middle of the night??

For too many of us, it’s the weight of the mental load. Those I-shouldn’t-forget-this tasks that your brain decides to alert you to in the middle of the night.

And although the mental load isn’t the only “sleep stealer”, it’s rarely addressed as a cause of sleep problems.

The 3am wakeups wreck your sleep. Night after night.

And it’s a downward spiral. 

Because the worse your sleep gets, the fewer things you can actually do well the next day.

And this opens up a crucial gap in our ability to do the work and caregiving that we want to do in the world.

Learn how to tackle the 3am wakeups, for more restful nights and more productive days.

What You'll Learn: 

• The mental load vs. common sleep stealers

• A pre-bedtime routine to prevent wakeups

• What to do when you wake up at 3am

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Women tend to disproportionately bear the weight of the mental load.

That translates into a “second shift” at home: more hours spent on parenting, housework, emotional caretaking, and more.

When it comes to managing that mental load, so often the advice to women is one of two things:

Delegate it. Or lower your standards.

And while there’s nothing wrong with either of those approaches, that’s not the only way to “offload” tasks.

I get on my soapbox a little bit this week, to talk about how the mental load ends up pigeon-holing women, the sexist taxes that (too often) go unchallenged, and why we deserve better.

It’s time to talk about what it really means to offload the mental load, and how we start to make that happen.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why going part-time isn’t your only option for being a “good mom” in the paid workforce

• The unchallenged assumptions that we need to rethink around the mental load of parenting.

• The “isn’t that cute” version of women’s empowerment

• The 3 sexist taxes that fall on you if you’re socialized as a woman

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

“It’s lonely at the top”, so the saying goes. 

Which makes it all the more surprising that leaders rarely discuss the feelings of loneliness that can come as you rise.

It’s paradoxical. You’re surrounded by colleagues. You lead a team who look up to you and follow you. And at the same time, it can feel distinctly lonely to be the person standing out in front, making the big decisions.

Leadership loneliness isn’t only a problem at the top rungs of business. It can strike any time you’re elevated from being  “one of the pack” to being in a position of authority.

It can feel like the spotlight is directly on you.

Doubly so if you’re a “pioneer” in your field – the first or only person of your gender, race, or other marginalized identity.

And there aren’t many people to whom you can turn. Your former peers?  They can’t relate. Your current leaders? They might conclude you aren’t up to the job.

There’s so much stigma that many leaders end up trying to put on a courageous front. 

But they’re secretly struggling with feeling alone, exposed, and the weight of having authority.

In this episode, we pull back the curtain on leadership loneliness, and strategies you can employ to navigate this often overlooked aspect of leadership.

What You'll Learn: 

• Causes of leadership loneliness, and the inappropriate workplace coping strategy that some people use

• How leadership loneliness impacts your ability to problem-solve, and can end up driving great leaders out of jobs they once aspired to

• Can you show vulnerability without being fully transparent?

• 4 strategies you can use to mitigate leadership loneliness, so you can feel confident and supported

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Imagine if you could sit down with your future self—the version of you who has achieved your wildest dreams, overcome your biggest challenges, and is living your best life. What would that conversation be like? How would it transform the decisions you make today? 

Last month, we focused on the important relationships you have at home and at work.

But there’s one relationship we haven’t talked about. And it’s your most important relationship:

Your relationship with your Future Self.

This relationship drives major decisions about your career, your family, and how you show up in the arena.

So, it makes sense to treat this relationship seriously.

In this episode, we’ll explore strategies to connecting to the person you’re destined to become, and how doing so can transform how you lead, and how you live.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why the relationship between your Past, Present and Future Self matters for success

• How your relationship with your future self can protect you from guilt and people-pleasing

• 4 Questions to ask yourself that will deepen your relationship with your future self

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Executive Presence. Most leaders know it’s a powerful ingredient for success. It’s that bit of leadership sorcery that allows some to command a room, influence key decisions, and inspire confidence.

You might be able to get ahead without it, but I don’t recommend trying!

But can you actually develop executive presence?

I’ve heard leaders describe it as, “you just know it when you see it.” 

That may be true. But it’s spectacularly unhelpful.

Drawing on the latest research on Executive Presence, we’ll decode the formula for this important leadership skill. And discuss how you can leverage it to rise at work.

What You'll Learn: 

• Decoding Executive Presence: the 3 elements that matter most

• Bias and executive presence – is it a catch-22, or can it be neutralized?

• Why “fake it til you make it” isn’t the best strategy

• How to develop your personal flavor of executive presence with your own, impactful “spice blend”

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Are you ready to rise in your organization?

Maybe you’re not sure. It’s a topic that can create a lot of ambivalence when you have kids. 

“I’d love to do more, but I can’t work any harder…and I’m already so drained.” This is a phrase I hear often. 

The problem is that there are two thought errors that underpin this phrase.

First, you might think that rising means doing more. More hours. More deliverables. More meetings. 

Second, too often it means that you’re overinvesting in developing skills that will cause career stagnation (and underinvesting in the skills that will drive growth).

But when you put the 3 keys in this episode together, you open the door to better performance, better balance, and more leverage at work.

What You'll Learn:

• Why “rising” doesn’t always mean a promotion – the different flavors of rising, and their benefits

• The 3 elements you need to rise in an organization

• Why you shouldn’t rely on strong performance alone

• How “rising” can create better work-life alignment and increased energy

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Valentine’s Day is in the air. And whether you consider yourself a romantic or not, let’s do a quick status check on your relationship with your partner.

Does your relationship with your partner feel fantastic? Or is it weighed down by a growing list of resentments? Maybe you’d consider your relationship more of an afterthought…something that gets your time and attention once in a blue moon?

It’s no secret that kids bring on changes in relationships.

Sometimes, those changes are an evolution, a deepening of an important bond with your partner in childrearing. 

But too often, the all-consuming nature of modern parenting leaves this important relationship starved for attention. It starts to languish.

So this week, I’m going to share with you how a seemingly unromantic practice borrowed from the corporate sphere – the Annual Review – can strengthen your relationship and diffuse resentment. 

If you’re looking to keep your relationship on track (or get it back on track), despite kids and demanding jobs, this episode is a must-listen.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why many couples avoid “relationship feedback”, and why that’s a “false good idea”

• The 3 questions to ask yourself before Valentine’s Day

• How to conduct an Annual Relationship Review with your partner

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Many high achieving women work by the old adage “just keep your head down and do good work, and you’ll be recognized.”

Sometimes the advice comes directly from a mentor or a parent.

For others, it’s an implicit to the way a meritocracy is supposed to work.

The good girls who do stellar work without making too much of a stink are supposed to get rewarded. 

Right?!

But here’s the unvarnished truth: if you’re doing great work, but no one knows about it…you’re not going to get the recognition you deserve.

That’s why it’s not optional to be your own PR person at work.

It doesn’t have to be hard. In this episode, we’ll explore how you can create a routine that helps get visibility for your work.

So you can get credit for all that you contribute.

What You'll Learn: 

• How your “PR” shapes your personal brand and visibility at work

• Internal PR vs. External PR, and the benefits of each

• How to create an effective PR routine in just 1-2 hours per month

• 4 ways to get started, without it feeling awkward and uncomfortable

For more information, visit The Mental Offload. 

More and more employers are offering coaching as a perk at work. But it wasn’t always this way.

20 years ago, executive leadership coaching was a perk limited to a very small subset of employees: people at the very top, or those leaders who were at risk of failing.

And in many organizations, coaching retained that reputation: either unavailable to all but the highest rungs, or remedial instruction that you should be embarrassed about needing. 

But that’s changing.

Coaching is seen as a sought-after perk by employees. 

Wise employers are listening. And responding.

They’ve seen the impact of coaching on individual employees. They recognize that coaching is a perk that can support, grow, and retain talent. 

That means that many companies are more willing to help you if you want to work with a coach. 

In this episode, we’ll explore how the attitudes around leadership and executive coaching have shifted, and ways you can approach your company around getting coaching even if it’s not an advertised perk.

What You'll Learn: 

• How the employer mindset around coaching has shifted

• Why these shifting attitudes are so beneficial for working mothers, women of color, and marginalized groups

• How to ask for support from your company, and influence your company if they’re hesitant to financially support investments in coaching

For more information, visit The Mental Offload. 

Many companies require development planning. But few teach you how to it.

In many firms, development is a “tick the box exercise”: you build out a plan, file it away, and pull it out at the next review cycle.

Despite your best intentions, development may be an afterthought for you and your team.

And yet, you probably realize that continued growth = continued success.

So, how do you make sure that your development plan gets the traction it deserves? 

In this episode, you’ll learn how to avoid the common development planning pitfalls. And create an actionable, impactful growth plan.

So that you can be the architect of your own growth.

What You'll Learn: 

• 4 development planning approaches (and how to know which one is right for you)

• The key thing to do to keep your development plan from getting too watered down

• Go beyond SMART goals to make your development highly actionable

• A valuable tip to 2x the pace of your development

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

It’s well-known research: merely writing down your goals makes it more likely you’ll achieve them.

And yet, writing down a goal is usually not enough to get us to the finish line. 

What gives?!

Yes, writing down a goal is useful. And it’s definitely better than doing nothing. But often, this makes your goal little more than a wish. A nice intention. But not something you actually follow through on.

Vision is great. But it’s the execution that really counts.

Achieving a goal requires consistent action.

And the best way to make your actions consistent? Systems. A good system makes it easy for you to do what needs to be done to achieve a goal.

It doesn’t matter whether your goal is to consistently walk 10 thousand steps per day, or to stop working evenings, or to maintain a regular date night.

Systems are your secret weapon for goal success.

What You'll Learn: 

• The 3 levels of goal setting

• The most important question you can ask to help you build better systems for goal achievement

• Why a good system helps you operate in "autopilot" mode, and why that's a good thing

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Any way you slice it, Back-to-School is a sprint. 

The extra load?! It’s real. And working mothers typically feel it extra hard. 

And yet, there can be an unhelpful temptation the moment that back-to-school week is over…to immediately jump back into “real life”, without a moment to recover.

This will leave you spent. And contributes to burnout.

You might think “recovery” means preparing well for back-to-school. Reducing the load of back-to-school week itself. Promising yourself a vacation next spring as a reward.

And while none of these things are bad, they’re not exactly what’s required to recover. 

You might think that taking any time at all to recover is precious time you don’t have.

But failing to plan a proper recovery can leave you operating in “survival mode” for months. Who has time for that?!

Let’s cut that whole process down to a week or two, shall we?

Whether your kids went back to school last week or last month, you’ll learn what you can do now to get your mojo back.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why recovery time is vital to preventing burnout

• What Paralympic runners can teach us about the  recovery period

• The best short- and medium-term tactics for getting back in gear after the back-to-school “sprint”

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Whether you’re looking at the business press, or the motivation quotes on Pinterest, you’ll often get a one-dimensional look at what it takes to be successful.

“Go for GROWTH!” 

It’s so ingrained in our culture’s approach to success, that you can feel like a failure if you’re not constantly trying to achieve the Next Big Thing, personally or professionally.

I was sitting in my office with a client, who was almost apologetic about her desire to ratchet down the pace as she adjusted to a new baby in the family.

“I’m not sure this is a growth year for me,” she admitted. “Is that terrible?”

She was slightly terrified by the idea that if she dared to slow down the career treadmill, she’d never regain her speed.

The idea that a career needs to be linear, with a steady pace, seems really tidy, but it’s not necessary in order to be successful. 

That’s why, as you consider your ambitions for a new year, it’s critical to consider this as well:

Your pace. 

Specifically, whether you want to aim for a Growth, Balance or Pivot year. 

This episode will help you set your own pace on the route to success.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why plotting your pace for the year is as important as plotting your goals for the year

• 3 ways to set your pace: growth, balance or pivot

• Why society treats some paces as “better”, and how to get comfortable with your own pace

• The tradeoffs that come with each pace

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

The start of a new year is an invitation to change. You think about what you want to achieve this year. Make a few New Year’s resolutions. As the clock starts midnight, you’re ready to get started: new year, new you. Right?

But the statistics tell a depressing truth: most new year’s resolutions fail. In fact, most resolutions are abandoned before January is even over.

What’s going on with resolutions? Is there a way to make change in the new year that actually works?

In this episode, we’ll explore what you need to know about successfully achieving your goals for the year ahead.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why most New Year’s Resolutions fail

• How to “fail-proof” your resolutions

• 2 alternatives for successful goal setting

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Is it possible to thrive in a biased world?

It can feel like an impossible task, one where we’re always at risk of failing someone else. Or our own standards. Trying to navigate a world that has soooooo maaaannny rules for how we’re supposed to do things can be utterly exhausting. And thankless. It also leaves many of us as perfectionistic people-pleasers.

But where did those rules, standards and expectations come from anyway? In this episode, we break down the process of how we ended up in this state, starting with “good girl” conditioning.

We also take a glimpse of how conditioning of additional cultural identities can compound the pressures of socialization. 

And we talk about the tools for breaking free of all of it.

What You'll Learn: 

• What Good Girl Conditioning is, and how it turns into internalized sexism

• How we end up carrying around a “Manual”, and how we end up deferring to it

• How our cultural background impacts the Manual

• The problem with the Manuals we have for ourselves

• Why breaking free of Good Girl Conditioning requires re-writing our Manual

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

When overachievers become mothers, something strange can happen. And it’s rarely discussed. It’s Mom-poster syndrome. 

Most people have heard about imposter syndrome. Those feelings of being not good enough, of feeling like a fraud, that can sneak up on us. 

We mostly think of imposter syndrome in our professional lives. But our inner critic can also come up around our “other” job as mothers. It might hit when you’re expecting, or as a new mom, or at a major developmental transition. 

Our inner critic can amplify all of our other worries, doubts and guilt. Left unchecked, Momposter syndrome can send your career off the rails, it can drive a wedge into your marriage, and may even contribute to post-partum mental health struggles. 

Let’s break down Momposter Syndrome.

What You'll Learn:

• Why Momposter Syndrome seems more prevalent in younger generations and for Type A mothers

• 2 very different ways that Momposter Syndrome can show up for working mothers

• How understanding the lies of the Momposter & inner critic can help us find freedom from it

For more information, visit The Mental Offload. 

Mom Guilt seems to lurk everywhere. Especially if you’re a working mother. Work long hours? You’re supposed to feel guilty about not being a good enough mother. Missing meetings when your kid is sick yet again? You’re supposed to feel guilty about not being a good enough employee.

How to escape from the guilt trap? Is it even possible?! In this episode, we go deep into Mom Guilt, and how to get rid of it. Mom Guilt truly is optional when you learn this approach.

What You'll Learn: 

• The root cause of mom guilt 

• 3 sneaky things that we don’t realize cause guilt

• How to “opt out” of mom guilt

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

In an always-on culture, where work is more and more “greedy” about wanting our time and availability, how can we achieve balance?

At the Mental Offload, we’ve created a framework for achieving balance. It has 4 elements, that work together to support – or undermine – your balance. Your time, your team, your systems, and your mindset.  

Your balance will only be as good as the weakest of these 4. In this episode will talk about how it only takes one “wobbly leg” to throw us off balance.


What You'll Learn:

• The 4 pillars of balance, and why you need each one

• How the pillars work together to support balance

• The major mistake that high-achievers don’t realize is sabotaging their balance 

• How failing to address our weakest pillars can lead to burning out

For more information visit, The Mental Offload.

‘Tis the season…for school holiday events. But what happens when those events clash with your work schedule? 

Whether you’re dealing with multiple events scheduled right in the middle of the workday, a busy season at work that makes taking any time off tricky, or every working mom’s favorite…that last minute notice about a school event, the result is usually the same. You feel terrible.

This was doubly the case for a mom in one of my parent circles. Not only could she not make the school event, but as one of the only working mothers in her school community, felt like the only one who wouldn’t be there.

For many mothers, that’s a cue for guilt, shame, and fear that you’re somehow failing your child.

Time to unwind that noise.

In this week’s episode, we’ll cover 3 simple coaching practices you can use to regain your balance, and confidence, when you can’t be there for school events.

What you'll learn:

• How working parents in France deal with work-school conflicts (and how you can cultivate that same mindset)

• Why it pays to get curious about your kids really feel about your absence

• What to do when you want to prioritize being at school for an event

For more information visit, The Mental Offload.

Sometimes, we get so busy on the hamster wheel at work that we lose sight of the longer-term picture. 

It might feel like it’s impossible to slow the wheel down and catch your breath.

But it’s necessary if you’re in the world of knowledge work.

Being strategic at work requires us to slow the hamster wheel down to a comfortable jog from time to time. This allows you to see the bigger picture and set strategic direction.

One technique for doing this: plan regular Think Weeks.

Think weeks are a tool of leaders and CEOs, but they can be adapted at any level of an organization. 

A Think Week will get you out of day-to-day execution mode, and give you the luxury of time for forward planning.

What You'll Learn: 

• How a Think Week accelerates your personal and professional goals

• Tactical tips for crafting your own Think Week

• Common saboteurs for Think Weeks…and how to avoid them

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

‘Tis the Season. Fall is a holiday time in so many cultures: Halloween, Diwali, Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Year’s…they’re all on the calendar.

But whether you’re celebrating one holiday or several, there’s so much extra stuff to take care of. Hosting relatives, parties, religious gatherings, cooking, shopping, decorating…It’s all packed into a short spurt of time, and it’s overwhelming!

Holidays are high pressure for working moms. Each holiday is its own deadline, along with a new to-do list, and you somehow have to find a way to manage it on top of everything else you’re already juggling.

But you don’t have to resign yourself to stressful, overwhelming holidays.

In this episode, we’ll tackle what really causes holiday overwhelm, and how you can make the holidays more peaceful, warm and enjoyable.  

What You’ll Learn:

• The thoughts that drive overwhelm at the holidays
• How The Barefoot Contessa (yes, really!) inspired a complete rethink in my approach to the holidays
• One key shift you can make to ditch holiday overwhelm

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

Anxiety at work usually seems like a problem to be managed. Or even a crisis. Definitely something to get rid of.

Especially when your anxiety has you sweating over your upcoming meeting. Or has work living rent-free in your brain around the clock.

But, is anxiety all bad? Work from Morra Aarons-Mele (author of The Anxious Achiever) asks us to rethink anxiety. Data suggest that leaders disproportionately grapple with anxiety. 

Why is this the case? And does anxiety have important benefits for us?

What You'll Learn:

• Anxiety can take you down at work, but learn how it can also be a leadership strength

• Rethink your goals for anxiety management

• 5 Hidden benefits of anxiety for leaders

• Coaching tools to reframe anxiety

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

After a summer break, we’re back with Season 3 of The Mental Offload Podcast!

Mid-career is a challenging, and pivotal, point in almost every corporate career. 

It’s the point where most companies decide who has the potential to break through to the top. Some people will be tapped to ascend to the top levels of the organization, and others will stagnate…or fail completely.

For working mothers, the challenge is clear.

The demands of mid-career tend to hit at exactly the point when the demands of childrearing are at their peak.

What’s an ambitious woman to do?

Do you take your foot off the gas at work, even if it’s work you love and have trained for your whole life? Do you give less than 120% to the family you love and for whom you want the best? 

It can feel like there are no good choices. 

This leaves many high-achieving mothers stuck, confused, and conflicted. Perennially thinking about how to move forward, and second-guessing every step they take.

Call it Mid-Career Malaise.

It can pull you in multiple directions. It can last for years. And it can leave even the highest achievers tied in knots, if it’s left unaddressed.

In this episode, we’ll address the phenomenon of Mid-Career Malaise, and how to move through it without losing your mind…or your career momentum.

What You'll Learn: 

• The 4 mistakes that derail women’s careers and balance in mid-career malaise

• Re-thinking our beliefs around mid-career opportunities and choices

• The decision-making technique that cuts through confusion and creates confidence

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

We’re living in a fraught time. The nightly news is filled with calamities, on every continent of the planet. 

In the face of so much turmoil in the world, women hesitate to speak about their own struggles at home and at work.

We self-deprecatingly tell friends that we’ve got “first world problems”. 

Women tell me they’re ashamed to even complain about feeling overwhelmed at home, or undervalued at work, because “it sounds so privileged”. 

This sets up an unhelpful hierarchy: problems worth caring about (the “big stuff” going wrong in the world), and “first world problems” (the “little stuff” going wrong in our homes). 

And it’s a form of self-gaslighting. Of trying to convince ourselves that we shouldn’t care so much about our own emotional pain, because it’s not “important enough” in the bigger scheme of things. 

As feminists, we need to examine this line of thinking. Because it’s one way that people in power keep women down.

What You'll Learn: 

• Two things can be true: there are important tragedies in the world AND important issues at home

• Why patriarchal, white-supremacist, late-stage capitalism runs on women’s exhaustion

• A few reasons why we should retire the entire phrase “first world problems”

• How putting yourself first can make you MORE equipped to cause good trouble in the world

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

Almost no one loves a performance review. Even top performers can feel dread in the face of an upcoming review. 

Performance reviews will amplify our insecurities and leave us ruminating on our perceived shortcomings. We know that these reviews can be make or break moments for raises, promotions, and more. And yet, we’re rarely given transparent, direct advice on how to approach this important career conversation. 

Some women deal with this by trying to put their head in the sand until review season is over. Others end up anxious and on edge, unable to stop thinking about it. Almost everyone wishes their review were over and done with, already. 

Performance review anxiety sets us up to fall into predictable traps during annual review season. But these traps are avoidable.

Let’s demystify performance reviews, so you get the review you deserve.

What You'll Learn:

• 4 traps of performance reviews - how to spot and avoid them

• How to manage up around performance conversations (whether your org has a formal or informal process)

• 3 steps you can take to get your best-ever review

For more information, visit The Menatl Offload.

Does the idea of “managing up” make you squirm? 

Some people mistake it for a sort of “dark arts” of the leadership world. A way that bad leaders can make themselves look better, and get ahead.

But smart women know that managing up is an essential skill for all leaders. 

The problem? It can make you deeply uncomfortable. It might feel like pointless office politics, or bring up a lot of anxiety over whether you’re doing it “right”.

But managing up doesn’t have to be difficult or scary. And when done well, it’s simply a way of maintaining open, two-way communication with your leaders.

Managing up helps your leader help you and help your team. And it can help you turn leaders into trusted allies at work.

What You'll Learn:

• Why managing up brings up so much fear and anxiety

• The 2 ways to approach leading upward – only one of which is useful

• Low-stakes ways to manage up that build trust and credibility

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

From Barbie to Beyoncé to T. Swift, something’s been brewing. This was the summer of women creating massive success. Generating billions of dollars of success.

But the financial success isn’t the only common denominator.

What do these women have in common? Comfort playing on the world’s biggest stages, certainly. Comfort with playing big, period.

Call it Main Character Energy, if you want.

But mere mortals are down here worried about whether we’re playing too big. Whether others will judge us as too much if we embrace our role as leaders.

In this episode, we’ll explore how you can embrace main character energy to get ahead (in life and business).

What You'll Learn:

• What the billion dollar summer of Barbie, Beyoncé and T.Swift can teach ordinary women

• The sneaky messages that convince women to feel guilty for wanting to be the main character

• How to find middle ground between being self-centered and self-effacing

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

Fun. 3 letters that strike fear in the bones of most high-performers. 

We’re told that fun is fluff. Fat to be trimmed from your schedule. 

So any fun that we do have in our work days leaves us feeling guilty and unproductive. Unless it’s having fun with our kids, in which case we feel guilty for not having enough of it.

Eliminating fun seems like perfectly rational advice for getting more done. 

And it does work in the short term. 

But in the long term? It backfires spectacularly.

In this episode, we’ll explore why fun is necessary for more productive days, and a more balanced life.

What You'll Learn: 

• Fun has a broad definition: try these 3 types of activities

• The devastating long-term impacts of the pressure to eliminate fun from our weekdays

• How to let go of what you think “should” be fun and embrace what actually *is* fun for you

Featured in this Episode:

• Get The Mental Offload’s Shut Down Ritual template

• Sign up for the free Reclaim Your Time Masterclass on Oct 10th

Feeling stretched in all directions? Like there’s not enough time for work or for family?

You’re not alone. But modern productivity methods end up offering “solutions” that dig you deeper into the hole. Encouraging you to just keep cutting all the “unproductive” time from your calendar, to make more time to grind it out at work and in life.

In this episode, we’ll introduce the concept of the “time diet”: the varied types of activities that should fill the 24 hours on your “plate” each day. 

When we cut certain activities out of our diet, we start to feel unbalanced, unhealthy, and on the brink of burnout.

Reclaiming our time and energy starts by building a balanced diet. This is your secret key to more happiness and well-being.


What You'll Learn-

• 4 parts of a balanced “time diet” that you’ll want to have your calendar each day

• Thinking about your calendar as net energy gain vs. net energy drain activities

• The corporate productivity lie that leaves your time unbalanced

• How rebalancing your time promotes work-life balance and prevents burnout

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

Do you ever find yourself striving for peak productivity, only to end up feeling drained and overwhelmed? Do you ever dream of a work culture that seems to value hustle and busy-ness? Do you find saying you need to stop multitasking as you’re multitasking? 

Uncover the productivity habits that may be secretly sabotaging your success.

Discover 6 of the biggest disordered ways of working (yes, you know multitasking isn’t your friend), and the hidden costs of indulging in them. might be holding you back. We'll also expose the myth of constant 'busy-ness' and share proven strategies to help you regain control of your time and energy.

What You'll Learn: 

• How living in a culture of “busyness” normalizes disordered ways of working

• 6 disordered ways of working that secretly sabotage your success (and productivity)

• The hidden costs of constantly chasing perfect productivity

• Reclaiming your bandwidth in spite of hustle culture

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

There’s a predictable phenomenon that happens in the workplace when people become parents. Mothers get penalized, both in salary and opportunities. Meanwhile, fathers get rewarded. It’s structural bias, and it hits women hard. 

The wage gap turns into a chasm, and it can have a staggering impact on women’s careers and self-worth.

In this episode, we’ll unravel the staggering truth about the Motherhood Penalty at work. And while it might feel hopeless to think you can succeed on such a biased playing field, we’ll investigate how you can reclaim your power and win in the workplace, on your own terms.

What You'll Learn: 

• The impact of the Motherhood Penalty, the Fatherhood Bonus, and why women under 30 seem to be defying the odds when it comes to gender pay equity

• Why self-advocacy matters, even when you’re fighting external bias

• How women internalize the bias, and why “feel good” slogans don’t help us move the needle in our daily lives

• The Mental Offload framework for reclaiming your power in a biased system

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

For mothers in the paid workforce, the end of the workday can feel like your personal witching hour. Whether you’re scrambling to finish up those last things – and working later than you’d like – or getting pulled into a second shift of work after your kids’ bedtime, the result is the same.

Work feels like it’s always on your mind. Even when you’d like to be present with your family.

Having a “shut down” routine is a secret weapon I’ve developed that pays dividends at work and at home.

The shut down routine is a neuroscience-informed process that helps you feel done with work, even when your to-do list is still has things on it. Instead of having half your mind scrolling through work every evening, you can be fully present with your family.

A good shut down routine also helps you be more effective at work. It helps you create a crystal clear plan for where you need to focus each day. 

Implementing a good shut down routine is one of the best things you can do to promote work-life balance.

This episode will set you up with a streamlined, effective routine to end each workday feeling confident and in-control at work and at home.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why having a “shut down” routine is as, or more, important than a morning routine for working mothers

• Why learning to disconnect feeling “done” from your to-do list is an essential success factor in modern work

• How a shut down routine helps you switch off your “work brain”, so you aren’t pulled into work in the evenings

• The 3 steps of an effective shutdown routine

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Having a solid morning routine is important for increasing productivity and reducing stress. Most leaders try to thoughtfully optimize their morning routine to enhance their job performance.

And having a solid, streamlined morning routine can make the difference between calm and chaos.

But do you really need a complex, multi-step routine for peak performance? 

Thinking that we do keeps busy, high achieving moms feeling like failures. Or waking up before the crack of dawn to try to fit it all in. 

So, let’s debunk some myths about morning routines. And build a streamlined, effective routine for starting the day off with calm, clarity, and focus.

What You'll Learn: 

• Why a long, complex morning routine isn’t necessary for peak focus and productivity  

• The only 2 elements you need for an optimal morning routine

• Always have good ideas in the shower? Here’s why.

• Where to build in flexibility in your routine

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy…said no working parent, ever.

Your kids probably see it differently. Summer time is more relaxed, whether it’s days at camp, at the pool, or on the road.

You might have seen it differently in the B.C. (before children) era, back when Summer Fridays meant luxuriously long weekends to kick back with friends.

If we put aside the logistical nightmare which is summer parenting, there’s a deep truth: having a slower “season” (shorter work days, less stress, more fun) is a great way to recharge. 

At the end of a slower season, you come back refreshed and ready to tackle bigger challenges.

And yet, the modern world of work often treats you like you should be constantly producing. 

The irony is that attempting to work like this is often terrible for your productivity and your motivation.

So, in this week’s episode of the podcast, we’ll explore the concept of Seasonal Productivity - of defining slower and faster-paced seasons within your work to create better work-life alignment and produce better results at work.

What You'll Learn: 

• How “seasonal” work habits can prevent burnout and improve your productivity

• Working with the natural ebb and flow of your work and family “seasons”

• Managing perceptions around your work ethic

• My summer podcast break

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload. 

As summer winds down, back to school season is winding up. And with it comes so. much. to. do.

It’s not just the clothes to buy, backpacks to prepare, and lunches to remember to pack. It’s mental, emotional, and actual labor. It’s rarely straightforward. And it often falls on mothers.

All of the planning and moving parts can make back-to-school prep a tricky and stressful time. 

While you can’t erase the fact that it’s a major transition, you can lighten the mental load with some savvy planning.

What You'll Learn: 

• The best things you can do before, during and after back to school week

• 3 areas to prep that will lighten the load

• How back to school can also be an opportunity to rebalance the load at home

• How to course correct once the school year has already begun

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload.  

Summertime. It is the best of times, it is the worst of times for working mothers. If you’re not lucky enough to live in a country that takes childcare seriously, it lays bare the gaps in our caregiving infrastructure. 

And who steps in to fill in those gaps? Usually, it’s a woman.

And most workplaces aren’t as flexible as we need them to be.

On top of that, many of us have a vision in our head of what summer is supposed to be: calm, carefree, magical. Ideally, with present and available to our children.

If you’ve been trying to parent like you don’t have a job, and work like you don’t have kids, you’re probably falling into the Overgiving Trap. 

This week, we talk about the Overgiving Trap, and how to get out from under it.

What You'll Learn:

• How our internalized socialization can land us in the Overgiving Trap

• Why we should reject the “it’s just a season” excuse for Overgiving

• Why having a “room of one’s own”, when it comes to our time, adds to our fulfillment – especially when it doesn’t feel possible

• The 1 belief to shift to escape the Overgiving Trap

For more information, visit The Mental Offload. 

Our culture tells women that their most important role in life is as a mother. But too often, the expectation is that we’ll do it all, without support. That leaves those of us with a career and a family at a crossroads: feeling like we need to choose between our families, and our ambition…and, so often, doing this in workplaces where we need to navigate gender bias at the same time.

 The Mental Offload here to challenge the narrative that working mothers can’t be successful. I’m Shawna Samuel, the host of the Mental Offload Podcast, and we’re back for Season TWO.

 With more actionable strategies on how to manage it all without losing your edge as a leader.  I’m not hear to sugarcoat the tough truths. But that doesn’t mean we’re stuck without options, either. We’ll cover back to school transitions, self-sabotage, dealing with bias at work, surviving toxic productivity culture, and so much more this season.

 So, if you believe that we need a feminist lens on leadership, you’re going to love season 2 of the Mental Offload podcast.

There are two things you can do to make sure you don't miss an episode:

1. Click the "Follow" button in your podcast player, so you get notified of new episodes
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Summertime, and the livin’ is…easy? It’s supposed to be, but around the world, toxic productivity culture and late-stage capitalism are conspiring with a message for employees: don’t relax too much, okay?

These messages are subtle, but the impacts aren’t. We’re sitting on record numbers of unused vacation days, and those who do take off are still feeling pulled to keep an one eye on their work projects.

And yet, almost no one believes this is a good thing. There’s widespread acknowledgement that we want more time off, more ability to disconnect, more confidence about leaving work behind for more than a weekend. 

Does getting some time off shouldn’t mean having to plan a remote off-grid trip. Or have your only “real” break come when you’ve left one job and haven’t yet started the next one.

There must be a better way, right? 

This is an issue that’s calling out for leaders to lead. It requires a bit of courage and a solid playbook. In this episode, I’ll give you the recipe for both.

What You'll Learn: 

• How the productivity culture and capitalism undermine our sense of what a “normal” vacation should look like

• Why the number of vacation days your work allows matters less than your mindset around time off

• Why I ignored a lot of professional advice and decided to take a seasonal break with this podcast

• 4 steps to making longer vacations possible – no matter what field you’re in

If you listen to this episode, you’ll hear how and why I decided to take a month off of podcasting this summer. But fear not, The Mental Offload podcast will be back with Season 2 next month!

Do these two things now so you don’t miss the start of Season 2: hit follow/subscribe in your podcast player, so you get new episodes as soon as they’re out, and click here to sign up for The Mental Offload Newsletter, so you get the latest news.