Too busy for yourself? Here’s why!

Nat: This podcast came about because we’ve probably got a classic bell curve in Powrsuit. About 20% of our members, would you say, are on it. They’re holding themselves to account, they’re leading their own development, and they’re finding what they need and just running. Then we’ve got the group in the middle, which is probably the majority, who do exactly what we’ve asked, and in a perfect way. They’re perfect Powrsuiters. They turn up, do one thing a month, and get on with their work and their lives, which is exactly where Powrsuit should fit.

And then, of course, at the bottom of the bell curve there’s a group of people who are really struggling to engage. So a couple of weeks ago I started calling some of them, and I ended up running a bit of an experiment. I was really surprised by how many people picked up, and the conversations were very much around, “I don’t have time. I don’t have the time to invest 15 minutes.” So I started trying to stay on the phone for 15 minutes. What I realised is that if I call out of the blue and someone else requires their attention, they’ll drop everything, answer the call and talk for 15 minutes. But if the thing is on their own plate to manage, they deprioritise it and feel they’re too busy.

So we were pondering what stops someone from seeing that they do have the time, and being a little less reactive and more in control. Then we ran a workshop last week, and someone had a really big light bulb moment: they value other people’s time over their own. They were like, “I don’t do things on my own schedule if someone else asks something of me.” So yeah, that’s this podcast.

Kristen: Yeah. We even have a mini-masterclass on this (I think it’s Rocks, Pebbles and Sand), and it’s all about how other people’s urgency becomes our emergency. We just become smaller and smaller, not only in our work lives but outside of work as well. We’re socialised to give and to deprioritise ourselves. And as we know, professional development is about investing in ourselves, so that’s something that gets kicked away. But even if we think about health, or any goals we set, or why New Year’s resolutions fail, anything related to us taking a step forward in some part of our lives ultimately falls by the wayside.

We have quite a few talks where we dig into the brain science behind this. Our brains are wired for immediate consequences, not distant goals. When we were in fintech, we were looking at how to get people to engage more with their wealth. Retirement is obviously a goal people have, but they can’t even see their future selves. So what can we do to give people that immediate gratification, or consequence, so they do something?

Nat: Yeah, our brains are amazing. But as you were saying that, I was thinking it’s socialisation too. When you think about how the world is structured, from an early age we’re told to be motivated by external factors. You had to pass exams, you had to turn up to school on time. There are lots of expectations and deadlines placed on us that we learn to work to. And when you talk about New Year’s resolutions (I feel like we discussed this on the podcast maybe a year ago), we end up focusing on external motivations and external deadlines. What’s much more powerful is learning how to be motivated internally. Having internal accountability, or reasons for doing something that means something to you, is far more powerful. We’re just never really taught to do it.

And we live these busy lives, so we almost relax into, “I’m just going to work to the deadlines. I’m just going to work to whatever comes across my plate.” A phone call, a notification, the deadline for my project, turning up to sports day at this time, turning up to work at that time – we just roll with those. When we have this massive opportunity to go, “I can control what my deadlines are, and I can decide what I prioritise and what I work on.” That mindset shift can have a massive impact.

We see it in Powrsuit with that bell curve. The people in the middle and at the top get so much value out of Powrsuit. They’re taking action, taking steps forward and seeing tangible career progress. And the people at the bottom of the bell curve feel more overwhelmed and more stressed, while not doing a lot.

Kristen: Yeah. I kept thinking of a few things we say in that Rocks mini-masterclass. There’s a real difference between what we think are strategic rocks and the work we’re actually doing. The strategic rocks are often the ones that aren’t on fire. They’re the things we should be doing, but because there’s no urgency, they wait. There’s a saying that energy follows urgency. When something’s urgent, we love cracking in and solving it, and it feels good to solve a problem that’s on fire. But the real strategic rocks often aren’t on fire until you’re in a pickle, the crisis happens, and you don’t have that PR plan or whatever it might be. The same thing happens with us. It’s really strategic to invest in ourselves and take care of our health and our wealth, and we know it’s the best thing for us, but energy follows urgency.

So we’re going to chat about five hacks for overcoming what is very normal human behaviour, given the way we operate in the world. We’re putting aside people with more layers of complexity, like neurodivergent people who really struggle with executive function (we’re not minimising that here), and equally people with health struggles, where this is a really tough thing to do (not minimising that either). These are just some healthy hacks we can all use.

Nat: Yeah. Should we start with the first one, which is creating fake deadlines with real stakes? I really like this one. It’s something I practise all the time, and something we’ve seen a lot in Powrsuit as well. Part of the flexibility of our membership is that you can join live or watch on demand, and live participation creates a real deadline. There’s a thing on and you can turn up, and so many members find that the easiest way to do it because it’s an external deadline. It reduces the mental load of internal accountability.

Of the people who don’t join live, there’s a group who are amazing at choosing what they need to invest in and doing their thing. The rest is a small group, but they struggle with creating that internal accountability. They might set a calendar invite for themselves to watch something on demand, and that invite always slips because it only involves them. Someone else books over it, or something else crops up, and they go, “Oh, I can do it tomorrow.” They keep moving it, then it becomes big and hard and never gets done. So I think a fake deadline, like a calendar invite to yourself or protecting that time, can really make a difference. But we have to see our time as worthy, rather than the easiest thing to book over.

Kristen: Yeah. On the booking thing, what I used to do was sign up to races. I wanted to get fit, but to what end? Just being fit felt weird and hard to get up for. There was no gold medal at the end of just getting up and doing the thing. I know you’ve got an app with rewards, and we’ve talked about that before with getting up and logging your running distance. But I used to sign up to races, and then I’d have to get fit because I couldn’t show up to the race having done nothing. I used to sign up for triathlons that way. So I know booking creates real pressure.

I think accountability helps too. We ran a peer group session last night. We’ve run them around New Zealand, Australia and Singapore, and we’ll keep doing that in 2026. Peer accountability, family accountability and work colleague accountability are critical. What if people used it like a book club, and said, “Watch this before we next meet and we’ll chat about it”? That’s accountability, because I’ve got to do my homework before meeting people. Or even just telling your colleagues or family members what your goal is. It’s not a fake deadline, but there are real stakes in that external commitment.

Do you find that helpful? Because I found that when I asked people to hold me to account with exercise…

Nat: Annoying.

Kristen: Yeah, I hate it. So I don’t do that at all. My hack is signing up for stupid things. I’ve been pondering this one event – I can’t remember what it’s called, Wild Women or something – but it’s real. It’s orienteering and mountain biking in the bush in the middle of New Zealand, and I think you’re in a team of five. I’ve been thinking about signing up because I want to get back to doing stuff like that, and it feels more my style. If I think of a professional equivalent, I probably say yes to things, because then I know I’m going to have to learn them. So for me it’s about saying yes, booking, and then figuring it out as I go. But if my husband were to say, “Remember you said you were going to go running this morning,” I’d probably want to punch him in the face. Don’t tell me what to do! So in all of this, it’s about what works for your personality type.

Nat: I think the second hack is changing the goal. We talked a bit about external versus internal motivation. I used to do exactly what you do: book an event and then train for it. But what I found is I needed to change what I wanted to get out of exercise. Rather than it being about getting a medal or achieving the next fastest or longest thing, I changed why I exercise. I love getting outside in the sun. I need the vitamin D because it’s really healthy, it gives me clarity, and I can listen to a podcast. I completely removed any idea of goals, speed, distance and time, and by changing my motivation, it became an internal motivation I really care about. Ultimately, I don’t care enough about winning an event to do anything about it.

I think it’s the same with professional development, or anything we’d consider a rock – those non-urgent but really important things. Change your motivation away from the arbitrary deadline of, “Oh, I need to turn up to this thing because it’s in my calendar,” to, “I deserve to invest in myself. It’s not selfish. It’s my best way to create more impact, better support other people and deliver more value to the world.” Changing that mindset is the second hack for me. Ask yourself, what’s my underlying motivation? And if there isn’t one, maybe we should consider cutting the things that have nothing deeper driving us to do them.

Kristen: It’s just tricky, because there’s some medicine you just have to take, and that’s where that one doesn’t work for me. For example, at my age you’re supposed to build muscle because it reduces your osteoporosis risk. There’s nothing immediate in it for me, but I need to either invest in weights for home or get to a weight-bearing environment. And I can’t change that goal. I know I have to build muscle, because it’s the right thing to do. I don’t think it’s going to be fun at a gym, and I don’t think it’s going to be fun at home, but I have to figure out a way to do it. That’s where maybe it’s a buddy thing, or a boot camp, or a group of people, which is what I’ve been doing. So with some medicine you can’t change the goal, and you have to figure out different hacks.

Nat: Yeah, I feel like that’s where we can combine things, because your underlying motivation there is long-term health, which is really clear and a great motivation. But that leads to the next hack, which is make it small. We talk a lot about minimum viable actions. When you talk about that, you’re like, “I’ve got to join a gym, I’ve got to do this,” and you’ve made it so big and hard. We need to force ourselves back to, what’s the smallest thing I can do?

I remember during lockdown we did a push-up challenge. The goal was 10 a day, and we’d all share it – that’s the accountability thing too. Everyone was on a group chat and you’d video yourself doing your 10 push-ups. And I’m in the same boat as you. I’ve been pondering it recently. One thing I do is squat down when I’m hanging out the washing, and I’m thinking maybe what I need is month one: one squat and one push-up a day, and that’s it. Month two might be two squats and two push-ups, and I work my way up. I think even 20 is enough. It doesn’t have to be giant. So for those things where you’ve got the internal motivation and you know why, but it still feels really big, that’s where breaking it down comes in. I don’t need to do 100% today. I just need to start with 1%.

Kristen: I love the push-up thing, because again it feels easy, and I think we do have a kettlebell downstairs. But full disclosure, I have joined boot camp, because then I have to show up.

Nat: That’s your thing again.

Kristen: I’ll pay for it, I’ll turn up.

Nat: I love that. Payment is the thing.

Kristen: It’s my competitive thing too. I told you I brought Adelyn last week. We were competing together against everyone else, going, “Oh no, the one in pink is beating us.” It’s a real motivation that’s super helpful for people with a competitive nature. But I think people who aren’t…

Nat: Just by the way, I’m not! Don’t worry about everyone competing. That’s a really off-putting thought for some people – “Oh no, I’m going to turn up and everyone will be competing with me.” Most people are really just competing with themselves. I find the opposite. I get joy out of just being around other people trying, and I find it more motivating to be around people at a similar level to me, because there’s camaraderie. So it doesn’t really matter what your style is, you can still find joy in those groups.

Kristen: Which leads me to the third hack, which I think will be really helpful for me to try. It follows on from the push-ups, because if I have to get out of bed and do push-ups, I’ll probably think of three other things to do instead if it’s not habit-stacked. If I don’t create a habit, it’s going to be really tricky. So this is temptation bundling: do it with something you love, or get an immediate reward afterwards, or habit-stack it with something you love. Take push-ups, or physio. What an awful thing physio is – it feels mundane and boring and long. But stack it with Netflix. If you’ve got a habit of watching Netflix, you do your push-ups, and then you get to watch the thing. So I love this idea of temptation stacking, I suppose, or rewarding yourself for the thing you do.

Nat: Some of the ways I’ve used that: if you watch live TV, you can use the ad breaks. I’m watching the thing, and in the ad break I just have to do three or four minutes of whatever it is. I also used to run on a treadmill, and I’d save my favourite TV shows and only let myself watch them on the treadmill. Now I do the same with podcasts. I save my favourites because it’s such a treat to go out and listen to them on a jog or a long walk. I think that stuff is really helpful.

And I’m thinking about it in contexts outside of exercise. What I’ve said to a few people who’ve really struggled to find time for Powrsuit is, why don’t you use this to treat yourself? You’re probably someone who feels really guilty going outside at lunchtime to sit in the sun or take a break. So why not listen to a mini-masterclass while you go for a 15-minute wander, or sit and look at the ocean? Tie it to something that feels really good, but that you’d never otherwise do because you feel too guilty taking that time for yourself.

I know other people who do something hard and then treat themselves. We sometimes go for a walk and end up at a pub, and say we’re going to have a drink afterwards. And I love active transport for this: I need to get to this thing, so I can do my exercise on the way. They’re little ways to tie things to other things and make it a lot easier for ourselves, because it’s not carving out new time, just doing something slightly differently.

Kristen: Yeah, agreed. The fourth one is find an accountability buddy, but I think this can also be find someone to do something with. If you want to pick up a new skill or capability, whether it’s a hobby or something professional like a writing class, get someone to come and do it alongside you. Traditionally, accountability is about letting someone know you’re doing it, and maybe they’re developing in a similar way, so you check in with each other with voice notes, for example. But if you want to build your network, say, and there’s a networking event, ask a friend to come along with you. The accountability is nice, but if you have personalities like ours, and you don’t want people going, “Have you done your thing?”, having people join you in the thing is just as powerful.

Nat: I’d also call it an inspiration buddy. I’ve noticed that with my personal board of directors, which is a very high-achieving group. When I know I’m meeting them every six weeks, I’m so excited to hear their updates. The amount of change my group has gone through, and how they’ve pushed themselves, is so inspirational. They’ll set a goal one month, and by the next update they’ll have taken action on it. You know that phrase, you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with? If you find people who show the behaviours you want – people who are self-motivated, who take action, who hold themselves accountable – it does rub off, and it makes you feel more inspired to do the same. Whereas if you surround yourself with people who feel overwhelmed and busy, like life is out of their control, that gets normalised for you as well. So that’s the opportunity with personal boards too. You’ll be so inspired by people, and it helps you lift your game.

Kristen: That’s so true. When you’re around people doing incredible things, they drag you along with them – you’re in their wake. So it’s really important. We do talk about that: who are your five, and who are you being influenced by? Fabulous.

OK, the last one is tracking success. Every Friday we track a Friday win, and we know that rewires our brains to want more wins, and to stop and reflect on things that have gone well. It’s the same thing we cover in our Powrsuit mini-masterclass, 1%: How to actually achieve your goals. There’s the dopamine hit of completing the goal, and then the achievement rush of celebrating that you’ve done it. So completing it is the first thing, and celebrating it gives you a bit of a double dopamine hit. Tracking your wins, stopping to reflect and visibly seeing progress is really important. So in professional development, I don’t know how that could look…

Nat: We do it! Our progress reports – not everyone fills them out, but our members largely do, regularly – ask: how did I rate myself on this skill before? How do I rate myself now? How am I tracking towards the goal I identified? We’re reworking that to make it smaller and more consistent. At the moment we do it every six months, but we’re thinking monthly would add a bit more of a nudge.

Kristen: Totally. And I was thinking, quite often members come in with a goal, like “I want to build my network,” or “I want to speak on a panel,” or whatever they’ve got in mind. That’s on top of tracking their progress in different areas of their professional lives, and their personal lives too, because we talk about stress and wellbeing as well. But you can track your progress in speaking, for example. “I started talking in meetings more often,” then maybe “I presented at an all-hands,” all the way up to being on a panel. That’s really helpful. We can track progress towards those hard things as well.

Nat: I think about our last company. Investing is a really hard thing to motivate yourself to do, because it’s so big and so future-focused. A good investor puts their money aside for 10, 15, 20 years before they really start to see the benefits of compounding returns. What I noticed early on was that one thing could totally change someone’s approach to investing, and that was the first dividend they received. They didn’t need to see all the long-term growth. It was the moment free money landed in their bank account because of an investment they’d made. It doesn’t even need to be a big amount. It suddenly unlocked that, “Oh my goodness, I get a reward from this. This delivers something.” So it’s finding those things that let you go, “Oh, I get a little reward from this.” There are so many ways to do it. I track our analytics every week to check how we’re tracking against where we want to go, because it’s amazing how your brain can get in the way and tell you so many stories. So having that hard evidence matters.

I’m meeting up with someone in a couple of weeks who contacted me to say her goal while she was looking for work was five coffees a month, I think it was. She’s working again now, but she’s committed to it until the end of the year, so she’s still hitting that target. Maybe she’ll lower it, but setting herself that target meant she could hit it every month and feel like, “Whoa, I’ve got that success.” Rather than setting herself a goal of 52 coffees this year, which feels so big and hard, she broke it down into smaller things she can achieve every month. Which is what all the apps do – they’re set up for those little micro wins.

Kristen: Totally, they’ve designed them well. Which leads perfectly to a wrap, because that story is a perfect example of that design. Designing this stuff into your life with some of these hacks beats discipline. If anyone’s like (and I’d be the first to put my hand up), “Oh gosh, I’m undisciplined, I don’t have strong willpower,” we can design our way out of that. So I love the idea of design over discipline.

And we often say confidence is earned, and confidence always follows action. It’s not the other way around. You’re never going to wake up and just have confidence. I think the same is true of motivation. Motivation follows action. You take the first step, you get the dopamine hit, then you get motivated, which leads to more action, which leads to more motivation. It’s a really nice cycle.

Nat: Yeah. And I think that comes back to trust, and why we really encourage a really small start. If you asked yourself to save $10,000 without any experience of doing it, or any belief that you could, it would feel too big and too hard. But once you get that first little interest or dividend payment, you start to see yourself doing it, and you break it down into $5 a week or whatever. It’s the same thing I’ve seen with our members. We say, just do 30 minutes a month. And the people who start and do 30 minutes a month end up doing a lot more, because they go, “I can do 30 minutes a month, that’s fine, I’ll add it to my list.” Then they see the impact. They’ve spoken up in a meeting, or changed their calendar and cleared out some time, or (the mini-masterclass we had this week was amazing) made a much more impactful point and been able to influence outcomes better. You start to get addicted to it, because you’re no longer having to motivate yourself to do something when you’re not sure of the outcome. You’ve seen the outcome, so you’re like, “Whoa, I want more of this.” So it’s often just getting over the hump of starting.

Kristen: Yeah, exactly.

Nat: Hopefully that was helpful. Our ask: we’d love it if you shared this podcast with people at work. If you’ve got an intranet, or you use Teams or Slack or wherever you share interesting resources, we’d love you to share this episode, just so we can get the word out that we exist. We’re an amazing fit for people all along the bell curve who want to navigate the workplace on their terms. So thank you so much for sharing.

Kristen: I mean, people know we’re an amazing fit, because we’re literally calling people at one end of the curve to help them get to the other end. How many companies do that? Sit down and call everyone individually, going, “Hey, how do we get you up the bell curve?”

Nat: Oh no, no. And we’d love to meet you. So, powrsuit.com. Thank you for sharing, we look forward to our next topic, and we’ll catch you all next time. Bye!