Episode Transcript
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Sheila (00:01):
you've built something
meaningful.
People know who you are, butlately even the simplest
decisions feel heavier than theyshould.
You're not stuck, you're justtired of sorting through noise
that doesn't match where you'reheaded.
In this episode, I'm breakingdown what decision fatigue
really looks like for women likeus, why it hits hardest once
the momentum kicks in, and howto reclaim your clarity so your
(00:24):
energy flows toward whatactually matters your creativity
, your clients and your peace.
Hi, welcome to the Connect withSheila Botelho podcast.
I'm committed to helping youreconnect to your purpose,
elevate your well-being andbuild your version of a happy,
successful life.
(00:44):
Today's conversation is one thatI've been thinking about for a
while, and it's truly based onhow many women I've spoken to
recently who are feeling thesame undercurrent, and so I know
it's time to bring this thingto light.
We are going to talk aboutdecision fatigue, but not in the
way that you might have heardabout it in productivity circles
(01:05):
.
We're going beyond the buzzwordtoday.
We're looking at how it showsup uniquely for ambitious,
soulful women like you, peoplewho are creators, founders,
leaders, legacy builders ofbusinesses, who may have been in
the game for a while but whoare quietly carrying the weight
(01:26):
of a constant decision-makingexperience in a rapidly shifting
world.
We're going to talk about howdecision fatigue can subtly
steal your time, steal yourcreativity and your spark, and
whether you're scaling apersonal brand or whether you're
running a traditional business.
But it even could show up ifyou're leading a family or
(01:49):
holding space for a global team,and by the end of this episode,
you'll see how decision fatiguemight be playing out in your
life right now, what it'scosting you and, more
importantly, how to come home toyourself and find more ease
without sacrificing yourambition or your depth.
So get cozy, sidle up withsomething warm like a coffee or
(02:13):
a tea.
I've got my almond milk matchaover here and let's go there.
The first part of this wholeconversation it really begins
with understanding what isdecision fatigue.
I alluded to it on this week'smini-sode but truly, when you
look at the definition HarvardBusiness Review gives it, they
(02:35):
define it as the decline in thequality of decisions made by an
individual after a long sessionof decision-making, and that's
truly okay.
That's the definition, but Ireally wanna talk about what is
it in real life terms?
So, when we think about it,it's that moment when your brain
(02:58):
goes blank while choosing adinner spot, or when you open
Instagram and can't even decidewhat to post because your mind
is toggling between 10 options.
Or when maybe your team iswaiting on a direction and your
inbox is full of quick questionsat the same time, and suddenly
you're so overwhelmed you justscroll through the inbox and
(03:20):
don't respond to any of them.
And now maybe you're thinkingwell, sheila, that is just what
being a grownup looks like in2025.
And that may be true, and it'salso a signal.
It's a very real red flag thatthe volume of choices is
(03:40):
outpacing your clarity.
And I know I'm not alone when Italk about this, because so
many people have been talking tome about having too many tabs
open these days.
Because when you're holding allthe roles visionary operator,
parent partner, friend boardchair, friend board chair, class
(04:09):
snack supplier it adds updecision by decision.
And here's the kicker it affectshigh functioning, high
achieving women even more, notless.
Because we're capable, becausewe're deeply creative and we see
all the options and we knowthat we could do them all well.
Options, and we know that wecould do them all well, and
that's what makes it so hard tochoose.
So sometimes I say this to myclients.
(04:35):
Just because you can do itdoesn't mean that it's yours to
do, and you know they kind ofsigh in relief.
So maybe you're sighing alittle right now too, I know.
Even just saying it, I want totake a deep breath in, and it
feels good knowing that we haveto remind ourselves of these
things.
So let's explore where thisshows up, because it's rarely
(04:55):
just in one place you may findit in.
I'm going to give you a bunch ofexamples here.
So the first one is investments.
You open your calendar and youcan't decide should I invest in
a VA, in a new brand shoot, ormaybe a strategic advisor?
And then you do none of thembecause choosing feels too
(05:18):
loaded.
And, let's be real, sometimesyou spend more time researching
the options than actuallyexecuting.
One Decision fatigue loves todress up as research.
Another area it could show up inis in business pivots.
So maybe you've been sitting ona rebrand for a year, or you've
(05:39):
got a product that really works, but you're tired of it and you
don't know whether that'sboredom or intuition talking.
And what do we do when we'reunsure?
We take another course.
We rewrite the copy, we let itsimmer until it evaporates
completely, or worse, you launchsomething that no longer feels
aligned because you were tootired to clarify the thing that
(06:02):
would.
It shows up in visibilitystrategy.
Have you ever recorded a video,deleted it, rewrote it,
re-recorded and then never evenposted it?
Hey, I've been there many times, sometimes five times in one
morning.
Back in the day, you think toyourself I just didn't feel
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right.
But it's not about the words,it's about the weight of trying
to say everything perfectly.
When your vision is not fullyanchored, when decision fatigue
is running the show, even simpleposts start to feel like
dissertations, which they reallynever should.
It can show up in relationships, so, for instance, never should
(06:47):
.
It can show up in relationshipsso, for instance, if you're the
glue in your household or inyour business, think about all
of the decisions that you'remaking on behalf of everyone.
It can truly chip away at yourown decision-making stamina.
Should we do this vacation?
Do we need to switch schools?
How do I help my partner withtheir stress?
(07:12):
Even emotional labor is filledwith choices how to respond,
when to hold space, when tospeak the truth, when to hold
our tongues and not say anythingand just go on a walk.
It can show up in teamleadership, of course.
So if you're running a team,everybody who comes to you
saying, oh, do you got a sack?
Those times they become likeanother micro decision.
And when you haven't carved outtime to decide what kind of
(07:34):
leader you want to be thisquarter, you end up defaulting
into reactivity mode.
And of course, it shows up inparenting.
So whether you're managing atoddler's snack rotation or
deciding which high schooloffers the most balanced
curriculum or best sports, itall adds to your brain's load,
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even things like, oh my goodness, this one's big for me.
What's for dinner?
It becomes the emotionallandmine when your bandwidth is
already tapped.
And let's not even talk aboutthe hidden calendar stress of
signing permission slips andplanning birthday parties that
meet expectations that youreally never agree to.
(08:16):
Okay, that's one thing.
I didn't do a whole lot ofthanks to home education.
But, oh my goodness, theconversations with clients and
friends who have.
It's a big deal.
And here's where it gets tricky.
You might look high functioningto everyone else.
You're doing all the things,your calendar is full, your team
says you're crushing it, butinside you feel like you're
(08:39):
constantly behind, like yourto-do list has a to-do list, you
know.
You start asking yourselfquestions like why can't I just
choose, when really the betterquestion is what am I carrying?
That's making it hard to choose.
I invite you to use that one asa reframe next time that comes
(09:01):
up for you.
So I want to share a little bitabout what happened for me.
When I first entered the onlinespace, I had this clarity kind
of land in my lap just about theoffers I was putting out.
I found like that came to me.
My people found me.
I really felt anchored and Iknew what I stood for and I
(09:23):
wasn't trying to be everythingto everyone.
It felt like walking on a clearpath with good shoes and like
the sun's shining and the birdsare singing and I know who.
I helped, I knew the outcomesthey could expect and I had such
deep trust in the work I wasn'tperforming, I was sharing and
it just all worked.
(09:43):
Then came the rise of thepersonal brand and hey, I love a
good brand moment.
Give me the right lighting anda message from the heart and I'm
in my happy place.
But suddenly I was being toldto be on every platform in every
format and to launch everything.
Now, was I actually being toldthat?
(10:03):
No, I wasn't, but that's themessage I was picking up by
watching everybody around me.
So one week it was you need amini course.
The next was go all in onretreats.
Then it was why don't you havea low ticket monthly program?
Oh, and why aren't you doingInstagram lives every single
morning while you put yourmakeup on?
And I laugh now because I mean,hey, some of these are actually
(10:26):
recent, right, but at the timeit wasn't funny, it was
confusing and exhausting, and Istarted to feel like a
shapeshifter, constantlytoggling between strategies,
tones, price points.
One day I was writing a copythat really felt poetic to me
and the next I was being told tooptimize for conversion, like
(10:50):
whatever that meant.
I was spinning, not because Ilacked vision, but because I had
too much vision.
I could see how all the optionsmight work, but I couldn't
figure out which one would workbest for me.
So what happened?
Well, I froze Hello, notvisibly, not emotionally, but
(11:13):
truly.
It was a mental freeze, anenergetic freeze, and I call
that functional freeze freeze,and I call that functional
freeze, and other people do too.
So I could still perform, Icould still post, I could still
respond to emails.
My emotions weren't out ofcontrol or anything.
I showed up for my clients, Ismiled on camera, I was doing
the thing, but I wasn't makingdecisions from true desire.
(11:36):
I was making them fromdepletion.
And let me tell you, when yourmessage starts coming from that
place, it really landsdifferently.
People can feel it, I mean youcan feel it.
It's that sensation of movingthrough molasses or maple syrup
right, of writing captions thatsound okay but they really don't
(11:58):
move anyone.
It's like you're always feelinglike you're behind, even when
you're doing everything right orwhat someone said is the right
way.
So that was the moment, thequiet moment when the early
seeds of what is now theembodied success method were
planted, not from some flashymastermind download or a like
(12:22):
crush it, energy boost, but itwas a real whisper from within
that there has to be a betterway.
It came to me actually during awalk.
I remember the exact spot.
I was in my running shoes, Iwas outside, I wasn't planning
content, I wasn't thinking aboutanything about business.
I was really just thinkingabout peace, about joy and about
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the version of me that used tofeel lit up by her work and not
buried by it, and I realizedthat what I wanted wasn't to do
less necessarily.
I just wanted to do the rightthings for me in the right
seasons with the right energybehind them, and that was the
(13:08):
start.
And I will say this your nextbreakthrough may not come from
another sprint.
It might actually come fromslowing down and listening, from
noticing and from trusting yourown quiet.
Enough is enough, right.
So let's bring in some womenwho are modeling what it
actually looks like to step outof decision fatigue and into
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what I like to term sovereignclarity.
And this is just something thatreally helps me when I look at
the stories of other womenwho've gone before me and
they've done things differently.
And there's a few podcasts Ithink in 2018 that I was
listening to, and this personwas a regular on a few of them
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and her name is Allie Webb, thefounder of Drybar, and so she
had talked about how, at onepoint, she was the face of the
brand, managing the demands ofbrick and mortar growth, media,
investor pressure, all whilenavigating founder burnout.
(14:14):
And it was so cool because sheshared what she actually did.
She actually delegatedvisibility, she handed off
public facing leadership rolesand she stepped into selective
mentorship.
She traded hustle fordiscernment and made peace with
not being the loudest person inthe room.
(14:35):
It was so interesting to hearher talk about how her second
act didn't scale louder, itactually scaled smarter.
So her clarity became her brandand in doing so she created
space to lead with intention andnot adrenaline.
And she got so centered and somany beautiful things happened
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for her after that time in herlife and relationships because
she had more mental bandwidthand emotional bandwidth.
There's another founder that Iwas listening to recently on a
podcast, melanie Travis, thefounder of Andy Swim, and she
was talking about how she triedevery visibility hack, every
(15:17):
marketing lever, and it workeduntil it wasn't working and she
hit that inflection point anddecided to make a different move
.
She returned to her roots,which was sharing direct
customer stories, building slowbrand trust and anchoring
everything into a simplified,consistent message.
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And you know what was reallyinteresting about it?
The growth curve didn't flatten, it deepened.
Her revenue actually increasedwhen she stopped saying yes to
every shiny opportunity andleaned into a cohesive vision.
There are so many great examples, and one of them I've really
(16:02):
enjoyed using these facial wipesat the gym recently.
The Honest Company makes andthe founder of the Honest
Company is someone by the nameof Jessica Alba, an actor, and I
love following what she hasdone, because she has publicly
chosen to draw a line aroundwhat she shares about her family
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, and this isn't a PR stunt oranything, but it's to protect
her peace and her kids'sovereignty, and in doing so,
people trusted her brand evenmore.
So, when you think about itthis way, boundaries are not
barriers to growth.
They're containers for it.
So these are examples I wantedto share from different
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industries, because it's so easyto get so myopic and think
about our own type of businessand our own like what are we
doing?
Or what is that person that I'mseeing in the networking group
all the time?
What are they doing?
And what they're doing mightwork beautifully for them, but
it's so important for you tothink about what you want and
what works best for you.
(17:06):
So this whole thing it's aboutbeing focused.
It's about doing the thingsthat actually land for you, and
the through line for all of thisis your next growth phase won't
be found in anotherdecision-making matrix.
Typically, it'll come fromgetting rid of things
(17:28):
subtracting noise, streamliningyour yeses and building from a
place of internal alignment,because I've found that when you
reduce decisions, you reallyreclaim a lot of energy, and
when you reclaim your energy,that's how you start to grow
things with more intention andreduce the overwhelm in your
life.
(17:49):
So this week I invite you toask yourself where can you
create more clarity?
By choosing less, just makingless choices.
Let's get nerdy for a minute,okay?
So the average entrepreneurspends two to four hours a week
stuck in indecision, secondguessing a headline, wavering
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over who to hire, who to fire,reworking an offer for the 10th
or 11th time, and that adds upto one to 200 hours a year.
Now, if your energeticbandwidth is worth, let's just
say, $150 an hour, let's justthrow that number out there.
It's likely worth more thanthat.
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But anyway, you're looking at$15,000 to $30,000 opportunity
cost just from not deciding.
Isn't that wild?
But truly, let's think about it.
It's not just about time andmoney, it's about traction.
It's the podcast episode youdidn't launch because you
(18:55):
weren't sure if the cover artwas on brand.
It's the new hire you put offbecause you didn't have time to
write the SOP, and so you'restill doing all the admin.
It's the product that wassupposed to go live last fall.
That's still collecting dust inyour drafts folder, and while
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it's easy to want to beatourselves up over it, of course
that's not the point.
We're not going to do that here.
We are going to have grace onourselves, but we are also here
to say it clearly, to name thecost financial, emotional,
creative and then consciouslychoose a different path, because
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your next level isn't waitingfor the perfect decision, it's
waiting for a clear one.
Deciding is a power move.
It's not about rushing, it'sabout trusting.
It's about saying I've gatheredenough and I trust myself to
move.
I found that when you reduce thenumber of micro decisions that
you make daily from what to eatto what to wear, to whether that
(19:59):
Instagram post needs moreemojis you free up capacity for
the decisions that actually movethe needle.
And that's where your nextgrowth phase lives in the
clarity, in the movement, in thespace that gets created when
you stop holding everything sotightly.
So here's a question to takewith you into your week what's
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one decision you've beenpostponing that if you made it
today, it would immediatelycreate momentum?
Let it be simple, let it beimperfect, just let it be made.
Let me walk you through theexact shifts that I coach my
clients through, ones that freeup focus and restore clarity for
(20:47):
them so that they can actuallystart moving forward in their
work without adding more totheir plates.
So the first one is decide yourfilter.
Not everything deserves yourenergy period.
One of the first things I askmy clients to create is a
decision filter, a clear, simplerubric that they can run every
opportunity, dm or idea through.
(21:08):
If it's not a full-body yesbased on revenue, resonance or
relevance, it's a pause or a no.
Sometimes I laugh and remindthem you're not an airport.
You don't need to respond toevery landing because you know
what happens.
When you try to do that, youbecome available to everything
(21:31):
and powerful in nothing.
The second thing I have them dois pre-decide content, offers
and operations.
Reduce the micro decisions.
Structure saves energy.
So if you're waking up every dayasking what should I post today
or what should I focus on first, you're already burning brain
power.
You could be spending on yourbrilliance or like that hot yoga
(21:55):
class, hello.
One founder that I worked withwent from posting whenever
inspiration struck toimplementing a four-week content
plan that aligned with hersales cycle.
I thought how brilliant is that?
Just align it with the salescycle.
I thought how brilliant is that, just align it with the sales
cycle.
You're good to go.
She told me I didn't realizehow much brain space I was
wasting trying to be brillianton the fly, and now her ideas
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still land powerfully, butthey're created from flow within
a framework and not chaos.
So, using templates, usingtimelines, using messaging
pillars these aren't just niceto haves, they're really
business self-care.
And third, honor your nervoussystem, please.
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Every single founder that Iadmire, whether they call it a
regulation practice or not, Iknow that they have one.
They figured out that theircreativity and leadership are
all downstream from how calm andcentered they are.
So I often say create yourpre-meeting ritual.
So, before a client call asales conversation or a
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visibility moment, breathe,stretch, speak a mantra to
yourself.
My go-to, I love to say, is I'mnot behind, I'm setting the
tone for how I lead.
You do not need to push harder,you need to prepare differently
.
And, lastly, return to youressence.
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This is something I always amreminding clients about that you
came here for impact, not forapplause In the noise of growing
something really beautiful andpowerful.
It's so easy to lose your innercompass, but when you move from
that deep place inside whereyou know what you stand for what
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lights you up and what actuallymatters.
Your clients feel it andthey're drawn to you not because
you're shouting louder, butbecause you're resonating more
clearly, and that's what makesyour work so magnetic and that's
what builds trust.
Without trying, the method Icreated the Embodied Success
Method and Meditation is aboutgetting back to you your energy,
(24:12):
your rhythm, the way that youshow up in the world, without
compromising your impact.
Because if you're anything likethe founders I work with,
you're not just building for Q2revenue.
You're building something thatlasts, something that honors
your values, nourishes yournervous system and expands your
(24:33):
capacity to lead without burningout.
You're building for your family.
You're building for yourcommunity.
You're building for the womanwho you really want to be down
the road and the women who willcome after you.
You really want to be down theroad and the women who will come
after you, who will look atyour journey and feel permission
(24:53):
to do it their way too.
So that is truly what theembodied success method is
designed to support.
It's not about doing more.
It's about doing less, withgreater clarity, deeper
intention and strong results,because when you reduce
decisions, you reduce friction,and when you reduce friction,
(25:15):
you access more energy, you getmore focus happening, and that's
when momentum comes.
This method helps youstreamline your mental load so
you can make fewer decisions andbetter ones, ones that align
with your body and your businessmodel and, of course, the
seasons of life that you're in.
So if you're craving moresimplicity, spaciousness, more
(25:38):
aligned action, download theEmbodied Success Method found in
the show notes.
It is free, it's immediate andit's designed to help you move
forward with less effort, sothat you can go out and make a
really big impact in the world.
If today's episode landed foryou, send me a message on
Instagram or LinkedIn.
You can also text me from theshow notes.
(26:00):
And, more than anything, noticethis week.
Where are you spending energydeciding when you could be
directing?
Your spark isn't gone, it'sjust hiding under a pile of
shoulds.
Let's clear that pile together.
If you've been loving theConnect podcast, it would mean
the world if you'd tap followand leave a quick review.
(26:20):
It helps more incredibleentrepreneurs like you find
these conversations.
Thank you for listening.
Have a beautiful rest of yourday.
Big blessings, thank you.