I don't actually LOVE going to the dump

Did you know that getting satisfaction from completing a task isn’t the same thing as enjoying the action of completing that task?

When considering what you “enjoy” in life, many of us squeeze out true fun and enjoyment by focusing on getting things done and checking things off our lists. 

Getting things done is certainly important, however, checking things off our lists is not the same thing as “having fun”.  Taking time to really consider what you actually enjoy, like, and love to do is not a trivial exercise. 

Main points: 

• Noticing the nuance and creating balance in your life matters.
• Take some time to consider what you actually enjoy, love, like, dislike, even hate.
• Of course it’s not always possible to ONLY do the things you like or love, but that doesn’t mean those things should always be your lowest priority or pushed aside entirely.

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Transcript

0:09

Welcome to the Live a Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Tibbetts, and each week I'll be here to encourage and equip you with the tools you need to grow in self awareness and invest your best energy in your dreams and your purpose. I believe self awareness changes everything. Let's get started. Hey friends. Today, I'm here with Ellen Mailhot, and we are celebrating a hundred podcast interviews. So Ellen, thank you for being here today. Thank you for having me. Congratulations on number 100. Thank you for all the work you do behind the scenes to make all of this possible. We were thinking it would be fun to have a conversation about an aha moment I had before I became a life coach. Over these last few years, you've taught me two important things. One is to notice Notice my own life. Notice my thoughts. And two, is to notice the nuance. That life often has some, you know, ambiguity to it. And I'm like most humans and want things to be like really clear. It's yes or no. And you've helped me to Honor the fact that most of the times there's nuance in life. So we're gonna talk about those three things, what it looks like to notice your own life, what it looks like to notice the nuance, and then to notice the things in life that we love, things that we like, things that are neutral, things that we don't really like at all but we're doing them and we're maybe even making it into a story in our head that we like it. And what do we actually hate doing and why are we doing that? I used to take one day a week and it was my Sabbath day. It was my day to refuel my soul. I was doing a lot of things, but in particular, I was working full time and I set aside one day a week to just do things that I enjoy. And my oldest daughter helped me realize. I was doing things that were chores on my day of refueling because I didn't actually know what I liked. Anything that you're noticing about this conversation, that we're going to have? It's very interesting to really think about enjoyment as an adult. I think your dump story that you're about to tell is just fantastic. If a result makes me feel good, it doesn't necessarily mean the activity was fun, but in my mind, that was fun. I think we have so much work to do. We mix it all up and we kind of lose that for the sake of the activity and not for the result of it. And. I just think you got to tell your story because it's just so representative of what so many of us do in the time that we're supposed to be using for ourselves. So I love that. I just actually got off a call with Jen Liss, who is a breathwork person that I love. And she had us go back and say, when was the last time you just had so much fun? Is it dancing? Is it going to the ocean? Like what was the last time? And then she tried to help us remember, well, when else have you done that? And I actually do really love that. Dancing, like in a group, I love weddings. You and I had a chance to go to a wedding once and hang out and dance. And I love that. It's not something I do on a regular basis. And so being in these breathwork zoom calls where they put on music and dance, it's very funny for me to notice. I actually do enjoy it, but I have lots of thoughts about it. So we're going to just talk about that today. So the first thing you taught me was the idea of noticing, noticing your thoughts, noticing what is going on. I'm thinking what I'm feeling, what I want to do, what I don't want to do. I would say I spent most of my life not noticing. Now, in The Working Genius, you are strong in W, which means you're really good at noticing the questions. Do you feel like you've spent most of your life noticing, because you have used journals or is noticing something newer? Well, I'm not sure because the work I've done with you these last four years have, really honed in on that ability, which I didn't realize was a thing that I did. I feel like you honoring me noticing encouraged me to notice more. And then together and with your coaching business, we realized what an impact it makes in your life when you notice all these details and how different everybody thinks and notice things about yourself and all these things that actually can make some real healthy changes in your life. So you're growing in your ability to notice. I'm growing in my ability to notice. And we would just encourage you on this podcast, that is something worth taking the time for. Whether you use a journal, whether you use your phone app, whether many people notice in conversation, if they can just start talking to somebody where they feel safe and heard, they might notice their thoughts or their feelings. So noticing matters. One of the most important things about noticing is being willing to honor the noticing of the nuance. Rarely is it all the way to the left or all the way to the right. Most things in life have nuance and you're so good at helping me honor that in myself. That we don't have to, make it mean anything. We could just notice, okay, sometimes this is true. But sometimes it's not. Yeah. And it depends. Like, often my answer would be, well, it depends. Like, oh, I like gardening. Well, yeah, but not if I have to do it for eight hours and I hurt my back at the end of it. And I don't like everything about it. I love the results. I love some of the activities. I don't love all of them. So is gardening fun for me? I would say yes, but You know, there's a sweet spot in the middle. And I think no matter what it is that you enjoy doing, or like a lot of aspects of work are fun or enjoyable, but there's muddy waters there, right? Like it can be too much, or it can be, you know, too much time pressure or whatever. That kind of takes the enjoyment out of it. And then we have things, you know, we do purely for the sake of the fun and enjoyment without a result. And, and that's all really complex and it's unique to each person. So super interesting. Yeah. And that's why we think coaching is so important because it's so hard to do all this work alone. Yeah. Yeah, and having people around you who are doing the same thing. It's very encouraging. Sometimes in our small group sessions, someone else will say something that helps me to notice the nuance of a circumstance. Yeah, absolutely. So we're saying to notice your own thoughts, your own feelings and then without judgment. Notice them and notice there's probably nuance. I like this but not then. And so the dump story is when I had this day off once a week, I actually loved the feeling after going to the dump. I loved getting things out of my house and they were gone. And there was like a little bit of a burst of energy because they were gone. Yes. So satisfying. Yep. But I made that mean I liked going to the dump, and if my one day a week to fill my own soul was simply, you know, clean out my house and go to the dump, I probably wasn't as, you know, beautiful and filling as going to a yoga class, or going out to coffee with a friend, or going to see some water, I love lakes and oceans. Pretty much anything but going to the dump. Anything but going to the dump. But I don't think I ever would have come to that conclusion without Elizabeth asking me the question. And what question did she ask you exactly? Yeah, she took a piece of paper and she said we're going to think about what you love, what you like, what's neutral, what you dislike, and what you hate. And this was all in response to you saying I like going to the dump? It was in response to me saying it's my day of rest, I'm going to go clean the refrigerator and go to the dump. And she's like, this does not make sense. All right. And so she had taken very seriously Pete Scazzaro's Emotionally Healthy Spirituality which encourages us to take one day a week and refuel our soul. She was just seeing a disconnect and noticing something I wasn't noticing, but of course, without judgment. And that's what's wonderful is there's probably people in your life and you are one of them for me that can help us notice without judgment. Yeah, yeah. And interesting. So back to the dump example, I feel like, where did you put that? Like, you don't hate it. Right. It's not horrible, but it's not sabbathy, you know, right. I put it into the neutral. Yeah. Cause you enjoyed the result. It's a satisfying. As a package, but the activity itself is actually not something that fills you up and relaxes you and that's why I moved it off of that day. So I used to work for days during the week and Sunday, but then often there was a 5th day that little things ended up happening. So there was only, we don't have a lot of time to do all this stuff. So, right. But I was guarding this 1 day a week. And so when we did this together, I realized going to yoga on that day was like, Absolutely something I should do. Mm hmm. Mm hmm going to the dump should happen any of the other sick days six days. Yeah. Yeah It's so fascinating It reminds me of the it's actually a similar gardening related story when I was with my husband at a coffee place We ran into someone that he worked with And they were chatting about work and then suddenly, randomly, the, the guy said to me, Ellen, what are you doing for fun these days? And I wasn't expecting to be part of the conversation because they had been talking about something else. And this was when my kids were little I had no idea what was fun for me and I kind of paused because I didn't have an answer. It struck me also that it's just wrong that I didn't have an answer to. What are you doing for fun? I realized something was missing and some of it is, was the nature of the stage of life I was in too. But, it's not unimportant to have things you enjoy to do. And I think a lot of us spread your life so thin and are doing so many things for other people. It's sometimes gets lost, sometimes gets pushed to the bottom. And so that was kind of a highlight for me of, I want to add that back in somehow. Well, we didn't have a lot of examples saying, Hey, women, what you do at home is important and is actually work, right? Because there was no income coming in. We didn't necessarily classify it as work and it was unending work. And so we've talked about how we would love to go in a time machine and like, share this with our younger selves who got past capacity. Mother's day when my girls were little, I worked at a time machine. Did a church and so I needed to work on Mother's Day because that was the day most of my volunteers actually took off. And a few of them had husbands who would come in and help, but it was always like a very light volunteer day. And my children were very young. I think my youngest was three when I started working. So then I came home and told my husband what I really want for Mother's Day is to go in my room and watch Home and Garden Channel and scrapbook or read a book and just be alone for the day and I had So much work to do to allow myself to do that and later realize like my kids loved that I did that They did not take it to me and I didn't love them and then I had friends who were having children younger than I was, say, wow, that was great. I think I want to try that too. And I have yet to meet a dad who said, I felt so bad on father's day, I went golfing. Right. And so notice the thought, like I'm tired. I'd like to do something that refuels my soul. I'm going to be a better version of me. And so all of this work for me really began with Pete Scazzaro's Emotionally Healthy Spirituality because before I read his book, I had a very emotionally unhealthy spirituality. I overgave. I did not honor my own soul. I didn't rest. And you probably squished your resentment under the carpet. You didn't even notice that. Oh, and it definitely spilled out. You can ask my girls. It definitely spilled out. Spilled out of my husband. Spilled out all over the place. Yeah, I had a similar Mother's Day experience with kids. You This was when they were really little said, Mommy, my gift to you on Mother's Day is you get to play with me all day long. And I remember feeling incredibly guilty because in my heart, I was like, that is the last thing in the world I want to do today. Like I love my kids, but I was an at home mom. All those years and that, that had some fun moments, but it was work that was part of my job and it wasn't always easy or fun to get them to, you know, to play with them and some of it was and some of it wasn't. And, but I had such guilt around it. It was just like, I don't want to be with you today. And I didn't say that. Right. Certainly didn't behave that way, but in my heart, I was like, Oh, I, I shouldn't always want to do that. Right. It's okay. Again, a thought that we didn't notice and we wouldn't have known to say, well, how unrealistic to expect ourselves to constantly want to play with small children as an adult. Some people like that. I don't. I even think people who do this for a living, like I loved being a kindergarten teacher, I wouldn't say I love to do it all the time. That's one of the nuances, right? So as we go through this list, try not to judge it based on whether you love it or like it, because you don't want to do it all the time. You don't want to do it in any kind of weather or in fact, I was thinking of questions of course was What are the things that get in the way for this activity being fun for you? And for me the answers are well If there's too many people or it goes on too long or if there's a strict agenda or drama around it Like there's there's things that just suck the fun out of something and it's different for each person. Some people It's only fun if there are a lot of people, right? I don't like a lot of people. So that kind of can take away from the fun. Whereas you're a little bit the opposite. You might be like, it was a little boring because there was only one person. I thought it was boring. Is that My strength finders, my first one, right? Is this includer. And so everybody has to come, everybody has to feel welcome. Everybody, you know, if I'm telling a story, I have to go back to the beginning because somebody new came in. That's the nuance of noticing sometimes the strength is helpful, but sometimes it is not helpful and I don't need to do the behavior. Right. So here's the list. What do you love? What do you like? What's neutral? What do you dislike? And what do you hate doing? Okay. And what we want you to really honor is the fact that we were created to have lives that are vibrant and we're supposed to enjoy our own life. And so maybe there were things you enjoyed doing when you were 10, 15, 20 that you've put aside because the responsibilities of life have taken up all the energy and you just don't have a lot of energy. But if you could figure out, hey, maybe I'll delegate this, or I'll defer that, or I'll say no for a season to this, and make some space, a little bit of space, 30 minutes a week, an hour a week, to do something that brings us joy, what would you even do? And also thinking about what new thing might I enjoy? Like we think, what have we, what do we used to do that we don't do anymore? For me, it was biking. I started biking again and, and not, I'm not a serious biker, but I missed it and started doing it again. But there might be something new that you haven't even tried or didn't have the time for before that you might, I don't know, you've got to put some time into thinking. Well, now that your brain has a job, you might start noticing it. I know you and a friend tend to take like a little bit of time, I don't know if it's every week, but a lot of weeks to try to do something fun. You have lists of places to go and how did you guys even begin doing that? Did she think of it? Did you think of it? It evolved. Yeah, no, it really just evolved. It was like we realized we just, because when our kids were little, we'd meet in the middle for coffee and we had like an hour, like it was this tiny little window. And now that our kids are grown up and hers are not quite gone, mine are all gone. We have more time. We can make our time longer. I know it's like, oh, let's go hiking or let's do this or let's do this. And, and we also talk about growing older. Like we want to stay active and do things like not just sit around and talk. Well, I think it's very fun, the adventures you've been on are exciting to see. I love that idea of like, maybe it's someplace new you haven't been. And for me, I've noticed I have more fun when it's a day, short, like it's, I don't want to be a long weekend. Like it just, when you have to pack and drive and it's, and then there's 20 other people, those things that can be fun. But for me, I notice short day trips are more fun for me than big getaways or big trips. And. Yeah. While I have those big trips occasionally, they're more work, right? There's more social drain for me. I get anxiety about traveling. The packing is always kind of challenging. I'm clothed challenged as many women are. Clothing challenged. So, you know, it's interesting to know. And it doesn't mean that you're not going to do those things. You're just gonna know in advance that they're probably going to take more energy than something that you love and consider easy. Absolutely. So let's take a moment. And so it's the summer and before the fall, are there any things that we would like to do that we love, like that are neutral that we dislike or we hate doing and what we want to just offer you while you're hearing us? Maybe we'll say something that makes you think of something. Really try to consider the fact that it might be you. You know, I love going for a bike ride for 30 minutes, but I don't want a two week Cape Cod biking vacation, like try to notice that nuance and that might help you make some decisions and then expect to feel uncomfortable if this is the first time you're sitting down and trying to notice what you even enjoy because your life has been running at such a rate that you don't have in general these practices where, hey, every Thursday, I'm going to meet up with a friend and do something that fills my soul. Expect to feel uncomfortable. But the more we do something, you know, The more we get used to it, that uncomfortable feeling goes away. But you and I have talked about this. I think part of getting old is our unwillingness to feel that uncomfortable feeling. So we just keep doing things and making our life a little bit smaller. Same thing. Or doing the safe things that are, that are easier or comfortable or yeah. And then calling those things fun, even though they're kind of net neutral, like going to the dump. I just think that's so funny. All right. So one thing I love doing, but I'm not getting to it enough is I really love painting with music on. And I discovered that when I did the Artist Way the first time four years ago, and I really sat and thought, what's something creative I want to do? So for this summer, that is something I would like to bring back into my life is some quiet time where I paint and listen to music at the same time. And you're going to pick specific time to schedule that in, right? Intentional, like, are you going to do it regularly? Is it just like, how are you going to fit it in? I tried to on Saturdays. I have four different goals for my Saturday. Sometimes it's like a business goal. Sometimes it's a family goal, but once a month on a Saturday, it's, it's a Kelly goal. Like, what is, what do I want to do? And so I want to be specifically doing that, but I'd really like to add it into my evening routine. I feel like I have a very big gap between after dinner and bed and we have like light out late. It's light out. And when it's not really, really hot and sticky, I do like going for a walk. I've been finding that a little bit hard to do these last couple of days. So it could be something that I could add in my evening. Just because you have a schedule. I feel like that doesn't mean you don't. Or you resist being spontaneous about it, right? There may be a unexpected rainy day or, you know, something that isn't, isn't on my official Saturday, but I can, you know, something gets canceled that is raining. I'm going to just sit down and do your painting. Yeah. And so that's something I want to add that I don't currently do because I really. feel like it fills my soul with sunshine. Yeah. Something that I am currently doing that I got better at is reading books made of paper. For some reason, when Kindle was invented, I started not buying paper books anymore and just doing the Kindle and I don't love it the same. I don't like though. I'm doing a better job now of having books in different places of my house and reading books. And then the third thing I'm doing that I love is going for walks and then being intentional and noticing. So like no headphones, Trying to see something pretty while I'm walking or just paying attention. And so those are things that I'm really loving to do and I'm doing. Anything you're noticing right now that you actually love to do and you're doing? I do, I do a lot of reading and I can get into, I kind of have three buckets. I have my, what I call fun reading, which is fiction. There's a couple of different genres I really like. I do a lot of self help psychology reading. I do spiritual reading. And so the, the fun side, the, fiction, I can get away from that. Sometimes I can kind of put all my energy into the, to the others, which is not necessarily it's more on the work side to me or development, self growth kind of development work. But, that's one thing. I, went to a farmer's market not that long ago and I realized I love farmer's markets. And I don't go often enough. And so like I went once, right? I mean, I'd like to go more regularly. So that's one thing I really do enjoy the activity of, and I want to go more regularly and also blueberry picking it's, I think I only went like two years ago and every time I go, I love it. And I say, I'm going to go again this summer and I never go again, I go once. And so I'm hoping to go more than once this summer. So because I do enjoy that and I enjoy the results too. They freeze so well. Right. It is fun. It's very satisfying activity. And it's fun. And just even talking to you, I'm like, I love going to lunch with you. Like I need to, we had said we want to add in, like have a lunch together once a month and bring a friend that we haven't seen for a while and talk to you. So going out to lunch, getting a coffee, those are things we love. Anything that comes to mind that you either like or is neutral. So you don't mind doing it, but it's not something that's high on your priority list, anything coming to mind. So I'll use the dump example. I really do love. spending at least one day every other week trying to get stuff out of my house. Well, it's really, I think a very necessary thing for mental health to not have a chaotic physical household in terms of just clutter and garbage and, and, you know, like set things you need really need to bring to the dump or the secondhand shop or give away. And it takes a lot of work. And as a regular, we've talked about this in other contexts, right? There's just, it's not just a spring cleaning thing. It really is an all year thing. And the more regularly you do it, the less work it is, blah, blah, blah. Right? So I would put that in that same category is like, the result is too important. To, to put it off, but it's, it's, it's a chore. It's not really that, that fun. I don't hate it if I'm in the right energy to do it. And that's another critical thing for me is, is planning ahead so that I know I'm not saving it for when I'm exhausted and all the other work is done. Like I have to plan it when I know I have both physical and mental energy because there's thinking involved, right? It isn't just. You know, randomly tossing thing. We all learn that, you know, you got to make your three piles and do the give, keep, donate, or dump, you know what I mean. Now how about gardening? Where does that fall on the continuum? Oh, it's interesting. So gardening, I love so much, so much of it. But my yard is too big for my age and, and physical abilities right now. And I get some help, but I do like the activity. I like some activities more than others. I love, this is weird, but I really love making dirt. Like when you have, you have your, buy your bag of compost and you have your dirt from last year and you need to mix, like, that's really fun for me. It's like a little kid playing in the mud. Like I actually really enjoy that activity. Plus I can do it at my bench, so I'm not bending over hurting my back. So I like the result. I know I don't like weeding. I know who likes that. I love pruning. Can I say though, I really like weeding. Of all the different pieces, that's the one I love because I feel like it gives you that instant satisfaction and it stays. Yes, that's true. And if I can, if I can remember, I do sometimes turn it into a spiritual activity where I'm like weeding out parts of my character that like, I think of that, but I don't know if I call it fun. It's a satisfying activity. Fun. I don't know. This is where the nuance gets kind of messed up in my head is there's so much satisfaction out of it and good health that comes out of it. Does that mean it's fun? I don't, I don't know the answer. And I think that's really why we wanted to have this conversation is it's something that is individual. It depends on your energy, depends on life circumstances, but take the time as needed to notice. Do I still enjoy these things? Am I doing enough of them? Okay. For dislike and hate for me, it is cooking. I would spend all day doing laundry, mopping floors, organizing things. There is nothing that brings me joy, and I want it to, like, I got a really great book where I'm learning about like salt and fat and, heat and I, I want it to be something that I love. You've never liked it, right? But I've never liked it. It reminds me of your child saying like, you get to play with me all day. Like, you get to cook. Don't. And my girls and my husband love it. They put on music and they, they enjoy the whole experience. For me, that was something that I just have to allow. Yeah. Like it needs to be done. I'm doing it, but. It's not something that brings me great joy. And so there may eventually be some piece of it that I love, but there may never be. And so anything come to mind for you? It's interesting with the cooking thing, because I think I love cooking, but I don't want to do it every day. And I don't want to do it for large numbers of people. And I enjoy it sometimes and not others. So that doesn't mean it's neutral for me. Like if the circumstances are right, I actually love it. And if the circumstances are really wrong, I hate it. So it's one of these things that moves along. Like there isn't neutral category and it stays there forever. Mine at least with regard to cooking and gardening, very fluid. We don't have to make it mean anything. It doesn't. That's yeah. Yeah. It doesn't try to do more of what brings you joy. I loved learning a little bit about this while my girls still lived at home because we were able to sort of share the chores in a way that honor different people. And then when everyone moved back home for COVID, we were We were mostly self aware humans. And so it wasn't me taking care of everybody. We sat down and thought through everything from like, who's going to get up with the dog to who's going to make dinner. And everybody was able to choose the things that they either liked or were net neutral and nobody was doing the things that they hate. It's nice when you can find that balance. Cause there's enough people that generally you're going to have that balance. And that's not to say you should only do things you love, right? Cause that's not life. Life doesn't work that way. But, it's a beautiful thing when you can balance it out and have people do what they love or what they're naturally gifted in. That's wonderful. Yeah. And that was why we've been sharing these podcasts, a hundred of them now, is to just give a little bit of an idea that if you take just a few moments, you might begin to notice something and there's probably nuance to it. So any last thought before we end for today? I think I may have referred to this earlier, but for me, it's been very helpful when I list out all the things I enjoy is to then think about what are the things that turn it into a non enjoyable activity. What gets in the way for me, and I started listing out, I'm like, that's really helpful to know. And there's so many things for me that I can enjoy really wonderfully and beautifully Under the right circumstances and sometimes those circumstances are in my control. I can actually, use my own tools to adjust and prevent it from burning me out or, you know, turning into a not enjoyable activity. I think that's a really helpful exercise is to take the time to think about what do you actually enjoy, why you enjoy it, and then what makes it not enjoyable. And to recognize also that something you enjoy kind of moves on that scale that you said sometimes you don't enjoy it. Why? You know, and it isn't necessarily mean you love it all the time. I think those are great questions. We will try to capture them and put them in the notes. Thank you Ellen for everything: for making these hundred episodes possible and for reminding us today, the power of noticing the nuance. I hope you enjoyed this episode. I look forward to talking again next week. Thank you for joining the Live a Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encouraged you and will equip you with the tools you need to move into the vibrant life you desire. I'm here to help you live a brave, creative, purpose filled life. And if you'd like to learn more, you can follow me on Instagram or Facebook, Kelly Tibbetts Life Coach, or visit my website, kellytibbetts. com. I look forward to connecting again soon.