62: How Being an Ambitious Woman Nearly Ruined My Life

I love doing this podcast. I love educating. I LOVE SHARING my information that I know being a Myers-Briggs expert and a former psychotherapist and couple’s counselor. And one of my core values on this show is to be vulnerable with you and to share my life experiences.

I don’t know who taught me this, but they call it TAO. Transparency, authenticity, and openness, which leads to today’s podcast. I am SICK as a dog. I am sick, sick, sick, sicker than I’ve been in a very long time. And. The show MUST go on.

So, a couple of weeks ago, maybe it was just last week, I’m in such a fog. Anyway, I was doing all the things. We have a huge team right now. I have a lot of clients right now. We are getting ready to launch… And I told Stephanie and our new Director of Operations, Kristen, that I was not going to take my normal day off on Friday, and I was going to start working over the weekends until the launch, and I’m going to start doing Facebook Lives and all these things.

And Stephanie said, “Hey girl, you might want to SLOW YOUR ROLL. Like, this is a marathon right now. This is not a sprint. You need to CONSERVE your ENERGY.” And at the time I was super healthy, completely in my Front Seat. I felt unstoppable. I felt like my normal, ambitious self.

I know I’m a VERY STRONG J, and a lot of women in my life are too. J’s are doers. They are pushers. They are bossy, they’re controlling, they’re AMBITIOUS, they know what they want, and they go after it. That is when they’re in their Front Seat. P’s, on the other hand, go with the flow, don’t worry about it.

I no doubt 1000% believe I got sick because I’m pushing TOO HARD. There’s too much going on. There’s a lot of pressure. There are a lot of expectations that I allow. I’m not stupid enough or naive enough to think that I am not 100% responsible for this, as are you.

I’ve been SICK THREE TIMES this year, and it’s only March 10th, and it’s when I, as a J, can’t stop and rest.

I’m BREAKING my Cardinal Rule. My Cardinal rule is compartmentalization and giving a hundred percent of my energy to the one thing that I’m doing. However, it becomes my fault when I’m trying to do 15 different things in a day. And it can absolutely take its toll. It can start to ruin your life.

Could you give 80%? And not 110% or 125%? I think I’m that person, I just go all in so fucking hard that then there’s nothing in reserves and that’s exactly what’s happening to my body right now.

I know for a fact that this is just the universe like slapping me upside the face. I didn’t listen the first two times it happened. I soldiered through and this one has TAKEN ME DOWN. And ironically, I’m still doing this. I think it’s a great life lesson. I think others can learn from it, which is one of my core values.

I do this not to just pontificate and throw stuff at you, but to connect and let you know how I and many listening to this podcast right now can resonate with this.

I’m MAKING A PLEDGE. The goal is 80% of the time to be hustling, to be ambitious, to be going after it, and then by choice 20% of the time resting. And I don’t think that includes Saturdays and Sundays because we’re also giving to other people.

And I know for a lot of you that work nine to five, that sounds impossible. So how do you take at least a night a week or three or four days a month off for SELF-CARE? Set boundaries, and they’re non-negotiable.

And so that’s the pledge says what I’m asking us to do. #jandppledge. And tag me @frontseatlife and I cannot wait to start this conversation on Instagram and start sharing how we as strong, ambitious J women are choosing to embrace some P energy, some “BEING” energy. I want to see your pledge. I want to see what you’re going to be participating in, how you can relax a little bit, and how you can implement this into your life.

So, thank you for listening. As always, share this with any strong, beautiful, gorgeous, ambitious woman that you know, and LET’S START THIS PLEDGE!

#jandppledge

For more about Jessica and her upcoming events, visit https://jessicabutts.com

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