236. Why You're Not Getting Things Done

Welcome back! Sade returns after settling into Miami city life to share a powerful observation from her coaching practice: mental clutter drains your energy and blocks your goals—especially your dating life.

You might think romantic relationships cause most of your mental overwhelm. But Sade reveals the truth: women carry exhausting thought loops about everyone—parents, bosses, children, friends, even strangers in the grocery store. This hyper-awareness of other people's comfort steals your time, focus, and energy.

Sade shares real client stories: One woman spent nine hours each workday in a panicked rush, worried she wouldn't finish on time to make her dates. The rushing changed nothing—she left on time 50% of the time regardless. Another client obsessed over her husband's betrayal, unable to handle finances or make plans.

The solution? Identify your mental clutter. Notice what occupies your mind all day. Recognize how these thought loops drain you and prevent action on goals you care about.

This is the deeper coaching work Sade does—not just helping you meet a partner, but clearing the obstacles that stop you from doing what you know you should do. Your brain, personality, and situation are unique. Generic "ten-step plans" don't work because they ignore your specific barriers.

Ready to clear your mental clutter and achieve your dating goals? Schedule a complimentary consultation call with Sade before November 25th. Visit sadecurry.com/info or reply to any email.

Transcript

Welcome to the Dating After Divorce Podcast. I'm your host, Sade Curry, and I believe every divorced woman deserves a romantic relationship where she feels safe, loved, and cherished. You can create the most amazing life after divorce, and I will teach you how.

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host. It has been a while since I recorded a podcast episode, and I have been settling into Miami. I moved here a year ago and then moved again this summer, from the suburbs of Miami into the city, and I have been settling in in full force and loving it. The city is just the best—so alive, so much going on, so much to see and do.

If you are wondering why I have been out, it has been because of that and handling things behind the scenes: working with my one-on-one clients, doing family things, and taking care of my own business. That is what I have been up to. But I am back in full force, and I wanted to share an observation that I have seen with a lot of my mostly one-on-one clients, and also with some of my clients in the Dating After Divorce Collective. It's the reason why we're not getting things done. Sometimes that thing we're not getting done is dating, but for many of them, it actually isn't dating—it's other things in their lives. But you see the same pattern when it comes to doing things with dating, and that is the mental clutter that comes from thinking about our relationships.

What's interesting is this is not always thinking about romantic relationships. This is just a pattern that I've picked up over time. Sometimes our mental clutter isn't coming from a romantic relationship. We always think it is, and that always seems to be the general idea—that women are always thinking about romantic relationships, and because of that, we're distracted and not focused on making our goals happen, making our dreams happen, getting our own stuff done. But I have seen with my clients that it can be the romantic relationship, but the mental clutter exists in about the same way and the same volume of noise with relationships with parents, bosses, children, friends, and even random strangers.

There is this conditioning that women have—to make sure everyone is fine. It shows up when you're walking through a grocery store and you're passing strangers. You feel guilty if you don't even want to meet the stranger's eyes and smile. Now you wonder, "Oh my God, am I making them feel bad because I'm just trying to get in and get out and not say hello to anyone? Should I look at them and say hello? Should I not? What if I am the one person who can make this stranger's day?" Even with perfect strangers, this is happening.

There is a cost to that level of hyper-awareness and hyper-vigilance about what other people are thinking and feeling and wanting and making them comfortable. It is draining you. It is sucking your time, your focus, your attention, and your energy.

I have example after example of people that I have coached in the last three to four months on this issue. Yesterday, I was talking to a client in the Dating After Divorce Collective. We were talking about dating, and I had noticed that she was always tired at the end of work—so fatigued. That impacted her ability to go on a date or leave the house or go to a social event, which she needed to do to meet someone who might be right for her.

I kept digging into it. She didn't think it was a problem, but I thought it had to do with work. I kept bringing it up. This week, I said, "Let's spend a little time talking about this. What is your main mindset when you are in the workplace? What are you thinking about when you're going through your day?"

We sat with it for a minute, and then she said, "I'm always worried that I won't be able to leave work in time. I'll have too much leftover work to go out and meet someone for a date or a social event."

From 7 AM to 4 PM, she had this mental loop playing: "Oh my God, will I be able to get this done? Better rush, better rush. Hurry up and get this done, get that done. I don't know if I'm going to be able to leave on time." That loop was playing for nine hours straight. She was feeling rushed all day long.

I asked, "Do you always leave work on time?" She said, "No, sometimes I have to stay and get the work done, but sometimes I do. About 50% of the time, I'm able to leave on time." Sometimes she leaves and goes on the date, but takes a little time to get the work done or checks in with her patients during the date.

It sounds like the rushing she's doing 100% of the time has no impact on whether she gets to leave or not. Sometimes she can leave, sometimes she can't. Sometimes she's able to leave and take the work with her and get it done. She's doing great dating—she’s met so many great people over the last year. She's met people close to a commitment, though it didn’t quite work out. She has fun.

But this rushing was draining. I asked, "What if you just dropped the rushing? What if 30% of the time you're able to leave, 30% you can’t, 30% you take the work with you? The rushing isn't helping." The rushing thoughts are not helping. We coached on that and got to a place where we could shift it. That just happened yesterday, so we're going to see how it goes and keep working on it. But I can see that once she's aware of this loop, she will be able to shift it. I’ll be able to work with her to go through her day with a calmer mind, less anxiety, not feeling rushed or overwhelmed, in acceptance of whatever the outcome is.

That will create space in her mind to get the work done in time or be okay if she's late for a date or doesn’t go. She will still be energized because our emotional state impacts our energy so much.

Another client is in the middle of a divorce—not sure if they're going to divorce or not—but her thoughts are so much on the betrayal from her husband, and that loop is draining her energy. She's not able to take care of her money, make plans, or figure things out because of that mental clutter.

This is the work I do. It's not the front-facing work. The front-facing work is helping you meet a partner. But behind the scenes is the deeper work that's impacting your ability to meet a partner—the work that's been keeping you from doing it yourself. As a coach, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. I'm helping you implement, execute, and get the things out of the way that have kept you from doing what you know to do.

You know you should put yourself out there. You know what you should be doing at work, with your children, your money. My job is to help you get the things that are keeping you from doing it out of the way. That’s deeper work with more psychology, neuroscience, and customization. It’s not just a list of ten steps that work for everyone. You've seen those ten steps and thought, "That one didn’t work for me," because your brain, personality, and situation are unique.

Bringing it back around, I want you to think about what's on your mind all day. What are you thinking about all day? What is keeping you up at night? That volume of thoughts—see how that connects to how tired you are, how scattered you might be, your ability to focus, and take action. That thing is potentially draining you and keeping you from moving forward with a goal that you truly have and want to accomplish.

I just wanted to come here and share that. Once I started noticing it, I started checking in with every client. I asked, "What's going on here? What's the volume of your thoughts? What are your goals?" Everyone was having a volume of thoughts about something that was keeping them from moving forward, and we are working on resolving all of that.

I would love to hear from you. What is on your mind? What are your thoughts? What is the mental clutter that's stealing your time, focus, energy? Is it a partner, a child, your job? For some people, it was a boss. One client had a co-worker who kept micromanaging her—came to her desk every day, stole her time, made her hyper-vigilant and on edge. So it could be anything. I’d love to hear.

If you’re interested in working on that so you can achieve some big goals, I am taking consultation calls between now and November 22 for the rest of the year. If you’ve been thinking about working with me or with a coach, I’d love to talk with you on a complimentary sales call to see if working with me is right for you. You can reach me at sadecurry.com/info to book your call, or just reply to any one of my emails. The link to this will be in the show notes.

I will be back with another episode soon. I think I’m going to be talking about execution and implementing your goals quite a bit this fall. If you are interested in that, stay tuned on the podcast or join my email list so you can get updates. Thank you for your time and attention. I will see you next time.

Thanks for listening today. If you are ready to get married after divorce, I want to invite you to download my free eight-video training specifically designed to help divorced women date with ease and get married again. Head over to sadecurry.com to get started. That's S-A-D-E-C-U-R-R-Y dot com. I’ll see you inside.