128. Hate Your Birthday? Listen to This...
Happy birthday to me! I’m on a dream vacation this week to celebrate my 35th birthday, and here's the kicker: I used to dread my birthday. I would feel so much pressure. What does your birthday bring up for you? This week, I’ll discuss why birthday dread is common, especially among women, and how it triggers our insecurities or feelings of failure.
I offer a story of a birthday experience that made me feel miserable and how I learned to change my relationship with my birthday. Changing your relationship with your birthday is totally possible; it takes some honest reflection and a decision to change, but I promise you it's well worth the effort.
Learn 4 methods to start celebrating your birthday, why your birthday is not a measure of your worth or value, and examples of how I’ve celebrated my birthday differently from year to year.
My Not Your Average Productivity Course (which runs November 13th to December 15th, 2023) opens its doors for enrollment on October 19th, 2023. Be the first to sign up with my early bird special: get on my email list to receive it!
Do you want to stop working late and working through lunches? Do you want to have more control over your time? Click here to download my FREE Top 5 Calendar Tips! They are simple and effective, and you can implement them right away!
What You Will Discover:
How to practice celebrating yourself.
How to see how you measure your worth and value.
4 methods to change your relationship with your birthday.
Different ways of celebrating your birthday.
Resources:
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BAIA -Restaurant in San Francisco
Full Episode Transcript:
Hey you all, I’m Marissa McKool, and you’re listening to the Redefining Rest Podcast for Public Health Professionals. Here we believe rest is your right. You don’t have to earn it, you just have to learn how to take it and I’m going to teach you. Ready? Come along.
Hello, everyone, welcome. How are you? How’s it going? Let’s do a check-in, how you’re feeling, take a deep breath, pause, be in the moment. I am so excited for this episode and I know some of you reading it are like, “This feels off brand for a Redefining Rest episode.” Don’t worry, by the end you will get it. And I want you to stay until the end because you are going to hear an exciting announcement that I know many of you are going to be thrilled about. So stick around to the end. Won’t be too long of an episode.
As you’re listening to this, as this episode is airing I am in the UK. I am actually celebrating my 35th birthday. This kind of was the prompt for this episode. This has been a dream of mine. I actually had plans in 2020, it was one of my goals I set at the new year to take a month off to go to England, Scotland and Ireland. Then you all know what happened with the pandemic and then I met Jared. So now we’re doing this trip, Jared and I, for my birthday. We’re just doing Scotland and England because we can only take about two weeks off.
I mean, technically, we could take longer, but since we’ve moved to Denver, we don’t have family watching Cutty, our dog. So it makes it trickier to take longer time off. Already taking these two weeks was challenging to find someone to watch her. So anyways, that’s not the point. This is a dream, dream trip of mine. If you’re listening the day this airs, we will be in Manchester. Jared’s a huge Manchester United fan so I bought him tickets to go to a game for his birthday which was in July so it’s a belated birthday gift.
We will actually be finishing our England portion of the trip, we do London for four days and then we’re going to stay in a castle in the countryside for two days. You know, that was my request. And the next couple days we’re actually going up to Scotland, Edinburgh and then doing a Highlands tour. So really exciting stuff, dream, dream trip. And as I said, that kind of prompted this episode, but a few other things did as well.
I had a good friend over the summer whose birthday was over the summer, was really struggling with their birthday. They didn’t want their birthday to happen. They were feeling down. And also a few years ago, I think two years, I wrote a post about my birthday and my views on it and how it’s changed over time and I got so many comments on it and so many messages about it. So I know this is a topic that actually will help a lot of people and you can relate to what I’m going to share.
Many people of all genders, but especially women struggle with their birthdays. You might dread your birthday, you want to pretend it’s not happening. You want to speed past it, whether because you have thoughts about getting older and what you have or haven’t accomplished or because it feels like no one cares about you and your birthday and it’s just illustrated that day or another reason. I suffered from both. Nearly every year in my 20s, I used my birthday to measure my life. How accomplished am I? Have I done enough? Am I behind for my age?
I also used it as an indicator of how loved I was, who forgot my birthday, how many people showed up to my party. Did someone else offer to plan something? Did I get gifts from people? So when my birthday came I not only felt like a failure at life, but I felt like everyone else knew it too. I felt like a failure in my career, my love life, with my friends. But the truth was, this wasn’t because of my actual birthday. It wasn’t because of a day on the calendar, or I was a year older.
I felt this way year round and you probably do too if you struggle with your birthday. You just aren’t admitting it or seeing it throughout the year. You might not be aware of it. My birthday just shined a huge light on the insecurities that were already there, the doubt, the self-loathing. My birthday just intensified that feeling because I let it. Also I didn’t realize that’s what was really happening. Here is a story that perfectly illustrates this.
And honestly, I’m getting a headache because I’m about to explain this, that’s how embarrassing this is to me. I debated sharing it. I feel the tightness in my throat. In my mind, whenever this story pops up, I try to shove it down because I can look back. I can just see my past self and how unhappy she was and how much she hated herself and it makes me sad. I’m so not in that place anymore, but then I did not love myself unconditionally and I treated myself horribly. And I used my birthday as a way to do that.
I put so much on determining my worth and value, on how many people showed up for me or cared for me. So I’m going to share this story, but it does still come with some embarrassment and some cringiness. I was living in Atlanta and I forget how old I was turning, I was in my 20s. What I really wanted to do was go to a nice dinner. This was a period in my life, I was out of grad school. I finally had some money. I wasn’t rolling in dough or anything, but I wanted to go to a nice dinner.
I wanted to celebrate me at a dinner but I did not believe anyone would show up for me at all and especially if it was going to be a nice fancy dinner. And I was so worried that no one would be willing to go. And I also was unwilling to let it just be a few friends, my closest friends. I really wanted a full table of people. I really thought that that would show that I was loved and cared for and I mattered and I was good enough. So what I ended up doing was I ended up lying to everyone I invited and saying my grandmother paid for everyone to go out to a nice dinner.
The truth was I paid for it, I paid for the bill. I didn’t ask people to pay for it. I didn’t ask people to contribute because I was worried what they’d think of me. I’d worried they wouldn’t come. And so instead I paid for it and I’d lied about who paid for it. So I could have a full table of people there. Did I feel good? Did that make me feel good? No. Didn’t make me feel better. It was this odd experience where, okay, I got the relief from not feeling alone on my birthday. But then I felt embarrassed that I almost had to pay people to show up.
And that was my mentality at the time. And this makes sense especially women, but everyone are socialized to stay young, to be perfect in all areas of our life, to have a partner and a perfect relationship at that. To have all the career accomplishments, to have a lot of friends. Especially women are so socialized about what it means based on how many friends you have. And to be loved by all. We are taught that whether or not we have a partner, measures our worth. We’re taught that how many friends we have, measure our value.
So of course, many of us end up using our birthdays to be mean to ourselves and tell ourselves we aren’t enough. And that makes birthdays fucking miserable. I have been there, I get it. I was there for well over a decade. I hated my birthday, but it does not have to be that way. You get to decide what your birthday means. It doesn’t have to be a measure of your life. It doesn’t have to be a reflection of everything you are ‘behind on’. And I’m putting that in quotes. Right before I turned 30, when I was 29, I remember I made such an intentional effort. Yeah, that was five years ago. Look at my math.
I decided I was going to change what I made my birthday mean. I decided that my birthday was no longer going to be used to determine who loved me. I wasn’t going to be upset if a friend didn’t remember. I wasn’t going to tally who remembered or who showed up or who got me gifts. I wasn’t going to wait for someone else to plan something. I wasn’t going to lie about my birthday. I wasn’t going to get upset if no one came. I decided my birthday was going to be fun again, even if it was fun only had by me.
I decided my birthday was going to be filled with love and laughter. That I was going to do exactly what I wanted and I was no longer going to be upset if other people didn’t want to do that. I wasn’t going to use it as a measure of my life. I wasn’t going to use it as a benchmark. My birthdays were just going to be amazing and I made that decision. Since then I had my 30th birthday in Napa with about 10 of my friends, two people couldn’t come, two or three and I had that intention going into that birthday.
In the past, I would have hyper focused on the two people that didn’t come. I would have worried so much about accommodating everyone who did come and making sure they were having such a good time that I’d forget about me. I’d worry so much they were just coming out of guilt. And here’s the big kicker, this 30th birthday celebration, I paid for the Airbnb house, but I did it from such a different place than that dinner example. I did it out of abundance, not out of lack and I didn’t lie about it.
I told everyone, “Hey, many of you are flying in and you’re coming for my birthday. I am so excited to celebrate this, I want this specific house that is kind of expensive. I’m going to pay for it and as a thank you for you all making an effort to come.” It wasn’t because I didn’t think they would come if I didn’t pay for it. It wasn’t because I felt like I had to buy my friends’ time. It wasn’t because I needed them there to feel good about myself.
It was genuinely because I wanted to out of abundance, out of unconditional love for myself. And that was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had. I have no idea if anyone else on the birthday trip enjoyed themselves. I know I enjoyed myself. What a shift, what a change. The next year I invited friends and co-workers to get drinks. Only four people showed up. Most people did not come. I still had a good time. I didn’t make it mean anything about myself. I actually went and got a massage. I treated myself to a massage and dinner, it was so nice, just by myself.
My 32nd birthday, I just went to dinner with Jerad, nothing else, my 33rd birthday, I paid for an Airbnb out of town. Jared and me and just went and chilled. 34th birthday last year we were moving, the restaurant, we had a reservation for my favorite restaurant in San Francisco. Listen, you all, if you are vegan, vegetarian or interested in that and you’re ever in Francisco, BAIA, I’m not sponsored by them. I wish I was. I’ve only eaten there once.
The absolute best Italian vegan food I’ve had in my life. It’s a little more upscale, but oh my gosh, I was looking forward to eating there for so long. They had a fire and had to close and we couldn’t go there. And we went to another restaurant that was not very good and actually Jared told me last week they closed down. That was a stressful birthday, not because I was using it to be mean to myself. Because we were moving, we had a lot going on. And I could have easily been like, “No one cares about me, of course this still happened.” Blah blah blah.
No, that doesn’t serve me. That doesn’t help me. That just makes me miserable. I did that for 10 plus years, I’m done. And this year we’re in the UK. We’re taking this big trip, my dream trip, doing all the things I want to do. And you know what? All those birthdays the past five years have been great. I’ve looked forward to my birthday every year no matter what I did or didn’t do or who remembered or who didn’t or who showed up or who didn’t. I don’t use my birthdays to measure myself, my life, my value to my friends or the people around me anymore.
Now, how did I do this? First I just decided. I decided I wasn’t going to do that shit to myself anymore. I decided to change how I viewed my birthday and what I made it mean. I know it’s sounds simple, but you have to start with the decision, a decision to stop that shit, to stop believing that trash.
Second. I took charge, I planned my own birthday. Before I thought it was a failure if I was the one who planned my birthday. Now it’s literally the only way I’ll do it because it means I get to do exactly what I want, which is how your birthday should be. I don’t get upset if other people don’t come or don’t want to, because it’s about me.
Third, I counter my brain’s natural negativity bias. Your brain has a negativity bias, it’s going to look for the negative and then on top of that you have all this patriarchal socialization bullshit. I choose to see the amazing things that have happened in the past year. And I choose to see the amazing things that have come. I could look at where I ‘failed’, where I’m ‘behind’, what has gone wrong, but why? I did that for years and years and years and it did not help me, made me miserable. It serves no useful purpose. It’s totally optional and it’s a waste of your time.
You have hundreds of things to be proud of, to be excited about. You have to choose to see them and you can do this too. You are amazing. Your life is amazing. Of course it has challenges, that’s normal, but you are worth celebrating. You have to decide that and you have to believe that. No one else can do that for you.
Alright, that’s my little rant on birthdays. It’s so much better when you decide you’re going to love your birthday. You’re going to do what you want and you’re not going to use it against yourself. Oh, my gosh, it is so much better. Come join me on this side.
Okay, now, before we close out, here is the exciting announcement. If you missed out on signing up for the Not Your Average Productivity course, if it wasn’t good timing or maybe you’re a recent listener and you’ve just heard about it after the course kind of passed or this is the first time you’re hearing about it. If you struggle with overwhelm, having too much to do, this course is for you. I’ve never run a course more than once. This is the first time I’m going to do that.
I’m going to be honest with you all, I don’t know if this exact course will run in 2024. I will still be running courses though, I just don’t know if it’s this one. So if you don’t enroll on this course, another course will come along next year, but I just can’t promise it’s going to be on productivity. So that means if you are struggling with overwhelm, feeling stressed out, having too much to do, it might be best for you to enroll in this next round of this productivity course than wait till 2024.
If you don’t care, if you’re not really topic specific and you want to wait till 2024 and see what comes out, totally fine. I want to be completely transparent with you all. The course is going to be running November 13th through December 15th. We will have an orientation call the week before we start, that’s new. I didn’t do this for this last round. And going through the course, I realized that would be helpful so I’m adding that in, this time. The cost is still the same for the course. I’m opening enrollment October 19th. So that’s in a couple of weeks.
If you’re on my email list, you’ll get access to a 24 hour only early bird special. I don’t do early bird specials anywhere but my email list. It starts October 18th, for 24 hours you will get a discount. So if you aren’t on my email list, make sure you join. We’ll leave a link in the show notes. If you are on there, keep your eye out that week, that week of, I think it’s October 15th, that’s next week. I’m recording this way in advance. So my dates in my head because I’m recording before I leave, are all messed up, but that’s next week I think.
Next week on the episode I’m going to share more details about the course. So I know this is a little tease. I’m going to share what it is, how it can help you, all that stuff. So if you’re not quite sure, if you want more details, don’t worry about it. I will share it all next week, but make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss that, so you get all the info because there’s only, I think it’s less than three weeks the enrollment period is open. So you don’t want to miss out on learning what this course is, deciding that’s right for you and enrolling and getting a discount if you want for that early bird special period.
Lastly, a podcast review. As you know, I’ve been reading out one podcast review per episode at the end of the episode, just as a thank you to those of you who have taken time to rate and review the podcast, it means so much to me. So this one’s by Malia McMorgan, I’m so sorry if I pronounced that wrong. They wrote, “Excellent podcast that helps you achieve your goals.” Thank you so much for reviewing, straight and to the point and exactly on the money.
We are all about goals here but doing it in a rest centered way where you love your life, you don’t beat yourself up. You are kind to yourself and you create the life you want to have. So with that you all, no matter when your birthday is, if it’s coming up or if it’s already passed, I hope your next birthday, you use it to celebrate yourself and have fun and love it and don’t use it against yourself. Okay, everyone, I’m going to go have fun in Scotland. I will talk to you next week. Bye everyone.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
Hello, everyone, welcome. How are you? How’s it going? Let’s do a check-in, how you’re feeling, take a deep breath, pause, be in the moment. I am so excited for this episode and I know some of you reading it are like, “This feels off brand for a Redefining Rest episode.” Don’t worry, by the end you will get it. And I want you to stay until the end because you are going to hear an exciting announcement that I know many of you are going to be thrilled about. So stick around to the end. Won’t be too long of an episode.
As you’re listening to this, as this episode is airing I am in the UK. I am actually celebrating my 35th birthday. This kind of was the prompt for this episode. This has been a dream of mine. I actually had plans in 2020, it was one of my goals I set at the new year to take a month off to go to England, Scotland and Ireland. Then you all know what happened with the pandemic and then I met Jared. So now we’re doing this trip, Jared and I, for my birthday. We’re just doing Scotland and England because we can only take about two weeks off.
I mean, technically, we could take longer, but since we’ve moved to Denver, we don’t have family watching Cutty, our dog. So it makes it trickier to take longer time off. Already taking these two weeks was challenging to find someone to watch her. So anyways, that’s not the point. This is a dream, dream trip of mine. If you’re listening the day this airs, we will be in Manchester. Jared’s a huge Manchester United fan so I bought him tickets to go to a game for his birthday which was in July so it’s a belated birthday gift.
We will actually be finishing our England portion of the trip, we do London for four days and then we’re going to stay in a castle in the countryside for two days. You know, that was my request. And the next couple days we’re actually going up to Scotland, Edinburgh and then doing a Highlands tour. So really exciting stuff, dream, dream trip. And as I said, that kind of prompted this episode, but a few other things did as well.
I had a good friend over the summer whose birthday was over the summer, was really struggling with their birthday. They didn’t want their birthday to happen. They were feeling down. And also a few years ago, I think two years, I wrote a post about my birthday and my views on it and how it’s changed over time and I got so many comments on it and so many messages about it. So I know this is a topic that actually will help a lot of people and you can relate to what I’m going to share.
Many people of all genders, but especially women struggle with their birthdays. You might dread your birthday, you want to pretend it’s not happening. You want to speed past it, whether because you have thoughts about getting older and what you have or haven’t accomplished or because it feels like no one cares about you and your birthday and it’s just illustrated that day or another reason. I suffered from both. Nearly every year in my 20s, I used my birthday to measure my life. How accomplished am I? Have I done enough? Am I behind for my age?
I also used it as an indicator of how loved I was, who forgot my birthday, how many people showed up to my party. Did someone else offer to plan something? Did I get gifts from people? So when my birthday came I not only felt like a failure at life, but I felt like everyone else knew it too. I felt like a failure in my career, my love life, with my friends. But the truth was, this wasn’t because of my actual birthday. It wasn’t because of a day on the calendar, or I was a year older.
I felt this way year round and you probably do too if you struggle with your birthday. You just aren’t admitting it or seeing it throughout the year. You might not be aware of it. My birthday just shined a huge light on the insecurities that were already there, the doubt, the self-loathing. My birthday just intensified that feeling because I let it. Also I didn’t realize that’s what was really happening. Here is a story that perfectly illustrates this.
And honestly, I’m getting a headache because I’m about to explain this, that’s how embarrassing this is to me. I debated sharing it. I feel the tightness in my throat. In my mind, whenever this story pops up, I try to shove it down because I can look back. I can just see my past self and how unhappy she was and how much she hated herself and it makes me sad. I’m so not in that place anymore, but then I did not love myself unconditionally and I treated myself horribly. And I used my birthday as a way to do that.
I put so much on determining my worth and value, on how many people showed up for me or cared for me. So I’m going to share this story, but it does still come with some embarrassment and some cringiness. I was living in Atlanta and I forget how old I was turning, I was in my 20s. What I really wanted to do was go to a nice dinner. This was a period in my life, I was out of grad school. I finally had some money. I wasn’t rolling in dough or anything, but I wanted to go to a nice dinner.
I wanted to celebrate me at a dinner but I did not believe anyone would show up for me at all and especially if it was going to be a nice fancy dinner. And I was so worried that no one would be willing to go. And I also was unwilling to let it just be a few friends, my closest friends. I really wanted a full table of people. I really thought that that would show that I was loved and cared for and I mattered and I was good enough. So what I ended up doing was I ended up lying to everyone I invited and saying my grandmother paid for everyone to go out to a nice dinner.
The truth was I paid for it, I paid for the bill. I didn’t ask people to pay for it. I didn’t ask people to contribute because I was worried what they’d think of me. I’d worried they wouldn’t come. And so instead I paid for it and I’d lied about who paid for it. So I could have a full table of people there. Did I feel good? Did that make me feel good? No. Didn’t make me feel better. It was this odd experience where, okay, I got the relief from not feeling alone on my birthday. But then I felt embarrassed that I almost had to pay people to show up.
And that was my mentality at the time. And this makes sense especially women, but everyone are socialized to stay young, to be perfect in all areas of our life, to have a partner and a perfect relationship at that. To have all the career accomplishments, to have a lot of friends. Especially women are so socialized about what it means based on how many friends you have. And to be loved by all. We are taught that whether or not we have a partner, measures our worth. We’re taught that how many friends we have, measure our value.
So of course, many of us end up using our birthdays to be mean to ourselves and tell ourselves we aren’t enough. And that makes birthdays fucking miserable. I have been there, I get it. I was there for well over a decade. I hated my birthday, but it does not have to be that way. You get to decide what your birthday means. It doesn’t have to be a measure of your life. It doesn’t have to be a reflection of everything you are ‘behind on’. And I’m putting that in quotes. Right before I turned 30, when I was 29, I remember I made such an intentional effort. Yeah, that was five years ago. Look at my math.
I decided I was going to change what I made my birthday mean. I decided that my birthday was no longer going to be used to determine who loved me. I wasn’t going to be upset if a friend didn’t remember. I wasn’t going to tally who remembered or who showed up or who got me gifts. I wasn’t going to wait for someone else to plan something. I wasn’t going to lie about my birthday. I wasn’t going to get upset if no one came. I decided my birthday was going to be fun again, even if it was fun only had by me.
I decided my birthday was going to be filled with love and laughter. That I was going to do exactly what I wanted and I was no longer going to be upset if other people didn’t want to do that. I wasn’t going to use it as a measure of my life. I wasn’t going to use it as a benchmark. My birthdays were just going to be amazing and I made that decision. Since then I had my 30th birthday in Napa with about 10 of my friends, two people couldn’t come, two or three and I had that intention going into that birthday.
In the past, I would have hyper focused on the two people that didn’t come. I would have worried so much about accommodating everyone who did come and making sure they were having such a good time that I’d forget about me. I’d worry so much they were just coming out of guilt. And here’s the big kicker, this 30th birthday celebration, I paid for the Airbnb house, but I did it from such a different place than that dinner example. I did it out of abundance, not out of lack and I didn’t lie about it.
I told everyone, “Hey, many of you are flying in and you’re coming for my birthday. I am so excited to celebrate this, I want this specific house that is kind of expensive. I’m going to pay for it and as a thank you for you all making an effort to come.” It wasn’t because I didn’t think they would come if I didn’t pay for it. It wasn’t because I felt like I had to buy my friends’ time. It wasn’t because I needed them there to feel good about myself.
It was genuinely because I wanted to out of abundance, out of unconditional love for myself. And that was one of the best birthdays I’ve ever had. I have no idea if anyone else on the birthday trip enjoyed themselves. I know I enjoyed myself. What a shift, what a change. The next year I invited friends and co-workers to get drinks. Only four people showed up. Most people did not come. I still had a good time. I didn’t make it mean anything about myself. I actually went and got a massage. I treated myself to a massage and dinner, it was so nice, just by myself.
My 32nd birthday, I just went to dinner with Jerad, nothing else, my 33rd birthday, I paid for an Airbnb out of town. Jared and me and just went and chilled. 34th birthday last year we were moving, the restaurant, we had a reservation for my favorite restaurant in San Francisco. Listen, you all, if you are vegan, vegetarian or interested in that and you’re ever in Francisco, BAIA, I’m not sponsored by them. I wish I was. I’ve only eaten there once.
The absolute best Italian vegan food I’ve had in my life. It’s a little more upscale, but oh my gosh, I was looking forward to eating there for so long. They had a fire and had to close and we couldn’t go there. And we went to another restaurant that was not very good and actually Jared told me last week they closed down. That was a stressful birthday, not because I was using it to be mean to myself. Because we were moving, we had a lot going on. And I could have easily been like, “No one cares about me, of course this still happened.” Blah blah blah.
No, that doesn’t serve me. That doesn’t help me. That just makes me miserable. I did that for 10 plus years, I’m done. And this year we’re in the UK. We’re taking this big trip, my dream trip, doing all the things I want to do. And you know what? All those birthdays the past five years have been great. I’ve looked forward to my birthday every year no matter what I did or didn’t do or who remembered or who didn’t or who showed up or who didn’t. I don’t use my birthdays to measure myself, my life, my value to my friends or the people around me anymore.
Now, how did I do this? First I just decided. I decided I wasn’t going to do that shit to myself anymore. I decided to change how I viewed my birthday and what I made it mean. I know it’s sounds simple, but you have to start with the decision, a decision to stop that shit, to stop believing that trash.
Second. I took charge, I planned my own birthday. Before I thought it was a failure if I was the one who planned my birthday. Now it’s literally the only way I’ll do it because it means I get to do exactly what I want, which is how your birthday should be. I don’t get upset if other people don’t come or don’t want to, because it’s about me.
Third, I counter my brain’s natural negativity bias. Your brain has a negativity bias, it’s going to look for the negative and then on top of that you have all this patriarchal socialization bullshit. I choose to see the amazing things that have happened in the past year. And I choose to see the amazing things that have come. I could look at where I ‘failed’, where I’m ‘behind’, what has gone wrong, but why? I did that for years and years and years and it did not help me, made me miserable. It serves no useful purpose. It’s totally optional and it’s a waste of your time.
You have hundreds of things to be proud of, to be excited about. You have to choose to see them and you can do this too. You are amazing. Your life is amazing. Of course it has challenges, that’s normal, but you are worth celebrating. You have to decide that and you have to believe that. No one else can do that for you.
Alright, that’s my little rant on birthdays. It’s so much better when you decide you’re going to love your birthday. You’re going to do what you want and you’re not going to use it against yourself. Oh, my gosh, it is so much better. Come join me on this side.
Okay, now, before we close out, here is the exciting announcement. If you missed out on signing up for the Not Your Average Productivity course, if it wasn’t good timing or maybe you’re a recent listener and you’ve just heard about it after the course kind of passed or this is the first time you’re hearing about it. If you struggle with overwhelm, having too much to do, this course is for you. I’ve never run a course more than once. This is the first time I’m going to do that.
I’m going to be honest with you all, I don’t know if this exact course will run in 2024. I will still be running courses though, I just don’t know if it’s this one. So if you don’t enroll on this course, another course will come along next year, but I just can’t promise it’s going to be on productivity. So that means if you are struggling with overwhelm, feeling stressed out, having too much to do, it might be best for you to enroll in this next round of this productivity course than wait till 2024.
If you don’t care, if you’re not really topic specific and you want to wait till 2024 and see what comes out, totally fine. I want to be completely transparent with you all. The course is going to be running November 13th through December 15th. We will have an orientation call the week before we start, that’s new. I didn’t do this for this last round. And going through the course, I realized that would be helpful so I’m adding that in, this time. The cost is still the same for the course. I’m opening enrollment October 19th. So that’s in a couple of weeks.
If you’re on my email list, you’ll get access to a 24 hour only early bird special. I don’t do early bird specials anywhere but my email list. It starts October 18th, for 24 hours you will get a discount. So if you aren’t on my email list, make sure you join. We’ll leave a link in the show notes. If you are on there, keep your eye out that week, that week of, I think it’s October 15th, that’s next week. I’m recording this way in advance. So my dates in my head because I’m recording before I leave, are all messed up, but that’s next week I think.
Next week on the episode I’m going to share more details about the course. So I know this is a little tease. I’m going to share what it is, how it can help you, all that stuff. So if you’re not quite sure, if you want more details, don’t worry about it. I will share it all next week, but make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss that, so you get all the info because there’s only, I think it’s less than three weeks the enrollment period is open. So you don’t want to miss out on learning what this course is, deciding that’s right for you and enrolling and getting a discount if you want for that early bird special period.
Lastly, a podcast review. As you know, I’ve been reading out one podcast review per episode at the end of the episode, just as a thank you to those of you who have taken time to rate and review the podcast, it means so much to me. So this one’s by Malia McMorgan, I’m so sorry if I pronounced that wrong. They wrote, “Excellent podcast that helps you achieve your goals.” Thank you so much for reviewing, straight and to the point and exactly on the money.
We are all about goals here but doing it in a rest centered way where you love your life, you don’t beat yourself up. You are kind to yourself and you create the life you want to have. So with that you all, no matter when your birthday is, if it’s coming up or if it’s already passed, I hope your next birthday, you use it to celebrate yourself and have fun and love it and don’t use it against yourself. Okay, everyone, I’m going to go have fun in Scotland. I will talk to you next week. Bye everyone.
If you found this episode helpful then you have to check out my coaching program where I provide you individualized support to create a life centered around rest. Head on over to mckoolcoaching.com, that’s M-C-K-O-O-L coaching.com to learn more.
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