Cecelia Baum Mandryk (01:36.158)
Hey, and welcome back to Millennial Midlife. Today we’re talking about something I wish I had learned a decade earlier in my life. So about two decades ago would have been really helpful, maybe in college. A life course would have been pretty nice. And this would have saved me from burnout, confusion, self doubt and a whole lot of self abandonment. It was the belief that there were essentially two ways to approach.
This is about goals, but really like a life, right? I either need to hustle, force, and push. I really need to be pushing. If I’m not pushing and forcing myself and hustling, I’m not showing up. Or I just need to check out, right? So could shut down, I could freeze, I could avoid it. But really it’s like I’m either in hustle mode and shaming myself and doing a lot of pushing and willpower, or I’m just totally checked out and I’m not showing up at all. And when those two…
when those binaries are the only two options on the menu, of course things don’t sound good, right? Like, I don’t want to hustle anymore, that doesn’t sound fun. But I also don’t want to totally check out for my life and my goals. I want something in between. Those two things don’t feel sustainable, they don’t feel fun to most of us, right? If you feel, if you’re very burnt out, lying down on the couch and watching comfort TV and eating yummy food sounds good. And it sounds good, I’ve done this, right? I took a month after I quit being a geologist where I slept a lot, like.
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (02:58.382)
pretty much all I did was get up, do yoga. Somebody else was making my food and I ate food and went back to sleep and napped and read like very easy books. So it felt really great. But after that month, I was done checking out. I wanted to check back in, but I didn’t want to go back to hustle. And that kind of felt like the only option.
If this is where you are, you’re not the problem, right? There’s this third way. And today I wanna show you what it feels like to be in this third path, to be in this kind of like middle road and what it opens up in your life and why for so many people that I work with, when they start to figure out how to do this, it can feel relieving, it can feel like a homecoming, it can feel like, this is how I could do life. You, if you’re like most human beings have probably lived both sides of us, right?
The Hustle Path is the one that’s sold to us. like, sorry to, well maybe not sorry, but to demonize the like hustle bro culture. But this whole like, I don’t even remember what the numbers are, but I saw this thing recently where it’s like, you’re supposed to work like six days a week for like nine hours a day, six, nine, nine, I don’t know, something like that.
And if you do that, then you’ll like get ahead, right? That’s the only way to get ahead is working six days a week for a lot of hours each day. And anyway, this would make more sense if I actually knew those numbers, but I don’t, I decided not to listen to them or internalize them. When you’re pushing, forcing, grinding, optimizing, your nervous system is in a constant state of activation. Your body is giving you signals. So you often have like digestive issues. You are either gaining or losing weight. You can feel tired. You fear.
feel irritable, a lot of times you have like that kind of revenge procrastination that you keep overriding. This hustle culture is so ingrained in our society and so ingrained in this whole, you need to be delivering all the time. Your worth is related to what you’re doing. You need to be hustling. You need to be grinding. That’s the only way to get ahead and do well. And it’s interesting how much we focus on
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (05:12.022)
It’s interesting how much this is focused on. It’s interesting how many of us have these stories and how quick we are to jump back on them because they feel so safe, because it’s what we were all taught. And just as like a quick aside, I think it’s really interesting how much we’re in, we’re coming into the new year, right? And so we’re in the new year and people focus on health, but they primarily focus on the food and exercise component of health. When we’re really missing this other big thing that I just kind of was thinking about as I was talking through this.
It’s we really don’t talk that much about purpose, identity, connection, and the way we relate to ourselves and how big of a role those play in our health. Because when you’re in hustle mode, you’re not relating to yourself at all. You’re managing yourself, you’re critiquing yourself, you’re being a very unkind taskmaster to yourself. And the result of that is this burnout. It is sometimes digestive issues. are like, lead to kind of bigger health problems. And so if you want to focus on health this year,
You can for sure focus on what you eat and how you move your body, but you could also focus on this, right? How you actually talk to yourself, how you relate to yourself, how you set goals for yourself, because that will change your health almost more than the other one. And in fact, this is like the precursor to doing the food and movement stuff. Okay, so you might be achieving things if you’re doing this.
You might be checking boxes, you might be succeeding on paper, but you’re also building a life that oftentimes doesn’t feel like yours or is not sustainable for you. It’s not the one you want to be living in. Then there’s the other path, right? The checkout path where you’re avoiding things, you’re maybe in freeze, you’re in the I don’t know mode a lot, that feels safer than the truth. If you’re in this mode, you’re not lazy, you’re not unmotivated, you’re not inconsistent, you’re just disconnected, right? You’ve forgotten that you have a say, you’ve forgotten that in fact your opinion matters.
you’ve forgotten that you’re allowed to participate in your own life and actually choose how the rules work for you. So the same outcome, a life that doesn’t feel like yours is just coming from a different angle. When you’re in that checkout mode, you’re also often not moving towards the things that excite you or participating in them because they might feel scary or they might feel dangerous. And so it can feel very unfulfilling even if you are doing the things that like are creature comforts, right? Like you’re watching a lot of reality TV show and having that extra glass of wine or like enjoying a lot of
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (07:30.798)
carbs or whatever it is for you. You’re in this space where you’re creating this kind of felt sense of comfort without actually creating a life that you really want to be living. ultimately, most of us want to be working towards what we want to be working towards. Believing, those are your two only options. Hustle or hide creates a lose-lose scenario. Right? I feel like it’s necessary to say that. I know that you know that, but it’s necessary to say it.
So it’s like this, I either sign up for the, and if you know him, you know what I’m talking about, the Alex Hormozi style of go big and go hard, or I give up on my dreams entirely. Like I have to either go like this big hard push myself, or I should just give them up. And that’s the emotional trap. You think that there’s no middle ground, no softer place to land and work forward, and there’s no, that’s no way, it doesn’t, it’s not possible, right? Like that doesn’t feel tenable to most of us. And most of us also have like,
I know a lot of people who listen to me like have kids or they have hobbies or they have other things they want to do in their life and the hustle doesn’t often give space for that. And the give up doesn’t honor that you might actually want to be creating in your life. So this is where a lot of people stay stuck. Not because they lack clarity, not because they don’t know what they want, not because, maybe even not even because they don’t think it’s possible for them, but because neither option feels sustainable long-term. So let’s talk about this third way.
When I first experienced it long before I had this language, it felt relief. It felt relieving. It felt like exhaling. It felt in some ways like coming home, which is kind of a weird way to say it, but that’s what it felt like to me. There was this tiny voice saying like, also, so it felt relieving, but also there was a tiny voice saying like, hey, is this allowed? Like, you allowed to do this? Are you allowed? Are you cheating? Are you going to get in trouble for doing this? Is this going to go on your permanent record? Because when we’ve been conditioned to push, rest can feel
too spacious, it can also feel dangerous, right? When you’re conditioned to earn everything through struggle, alignment can feel like oddly easy and maybe even something like you don’t feel like you’ve earned or that you deserve yet. But here’s kind of where I start to work with my clients, that you get to create the roles in your life. If you believe you have to go big and hustle hard to get ahead, then you will have to do that. But you can decide that you can work it differently. You can decide how you want to show up in life and how you want life to work for you.
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (09:55.938)
and your brain and your universe, your brain and the universe, will start to organize around that and reorganize around that. And I know that that sounds like a little bit of a leap, like no, they’re just these rules that I have to play by. But if you interviewed 10 of your friends, you each have 10 different rules, sets of rules for how things have to work. And that’s very interesting because all of them we’ve absorbed from the society and families and communities we grew up in, and we just decide that they’re true.
And then because of our brain and how it works, they have to be true, right? Our brain can’t kind of go against that. What we’re doing here and what I’m talking about here is acknowledging those rules that you have, whatever they are, and then saying, what if there’s a different way? What if this third way is possible? Where I’m not moving into like hustle hard and shame or go hard at all costs, but I’m also not going into checking out. I’m moving into a place of safety, of clarity, of identity, of becoming this person.
I get to become. So this is the approach that doesn’t hurt you on your way to change, right? It doesn’t ask you to give up everything and abandon yourself and abandon your own desires and abandon your physical health and your mental health on the way to get there. And if people want to hustle hard and go big, that’s like their prerogative, honestly. I just, I don’t want to do it. I’ve done it. Most people I work with don’t want to do it. And this doesn’t mean you can’t have big dreams and go for them, by the way. It just means you’re not
doing them from a place of, I must not sleep in order to get there. I must work 10 hours a day in order to get there. So there was a point in my own life where I realized I couldn’t force myself to, well, it’s interesting. I could force things. I just didn’t really like it anymore. So I could force myself and I did. And sometimes I succeeded, but the success didn’t quite feel like mine. So I got there and I said, wait, is this even what I want?
Along the way to getting to where I wanted to go, I sabotaged myself constantly, not because I was inconsistent, but because my nervous system didn’t feel safe for the direction I was pushing towards. So safety in this context is a regulated nervous system. So when I use safety, that’s kind of what the proxy that I’m doing. So it’s not, you’re not numbed out, you’re not sleepy, but it’s like that warm, open, like grounded feeling. So sometimes you can feel like this after like a good talk with a friend or a hug, or maybe like you’ve done something that really feels rejuvenating to you.
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (12:16.118)
Safety is what allows you to tell the truth to yourself, to name desires, to choose a direction and to hold a vision. Without safety, desires can’t land. Without safety, you will always choose this checkout or push really hard, one of those two sides. So I had this pretty accomplished client who was really ready to quit everything. They wanted to retire early and walk away, not because she didn’t love her work, but because the way she was working was no longer working for her. It was destroying her.
She had been hustling for decades, first in a career that she didn’t really like and then in careers that she did like, but the story never changed. It has to be hard. I have to push, I have to push, I have to push. And so she came to me as kind of this like last ditch effort. Like, can you, can you help my brain? Can you save me? Because she had these stories, right? It has to be hard. I have to go hard. I need to be working hard all the time in order to deserve the money that I’m making too. So.
The moment everything changed was when she actually said to me, I want to like my work again. I want to like my life. And that was it. That was the truth. That was the desire that she had not even named to herself up to this point, right? Not named to anybody else. And so we could hear that and we could actually create some safety around that so that the real clarity could emerge, right? That she actually likes her clients and she likes her team and she likes the work.
She just wanted to end the day feeling like herself with some energy to do the things that she wanted to do with time for hobbies, with time for friends, with time for rest, for joy, to feel okay resting, to actually show up for herself in the way she wanted to. And while this felt a little bit like a fantasy when she first named it, it is in fact not a fantasy, it’s her desire, it’s how she wanted things to look. Naming the desire for yourself changes everything.
Because when you say, I don’t want, most of us don’t want the hustle thing, right? And most of us don’t want the checkout thing. Most of us want something in between. We want a life that feels fulfilling, that feels like we’re moving towards what’s important to us. Like we’re connecting with other human beings that are important to us. Like we’re doing our work in the world. So right now, you might name where you are. So do you think you’re in hustle mode? Are you in checkout mode? And without judgment, just observation.
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (14:38.754)
Right, which side am I on right now? And you might remind yourself you’re safe in this moment, so you might take a few breaths. You could even pause this and take five or six breaths. You might feel your feet on the ground, yourself supported in your chair. And you might ask yourself if things worked on my terms, if I could have what I wanted, what would that look like? And your brain will likely resist. You might say that’s not possible. You might say, what if?
What if I could move into like imagining like a child, where I didn’t have the constraints of reality, and just get to imagine what this could look like for me? How would I design my life?
What would it look like? What would I be working on? How would I be working on it? Who would I be working with? Can you give some legs to this vision? Can you start to imagine what it would be? Even how it would feel?
And this is the path, this is where you start to create this third, your own path, Instead of being in the binary of creating your own path through it, to tiny opening here, instead of collapsing, instead of pushing, instead of giving up, instead of handing it over, of really handing it back to yourself. So here’s what I want you to know. You were never meant to live at the extremes. You were never meant to burn out or disappear.
There’s another way, a gentler way, a more honest way, a way that brings you back to yourself. And once you start to feel it, even for just a moment, you can’t un-feel it. And you’ll start to wonder, what if I could live like this more of the time? What if I could give this to myself more? And that’s the invitation. Not to push yourself harder and use more willpower and force. Not to have more hacks to get yourself there. Not to want it less or to even convince yourself that you need to want it more, but to try something different.
Cecelia Baum Mandryk (16:26.072)
because you deserve a life that feels like yours and you can create a life that feels like yours and you can create the roles that you get to operate by, but you have to work with yourself to get there. If this sounds like something that you’re interested in and something that you’d like to do, there’s a course that just wrapped up that you can grab to go through yourself, the Goals course. And we have a live call coming up in two weeks where you get to come and ask questions about the process and where this is going for you. Or you can join me this year either in coaching or for courses or both.
so that you can make 2026 your year, so that you can actually work with yourself from a place of compassion and understanding of getting to know yourself in safety and show up how you want to show up. I love you so much. Thank you so much for being here. I will see you next time.
