You try to be everything at once, to juggle between your zillion roles: a mother, daughter, wife, career woman, and a friend. You expect yourself to be perfect in everything you do and you end up feeling overwhelmed, and the first thing you give up is taking care of yourself.

Sounds familiar?

Think about an imaginary scenario, where every morning after getting dressed you open your “magical glasses” box and you pick up a pair of glasses to wear for the day.

Right now, you’re so plugged into your superwoman role that you don’t even see other options; automatically you pick up the “superwoman glasses” and you’re off to start your day.

If you remembered that you actually have a choice, you would see that there are other types of glasses in the box:

The Fun Glasses
The Doing Glasses
The Being Glasses
The Feeling Glasses
The Lover’s Glasses
And even: The Time for Me Glasses.

Picking up the superwoman pair is just a habit, an automatic reaction. Wearing these glasses overtime creates exhaustion and drains your energy. In order to start wearing different types of glasses, first you need to take off the superwoman ones.

Here are 6 ways to take off the superwoman woman glasses and find balance:

1. Remind yourself that you have a choice. Just as you put on the superwoman glasses, you can also take them off.
2. Get honest about past beliefs and internal messages that are controlling you and pushing you to wear those glasses and change those messages.
3. How you start your day is how you live your day – create a morning ritual where you check your options and consciously choose which type of glasses to wear for the day.
4. Make time for you EVERY DAY. Allow yourself to slow down, to enjoy some quiet time, to just BE. Balancing the DOING with the BEING will help you make better choices.
5. Build a support team. Make a list of 4-5 people you can reach out to for support when it’s time for you to take off the glasses and switch to different ones.
6. Allow yourself to be human. (simply say: I’m not a superwoman, I’m human!)

This week I was interviewed by Women Warriors Talk Radio. In the interview with Diane Dempster and Lynn Anderson, I shared my the 6-ways system to take off the superwoman woman glasses and find balance. Listen to the full Women Warriors Talk Radio interview.

Here are few questions that we did not have time to answer during the live interview:

Q: It’s great to be aware and let go of baggage, but how can we identify our baggage? Can you give us some examples?

A:The first step is to listen to your internal dialogue and to identify which voices are voices of the past and which voices are your authentic, true voice. For example: if you want to take a nap and the voice in your head says: “It’s a waste of time”, recognize that this is not true. You know that it actually helps you be more productive and feel more at peace when you rest, so you make a choice to make your true voice louder than your past, false voice.

Q: As women we tend to not take time. Can you suggest how we can really change that so we do?

A:Start small. Choose a balance practice that you like and do it for only 5 minutes every day until it becomes a habit. Don’t do it because you need to. Do it because you want to, because you’re clear that making time for you will make you feel better. Choose an activity that fits your personality and style. Stretch, meditate, read something inspirational, take a walk, sit and do nothing, or allow yourself to daydream for 5 minutes. Stop the doing and focus on the being.

Q: I know we are human and can get a support team, but how might we allow ourselves to not beat ourselves up if we miss our “me time” or do get overwhelmed anyway?

A:This is the key: what creates the stress is not the fact that you haven’t created that time; it’s the fact that you’re beating yourself up for it. Your new mantra should be: I give myself permission to be human and I trust that I do the best in the moment. When you start feeling that you’re being too hard on yourself, you pause and change it on the spot.

Q: I love your analogy with the glasses, but it took years for us to get into this routine. Is it really this easy to get out of it? How long might it realistically take to live this way?

A:It’s hard to say how long because it’s different for different women. I have helped women go from wearing the superwoman glasses 24/7 to wearing them just from time to time within days or week. I even had some women who were able to really get the concept of choice and to let go of their old behavior within an hour, while they were still coaching with me. It depends what is the price you’re paying for wearing those glasses 24/7 and how ready you are to let go.

Q: What about our family? How might we make them aware and in support of us not being superwoman and also allowing us to take “me time.”?

A: First of all, by being a living example. Start focusing on yourself rather than on them. By modeling to them self-care you are really showing them the way. I have a client who decided to set a boundary with her 2 kids and told them she’s taking time for herself every day for 20 minutes so she’ll be less tired and more fun to be with. Together they came up with some rules, including not to disturb mommy when she’s having “mommy time”. Very quickly, her boys decided to create their own quiet time while mommy is making time for herself.

Listen to the full Women Warriors Talk Radio interview.