Erica: Hey, girl. By now, you know I have Her Collective, my online community for ambitious women who are done doing it alone. Her Collective is for the women who are smart, capable, and driven, but they find themselves stuck on the sticky floors like self doubt, burnout, and waiting for permission that quite honestly never comes. Inside HER, you get more than motivation. You get real support, real strategies, and real momentum.

Erica: We work on things like clarifying what you want now and what's coming next, building confidence without burning yourself out, navigating hard conversations, career moves, and leadership moments with clarity, and surrounding yourself with women who actually get it. This isn't about hustling harder. It's about moving intentionally with the right tools and the right people in your corner. If you're ready to stop spinning, start choosing yourself, and build a career in life that actually feels aligned, I'd love to welcome you inside her collective. You can learn more and join us at www.joinhercollective.com.

Erica: Because honestly, girl, you were never meant to do this alone.

Erica: Hey, y'all. I am Erica Rooney, your podcast host for the stepping stone from now to next. And I am here to talk to you today about be prioritizing your goals and shifting your priorities. Now this is something that we have to do every now and then. We have to stop.

Erica: We have to take a moment and really take stock of our lives so that we can examine exactly how everything is going. Now sometimes those moments are really easy to see, like when you get a new job or you have a baby or you're moving. Right? But sometimes it's when you have a shift in your goals. Sometimes you can't even tell that something is just not going right, or maybe it's not a huge identifiable moment, but more like gradual shifts over time.

Erica: Like, you recognize that all of a sudden you're waking up every day and wasting thirty minutes on TikTok instead of focusing on your fitness, or maybe all of a sudden you wake up and you think that, wow, my marriage has kind of taken a back seat to all of the other things going on in your life. Like I need to reprioritize. Whatever that identifying moment is, you realize that you need to shift your focus. And with everything that I've got going on in my life right now, guys, that's where I'm at. And I realized that I really needed to take a minute and look at like what small daily actions have become a habit in my life and what did I need to shift and where did I need to refocus my energy so that I could hit my goals and focus my energy on where I want to grow.

Erica: So let me tell you what's up. So most of it by now that I am focusing on growing my business and my brand, growing my podcast, which means that I have to find the time to do all of that. I work a full time job as a chief people officer, and I love it. I'm also a mom to two little kids. I'm a wife.

Erica: I'm a friend, a daughter, a daughter-in-law. I've got a lot of people in my life and a lot of goals that all seem to be fighting to be the top priority. Not to mention y'all know how dedicated I am to fitness. And my fitness is not something that I can compromise on. It gives me that sense of control when I have a job where there oftentimes is no control in my day.

Erica: It gives me a sense of accomplishment, and who doesn't wanna feel that every day? It gives me a dopamine hit. It releases endorphins, all of the things. And look, guys, I could have a whole other podcast session on the benefits of exercise, but I will save that for another day. But I'm at a place in my life where I really want to focus my energy on growing my business and my brand and establishing the foundation.

Erica: Right? Learning new skills, like how the hell to do an Instagram reel and other social marketing tools. I like to spend my time networking with powerful people who can help me drive this forward and also figuring out the business basics, like filing an LLC. And that takes a lot of time and a lot of energy, which let's face it. As a busy working mom, time is the one thing that I need desperately, but I can't generate more of.

Erica: So today, I wanna share with you the top five ways that I am shifting my priorities so that I can devote enough time and energy to my business and my brand without killing myself in the process. So the top thing that I'm doing is reevaluating my fitness journey and what health means to me. Now in the past and still today, like fitness is a big part of my life and it is a top priority for all of the reasons that I gave you earlier. But I would wanna run five miles every Monday. I would wanna stretch.

Erica: I would wanna make sure that I had a well balanced but pretty intense workout regimen that included strength training, high intensity workouts, distance and endurance runs, my Peloton bike, my Peloton treadmill, and of course, yoga to balance it all out. I would wake up early every single day, and it was always the first thing on my to do list. I would literally wake up, put on workout clothes, drink some pre workout and hit the cardio. But now I am taking that time in my day, the five am to 06:30 every single day. And I'm focusing on my business and my brand.

Erica: Sometimes that means reading business books. Sometimes I'm writing podcast sessions or recording podcast sessions. Sometimes it means focusing on learning the new skills, like how to best create Canva graphics. And I am putting my workout on the back burner. Now that doesn't mean that I'm not doing it.

Erica: It just looks different right now. I'm taking my dog on more but shorter walks. So anytime I've got ten or fifteen minutes in the day, I try to get a little bit of movement in. You know, my strength training sessions have really shortened in duration. Right?

Erica: So instead of spending thirty minutes, sometimes it's only fifteen or twenty, and sometimes it's not every day like it used to be. Now I'm making sure that I get that movement in where I can, but sometimes it's just slowly riding on the bike while I'm on a work call that doesn't need video on. So it's definitely not as intense as it has been, as it normally is for me, but I'm still getting fitness in. I'm still moving, but it's different. Now the next thing that I'm doing, which is in partnership with number one, which is focusing on my fitness, is also focusing on my nutrition.

Erica: Now I know that I'm not hitting the gym as hard as I like. And in order to maintain a body that I am comfortable in, that I am confident in, I need to be on top of my nutrition game since those gym workouts have changed. Now y'all know, I love my Mexican. I love my chips and salsa and definitely my queso. And I'm not gonna say no to some ice cream either, especially during the summer.

Erica: But I know that because I am focusing my energy on my business and my brand, and because of that, I am seeing less movement and not as intense movement during the day. That's okay. It just needs that I need to also in tandem, be intentional about what I'm fueling my body with. Now I'm not gonna say no to every treat. Right?

Erica: I'm still gonna splurge every now and then, but I'm gonna be watching my portions and I'm gonna be cutting back a little bit. Now these two things together is a real time saver. It is actually giving me more time in my day because I am cutting down on the amount of time that I'm spending on my workouts while keeping my body healthy and my mind clear to focus on the business and the brand. Now, another thing that I'm doing is putting down the social media in the mornings. So just like everybody else, I am a victim of getting sucked into the TikTok hole of entertainment.

Erica: It's mindless. It's funny. It takes no energy and it totally distracts me from the stressors of life. But it also distracts me from the focus on my business and my brand. So instead of waking up and just scrolling through social media in the morning, I am grabbing a business book or I am plugging in a motivational podcast to kind of help me set that intention for the day and not lose track of time in the Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and all of that mess.

Erica: So that has been something let's face it. I should have done a long time ago, but I had to those little habits of waking up and spending five minutes and then ten minutes, and then fifteen minutes had really kind of creeped in gradually that I didn't notice how much time I was losing in the day that I could have been focusing on my priority, which is my business and my brand. Now, another thing that I am doing is taking a pause on my workaholic tendency and establishing boundaries. So let's face it. This is a good thing for me all around and probably something that I should have done a long time ago, but it is a challenge for me.

Erica: It is a practice for me. So I'm doing my best not to log on before 9AM and not to continue working after 5PM. Now we know that doesn't always happen. As a chief people officer, I am often pulled into things, meetings that just have to have to happen. And sometimes I just have shit that has to get done and I'm okay with that.

Erica: And what I am working on being okay with is walking away from unread emails at the end of the day. And I am getting okay with telling my peers and my colleagues that, sorry, can't meet at for five minutes at 5PM. Like, my day's done. I've gotta roll. And doing that allows me time in the morning to focus on my business and getting my kids out the door.

Erica: And then in the evenings, focusing on my family at night. Which also just helps my overall mental health, because that is a big piece of my core values is family time and healthy relationships. But again, if I'm being real with y'all, this is a big sticky floor that I have to constantly address and practice. And it's why it has made this list. I am not comfortable walking away from open ended items.

Erica: I like things to be tied up with a nice bow at the end of the day. And I love starting the next day with a clean inbox, but that is not realistic for me and it is never attainable. So I've got to start focusing more on blocking that time and having focused hours for family, focused hours for my business. And then that way, when I am focused on work, it's not frantic. And then the last thing that I am doing to help prioritize my goals right now and shift my priorities is leaning more on my spouse for support on the weekends.

Erica: Now the weekends are when I get the bulk of my work for my business and my brand done because it is my free time and nobody else is working in the HR world. So I try to get up early and knock out a lot of that while everybody is snoozing away, but that's not always doable. And sometimes I get really caught up in something that I'm super excited about, like working on my website or recording some of these podcast sessions. And my husband, Dan has really been a lifesaver when it comes to supporting my dreams and my goals for my business and my brand. And I asked him in the morning like, Hey, I need an extra hour or twenty minutes.

Erica: Like, can you keep the kids busy? I need to go focus on these things. And he's always a 100% ready to stand behind me and support me. So that has been a way that I have really been able to reprioritize and shift my energy. Now, wow, you are probably thinking five things.

Erica: That's a lot Erica, but a lot of these things work together. And, yeah, five is a lot, but they don't take a lot of time and effort. So in fact, when I cut back out on those workouts and I shifted instead onto focusing on clean eats, it gave me back time in the day to focus on my business and my brand without taking away from other areas of my life that are so important to me, like my family time or my job as a chief people officer. Now, some people are gonna be like, Erica, you can't have it all. You can't be a C level executive, a mom, a wife, a friend, and build a business and a brand while checking off the fitness box.

Erica: It's just impossible. But I'm here to tell you that I call bullshit on that. You absolutely can. You just have to take a pause. You have to shift your focus, shift your energy and take a moment and examine what do you need to change so that you can accomplish all those things.

Erica: Now I'm not skipping out on my fitness, but it does look different right now. My mornings look different. My evenings look different. Heck, everything I'm doing in the middle of the day looks different because of these five things that I'm doing. I'm not missing out on family time at the end of the day, but I'm cutting out the social media, which let's face it, guys.

Erica: I should have done that a long ass time ago. As life ebbs and flows, so must your priorities. I'm here to tell you that you can have it all. You can accomplish your dreams and grow your business and your career and be an awesome mom. You can do all of the things.

Erica: Sometimes you just have to take a moment, take stock, and shift. So today, I want to challenge you to do just that. Take a moment and think, is there something that you need to shift around? Have some naughty habits kind of added up to be something that you need to take a look at and shift away from. Maybe you need to shift towards something else.

Erica: Shift those habits, shift in the good and shift out the shit guys. Now I want to hear how you are shifting. And when we share these shifts with others, we're sharing all of the ideas and your shift might just be what I need in my life. It might be what somebody else who is hearing this needs in their life. So shoot me a DM, message me, shoot me an email.

Erica: But what I wanna know is how are you shifting this week? Have a good one.