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 and 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. Welcome to the Glass Ceilings and Sticky Floors podcast, the podcast where we get real about the challenges women face in work, life, and leadership. I'm your host, Erica Rooney, HR executive, keynote speaker, and executive coach, and I'm on a mission to get more women into positions of power and keep them there. This is the space where we call out the paradoxes, being told to lean in but not too far, to speak up but not too loudly, be ambitious but not too ambitious.

Erica: Does that sound familiar? We're over all that. Here, we break down the sticky floors that keep us stuck, from imposter syndrome and perfectionism to burnout and fear, and give you real strategies to shatter those glass ceilings once and for all. So if you're ready to rewrite the rules, own your power, and take your career and life to the next level, you're in the right place.

Erica: The end of this year, y'all, it is going to be here before you know it. And if you're feeling the pressure to squeeze every last drop out of the year even though you're already running on fumes, this episode is for you. Now I know what it's like because I used to be in corporate. I remember the year end reviews, budget season, Q4 goals, plus all of the holidays on top of that. Bless you if you are in HR and you have to plan for all of the year end parties, taking into account who's gluten free, who's vegan, who can't have red dye.

Erica: All of this feels like the corporate finish line is sprinting at you at full speed. But here's the thing. This episode is not about pushing harder. It's about finishing the year aligned instead of feeling burned out. And maybe, just maybe, your best move right now is to slow down on purpose.

Erica: So the way I look at it is that finishing the year strong doesn't have to mean that you're doing more, that you're checking every single box, but it does have to mean that you're choosing better. So if you've got performance reviews breathing down your neck and a budget that still needs to be locked in, projects that got pushed to December that you still have to do before the quarter ends, and a boss who suddenly decides that now is the perfect time to circle back on that thing you asked about four months ago, I feel you. On top of that, you're probably in full swing holiday mode with school holidays, family gatherings, gift shopping and wrapping, and maybe even hosting a party or two. The expectation, at least for me and most of my female friends, is always perfection.

Erica: It's always gotta be perfect, and that means usually that you're hustling harder, digging deeper, staying up later, getting up earlier, responding to one last email before logging off, just so you can do more with less. But you're already stretched thin. You're already doing the work of three people and then some. So this year, I wanted to flip the script.

Erica: Instead of racing as fast as I can to check off every box, and for what reason do we even know all those boxes need to be checked, I want to know what happens if we just pause. What happens if we pause just long enough to take stock of what's actually working, and then double down on that. It's figuring out what is working best. It's a simple concept, really.

Erica: And the way I've broken it down is a three part audit that includes auditing yourself, auditing your work, and auditing your energy. This puts evidence over emotion, which is huge when you're working through that hustle mentality that is so hard to break. Once a week, this is all I want you to do, and I'm keeping this episode short and to the point, because the last thing I want to do is add something else to your checklist. But this will free up more time for you. I promise.

Erica: Once a week, ask yourself and write these things down. What are the three things that moved the needle, big or small, doesn't matter. Then ask yourself what results did it create, who benefited from those results. If you didn't benefit at all, you may want to think about that. Ask yourself, does it align with my goals, does it align with the person I want to be.

Erica: The goal is to separate impact from activity. Just because you're busy doesn't mean it was valuable. This morning, I had to stop myself from doing all the busy work in the household that always distracts me from the important things. I wanted to get started on my new book that I'm calling The AI Gap, women, AI, and the next great leap forward. But I can distract myself in so many ways. The laundry needs to be switched over, the dishwasher needs cleaning out, my makeup drawer needs reorganizing. I've already done all of these things before.

Erica: But none of those things, while helpful, actually move the needle on my goal to start on my book. My makeup drawer didn't even need organizing in the first place, and my kids can help with everything else. Once you've identified what moves the needle and what doesn't, you have to do the energy check, because your body really does know best. The very first step is to stop and take notice of what's going on inside your body.

Erica: Your body keeps score. You need to start tracking what leaves you energized versus what leaves you totally drained. If you want to get really technical, you can color code your calendar green, yellow, and red based off your energy levels. Green is for good, it gives you energy. Red is very bad, it depletes you. Yellow is hit or miss, it's a moot point. For me, creative activities fuel me. What drains me are very detail oriented things like bills, reconciliation, and editing for grammar.

Erica: I want you to look for the patterns. Are there certain meetings, projects, or people that consistently drain you. How can you limit those, or how can you make them less draining. I put my most dreaded meetings first thing in the morning so I can clear up my anxiety and then actually do it. This is called eating the frog. I also work out in the mornings, I get it done, it's off my plate. But what lights you up? For me it's creating new programs, so I try to save those for moments when I'm feeling least energized, like the 4 PM slump. I am more likely to bust out my computer and work on something that lights me up than something that sucks my energy. You can't avoid all of your energy suckers, but you can strategically set them throughout your day and your week.

Erica: Finally, do the alignment test. Ask yourself, does this task or project move me closer to where I want to be next year, or does it keep me running on the hamster wheel. Say you're an HR professional who just sent out an open enrollment email, and 150 employees send you a question that was probably answered in your last email. If you're anything like me, I love a clean inbox, but that never moves the needle on my big year end engagement survey. The question is, do I respond to all of those individual emails, or do I focus on the engagement survey. The emails can wait a day. But the longer I put off the big project, the longer it takes to get going. You procrastinate one day, then two days, then a few weeks, and December hits and your engagement survey is nowhere near done. That means no alignment.

Erica: So think about it in terms of bridge activities or cliff activities. Bridge activities set you up for future growth, future recognition, and future alignment, they get you from A to B. Cliff activities take your time and your energy but get you nowhere towards your long term vision. I want to create a life where my kids remember me as an all-in mom. Do I spend all my time after dinner cleaning the house and putting everything away, or do I play a board game with my kids before we move on as a family to do the chores. Volunteering for a high visibility cross functional project could be a bridge. Spending five hours reformatting slides that nobody really reads is a cliff. We have the power of AI, we don't need to be doing that, but I know we still do.

Erica: If you want a super easy plan, think of this as one new weekly activity. Every Friday evening before you close out for the week, list your top three wins, your top three energy sources, your top three energy drains, and then map your calendar accordingly. Cut the drains down as much as possible, add boundaries around those, and see where you can add to your energy boosts. Look for the bridge activity that will help you make progress on your goals, and see where you can implement as many as possible that week. But also look for just one cliff activity you can step away from. Maybe it's a zero email inbox, which by the way is so unattainable I don't even know why that's a thing.

Erica: You can get ahead by looking at your calendar for the next week and identifying your top three priorities that will help you close on your goals, and make those your targets for next week. That becomes your North Star. You may ask, how do you know it's working, Erica? December's just so crazy busy. Here's how you know. You don't feel like you're running yourself ragged. When I finally started doing this, my stress levels were down, I was genuinely happier at home, and that cascades everywhere. There's a podcast out there called 10% Happier, and this one exercise alone does more than 10%. It changes your life if you let it. It changed mine.

Erica: The problem isn't that we don't know this, we do. We're smart people, but we get so wrapped up in the day to day that scope creep, yes, I'm stealing that term from project management, creeps into our own lives. And you know what we do when we take the hit? Nothing. We just take on more and more, thinking that if we hustle harder we'll pull ourselves out of it. But we take the hit. Our families take the hit. Our kids take the hit. Our happiness takes the hit.

Erica: So how about we stop running around on a hamster wheel with hair flying everywhere but going nowhere, and start leaning into a slower but more intentional way of living. I never told you it was gonna be easy. It is very hard to slow down sometimes, and you have to be intentional about it. But when you look for those bridge activities and start eliminating the cliff activities, you'll find you're moving the needle on what matters most, and you're creating a life you don't have to feel like you're escaping from.

Erica: If today's conversation lit a little fire under you, here's your next move. Don't keep it for yourself. Share this episode with a friend, drop a review, and let's keep the conversation going. Remember that your potential is limitless, and the only thing standing in your way are those sticky floors. But guess what, you have the power to break through them. So go out there, take up space, and let's shatter some dang ceilings together.