More Than Anxiety
Welcome to the More Than Anxiety Podcast.
I'm Megan Devito, the life coach for high-achieving women who want to overcome anxiety, reduce overwhelm, and live with more confidence, calm, and fun.
Feeling anxious can seep into every aspect of your life. Let's talk about it all - work, relationships, health, and more. As someone who lived with generalized anxiety disorder for nearly 30 years, I understand what it's like to overthink and feel everything to the max.
On this podcast, I share powerful stories, practical skills, and expert advice to help you:
- Manage stress and anxiety
- Break free from overthinking
- Build resilience and confidence
- Create a fulfilling life
Join me every Tuesday morning at 5:00 AM EDT for a new episode filled with humor, A-Ha moments, and inspiring stories.
Subscribe now and leave a five-star review to support the show and help others discover this valuable resource.
Important Note: I'm not a therapist, and this podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you're struggling with overwhelming anxiety, depression, or harmful thoughts, please reach out to a mental health professional or dial 988.
More Than Anxiety
Ep 120 - Slow Down: How to Reduce Stress, Overwhelm and Anxiety
Feeling overwhelmed and stressed? Let's keep it simple and focus on doing less.
In this episode, I'm talking about minimalism. About doing less so you have more time, more energy, more creativity, and less stress and anxiety.
You'll learn:
- The Power of Doing Less: Learn how to let go of the unnecessary clutter in your life, both physical and mental.
- The Art of Saying No: Learn the power of setting boundaries and prioritizing what truly matters to you in your life.
- The Benefits of Slowing Down: Understand the positive impact of saying no to hustle culture on your mental and physical health.
- Practical Tips for Decluttering Your Life: Get actionable advice on how to declutter your home, digital space, and relationships.
I'd love to hear what you're saying no to. Message me on Instagram or LinkedIn.
Take this quiz to find out what's making you feel so overwhelmed and what you need to do to feel calm, confident, and have more time for fun!
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You know you're overwhelmed, burned out, sick to death of work but also trying to do everyting for everyone at home. TAKE THIS QUIZ to find out why you're so overwhelmed and what to do about it.
Welcome to the More Than Anxiety Podcast. I'm Megan Deito and I help ambitious women break out of the anxiety cycle that keeps them frustrated and stuck. Get ready for a lighthearted approach that will change what you think, how you feel and what you believe about yourself. This podcast is full of simple steps, a lot of truth, talk and inspiration to take action. So you walk away feeling confident, calm and inspiration to take action. So you walk away feeling confident, calm and ready to live. Let's get to it.
Megan Devito:Hey there, welcome to episode 120 of the More Than Anxiety podcast. I am always excited to have you here and to be able to come on and talk with you every single week. So if you are a high achiever, if you are a woman who is out there juggling all of the work in the middle of this season, because this episode is going to come out right around Christmas time, when it's really busy, isn't it? And then there's that weird week between Christmas and New Year's where you're not sure what to do with yourself. But if you're still trying to finish up end of the year projects, maybe you've got more holiday things that are just kind of dangling out there. Your family's getting together. This episode is for you. 2025 is coming and maybe you're listening to this in June and you're like, yeah, well, we're well into 2025 and you're ready to shut it off. Don't shut it off, because this information that I'm going to share with you today is going to help you, no matter where you are in the year. But let's be honest the first release is going to be right at the new year, when everybody wants to go into resolutions and decide all the new things that they're going to do. Hit the brakes. We're going to talk about that today.
Megan Devito:I want to talk about how doing less, so that you have more time, more energy and more peace of mind, with less stress and less anxiety, is the thing to do in 2025. Today, I'm talking about shedding all of the habits, all of the commitments, all of the stuff that is in your way, the things that are keeping you maybe a little too comfortable, even. Or definitely stuck, definitely feeling like everything is crazy around you. Let's just get rid of it. Instead of using New Year's or wherever you are in the year to do more, or to change, or add something to your life, I want you to ask yourself, "what can I stop doing this year or "where I am right now to feel more calm, to feel more confident and to find more joy in my life. This is super important stuff. Get ready, get paper and pen. If you need to, if you need to write this stuff down, just hit pause, I'm not going anywhere. Then come back and join me.
Megan Devito:So let's talk about the problem with doing too much, having too much, and let's just start with the basic stuff let's talk about. If you're sitting at your desk, like right now, the desk that I'm sitting at is a little bit more cluttered than I would like it to be. It distracts me, it makes me see all the things around me. So let's start with the weight of having too much stuff. I started thinking about this a few weeks ago. I had just commented on somebody else's post saying how much I miss having those big boxes where you could just take your things and put them in the boxes. Where I live, Goodwill or Salvation Army would just have these places where you clean out your things, you donate them to Goodwill or Salvation Army. We haven't had those since COVID, but I love cleaning out my closets, cleaning out just things like okay, I have this, I'm done with it, I don't love it anymore and I get rid of it.
Megan Devito:If you are listening to this in America, my guess is that you noticed that we are consumers, aren't we? We buy things just because we get stressed out. We buy new shirts. We just go pick things up all the time. I saw this really cool little thing.
Megan Devito:Stuff is energy, so let's start with the things that are around you. In your physical environment. How much of your energy is drained by clutter? And what I mean by that is how much are you looking around and you're just on edge because it's like, oh my God, why is there stuff everywhere Like I can't even decide what I need to do because I can't think clearly. Clutter is notorious for getting in your brain, even if you don't realize it, even if you tell me you know what. I have a messy desk. I know where everything is. I believe you that you know where everything is, but I will also tell you that when you have a closet that can't open or the kitchen drawer that's full of, like random stuff the junk drawer we all have a junk drawer, don't we? All these things that we don't need. All of this stuff creates visual noise, and what I mean by that is it pulls your attention away from the things that are really important to you and you get distracted. You're distracted from your family, you're distracted from your work, you're distracted by whatever it's stealing your focus. So we have too much stuff, so much to the point that in America, how common is it for somebody to have to go buy a storage facility to store the rest of their stuff, like so much that we can't even keep it in our houses sometimes? So that could be part of the problem. Another part is that we have a lot of things that we need to shed.
Megan Devito:That might include coping habits, and by coping habits you might call them coping skills, but I'm going to call them habits, because habits and skills don't have the same feel to them and they don't actually help. So we all have our go-tos, right? It might be that you grab your phone and you're like, oh, look at this, I could just scroll and scroll and scroll and scroll, and you can, and I'm totally guilty of that. That is just a go-to coping habit. It might be pouring a second glass of wine, like oh my God, if I have to go to one more event. I'm going to die, I'm going to have. I need a glass of wine. Maybe that's a coping habit that you have.
Megan Devito:It might be going out and buying a new white t-shirt, which is mine, or maybe you go out and you buy a new video game whatever it is for you, something shopping to feel better. Or it might be staying up super duper late to watch another Netflix series, because you just can't quite get that quiet time anywhere else during the day. So, to make yourself feel better, you stay up really late playing on your phone, watching Netflix, maybe watching YouTube videos, whatever it is. They feel like they're helping in the moment, right? You do feel better because you're getting some dopamine, because the wine takes the edge off, or whatever it is. You do feel better because you're getting some dopamine because you, you know the wine takes the edge off, or whatever it is. You connect with somebody like some person that you barely know on social media, but what's really happening is that they're numbing you instead of really helping you take care of the actual problem. So, even though it feels good in the short term, it's actually keeping you more stuck.
Megan Devito:And the third thing I want to talk about is really this idea of overcommitting ourselves and saying yes to things that we don't want to do, and what that does is it clutters up our calendar. So if you are saying yes to too many things whether it's volunteering for your kid's school field trip or extra work projects because you want to look good to your coworkers or to your boss, or even hosting parties or events that stress you out If you are feeling drained, if you are feeling resentful, if you are questioning why you keep saying yes and why nothing ever feels like it's enough and you're trying to do all of this perfectly, no wonder you feel bad. Let's shed this stuff. These are all problems. They seem like they're helping, but these are the things that are actually keeping you stuck, because what happens is when you're caught in this cycle of feeling exhausted, of feeling frustrated, of feeling like you can't be perfect enough or do enough, or trying to make everybody else happy with you, you're running yourself ragged and you're stressing yourself out and, as that stress builds, you start to feel anxious. You feel really busy, but like you're not getting anything done. You feel, maybe, like you're successful at your job, like oh my gosh, but I'm so good, like I volunteer for all these things, but you have that resentment. That resentment, so you're not really satisfied with anything.
Megan Devito:It's sort of like if you were going to run a marathon, or swim a race, or play a basketball game, or start any kind of project, but there was never really an end to it. Do you know what I mean? Imagine if you were going to go out and run a race and they kept moving the finish line. Who would run that? First of all, who would run that race ever? What if you were starting a project but you were like never actually knew when it was done? Would you actually start that project? My guess is no.
Megan Devito:But that's kind of what we're doing to ourselves when we keep adding on more and more things to try to feel good. Those things aren't for you. So in 2025 or in 2027, whenever you're listening to this episode, let's find the things that are for you. And I want to start this by asking what can you stop doing now, or at the beginning of 2025, or wherever you are when you're listening to this. And instead of asking how you can add more, like I'm going to start working out, I'm going to start eating healthy, I'm going to start doing this. Let's give ourselves a break. Let's just rephrase it a little bit we don't need more routines, we don't need more goals. We want to say what can I stop doing? And what is one thing right now, like, if you think about it, what is one thing that you know that you need to let go of? Whether it's junk, whether it's a bad habit, whether it's saying yes to things something else entirely what is one thing that you can let go of? And my guess is, if you answer this question, it probably feels a little bit scary to you, because I started doing this in November of 2024, where I was like hold the phone, I'm slowing down.
Megan Devito:I was doing a million things. I felt like I was doing everything I could possibly do. I'm slowing down. I was doing a million things. I felt like I was doing everything I could possibly do and nothing felt like it was working. Nothing felt like it was enough. I was getting burnt out. I was tired of doing stuff. I'm like this is stupid and I decided to cut it out and stick with one thing and to cut down my social media habits, to cut down what I was doing in so many different areas of my life. I packed up a ton of stuff and took it to the Salvation Army, and I just needed to clear things out because I needed that space, and my guess is that you have something like that too.
Megan Devito:What we want to do is we want to do less, to accomplish more and to feel better. So we want to make it simple, and I just want to remind you that simple does not mean that you are lazy. It does not mean that you are a quitter. It doesn't mean you're giving up. It just means that you're choosing what's actually important to you. That's going to be productive. So we want to do less to be more productive and more fulfilled. Are you with me? So let's talk about how you can do this.
Megan Devito:Again, I want to remind you that anytime you try to let go of something, if you are changing a habit, if you are changing what you're doing, your brain might throw a mini temper tantrum, and what I mean by that is you might notice that you feel really uncomfortable and question why you're doing it, and it's okay to question why you're doing it. It really is. If your answer is I don't really know, because Megan told me to stop, hold on a minute. I want you to get really clear on why you're giving up what you're giving up. Why are you choosing what it is? But if you notice that you feel anxious and just uncomfortable for no reason you can put your finger on, that is normal. That is completely okay.
Megan Devito:Brains like to keep doing the same things. They like bad habits. They like good habits. We're just choosing what we want to keep. Be prepared for it to be uncomfortable for just a little while, because once you get into the new habit, your brain will just go on with it. But just be aware, okay.
Megan Devito:So let's talk about those three things that you can do, simple things that you can change. One is to stop overconsuming. As a little bit of a tree hugger and somebody who is super focused, like all of my voting goes towards the climate, I'll just be straight up with you. That is my issue. That's what I vote on. But when we talk about overconsuming, I just want to say that overconsuming isn't just buying more t-shirts, buying more video games, buying more water bottles or whatever it is that you're buying.
Megan Devito:This also includes things like I'm overconsuming. I don't know For me. Clif Bars, you guys.
Megan Devito:Somehow I ended up loving Clif Bars. They don't even taste that good, but I have to admit I'm trying to not eat Clif Bars. They're easy, they have. I mean, they keep me full for a long time. I'm trying to stop consuming so many weird ingredients. I started that too in November, but it might be consuming. Maybe if you come home every day and you notice that you grab a glass of wine, maybe you are going to stop consuming wine every day and just have it on Fridays. Or maybe it is, I'm going to stop consuming so much TikTok, or maybe I'm going to stop consuming french fries on my way home, or it could be I'm going to stop buying so much junk, whatever it is.
Megan Devito:Just start questioning whether you really need that snack or a drink, or if you have some emotions that you need to deal with. My guess is that if you are consuming out of habit, it's not that you actually need something. It's just that it feels good and there's an emotion there that you need to deal with. Instead, I can help you with that. That's part of what coaching does is just figuring out. What are you feeling? What are you avoiding? Why are you avoiding it? What would you rather do instead? How can we fix that problem? So, if you're like, wait a second, I don't even know, that's okay, I can help you. Just message me. I'm mostly on LinkedIn, but I do check my messages on Instagram regularly. Send me a message and let's talk about it.
Megan Devito:The second thing that you can do is start saying no to other people. Did you just flinch? Did you just say no, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. I can't do that because I need to make people happy. I don't want anyone to be upset with me. Please don't say that. No, I'm going to say it again you have to stop people pleasing.
Megan Devito:Every time you say yes to something that you don't want to do whether it's a field trip or an extra project at work, where you're like this is not my thing you are saying no to yourself. You are saying no to something that could get you really excited that you would kick butt at just to make someone else happy. So imagine what would happen if you just trusted that 'no' was enough and decided to let go of the guilt, because, honestly, guys, no is a full sentence. I also want to flip that around and say every time that you say no to something, you are saying yes to something that's better for you. So when you say yes, you're saying no to something that's not for you, and when you say no, you are saying yes to something that actually move you forward, to what you want, whether it's what you want to feel, or a project that you want to be successful about, or more time with your kids. Lots of different things can fall into this.
Megan Devito:And the third thing I want you to do is to stop trying to be perfect, because, let's be honest, we all know that perfect doesn't exist. We can say I know it's not a thing, but we're still chasing it. One of the questions I ask a lot of people when I'm talking to them in a coaching call is tell me what perfect looks like. And they'll start telling me all about how so-and-so has their house this way, or what they're wanted, or what they think their boss wants them to do, and I'm like, oh, that sounds terrible. So if it's not perfect for that person I mean, if it's perfect for them, but it's not perfect for me how do I know who's perfect I'm supposed to be looking at here. If you are chasing perfect, it's somebody else's thing, because my guess is you're perfect and somebody else's perfect aren't the same and, any way it goes, somebody is going to be upset.
Megan Devito:So many people are just trying to have perfect job, the perfect project at work, the perfectly decorated home. We're supposed to have perfect hair. I look like a drowned cat today, right now. I just got my hair cut. It's pretty close to perfect, but it's sopping wet, so it looks terrible right now. So I just want to know what would it be like for you to be like you know what? I did a great job on that. It's not perfect, but I'm really proud of it. Can you be proud of yourself without being perfect? The answer is yes, and if you don't know how, again reach out to me. This is the stuff that coaching works on. What are you already doing really well? How are you practically perfect? How are you actually perfect in your own way, no matter what anybody else says? So those are just three things that you can do right now is just stop the overconsuming, stop people pleasing and stop trying to be perfect. So what happens when you do this? What happens when you finally let go of these things.
Megan Devito:The first thing is that when you walk into a house that has been decluttered have you ever done this? So maybe go back to when you were a teenager or a little kid. Maybe you had like a really dirty room. So some kids have messier rooms than other kids. If you've had this experience, just think about how this felt. And if you haven't imagine what it might feel like, I guess If you were a messy kid and maybe your mom came in, it was just like maybe she was furious and she just came in and gutted your room and cleared it out. But that feeling when you walk in and you're like, whoa, it's clean, that feels kind of nice. Or when you vacuum out your car, moms especially, if you are in the toddler stage and you're listening to this and you realize that your kid chucked french fries under the seat while you were driving and then you clear your car out. You know what feeling when you're like how nice my car is. I didn't even realize it was this nice.
Megan Devito:That is the energy that you can bring in by packing up the things that do not feel good or necessary or right in your house anymore, or things that you haven't worn. If you haven't worn it in over a year, put it in a box and donate to somebody else. Don't wear it. You're not going to wear it again. Every time you try it on, you don't like it. Get rid of it. Give it to somebody who will love it, because I want you to imagine what that feels like. That's a good feeling, isn't it? That's what happens when you get rid of clutter, whether it's clutter in your workspace, clutter in your closet, clutter in your brain because you're thinking about too many things, all of that stuff. That's a good feeling, isn't it? That's how we feel we have better energy.
Megan Devito:The second thing is I want you to really imagine what it would be like to feel confident instead of anxious. So picture saying no to someone who you tend to say yes to a lot. Maybe it's your sibling or your kid, or your boss or whoever it is. And I just want you to picture saying no without over explaining and without apologizing. And I want you to imagine how free you're going to feel when you start to trust your own instincts, because when you stop saying yes to everything, you lower the stress in your body and suddenly your brain has new ideas and you have the energy and the time to do them. That is important. Imagine what that feels like to feel confident enough to say, I don't think that's for me. Thank you for asking. Checking out. Going home it's possible. I promise it's possible. You're not going to get fired, everything's okay, but you have to have the confidence to do it first.
Megan Devito:And the third thing I want you to think about is having time to do what's really important to you, because when you stop overcommitting to things, you start opening up space for things that are really exciting for you, things that you didn't even know you were interested in, or things that you've been dying to do, that you haven't had the time to do. When you start saying no, you're giving someone else the opportunity to say yes. That might be something that's really important to them. That is the good side of saying no. Every time you say no, someone else has the opportunity to say yes.
Megan Devito:I like to tell this story about field trips. I know I've told it in the past, but when I was a teacher, I would put out a thing like, Hey, we got a field trip, and parents would be like "oh, you know what, I'll go, it's fine. And I always wanted to say you don't have to, it's okay. There are other moms and there would be every time, and even when I was volunteering for field trips, there would be parents that were like I have to go, I mean, somebody has to go, right? No, there are other parents who want to go, and if you are just going to be a body in a spot, there's another mom that might have tried to be able to go in the past that couldn't go because it was taken. Let somebody else go. They may be so excited to do it. This is true whether you're talking about field trips or projects at work or volunteering at your church. It's all true.
Megan Devito:You get more time with your kids. You get more time to be creative on the projects that you're really excited about at work, or even just you get time to go sit on the couch and stare out the window and look at the birds. Whatever it is that you like to do. Maybe you want to paint your nails, maybe you want to take a nap or read a book. You have more time when you learn to say no, when you have the confidence to say no and when you stop over committing, all of these things can happen.
Megan Devito:So, if you are ready to stop doing the things that are draining you, if you're ready to start feeling confident, if you want to feel really calm so that you're not full of stress and not feel of anxiety all the time, if you want to feel in control of your calendar and your energy, this is where coaching comes in, my friends.
Megan Devito:So the new year is coming up. Message me. I told you I'm mostly on LinkedIn. I'm also on Instagram. You can message me at either of those places.
Megan Devito:Let's find time where we can talk about what you want in 2025. Not about what you don't want. Let's talk about where you want to go and then let's create a plan. Let's make 2025 the year where you start shedding what's not for you and get really intentional about what is for you.
Megan Devito:You don't need like to set more resolutions. You don't need some other productivity hack. What you really need is some clarity on where you're going. You need some support for when you start to feel uncomfortable and when no feels like a really bad, dirty word, and you need some accountability so that you actually follow through. Otherwise, you probably already be doing it.
Megan Devito:I know that was true for me, and that's exactly what I'm here to do. I work with people one-on-one. So if you're like no, no, no, I don't want a group coaching thing, that's okay. I don't offer one. I offer one-on-one coaching. If that sounds good, I am inviting you right now to work with me one-on-one in the new year. All you have to do is reach out, tell me you want to talk about coaching. I've already told you two ways you can do that. The other way is just to go to my website. It's www. megandevitocom. I have a tab at the top of the screen that says work with me. I will tag it in the show notes.
Megan Devito:You schedule time, we jump on the phone and we talk about what's happening for you in 2025 and we come up with a plan to make it real so that it really falls in line. You don't stop doing things when they weigh you down. You stop doing things when you make space for the things that get you excited and give you space that make you want to do more fun things, and that means you have to shed what's not for you. You will not stop doing things that are heavy, otherwise you would have. You'll just keep carrying the load. Let's not do that anymore.
Megan Devito:All right, so here's your homework. Ask yourself, what can I stop doing in 2025? Write it down, sit with it and, if you're ready to take it to the next step, reach out, because I am here to help you make it happen. 2025 is coming. It's like right there in our faces. If you're ready to get simple, to make it easy to have less clutter, to feel lighter and to finally focus on yourself and what's important to you, you can do it. I promise you can. You guys, thank you so much for listening this week. I will be back again next week. If I don't talk to you before, I'll talk to you. Then Take care.
Megan Devito:I hope you enjoyed this episode of the More Than Anxiety podcast. Before you go, be sure to subscribe and leave a review so others can easily find this resource as well. And, of course, if you're ready to feel calm, to stop overthinking and have a lot more fun, you can go to the show notes, click the link and talk to me about coaching. I'll talk to you soon.