Hi, I'm Monica Packer from About Progress and this is a growth spurt, a bite-sized way you can increase your progress today.

Today I had a light bulb moment with a coaching client who's giving me permission to talk about

what we talked about in a bit more of a vague way and a way where you can also apply it to

yourself. And it's about why women don't end up taking time for themselves. I think so much

of the advice that we see out there for women to put themselves on the list is well-intentioned.

It's about how you simply need to make an appointment with yourself and keep it, that you need to carve out that time, that how we choose to use our time is a choice.

And it's communicated in a way where it's almost

our fault when we don't inevitably take time for ourselves, whether that time is used for

self-care or for hobbies or to relax, to rest, whatever it may be. Somehow, this well-intentioned advice comes back to us just

blaming ourselves for not taking it. So what I wanted to do was to validate two big reasons

white women don't and how it actually all comes down to one big reason. And there's many, many more reasons, but this is for the woman who knows she's worth the time,

who carves it out, who puts it on a calendar, who wants to keep the appointment for herself,

who knows she's worth the time and the investment of time and energy and sometimes even money,

but she still

struggles to do it. These are two reasons why. The first is because it takes literal work

to do so. To step away from the responsibilities requires us often to ask for it, meaning we can't just step away because someone else will need to

step up. And that someone else is often a family member, whether it's a partner or a spouse,

children, or maybe we have to hire a babysitter or ask another family member to step in, especially when it comes to child care and other home responsibilities.

So inevitably, like we can carve out the time on our calendar, but doing so requires that other people also carve out time and step up to the plate.

And that is a hurdle.

That is an obstacle. It takes time and energy. And for that reason alone, and makes it seem like, what's the point? What's the point

in taking time for myself when it requires more work to do that? What's the point in taking time

...