For the full show notes and access to resources mentioned in this episode visit:
https://www.easyscaling.com/blog/episode18
Tune in as we discuss syncing your business up with your cycle and how that can make everything in your business flow more effortlessly. We dive into what cycle syncing is, tips and tools for making cycle syncing easier, and practical examples to help you implement it in your life and business.
My guest is Julia DeWolfe, she is one of my coaches, a certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapy practitioner, and what she calls an 'everything coach' for entrepreneurs.
Julia is a regular guest on the podcast and together we explore the more emotional side of business ownership and dig into many of the things that I've personally struggled with or overcome in my own business.
Topics discussed:
Links/Resources Mentioned:
Connect with Jordan Schanda King:
Connect with this week’s guest Julia DeWolfe
*some links above are affiliate links which means I will get a small commission if you make a purchase with my link, but you will not pay any extra. I personally use and recommend these products!
For the full show notes and access to resources mentioned in this episode visit:
https://www.easyscaling.com/blog/episode18
Tune in as we discuss syncing your business up with your cycle and how that can make everything in your business flow more effortlessly. We dive into what cycle syncing is, tips and tools for making cycle syncing easier, and practical examples to help you implement it in your life and business.
My guest is Julia DeWolfe, she is one of my coaches, a certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapy practitioner, and what she calls an 'everything coach' for entrepreneurs.
Julia is a regular guest on the podcast and together we explore the more emotional side of business ownership and dig into many of the things that I've personally struggled with or overcome in my own business.
Topics discussed:
Links/Resources Mentioned:
Connect with Jordan Schanda King:
Connect with this week’s guest Julia DeWolfe
*some links above are affiliate links which means I will get a small commission if you make a purchase with my link, but you will not pay any extra. I personally use and recommend these products!
Ep#18 - How to cycle sync your business and tap into your hormonal superpowers with Julia DeWolfe
[00:00:00] Jordan: Alrighty, in today's episode, we're talking with Julia again, the lovely Julia, and we're talking about cycle syncing. Cycle syncing is how I found Julia to begin with a year or so ago, and we dive into what it is. We talk about the basics of cycle syncing, the basics of your process, how that relates to your business, and how you can utilise this, like practical tips for syncing your business up to you and tracking things like that.
Again, we try to dive into some efficient, tangible tips for implementing this for yourself. And as usual, it was much fun. So I hope you enjoy this conversation.
Hello. Hello everyone. And hello Julia again. Hello.
[00:00:54] Julia: Well, this is, this is going to
[00:00:56] Jordan: be good because, and I've been telling people that we're going to come up with this episode, but we're going to talk about cycle syncing, which I love, and I know you're an expert on and is why I originally started working with you a million years ago.
And I think we're going to use maybe me as a Guinea pig a little bit as we talk about this and give some, some, tangible, practical tips. And also, just talk about the basics and see where else it goes. Is that right? Sounds good. Did I get it? Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Sounds good. Okay, let's start. So we won't do your intro as usual because people probably know who you are by now.
And if they don't, listen to episode one. And maybe we start with just. Talking about what the hell cycle thinking even is some definitions. Yeah. Yeah. Okay,
[00:01:43] Julia: sure. Let's do it. So cycle syncing is a cool thing, and I think many times there are some misconceptions out there around what cycle syncing is.
Not so much now, as more people have started to talk about it. More. But when I was first getting started with, with talking about being a syncing cycle coach, many women when I'd be like, what do you think cycle syncing is? They would be like, isn’t that when, like everyone's periods like sync up?
[00:02:07] Julia: And it's like, well, that is a that I guess could be, but this is the idea that you are syncing up with your cycle. So as women, we are going through this cycle, sometimes every month, sometimes longer. The average cycle is around 34 days, but your cycle is not always 28 days.
But we're moving through this cycle, and we're hitting these different hormonal markers through the process. So we think of our period as a big one, which is the signal on your period's first day. That is day one of a new cycle. But then, as we go through that cycle, up until our next period, we're hitting these different points where different hormonal changes are happening, and along with those various hormonal, hormonal changes, We have other things that we're excited about.
We have different moods; we have different things that maybe feel harder for us. Other times things feel easy for us. And so cycle syncing is the idea of learning your unique rhythm and pattern and building your life to honour that. Yep.
[00:03:11] Jordan: I love it. And you're going to have to tell us about the different phases because in my mind, I always get the names of the steps wrong, so I'm not even going to try there.
But in my mind, I think of it as having two significant events. Mm-hmm. and I have like a very regular cycle. It's like pretty much exactly 28 days. and the two big events feel like my period and then ovulation. And that's pretty much the only thing that I keep straight in my head. And then the time between those things, I'm usually like, I don't know, like this is kind of when I just feel like kind of normal but they're also different, right?
So, talk to us about that. Sure.
[00:03:51] Julia: So the period, your period and your ovulation are the two main events. I, honestly feel like Ovation is the main event that is like the main character of our period and our cycle, because that is the deciding factor for how your cycle actually goes. No ovulation, no period.
So we need to know when that's happening in order to understand, different hormonal fluctuations in our body. And that that's really the main event. That's the thing that's driving the boat. Outside of that. So we have our period, that's day one of your cycle when that starts, and then as long as that lasts, then, then we're into the folecular stage.
So this is from, you know, it's happening while you have your period, but it really. End of your period up until the point that you ovulate. This is, this is the f stage. This is your body's just kind of getting ready to ovulate. This is when most women feel most themselves. At this point, your energy is starting to come back.
You're really excited about, working on things. You're just, you're just high energy and you're getting stuff done. Then we move into ovulation, which is roughly a three day event, and ovulation is when all of your hormones have reached this peak point, and that's what hits the trip wire to signal this ovation.
But at, because all your hormones are at this peak, you feel great. You're on top of the world. Most women notice that they're feeling really confident at this point. they're excited about closing deals, getting stuff done. We're also in a mode where we're kind of just like naturally. More prone to like fixing ourselves up a little bit more
We can be a little bit more self-conscious at this point cuz it's crazy how different our hormones interact with how we like, perceive ourselves. But different things can happen. Like your face may appear more asymmetrical or symmetrical. You know, your face looks more like even around the time that you ovulate.
But we can start to be a little bit more self-conscious. So sometimes we are stepping into like putting more effort into our personal appearance or different things, but then that can, that can show up as us feeling really confident. After ovulation, we move into the ludial phase and the ludial phase is when we're starting to wind down.
This is where some women are experiencing more PMs. something happens, which I can talk about later, that I have dubbed the Ludial Crisis , and then we kind of get into. Kind of like nesting mode, but for your business, we're ready to just like get stuff off the list. We don't wanna think about some things.
We're making quicker decisions. We're boom, boom, boom, and then that starts to wind down. We hit a lower energy point. The closer we get to our period can be a little bit more effort for us to get some stuff done that we're kind of surprised about. Then we move into our period, and then we have our period.
This is the lowest energy point because our hormones have tanked. That's what signals for your body to start your period, is that your hormones hit their lowest point on day one of your period. And so as a result, we're just tired. We're not feeling really energetic. Our sleep may have been off for the last few days.
Our digestion might be affected depending on what our symptoms look like and our body's cleaning itself out. And emotionally we can also have this feeling of cleaning, cleaning house where, It's a really good time for reflection on like, how did the last month go? What would I like to do moving forward?
We might start to think about different goals that we have, but it's a very, quiet internal focus time when we have our period.
[00:07:23] Jordan: Yeah. Okay. I am freaking stoked to talk about the ludiel crisis. Yeah. Because we've had some, some fun conversations over our time together about lial crises. I feel Do you feel like everyone experiences that the same, is mine like more prominent than some people's, or is that
[00:07:44] Julia: pretty typical?
I think that your, you're very self-aware. . So, and you're very good with like open communication with yourself and with your, with your team of people. So me, right? So , we and other people, but you, you have very good communication. So when something, when you feel a shift, you're like, Whoa, what is going on? We need to talk about this.
What is happening? And you, you really process through that. And I think that that's something that you're really good at. Not everyone is as good at that. And they might just be internalizing these feelings of like, why do I even do what I do? Why did I start my business? Why is my life the way that my life is like, and they're just kind of sitting on those feelings.
but I think that everybody is going through. That cuz your hormones dip before they start to like rise a little bit into your ludial phase. and on that dip is where we experience the ludial crisis of like, Oh my gosh, why does everything feel like this? So I think everybody has it, but your, your processing skills allow you to be like really aware of it.
[00:08:50] Jordan: Yeah. Well I appreciate that. That's very nice. it is definitely, I feel like prominent for me because it's, and, and here's how I look at cycle seeking. Like part of how I look at it, and we've talked about this I think with, like personality tests and stuff like that and how you use them and making sure that you're using them in a way that is actually like constructive and helpful and not in a way that's just gonna make excuses for you to like, Not do things or not do things that you don't wanna do or whatever it is, whatever the excuse is.
So for me, cycle thinking is a really nice framework for me to recognize those things and like label the things that I'm experiencing and also, plan around it and make different decisions about what I'm gonna do and when I'm gonna do it. But also just for the sheer hope in like those moments where like EAL crisis where I'm like, What the hell am I doing?
Why did I start a business? I'm gonna burn it all down. I hate everything. I like, I'm a pos like , you know, like all of these things that go through my mind during a ludial crisis. But it's almost always like less than 24 hours of an experience, you know? So when I'm in that, it's like, Okay Julia, it's happening.
Like help me through it and then it's over. It's kind of like a contraction when you're having a baby like it comes to and end, which is I think, really comforting. And it's not just during that part of your cycle, it's like different things in every part of your cycle that you're experiencing. And I just find it really helpful.
To be able to, to see, oh, well this is going to come to an end and this is like not forever, because it can be really for some of those lower lows, it can be really discouraging, I think, when you're in those
[00:10:44] Julia: spaces. Absolutely. And one of the. Core things across all of any kind of coaching that I'm doing with my clients is that knowledge that we do not need to be fixed. We need to be understood, and this is an extra piece of understanding ourselves, is understanding our cycle, because it does give us that room to understand, okay, why?
Why am I feeling like this? Where is that coming from? You know, we may go through the majority of our life. Feeling pretty great about what we do and feeling really confident. And then these days can feel like they just come outta left field and give us such a gut punch where we start to question everything.
And if we can have some predictability behind that, it allows us to understand what's going on, understand ourselves and deal with ourselves in a kind way, but also in a way that, you know, we can take some control of the situation. So it's really helpful to recognize that with the L phase, but it can, it can show up at other times, like you said, in your cycle because there may be times where we need to get something done.
I really like cycle syncing tasks or kinds of tasks as well because we may know, okay, I need to finish. This funnel, or I need to talk to my team about this kind of a thing, and we may have this unique kind of nervousness around that. And then all of a sudden we're trying to work on the thing and it's like, I cannot piece this together at all.
Like I can't even come up with a thought to string together and we can start to get down on ourselves and be like, What is the matter with me? Yesterday I was fine with this and now I can't do it. It's probably where you're at in your cycle. And so when we understand how our cycle works in our natural rhythms now, it gives us the freedom to take a task and look at it and be like, Oh, of course this is hard for me because I have my period.
So no, I'm not in the mood to be in front of people and delivering this stuff. I'm not feeling excited about it. And then we can start to schedule out different business tasks to line up with the ideal phase of our cycle, and we're still getting all the stuff done, but now we're just making sure that we're actually enjoying it the way that we want to enjoy it and doing the kind of job that we wanna do.
[00:12:57] Jordan: Yeah, yeah, totally. I, I see this so clearly with how I show up on calls and in particular like calls that I'm facilitating and I love to do stuff. Workshop style. I like, I freaking hate doing like formal presentations. and we actually had a call in our membership maybe about a month ago, not quite a month ago, cuz I think I was on my period and I was just like, I am so low energy and I was going to prep a presentation and I was like, this is not, this is not gonna land with people, you know, like I can tell
And so it was still discussion based, but I could. I actually should ask them, after this episode comes out, if they, if they remember this particular call. Because I got off of that being like, Wow, I was not myself for that. I mean, it was still valuable, but I was not in the space that I normally am. I loved the exact same call yesterday, and it was like, boom, boom, boom.
Here's the thing. Here's the thing, here's the thing. Do this. What about this idea? And on the other one I was like, Well, you know, I don't know, like , I was just, it was, it's a totally different vibe and energy and space that I feel like you can tap into in yourself. And that, that happened partly because having my cycle back is new, you know, And so I, when I, we planned out these calls for the entire month.
I didn't know when, where my cycle was going to be for what call. And so we did a very different plan for this second month because I was like, Nope, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that that week. That's not gonna happen because that's not gonna be good for anyone. It's not gonna be fun for me. It's not gonna be my best self showing up for our clients.
And so those are like the tangible things that once you see it and you can look at it on paper where you are in your cycle, it's just these like really little decisions and changes you can make just to make things feel easier.
[00:14:55] Julia: What made you decide that you wanted to get into cycle sinking in your business?
[00:15:04] Jordan: Oh my gosh, I don't remember. Do you remember? No. That's why I asked. Okay. So here, here. Do you remember our origin story? I heard you in a clubhouse. Okay. Yes. And then I reached out to you on Instagram. Mm-hmm. . I was like, this is really
[00:15:20] Julia: cool. I wanna more, Your message actually was so thrilling and terrifying to me at the same time, because we got to, we got connected pretty early in the stages of my business.
Yeah. This was me like, okay, you know, I had decided to commit to do this and I will never forget your message because you were like, Hey, tell me more. I am so ready to do this. And you were like, Please tell me how to feel better. Or something. Like, it was just so direct. And I was like, What? I had never gotten a message that was so like, boom, this is what we're doing.
And so I do remember that message forever and always. I should, I should print it and frame it .
[00:16:03] Jordan: I'm, I'm looking for it right now. Cause I wanna see exactly what I said because I'm sure we talked back and forth too about like exactly what I was wanting to do.
[00:16:11] Julia: Yes. Yeah. We, . That's gonna be a lot of scrolling.
[00:16:14] Jordan: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll cut some of this out. Probably
Alright. I found it. Okay. It says, Hey Julia, I love everything you're talking about. Tell me more about how I can reduce my stress and truly care for myself. , lol, , trying to make it all not serious. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Okay. You know what though? I was, Wow. That was April, 2021. Is that real?
So I had like a nine month old. Yes. So my daughter was like nine months old. So this was, Yeah, there was a lot going on for sure in my life. And that was in my other business. Yeah. Interesting. And you asked me. Oh, I think you a, it's a voice message, so I won't play it. But you were asking me, I think about like what my issues were and I said finding time for myself.
Self care, having a routine for taking care of me first is the biggest struggle and stressor, which I think everyone can relate to. I can still relate to that a little bit, but it's definitely not my biggest struggle and stressor, that's for sure.
[00:17:26] Julia: Yeah, I remember, you had a lot of new things going on, and something that I remember us talking about is that you just wanted anything that you did moving forward to feel different than how things had gone previously.
And so this was a way that you felt like you could kind of acknowledge what you needed and you knew that you wanted to be building a business. And you wanted that to be something that was working for you and that you were gonna be able to optimize, you were really, really focusing on the optimizing side of it too.
did you have any like qualms about starting cycle sinking with your business? What were some of your questions or like thoughts about it?
[00:18:09] Julia: Because I also remember that I made you cry on our first call and I was like, I hope we get to work together.
Cuz I felt so bad that I made you cry .
[00:18:18] Jordan: Yeah. And that like crying on our calls was not uncommon. No. At the beginning. It still happens sometimes, but it's pretty rare. I would say. I love how, I don't know if anybody else experiences this or if of, of other of your clients' experiences, but I find that I always cry like right at the end.
It's like within the last five to 10 minutes of the call ending, it's like finally like, okay, we've been shooting the shit for like 50 minutes, but like, really, let's talk about the thing that I've been thinking about the whole time now, .
[00:18:52] Julia: Yeah. That's why I have the rule that I have of, I never end a call when someone's crying.
And that's why I'm always late into the next call, , because it always, it always happens where it's like, Oh, we've been talking about this stuff, or, I don't know if this is gonna be included, but this is just me talking to you now. But, I'll always be like, How are things going? And you're like, really good, really good.
And then we'll be like dancing around this like strategic thing and then you'll be like, actually this thing's going on. And then we just like open the box and get into it. But that's all right. You know? I know. I always know
[00:19:31] Jordan: it's coming. We gotta warm up to it, you know, like, I mean, part of it is that it.
Just trying to really tap into it and figure it out. And, and like you said, I do feel like I can pretty, pretty frequently. I feel like I can know the thing pretty quickly and easily, but sometimes I don't. And, and that's what I think is so important about being able to talk it out because it'll be like, Oh, okay, well here's the thing, and then five minutes later you'll be like, Okay, but you know what, really it is , you know, but you just don't have that clarity until you're actually talking it out.
And I know this has nothing to do with cycle syncing, but I think it's important. And I'm gonna plug everybody, or I'm gonna plug that everyone needs, I think, one-on-one support like this, like whatever that is, like therapy or a life coach or an everything coach like Julia. But you've, you've gotta, you've gotta have this.
And, and I feel pretty strongly that it needs to be one on one and not group, because I think it's really hard to get to. the meat of the issue. And there's a reason why it takes us until we're at 55 minutes of our 60 minute call to get there. You know,
[00:20:42] Julia: I've even found that it takes weeks of time working one on one with someone before they, they're comfortable.
You know, I, I laugh, but not really, but there's a six week breakthrough with every single one of my clients. Mm-hmm. , like up until the six weeks we're going, we're working on stuff. And then on week six they're like, Actually this is the thing, , and this is, and, and then it starts to crack everything open.
But their brain wasn't comfortable enough with me or maybe even themselves. And up in that dynamic. Up until that point to kind of present the thing. But without fail, call six and now I'm spoiling my process. I usually never tell anybody that, but on call six, I know, Hey, this is this, this is when they're gonna dish it out.
And it has never failed. Wow. To be that call. So when you have those, that one on one time, you need the comfort and the just the safety of that kind of a thing, and you don't feel like you're taking up other people's time. Or like in a group, sometimes it can feel, we've talked about competition and entre in the entrepreneurial space, like you don't wanna feel like someone else is going to view you in a different way.
It's a lot of vulnerability in a group where one on one, it's already hard enough for us to dish this stuff out. Sometimes. Never mind, like in a group of our peers. So, Yeah. Trust the process when you're working with someone one on one and really be committed to opening up to it, and that's where you'll, you'll get the most benefit.
[00:22:17] Jordan: Yeah, for sure. All right. Back to detour there, but I mean, it came up, we went down the route hole probably for some reason. So hopefully that was helpful for someone listening and it's just been on my mind generally . Mm-hmm. this week. Anyway, so back to cycle syncing. Yeah. We've got, we've got kind of the lay of the land of how the cycle works and the labels are less important, but like, I think it is helpful, like for me, I just, again, the two big events and then there's the chunk of time between mm-hmm.
and, and you gave a good rundown of like how you might potentially feel during each of those phases. So I remember that you helped me kind of put together a list of. Task categories at the beginning of us working together about, okay, these are the types of tasks that maybe would be best or better fit for this part of your cycle.
So maybe we can talk through those. And then of course, like if we've got resources or anything we wanna throw into the show notes, I know you've got some cool, like graphics and stuff, that we can put in there. but does that feel like a good next place to go? Sure. Yeah.
[00:23:25] Julia: So when we're thinking about the tasks that we do, obviously everybody's business is different, your role in your business is different, and this also counts for life stuff too.
So when we are thinking about the tasks, I recommend starting. Writing down the tasks that you find the most difficult right now. So just kind of brain dumping all of the things that you are finding the most difficult. Then we can start to work our way down the list to things that are just happening all the time.
Other responsibilities that you have, but just kind of get it all out of your head and onto the page. Once we have that a working list, then we start to look at it and say, Okay, task by task. What's so hard for me about that? Like, is that a task that actually breaks down into several other tasks or is it just one task?
So sometimes we might have something like, now I can't even think of an example, but like some something in our business that we're like, Okay, content creation. Okay, so. Here. Here we go. This is a task that we write down, but actually, how many tasks is content creation? When you really break it down, that is a lot of different things because you might be doing market research or just thinking about things that have been coming up a lot with people in your business space.
Then we're looking at are, are we the ones who are doing the content creation? Do we have a team that we need to communicate to about this? Like, this is gonna break down to so many tasks. It's not just this one big umbrella task. Now we can look at it and say, Okay, is this thing a high energy task for me or a low energy task for me?
And I remember that you actually went through and tagged like everything. How did you, I remember that you were like, Oh God, as we were doing this, how did you kind of navigate that?
[00:25:21] Jordan: So I don't actually have the list of the specific tasks. But we do have our call notes from back then. And this was like, this was like, was this like a year? A year? This was only a year and a half ago. Holy smokes. Okay. This feels so long ago. so what we did is that, I feel we put that I feel energized and excited about connecting with new people towards the end of my cycle and during the follicular phase is what we wrote down.
And so you had given me this task to tag everything, sort the task out. And I made this list of types of tasks. So some tasks I was gonna mark as mundane, some as creative, some as strategy, some as structure, ideation, connection, chores, what? And then self-care. So these are the categories we came up with.
I don't even remember. what I put under each,
[00:26:26] Julia: I remember we did this because you were not driving with the high energy, low energy concept. Oh, yeah. It didn't make sense to me. Yeah. So then we started to chunk it down into like, okay, let's work in types of tasks, because then you could start to look and see like, what am I feeling excited about?
What am I not? Mm-hmm. . so that's another option. If you're not feeling like you're connecting with the high energy, low energy, where that can be helpful is understanding some tasks for some people, maybe. A total breeze, like, you know, making all these phone calls and booking these appointments may not be a big deal for one person, but for someone else that may take them all day, that that is the day of like, okay, it's a lot of effort for me to make the call, or that kind of thing.
So for the first person who is not really a big deal, that's a low energy task. That's not going to wipe them out for the day to complete that for the second person. That's a high energy task. So it's, it's individualized of like, is something a high energy or a low energy task when you look at
[00:27:29] Jordan: your list.
Yeah, I can see how Also just like, so I'm thinking for me in real time right now, , like easy or hard, I feel like would be really, that would be a pretty simple way for me to think about it. And so as I think about where I've been in my cycle for the past couple of days and maybe even the past week, which has been what the ludial phase?
Mm-hmm. . So this is post ovulation. I've had my ludial crisis and I'm in the ludial phase and I'm waiting for my period to start , which is probably gonna be in the next like four to five days. And a lot of thing, a lot of things have felt really hard for me that don't normally feel hard for me. And, and so that's kind of how I'm thinking about it.
Like I'm planning out a big launch and I've been really avoiding putting together my launch plan, which again, is something that I normally love, like that strategy piece and like sitting down and like really being able to like put all of the pieces together and then drill down into all of the details.
I love that stuff, but my brain has been, every time I look at the piece of paper, it's like, Nope. , Like, you don't even, you can't even read the words on this page, is how it feels when I sit down and I try to plan this launch. and I, so I essentially just stopped trying and I actually had like a facilitated conversation about it yesterday, which was so much easier having someone to bounce ideas back and forth.
So I think there's like a two part thing here that, one, there's gonna be things that you're just not gonna wanna do, but there's also gonna be like hacks and things that you can, you can use to get around it. Which for me is like being in conversation with someone to help me put the information on paper has been really helpful during this phase.
Whereas other times I can more easily just, Know my thoughts and put it all together and write it down.
[00:29:25] Julia: Yeah. So I think the easy, hard setup is a good setup to get things rolling. Where then that can be kind of difficult though, is that what's easy and what's hard can change throughout our cycle. Yeah. So we can then start to think about, okay, what kind of energy am I bringing to this?
Is this a more strategic task? Is this a more creative task? Is this something that's for myself? Right? So then we start to piece it together. What you do with this then is you look at how do you feel at different points of your cycle. So, A quick rundown of like when you have your period. Like I said, that's a quiet time.
That's a time for reflection. I love this time as a time for my clients to do a month in review or a cycle in review. What went really well for you over the next last cycle? What did not go as well? What would you like to do different? What are you bringing forward with you? And then you can kind of get those wheels turning as far.
Where are we going next? Because we're, again, this is all about building a business that we love and feel really, really good in all the time. Mm-hmm. . So then you can start to bring those things forward. again, now when you look at your list, if you have this huge running to do list, like most of us do, and you have things tagged, high energy, low energy, you can start to look at what are some of these self care things?
What are some of this, these personal care things.
Cycle syncing in general is one of the largest things that we can do for our self-care for the long term. Also, looking at, okay, I'm not gonna book a ton of calls at this point, that kind of stuff. Then we move into the fol phase. Now we're all about putting into action those things that we just came up with over the week of our period or however many days where we were thinking about like, what do I wanna bring forward?
What do I not wanna bring forward? The ll stage is now when you're gonna start acting on that stuff. A lot of people feel like they're just so excited to start new things in this stage. So that's, that's when you can start to do it and now you're looking at your list and you're looking at some of these higher energy, maybe slightly more tedious tasks, cuz you, you've got the focus to whip those things out and get 'em done and be done with it.
So some of those things that need a little more strategy or fine tune detail or whatever it might be, that's, that can be a good time for it. , then we move into ovulation Again, that confidence is high. This is when I really like, if you're in any kind of a sales anything, you're having sales calls, you're closing out presentations, you're doing anything that you want the most confident version of yourself there, that's when you're looking at booking at, in this ovulation point around in the days leading up to in a couple of days following, right?
[00:32:11] Jordan: Like if you're, if you're doing an Evergreen webinar, you wanna record your Evergreen webinar when you're ovulating , like that's the for sure thing. Cuz some of these things like we can't totally always plan around. Like I have sales calls. Kind of randomly. Mm-hmm. for sure. I love having them more when I'm ovulating, you know, And even in, even in my F phase, the first half of my, my cycle, I would prefer to have them then, but it's not like I'm gonna not get on a sales call with somebody if they wanna have a sales call with me.
So again, I think this, this is the thing to come back to and like, use it how you want. Like, if you're like, Nope, I'm gonna draw a hard line. I'm only gonna do sales calls for like five days of, of the month or whatever. Like, totally good on you. but I also don't, I personally just don't like taking it to the extreme.
It kind of stresses me out. So, but I like to make some decisions based on my cycle, but, but don't feel like you have to. Implement it like that. Strict, I
[00:33:13] Julia: guess. Yeah, because you're good at your job. Like for everyone listening, you're good at your job. So , right? You can, you can do this when you need to, but the idea is that you are, especially when you're planning something, don't plan something that you're then like sabotaging yourself because you're just not gonna have a good time or you're going to feel this like more stress than you need to when you could just plan it at a time where this is gonna be all.
Flow and
[00:33:41] Jordan: ease. Yeah, and this is, this reminds me of something that I think is really important is that I'll get into situations sometimes where I'll plan something when I'm in my F phase or when I'm ovulating. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it. And I'll schedule something for when I'm gonna be on my period.
Not even like thinking about it like, yeah, let's do it then and like put it on the schedule. I'm so freaking excited. And then it rolls around and it's like, what the hell was I thinking when I scheduled this? This sounds terrible. I don't wanna do that. And so that's the other reason to just like keep it in your mind as just because you're scheduling it now, cuz it sounds great, it may not sound great when you actually get around to it.
[00:34:25] Julia: Yeah. I'm always really frustrated at like LAC ovulation me for making like social plans and all where I'm like, what was I. Doing like, this is not what I wanna do. I do not know her. So then that's the kind of the roadmap that's, that's the thing where you have this list, you have the tasks you can start to understand.
We have this idea that we need to do things like nine to five Monday through Friday. And that's just not how we operate. When you look at how, cuz men and women, it's all hormones. Everybody's hormonal all the time. , that's our hormones have everything to do with, it has to do with our hunger, our growth.
Lots of different things about ourselves, our hormones. I mean, melatonin is a hormone. So us getting sleepy has to do with our hormones. We all have hormones fluctuating all the time. The difference is when we look at these hormones, we have this like monthly ish cycle. Men move through that cycle daily.
So these kinds of ebbs and flows are happening on a much quicker thing. And that's where we think of like a typical work day and the things that are happening, it's, it's based off of what feels good with that. And even that's not really feeling that great for them, , we all know that. But this, when we're building our business, what we have the option to do is we have the option to really take our time in each stage of the cycle and maximize and optimize those tasks at the time.
And then also not annoy ourselves the whole time. We have the option to do things when it feels good. Not do them when they don't feel good because we know it's gonna swing around and feel good again pretty soon. Yeah,
[00:36:09] Jordan: yeah, totally. So what do you think would be helpful? Should we, should we dive into some more specific like types of tasks or what do we think is gonna be really helpful for people to like walk away and actually be able to implement some of this stuff?
[00:36:25] Julia: I think the most helpful thing is first you need to know what your cycle is actually doing. You need to, you need to actually track your cycle in order for cycle sinking to great to happen at all. So annual also need to know are you having a cycle? So, if you're on hormonal birth control, you don't have a cycle because the birth control is running the show.
Even though you have a bleed every month, that's not a, period that is a withdrawal bleed. So that, that's its first thing. I know that you had people ask some questions about like IUDs or different things like that, so, Many women are still ovulating. If you're not, if you don't have a hormonal i u d, you may still be ovulating if you, I know that some people, the question was raised about hysterectomies.
If you still have your ovaries, you may still be ovulating. And so these are things that you can kind of get to know your body the way that I recommend, everyone tracks their cycle. You can use an app, but don't rely on the app. I recommend using your temperature, so taking your basal body, getting a basal body thermometer or some kind of a tracking device, an aura ring.
The new Apple watch can track your temperature. Like di there's lots of different things out there. And what happens is your temperature will do a little dip and then it, it goes up right after you've ovulated. So that lets you know, are you ovulating? And when, and then you can start to do some math and break down some stuff on like, where are you at in your cycle, what's going on?
And then your temperature drops on the day that you'll get your period. So if you wake up in the morning and you're like, Oh, that's weird, my temp just like, boom, came back down, that's the day that you'll get your period. So then you can know a little bit more accurately what's what to expect.
[00:38:13] Jordan: Yeah, and I'll, I'll just add that.
So I've been tracking my cycle, like taking my temperature every morning for years, like years and years and years. And I've had sometimes where I've like not done that. Obviously when I'm pregnant I don't do that and like other little spurts of time that I've not done it. But It's really cool if for anyone who's not doing that, it's actually very cool and very predictable, and very interesting to have that data.
It's also kind of a pain in the ass, I think, which is why I, because I did that, had a thermometer by my bed forever, and then I stopped because I just like, With kids, I feel like it's kind of harder too. And so that's why I got the aura ring. I got the aura ring like maybe two months ago. I freaking love it because I don't, that's the only reason I got it.
I would've never got an aura ring if it was just like to know how my sleep is or like, whatever. Like I don't exercise, like don't tell anybody, but I don't, and . And so like, I don't care about any of that stuff. I just don't wanna have to take my temperature in the morning. And so I have the aura ring and then I use natural cycles and it syncs up together.
And we'll put links for all of this stuff in the show notes. But it's a freaking game changer because it's all there. The data's there, It does the predictions, like, yeah, of course, like there's disclaimers and stuff like read the disclaimers. But, it's just, it's so convenient to have it just like mapped for you.
[00:39:38] Julia: I love natural Cycles. That's the one that I recommend for everyone for tracking. because a lot of the other apps, it's just guesstimating off of like your last period to know when your next period is right. And that is not going to be accurate when you ovulate 10 to 14 days after ovulation, you will have your period.
That's just the that that's, you know, the length of your period usually fluctuates more in the molecular stage. But how long it takes for, that follicle to then mature and then it really, it's, you know, all the stuff's happening. It's incredible. I have a whole little mini course on it cuz it's so cool.
What happens, you know, your, it, your body makes a new gland every single month from that follicle to make progesterone. Like, it's incredible that your body is just doing this over and over and over again. But that, that part does not really change that much. And the length of that, of your ludial phase can let you know some different things about your body as far as how much progesterone are you making, Are you making enough, are you not making enough?
That's important to know because it affects our mood. It really affects how calm we're feeling. Estrogen is a little bit of an upper, and progesterone is kind of like a soothing, calming thing. And so that can be some clues for us around PMs, things like that. I love the book. The Period Repair Manual.
Hmm. That book, it's by a natural path. that book just like changed my life because I had, the reason I got really into this is I had a lot of issues with my own hormonal health. I was not getting satisfying answers for that at all. I was young. I was only like, 20, 21, 22. And I was having issues with ovarian cys that were rupturing.
And the only option I was given was I could get on the pill. And I just knew that that wasn't gonna be fixing anything that it was, It was just gonna be kind of like a bandaid approach. And I did it and I felt absolutely awful. And I was still having issues with cys. So then I really started to look into like there has to be some reason why my body is doing this and why this is happening and there has to be something that I could do to fix it.
And that was when I found that book. And it was just really eye opening on the idea that everything that's going on with your cycle is a report card from your body. There's only so many ways that your body can let you know what is going on, and your cycle is one of those ways. And so to just learn, like it can be small little tweaks to our lifestyle or things that can really bring about healing.
Was incredible. And then that was what launched me into learning more about my cycle and appreciating it instead of being annoyed by it and like it was just this awful life sentence that I had . And to see like, what, why is this actually a cool thing? And so when you're tracking it, I feel like it's so empowering.
It's giving you back all of this information about your body and your health and what's going on. And just getting that information about like, okay, what could I do? Cuz your, your temperature can also give you information about your thyroid. It can give you lots of different information. And, as, as women, we have such a higher instance of autoimmune issues and just these kind of quiet, unspoken health things that are going on.
And the more power we can get back to understand and know our body and advocate for ourselves the better. Yeah.
[00:43:08] Jordan: Love it. All right, so we're gonna put the book in the show notes for sure. And also your mini course, cuz I think that'll be really helpful for people who wanna like really dive deeper into understanding all of the things.
what else? So we've talked about, we've talked about the phases, We've talked about how this actually shows up in business and some things that you can do. and again, like for me, this is like most obvious when I'm, when I, I think this shows up for people in different ways, but for me it shows up most in like communication in either like my desire to communicate or my effectiveness in communication.
[00:43:41] Jordan: And so when I think about cycle syncing, the number one important thing for me is like my call schedule. My call schedule, specifically my, like my client facing call schedule. but also around like different types of tasks and not forcing myself to do tasks that my brain just won't do at any given time.
So I think that's really helpful and. It is gonna be really customized to each type of person on the things that feel hard or feel easy, or feel high energy or feel low, low energy. Do you have resources specifically about how people can like, dig into that?
[00:44:15] Julia: No, but I can . Well, we're gonna make something.
I'll make something. Okay. Right, because, because it's so individualized. I'm usually doing that on calls with my clients where it's like, all right, what's going on? Because my whole. thing is like, who told you that you needed to do it like that? And why wouldn't you just do it the way that you wanted to?
And so that comes up a lot with cycle syncing where, you know, when somebody comes on a call and they're like, I have to get this thing done and this is happening, and then we start to do some of that exploring of like, Well, why is that so hard for you? Especially as I get to know them more, and I'm like, that seems like this is just not the time to do it.
What would it look like? I mean, we just had that in one of our chats the other day where I, I was like, Cut it. Cut the stuff like, You have like this, you'll get to it when you get to it. But no, don't make yourself miserable over this now. So, I think the biggest thing is just like, look at the tasks that are really bugging you the most right now, and get those metrics on your cycle and then see if you can kind of start to make sense of, of where you're at inside of
[00:45:22] Jordan: that.
Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Okay. We talked about how to track your cycle and some resources for that. What else, what else do we just have to talk about related to cycle sinking?
[00:45:34] Julia: I think something I would like every woman to know is that, this is not, it's not the same as when people are like, Ugh, I probably just have my period, so this is why I'm upset about that.
Right. Because that's so, that's so annoying. You know, if it's, it's so annoying when you hear someone or someone's, like, if somebody came up to you and they were like, You seem kind of upset. Are you on your period? We would, What is that, that is so demeaning, right? This is not that. This is understanding.
Who you are, what's going on in your body, maximizing that, and also validating your emotions. I've said if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, the way that you feel as you get closer to your period is still valid. You feel that way. It's probably something that you've been feeling or thinking for a long time.
It's just a little louder right now. It's just a little clearer. And it's maybe surprising, but it doesn't mean that it's not true. And so once we can start to validate that, you know, our, our emotions are valid, they are not always facts. Feelings aren't facts. Right? . So they're valid, but it may not always be the truest of true.
And then the other thing is our reactions may not always be what we want. Our reaction may not have been. The best, or we made our, our first gut reaction may not be the one that actually moves us in the direction that we want to. So that piece of it all stands all the time no matter where you are in your cycle.
So it's really important to realize that by getting to know your hormones, this is not reducing you to something that you don't want. This is just understanding your body, understanding how to feel better, and you deserve that. You deserve that, especially when you're building your own business or have your own business.
The whole point of you doing that, I'm guessing, had a lot to do with the direction you wanted your life to move in. So you get to decide what that looks like, what's happening on the daily. You don't need to fit into some mold that's not working for you. That's empowering, that is not demeaning. Yeah,
[00:47:50] Jordan: I love it.
And I think that. Part of what comes up for me when I think about cycle thinking is just like this sheer permission to like, do what you want when you want and, and in like every arena of your business, and I see this all the time and I feel like I've talked about this on this podcast before, is like this false sense of urgency that we create for ourself and all of these, like, it's, it's, yes, other people's boxes, other people's like structures, other people's, like whatever cookie cutter advice or whatever it is.
But also just like our own, we, I feel like we do this to ourselves most of the time. You know, it's like, so I remember when we very first started working on cycle syncing was when I was creating a course. And I kept coming up against like a lot of issues and roadblocks and all kinds of things, like mental barriers to wanting to do the different pieces of creating a course.
And for anyone who's, if you've, if ever, if you've ever created a course before, you know that there's like a lot involved in this, which is why, like, it pisses me off when people are like, Oh, just like create a course. Like, yeah, maybe a course could be fantastic for you in the exact thing, but like, let's not undersell the amount of work that's gonna go into this course.
Right. So I remember that it just felt like this massive task to like record the videos. I had to script the videos. I'm also like, like I will just admit I am, am a perfectionist. Like I am flat out. And I think there's actually a lot of benefits to that. but I know you maybe would like Mm. Like we don't have to be a perfectionist.
Okay. Like there's bad things too, but I. I wanted to do everything like really, really, really well if I was gonna do it. And that's just kind of how I approach most things. And so it was like scripting the videos, recording the videos, the slides for all of the videos and making sure that they were like perfect.
And then, you know, doing all of the editing and all of these different things, the resources, and I'm quite proud of this course. I don't even really sell it anymore, , which is kind of funny. but just looking at, even looking at something like that, that is like so big. And I think part of the problem is I was like, Well, I have to get this done like tomorrow.
Like I have to get this done immediately and have to do all of the things right now instead of looking at it like, okay, how can we map this out in a way that is synced up to me? And feels easy to me. And it doesn't mean I'm not gonna have to like buckle down and do some hard work sometimes or do something that I don't want to necessarily do in the moment, but just mapping it out in a way that maybe I'm recording all of the videos when I'm ovulating, just like boom, boom, boom, batch 'em up, you know?
And then maybe I'm working on this, the tedious slides at a different part of my cycle, but really backing into a plan instead of saying, Oh, I want to create a course and I wanna have it done in the next two weeks. Well, that, that may suck. , Like that may suck. Like you could maybe do it, but is that the best way to do it?
Is that gonna be the best course? Is it really necessary that you get it done in two weeks? Like just kind of, again, using cycle thinking as a tool to kind of question. How you're doing things, why you're doing things. All of that, I think is really helpful.
[00:51:17] Julia: Yeah, it, it definitely will make you tap the breaks a little bit to hone in on like, what are we doing here?
Why am I, why do I feel this urgent Need to go ahead. It also is hard because it's a real leap of faith that it's, it's the faith in yourself that you will do this thing. Because sometimes we feel like, if I don't do this thing right now, when am I ever gonna do it? This cycle sinking is you saying, I am going to do this thing in a week, or I am going to do this thing next time around.
It requires you to have that faith that you are good enough at what you do. You're just having an off day right now, you're just having an. moment, but you'll get back around to it. It's that acknowledgement that I'm, I'm good at this. I will want to do this. It's just, I don't wanna do it right now. And I think that's where it gets kind of tricky for us because we can be awfully down on ourselves as business owners where we have this idea, If I don't get this thing out right now, like all of this stuff, but I know we've talked about that before too.
The energy that we bring to these kinds of things makes a difference. That's how we go forward with it. And so allowing yourself to have that, that freedom and believing in yourself and your offer and your skills enough to say, No, this deserves the best version of me. Whatever part of that is going forward and that, you know, you'll bring it.
[00:52:44] Jordan: Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And I think even just cause, because I think these like practical. Like ideas around, Okay, but like, how the hell do we actually do this? Cause like some of this stuff, it's like, yeah, that sounds great, but like how do you actually do that , You know what I mean? and I'm curious how you maybe approach this, but for, for me, my, my team, my poor team, I, we use click up for everything, for all of our clients, for everything that we do.
Except for my stuff, because I despise using it. Because for me, in my day to day, I've gotta have like a running to do list and, and that is my notes. And I need to be able to change things on the fly depending on how I feel. And quickly move things around and quickly like make a succinct, like, okay, here's what I'm doing today.
These are the three things, these are the only three things I need to think about. And I find that most easy to do in a note on my phone, which I can also see on my laptop. Cause I have a Mac and I have use an iPhone. So, so. You know, I won't harp on, like, you don't need complicated systems. Like we can get, go down that path, but you gotta find what works.
And for me, that works. And the, the reason why that works is because as I'm going along and I'm thinking of, Oh shit, I need to do this thing. I put it on the list. I put it on the list, and then I, I look at this list probably, I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that I look at this list 50 times a day, if that tells you anything.
Like this is like how I live my life, my calendar and my list. And fun fact, my mom also does this, but she's old school and she uses note cards and she writes a new list every single day and she takes these stuff from the, from yesterday's list and she writes it into the new note card. It's like, so cute.
I'll have to post a picture of that. Anyway. , I have heard to think for my organizational skills slash perfectionism ,
[00:54:42] Julia: I don't think that any of us who love writing lists have a mom that also like, does not love writing lists . Exactly, exactly. Yeah. It's a generational thing.
[00:54:53] Jordan: Yeah, totally. So we've got this list.
I drop everything on there and I'm constantly like pushing all this stuff to the bottom. I don't wanna look at that. And, and only focusing on the things at the top of the list that are the most important. And this is where I think it comes in handy with cycle syncing, is it's pretty easy to recognize.
Like if you're looking at your, your things on your list and your brain is just like, Wow, wow, wow. I totally can't focus on something. Okay, well maybe that's not the time that we need to really work on that thing. And that's when you ask the question, do I really need to do this today or this week, or whatever?
And having that. I call it a backlog. Having that backlog easily accessible. I'll scroll, I'll scroll back cuz if my list gets real short at the top and I've got like one more thing, like to send an email, be like, well I got more time to do stuff today. I'm gonna scroll back and just see what sounds fun or see what sounds easy or whatever it is.
And that can just be an easy way to like, keep feeling like you're making progress, but not forcing yourself to do the things in the moment that are, you're not gonna be able to do well or they feel hard or whatever it is.
[00:56:03] Julia: Yeah. I love a running to do list. I am a notes app kind of gal. And then I also love bullet journaling.
bullet journaling has worked really well for me, just because of the flexibility that I can. Like, it can either be a glorified to-do list or it can be a plan. I don't use it as like a calendar. I'm using it for like the day to day kind of stuff. And, You know, bullet journaling. If you do it, you know, you've got the little symbol that you can use to automatically show this needs to move to the next day.
[00:56:31] Julia: Right. You can just kind of quickly review. I love a rolling to do list. and then when I'm looking at my own tasks in life, I need something quick. Notes. App for me is convenient because, if I think of something, I need to get it into something immediately. Exactly. Or else it's gone. And then I'll be like, What was I supposed to do?
What was I gonna do? So then it also allows me to stop ruminating on something if I know I have it on the to-do list. I don't feel like I need to like, keep that popping up on my head. I know it's there. I'll get to it when I get to it. and then when you are looking at your task list, something that I think is helpful is just getting really familiar with like what's the main vibe of each of the stages of the cycle, because then you can start to build your own.
you know, what does this look like? So, like I said, for your period, again, that's, think of it just as planning. This is the time to plan and like reflect the F stage is doing. So what's the stuff that is like, okay, yeah, I wanna implement this, I wanna do this stuff, I wanna get this stuff done. Ovulation is your confidence phase.
And then ludial is your just like, get stuff done like this. We're just getting whatever you don't wanna have to think about in a month. That's what you're doing at that point. And then I think the other part that can kind of bounce around a little bit is the creativity side of thing, because it depends on what your creativity looks like.
So for me, my creativity is something that I, I really enjoy taking the time. I, I let the creativity is a process for me that is just very relaxing. It helps me kind. disconnect from the world, it, it forces me to be alone with my own thoughts for a little bit too. So that for me is something that pops up.
I want to do it in my ludial phase. That's when I'm finding myself reaching to do a drawing or I'm looking for my paints or I'm doing that kind of stuff in order to feel creative. For some people, they're feeling their creativity is a lot about doing, and so then that's gonna show up in the F phase, that's when they're feeling most creative.
So starting to look at like, okay, how does that task look for me? What's the kind of vibe around the task can help you see where you might try placing it and see how it works for you. So I think that's probably the most helpful thing as far as gen generally speaking. And then in my own life and my own cycle sinking stuff, obviously I do this in my business and I've been doing it for years.
I am a little stricter on some things with planning. Like I, if I'm gonna have a call with someone, I have absolutely zero qualms. Like if we're just getting started, I'm gonna have a sales call. I have no, no hesitation whatsoever booking that out in a month's time to have it around when I'm gonna be ovulating.
I have no problem with that whatsoever. So, Ravage, dude, I know , I know, but I wanna feel focused. I wanna feel, when I show up on that call, I want that call to be me and them. And we are about to have a really great half an hour for me to get to know them. Yes. And that I can see like, Okay, what's going on?
How, how would I help you? How can I help you? It wasn't always like that. I mean, that, that definitely has a lot to do with the fact that I'm, you know, five months booked out right now. So that , that's something that, that plays into it. At the beginning of my business I was like, You wanna talk to me?
Absolutely. How about now? You got it. Yeah. Like, you tell me where you wanna be. So I recognize that that's come with my, with my business. But, I, I just, that to me, I feel like I wanna have that, that freedom. I know I won't like the way it feels to show up for that kind of a call at the wrong time. I don't wanna walk away and be like, Oh, I did not do a good job, so I, I give myself that, that space.
I also really try not to book any, any kind of like, heavier stuff around the time that I know I'm getting closer to my period, because again, the thoughts, I mean, we've had conversations before where we're like, Oh yeah, that's a day one for both of us, and we could not string a sentence together between the two of us
[01:00:47] Julia: So, so I, it's, it's really just knowing myself and knowing what will it come down to me doing a good job if the whole goal is I wanna feel like I'm doing a good job, Well this is a piece of it too, and this is just a little hack that I know for myself, so that way I can kind of take a minute and pause and book stuff where it's gonna feel really good.
Yeah.
[01:01:07] Jordan: I, I wanna go back to the part that you talked about, creativity, because I love this piece and this is the part that we're still trying to figure out, but I feel like I might have had a little bit of a breakthrough right now. So I wanna share it with you and everyone else is listening . So. As you know, I've got a little bit of a hangup with creativity and the word creativity and just the concept generally may, maybe not a little bit, maybe several hangups.
I don't know, which we're working on. But it just occurred to me as you were saying, there's different types of creativity, which is great to know that I feel like in the F phase, I find it very easy. I'm more creative. I feel more creative because I feel like my creative side is very much like ideation, like ideas, and like new and like, Well, what about this?
And like possibility and like, Oh, but what if we did, thi did it this way, You know? And I find it. Easy to live in that space during the first part of my cycle. And so that makes sense. I think it's typically, cuz you know I do this a lot, I think it's typically during that phase of my cycle where I'm waking up a lot in the night and I'm having to write ideas and I'll maybe write down like 30 things that I think of or remember or have an idea about in the middle of the night and, and that's not uncommon, but I actually do think there's probably a cycle to that.
And right now as I'm in the second half of my, my cycle, the, it's not as much the ideation, it's a little calmer. Like you said, my brain's a little like slower. I dunno if that sounds bad, but what I really love to do in this part of my cycle is tinker with graphics in canva. Like that shit, I'm just like, let me just go like play around with this color and like, what if I move this and like I mess around with several of my sales pages this week because.
I like doing that. And there's like this creative aspect and this like satisfaction aspect of seeing like pretty things happen, you know? and so I don't like, cuz you've always asked me, I don't know, like where do you feel more creative? Like why, I don't know, like I'm not creative, you know, but that's kind of how I'm seeing it play out right now.
Does that make
[01:03:20] Julia: sense? Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. The essence of creativity is that it's always different. Yeah. Right? Because you're creating something in, you're using your mind and you know, whatever you're working with to create. And so for me, creativity, . I grew up in a very creative household and I was homeschooled.
Our approach to life was creative, right? Like we came at things differently. And so creativity, sometimes I'm even catching myself where I'm like, No, that is, that is just pure creativity. Like we're, we're creatively thinking, we're creatively creating. We're we're doing all of these different things all the time.
And I think that everyone's creative. Whenever someone comes at me and they're like, Ah, I'm just not creative. I know that they're thinking of like one thing and they are like, Well, you know, I don't like to draw, so therefore I am not creative. But then you get to know 'em a little bit and they like love to dance or they love to journal, or they love to create businesses or like whatever.
Like that is all creating things. They, this is creating, so. Creativity. I really feel like that's a need, like a basic human need that we have. We just need to find what's the channel, what's the outlet for us? and it doesn't have to be just one thing. I think, you know, we're all multifaceted, so that part of us gets to be multifaceted
[01:04:56] Jordan: too.
Yeah. It's actually quite ironic that creative has such a, narrow definition, I think for
[01:05:04] Julia: most people. I know, I know, I know. I think people think of like the cool art teacher that you run into in Whole Foods at like one o'clock on a Tuesday, and they're just like wearing huge earrings and this crazy outfit, and you're like, Wow.
Like, yeah, look at you go , right?
[01:05:19] Jordan: Yeah. Like, like my mom could turn anything into art. I'm like, I don't even understand, I don't even understand how your brain works like that ,
[01:05:27] Julia: but even art. Is subjective. Right? Right. So even that idea, once you start to go, you could, you could make it anything you made. If you love it, boom.
There, you, you
[01:05:39] Jordan: go. Do you, do you think my revenue projection spreadsheet is like art ?
[01:05:43] Julia: It is beautiful. .
[01:05:44] Jordan: speaking of that, actually, is there a time in the cycle where you think some of that more like tedious numbers based stuff would be for, for people who maybe don't like that stuff? When is the best time to maybe approach that?
[01:06:01] Julia: So, spoken from myself, . I like looking at that in my, in my FL phase because I'm looking at it. That's where I'm like, All right, we're gonna figure this out. In my ludial phase, I can tend to be more anxious, so that's not the time for me to start making. Proje unless they're good projections. Unless I'm like, No, look, see you've got this figured out.
This is what's happening. But if it's like the, you know, the what ifs and that side of thing, that's not the time for me to start buckling down on that because I have this like, low level sense of anxiety or fear at any given point in that time. That's something I really do a lot of work on, like recognizing and taking care of myself in that way.
so that's not the time for me to start projecting on the safety and security of my business in my phase. I'm feeling excited. I am ready to go. Let's figure this out. Where is this month going? What are we doing next? And I'm, I'm good to go. so that's that for me. As someone who does not love the number side things, that's how I personally.
[01:07:03] Julia: chunk it down that and again,
[01:07:04] Jordan: it was Cause it's also more tedious too. Yes. Like it's, and, and I've seen that since I'm in my ludial phase right now, the second half of my cycle. Even though I love these spreadsheets and I love doing stuff like this, and I've been working on my pricing, I've noticed that it's taken me a significant amount of effort.
Like I'm looking at the spreadsheet and I'm kind of like, is my brain on like, what's going on? Like, why, Like I can't focus on the screen almost is how it feels. Which is not common for me because I like this stuff, but I, I find it, it just is harder to do.
[01:07:38] Julia: And we were just talking about this the other day too.
along with hormonal changes, we have changes in. Brain chemistry at different times of our cycle. And one of them that changes a lot is we get closer towards our period is, dopamine. And so dopamine has a lot to do with the reward center of our brain, the happy, like, you know, impulse, all that kind of stuff.
[01:08:00] Julia: And so when we, when those levels drop, we can see some changes in decision making. We can see some changes in anxiety and focus levels, all of that. And so for anybody that's important to know, but then it's also extra important, special little note for, any women out there who have adhd. This is why your ADHD symptoms are so much worse.
At that point, I remember I said to you, I was like, Well, that's, this is what it feels like. The way that you're feeling is the way that it feels all the time. And then if you have adhd, it's, it's gonna be worse. many women who have ADHD find that they actually need different. They need like, almost like a different prescription for their ADHD meds at that point of their cycle because their meds won't be working as well because in such a severe drop.
Yeah. So have some grace for yourself if you're having a hard time focusing. This is not the time. Again, I think it was last episode about, the things nobody talks about that we were talking about like this, this idea that we have, that we need to push into the stuff that we hate and like this is the time to make ourselves do it and go, go, go no matter what and look at your weaknesses instead of your strengths.
This is not the time to do that. Look at what would be a strength right now. You'll get back to that later. Like you're just not focusing and it's gonna take you so much longer and so much more energy to make yourself do it now when you don't feel good about doing it than it would feel if you just gave yourself some room and hid it when you wanted to.
Totally,
[01:09:29] Jordan: totally. This really touches on this thing that I'm like really passionate about, which is, and we talk a lot about being efficient. and this other side that is effectiveness. And it's not just all about efficiency, like how fast can you do things, but, but how fast can you do the right things? You know what I mean?
Mm-hmm. , so this, this really touches on that. I love it. I want to talk about one thing, even if it's briefly, cuz I know we had this as a question, but, and you mentioned it a little bit, but what do people do if they aren't having a cycle? Can they apply any of this? How does that work?
[01:10:03] Julia: Yeah, so your first thing would be like, why aren't you having a cycle?
So, you know, if you are of an age where you would normally be having a cycle and it just seems like you're, your period is irregular or there's something going on there, that's on. Yeah. If you're pregnant, you have a totally different, you have a totally different cycle. And that's something that we were kind of working on while you were pregnant, of recognizing like, what are the natural changes that are happening here with your hormones?
If you aren't pregnant and you're just not having your periods, that's something for you to look into. Why , that's not happening. and if your cycle is irregular, So irregular is like anything kind of over 40 days. and then plus or minus four days every time. Like if you're, if you're over that, then you're, you're considered in an irregular cycle, you can still track your cycle.
[01:10:56] Julia: And in fact, I would totally, even more so for the women who have an irregular cycle tracking your temperature to see like, when are you ovulating? Cuz again, that's giving you some clues. If you don't have your cycle, for other reasons, like you are, maybe you're into menopause or something like that, you can still apply the principles of cycle sinking.
And there are coaches out there who specialize in working with women in that age bracket or in that. Time of life bracket of how you can still be cycle syncing. so I would totally recommend like looking for them because they're out there. They're out there. And then if you're just not really sure what's going on with your cycle or whatever, you can still apply it because you can still get to know yourself.
You can still start to track your own personal motivation cycles or things that are going on in your body. it just may not be tied to the same hormonal peaks that we were looking for before, but you're still gonna be going through fluctuations. And so getting to know your own cycles and seeing, okay, is there a pattern here?
And then also just taking however you feel at face value. Like if you don't feel like doing something, then don't do it. That's okay. Keep it on the list. See if you come back to it, see if it's the thing you want or not. But just starting to pay attention to how you feel listening to your body and letting that be enough, like if your body's telling you something.
Go with it. You don't always even need to know the reason why, but just know that your body's smart. It's giving you a clue. Listen to it. And that way I just said to someone earlier, you know, the body whispers before it screams, so you pick it's worthy of paying attention
[01:12:30] Jordan: to it. Yeah. And on the pregnancy piece, you know, a lot of what we did was really more just thinking in terms of like the trimesters and because that's a very clear hormone difference between the different trimesters and how you can kind of expect to feel.
And obviously we, we were pedal to the metal and the second trimester knowing that we were gonna let off the gas a little bit and start putting on the brakes in the third trimester. And same thing at the very beginning, because I, I'm, I, I've had two kids and I, I've both times been very, very sick in, in the first trimester.
So that's stuff that you can plan around too. You mentioned the hormonal birth control and how you don't have, you don't technically have a cycle. How does that work then? Can people do anything or track anything?
you wouldn't really have to be tracking as much. you could pay attention to how you're feeling.
[01:13:25] Julia: I think that that would apply to everybody. But, you just don't have, you're not ovulating when you're on hormonal birth control. So, because ovulation is the thing that's driving all of these other ebbs and flows of hormones, if you're not ovulating, then you don't have that happening. for many women, when they're on the pill, their body is actually mimicking the symptoms of, perimenopause.
So it's, it kind of gets you in your body into that, that space versus an ovulating adult. So, Personally, I found that terrifying. I know that there's a time and a place for people to be on the pill, but I, I am deeply passionate about the fact that most women are prescribed the pill to fix things that the pill was never intended to tackle.
The pill doesn't fix anything other than preventing pregnancy, otherwise it's doing all these hormone changes. And the reason that it's doing these hormone changes is because it's, it's also signaling our brain to do different things. It's not only communicating with our ovaries. it's crazy. I mean, I'm about to go off on a, I'll, I'll pause before I go off on the rabbit hole, but they've done research on the pill.
Even changes like who you find attractive. Like it's crazy the differences that it, that it has on our brain. Yeah. I've read about this
[01:14:44] Jordan: about people like getting off of the pill and then being like, Ugh. Yeah, I usually like this person. That it like doesn't make you attracted to people who are like more familial.
Like to you. I mean, not obviously not your family. That's not what I'm saying, right. That's not in terms of like looks and
[01:15:00] Julia: stuff. Yes, . Yeah. So
[01:15:04] Jordan: there you go. There you go. Fun fact. Yeah, . okay. Well, it sounds like then if you're not having a cycle for any number of reasons, the biggest thing is just gonna be like really just more closely paying attention.
Instead of tracking your cycle, you're more just tracking. Is there any kind of like pattern to mm-hmm. When you like working on things or just paying attention in the moment of, if you're feeling creative, well make sure you've got something on your backup todo list that you can tap into. That's more of that
[01:15:31] Julia: type of task.
Makes sense. Yeah. It's more self-awareness, energy cycles and emotional cycles.
[01:15:37] Jordan: Cool. All right. Well, we have. A ton of resources and things that we're gonna have to put into the show notes. Sounds like you and I are gonna have to put our heads together and like create something new for that one thing, which that'll be fun.
but this was great. Is there anything else you think we need to mention?
[01:15:53] Julia: No, I think I would just really remind everyone that this does not need to be like a terrifying overhaul of your life, but you do deserve to have this check in with yourself to just get to know yourself a little bit better. And so, so often we can feel so frustrated by our energy, our emotions, and our hormones.
And my one wish is that every woman would just be so proud of what their body is doing all the time, like you are working So. even when you don't even know it. And so to just get that empowerment and happiness with their own selves and to see how they can thrive instead of feeling like we need to fix or punish ourselves or feel totally blindsided by what our body and our brain is handing us.
that would be my one gift is that everyone just feels that like deep empowerment and excitement to start this instead of feeling like it's just one more thing that I have to figure out.
[01:16:52] Jordan: Yeah. For sure. I love it. Okay. Well this was great. Thank you as always. Thank you. We'll see you back in a couple weeks.
Sounds good. Cool.