385: The ‘Everyone Else First’ Trap and Why It’s Costing You More Than You Think

Introduction 

You're listening to Biceps After Babies Radio Episode 385.

Hello and welcome to Biceps After Babies Radio. A podcast for ladies who know that fitness is about so much more than pounds lost or PR's. It's about feeling confident in your skin and empowered in your life. I'm your host Amber Brueseke, a registered nurse, personal trainer, wife and mom of four. Each week my guests and I will excite and motivate you to take action in your own personal fitness as we talk about nutrition, exercise, mindset, personal development and executing life with conscious intention. If your goal is to look, feel and be strong and experience transformation from the inside out, you my friend are in the right place. Thank you for tuning in. Now, let's jump into today's episode.

Hey, hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm your host, Amber Brueseke, and today's topic might feel a little heavy, but I have found over and over again in my life and in the lives of my clients that the biggest transformations often come when we can finally see our blind spots. And what I'm going to share with you today is a huge blind spot for a lot of the women that I work with. Now, if I'm being honest, this could go really poorly if I don't set it up well, because for a lot of us, guilt and shame are very easy go-to emotions. They're often unproductive emotions, but they're very easy to go to nonetheless. So I'm going to talk to you about some things that might feel a little confronting, and I just want to address right out of the gate, it might be confronting. However, it is my job as a coach to show you the that you don't currently see, to show you your blind spots, to show you what you're missing. And yeah, sometimes that is confronting, but I want you to know that I'm doing it with all of the love and all of the belief in you and the knowledge that you cannot change what you cannot see. And so my job is to help you to see it. And when you see it, sometimes we run the risk of some guilt and shame bubbling up, but I hope that you don't go there. I hope that you don't go to judgment. I hope that you don't go to making it wrong or bad. Where I hope you go to is awareness. I hope you go to, oh my gosh, I never saw that before. And now that I see it, I can fix it. I can change it. This is where your power is. Again, you cannot fix what you cannot see. So this is where your power lies.

Goals vs. Resource Excuses 02:36

So here's what I see a lot. I see a lot of women saying, I want a new result. I want a new outcome. I have a goal that I would like to go after. And of course I talk a lot in the realm of fitness. Maybe your fitness goals, maybe you have a weight loss goal. Maybe you want to build muscle, but it's also applies to any other area of your life where you have goals. You're basically saying, I want something that I currently do not have now. And you're really honest about that. And then in the same breath, I hear people say, I'm already overwhelmed. I don't have enough time. I can't afford to invest right now. I'm too exhausted. And listen, I see you. I hear you. Those are completely valid experiences. There's a lot that is required of us. We have limited budgets. We have limited time. We have limited energy. 

But I do want to ask you something. When was the last time you wanted something? Maybe it was like a new iPhone, or you wanted a raise at work, or you wanted some shoes you'd been eyeing for a long time, or maybe you desired to have a better relationship with your spouse, or you wanted to go to a friend's wedding, whatever it was. Did you find time to research your options? Did you figure out how to fit it into your budget? Did you find the energy to make it happen? I mean, of course you did. You probably compared prices. You budgeted your funds. You read the reviews. You created a savings plan. Maybe you picked up some extra hours at work. But whatever it is, is you got into problem-solving mode and you made it work. Why? Because it mattered to you. It was important to you. 

Now, again, this isn't about judgment. There's no judgment here. This is just about getting honest with ourselves. I'm not here to guilt you or shame you or tell you you're doing anything wrong or that something should be a priority in your life. That's not my job. My job is not to tell you what should be a priority in your life. That's your job. You get to pick what are priorities in your life. What I want to help you to analyze is if you are spending your resources in line with your priorities. And this is the disconnect that I see with a lot of women. They say something is important, but when I look at where they spend their time, where they spend their money, where they spend their energy, it does not line up.

Priorities Revealed by Actions 04:53

So a lot of times, people will want to tell me what their priorities are. And I will say, you don't need to tell me what your priorities are. I can see what your priorities are. Because where you choose to spend your time, your money, your energy, your resources, those are your priorities. Whether or not, it doesn't matter what you say. It matters what you do and where you're investing in. And so I do this a lot in my life where I take a step back and I look at the things that are coming out of my mouth of saying, hey, I want this thing. I desire this. I want to change. And then I look at my actions and I see, am I spending time on that thing? Am I spending resources on that thing? Am I dedicating my energy to that thing? And then if there's a disconnect there, that's an opportunity for me. It's an opportunity for me to get a little bit clearer on, is this actually a priority in my life? Listen, not everything can be a priority. That's just, we have limited time. We have limited money. We have limited resources. Not everything can be a priority in your life. The key is figuring out what your priorities are and then making sure that your time, money, energy goes towards those things that you say are a priority. 

Now, I get it. And maybe I can hear some of you in your mind being like, yeah, but Amber, some people have way more money than I have. Or some people have way more time than I have or way more energy. And you're not wrong. Like I'm not someone who's going to come on here and be like, we all have the same 24 hours a day. Like we have different resources available to us. We have different budgets. We have different time. Like it's different. And yet we're still, all of us still have choices with the amount of money that you do have, the amount of time that you do have, the amount of resources you do have, where you choose to spend it. And that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about where you choose to spend limited resources. And is it where you're saying is important? That's what I want you to spend a little bit of time looking at. Because what I see from a lot of people, and hey, I'm guilty of this as well, of saying, gosh, I wish I had more time to meditate. And then spending 20 minutes at night doing a crossword puzzle before I go to bed. I'm not saying that the on it, is it really a priority? 

So if you're willing to invest time, money, energy into gadgets, into daily coffee, into new clothes, into time with your spouse, time with your kids, whatever it is that's important, and you're not willing to invest time in this other thing you're saying is important, then that is not a resource problem. That is a priority problem. And the women who get the best results, they are not just the ones who have the most time, the most money, the most energy. They are the ones who choose to dedicate whatever time, money, and energy they have towards that thing that they say that they want. 

And it's really easy to think that it's vice versa. It's really easy to lie to ourselves and say, well, if I just had more time, if I had more money, if I had more energy, then I would be able to get the transformation. And that's not how it works. The people who are able to create the results, there are plenty of them who had less money than you, who had less time than you, who had less energy than you. What they did was they dedicated the time, money, and energy they did have towards that thing that they want. So we always find the resources for the things that matter most to you. I mean, I think about if I got kicked out of my house, and I lost all my money, and I was destitute on the street, and I had my kids with me, you better believe, come hell or high water, I would figure it out. I would figure out how to feed those kids. I would do whatever it took. I would problem solve. I would figure something out because that matters to me. And sometimes I feel like that we lack that kind of energy, that kind of drive, that kind of, this matters to me, and I'm going to figure it out kind of mentality when it comes to our goals. And what would happen if you brought that same, I'm going to figure this out mentality to the things that you say that you want in life.

Utilize your resources and the Priority Problem 08:49

Now, I hope that came off the way I intended it, not to like guilt you or to shame you, not to even have you do anything different in your life, but really as a, like looking at what is going on, what I say is important versus what I do. Don't just tell me that's important. Show me that it's important. Show me by how you utilize your resources that this thing is important to you. We can say all day long something is important, but are your actions, where you spend your resources, lining up with that? Something to think about. So this is a place that I see a lot of women getting stuck. Like they're getting stuck even before they get started because they keep telling themselves, I don't have time. I don't have the money. I don't have the energy. And then they just, they just, that lets them off the hook. They don't have to actually do anything different to get the results they want. I have an example of this.

Just recently, I was talking to somebody and she was telling me how she wanted to get shredded. And so I was talking to her about tracking food and she looked at me and was like, no, I don't want to track food. And I was like, oh, okay. How are you going to get shredded? Because I've never seen anybody get shredded without having acute awareness of the foods that they are eating. Yeah. Can you lose weight without tracking? Absolutely. Can you get shredded without tracking? I've never seen it. I've never met a bodybuilder who did not track their food. And so I was having this conversation with this woman and there was just a disconnect between the results that she was saying that she wanted, but what she was willing to invest in order to make it happen. She was like, it was like a hard no, wasn't willing to invest it. And that's totally fine. I'm actually really good with people being really clear on what they are and they aren't willing to invest to make something happen.

The problem is, is not when you say, I'm not willing to invest that. The problem is, is then when you get mad about the results that you're not creating in your life, when you get frustrated that you're not getting shredded, and yet you're also simultaneously not willing to do the thing that's going to get you the results that you want. That's where we have a disconnect. And that's where it gets uncomfortable for people is they're frustrated and angry and disappointed that they're not getting the results. But that's like a saying, it's like, you can't be mad for the results that you didn't work for. I mean, I think that kind of applies here. It's like, if you're not willing to spend your time and energy doing the thing that's going to get you the results, you can't really be mad when you don't get it. 

The belief that everybody else should come first 11:11

And this leads right into the next thing that I want to talk about, which is another place that I see a lot of women in particular keeping themselves stuck. Because when we start talking about where you spend your time, your money, and your energy, all of your resources, because we have a limited amount, we have to be judicious about it. We have to make decisions about what our priorities are and who are the priorities in our life. And there is a undercurrent belief that a lot of women hold that really keeps them stuck. And it is the belief that everybody else should come first. And listen, this is an insidious lie that women have been sold for ages. For ages. This idea that your goals, your growth is selfish, and that the best thing that you can do as a woman is to put everybody else first and for you to come last. And that that is a virtuous woman. And listen, like I said, you come by this rightly, my friends. This is a cultural script that women have been handed for generations. That a good woman is one who sacrifices everything, who runs herself to the ground, a woman who has no needs, and she's willing to serve everybody else around her. And this is a belief that is so deeply embedded in a lot of women that they don't even realize it's driving their decisions. And the way that it shows up is like every time your kids need something, new soccer cleats, done. Like something for school, right? Gonna go and get it. Your partner is having a stressful week. I'm going to rearrange my whole life to be able to serve and support you. Family needs a meal and you're exhausted. Well, I've got to get into the kitchen. No questions asked.

And then when it comes to your goals, suddenly there's this mental block and this voice that says what? Well, that's selfish. You taking time for yourself, that is selfish. You working on your goals is selfish. You spending money on the things that you want, that's selfish. And it's so insidious because it masquerades as selflessness, right? You need to be more selfless. You need to put everybody ahead of you. That's virtuous. Being a good woman is putting everybody else's needs ahead of your own. That's virtuous. But the brutal truth is that by refusing to invest in yourself, you're slowly depleting the very most important resource that everybody else is depending on. And that's you. That is not selflessness. That is self-destruction. When you suffer, everybody else suffers. 

Tiffany’s Story: Choosing Self-Investment 13:48

And I had an experience with a client. Her name was Tiffany and I love Tiffany. And she's such a great example of this belief and then getting over it, like overcoming it. Because Tiffany had been watching me for years and years. She'd watched every time MACROS 101 opened and she would find a reason why not to join. And it was always very logical because we love to justify our beliefs with logic. We love to keep ourselves safe with logic. So she always had a very logical reason why like now was not the time. This was not the time to invest. It's not time to get started. So then it happened again and doors opened to MACROS 101. And honestly, out of all the excuses that she had used in the past, she actually had the best excuse ever because she was pregnant. And so it would have been so easy for her to be like, oh, it's not the right time. Obviously I'm pregnant. And they were like redoing their kitchen. And so she's like, maybe I should be spending this money on our kitchen. Maybe I should invest this time that I would be investing with my husband. I should have focused on my kids. Like so logical. That makes so much sense. 

But then she faced this pivotal moment, a really hard choice. And the question that really changed everything for her was, am I worthy of the investment? Is this important to me? And that is a choice made from priority, right? Is this thing important? Because if it is important, if I'm saying it's important, if it's something that's going to better me and myself, then I should put my time, money, and energy here. And in her mind, she realized as she asked herself that question, that the answer was yes, she was worthy of the investment. And yes, this was something that was important. And so she, pregnant and all, ended up joining MACROS 101. And she didn't just like try or tip her toe into it. She really committed to the process. And what was really beautiful about working with Tiffany and her story is that because she was pregnant, she wasn't even trying to lose weight. So what we worked together on inside of MACROS 101 is a lot of the mental work, a lot of the inner work. We worked on her beliefs. We worked on what she thought about herself. We worked about on her trust that she was building with herself, what she thought was possible. It wasn't even about losing weight yet. It was about doing inner work. And then after she had her baby, because of all that work that she had done on her beliefs and her identity and her values, she then easily lost 50 pounds and her life completely changed. 

And I love this story because it mirrors so many times in my life when I've been afraid to make a change. And so when I'm afraid to do something, I come up with all these logical reasons. I don't have enough time. I should be spending money on somebody else. I shouldn't spend this money on myself. I'm booked with everything else I got going in life. I don't have enough energy to dedicate. And it sounds very logical. It is very logical. What I love about Tiffany is her ability to be able to overcome that and ask herself a really great question. Am I worth this? And is this important to me? And when she answered yes, she moved forward and her life completely changed.

Oxygen Mask Metaphor 16:51

Now, one of the metaphors is often used when we have this conversation is that of an airplane oxygen mask. And I know that you've heard it before. You're familiar with it, right? Like when a plane is going down or when a cabin pressure decompresses in an airplane, the oxygen mask will drop. And they always tell you, do what? You got to put your own oxygen mask on before you put it on your kids. And this is not just a cute analogy, right? It's like it is a realization that if you're trying to put the oxygen mask on your kids first and you don't have your oxygen mask on, you might black out. And like now you can't help your kid or yourself. And so that's why you always have to your oxygen mask on and then you help put your kids oxygen mask on. And this is a wake-up call because what a lot of us are doing in life is trying to put oxygen masks on everybody else, thinking that once everybody else has oxygen masks on, we will put our oxygen mask on. You put yourself last. But what happens is you black out before that happens. And when you black out, metaphorically speaking, of course, it's not just you that suffers. Everybody else around you suffers.

So every time you push your own needs aside, you're just facilitating, not helping other people. And you're communicating something very important to everybody. You're communicating that your health, your needs are not important. That they don't matter as much as everybody else around me. Listen to me when I say this, martyrdom is not noble. Exhaustion is not a badge of honor. And every time that you're putting yourself last, you're teaching the people around you that mom's needs are secondary. You're teaching your partner that you're not really that important. And most importantly, you're reinforcing and teaching yourself that you are the least important, that you aren't worth it, and that your goals and dreams do not matter. And if you've been carrying this belief around for years, of course, it feels selfish to invest your time or your money or your resources. Of course, it feels like it's better to spend $250 on my kids' soccer jerseys than it is to do something for me and my growth. I get why that happens. But if you stay stuck in this pattern, you will continue to put yourself last and over time run yourself ragged. And that doesn't serve anybody. 

And I do want to dive into this phenomenon a little bit because I want to explain a little bit why it's so easy for our brains to go here. Listen, I hear it in myself as well. It's easier for me to pay $250 for my kids to play basketball than it is for me to go and buy a $250 program to teach me how to do Facebook ads. It is easier. And I want to explain why it's easier because it's not just that you're spending money on somebody else. There's something a little bit deeper to it as well. And you might be like, well, like, you know, buying something for my kids, that's tangible. I can like see it. I can feel it. Whereas like investing in my goals is intangible. Yeah, I get that. But I also want you to start to understand that with those things like buying your kids soccer cleats or investing in buying a new pair of jeans or something like that, your brain and your subconscious believes it has a guaranteed return with those things. Like it is easier to spend your resources on things you believe have a guaranteed return.

You know that when you spend money on jeans, you're going to walk away with jeans. You know that when you spend money on your kids' soccer, that they're going to go play soccer, right? You know, when you decide that you want to go and I don't know, buy an ice cream machine, like you're going to get an ice cream machine, right? There's like some sort of like, like guaranteed return in addition to the tangibility of it. When we invest in things for our growth or for our goals, that is much less of a guaranteed return. Or at least it feels like a less of a guaranteed return. Like I could spend this money and still not be able to reach my goals. I could spend this money and still not lose weight.

The Power of Commitment and Belief 21:09

And listen, friend, we have to address that first because you create what you believe you can create. And if there's a part of you that doesn't think you can be successful, that doesn't think you're going to be able to create the results, you will not create them. You will self-sabotage. You will manifest the reality that you think is coming. So we have to change that belief first before the other things stick. We have to get you to a point where you believe in your ability to be able to get results. That I mentioned earlier when I was telling the story about Tiffany, that one of the things that she did differently is she did not just like tip her toe into something. She committed. She said, I'm doing, I'm doing the dang thing. I'm not trying. I'm going to actually commit and I'm actually going to do it. And that energy, that belief in your abilities is what is going to help to drive you to the success.

So let me ask you this. What if you knew that you would succeed? What if you knew that when you spent time, money, and energy on something for your growth, that it was just as certain as that new pair of jeans? Would it change your answer? Would it change your priorities? What if you chose to believe in yourself? Because I will tell you, having worked with tens of thousands of women, the women who succeed are the women who decide what they want is important, that their goals are important, and they decide that they're capable of reaching them. 

I say it to my MACROS 101 clients all the time, your success is inevitable. You're going to be successful and I'm going to help you and I'm going to give you tools and resources and guides and coaching and all the things to be able to make it as easy as possible, right? That's my goal is to like make it as easy as possible, but you are going to create this success because your success is inevitable. And that's the shift. That's the moment that everything changes. 

Self-Investment as Selflessness 23:07

Investing in yourself is not selfish. It is one of the most selfless things that you can do because when you improve, when you hit your goals, the ripple effect that a woman creates in other people in her life is everything. It's one of the reasons that I love working and have chosen to work with women because what I saw was when I could impact a woman, it impacted her whole family tree. It impacted her partner. It impacted her children. It impacted her grandchildren.

Side note, one of my very most favorite stories, I had a client who came to me and she said, Amber, I just was on a conversation with my like 35-year-old daughter, right? So this woman has a 35-year-old daughter and she was telling me how her 35-year-old daughter was like, Mom, I have been seeing like you go to the gym and you're getting really strong. And that was like super inspiring to me. So I just signed up at the gym and I was like, heck yes, that is the power. 35 years old. This woman has been out of the house for years. 

You are never not an example to the people around you. And when you invest in yourself, when you create the transformation yourself, that can't help but ripple out to the people. So now you put your oxygen mask on and now you get to ripple that out to all the people who you love in your life. And you get to be a better mother. You get to be a better partner. You get to be a better grandmother and a better community member. Because when you grow and you reach your goals and you reach your potential, you can't help but lift the other people up around you.

Stop Fence-Sitting: Making a Clear Choice 24:40

So I hope that this conversation gave you a little pause and a little ability to be able to, again, reflect and bring some awareness to what you say that you want and what you're actively doing to be able to create that in your life. And if you are looking at this and saying, hey, I said that I wanted that, but I'm not really willing to do the things to be able to get that. Awesome. Fantastic. I love that for you. I think that that is wonderful. Where we don't want to stay, I tell my clients this all the time, we got to get off the fence. So many of us are fence sitters. We're like, I want this, but I won't do this. Or I want this, but I'm not willing to invest time in this. And we're on the fence and it's really uncomfortable. It's like either get off the fence, get on the fence, either side.

I don't care. Either go all in and like finally do the dang thing, or be honest with yourself and say, it's not worth it to me. It's not a priority. I'm not willing to do that. And get off the fence. Either way is way less uncomfortable. But when we fence sit, that is when our butt starts to hurt. And a lot of people that I talk with are fence sitting. They're saying this is important, but then their actions don't support it. They're saying, I want XYZ result, but then they're not willing to invest any time or money into it. Get off the fence. Either way, go all in and do the dang thing, or get off the fence and say, hey, it's not worth it to me. And I can own that and I can move forward recognizing that. Both are huge wins in my book. 

So I hope that offered something to you. And if you would like more, you want to dive deeper, you want to do the dang thing and stop just talking about it, but actually make it happen. Doors to MACROS 101 will be opening soon on September 5th. Now, if you're listening to this after the fact and doors are closed, you can always go to bicepsafterbabies.com/waitlist and get on the waitlist for the next time we open up doors to MACROS 101. That wraps up this episode of Biceps After Babies Radio. I'm Amber. Now go out and be strong because remember my friend, you can do anything.

Outro

If you've ever wondered what it actually looks like for me to coach you through your weight loss journey, here's your answer. Some of my most powerful podcast episodes aren't interviews or my solo rants. They're real raw coaching calls straight from inside MACROS 101. You'll hear women just like you working through plateaus, perfectionism, and the I'm doing everything but nothing's working spiral. These live coaching shows show you exactly what it sounds like to break through the mental junk that's been keeping you stuck.

So if you're even a little bit curious about what it would be like to be coached by me, or if you're thinking about joining MACROS 101, these episodes are a must listen. So here's your next move. Scroll back through the podcast feed and look for titles that end in Live Coaching Session. Start there. You'll walk away with more clarity, more strategy, and maybe even that one mindset shift you didn't even know that you needed. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.