Too Busy to Work Out? How Busy Women Over 40 Find Time

Nikkiey: What you do right now is shaping what the next five years looks like for you, what the next 10 years looks like for you, what the next 20 years looks like for you. So let me just remind you that you're not too busy. You just never learned how to protect what was priority to you.

What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys, welcome back to The WarriorBabe Show with Nikkiey Stott, co-founder of WarriorBabe. On this podcast, we talk about mindset, methodologies, and tactics that will help you lose body fat, build muscle, be strong, and feel insanely confident. I am your host, Nikkiey Stott, and welcome to today's episode, episode number 286.

This one, my friends, may trigger some of you, but I'm hoping in the best way possible. It's Tough Love Monday, because I'm going to call out the excuse that every woman, myself included at one point, has totally leaned on: I'm too busy. Too busy to work out. Too busy to meal prep. Too busy to track my food. Too busy to take care of myself.

And look, I know your life is full. I understand that. I see you guys working hard. You've got a job. You've got kids. You've got a partner. You've got a home. You've maybe got aging parents that you're taking care of. You've got all the things going on. But here's the truth. You're not too busy. You're just under-prioritized.

So in this episode, I'm going to help you guys see where that excuse is hiding. I'm going to help you shift your perspective on time and on priorities. I'm going to help you reclaim control over your daily schedule, and then build small, doable non-negotiables that are going to move the needle even when life feels so crazy. All right? So let's get into it.

First and foremost, I want to let you know, if you don't know this story of me, maybe you chimed in at episode 80 or episode 120. Maybe you didn't listen to episode 1. In that episode, I shared with you how chaotic my life was 10 to 13 years ago, in the midst of me having the same goal you guys are going after and striving for: losing body fat, feeling more confident in my skin, building muscle, learning how to be more of a fitness-oriented individual, a health-oriented individual.

When I set that goal for myself 10, 13 years ago, my life looked like this. I was in nursing school, finishing out the last two semesters, maybe three, three and a half, when I finally committed to fitness. At the same time, I was working per diem, part-time, in the emergency room at the local hospital by me. And then I was taking care of my sick grandmother. At the time I lived with them. I would get her ready in the morning. I would make sure she was going to doctor's appointments. I would drive her there. And then I would get her ready at nighttime. And sometimes here and there, I would support with dinners. I was going to the gym, and I was meal prepping, and that alone can feel like a full-time job, especially when you're first starting out. So just know that I've been in your shoes, and it was overwhelming then.

I want to give you the strategies, the tactics, the mindset to be able to feel like you can reclaim control, that you can shift your perspective, that you can do all the things, so that 'I'm too busy' isn't the narrative you are running with and you can accomplish the goals that you want to and do everything at the same time. Because, ladies, we are superwomen. So we can do it. We just have to make sure all of our priorities are in alignment. What is priority first? What is priority last? X, Y, and Z.

So first, I want to get into the psychology of this excuse. Saying 'I'm too busy' is often a cover for something so much deeper. First and foremost, it sounds socially acceptable. When you're out with friends, you're like, oh, I'm just too busy to get this done. I'm just too busy to work out. I'm just too busy, X, Y, and Z. It doesn't trigger shame. It doesn't make people question your commitment, because busy is normal.

But usually, if you peel back the onion and get to the core of it, the quote-unquote 'I'm too busy' actually means I'm overwhelmed and I don't know where to start. Or I don't feel worthy of prioritizing myself. I don't feel worthy of putting myself first when I have my husband to think of, my kids to think of, my partner to think of, work to think of.

Or 'I'm too busy' means I don't believe it's going to work, so why even bother? I've done this so many times before. I've tried so many other things. It's just not going to work, so why should I even bother trying something else? Or I'm afraid I won't be consistent, so I'm never going to begin. And sometimes it means I've just never learned how to say no to everyone else and yes to me.

That's not a time issue. If you peel it back and you really get honest with yourself and ask, why do I say I'm always so busy? What does that actually mean in relation to me wanting to focus on my health, my fitness, and being better for myself? If you get honest with yourself, it's not a time issue. It is a priority issue. It is a boundaries issue. And it is a belief issue.

And as I've said many, many times before in episodes, the first step to bringing this all to light is awareness. So if you've caught yourself saying 'I'm too busy,' I just want you to pause for a second and ask, what am I actually avoiding, or what am I actually afraid of? Because you can't change what you're not willing to call out or bring awareness to.

Okay, that's the mindset of it. Peel back the onion. What's really deeper? What are you avoiding, or what are you afraid of? And what can you bring light and awareness to when you have honesty and truth within your words and within yourself, so that you're able to say, oh, this is what it is, and how can I navigate it?

So getting more practical now. We all have the same 24 hours in the day. I had the same 24 hours in the day back when I was juggling four of those different things at once. I've met WarriorBabes inside the community that have two sets of twins. There's an amazing story on our YouTube channel about a woman who was 300 and some pounds, and she lost over 100 pounds. She lost 80 during COVID. She has the same 24 hours a day. Beyonce, the woman at your gym with the three kids, your coworker who always plans and packs the healthy meals, the ladies that you see that you're inspired to look like. All of us have the same 24 hours.

So if you truly believe that you don't have time, I want you to do a real audit of your day. And the most important thing you can do here is not only self-awareness. It is being honest with yourself and taking responsibility for where you are right now. If you can do those three things, that is a huge first step into changing everything for yourself. Okay?

So, a real audit of your day. Ask yourself, how much time do I spend scrolling? How much time goes by watching television? How many minutes am I stuck on decisions like what to eat, what to wear, what to do? The what to eat consumes so many people. That's the one thing I noticed personally for myself. When I started, I had the meal plan, I was prepping everything, and I was putting it into containers. The biggest light bulb that went off for me was how much time I was saving not thinking about what I was going to be eating for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. I wonder if there's a study out there. There's got to be a study out there about how much time people save when they actually plan their meals ahead and pack their meals ahead. They don't have to worry about those thoughts.

Or even what to wear. This actually got me in my bones right now. I'm thinking about how often I stand in the closet looking at my clothes going, I have nothing to wear. What do I wear right now? Dude, I can't imagine how much time goes by with that. For those of you who lay out your clothes the night before, think about how much time you're saving.

Ask yourself these questions. How often do you say yes to something that you don't even want to do? Ladies, we are so guilty of that. That's your hidden time. Busy is not the problem. Disorganized and distracted, those things are the problem.

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If you can find 10 minutes to plan your food, if you can find 45 minutes to strength train three times a week, if you can find 10 minutes in the morning to mentally set the tone for your day, that's a total of about an hour in your day, 55 minutes, and you can change your life. It doesn't take hours. Guys, if there's anything I want you to take away from this podcast today, it's that it doesn't take hours to do these things. It doesn't require so much time. All it requires is you being more intentional with your time, more intentional with your minutes in the day.

Because here's what most women don't realize. Always saying 'I'm too busy' and putting yourself last doesn't make you a better mom. It doesn't make you a better partner. It doesn't make you a better employee. It doesn't make you a better friend. It makes you tired. It makes you resentful. It makes you reactive. And it makes you feel like you're losing yourself.

And what do you do when you feel that way? You cope. You cope with food. You cope with wine. You cope with staying up late at night. You cope with quitting. This is self-neglect. And if you unpack it, guys, which is what we're doing in this episode, it all starts with 'I'm too busy.'

And again, someone's probably not going to call you out for that. I'll be the first one to call you out, my friends, because I love you. And I've done this before. I shared in an episode a while back, I think it was in April, about a business trip where I was sitting next to a woman on a bus, and she was like, I'm just too busy. I said, you're not too busy. You're just not prioritizing your health. I'll be the first one to say that to you guys. Because what I hope you're feeling in this episode right now is, hmm, Nikkiey's on to something here. And then it gets you to look deeper at yourself, at your days, at how you're moving throughout the day, and at how you can change this narrative and change the story.

Because what happens is, when you start with 'I'm too busy,' you feel all the feelings I just described: tired, reactive, all of that. The self-neglect, because you're not putting yourself first, becomes self-sabotage. And then you start to say, see, I knew I couldn't stick to anything. When really, you just never made yourself the priority. When you start something and then you say 'I'm too busy,' you turn it into self-sabotage. And then it goes back to, why did I even start in the first place? I knew I couldn't stick to it. I don't have the consistency. I don't have the time.

But no, no, no. 10, 13 years ago, I made myself the priority. My grandmother was a close second. School was a close third. Work, I was part-time per diem, though I worked a lot for being per diem. That's the order of the priority. I put myself first.

So I want you to flip that script. What if you made your health a priority? And what if making your health a priority made everything else in your life better? Because it does. Point blank. Period. End of story. End of podcast. Your health, the one body you've been given to walk this earth, the temple you've been given that you need to be treating right, should be your priority. And when you make it your priority, everything becomes better. Period. When you're nourished, when you're strong, when you're mentally clear, you show up so much differently for everything. You show up more powerfully for everything.

Let me just reiterate this. You don't need a 75-minute workout a day. You don't need to spend six hours on Sunday meal prepping. Some of you like to do that, and I personally like to do that too. But you don't need to. You can break it up. You can do what strategically works best for you. You don't need to track every single gram perfectly every day. You need to be consistent, but you don't need to be perfect.

What you need, especially if you're stuck in this 'I'm too busy' mentality and you need to break out of it, is to just mix a protein shake and pack it in your bag. You need to track your food while you're drinking coffee in the morning. You need to walk for 10 minutes before and after work. You need to do, maybe in the morning or evening, or if you can take a break during the day, three rounds of bodyweight squats, push-ups, and planks. Maybe you need to set a timer and go power clean your kitchen. I'm just brainstorming off the top of my head.

The goal isn't for you to be perfect, because I know that can make a lot of women feel overwhelmed when they're starting something, and that's why they revert to the 'I'm too busy' excuse. You don't need perfection. You just need to build momentum. And when you build momentum with the things I just said, you build consistency. And consistency isn't built on big, glamorous, knock-it-out-of-the-ballpark days. It's built on not skipping the small things on a daily basis. As I just said: walking, tracking your food, a protein shake, three rounds of squats, power cleaning your kitchen. If you do that consistently over time, guess what? You are going to win. And that's all that matters, that you're consistent.

So I want to challenge you. Can you accept the challenge this new week? I want to challenge you to stop saying you don't have time and start saying it's just not a priority right now. And feel the difference in that. Feel the difference when you say, my health isn't a priority right now. Getting stronger isn't a priority right now. Feeling good in my body isn't important. That doesn't feel good, right?

So instead, wake up 20 minutes earlier. Stop overcommitting to things that drain you. Start saying no more often. Ask for help. Put your workouts on your calendar like a doctor's appointment or an important meeting is on your calendar, because you're not going to miss those things. Treat your health like a job, because it seriously kind of is if you think about it like that. Your health is like your job. Because without your health, you could say bye-bye tomorrow. You could say bye-bye in five years. It all matters.

And let me remind you of this, because it's been a while since I touched on it. What you do right now is shaping what the next five years looks like for you, what the next 10 years looks like for you, what the next 20 years looks like for you. So let me just remind you: you're not too busy. You just never learned how to protect what was priority to you.

So let's wrap this up with the bigger picture. You're not just tracking macros or hitting workouts. When you do those things, 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now, you're becoming a woman who honors her word to herself. Let me put God first here: you are treating the body you've been given as a temple, and you're treating it right by putting your health first. Then you're honoring your word. You're leading by example. You have energy, strength, mental clarity. You don't crumble under stress. You can handle life because you've taken care of yourself first. That's who you're working to become. Not to mention the health and longevity that you'll have.

And you don't get there by waiting for the perfect time. You don't get there by waiting for when the kids go back to school. I challenge you, even though it's the month that kids are going back to school, which could be this next week or the week after or the week after that, don't wait till they go back to school. You get there by showing up on your busiest days. You get there by showing up on the most stressful days, on the messiest days, and doing something anyway. Because if you can win on those busy, hard days, you can win for life.

I always say to women, don't wait for when your time is slower, or don't wait for the not-stressful season. Dude, when is there ever a not-stressful season in life? If you really think about it, that's just another way of saying, okay, well, I'm not going to feel bad, because I'm just in a stressful period of time. Guys, life is hard. But if you can choose to show up for yourself even when life is hard, that's how you're going to win.

So, man, I hope this resonates with you. Send this to somebody. Maybe you're the one who wants to focus on working out, being healthy, eating right, all the things I talked about in this episode, and maybe it's a girlfriend who keeps saying, I'm busy, I'm busy, I'm busy, and you find yourself latching onto those words. Because you know, friend, you are like the people you hang out with the majority of the time. Maybe somebody you're surrounded with needs to hear this episode too. Maybe your partner needs to hear it. Or maybe it's just a kick in the ass and a reminder to say, dang, all right, I'm going to do something different this week. Even though it's probably going to be the most hectic and craziest week, I'm going to get my three workouts in. I'm going to walk for 10 minutes. Guys, 10 minutes. What's 10 minutes? Stop scrolling. Get up and go outside.

So if this resonates with you, take a screenshot of this episode, please. I just want to know that this hit home for y'all and that you're going to go do something about it. It makes me so happy. It makes me feel fulfilled seeing that you listen to these episodes and then go do something with them. All right? Tag me at Nikkiey Stott. Tag The WarriorBabe Show. And do the work, girls. Do the work. All right? I love you guys, and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.

Hey, really quick before you go, I have one small favor to ask. If this episode brought you value or sparked something in you, take just a moment to hit that review button. Your rating and review make all the difference, helping more women discover the tools they need to transform their fitness and their confidence. It takes less than a minute, but it can change the path of someone else's journey. Thank you so much for leaving that review. I appreciate you so much.