100. 100 Episodes Later: The 10 Lessons I Wish I Knew Sooner

🥳 Can you believe it? 100 episodes of Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists! Whether you’ve been here since day one or just found me last week, I’m SO pumped you’re tuning in. 

To celebrate, I’m breaking down the 10 biggest lessons I’ve learned while shifting from speech pathologist to productivity coach, starting a new business, raising four kids, and juggling the beautiful chaos of real life.

Join me as I share why time management is overrated, how perfectionism is just procrastination in disguise, and why feeling ‘ready’ is a straight-up myth. And these are just a few of the lessons I've got for you, so be sure to press play and listen to the rest. Trust me, you don’t want to miss these.

🎁 PLUS!! I’m announcing a special giveaway in honor of Episode 100! Listen to find out how you can win a 60-minute Productivity Audit with me.

🔥 Join the Conversation:
Want to go deeper? Jump into the SLP Support Group on Facebook and share your biggest takeaway. One lucky person is winning that Productivity Audit. It might as well be you.

📆 Want to learn more about productivity coaching for SLPs? Schedule a free consult today. 

To find out how I can help you improve your work-life balance, click here.

Come join the SLP Support Group on Facebook for more tips and tricks!

Follow me on Instagram! @theresamharp

Learn more about Theresa Harp Coaching here.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Work-Life Balance for Speech Pathologists. I'm Theresa Harp, an SLP and Productivity Coach, and this podcast is all about how to build a successful career as an SLP and still have time for yourself and the people and things you love. So if you're ready to ditch stress and burnout for a more balanced and fulfilling life, then you are in the right place. Let's dive in. 

Hello SLPs a hundred episodes. How in the world did we get here? When I started podcasting back in 2021, I truly had no idea that it would be 2025 and I'd still be podcasting with. Some changes. I mean, technically this is really like 175 episodes instead of the hundredth episode if you count the ones that were buried under the [00:01:00] legal gag order.

But, um, enough about that right here we are better than ever. And I'm just, I'm just really excited and grateful for each of you who has been here over the past a hundred plus episodes listening. And you know, taking in the information, whether you're on your commute or you are hiding in your car from your kids, or maybe you're doing dishes or laundry, maybe you're on your way home from work ready to unwind.

Multitasking is part of our life and. I don't know where you have listened over the past a hundred episodes, but thank you for listening over the past a hundred episodes. I'm so glad that you're here. And if this is your first episode, welcome. You picked a good one. This is, as you've heard, the hundredth episode of the show.

And [00:02:00] I am your host, Theresa Harp. I am an SLP, certified SLP. I'm also a certified productivity coach. I am from New Jersey. I talk very fast and I curse a lot, but I try not to do that so much on the podcast. I've got four kids, they're very close in age, they're very crazy and they keep me very busy, and I've got two dogs also very crazy.

And I, over the years, have learned about time management and productivity, and this is where my journey has led me. It has been. To becoming a Certified Productivity coach. It's been a journey on discovering that I have a DHD and what that means, what that looks like. It has been a journey in serving our field of SLPs and PTs and OTs.

I work with PTs and OTs too. It's been a journey of serving you all and working with you and really looking [00:03:00] at the. The ins and the outs of our field, but really the, the pain points, the things about our field or fields that are difficult, that are keeping us stuck in overwhelming burnout because it's so easy to be there, it's so easy to stay there, and it's really hard to know how to get out and stay out.

And that's what this podcast has evolved into. So I primarily work as a one-on-one coach now for. Individuals, mostly busy women who are often moms or have lots of stuff going on in their personal life and they want a successful career. You want to feel successful as an SLP or a PT or an ot, and you wanna feel successful in your role as a mom or a spouse or a partner or a daughter caring for grown elderly parents, right?

Whatever the different roles are. 'cause you know there's more to life than just being a burnout. SLP. That's what this podcast is about. And so in honor of the hundredth episode, I've got lots of fun [00:04:00] stuff. I've got a giveaway that I'm doing. I'm super excited about that. So you need to make sure that you are in the SLP support group in order to.

Uh, be entered into the giveaway. So make sure that you are in the SLP support group and if you aren't, click the link in the show notes to join. It's always in there and I'll be talking more about the giveaway a little bit later on today. Alright, so I'm sharing, as I said, my 10. 10 of the biggest lessons I have learned over the years, especially over the past two, three-ish years, working as a productivity coach under this exciting new sort of chapter in my.

In my book, in my journey, and I wanna share some of these lessons with you. So this was difficult, but I did pick out 10 that I feel like are really going to be, they're the ones that are, that were the [00:05:00] most meaningful to me, and I really feel like they will be the most meaningful to you. So I wanted to share them as always.

Take what works and leave what doesn't. And always ask yourself, how can I make this fit me? How can I make this work for me? What parts of this will work for me? Okay. All right, so. Here we go. And did I mention, you'll have to forgive me, I'm like a little bit all over the place probably. 'cause I'm excited.

You'll have to forgive me. But I don't know if I mentioned that these top 10 lessons, not just about being an SLP, not just about how to, this is not about how to get more work done. So if that's what you're looking for, I've got lots of other episodes to help you on that. But this one is more broad strokes.

The. The bigger lessons, the deeper lessons, the life lessons that I have learned that are not necessarily going to help [00:06:00] you get more work done in less time, but that are going to help you feel fulfilled by both aspects of your life, your personal life, and your professional life. Alright, there we go. So I got all that outta the way.

Let's dig into these lessons in no particular order. Okay. First up, lesson number one is that balance, and I use that term carefully, okay? Balance is a moving target. You are never going to quote, unquote, arrive. You're never going to put in all these strategies, all these habits, all these changes. And then land at this destination of work-life balance.

That is not how it works. I used to think that that's how it would work. That I would in general, always, you know, I would use these strategies and then I could have work-life balance. And once it got, once I got there, everything would be so much [00:07:00] easier. And then I realized there is no, there it is this constant or continuous.

Evolution. It's not even constant. It comes in ebbs and flows, right? So you will take a couple steps forward, a couple steps back. It will. It is a moving target. It's meant to be a moving target because it's a decision or a series of decisions that you have to make every day. So one question that I want you to ask yourself, this is what has helped me.

With my work life balance, and I'm sharing it in case it helps you ask yourself this, what is one thing that you can adjust today that would make you feel more balanced? Don't come up with all the things. Just pick one. One thing that will help you feel more balanced. Now, sometimes that's saying no [00:08:00] to something.

Sometimes that's asking for help. Sometimes that's just deciding to do B minus level work. I talk with my coaching clients about this a lot. We talk about are we doing a work, a plus work? Can we do B work? Maybe even B minus work. Where can we adjust things a little bit? Right? So that's my question for you.

What is one thing you can adjust today that would make you feel more balanced? All right. Lesson number two. Although time management is important, really what we need to be thinking about is energy management. I. That is the lesson. The lesson is that energy management is more important than time management, and if you've been here a while, you probably understand that that's sort of built into my philosophies.

It's built into the strategies that I give. We talk a lot about energy management, especially with my coaching clients. I'm not just about. [00:09:00] You know, do this quicker, spend less time on this, spend more time on that. It is very much knowing what is your energy like? And here's, there's a lot of reasons why, but here's one of the biggest reasons, is because time management.

Although it's important, you can use all the productivity strategies in the world and have the best time management in the world and still feel horrible. Time management is important, but if your energy is lousy, if your energy is not matching. The way you want to feel, then good luck. Because you're really just gonna be very efficient at being exhausted.

Like you're gonna be the quickest, you're gonna be the quickest one. The quickest way you'll know the quickest way is to be exhausted, and that's not what this is about. Right? So, for example, I used to try to come home from work some days [00:10:00] with the kids and plan to do something work related. At that time after school with my kids, and it would be like something that was actually pretty hard and or pretty labor intensive or needed quiet, and my energy number one did not match what was needed from me at that time of day.

Also, I had my kids around me at that time of day, so really that's not where my mind was at. That's not where my energy was at. That did not work for me. So now. What I do and what you can try to do is to map your energy patterns, look at what your patterns of energy are. Obviously this is going to shift from day to day, but in general we tend to have some patterns of energy.

Do you tend to feel more. Energized and active and alert in the morning, at night, sometime during the day. When do you feel you're most [00:11:00] creative? When do you feel you're most focused? And really looking at what those energy patterns are and using them to your advantage, scheduling your day, and to the best extent that you can accordingly, according to those energy patterns.

When you can. Now, we can't always do this, of course, but when you can, what you can take control over, don't underestimate the power of doing that. Okay? So that's the second lesson. Energy management is more important than time management. All right. Third lesson that I have for you. I've got so much I could say on this one, but I'm gonna keep it.

I'm gonna try and keep it tight. Okay? Third lesson I have learned is that. Being ready is a decision. It is not a feeling, okay? You're never going to quote, unquote, feel ready. You decide to be ready. And trust me when I tell you, [00:12:00] this is something that I have put into action so much over the past eight, nine years of just jumping in.

Before the plan is perfect, before you feel like it is the quote unquote right time before you feel like, okay, yes, now I'm ready. It is a different way of, of looking at things, but what I have found is that I would sometimes put things off until I felt like I was ready to take that next step. For example, starting my private practice, I started my private practice, meaning I set up the LLC, did all the legal work, like all the legwork, all that kind of stuff before I even knew what, where, what, what services I was gonna offer.

Where, I mean, I knew they were gonna be speech services, but I didn't know where. I didn't know to who I didn't know when. I didn't even really know the [00:13:00] name right away. I just did it. Right. Messy action is still action. And when I allow the messy to happen and just work itself out, it has almost always gone in my favor.

So if there is something that you have been putting off that you keep waiting to feel ready for, or consider this, your sign, today is the day, or at the very least. Acknowledge that the power to be ready is within your control. And you get to decide. And sometimes, here's the harsh truth, the tough love, but sometimes you have to decide to be ready before you feel ready.

And sometimes it is that decision that creates that feeling of readiness. Sometimes not, and that's scary. But either way, you're gonna be fine. So if there's something that you're waiting for. [00:14:00] Think about that a little bit more closely and ask yourself, what is one thing that I can do to be ready for this?

What am I waiting for? All right. Lesson number four. Oh God. I wanna go back. I wanna say one more thing. I wanna say one more thing about lesson number three. I just thought of another example of being, not being ready or taking action before you're ready. Okay. One other thing I will say, I'm not gonna ramble, but I.

At one point in this coaching practice, I, well, two points. The beginning of my coaching practice, when I first started and I decided I was gonna be a coach, I was working towards my certification and I decided I was gonna open up this business. I could not think of a name that I liked. I could not think of a name.

And eventually I landed on a name that I decided was the best. Now did I love that name? No. I didn't love the name, but [00:15:00] did I wanna keep waiting to try and figure out what the name was gonna be? Or did I wanna start coaching? I wanted to start coaching, so I decided to just start with the best name that I had at the time, and I'm so happy that I did because it got me into action much quicker.

And. Ironically enough there, remember I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, a gag order, legal gag order? Well, long story short, I had to change that name that I chose originally. I had to eventually change it because of some legalities, and I was so happy that I. It like worked itself out. It gave me the push that I needed to change the name of the business.

I could have fought for the name and gone through the legal battle of fighting for the name, or I could pick a different name, and I did. That's exactly what I did, and so [00:16:00] I was, it was a great reminder to me of how even when you can try to be as ready as possible, things will still not go according to plan.

All the time, and you gotta figure it out. And we know this, but then my, the thing that I think we often overlook is like, why are we then holding up, holding ourselves up? Why are we getting stuck in this when we know that things are gonna change and ebb and flow over time? Right? Let's just take action now.

Figure it out. Okay. The rest will work itself out. All right, lesson number four. I knew this one. I knew this one for a while. But I wanna share it because I think it's for, um, those of you, I think there are some of you out there that need to hear this. And the lesson is that structure creates freedom. So this one is for my, I don't like schedules people or my, I can't stick to a plan.

[00:17:00] People. I hear you. But also, is that working for you? How is it working for you? Right. This is a big one for so many people. We think that we cannot create a schedule or we can't create a plan. We can't create a rhythm or a process because we'll spend all this time doing it and then things will never go according to plan.

And it's, you can't plan for it. You can't predict it, and it's just a waste of time because it just all goes to shit. Part of my French. And yet most of the time. Those same people are also complaining about feeling out of control, feeling like you don't have time for X, Y, Z. And if we were to wait for some more stability or predictability in our schedules to create a plan, we'll be waiting forever.

So instead we can create that predictability ourselves as best we [00:18:00] can. My coaching business didn't just. Evolve on its own. I had to really create the structure in my days to be able to build the business, and I still have to do this to build the business, to work in the business, and to work on the business.

And it doesn't just happen on its own. I could have just said, all right, well I'm, you know, I've got all this time and I can just make this work. Whenever. No, I needed to have that structure. I needed to have those routines. So do my kids with our personal schedule, our home schedule, same thing. The more structure you have, the more freedom you have.

Try it. Try it for a week. Set some sort of a structure, and watch how much more freedom you feel. It doesn't mean that you can't change the plan. You absolutely can. You absolutely can you get to decide. All right, that was lesson number four. Let me [00:19:00] give you lesson number five, and then we're gonna talk about this giveaway.

Okay? Lesson number five. This one might hurt a little bit. Okay? So prepare yourselves. But this lesson is if you feel stuck. If you find yourself feeling like you are stuck, you're in a situation that's not working for you, almost always. It's not about the situation itself, but it's about you, your thoughts and your strategies.

Okay, so that's a long, this is a long-winded one, but basically the condensed version of this lesson is that if you are stuck, you have the power to get unstuck. Okay? We love to blame the circumstances. We blame the environment around us. I can't focus because my. [00:20:00] Office is next to the hallway or I can't focus because there's stuff all over this room and I can't do anything about it because I share an office.

Okay, maybe, yeah, those things may be true. They may be true that you share an office. It may be true that your office is close by to the hallway. It may be true that your office is cluttered, but does that automatically mean that there's nothing you can do about it? No. Most of the time. It is your mindset about the circumstances, and it is your, then therefore, your strategies or lack thereof that are not helping, right?

You don't have to have the circumstances, the ideal circumstances to have work life balance. You don't have to have the boss that's going to. Accommodate you and give you extensions whenever you need them. The circumstances are what they [00:21:00] are, but instead of blaming them, let's look at the mindset and let's look at the strategies that you're going to use.

Okay. Alright, so halfway through five lessons, I want to take a very quick break and. I was gonna say a word from our sponsors, but no, I do not have nothing of that. Sorry. Okay. Focus, Theresa. So quick break about this giveaway. That's really what I want to stop and share with you. So, I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I have a fun giveaway for the, in honor of the hundredth episode of the podcast, and I wanna share with you what that is, how this works, and how you can win it.

Okay. So here's what I'm giving away. I am giving away a 60 minute productivity audit where I will meet with one podcast listener, one SLP support group member [00:22:00] I. And we'll sit down on Zoom for for 60 minutes. You've got the hour. We'll go through your schedule and we'll look at, okay, what are your biggest pain points with productivity?

And I will give you my feedback about how I can help, how to make things smoother, simpler, more efficient. Okay, that is what I'm giving away. I think it's gonna be really, really fun. I haven't done something like this before as a giveaway, so this is how you enter. You listen to episode 100, which you are already doing so good for you.

The next thing you need to do is you need to be in the SOP support group. There is a pinned post that's in there this week. The week of this episode, the week that this episode is airing, there is a pinned post, so at the top of the SLP support group in Facebook. Go to that post and share your biggest takeaway, just comment on the post with your biggest [00:23:00] takeaway from this episode or any episode of the show.

And anybody who comments with your biggest takeaway will be entered to win the 60 minute productivity audit. Okay? And I'll be announcing the winner live in the group, so make sure that you. Are in the group. You comment on the post and you are ready to win. Okay? I am looking forward to seeing who that will be.

Alright, so let's go to lesson number six. This is about progress. I tell my clients this all the time. But here is the lesson. Progress is invisible until it's not. It's almost always invisible for the first, like three quarters. I don't have any research to back that up. That is my personal, that's my personal belief.

Progress though is not loud. It is not huge. Big gains in a day, most of the time. It's not even [00:24:00] visible. It's like happening below the surface. That's how I think of it. It's happening below the surface, below the surface, below the surface, right? In order to have a really strong foundation, that's what we want below the surface, and then, and then it pops through the surface and then you can see it.

But the challenge is what you do. Before you can see the progress and that, and being able to hold the belief that it is happening, right? This podcast is a great example. One episode, few listeners, another episode, few more listeners, right? It just grew little, little, little, little, little by little. One listener at a time, one episode at a time.

One decision at a time. If you are wasting your energy looking for the progress, [00:25:00] you're not gonna make the progress. It's gonna, you're gonna be gone. It's gonna be, it's not even visible, and by the time it would be visible, you've given up because you haven't seen it. Okay? So trust me when I tell you the progress is invisible at first.

One of the things I do with my coaching clients is I coach my clients on how to find the invisible progress, how to look for it, how to see it before, before it is above the surface, and that's one of, oh, I love doing that. That's one of the favorite, one of my most favorite things to do. In coaching sessions is pointing those little moments out because I truly, truly believe it is those little moments that compound over time and give you the big wins.

So ask yourself, what invisible progress is happening for you right now? What progress are you making that's invisible? Write it down, start looking for the signs, looking for the evidence, [00:26:00] and celebrate it. All right, lesson number seven. Perfectionism is just procrastination in disguise. If you are waiting for something to be perfect, you will be waiting forever.

Perfectionism is really just a form of procrastination. It's just dressed up in a pretty little outfit that people think looks really, really good, and spoiler alert, it doesn't feel good and it's really killing your productivity. I know I'm generalizing here, but a lot of my listeners, a lot of SLPs, a lot of people in our field tend to have this procrastination gene, if you will.

We tend to get stuck in this trap. We tend to be high achievers, perfectionists, and people pleasers and look at where they are getting us nowhere. Good. Right, and I, I mean, I am right there with you. I remember when I first started this [00:27:00] podcast. I would record the episode, I would, I would basically talk it out loud, 'cause I'm a verbal processor, so I would talk the episode out loud, have it converted from audio to text.

Then I would take that text, I would clean it up, and then I would hit record and I would record what was basically already said out loud. Imagine how long this took, guys. I mean, seriously. And then when I would mess up, I would edit and rerecord and all of that. I used to think that that's what I needed to do because it wasn't good enough.

It wasn't polished enough. I said a, like I said, an um, okay. And then I finally decided this is absurd. This whole podcast is about productivity and time management, and this is not how I wanna be managing my time. This is me. I'm real. I mess up. I curse. I have likes and ums and pauses and lots of, lots of messy talk in [00:28:00] my podcast episodes.

But for me, that is just me showing up authentically and that's not what I want, how I wanna invest my time any longer. So once I can let go of that pressure of per perfectionism, it's, that's when the work actually gets done. So much better. So do it. Whatever it is that you're procrastinating, just do it.

Done is better than perfect. Alright, lesson number eight. If you take nothing else away from this episode except for this, then I will be happy. This is like the number one thing that I wish I knew sooner, and it is this. Your self-talk is your biggest strategy. We all want the strategy. We all want the productivity, you know, hacks, [00:29:00] systems secrets, and we are not paying attention to how we talk to ourselves.

I, over the past several years, have become so much more aware of this. What I say to myself, how I say it, what am I thinking? And not only aware of what I'm thinking, but aware of the power that I have to change what I'm thinking. And I'm now aware of the power that those thoughts have over the way that I feel over what I produce or don't produce all of it.

And once you begin to realize this, oh my gosh, and you. Believe that you have the power to change it. There's just so many opportunities there that are for you, because if you are speaking to yourself, like Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser, if you know who she is. Okay? I'm like, I, I [00:30:00] know it's an old show, but.

If you're talking to yourself like that, right? Talking trash and talking down and all of that, don't be surprised if you're feeling like crap. Don't be surprised if you're not getting things done or you're getting them done and it's, but it's not feeling any different, right? So. When I started to learn this and started talking to myself, the way that I talk to my clients, the way that I talk to my kids with giving myself grace, and grace and patience and all of that, that's when things started to change.

So here's what I want you to do. Listen to your own self-talk. Is that voice saying things that you would say to somebody else? And if not, then stop saying it to yourself. [00:31:00] Okay, so we've got two more lessons. Here we go. Lesson number nine is that everything in life is essentially a series of experiments.

It is not this repeated pass fail test that you are given over and over and over. But if you keep treating it like that, if you keep treating it like it's a test that you can fail or a test that you have to pass, then the learning doesn't happen. You are going to hold yourself back from trying different things.

You're going to be oblivious to the lessons that you will be picking up along the way. But when you think about life essentially as experiments, it lessens the pressure and changes everything. [00:32:00] This podcast is the perfect example of this. I essentially launched a podcast as an experiment. I really had very little idea about what I was doing, about what the podcast was going to cover, if it was gonna work, air quotes, and I just figured it out, started it and said, you know what?

Let's just see what happens if. Let's just see what happens when, right? And if you start treating these things like experiments, watch what changes. So I want you to pick something. Is there something that you have been putting off, something that you've been hesitating to try and think about it as an experiment.

I love this one for my evidence-based practice of friends here that are listening to the show. We are curious. We like to see [00:33:00] what happens, right? We like to see what is the evidence that supports X, Y, Z. So tap into that interest, tap into that area of your life and start lowering the stakes from a pass fail.

To just an experiment. It's just an experiment. We're just curious. We're just gonna see what happens. Okay? So pick something that you have been hesitating. Call it an experiment and see what happens. Okay, here it is, my absolute final lesson. For today's podcast, and I think I said earlier today that these weren't really in any particular order and that was pretty true.

However, this lesson is the one that I have saved for last because it is essentially the whole, it's the whole foundation of this show, this whole foundation of [00:34:00] what I do, and. I'm, I'm just sort of, I'm just wondering if any of you know me, if you have any guesses what this 10th lesson is, but the, for me, this 10th most powerful lesson that I have learned is that time is your most valuable resource.

You cannot make it, you cannot create it. You can only steward it, you can only manage it. Protect your time and just like time, protect your energy, protect your joy, you are responsible for them, but you have to protect them. You have to respect them because you do not get them back. You don't get that time back.

I can teach you how to do things more quickly. I can teach you how to spend less time on things, but time is not infinite. It is finite, and [00:35:00] when you start recognizing the value of your time, you sure as hell are going to change the way you spend it. And if you want help with that, you know who to reach out to.

The link for a free consult is always in the show notes. Okay. That is it my top 10? If you are nodding your head, if you're excited, if you feel like something in here really hit home. Then join me in the SLP support group on Facebook to keep the conversation going. That's where I will be, and that is where I'm gonna be announcing the winner of the giveaway.

Right? Don't forget the productivity audit giveaway is happening from the time that this episode is released up until the following. Wednesday, I am just looking up at the calendar. I believe the winner is gonna be announced in the SLP support group on Wednesday, May 28th at noon eastern. I'm gonna be going [00:36:00] live in the group to announce the winner, so you have just about over a week from the time that this episode's go.

This episode goes live to get your name in the running for the productivity audit. All right, so make sure you comment on the pinned post in the SLP support group about your biggest takeaway, and I will be seeing you live on Wednesday the 28th at noon eastern to announce the winner. Thank you again for being here.

Here is to 100 episodes and hopefully hundreds. More.