Ep 218 How to Find More Laughs Even on the Busy Days

What if the answer to burnout isn’t doing less—but learning how to give your best without giving your all?

For high-achieving parents and kids, advice like slow down, take a break, or do less doesn’t always land. We care deeply. We have goals. Our kids have goals. And we don’t necessarily want to give those things up.

So how do we pursue meaningful goals without running ourselves—or our kids—into the ground?

In this episode of The Stress Nanny Podcast, Lindsay sits down with speaker, consultant, and “recovering overachiever” Erika Coleman for a thoughtful conversation about stress, achievement, burnout, parenting, and what it means to build a life where success is actually sustainable.

After building a million-dollar virtual training company, losing her mom to cancer, closing her business, and experiencing debilitating burnout, Erika began studying stress, well-being, and high performance. Her work led her to a powerful idea she calls “even achieving”: learning to stretch ourselves enough to grow without stretching so far that we can’t show up again tomorrow.

Together, Lindsay and Erika explore how that principle applies not only to adults, but to the way we raise kids.

Because whether our kids are pushing themselves in academics, competitive sports, performing arts, or something else they love, childhood is where they begin learning what achievement is supposed to feel like. We have an opportunity to teach them that doing their best doesn’t have to mean sacrificing their bodies, relationships, joy, or well-being in the process.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• Why traditional stress-management advice often doesn’t work for high achievers
• The difference between giving your best and giving your all
• Erika’s concept of “even achieving” as an alternative to overachieving
• How parents can model sustainable achievement for their kids
• Why success shouldn’t leave us too exhausted to enjoy it
• The importance of celebration in motivation and family life
• A powerful question Erika regularly asks her husband and kids: Have I been present enough for you?
• How to choose relationship over perfection in everyday parenting moments
• Why focusing on direction instead of destination can change the way we approach family life
• How humor and joy can coexist with genuinely difficult experiences
• Helping kids recognize that they have the resources to meet stressful situations
• Why caring for yourself isn’t separate from caring for your family

One of the most powerful reminders in this conversation is that stress itself isn’t necessarily the enemy. We can help kids recognize the resources they already have—the people supporting them, skills they’ve developed, experiences they’ve survived, and strengths they can draw upon—so stress can become energy they work with rather than something that simply overwhelms them.

And as parents, we can do the same.

We don’t have to create perfect families. We don’t have to stop striving. And we certainly don’t have to get everything right.

Instead, we can keep asking: Are the choices we’re making today moving our family in the direction we want to go?

Because our kids need to see us do hard things. But they also need to see us enjoy our lives, care for ourselves, celebrate what matters, laugh when things get messy, and have enough left in the tank to show up again tomorrow.

About Erika Coleman

Erika Coleman is a speaker, consultant, and recovering overachiever whose work explores stress, motivation, well-being, and sustainable high performance. She holds a master’s degree in industrial-organizational psychology from Harvard University and works to help people achieve meaningful goals without sacrificing a life worth living.

Learn more about Erika and her work at ErikaColemanSpeaks.com, and find her TEDx talk at ErikasTEDTalk.com.

For more tools to help your family build calm, confidence, resilience, and connection, visit TheStressNanny.com.

Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not cheering on her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes.

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