Episode 618: Mastering the Art of Progress – How to Use Momentum to Overcome Any Obstacle with Nora Bourdeau

EBT618 – Nora Bourdeau

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported.

Megan Porta  00:37

You are going to want to download our bonus supercut that gives you all the information you need to grow your Instagram account. Go to eatblogtalk.com/Instagrowth to download today. 

Megan Porta  00:52

Do you ever feel like your food blogging journey is a giant mountain that you have to sprint up and reach the top pronto? I know I felt like that at times in my blogging journey for sure. Nora Bordeau from Balancing Bowls, joins me in this incredible interview to talk about using mini momentum to climb your mountains. So much of this has to do with your mindset, knowing your why, living your why, recognizing the difference between goals and milestones and focusing on progress over perfection. But Nora also puts together a few tips for us in the episode about ways to amplify our mini momentum, such as great books to read or habits to start before bedtime and how to track your progress. Oh, and don’t forget, we all need a good sleep to make all of this happen. This is such an incredible episode. I hope you love it. It is number 618, sponsored by RankIQ.

Sponsor  01:51

Are you really wanting to be a part of one of the Eat Blog Talk mastermind groups? But you’re just not in the place to make the investment right now, the Eat Blog Talk accountability group might be the perfect fit for you. For just $34 a month, you’ll get access to weekly accountability check ins a private Slack channel, live productivity sessions and monthly zoom calls with fellow bloggers and me Megan Porta, achieve your big blogging goals surrounded by supportive, like minded creators who truly understand your journey. The Eat Blog Talk accountability group is here to help you stay focused and motivated as you build your awesome brand. Head to eatblogtalk.com/focus, today to claim your spot. 

Megan Porta  02:35

Nora Bourdeau started Balancing Bowls in 2022 as a way to record her recipes and share them with friends and family. Balancing Bowls is the product of a slightly chaotic life, a need to make and grow things, and a love of creative cooking. While the blog has a flexitarian approach to cooking, Nora loves to cook with beans and lentils so you will find lots of legume recipes and information on the blog. Living outside of Boston, Ma, with her husband and three kids, she is also a full-time high school art teacher.

Megan Porta  03:05

Nora, I am so happy to have you on the podcast today. How are you doing?

Nora Bourdeau  03:09

Good. How are you doing?

Megan Porta  03:11

I’m doing good too. I have a full day of interviews. The sun is shining. It’s a good day.

Nora Bourdeau  03:15

Oh, good.

Megan Porta  03:16

Okay. We’re gonna talk about a really exciting topic today. I love this topic, just using mini momentum to climb mountains. I feel like we’re all climbing some mountains in our businesses right now. So this is really relevant and timely before we get into this. Nora, do you have a fun fact to share about yourself?

Nora Bourdeau  03:35

Sure. So my fun fact is that I was a ceramics major in college, so it’s kind of a random thing you can major in, and that’s what I spent four years studying in school.

Megan Porta  03:45

So wow, do you have ceramics all over your house?

Nora Bourdeau 03:49

We do have a lot of ceramics. Yeah, we use my dishes and bowls and stuff all the time. Oh, my God, that’s fun to have.

Megan Porta  03:55

I was an art major in college, and I took a lot of ceramics classes. So I have tons of ceramics around my house. Some of it’s really bad. Like, you know, those first ones you make that are just kind of like patched together and kind of sad. But I, I don’t know, I kind of like those pieces, those beginning pieces too. But, yeah, that’s really cool. Did you ever do? I’m not going to be able to think of the name of it. Now, what’s that? It’s the type of glaze that comes out super shiny, and it’s produces really fragile pieces.

Nora Bourdeau  04:28

Oh, Raku. 

Megan Porta  04:29

Raku. Okay, yes, I loved Raku. It was my favorite. It

Nora Bourdeau 04:33

is fun. So I teach ceramics at a high school now, and getting to do that with the kids is, like, pretty wild, because they when they get to see the glaze kind of molten hot, they’re like, I think they it makes a lot more sense about the whole process.

Megan Porta  04:47

Yeah, because the glaze, when it goes on, it doesn’t look impressive, but when it comes out, you’re like, Whoa. That is so cool. It’s just such a transformation. Okay? Love knowing that about you, ceramics major. Let’s see the topic, mini momentum to climb mountains. I love this. But will you give us a little bit of a background on your blog quick?

Nora Bourdeau 05:11

Sure. So my blog’s called Balancing Bowls, and it was kind of that start of a mixture of food. And I am a ceramic artist and teacher. So I make a lot of bowls, and kind of merging my love of food with my artistic background and making functional objects. So it really started as a New Year’s resolution that has kind of grown into this, like really fun passion for me, and I kind of fell into this niche of beans and lentils. I just as I had been doing a lot of research and making developing recipes for the blog, I really have fallen in love with beans and lentils, so that’s been kind of a big part of what’s on the website is recipes that have those in them. 

Megan Porta  05:58

Awesome. The high fiber, high protein, high fiber?

Nora Bourdeau  06:02

Yes, yep.

Megan Porta  06:03

I was just told by my doctor to eat high protein, high fiber. So beans and lentils have been a part of my life. So I may be visiting Balancing Bowls soon to check all that out. Well, tell us about this concept of using mini momentum to climb mountains. Would you mind just describing that a little bit. 

Nora Bourdeau  06:20

Sure. It’s an idea of framework that kind of crystallized for me when I was talking to my daughter about her struggles in school, and I was fumbling around with different analogies about how to kind of break down the difficulty of school and just be like, you just gotta take one step in front of the other and move forward. And I had a bunch of crazy analogies that were not working so well. And at some point, I was just like, you know, the only way to climb a mountain is just put one foot in front of the other. And the visual we ended up looking at was my Google Analytics, which seems kind of silly, but it’s a thing I pull up on my computer all the time. She’s seen it. And I kind of went to a week view. And I was like, Look at Annette. This is like a flat line, and there’s a bunch of low dips down. This is kind of what a week looks like. It looks like nothing. It’s just a maybe a wavy line, sometimes some dips, and then pulled out to a couple weeks, and it’s still just kind of a wavy line that doesn’t have much shape. And then a month, maybe there’s a tiny incline and it looks a little bit better than last month, and then pulled out to six months, and you’re like, Okay, so now there’s an actual slope, and and then a year, and it’s a much steeper hill. And then when we pulled out for the actual two and a half years that I’ve been blogging, it does, it really does look like a mountain. And those first year, it’s pretty flat, pretty flat. But when I look at that bigger view, and this is something she’s seen me working on for the last couple years, and she’s participated with making recipes and all those things. So she’s been a part of this journey. And it was just a nice, you know, it was a way to kind of look at it in a different way. And being like each day doesn’t have to be a big jump or improvement. It’s just putting one foot in front of the other. And for me, like focusing on the process over the product has been really important for me in school, athletics, you know, work, teaching and being a parent, and I know that it’s kind of a false assumption that a framework that’s worked for me will also work for her, but I’ve noticed when she’s had some hard days at school, she will come home and just ask, like, Mom, can I see your mountain? Oh, and I’ll pull it up. And it’s just kind of that moment. And I kind of know it means like, okay, maybe, maybe things are hard, and she just needs that, that reminder of, like, Okay, just one foot in front of the other. 

Megan Porta  08:44

Oh, I love that. I love that she knows to just reference that and that knowing that that’s going to help her as well. I feel like food bloggers need this right now, don’t you? More than ever, just knowing that it’s working, even if, right now, it really feels like it’s not that over time, if you keep at it, and like you said, just doing that one foot in front of the other repeatedly, over time, your mountain is going to grow. So this is a message we all need right now.

Nora Bourdeau  09:16

When I think about how much I’ve listened to your podcast, and you know, might be a tough day, and then you have a nice mindfulness episode, and you’re like, it’s just have a little somebody help you reframe something and be like, okay, yeah, I can, like, if I think about it, just in a new way, I can approach it with some new energy. And I think that, you know, can be really helpful. 

Megan Porta  09:34

Do you feel like, okay, for me, I feel like, knowing my why, being really in touch with why I do everything, why I do my work, why I why I do everything in my entire world, being really connected with that really helps to keep me moving forward. Does that help with you as well? 

Nora Bourdeau  09:55

Yeah, I think that’s a really important thing. And you know, I’ve you hear people talk a. Out, you know, you gotta know your why, and that’ll help propel you through all the hard work you have to do. But for me, I think also living that why and not just having that be a future tense is really important for me. I mean, I started the blog for some personal momentum, you know, I had just come off of it was just, you know, personal momentum. I wanted to write down my recipes for New Year’s resolution, and that became kind of the seed of this food blogging business. And I had come off a couple hard pregnancies, some dysfunction at work. There was a global pandemic. There’s a lot of stuff going on. And having something that I could build and put my creativity behind and and do at home, which is nice. It’s a thing that I can be creative at at home, but over the course of the last couple years, you know, that was that’s a really powerful why, but another why has kind of come out of this. My daughter and then my son, we found out have dyslexia, which I also have. So I had kind of always thought of it as a blessing for myself as an adult like this has been come you know, this has been a big part of who I am and how I approach the world, and it’s been a blessing. But when the kids joined the club, it was definitely like, oh, okay, we can. Really want to watch my kids struggle this way too, and so it’s been kind of interesting building this business, and I’ve started to feel like I want to show the kids what’s possible. As somebody who has dyslexia, and not despite of it, but because of it. I think, you know, we have some assets that people kind of use the analogy of having a backpack with stones on if when people have learning disabilities, it’s analogy I’ve heard in schools, and I just am like, sure, I have a backpack and it’s heavy, but my backpacks got tools in it, and it’s got some power tools in it, and it’s not just rocks. And I want my kids to kind of know that that’s because your brain works differently. It could be an asset. So that’s been kind of, when I think of that as a second why that could keep me up working every night, all of the time, right? Like, that’s a thing that I will work really hard for, is to be able to show my kids what they’re capable of through, you know, because we have this shared experience. And sure, I stayed up late, you know, to do one more photo shoot here and there or hit publish. But I named the blog Balancing Bowls for reason, and I that is hugely important, that sense of balance and recognizing, you know, if I’m overdoing it with work, that I recalibrate and I live that why, and that example of being a good being a good example of somebody who’s living a balanced life for my kids, right? So if I’m, if my kids are a reason why I’m doing this, I want to make sure I’m going about it in a way that is balanced, healthy, and a good example, not just in what I do, but how I go about it. So for me, that’s kind of important is living the why not just like knowing it. 

Megan Porta  13:02

Wow, that’s so inspiring to hear you talk about just being the example, like living the example for your children. I love that concept of them seeing you live this out having dyslexia as well, yet being able to do you know what you do. That’s super inspiring. So when you talk about living your why, I think of you know that concept, like you want something and you don’t have it, so that’s kind of a lack mentality. But when you jump into living it, it’s more of a like you’re grateful for what is present, right? Sure, yeah, yeah. So if you have a goal that seems far away, there’s something in your life now that you can grasp onto and just be so, so grateful for. Is that kind of what you’re talking about?

Nora Bourdeau  13:51

Yeah, a lot. I think gratitude and that sense of like living, living the things you’re trying to achieve in the long run are really important. And I think we can be kind of caught, and it’s good to have goals, and it’s good to have forward momentum and knowing where you want to go, and that big why. And I think goals can be an interesting way to think about it, because I think sometimes I’m a teacher, so we, you know, we do goal setting with our kids at some point when we’re advisors and coach, when I’m a coach in the spring, but goals can feel really, I think, the way we frame them sometimes we’re really, actually talking about milestones. And I think for me, being able to separate those two helps me live in the the now and be grateful for what I do have and what I do have control over. So for me, a true goal is like time, flexibility, financial freedom, health and a fulfilling life that includes, you know, is all about my family, and that’s, you know, that’s what I want to be living, and that’s my true goal. And I have lots of milestones that I want to hit, right, like I want to hit the 50,000 views. If I want to make a certain amount of money from food photography, those are really great goals to work towards, but they’re milestones on this journey. They’re not, they’re not the why they’re not the real, true goal. Because once you hit that 50,000 views like, then what? Like what’s next? And then it’s but if you’re if their true goal is time flexibility, then I need to not be running around like a crazy person saying I don’t have enough time for anything, because I just have to maximize the time I do have. Because it’s an illusion to think it’s going to be easier when my kids are older. It’s an illusion that it’s going to be, you know, I’m not, you know each…

Megan Porta  15:41

Magically going to happen, right?

Nora Bourdeau  15:43

Like, just because I have, like, if I have more money in the future, doesn’t mean that that doesn’t come with its own complications, right? So I think if the true goal is, you know, if health and physical health isn’t a true goal, then I need to work out today, not in three years when I quit my job, like, that’s like, I gotta do that now. I can’t, because there will also be things that get in the way in three years. Yeah, so just like, you gotta get up and go do the go do the run every day so that I’m living that health now, not kind of putting it off or sacrificing it, because then, then you’re always chasing it.

Megan Porta  16:20

It’s funny how we trick ourselves into believing that. Like your example of getting 50k page views when we get that, then, you know it’s gonna be, I’m gonna have all this money or whatever. But yeah, living, living the truth now as much as you can is going to support those end goals. I think that’s hard, though, to kind of work backward, like, if your end goal is time, freedom and maybe being in your peak physical health or something like that, it’s hard to do that. I feel like in the moment, we just get so focused on the end. Do you know what I mean that it’s like, how do we translate that to what I’m doing today? How do we break that down into something bite size that we can actually do today? Yeah, I

Nora Bourdeau  17:07

think one of the things that’s really biggest for me, and I end up quoting it to my kids at school a lot, is thinking of practice makes and they always want to say, perfection, right? You know, practice is perfect, right? And it’s like, no practice makes progress, and progress is the thing I want to if I put the value on that this growth will never end. And as a kid who had dyslexia, schools was really hard. I was not always going to get an A. I had to be real happy sometimes with my like C minus, yeah, and if I worked really hard for that, like, all right, I just got to put the value on the hard work the things I did, because that’s what I had control over. And practice makes progress. And if I did a little bit better than I did a couple weeks ago, like, that might be the only that, that’s the thing I had to hold on to, is that that progress and over time, like, if you keep progress grows like that is a thing that you you have, and somebody can’t take away from you. And perfection. And I talk about this with my kids as an art teacher, as I’m an art teacher at a school, and so my students there, it’s perfection is a moment in time, and it is fleeting, and it’s so fragile, but progress is endless, and it’s something that continuously grows and you can have forever. I want my students to not just make one beautiful piece of art. I want them to have a skill of a lifetime of creativity that that is such a more valuable thing to walk away from than being like, Yep, I’ve got one nice cup that is beautiful. It’s like, No, you want to have that creativity to make a lifetime of things.

Megan Porta  18:52

Oh, that’s beautiful. The perfection thing is, oh, gosh, my I have a son who’s just a perfectionist. Yeah? I need to figure out how to navigate that, because it’s it’s impacting him more and more. He’s 14 now, and like, he can’t this kid cannot even write a thank you card because he needs every word to be perfect. And I’m like, Oh my gosh, it doesn’t matter. It does not matter. Just sit down and write what’s on your heart. He’s like, but this certain the sentence isn’t exactly true. I’m like, Oh my gosh. I do not know I am. I have gotten over my perfectionist tendencies, so I feel like I just put things out there, just like, set them free, see what happens. Yeah, so this is a new thing for me to deal with. So yeah, follow your lead Nora on this.

Nora Bourdeau  19:41

Everything’s got to be a little messy once in a while when you make stuff, right? 

Megan Porta  19:44

Yeah, exactly like art, right? I mean, you can’t create the most perfect, beautiful ceramic, ceramic bowl every single time you sit down. You have to embrace those imperfections. And like I was saying earlier, the ones that I created early on are kind of my favorite pieces. Yeah, because they’re imperfect, I think it makes it beautiful.

Nora Bourdeau  20:03

Yeah. And I think one of the things that can be helpful when you when I’m talking to students in an art context, and I was like, it doesn’t matter how good you are, like, if you’re the best student or the best athlete, like you’re I’m still here to coach you, and I’m gonna point stuff out so that you can get better. So regardless how good or how perfect do you think that is, let’s point out a thing that can be improved, because that’s the thing, like the improvement, the process like that, that’s the thing that’s going to be of greatest value. And it’s sort of like it doesn’t matter how bad or how good you are, you’re both going to receive this information to grow and get better. So it’s interesting. You know, talking to teenagers about that kind of stuff all the time. 

Megan Porta  20:47

Teenagers are yes, 

Nora Bourdeau  20:49

And it’s one thing, if they’re your own teenagers.

Megan Porta  20:52

I know because they don’t want to listen to you, right? I need you to talk to my son. I feel like coming from me, it’s like, oh gosh, mom, but if he heard it come from somebody else, it would be a totally different message. 

Nora Bourdeau  21:05

I hope they run into somebody will tell them, I know that’s when they come home and go, mom, somebody told me to stay like, it’s not like, I haven’t been telling you exactly

Megan Porta  21:13

I all the time. I’m like, Okay, I’ve been telling you that every day, but whatever

Nora Bourdeau  21:18

Glad they mentioned that.

Megan Porta  21:20

Yeah, glad they showed up in your life. 

Sponsor  21:23

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Megan Porta  22:11

I want to hear about your concept of quitting always being an option. Talk about that.

Nora Bourdeau  22:17

Yeah. So I think this is like a thing that goes counter to a lot of people’s like feeling about, like, well, you can never quit, never quit. And for me, yeah, there’s things you you can’t quit, but there’s things that we do and we get excited about and we invest a lot of time, and you can quit and like that can be really freeing to me. I ended up walking onto a rowing team in college, and I was like, an art kid had no, not really the most athletic person, but my roommate was really tall, and they the crew team. Kept being like, come on, come out with us. And I was like, Oh, I’ll go with you. But like, I think I just want to, like, have a good time on the weekend. So this seems like a lot. So I walked onto the team, and, you know, there was 25 of us to start, and every day I just kind of was like, I don’t know. Well, maybe I’ll do another day and see how that goes. And then sort of, for me, I just was like, well, I’ll quit tomorrow, if I really. And all these other girls I started with were like, Well, no, I’m not doing that. And a year and a half in, I was the only one left. Oh my God. And so I was this person who was like, Well, I don’t know. I mean, I’ve got four, I got practice at five. I had a practice at 5am a lot, so I’d have to wake up at four, and it would be hard. Plus, everybody’s coming home from like, frat parties and things like that, standing on the cool I ride. What am I doing? This is weird, but I would just kind of say to myself that, do you want to go to practice today, and the answer was yes, so I just went to practice, and over time, I really grew to love it. It was an amazing experience. I got stronger. And I mean, there was a lot of times where I was the worst athlete on the team, because all of the walk ons had left, and I was the only one left, and everybody else had been recruited in my class. So I was literally the worst, but I just kind of was like, Well, if I don’t like it tomorrow, I’ll just quit. And I just kept going back. And I had the privilege of being a captain my senior year, like it became a big part of us there. But I just, I was felt really supported by my parents, because they were just like, well, if you want to do it, go for it. If not, don’t. So it was kind of nice to always be like, Yeah, I can do it if I want. And I think about that like, sometimes, you know, and I haven’t had that many moments with the blog where I’m like, Oh, this is really hard and taxing, where you’re like, well, I could walk away, but I want to do this. I want to go make a recipe. I want to go photograph. Like, yes, I want to go. So for me, it’s like, well, if I don’t want to do this anymore, I’ll just I can be done. And so I think for me, that makes it my choice and my investment. And it’s not like there’s always another option. I could do something else. 

Megan Porta  24:49

It takes the pressure off, right? So much pressure. 

Nora Bourdeau  24:52

And I felt like I watched a lot of girls I rode with whose parents or like there was other pressures. You’re like, you have to do this. And I was like, Oh, this. I. I just decided to come to practice today, and that it was always, the pressure was off, yes.

Megan Porta  25:05

And everything can be like that in life, your blog, your business, your hobbies, your like so many things can just have that perspective that takes the pressure off. The 14 year old I was telling you about, who’s a perfectionist, we have had to parent him so so uniquely. And something my husband, I have learned, is not to pressure this kid, like if I if we say we really think you should be in this Honors Program, he will not do it. Yeah, so there was this English Honors Program. He’s already in a few Honors Program or classes. So he was debating, like, I don’t know if I want to do this. I feel like it’s a lot of pressure, and we had to really bite our tongues. And we both were like, You know what? If you want to quit, if you want to, if you want out of the class, go for it. It’s totally up to you. And we were hoping that he would, because he’s so gifted, but we just took off the pressure. And guess what? He stayed in the class like as you were telling your story. I’m thinking so much about my son, because this is what like, yeah, he really did want to be in there, but he didn’t want the pressure. He wanted to know that there was another option. So I love this I love this perspective. I think this is going to be very freeing for a lot of food bloggers, because we hear so much like, once you start, you have to, you have to keep going. You have to, you know, like, get to this point in your business, right? And, yeah, that’s hard to hear. Like, oh my gosh. That’s so much pressure.

Nora Bourdeau  26:33

Yeah. And I think at some point, like, if somebody might be done with new posts, and like, maybe their business turns into something else, and that could be a wonderful new open up new doors. And if it’s, I get to go do this thing versus I have to go do this thing, it’s, it’s a huge difference.

Megan Porta  26:49

It’s your choice. When it’s your choice, there’s so much flexibility in your mind, mindset there. Yeah, yeah, okay. What about the concept of just being enough as you are not being enough as you are going to become in the future, yeah, as you are in this moment. What do you think about that?

Nora Bourdeau  27:11

So I think, you know, for me, this is a big thing again, trying to be a good example for your kids and like live. You want to say that to your kids all the time, right? Like you’re enough, like you are, like you are a whole, wonderful human. And sometimes I think it can be easy not to do it for ourselves. And I think I feel really blessed that like as a kid, I’ve always felt like my parents gave me the space to feel like I was enough despite, you know, I’m there’s grades that came home and if they had a lot of anxiety about what I was going to become. They never let it show. And that was such a blessing. And just knowing, like, okay, like, whatever grade that was, if I worked hard, like I had some value in that now as a parent, to be able to, like, hopefully, give that gift to my kids and be like, Yeah, you are enough the way you are. I also have to be a good example for that, for myself, right? Like, so if I want them to know that they’re enough, I got to make peace with the hot mess that I am sometimes be able to be like, Yeah, I’m enough. And, like, I’ve got three little kids. I’m work full time. I’ve got this I’ve got imposter syndrome all the time. Like, my things, things fall apart around here all the time.

Megan Porta  28:24

Welcome to yes my life as well. 

Nora Bourdeau  28:26

Yeah, you’re like, somebody, you know, my I have friends or a father in law who will open the car door and go, oh gosh, there’s, this is a situation just like, let’s just walk away from there. Like, there’s a lot of things, yeah, but, you know, sometimes you just like being able to really live that and be like, No, I’m enough. You know, even when you feel like sometimes like a joke of a person about or you’re like, what? Why do I think I can do that? But being able to say that to yourself the same way you would do it to a friend or a kid, and take value in those many momentums and just truly know like, Yeah, I’m enough, where I am not where I’m trying to go or right now. And I think, you know, there’s a lot of mindfulness that needs to go into that, and I’m not, you know, I think meditation is a great way to do that. But I think just literally be able to say that, like when stuff, you know, when things fall apart, and be like, Yep, I’m still enough. And sometimes even when it’s a big mess.

Megan Porta  29:22

Yeah, I like that, the framing of, you know, just seeing it as you’re a parent or something, or a mentor or a teacher, because we tend to have so much grace for our kids. When I think of my boys, I’m like, Oh my gosh, you’re, you’re absolutely enough as you are, even, you know, freaking out on me at bedtime last night over nothing like that. It’s okay. You’re still enough as you are, and I try to tell them that. But when it comes to ourselves, we can be so hard on ourselves and constantly judge ourselves and think that we’re not enough, that we need to be better, that we need to improve, that maybe someday I’ll be that ideal person that I want to be, but putting it in perspective of, like, treating yourself as if they were your child. Yeah, I think that helps me so much. I need to do that more often. Yeah, it’s hard though, isn’t it? It’s, yeah, we’re so judgmental about us. We’re so hard on ourselves. I don’t know why. 

Nora Bourdeau  30:19

Yeah, it’s funny, but, and then it’s but, I think, like having that be like, You know what? Sometimes we’re all a little hot mess, but I’m I’m my own. I am my own version of that, and it’s okay. 

Megan Porta  30:29

Oh my gosh, you mentioned the car. I have some memories of people opening my my cousin’s son one time. This was years ago. I my car was an absolute mess. He opened my front passenger car door and, like, his eyes got really wide, and he was like, Whoa, you need to clean this, and then you shut the door. And I was so embarrassed. I was like, Oh my gosh. Who am I? What kind of human am I to let this kid tell me that I needed to clean my car.

Nora Bourdeau  31:03

I would always like, well, if we get stranded somewhere, I think there’s snacks and clothes, probably okay.

Megan Porta  31:09

We could find some, like old liquid that would keep us hydrated for a while, right? 

Nora Bourdeau  31:14

Yeah, there’s something in there that will keep us alive. 

Megan Porta  31:16

Oh, gosh, yes. You gotta find the good parts of that. Do you have any tips for us for just getting to that point where we can see that mini momentum happening in our lives?

Nora Bourdeau  31:29

Yeah, so I think, you know, a lot of what we’ve talked about so far is a lot of like mindset and kind of reframing things, but I think it’s really important to also just recognize the like, actual things you can do on a daily basis that can make, make that possible. And two books that I read, and you’ve suggested plenty of times on the podcast, but I really like and reinforce a bunch of these ideas, are The Gap in the Gain Yes, yeah, so good and Atomic Habits. So I think for both of them, they can, you know, put things, there’s some, a lot of mindset stuff, but there’s also just really concrete things you can do every day that put one foot in front of the other, and just they start to amplify over time. And one of them’s journaling. I’m not a big like writer, like dialog, but for me, it just looks like writing, and this is from The Gap in the Gain. It’s just like, writing three wins down, and it might just be like, I opened most of my emails.

Megan Porta  32:26

Something little, right? 

Nora Bourdeau  32:27

Something big. And for me, this week, weekend, I applied to MediaVine, which was really exciting. So, like, so sometimes the wins are like, I ate dinner, oh yeah, yeah. Or, like, I tried that recipe a second time and it’s a little bit better, yeah. And then sometimes it’s a big milestone, but it doesn’t if, if it’s one little thing every day they start, like, immediate, you know, getting 50,000 views doesn’t happen without making the recipe and remaking the recipe over and over again, right? Like, that’s they’re connected. And then three things you’re grateful for. And some days that’s like, Oh, I could write so many more. And then other days, you got to go, oh, traffic wasn’t too bad on the way to Costco. You gotta, like, you gotta come up with the thing. And it does make you stop and go, Oh, you know, I somebody held the door for me. And being able to just recognize the things that do go well. Another thing that I, you know, tracking progress, I think, on a daily, weekly and kind of doing those numbers. And whether it’s you can kind of think about it as lag or lead indicators. Oh, and so another book that I think is really great is the 12 Week Year.

Megan Porta  33:41

Oh, yes, of that one too.

Nora Bourdeau  33:42

Yeah, and I, one of the phrases they use is kind of identifying lead indicators of success and lag indicators. So if I publish a post once a week for 12 weeks, those are lead indicators. Those are things I have control over. The amount of views I get are lag indicators. It’s, you know, the result that might happen from it, but trying to focus on the things that make the progress, not just the numbers that show that you’re making. So, if that makes sense, yeah. So I think it’s nice to have both of those, yeah.

Megan Porta  34:18

And sometimes you have to think, really think, especially if you’re not in the habit of finding those things right, like, you really have to think about them, yeah.

Nora Bourdeau  34:27

I think sometimes we can put a be like, Oh, I’m publishing a post. And that can be like, Oh, I only got one thing done today or this week, and you’re like, Well, wait, you wrote the post, you took the pictures, edited the pictures, and you put everything into WordPress, like, break those down, and then you realize, like, Oh, that is a lot of things. And like, each one of those counts. And I think that’s that idea of, like, the mini momentum, like it does, like, break all of those little things do have to happen, so take pride in it. And, know. That that’s one step, another step, another step, and like they they build on each other. Recognize them. I think it, yeah, it puts value on the process again.

Megan Porta  35:10

Yeah, I think this is also important. But again, it takes some practice to get into the habit of just recognizing what the little wins are? You mentioned a few little wins that were, I think a lot of people just gloss over in life, like, I was at Costco, and nobody ran into me. Or, you know, like, those little things are actually nuggets. They’re gems. So almost getting into, like, can’t think of the word, but like, getting into the habit of, yes, seeing them. And then once you do, you’re like, oh, yeah, that was, that was little, but significant. And then just seeing those things over and over, after a while, I think they start to come more naturally.

Nora Bourdeau  35:50

Yeah, yeah. It’s just practice, right? Like, and then you start to build on each other.

Megan Porta  35:55

And then I know for me, like, none of this works if I don’t get a good night of sleep, and especially over time, I don’t, I need so much sleep. Nora, I don’t know about you, but I don’t know those people who get by on like, five hours, four or five or six hours of sleep at night. I’m so envious of them, because I need at least eight hours, solid, eight hours or nine hours to function, and nothing matters, all of the things you’ve talked about, if I’m not well rested, it like none of this happens. So what are your thoughts on that? 

Nora Bourdeau  36:30

Yeah, sleep is a hugely important and again, I think being around a lot of teenagers and watching people think they can sacrifice it, it just doesn’t work. Your brain doesn’t work as well. And I think it’s one of those things that we can think we can by sacrificing that time to do another post or, you know, spend it writing. It can be easy to think that you’re like, I’m making a lot of progress, when, in reality it’s like you are just becoming significantly more inefficient. Your brain doesn’t work as well. Your interactions aren’t as clear and effective, so everything you’re doing is kind of deteriorating because you’re not sleeping. And instead, it’s like, I try to think about sleeping as a time amplifier. So if I get eight hours of sleep and I have an hour to work on something, I’m able to get significantly more done than if I’m sleep deprived and I go to do an hour’s worth of work, it doesn’t it ends up taking way longer because I I’m in the hole. So sleep is one of those things that I I try to be really diligent about. It’s actually my roommate in college who the one who dragged me to try to recruit team. I was like, Oh, I don’t know, really, are we gonna sleep? But she kind of drilled it into me early. She’s like, we gotta go to we gotta go to bed. We gotta go to bed. We gotta get an hour’s sleep for practice. And it’s I’m so glad, because I really it’s I’ve known and the difference between, like, yep, when I sleep I’m able, I am so much more capable emotionally, physically, intellectually, than I would be if I’m sleep deprived. I do have three little kids. I have gone through periods of time where you know how it goes, but yeah, when you come out of it, then you’re like, Wow, this is really amazing, like, if when you get back to sleeping. So I think that’s important, and it’s another I think working out is another thing that can be really easy to sacrifice. But I think when I was reading Atomic Habits for the first time I hadn’t been working out with the kids. Were a little smaller, and I was like, I gotta start doing something. And I just started doing squats while I brushed my teeth.

Megan Porta  38:29

Oh, nice. Yeah, anything, right,

Nora Bourdeau  38:31

Yeah. And it seems like the tiniest thing, but I would do squats for two minutes. I do a little timer that they get from the dentist, and it would be the two minutes, and I would just do squats for the two minutes. And that little, tiny habit has grown, and now I just kind of, you know, now I go for a run, or I lift weights every morning, but it was that tiny little momentum of, like, I’m just gonna write down having done that every day for a month. And then it was like, Yeah, okay, I’m I felt I in the book Atomic Habits, he kind of talks about, like, when you do an action like that every day, it’s a vote for the person you you want to be. And even if it’s teeny, tiny and can be that can grow and become something bigger, which is nice.

Megan Porta  39:11

Yeah. And when you have little kids, you you have to be creative like that. And just like squats in the bathroom, whatever, like, you have to just make life work. Sometimes I remember doing like, push ups right before bed. And I’m not a big push up person, but I’m like, this is something like moving my body, and that turned into more too. So just getting those little bits of habits in where you can and letting those seeds grow, yeah. 

Nora Bourdeau  39:39

And I think it’s back to that, like you don’t have to climb the mountain in a day. It’s like just one little thing and it will become something bigger. 

Megan Porta  39:46

Do you feel like working with teenagers, that teenagers are generally fairly sleep deprived, like they don’t prioritize sleep?

Nora Bourdeau  39:55

I would. It’s interesting. There’s a lot going on with teenagers right now. I think the science behind the sleep has it is starting to penetrate that where they realize that if they don’t do it, it’s going to impact them more significantly. I think they really do. They’ve I think they have a better sense that I also think a lot of kids have so much on their plates that they don’t think they can let the balls drop. And sometimes it’s like, well, maybe you won’t get that homework done today. And it’s that’s okay. So I think it’s hard for any of us to figure out how to strike that balance, but especially for teenagers, I think that’s a stressful time for them to live up to everybody else’s expectations. Yeah, yeah, that’s when it’s nice to be when you’re older, the kids always been there. Be like, Oh, man. People always say high school is the best. I was like, wait till you’re 40. It’s going to be awesome. Because, like, you can live by your own expectations, not your all your teachers and your coaches and stuff like that. So we, you know, I think as adults, we get the blessing of creating those frameworks for ourselves in a way that kids, kids have find themselves having to live up to a lot of other people’s.

Megan Porta  41:04

They can see that. Is there anything we’ve missed, Nora, that you want to touch on before we start saying goodbye?

Nora Bourdeau  41:09

I don’t think so. I think we covered a lot. And yeah, yeah. I would just, I would say, like, a lot of you know, I have things that these frameworks have kind of mindset have been really helpful for me. But I also just want to say, like, how many times I’ve listened to a podcast of yours and you’ve had such a wonderful nugget about how to reframe or rethink about something? I said you had one a couple weeks ago, or probably months ago now. It was something about, um, decluttering.

Megan Porta  41:33

Oh, yeah, I love I got a lot of feedback about that one. 

Nora Bourdeau  41:36

And then I think details, okay through like, like.

Megan Porta  41:40

Details and actions. Is that it…

Nora Bourdeau  41:42

Or was, like, just because you have a lot of details coming at you, or, like, little things that have to get done, like, just, like, take care of them here and there, because, like, then you’ll bring in, like, if you want more things in your life, like, there’s going to be more stuff, yes. So just try to, like, take them, take them as they come. And so, like, sometimes when, like, I’m putting something away that I think’s annoying. You’re like, you know what? Hey, I can handle this. I got it. 

Megan Porta  42:07

I love that. You got that message. I do it every day, all the time. Just before I came down for this interview, there was a piece of dental floss on my kitchen floor, and I was like, Why is this here? Like, had to fight being so annoyed. But I just like, okay, details, I’m gonna take the action. So I picked it up and threw it away all the time. Well, thanks for sharing that, and thank you so much for being here. I loved this conversation. I think people are gonna find this very valuable in our current landscape that we’re living in. Do you have either a favorite quote or inspiration? Words of inspiration to leave us with.

42:42

Well, the one I say to my students all the times is that practice makes progress. Like, that’s something that’s always at the top of my head, but I did find this one. I think it was, the best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time, and that’s from Abraham Lincoln. And I just like that idea of like, oh, we just have to deal with today. Like, just the future will come. But like, you have a job to do today, and, like, that’s the thing you’re gonna deal with. 

Megan Porta  43:04

Oh, love that. Great way to end. We’ll put together. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, thank you for being here. We’ll put a show notes page for together for you. Nora, so if you want to go look at those, you can head to eatblogtalk.com/balancingbowls. I love the name of your blog, by the way, and how it ties into your ceramics too. That’s so cool. 

Nora Bourdeau  43:25

Thanks. 

Megan Porta  43:25

So where can people find you if they want to reach out or just explore your content. 

Nora Bourdeau  43:29

Balancingbowls.com and the same on Facebook and Instagram and my email’s [email protected].

Outro  43:38

thank you so much for being here, and thank you for listening food bloggers, I will see you next time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. If you enjoyed this episode, I’d be so grateful if you’ve posted it to your social media feed and stories, I will see you next time you.