Tired Of The Hamster Wheel? Here's How One Mom Got Off

Marissa Franco now lives a life by design, not default. She helps other women do the same with Oola.

Have you ever started the day excited about your goals, but felt deflated by the end of it because nothing was accomplished? Typical day in the life of a busy mom; where finding balance is hard, and self-care goes out the window once the kids wake up, coffee runs out, and life begins. 

Marissa Franco can relate. The Georgia-based business executive, wife, and mom of two was once stuck. “As you become a mom, you have more responsibilities. The hamster wheel of life starts to take hold. You’re no longer living your life based on goals you’ve set. You’re just on this hamster wheel and you’re living every single day as it comes. For moms it’s worse, because you’re serving everybody else, and it feels normal.” 

Marissa

With her children, Lily and Liam

When the pandemic hit, Marissa’s hamster wheel kicked into overdrive. “It felt like I no longer had control over what was happening externally, or personally with my day. I got entrenched and in a dark place mentally, where I felt like I wasn’t in control of myself or my goals.” She was overfilling her family and career cup, leaving her own cup empty. Marissa’s commitment to her fitness, mental health, and dreams quickly took a back seat, adding “You can only go so long, where things like that go on the back-burner.”

Change came in the form of an old friend that she hadn’t spoken to in years. She introduced Marissa to Oola, a self-development framework that helps women transform their daily juggling acts into a life filled with clarity, goal-setting, and abundance. Inspired by a popular 2017 book, by Troy Amdahl and Dave Braun, “Oola is that state of awesomeness you experience when your life is balanced and growing in all the key areas of health and well-being.” Through workshops, an e-Learning platform and app, you examine each area in your life using seven “F” pillars: Family, Fitness, Finance, (Career) Field, Friends, Fun, and Faith. You then set goals around each pillar.

“Where you are is just WHERE you are, it's not WHO you are.”

~Marissa Franco

Mom, Business Woman, Oola Life Coach

The concept is that if you pour equal energy into those buckets, by taking daily action steps towards each of those goals, you will be fulfilled and find bliss.  “When I went through the framework initially, I started crying,” Marissa shared. “The first workshop is cathartic. You go through each area in your life and think of your goals. For some of them, I was like “I don’t know.” I haven’t put thought into any of those in so long, and that’s sad. Then I got past it and I created goals.” 

Marissa is not only focused on her goals, she’s also determined to make a deeper impact. She is now a certified Oola Life Coach that helps other busy women and moms find their sense of purpose and balance. “I think a lot of us are lost because we’ve had a really rough year. People are dealing with grief, mental health, or feel powerless in their relationships. Sometimes you can’t get out of that by yourself. Sometimes it’s about identifying these things yourself and peeling back the onion.”

Marissa believes that once you put energy into finding balance you can “live a life by design, not by default,” as the Oola framework describes. This requires putting yourself first, tapping into that back-burner of goals that we’ve compressed, and putting an execution plan into practice— daily. “There’s that back-burner of stuff, and our conscious mind is not aware of some of that stuff, but we feel stuck. We feel unhappy, stressed, or not whole for some reason and don’t know why. It’s easier than you think to bring some of those things back to ourselves.” 

A sample of Marissa’s Daily Oola Tracker

“It’s easier than you think to bring some of those things back to ourselves.”

One key Oola framework that Marissa is inspired by is their Oranges and Skittles mindset. Fill your day with the Oranges first, add the Skittles next. “Oranges are the big things that we have to do towards our goals every day. Like, I need to close this deal today and get it off my plate. I need to drink a gallon of water every day. I feel better when I drink water. I need 10 minutes of meditation at the end of the day, just to decompress… Skittles is everything else that’s going to happen throughout the day, that will consume your time. That’s the hamster wheel. You will sign into work and you’ll have 100 emails. You’ll have to run across town. Those are all Skittles. They will run your life if you don’t make time for the Oranges first! If you fill a vase with Skittles first, there’s never room for the Oranges, but if you put the Oranges in first, the Skittles will fall to the sides around the oranges. It’s about prioritizing the Oranges!”  

Marissa and her daughter

When thinking more intentionally how moms can prioritize self-care Marissa says, “It’s not rocket science! It’s actually just putting thought towards the things that make you happy or make you a better person, every day… I don’t think life is always going to be rainbows and unicorns. But you can be happy if you put energy into setting goals for yourself.”

Marissa stays on track of her daily self-development goals by tracking them on Oola’s app and connecting with their community. Whether it’s committing to a self-development tool or starting a new workout program, she says that the biggest hurdle is showing up, consistently. “You’ve got to get on the bike first! I pursued an MBA with a 6-month-old baby, while driving an hour in Orlando to go to work full-time. I was going at night...I put everything on my plate. But there’s time. There’s always time. Time is how you prioritize it.” 

Marissa is also a Certified Yoga Instructor

Marissa’s mom did prenatal yoga while she was pregnant with her in 1986, before it became popular in the mainstream. The practice is now something that Marissa carries with her, and shares with other women looking for peace and balance.

Want to make a change, get more clarity and focus? Try Oola. Marissa offers complimentary one-on-one discovery calls. She also incorporates mindfulness and yoga into her life coaching programs, a practice that is dear to her. “I’ve been doing yoga since I was in my mom’s belly, in prenatal...I am my best self when I’m on the mat and doing yoga. I like to teach the more restorative yoga classes, because I think that’s where people find their love for yoga, that’s where people find healing.”

To learn more about Oola and Marissa’s life coaching program visit her website and connect with her on Instagram.

Thanks for reading! For more tips, resources, and good energy for busy moms who want to lead healthier lives: Follow me at @getmommafied on Instagram, and subscribe to my bimonthly Mommafied Note.