Thoughts about yourself as a mom (part 3)

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Believing “I am doing it right” and “I’m giving them enough” are two essential beliefs for ambitious and balanced working moms. You need to be feeling like you are making right choices for your family, and you need to feel like you’re spending enough time with your kids. It’s about rightness and enoughness. This is part 3 of a 4-part series on the thoughts that you have about yourself and today we’re focusing on the 2 essential thoughts you need to have about yourself as a mom.

Topics in this episode:

  • It’s my birthday and I have a birthday wish

  • The amount of time you spend with your kids doesn’t dictate if it’s enough

  • The impact of changing your thoughts to believe you spend enough time with your kids and you are giving them enough

  • Your kids emotions do not dictate if you are doing it “right” as a parent

  • A client story on the impact of changing the way you think about your parenting choices

Show Notes & References:

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Transcript

Intro

I am doing it right and I'm giving them enough are two essential thoughts that we need to have as balanced working moms. 

You need to be feeling like you're making the right choices for your family, and you need to be feeling like you're spending enough time with your kids and giving them enough of your prioritization. 

It's about rightness and enoughness. 

And on today's podcast, I'm diving into each of these thoughts and why they're essential if you want to create a life that is both ambitious and balanced. 

This is part three of a four part series on the thoughts that you have about yourself. And today we're focusing on these two essential thoughts you need to have about yourself as a mom. You ready? Let's get to it. 

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms Podcast, the place for women who want to balance their ambitious career goals with their life as a mom. If you're looking to feel more confident, decisive, and productive at both work and home, then this is the place for you. I'm your host, Rebecca Olson. Let's get to it.

Friends, hello. Today is my birthday, and I can think of nothing better than spending some time writing and recording this podcast for you. 

I truly mean that. I get the biggest smile on my face when I think about this podcast and the impact that this podcast is having in the world. 

And when I just think about the movement that we're creating as working moms to have a both and life where we're not settling, where we're going after big goals and big dreams and balancing all of that with our family, I just love it. And I love being here with you today. 

And I have a little birthday request. I haven't requested this in a while, but if you are somebody that has been listening to this podcast and it has impacted your life, would you do me a little favor? 

Maybe consider it a little birthday gift, by leave a rating and a review of this podcast wherever you are, whether that's on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, it is still the most valuable way that we can get the word out to other working moms about this podcast, about this resource. 

And I read each and every one of those reviews multiple times and it brings such joy to my heart. 

I actually did that today before I even started recording today. So would you rate and review this podcast? It will only take you a couple of minutes. And I just want to thank you in advance for your time and your birthday love. 

Now, speaking of birthdays, birthdays for me tend to be a very reflective time. I'm already a reflective person, but on this day in particular, it just tends to be a lot more in depth and there tends to be a lot of emotion around it. 

So, for example, this morning I got myself up just before 06:00. I only hit the snooze button once. And I got out my yoga mat and I went onto our back patio to do 10 minutes of morning stretches in the beautiful outdoors. 

Because right now, the weather where I am at, at least in the mornings, is like, glorious. And then it gets super, super hot in the afternoon, but in the morning, it is glorious. 

And it was so beautiful. The sun was rising at that time, and the sky was just filled with oranges and pinks. It was, like, super beautiful. 

This has kind of been the norm lately with these beautiful sunrises that have been happening while I go outside and do my yoga. 

Beautiful moments to reflect on.

But today, I glanced outside, I glanced at the sunrise and I said to myself, oh, the sunrise is so beautiful for me. And my birthday today, just for me. You guys all out there simply get to benefit from the sun rising for me this morning. 

But it just made me feel so special and almost like, teary eyed how beautiful everything looked this morning as my birthday started. And then my son was the first one up and he joined me outside and he sat on my lap. 

This was after I did yoga, and he was cuddling with me. And he is still so cuddly at the age of six, and he fits still so comfortably on my lap and in my arms. It's absolutely one of my most favorite things. 

And in the morning, this morning at least, it just brought tears to my eyes because I love this kid so much and he brings me so much joy and I just feel so lucky to be his mom. 

“Full of gratitude”

And I just sat there this morning and I started thinking about those things. Everything from the sunrise to my son and my daughter and my family, to the birds chirping, to my business, to this podcast, all of the amazing, wonderful things. And I am just filled with so much gratitude. I am working at receiving all of the good feels that all these things in my life bring me. 

So today on the podcast, I want to keep all those good feelings going and I want to talk about the thoughts that you have about yourself. 

Now, if you are just tuning in for the first time, or maybe it's been a while since you've tuned in, we are in the middle of a four part series on the thoughts that you have about yourself. 

You don't have to go back and listen to either of the first two episodes, but I highly recommend going back at some point and catching yourself up, because we're not actually building over these four weeks. 

Your thoughts are your fuel.

Instead, what I've done is I've taken four different areas of life that I feel are essential in creating a life that feels balanced. And we're talking about the thoughts that you have in each of those areas of life because your thoughts are your fuel. 

They are what move you or motivate you or demotivate you. And there is a direct correlation between what you think that's the words that go through your head and what you do or your behavior. 

So if you ever are wanting something to be different in your life, if you want to change your habits, if you want to change your work habits, if you want to prioritize differently, if you want to be more present -If ever you want to have something be different in your life, the heart of that change is going to start in your head. It's going to start with your thoughts. 

And so over the course of this series, we're breaking down the thoughts that you have about yourself and your life in four very specific areas. 

In week one, we talked about the thoughts that you have about yourself in your marriage or in your partnership, or if you're single, it's your thoughts that you have about being single, right? It's the thoughts that you have about yourself as a partner and in your relationship. 

Week two, we talked about the thoughts that you have about yourself at work and the value that you provide your work. 

And today we're going to talk about the thoughts that you have about yourself as a mom. 

I started prepping for this talk by just writing down a list of thoughts that you have about yourself as a mom. I wrote down like a whole page of thoughts that one might have about themselves as a mom, particularly the good ones, the positive thoughts. And I selected two that I really want to focus on today in this podcast. 

These are definitely the two that get talked about the most with my clients. And they're kind of at the heart of what it's going to take for you to feel like a balanced working mom in particular. 

And so let's dive into the first one. This is probably the one that gets talked about the most, at least in the beginning of coaching with my clients, and that is I am spending enough time with my kids. It could also sound like I am giving my kids enough, whether that's time or energy or even money. 

This thought, I'm spending enough time with my kids. This is all about enoughness. So let's talk about why this thought is so important. 

What happens when you believe that you are not spending enough time with your kids? How does that thought make you feel? Take a moment and think about that. 

Because for most working moms, they're pretty familiar with this one. I'm not spending enough time with my kids. I'm not giving them enough, I'm not prioritizing them enough. Any kind of flavor of that thought. When you're thinking that, how does that make you feel? Not good, right? When I think that thought, I feel like a terrible mom. I feel inadequate. I feel like I'm failing my kids. I feel like a total loser as a parent. 

Now remember, your thoughts are just thoughts. They're not truth. 

So I'm not saying that you are a terrible mom. I'm not saying that you're actually failing your kids or that your priorities are all out of whack. I'm just saying that when your brain is thinking this type of thought and you're feeling like a terrible mom, it's going to be really difficult to have a life that you love. 

When you feel like you're failing as a parent, what do you do as a result of that? What are the behaviors that follow that feeling of being a terrible parent? 

You're probably beating yourself up. You keep on kind of heaping on more and more judgment, feeling like you're just not enough, you're not spending enough. You're almost, like, calculating the hours that you're not spending with your kids. 

Your brain is probably finding lots of evidence for how terrible a parent you are. And you're spending a lot of energy and mental focus comparing yourself to other working moms, how much time they spend with their kids, what they do with their kids, which probably makes you feel even worse. 

Maybe you don't make healthy choices for yourself. You don't eat well. You don't prioritize yourself because you're constantly trying to make up the time that you don't have with your kids, right? 

So you become last on the priority list, and so your health is kind of going downhill, if you will. Maybe you're gaining weight. Or maybe you just don't have those healthy habits because your kids are always seemingly coming before you, and your own health probably feel exhausted because of that, right? 

You have this layer of guilt and the failure that's kind of being heaped on you, and so you're having a hard time shaking that. 

Mom guilt.

Probably, at the very beginning of your workday, there's a lot of those feelings of guilt and failure because you've just dropped off of your kids and you have all of these emotions that are being carried over into work. And so it's hard to get started. It's hard to feel motivated. Your brain is pretty distracted all of the time, maybe, until midday or something like that. So you're just not as productive as you could be. You might even dream about quitting your job to spend more time with your kids. 

These behaviors, these things that you're doing, they're likely causing you to not feel so good about yourself and your life. And they're all stemming from this belief that you're not spending enough time with your kids, you're not giving them enough, you're not prioritizing them enough. They're stemming from this mindset. 

Enoughness is completely subjective

Now, I know that there's not a magical number up there on how much time you should be spending with your kids in order for it to feel like enough, because enoughness is completely subjective, and you just get to decide how much time, how much of your energy is enough. 

And I know this because I have clients that work full time, maybe even more than full time. I have clients that work part time. Maybe they work something like three or four days a week, and then they spend the extra time with their kids. 

And I even have clients that aren't working at all, that are in the middle of a sabbatical, are in the middle of a maternity leave, are in the middle of just deciding to be a stay at home mom for a little while, and they've recently quit their job. 

And with each one of these clients in each of these scenarios, their thoughts don't change. Some of these women feel like they spend enough time with their kids. And some of these women feel like they're not spending enough time with their kids. 

And it has no correlation to time. It's crazy, huh? 

How much time you give your kids, how much energy you give them. If you feel like you're prioritizing them in the way that you want, you just simply get to decide that now. 

Notice how it feels to think that your family is getting enough from you. 

Pause for a moment and really take that in. I spend enough time with my family. I'm giving them enough of me. How does that thought feel to you? 

For me, just when I said it, I took it in for a moment. This feeling flooded my body, this feeling of kind of being centered and settled. 

And I want you to imagine if you were feeling centered and settled because you were thinking, I spend enough time with my kids. I'm giving them enough of me. 

What would you do as a result of that? You'd probably feel a lot less guilt or indulge in feeling guilt. You probably wouldn't berate yourself as much and have all of this negative self talk. You would probably feel more satisfied in your job because you would know that your kids are taken care of and that they're getting enough of you. And so you feel free to really engage in and step it up at work. 

You probably would do better. You'd be more productive, more efficient. You would likely feel more connected to your kids and be more present with them because you're not worried so much or not triggered so much by the amount of time you're not spending with them and so you feel free to engage and just be more present. 

You're likely going to work out more or prioritize your health more because there's no guilt for going to do a workout or go on a run or go spend time with your friends or whatever it may be, because you spend enough time with your kids, right? You have that thought. 

Changing our thoughts impacts our lives in so many ways.

Can you feel the difference? Can you see the impact that this thought, I spend enough time with my kids, I'm giving them enough - How that impacts your life. 

I know I've told this story on the podcast before, but I'm going to tell it again because it's such a great illustration of what we're talking about here. But I had this client, her name was Danielle. 

At this point, it's probably been over four years, five maybe, since we worked together. But I remember so vividly in her final evaluation after our work together, she said that essentially, and I'm paraphrasing here, is that:

“The amount of time that I spend with my boys hasn't changed. It's exactly the same amount of time, and yet it feels like enough, because I've changed the way I think about how much time I spend with them.” 

Over the course of our coaching together, I challenged Danielle to stop looking at the amount of time she spent with her kids as being not enough and instead to find all of the reasons why it was true that she actually spent enough time with her kids. 

I wanted her to take all of the mental focus that she had been spending on thinking that it wasn't enough and instead flip it into thinking how it actually might be. 

Now, I didn't want her to ignore the idea that she might want to spend more time with the kids, and I want to emphasize that want piece of it, but that's very different than thinking that it's not enough. 

So I didn't want her to ignore some of those facts. I just wanted her to focus her energy more towards how it was enough instead of not enough. 

How 2 hours in the evening with her boys was actually enough time for her to hear about their day, how spending 2 hours in the evenings with her boys was enough to connect with them even on a one on one basis. 

It gave her enough time to play. It gave her time to have some connecting conversation with them. It was enough time for her kids to feel like they got all of her attention for at least some part of the day and for them to feel connected and present. 

It was enough time for her to feel satisfied and to even have a little fun from time to time, do some adventurous walks or playtime. 

2 hours on a normal weeknight can actually be enough if you decide to look at it that way. 

And by the end of her time in coaching with me, she felt so different. Not because she actually had created more time with her kids. She had just changed the way she thought about the time that she had and the way she was spending that time with her kids. 

I'm spending enough time with my kids.

So this is thought number one - I'm spending enough time with my kids, or I'm giving them enough of me. I'm giving them enough of my time, my energy, my priorities. That's number one. Some flavor of that all about enoughness. 

Feeling enough, and feeling right.

Now let's talk about thought number two, and that's - I'm doing it right. I love that the first thought is about enoughness, and the second thought is about rightness, because a lot of my coaching is about these two things feeling enough and feeling right. 

The heart of what it means to experience balance.

These emotions, in a lot of ways, are sort of at the heart of what it means or what the experience of balance is. And when it comes to being a mom, it's essential that you're feeling like you're doing it right. 

And I know from my own experience, this is not the easiest thing to believe all of the time, particularly in the beginning. 

People always say, oh, there's no roadmap to being a parent. There's no manual. And I remember a mentor of mine when I was first pregnant, she told me how she very legitimately looked at her nurse, as she was being wheeled out to the car with her newborn. She looked at her and she said, with all seriousness, you're coming with me, right? 

I remember this absolute feeling of terror when I was driving home from the hospital with my little one. This feeling of not being equipped, having no idea what to do. And this deep down, like, in the pit of my stomach fear like I was going to get it all wrong and I was going to mess up this little girl's life. 

And even as I'm saying it to you, there's tears that are sort of welling up in my eyes as I think about it. I remember the feeling, the moment so vividly, my body is actually having a reaction to it, a sense memory to that experience, to that drive home. 

I know there are tears because of that, but I also know there are tears because this thought is a thought that I know so many women have and battle every single day, not just when their kids are newborns and young, but every day as they've been a working parent. 

The fear you’re getting it wrong as a parent.

That fear that you're doing it wrong as a parent, that you could be doing it better, and that if you did, somehow it would turn out better and they would be better, their behavior would be better, that there would be less regrets. 

That idea that we could be living in that place of feeling so wrong and so potentially fearful of regret just sends, like, shivers down my spine as I think about it. 

To feel like a successful working mom, you have to feel like you're doing right by your kids. 

Not to say that you can't improve, of course, but there is this deep down feeling like you're doing it right. You're not messing them up. 

Now, the thought most women have when they start coaching with me is the opposite of that, right? Their thought is, I'm doing it wrong. And this comes up a lot. 

It's a thought that comes up when our kids are experiencing a lot of big emotions and when, there is, like, regular resistance or regular challenges or routines that parents can't seem to get into. 

Our kids big emotions, our kids resistance that sparks a lot of feelings for us as parents of failure and feeling like we're not doing it right. 

When our kids aren't listening to us, and they're not putting on their shoes, and they're running around the house away from you because of that, you might be late to work, or they might be late to school, or wherever it is. 

Or when your kid doesn't want to get in the bath and they scream and they scream, and they seem to do this every single day. Or they don't want to go to sleep and they're resisting sleep time. Or they just need you to be with them in the room until they fall asleep, right? Or maybe the struggle to sleep train, or the struggle to wean your child, where they feel kind of extra needy towards you. 

Our kids big emotions often trigger feelings like we're doing it wrong as a parent.

As if they should not be having these big feelings, they should not be upset, they should not be resisting whatever it is they're resisting. 

I've done some podcasts on this very topic, and I'm going to find a few of those and put them in the show notes, because this is such an important topic to talk about, because this thought, I'm doing it wrong as a parent - it happens so frequently for us as women, and it's so sneaky, and it has such a negative impact on us. 

Our energy drains and overwhelm takes over, and exhaustion just, like, goes through the roof, and our emotions elevate, right? And we're more likely to do things as a parent we don't like to do, like yell at our kids. 

But it's not because our kids have big feelings. It's because we're thinking we're doing it wrong as a parent because our kids have big feelings.

My client, Meredith, who I had on the podcast here, not too long ago, I can't actually remember if she talked about this on the podcast or not, but I remember that we had a session where we talked about her daughter, who was still sleeping in her room with her. 

I can't remember how old she was, but this feeling that her daughter was sleeping in her room with her, and she was three, four, five, somewhere in that range. Regardless, her thought was, she shouldn't be sleeping in our room with us, right? We're doing it wrong. 

She felt like she was doing something wrong as a parent because her daughter wouldn't sleep anywhere else except with them in bed. 

And whenever they had tried to do some other arrangement, there was, like, big influx of big feelings. And it was just emotionally traumatic for absolutely everybody in the family, including her little baby brother and so forth. 

So my client had been carrying around this feeling for a long time, these thoughts like, I'm doing it wrong. My daughter shouldn't be sleeping with us. I must be doing something wrong. 

And this feeling of guilt and this feeling of shame and confusion on what I need to be doing. And it felt very heavy, and it felt hard, and it felt like she was just carrying this around as a parent all of the time, particularly as nighttime routines happened, right? 

That was obviously the triggering moment when her daughter once again wouldn't sleep in her own room and had to sleep in her bed. These flood of thoughts of guilt, and I'm doing this wrong, and I'm a terrible parent, and what should I be doing? And this hard feelings going on inside of her body. 

Are we actually doing it wrong?

And so we started talking about this thought. We started talking about the truth on whether she was actually doing it wrong because her daughter was sleeping in her bed. And I do this a lot with my clients. 

I challenge their not enough or I'm not doing it right thoughts, and I'll ask them to argue the other side with me. 

So in this case, I had her tell me why it was actually okay that her daughter was still sleeping in her room. I wanted to know all of the reasons why this was the right decision. 

And at first, she had a really difficult time coming up with examples, but eventually she could rattle off several reasons why it was okay. For example, she was only taking on one challenge at a time with the kids. So she was actually being quite intentional about it, because they had gone through a lot of changes. I think they had moved. There was just several things going on, like on a big level for their family. 

And so prioritizing getting her daughter out of her bed just was not one of those things. So it was actually very intentional, which is a good reason why it was right. 

She was also very sensitive to her kids emotions, and it just didn't feel like she was ready, and she wasn't quite ready enough to be calm through the process. And so it just didn't quite feel like it was the right time. Again, super intentional. There's a lot of reasoning behind it that would make it actually right. 

Challenging our thoughts.

So she could actually come up with some reasons. She just had never really challenged those thoughts before, and she had to dig deep. But as soon as she was able to come up with a few reasons, it completely changed the way she was feeling about this parenting choice. 

It no longer felt wrong. She felt energized. Actually, on some level, she felt intentional. She felt like a good parent. She's like, oh my gosh, I'm actually thinking through this. There's some intention behind it, which means I'm doing it right. 

And so she stopped thinking about her daughter's crying and struggles at bedtime as a problem. And because of that, she was able to connect with her daughter on a very different emotional level. And she felt more present, more calm. There was a lot less tension. It was easier to get to bedtime after that because of all of that. 

And it was all because she changed the way she was thinking and started believing and started seeing evidence for how she was actually doing it right. 

Now, I could give you endless stories about what a difference it makes when you're making parenting choices, and you start believing that those parenting choices are, in fact, the right choices, instead of focusing on how they might be wrong or their negative impact or how they're emotionally scarring their child who doesn't seem to like it because they don't like change. And so they cry about any little difference or change or whatever it might be. 

Instead in focusing your brain on why it's right and how it could be right, I could give you endless stories about what a difference it makes when you start believing that your parenting choices are, in fact, the right choices, instead of focusing on how they might be wrong or their negative impact when you focus your brain on why they're right or at least how they could be right. 

I could give you endless examples of how when you stop labeling your kids big emotions as being wrong and because they have them, how something must be wrong. And instead, think about how their emotions are good and how you're doing it right as a parent as you navigate their big emotions. 

Maybe there's even a rightness in just being somebody that allows big emotions in their kids. 

Making this change has a dramatic effect on your life.

And when you make this change, focusing off the wrongness and intentionally believing in the rightness of you as a parent, it has this dramatic effect, and it changes the way you feel as a working mom. 

You start feeling more grounded, more intentional. You start problem solving differently, particularly when it comes to your kids. You worry less, you feel less guilty. 

You compare yourself less to other parents and other kids because you're doing it right already. You don't need to compare yourself. You feel stronger, you have a clearer mind. You feel more free and able to be more present and go on more everyday adventures with your kids. 

I am doing it right. It's a thought that you need to start cultivating in order to experience a life that truly feels balanced. 

I'm spending enough time with my kids. That was number one. I'm doing it right. Particularly as it relates to being a mom and being a parent. That's number two. 

Enoughness and rightness.

Those are the emotions we're cultivating with these thoughts. That's what we need to feel as working parents. 

And when you believe, when you have that mindset, when you have that perspective, when you push your brain to find evidence for how you are giving your kids enough time, enough energy, enough prioritization, and when you believe that you are doing it right, that doesn't mean that you can't improve of course, it just means that you are doing right by them when you're making intentional good decisions on their behalf, and you're raising them to be the emotional, intelligent, kind, and hopefully even happy human beings that we all want our kids to be. That's what this is all about. 

Next week is week four of the series, and we're going to be focusing on the thoughts that you have about your future. So you're going to want to tune into that. 

But in the meantime, here's what I know about your thoughts. You're not going to magically wake up tomorrow with a new mindset and a new perspective. 

Changing the way you're thinking and the way you're feeling about yourself and your life as a working mom requires intentionality and discipline. 

Remember, 95% of your thoughts that you have today are exactly the same thoughts that you had yesterday. Our thoughts are muscle memories. They're habits. 

So if we use the analogy of lifting weights, if you want to build muscle in your arms, you're going to need to spend time intentionally focusing on building that muscle. 

It starts with five pound weights, and then you probably move up to ten pound weights and so forth in order to gain muscle mass and create definition in your arm. It doesn't happen overnight, and it certainly won't happen if you actually don't do something tomorrow and actually go over and pick up the weights. 

The muscle in your brain is not going to change. It's not going to get sharper and clearer and more defined and more intentional. You're not going to magically stop second guessing yourself. 

What you’re doing IS enough.

You're not going to magically feel less guilt or less overwhelm unless you put intentionality into shifting what's going on in your brain, unless you do daily practices that help you to sharpen your mind and focus your thoughts on the way you're doing things right and how you are, in fact, enough and doing enough. 

This is the heart of the work that I do in coaching. It's the heart of the movement that we're creating as working moms. And I want to help you change that muscle in your brain so that you could start waking up with a different set of thoughts and feelings that make you feel so much better about yourself and your life. 

If this resonates with you and you are interested in working with me in coaching, I'm taking just a few more clients at this very moment, and I would love to work with you. 

Breakthrough Call.

The process gets started with a free coaching call. I call that a breakthrough call, and it's just a chance for us to connect over where you're at in life right now, what's going on, what it is you want in life, and really talk about the process of coaching. 

So you can go to www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book to fill out a quick little form and schedule a time for us to connect about coaching together. 

I would love to support you in this process of creating a new perspective, a new mindset in believing that you are enough, that you are right, that you are a wonderful mom, that you can, in fact, have it all, that you don't have to choose.

I can't wait to wrap this up next week as we talk about the thoughts that you have about your future. But until then, let's get to it.

Rebecca Olson