Reclaiming "I Want To": Embracing Personal Desires as a Working Mom

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In this week's episode of the podcast, I'm diving into a topic that resonates deeply with many of us as working adults—the lost art of doing things simply because they bring us joy.

We often get so caught up in the responsibilities of "adulting" that we forget to make room for what genuinely makes us happy.

Today, I'm encouraging you to reclaim that sense of fun and desire in your decisions. I'll share 3 reasons why you should reintegrate your personal desires into your decision-making process and offer a practical strategy to help you start today.

Working moms, get ready to embrace the spirit of summer and make enjoyment a part of your everyday lives! Let’s get to it.

Topics in this episode:

  • Why it's crucial to do things just because they're enjoyable. 

  • Making space for what you really want in your life choices. 

  • Easy ways to add more joy to your everyday routine. 

  • Why your happiness is as important as anyone else's. 

  • Showing kids the importance of following their passions. 

Show Notes & References:

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Transcript

Intro

There's something that every kid knows how to do that we, as adults, have completely lost sight of, and that's doing things just because they're fun and because we want to. Adulting sort of gets in the way of following our own desires and wants. 

But in order to live a regret free life, making decisions that at least take into account the things that you want and the things that bring you joy and the things that are fun is essential. 

In today's episode, I'm reminding you that you can do things just because you want to. You can make a change in your life just because it will make you happy. 

You can do something for you for no other reason except that it sounds like fun. 

I'll be covering three reasons why you need to get back in touch with the things that you desire and want and make sure that they're a part of your decision making process. And I'll offer you one very practical strategy on how you can do it today. 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. 

Hello, hello, working moms. I hope you are having an amazing summer. I want to talk to you about something that is really prominent over the summer for our kids. But for us, as working moms and as adults, we've sort of just simply forgotten how to do it. 

Summer is this time that our kids have that focuses on having fun and just doing things that bring them joy. Sleeping in or staying up a little bit later because the sun's out. Summer's just this sort of rhythm for our children that is about following your desire, right? Following the thing that's fun. 

And even if you're a mom of an infant or a toddler and you don't really have a summer schedule with your kids, like, because your kids don't go to school or anything like that, all of us, I think, can remember this feeling of summer coming and the sort of looseness that comes with summer. 

And so in the spirit of summer and the spirit of fun, I want to talk about this thing that gets lost as we become adults and as we start doing kind of adult like things, and that is choosing to do something simply because you want to do it. 

I want to. 

That's not, like, a reason that likely comes up a whole lot for you anymore, or it's not a reason that you think is justifiable anymore. 

And I want to make an argument today for why I want to. Or just having a pure desire for something is enough of a reason for you to go after it. 

I coach ambitious working moms in helping them continue towards their career goals and have a really impactful career after having kids. 

And there's one thing that I've noticed in many of the hundreds of women that I've worked with over the last seven years, and then I've even noticed it in my own life. 

And it's this resistance to doing things, whether that's like taking time to care for yourself each day or to work out or do something just for you, or whether that's sort of a big change. 

Like you want to make a big career change in your life, or you want to really change up your schedule, you want to learn how to prioritize differently. And what happens after we become a mom is sort of our mama bear instincts take over, and this resistance, or almost this feeling of being immobilized happens that we can't actually follow our own desire. 

Our desire gets lost.

Our own desire sort of gets lost in the shuffle of our kids needs and our family needs, and then, of course, our career needs and so forth. Right. Let, me give you a few examples. 

I remember one of my clients a few years ago. She felt this immense amount of guilt for taking time on Saturday mornings to go work out. Her kids were younger and, like, maybe like two or three, or she had two of them under the age of three, something like that. Her kids were younger, and Saturday mornings was, like, one of the key times that she had identified that she could step away and get a full workout in. 

But she felt like, laden, if you will, burdened with guilt for a couple of reasons. One is because she was putting the childcare then all on her husband, and she felt an immense amount of guilt about that because her kids were a handful and at a young age. 

And then two, you know, she spent all this time working during the week, and this was a time that she could be spending with her kids, and she wasn't. She was choosing to work out instead. 

Resistance to follow through with our desires. 

And there was this resistance for her to actually follow through and do something just for her because it felt good to her. Right. All of this guilt and so forth that comes up. 

I had a client named Laura, and at this point, it was probably like four years ago that we coached together. And she had, this dream of leaving her full time job, which was, she was very good at and was well paid in to start her own business. And she had just had this dream of a lifestyle where she, she did things that she wanted to do in her work life as an entrepreneur. 

And she was always home when her kids got off the bus from school, and she sort of had the bandwidth and the time to learn how to play guitar and do some of these other types of dreams that she had - volunteer, I remember, was one of these things. 

But it almost felt impossible for her to leave that steady job, which she was very successful at, in order to follow this dream, which was something she desperately wanted to do. 

And she ended up hiring me in order to make that dream happen. We did it, actually, within the six months that we were coaching together. But that's like a whole other story. Just really excited for her and continue to get these updates from her about her leaving that full time job and her business and her life. It's so good. 

Just saw one recently on LinkedIn, actually. But when she started with me, it felt almost impossible, right? She couldn't follow that desire. I had a, recent client, Melissa. She was recently on this podcast where she really wanted to go after some hobbies that, she wanted to explore pottery, she wanted to read more books, she wanted to go and travel more. 

And she wasn't making any time for these things because she felt like she had so much responsibility at home, taking care of her two sons. Her job was very demanding, she had a team to manage, and she just didn't feel like she could prioritize herself. 

Believing that you can be the priority. 

And so when we started coaching together, she started working with me in order to start believing that she could be the priority. And she started learning the practical tools of managing her time, her ambitions, and the things that she wanted for herself with all of the other things that she had going, all the responsibilities, essentially, she had going on for her. 

I mean, I could tell you countless stories, right, of moms that have, some sort of desire to do something, to make a change, to go after something, and they can't, or they're struggling to do it because I want to doesn't feel like enough. 

In fact, for many people, many women that I work with, it feels irresponsible, it feels selfish, right? 

My daughter and I just took a walk last night, just the two of us, yesterday. We had to have this kind of, this very important kind of real talk conversation about some decisions that she had made that were against the rules, and she knew they were against the rules. 

And when I asked her why she did some of these things. It was really simple to her. Her answer was, you know, profoundly simple. She said, I just wanted to. She didn't care the consequence. She knew the consequence. She didn't care. She didn't care the impact it had on me or the family or whatever. She just wanted to. 

And over the weekend, it was really hot where I live, it was like in the eighties and nineties and so forth. And so we have this ten foot pool that we put up during the summer. It's just like an above ground pool, 3ft deep, 10ft round. We put it up last week because we were going through these heat waves. 

And yesterday my daughter got into the pool because it was hot and she swam for quite some time. And then she came out and she took a shower and she got dressed and whatnot. 

And then a couple of hours later, she wanted to go back out and she was like, mom, can I go swimming again? And I sort of hesitated because I'm like, well, you just took a shower and you, you know, you're all clean now and you're gonna have to take another shower. And I was like, all right, you know, why not go for it? 

So she went out, she swam, her brother swam with her and so forth. And eventually she came back in, she took another shower and we actually started to run some errands. 

So I left with the kids, we ran to target, we went to get some ice cream, we came back and she's like, mom, can I. Can I go swimming? So now it's the third time and I'm, like, thinking to myself, come on, you've taken three showers. You keep getting. I don't know how many laundry now, how many, like, swimsuits and the laundry that I have to go through to accommodate this. 

But in her mind, it's like, well, why not? It's something I want to do. It sounds like fun, why not do it? And I, of course. Well, maybe not. Of course. In this case, I said, sure, why not? Let's go swimming for a third time, right? 

But for her, it was logical in her ten year old brain because she just wanted to do it. What happens when we get older, particularly when we start having kids, is we stop making decisions based on desire and want, and instead. Instead, we start making decisions based on what's best for other people, for our kids, based on what is most responsible. 

Making decisions just because it feels good.

And we sort of get out of practice in making decisions just because we want to, just because it feels good, just because it would be fun. Just because we have a desire to do it. 

Instead, things need to feel justified if you want to make a really big change in your career. It's really hard for your adult brain to sort of justify it unless you're really unhappy and that unhappiness is impacting your family or your life, or your health, or your marriage or your finances in some way. 

Now, I'm not saying you should do anything you want just because you want to do it right. You likely can't just quit your job tomorrow and not work because the trade off of doing that would be too impactful for you and your family. 

Getting back in touch with your desire.

Now, I'm not suggesting becoming irresponsible. What I am suggesting is just getting back in touch with your own desire, your own wants, and letting that be a factor in your decision making. 

Now, I want to offer to you three reasons why I think this is so important to you and that you need to start implementing this right away. And then I'm going to give you one very practical strategy that you can implement starting today in order to help get in touch with your desires and your wants. Likely something that you haven't done in a really long time. 

So let me give you three reasons why I think this is so important. And this first reason is probably the only reason we ever need. But, I’m going to give you two more, but I think this could be like, full stop right here after this reason. You ready? 

You're worth it. 

That's the really the only reason you ever need. You matter just as much as any other human being on this planet. 

Your kid or your kids do not matter more than you. 

The happiness of your partner, of your parents, of your boss, of your friends, of your clients, of anyone else in your life, their happiness doesn't matter more than yours.

Your happiness has equal weight to theirs. There's no hierarchy when it comes to happiness. 

You are deserving of it, just like everyone else. 

“I don’t want to appear selfish.”

The most common rebuttal that I hear from my clients when I suggest this to them, that their happiness is of equal weight, is they tell me, well, I don't want to appear selfish. I don't want other people to think that I'm selfish or that I'm prioritizing myself above them or above my work or whatnot. 

I actually had a client that recently told me this. She had been scheduling her workouts during her lunch hour, which was for her, the best time for her to be doing these workouts, and she wasn't keeping to them, so she was putting them in her calendar. But then she was, letting people schedule over them. 

She was taking client meetings during that time. She was kind of doing anything else but actually working out during that time. 

And when I said, why are you doing that? She said, basically, I mean, it took us a little bit to dig deep into this, but essentially what it came down to is she said, I don't want other people to think that I'm prioritizing my personal life over my work. 

Sounds kind of funny to say it that way. Right? 

But I bet there's a good portion of the listeners that operate under that same story that they don't want other people to think that they're prioritizing something other than work. 

I think since the pandemic, you know, people are more willing to show their personal life to their colleagues, to their boss, to their clients, but it still feels really awkward, and there's a sort of a guilt or a shame or embarrassment, really, that is associated to it. Right. 

When your kid might be home sick from school or something like that, and they make an appearance on the Zoom call, there's sort of embarrassment about that. You have to apologize because your kid showed up. Right? As if something is wrong or you're doing something wrong. 

You are being a great mom, and you are getting your job done. You're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. 

You are just as important as anyone else. Your desires and your wants are just as important as anyone else's. 

The second reason I wanna offer to you that it's important to start making decisions based on your desires and your wants and letting them be kind of a, contributing factor to your decision making. This is so motivating to me. 

This reason is so motivating to me, and I think it will be for you, is that you want to teach your kids to do the same. And if I'm honest, particularly you want to teach your daughters to do the same. 

As far as the feminist movement has taken us in being considered equal and being treated equal as women, we are still not equal. And even though we give a lot of lip service, we give a lot of words, and language. We talk about equality more than anything else. 

We have more equity and inclusion departments in our companies and in the business world than we ever have been before. 

Embedded in our culture is this idea that women are supposed to sacrifice. 

Women are portrayed more in their homemaking role than they are in their professional one across all media channels. Embedded in our culture is the idea that we, as women we should want to serve others. And if we want to change that narrative for the next generation, we need to take part in that change. 

Not only do our daughters need to see us following our own desires and our own wants and going after our own dreams, no matter what, we also need to be speaking up about it and narrating that to our children, that the choices we make as women, as moms, as professionals, are for us, right? Are for our deep down dreams. 

And if you don't want your children to be people pleasers that are constantly sacrificing themselves for others and their own desires and their own needs for the sake of others, it starts with you. I know I can get on my high horse about that one. 

The third reason I want to offer to you on why you need to be making your desires and your wants a part of your decision making process is that it mitigates regret.

When my clients come to me in that very first call, I call that a breakthrough call. They share with me their goals and their dreams and all of the desires that they have for themselves in their life. 

And some of those are really big changes, like big career changes, industry changes. they want to start a business, they want to go after a big dream. 

And for other people, it's just simply learning to have a priority first life, a, life where you are the priority, your kids are a priority, and then work is the priority. And really learning how to balance those two things in a much more effective and successful way. 

But whatever those changes are, I always ask the same question. And if you book a call with me, I'm going to ask the question of you, too, so be prepared. It's this, why? 

Why is this change so important to you? 

And there's a very common reason, I would say 90% of women that come to me, that they say the exact same thing. In fact, I said the same thing when I was going through big changes, starting my business, getting out of what I was doing before, and starting coaching and so forth, it was the same reason for me as well. 

And it's this… I don't want to regret my life. I don't want to regret not making a change when I could have made a change. 

There are two regrets that I hear most often from women, or like fear of regrets. And it's not making the career change or like not going after the career that they wanted that would have made them happier or more successful or whatever it is. Or it's not regretting spending enough time, really with their kids when they're younger. 

Eliminating regret.

But when you allow your own desires and your own wants to become an important factor in your decision making process, you will virtually eliminate regret, right? Even if you don't actually decide to make the change, even if you sort of keep things the status quo, you don't change the job right now or whatnot. 

The fact that you're even thinking about what you want and what you desire, and you're weighing that against your options and your current circumstances, and you're deciding trade offs. Like when your wants and your desires are in the mix of that decision making process, it is near impossible for you to actually experience regret because you're consciously making decisions. 

And when you're consciously making decisions, you're thinking about priorities and you're thinking about trade offs, and you're deciding those things based on what's most important to you, right? And so there's virtually no regret that can actually happen. 

Regret happens when you make decisions based on have tos based on what other people want for you. Never when it comes to want tos. 

So if you've been out of practice in thinking about your own desires and your own wants, summer is the perfect time to get back in touch with that. It's very simple. 

Here's what I want you to do right now. I want you to think about this question. I write it down so you have it for yourself every single day. Here's the question. 

What's the one thing I want to do today? Just for me now? 

It's okay if the answer to that question is related to work or productivity or sort of getting something done, it's okay. 

Eventually, what's going to happen is you're going to ask that question and your brain is going to offer to you something that's non work related, something that's just sort of for fun or something that just feels nourishing to you. 

Your brain's going to offer to you…

  • I just want to go out for dinner today and not cook. 

  • I want to take a bath instead of a shower. 

  • I want to just go pee without a tiny human bothering me today. 

  • I don't want to wash the dishes. 

  • I want to curl up and watch a Netflix show that just I want to watch with nobody else around me. 

  • I want to get a massage. 

  • I want to sit on my deck and read a book. 

  • I want to work on my family photo book. 

What is the one thing that you want to do for you today? One thing that would make you feel really good about your life, that will bring you energy and joy and satisfaction? 

Pick one thing and do it for yourself today. And then ask yourself tomorrow, what's the one thing I want to do for just myself today and then do it. And then ask yourself the next day, what's the one thing I want to do for myself today and then do it. 

Accountability.

One of the benefits of hiring me as a coach is accountability. When you make a financial and time investment with me as your coach toward the goal of having a wildly successful career while feeling balanced and calm in the process, I'm going to hold you to it 3 times a month. 

We're going to meet for 6 months, 3 times a month. So 18 sessions. We're going to talk about what it looks like for you to have the ambitious and balanced life that you want, what's getting in the way of you having it, and then talk through all of the essential tools and processes you need in order to make it happen. 

When you hire me as a coach, you will mitigate almost all regret. Because every week you are forcing yourself to think about the things that you want and the things that you desire at a deep down core level. 

And then as your coach in this case, I'm going to be helping you to measure progress, hold you accountable to making progress week after week after week to making your desires and wants happen. 

I don't let you off the hook. 

If you have been feeling completely burned out by what you're doing and you want to learn how to prioritize yourself and your kids without compromising your success or your productivity, then I'm the coach for you. 

If you have a dream…

A dream of changing jobs, doing something different, doing something that's more impactful or fulfilling, that's based more on your values and your desires and your wants, I'm the coach for you. 

You can learn more about coaching with me and working with me and going after that regret free life where you are the priority. By going to my website www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com where we where you'll learn more information about not only coaching, but exactly what you need to do to schedule that free coaching call and for us to connect over your dreams and wants working moms. 

You deserve it. The next generation deserves it. And you can live a regret free life. I can help you do it. 

All right, until next week, have fun and let's get to it.

Rebecca Olson