Everything to everyone all at once (with Kim Nguyen)

Follow the show:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Everywhere else

In this episode, I sit down with Kim, my coaching client to talk about managing a successful career and being a devoted mom. We dive into how society often expects us to be everything to everyone all at once, the importance of truly being present in both our professional and personal lives, and how coaching turned out to be a lifesaver for her in navigating a balanced life. 

Kim shares her personal journey of how coaching opened her eyes to what's genuinely important and taught her to be at peace with the balancing act of career and family life. 

This episode all about shaking off the guilt, discovering what really drives us, and making choices that allow us to thrive in our careers while being a present and connected mom.

Topics in this episode:

  • It’s okay not to be perfect.

  • Sorting out what really matters to you, both as a mom and in your career.

  • Looking after your mental health and dealing with the mom guilt.

  • Highlighting how coaching can really change the game for moms trying to juggle it all.

  • Personal growth, figuring out who you are, and making choices that fit your life.

Show Notes & References: 

Enjoying the podcast?

Transcript

Intro

Hey working moms. Excited to have you here with us on the podcast today. We are joined by a client of mine that just recently finished coaching with me. Her name is Kim, and we are diving into this idea that we have as women that we need to be everything to everyone all at once. 

And she is sort of debunking this idea because it's something that really struck her over the course of coaching. And what does it really look like to not be everything to everyone all at once, but to be a more curated version of herself, a prioritized version of herself, someone that is constantly leaning into her priorities instead of trying to feel like she's trying to be everyone to everything. 

And so, today on the podcast, we talk about what it means to be present. We talk about the importance of clarifying your own priorities, your own values, and sort of having a roadmap for that. We talk about not letting other people's emotions kind of mean anything about you personally. 

There's so many good things that she jumps into that she had learned over the course of coaching that she shares with us today. It's gonna be a good one, so let's jump in. All right, working moms, 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. 

Rebecca: All right. Hello, Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms community. Thank you for being with us here again today. I'm just super excited because I have a past client, we actually just finished a couple, weeks ago. 

I have Kim with us today on the podcast, and I'm excited for her to be here and to share some of her experience in coaching and to be talking about this topic today. 

We're talking about just this kind of belief that we tend to hold as women and particularly as moms, that is, like, we gotta be everything to everyone all at once. 

And Kim and I had sorts of the bits and pieces of this conversation over the last six months together in our coaching experience, and so I'm excited to kind of pick a brain and talk about this. Thanks for being here today, Kim.

Kim: Thank you for having me.

About Kim

Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. Let's get started with just, you know, tell us a little bit about yourself. You know, how many kiddos do you have? What do you do? Just give us a little context.

Kim: Yeah, so I have one kiddo in her tail end of the toddler years. She's turning four this summer, and I think the ramping up from baby, which doesn't say anything and just smiles at you and can't move to sassy toddler now, telling you what's what, came a lot faster than I expected.

Rebecca: Ah, yeah, for sure. For sure, man. I am, my nine year old. Let me tell you, I'm constantly surprised these days about what is happening as she's getting older. So I agree on that.

Kim: Yeah. I feel like just as you're getting into, okay, I think I understand how I'm going to balance my time in a child or work in a child. They change on you and got to figure that all over again.

New seasons of life.

Rebecca: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think that was, there was a piece of that that brought you to coaching, right. That there was this new season of life, new demands, new priorities, wanting to be successful in lots of areas of life and kind of going, okay, you know, how do I do this? 

But tell us a little bit about, you know, coming to coaching and what led you to decide to kind of go the coaching route and get some help.

Kim: Yeah, so I work in e-commerce, in digital. It's a fast moving space. And I was starting to feel a little like I was caught up in swirl, and I couldn't pinpoint if it was because I was working in this fast moving industry or if it was because I had a little pandemic baby or if it was because, because, because. 

And I really wanted to try and put my finger on a bit more or even better, start to tune some of it out and figure out what was it that I should be paying attention to and what was just noise. 

“Who am I now that I've had this child.”

And I think, you know, with a kid, that changes all the time. I felt like I was constantly trying to keep up with her changes, and in a way, felt like I was losing a sense of, well, what is my North Star.? Like, who am I now? Who am I now that I've had this child, that I've reached this point in my professional career, just, a little bit of a reset and taking that time and doing the work with you to figure out what mattered to me anymore. 

Rebecca: Yeah. I actually like the way you said it. You said, tune things out. Oftentimes we think about, when we think about priorities, we think about it as what's the priority list, right? It's like, what makes the list? 

What am I going to let go of?

But sometimes we want to think about it on the opposite. It's like, what am I just not going to do, like, what am I just going to let go of altogether and let the other things kind of rise up, rise to the surface in some way.

Kim: Yeah. And I think every parent, every person feels stretched in different directions. But I was starting to notice that when I felt stretched, I was almost missing or had forgotten a compass to help me figure out where to prioritize.

The internal compass.

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. And we did. You know, this is one of the things I do with all my, my clients is I help them create what I call their internal compass. That's defining your values and your identity and your purpose. And so we did that work together. How was that helpful to you?

Kim: I think it helped me really define the things that were the non negotiables I think we talked about early on. Like, what were the things that were the non negotiables, and also what were the things that I found mattered in each of the spaces that I was showing up. 

“As a woman, when you're told that you can be anything, sometimes you hear you have to be everything.”

So, you know, I come back to this thought a lot. That's a paraphrased, Fridge magnet saying, but I like it. As a woman, when you're told that you can be anything, sometimes you hear you have to be everything. And starting to come back to when I'm at work, do I have to care about every single aspect of that? 

Or what are the things about work that I enjoy, that I value? And what are the things with my time with my daughter that I enjoy, that I value, rather than just the constant streams of guilt that were the nonstop guilt train as a mother sometimes.

Rebecca: Yep. Yeah, definitely. What did you learn about your own priorities and what you personally needed to let go of?

Feeling guilt as a working mom.

Kim: I found that with work, I definitely realized that, one of the things that I was getting really beat up about was just feeling guilty for liking work, feeling guilty for enjoying the mental challenge and the time that I wanted to put in to solve these puzzles and recognizing that one of the things is important to me is creativity. And that sense of problem solving. 

Once I realized that, it helped me realize, okay, then if it's about trying to help find an answer to a problem, I'm going to put that time towards that. But if it's about just spinning, just a spin, okay, maybe that's not important. And that's the thing I'm going to put down on the ground. 

And I think before we did that value mapping, it made me feel like all of the things were equal at work, that every conversation was equal, that every meeting was equal, that every task on my to do list was equal.

Rebecca: Yeah. Every request of your time and energy, every little ping that came in as a question, all of it was equal.

Kim: All of it was equal. And all of it had to get done. And then that competing priority of then, as a parent, as a relatively new parent, you're told that everything matters, everything they do matters, everything they eat matters, everything they wear matters. 

What is important in my relationship with my daughter?

And starting to, in the work that we did together, start to really focus on, well, what is important in my relationship with my daughter, and what are the things that I really value in bringing to her little world, and realizing that actually the things I was bringing to her world that I value in showing up as a mother, were the things to focus on. And they were doing perfectly great. And it didn't require me to also be doing the other endless list of things, you're told you have to do, feel like you have to do.

Rebecca: Yeah. You know, one of the things that struck me, and one of the reasons why I think this I asked you to be on this podcast is because we were having this conversation a couple weeks ago, and how you had said that you're, you know, a mom, a mom friend, or you were in a group of friends or whatever that had come to you and just used this phrase: I kind of feel like I gotta be everything to everyone all at once. 

And you have learned how to balance this well over the course of our six months together. And I really wanna pick your brain and kind of insight into how have you been able to quiet some of these voices as you've kind of been talking about? 

Silencing the guilt.

How have you been able to silence some of the guilt or the demands and kind of decide. Cause a lot of this is in the moment decisions, right. It's like, oh, do I take that meeting request? Do I pivot right now, or do I stay late to finish the thing, or do I not? How have you been able to manage those kinds of requests and the demands of your time?

Kim: I think part of it is being more present where I am so that I don't feel that guilt that I should be somewhere else. When I was feeling all that guilt, I was not being present. And then by not being present, I felt more guilty.

Rebecca: Yeah. You don't do your best work when you're not present, right?

Kim: Right, in any job. And I think in the work we were doing, it was really about being present, because, you know, you made that intentional choice. 

Choosing between two good choices.

I think something that you taught me, in one of our sessions was that they're trade offs because they're both good things and it's a choice. And once I started to think about these things that way, that it wasn't that I was making a bad choice, I was choosing between two good choices.

Rebecca: And inevitably, icky feelings were going to come with that in the end.

Kim: Yeah. And then it wasn't about, like, did I make the right choice, but that I had two right choices and I chose one. 

And I think that really helped me shift that mindset because otherwise, I was wondering constantly, did I make the right choice today? Did I make the right choice in this moment versus, I had two good choices. This is the one I chose. I know why I chose them. 

It's because I value creativity, it's because I value contentment. It's because I value adventure, etcetera. Then was able to feel really good about it because I picked from two good options rather than the fear of not picking the right one.

Rebecca: Yeah, I love that. So you kind of got out of the right/wrong mentality. And, even the storytelling, we like to tell ourselves when something feels bad, to sometimes choose one of the options and then have to let go of the other option when you kind of want both to happen. And then we make that mean that it must be the wrong option because it feels so bad to sometimes have to trade it off. Right. 

And so you kind of got out of all that storytelling and just said, isn't it lucky that I have two great options here? Which one do I want? Which one resonates with me? Which one am I most drawn to what makes sense based on my priorities. 

Making confident decisions.

I mean, now all of a sudden, you had a whole host of ways you could make that decision and feel really confident about it.

Kim: Yeah. And I think also, you know, in our conversations together, really realizing that that could change that. When I made one choice, it didn't have to be the rule for every single time I then had that situation come up.

But that if I, in that week, chose to work late, it didn't mean that I was now this person who was constantly working late and not having any sort of personal time. It was that, this week I chose to work late. It's because I wanted to solve this problem, push this project forward, but it didn't necessarily define how I approach everything.

Rebecca: Yeah. There's seasons, right? Today you can make a decision, tomorrow you can make a different decision, or this week I'm making this decision, and next week I'm going to make a different decision.

Kim: Absolutely.

Rebecca: One of the things you said just a couple of weeks ago, you were talking about how you really have gotten to this place where when you spend time with your daughter and you've made a decision to spend time with her, not only do you do feel present, but it feels enough to you, perhaps, in a way that it didn't early on. Tell us about that.

Kim: Early on, I was guessing at whether I was doing things right. Capital R. And this is probably a hangover from the good girl school days. I was just guessing, like, am I doing this right? This whole motherhood thing? This whole working motherhood thing? Am I in this career?

Rebecca: Am I doing it right by her? Am I raising her right?

“Am I going to regret these choices?“

Kim: Sure. And I think you, at one point in our, time together, we also did that regret mapping. And I think that was always a fear of mine. Am I going to regret these choices? 

“I’m focused on the things that I consider important as values to our family.”

How I'm spending my time and moving out of that regret, stage and actually enjoying more of the confidence that comes with the knowledge that, oh, I know that when I'm with her and I'm spending time with her, I'm focused on the things that I consider important as values to our family. 

And those things are showing up in her life and letting that be enough, because it is. It's more than enough. Rather than feeling like there was a playbook that I was just guessing at, it was really my playbook.

Naming your regret free life.

Rebecca: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And having defined some of those, the regret mapping that you're talking about, I call that kind of naming your regret free life. 

It's one of the workbooks that I give my clients to do as we really think long term about, you know, what are you going to get to the end of your life and say that you were, you know, most proud of, that you cared about? 

What are you going to really look back on and being able to use that and kind of see today and go, what am I valuing today that I probably just need to let go of? Or I'm overvaluing, or I'm undervaluing whatever it is. 

And so that we can kind of work our way backwards, if you will, from this vision of the future life, ultimately that you are working toward. 

Whats most important to you.

And, it just gives your brain a sense of direction when you know what's most important to you and when you know what you care about as a parent, and if you know what the values are that you want to instill in your kids, you know, then all of a sudden, when you name those things when they're conscious in your mind, you could actually do the work to then prioritize them.

What does your perfect week look like.

Kim: Yeah, I think also helping me verbalize it so that it wasn't a thing that I wanted, that was just sitting, in my heart as this quiet little thing, but actually being able to say, okay, this is important to me that at least twice a week I go and pick up my daughter. I think we did some work around, like, what does the perfect week look like? And twice a week, I get to walk home with my daughter, hand in hand, down the street, from school.

Rebecca: Save her from bicyclists that are going down the street.

Kim: Save her from the crazy New York bicyclist. I think then it was okay. If I'm not picking her up five days a week, that's okay. She's delighted that two days a week we have our own special little rituals. 

And then also once I was like, that's what's important in my week. I have to meet those table stakes. Maybe I'll do more, but I'm always going to try and at least see if I can do these two days a week. Depends on the week. 

But then also putting that in my calendar and being able to tell my team, hey, this is the thing I've got to do. This is why it's important to me. This is what the experience is. And letting that be just part of my work routine as well, rather than keeping it to myself and then just trying to slip away and balance it all. 

I think the more I almost involved my team in that visibility, the easier it was, because then it was easier to plan around. It was easier to have more visibility around, ultimately feel less like you're trying to do it all by yourself.

Rebecca: Yeah, I love that. transparency is everything, and it's everything right now, as a culture, we start shifting the way we're viewing working parents and valuing working parents and the juggle that they have in their schedule. We want people to be transparent. 

It's a good thing to want to be a great parent, and the workplace needs to be valuing that on some level, because we want to be valuing the next generation of workforce that's coming up and so many things. 

So I love that you started doing that with your team and found that to be something that was actually a part of the process for you. Useful, right, to be able to name it to them. 

But you also, I think, coming back to this idea of not feeling guilt, not feeling guilt that it's not five days a week, that it's just two. And that's what you decided and you’re feeling good about it. 

How are you able to really decide that two was. Was good and you were happy with that and there was no regrets with two?

Kim: I want to say trial and error, but I think it's also coming back to our earlier comment. It was moving away from my have to, have to do two, which is then its own kind of pressure to. I'm going to block these two days out. If something comes up. I'll figure that out. 

“Making that a priority, but also not a pressure.”

But there might be some weeks where then I'm going to do more. Maybe a quieter week or my husband's traveling and I need to do more. And being mindful of how important that time with her is and how much I enjoy that time and she enjoys the time. Making that a priority, but also not a pressure. 

I think before when I first approached coaching with you, I was seeing all these things as pressure and not priority. And it was just this pressure to have to do it.

Rebecca: Yeah. This is something I’m supposed to do, right. This is what everybody says I'm supposed to want or I'm supposed to do to be a good mom or whatever it is.

Kim: Yeah. So the two really came from then starting to find that rhythm of what the work would look like between me and my husband and my daughter's various schedules and routines. But I think it also just felt like something was manageable and accomplishable. Accomplishable. It's not a real word. Attainable, accomplishable? it felt like I was setting a goal that I could commit to. 

Making choices to hit goals.

And the reason I felt like I could commit to it was because I felt like I understood what choices to make together. Like I understood that. Okay, then in that case, if I want to do this thing, then I'm going to have to make some choices about which meetings are the priority and, whether I'm going to open my laptop to get that thing done tonight. Because then I know it creates this space for this thing that is important to me.

Rebecca: Yep. So then some of those decisions to work late or say no to a meeting or do whatever needs to get done in order to prioritize that pickup with your daughter, all of a sudden, those moments felt intentional, and they felt decided and chosen and proactive instead of the have to’s and the pressure and the overwhelm. And I didn't get it done. So I got to do it or whatever, that kind of spiral that we can get into where we're trying to be everything and everything to everything and everyone. What is it? Everything to everyone all at once.

Kim: Right.

Deciding who you want to be.

Rebecca: But now you're actually just deciding who you're going to be, to whom and when.

Kim: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think it was always really important to me to still, which is why I was always drawn to your podcast and wanted to work with you, was because I always wanted to hold on to that ambition. 

And I love what I do at work. I love my job, I love my team, and I wanted to really not feel like it was a bad thing, that it was the bad choice or the wrong choice or that it was any sort of sacrifice. 

And so being able to see that time then with my daughter in that way where it's, oh, we're really getting that quality time because I am more present. It is more intentional, and it's not just because I'm trying to do everything.

Rebecca: Yeah, you're not squeezing it in. You're literally prioritizing it.

Kim: Yeah. Yeah. I've made choices to be here rather than I'm here because this is the time that I could fit in, but maybe I should be somewhere else.

Rebecca: Yeah. I mean, you said this early on, just, you know, as we started this podcast, when you were talking about guilt, you didn't want to give up your career. You really loved working, and that was a source of guilt on some level, that you you were enjoying what you were doing, and you didn't want to sacrifice that for the sake of your family. 

And, of course, I have no doubt that you would, if it was ever required or whatever was, you know, emergency needed in order to be there for your daughter. She's number one. Obviously, that's not what we're talking about. 

It was just this source of, like, oh, I'm supposed to want to pick her up every day after school and prioritize that, and I'm supposed to want to be the mom that is at absolutely everything that's going on and giving her, you know, opportunities to absolutely everything, because that's what a good mom does, right.

And except that there wasn't that bandwidth because there was this career that you wanted. There was the ambition that was inside of you that you didn't want to let go of. And over the course of our six months together, I'm curious how you would frame that now.

Kim: The big decisions are easy, right? Is she the number one priority? Yes. If something happened and I had to go and pick her up because school called me. Absolutely. 

It was the small decisions that I really struggled with, and I feel like now, the small decisions, I feel much more confident in making. 

Being confident in decision making.

The big decisions, you ask any parents. Yeah, duh. but the little ones that we're faced with every day, those are the ones that I just didn't, I realize now, looking back, didn't have the confidence when I was making them because I wasn't quite sure if I was making those decisions in line with what was quotation marks at best or what was actually truly important to me and important to our family and who was I making these decisions for and how was I making them? 

And I think a lot of the work we did together just made me better understand how I was reaching those choices and the fact that I was making those choices. 

I was intentionally choosing those things based on what was important to me, based on how I eventually envisioned that regret free life, based on what I knew I needed that week. 

And so those little choices just didn't feel as tumultuous because I had a better sense of who I was when I was making them and what I was choosing between.

Clarity in coaching.

Rebecca: Yeah. What keeps surfacing is how important the clarity aspect of our coaching was together. Clarifying the values, clarifying the priorities, clarifying the regret free life. 

Like clarifying for you, for Kim, what was important and why it was important and how you were kind of hardwired and driven and bringing, like literally putting words to those things. 

You know, we spent a lot of time putting words to things and describing things that felt that were, that were always a part of you. Right. We were just finding a way to actually consciously speak about it so that as you went about making decisions, your brain had something to go on. Right. 

Not this kind of wishy washy, I don't wishy washy mixture of what other people are doing comparing to other moms, to culture, to, you know, how you were raised, to all the other influences that we have, we were kind of silencing those and just finding Kim and her voice and her desires.

Trusting yourself and the decisions you make.

Kim: Yeah. It was. Rather than, when we're making that decision, am I making it from the lens of being a good mother, good wife, good employee, good manager, good blah, blah, blah, and just actually taking that definition of good out of it and just, am I making these decisions as me and trusting that me knows what's good for me and my family? 

The struggle with being everything to everyone all at once.

Rebecca: Yeah. I love that. So oftentimes people think that they have to choose. That's part of the struggle with being everything to everyone all at once is we're trying not to choose on some level, and we are trying to literally do it all and kind of prove that we can do it all on some level. 

But we've been talking about making the kind of little choices, the daily choices of following your priorities and then being okay with that. 

But if we zoom, like, all the way out, working moms feel like they have to choose between their child and being a good mom, and they feel like they have to choose between that and being good at their job, but there just isn't. There isn't both. 

I was just talking to a working mom today that said, you know, there's no Venn diagram going back to, like, school school times. There's no Venn diagram that has the circles overlapping where you get to be both. Right. We don't have that in our mind. And yet, I think you've really done such a great job of finding that middle ground between those two things. 

What do you think it has been that has really allowed you to not feel like you have to choose, but that you really have been able to be the mom that you want to be and be successful in your job in the way that you want to?

“I can be a mother and a ambitious working professional.”

Kim: Realizing that I can be lots of things. Like many things can be true. I can be a mother and a ambitious working professional and a person who enjoys sitting in the sauna for hours at the gym and to the topic of this conversation, not have to be them in every situation and be present. 

So when I am at work, I am being present and really, being able to think about things and make those choices and feel like I'm making those choices from one viewpoint rather than trying to please every viewpoint in my brain and feeling like there's not…part of making a choice is picking one thing rather than trying to have it all. 

And I think feeling like I could pick one thing in that mini choice that I was making, and I knew who was picking it. I knew that it was okay. I'm picking this because the work me really prioritizes this kind of thing, and this fits into this criteria, and then the. Yep, that's it. That's what I've decided. And not letting the other voices that said I shoulda, coulda, woulda question that choice.

Rebecca: Do you have an example of this?

Kim: One example would be that I work in e commerce, and Black Friday, Cyber Monday is, of course, the super bowl of our industry.

Rebecca: Yes.

Kim: And there was a time when I was, oh, wow. Okay. It's Thanksgiving, and I need to do some work. And thinking, oh, but it's meant to be this family time and should I actually be instead making hand print cookies with Elsa or something when they thought it was something? Making handprint turkeys with my daughter and realizing, actually, this, is important to me. It's a professional…I don't want to use the word obligation because it makes it feel like I was forced to do it. It's just something that was important to me. 

Rebecca: Yeah, it’s the crux of the year for you ultimately, and, it's pivotal, and you want it to be successful. It's important to you.

“…things don't have to be justified as to why they're important.”

Kim: Yeah. And I don't. I think that's also in the work that we were doing, is, like, things don't have to be justified as to why they're important. If they're important to me, they're important to me. And, it just felt important to me, I wanted to do it.

So, I went into that decision of, okay, do I open my laptop more clear eyed than I think, before we did our work together. I went into it more clear eyed and was like, yes, of course I'm choosing to do this, and I want, yes. And I didn't let that voice of, oh, but, you know, it's that many times. I went into it more intentionally being like, I'm going to do this, and then when I've done it, I will close my laptop and I'll sit down and do a craft with Elsa. I'll do something with my daughter then, and trusting that's going to work. It's what I felt was right for my family.

Rebecca: Yeah. It's the presence that keeps surfacing that word really being present, not at your laptop. Working on the Black Friday sale and feeling like, you should really be with your daughter, because that's what you're, quote, supposed to do on some level. 

Being all in on our decisions.

But it's like, no, I'm going to be all into the sale. I'm going to make it successful. It's going to be great for our team. I'm going to be all in, and then when I close the laptop, I'm going to be completely out, and I'm going to be all into my family, and I'm going to be very present.

I'm going to see what she needs. I'm going to make connection. We're going to do adventures, and we'll have fun, and we'll be silly, and we'll do all the things that I love to do with her until it's time to go back to work, whenever that is, and be back in all the way at work.

Kim: Exactly. Because I've tried it the other way as well. I've tried it where I've given into the, oh, maybe I should ignore that professional part of my brain and do the thing that I feel like I should be doing.

Rebecca: Ignore the ambition, if you will.

Being more intentional and more present.

Kim: Right, I think I should be doing. And then instead, I'm not present with her because I'm just thinking about what could be happening at my laptop or at work and relieving myself from feeling bad about that and really just. Yeah. Being more intentional and more present.

Rebecca: Yeah, I love that. You know, so many of the women I work with, they come, and in reality after six months, so many of the same, like, their life looks very similar. 

They're making very similar decisions that they were making before. It wasn't actually that they wanted their circumstances to be very different, or they wanted to make different choices that they weren't making. 

Feeling better about the choices we make.

It was actually they just wanted to feel better about the choices they were making. They just wanted to feel like it was right and let go of the guilt and not feel like they should be doing something else, because what they were choosing to do was actually what they wanted, and they wanted to give themselves permission to do it. And when they did, they found everything else worked itself out on some level. It was just letting yourself be and choose very consciously and without any guilt. Just choosing what you want.

Kim: Yeah. I was able to know that I made that choice because I valued this particular thing in my life, and I knew that in order for me to live a regret free life, that's what I want. 

That's how I want to show up in my life, in Elsa's life, etcetera. And being able to be so much clearer about the things that matter to me, I think really helped. Versus before we started coaching, where I wasn't sure anymore what were the things that mattered for me versus all coming back to how we started, all the noise.

Learning how to be present.

Rebecca: Yeah. And all the other voices as we were talking about. So clarity was super important. Being present and learning how to be present was super important. What else really needed to happen in order for you to learn how to be okay not being everything to everyone all at once.

Kim: I remember something that we talked about in one session, which clearly stuck with me, that was about how our brain wants to make disappointing people equal, not being good enough. But that's just a thing that we're making up and isn't necessarily true. 

Not wanting to disappoint anyone.

And I think a lot of it was coming from places of not wanting to disappoint anyone, rather than coming back to why I was choosing to do certain things based on what I knew about me, my life, my family, my daughter.

Rebecca: Which inevitably means that other people you're not going to give your time and your energy and your ‘yes’, if you will, to other people, and then they might be disappointed by that.

Kim: It's inevitable.

Rebecca: And so if disappointing people doesn't mean not being good enough, what does it mean now?

Kim: I feel like we are in one of our sessions.

Rebecca: I know. I'm curious. What would you say now then? Because, I mean, what did you learn about that? If those things aren't connected, then what is it then?

Kim: Yeah, I think it was the disappointing people is almost a byproduct of having to have made a choice. And that's all. It sounds reductive, but that's all it is, because you're choosing between two good things. 

“If disappointing people is a byproduct of not choosing that good thing, but you chose another really good thing, then, that's okay.”

And being able to have embraced, like you said, that, that's just a byproduct of being more intentional about how I'm showing up in the world.

Rebecca: Yeah. And I remember a piece of this as well was about not feeling the need to control other people, not being disappointed. Like, people are just allowed to be bummed and disappointed if they want to be bummed and disappointed. 

Just like you're allowed to be that, or you're allowed to be happy, or you're allowed to be whatever you want to feel. Right. So are other people. And that doesn't mean you're not good enough. 

If they feel upset or they feel disappointed or they feel bummed, or whatever it is they feel, your enoughness doesn't change, your who you are as a person doesn't change when somebody else has experiences normal human emotion. Right. 

We get to separate our identity, if you will, from how other people are feeling.

Kim: Absolutely. I think that was actually really a byproduct of the value and identity exercises that we did that I didn't expect but really appreciated was in looking more internally at myself and what mattered to me and how I would define my metaphor and all of those self identity exercises, it made me more aware and mindful of the fact that everybody has their own self identity exercises and that there isn't one blueprint for how we approach the situation. 

And as we were doing it, I was like, oh, I know that my brother would have chosen this. I know that that's not what my husband would choose, and so on and so on. And it I think it reminded me that our priorities differ from human to human.

Rebecca: And it's not personal.

Kim: Yeah, it's not personal. And I think so long as I wasn't clear on what it was for me, I was almost losing track of the fact that we all didn't all have to operate by one blueprint of what is right in every situation.

Identity and values.

Rebecca: Yep. And the byproduct of that, of you having your identity and values and the things that are important to you and the way of operating and me having mine and somebody else having theirs. 

Inevitably, we're not always going to be on the same page and we're not always going to make the same choices and we're going to have feelings about that. It's. I mean, all of us can relate to our children having different feelings and opinions about what they want and what's most important, and there's conflict, and it is what it is, and there's feelings that fly around. 

It's not personal. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. Doesn't mean you're a bad person. Doesn't mean you're a bad mom. Doesn't mean anything.

Kim: Right.

Rebecca: There's no story. We don't need to attach any story of good or bad or enough or not enough to it.

Kim: Absolutely.

Rebecca: So good. Letting people feel what they want to feel and kind of detaching other people's emotions from your decisions and not making up stories, being present, like having some clarity, kind of a roadmap for your mind of the things that are most important. 

Anything else here that has been really, really key for you in being able to kind of let go of that expectation of being everything to everyone all at once.

Kim: You mentioned the seasons and how it's also in this season, you might be choosing these things and these might be your priorities. In this season, you might be choosing these things and these priorities. And I think giving myself that permission to not have all the answers already laid out for me.

I think going into coaching, it became really clear through our work together that it was really about a flexible toolkit rather than these are the answers and congratulations. The, here's the schedule. On Tuesdays, you're going to walk outside of the school. On Thursdays, you're going to go to the gym and more about how to approach those smaller moments of decision making, how to deal with that fear of disappointing others and then that contentment, how to identify what was a priority so that in those decision making situations, not everything felt equal and overwhelming.

Being able to have that flexibility with myself, rather than feel like I had to make all these overwhelming commitments to go to the gym three times a week, pick up Elsa two times a week, eat vegetables five days a week. 

It felt more like I was building a muscle than I was trying to find something that was going to work in every situation or in every situation.

“Building a muscle of decision making.”

Rebecca: Yeah, you were building a muscle of decision making, but you were building that flexible toolkit. 

And, I mean, coming back to kind of a couple words you've used before, is the flexibility. And then the, in any given situation, I can put my hand in my toolkit and pull this out to help me here, make a decision that I feel good about and to not feel guilty about and to process the emotions of the situation or to let something go or lean in or lean out or whatever it is based on circumstance. 

Because we, I mean, life is ever changing, and our kids are ever changing and their needs are ever changing, and for sure, everything in our world is changing constantly and trying to create a perfect structure, if you will, that creates balance, or a perfect schedule that creates balance or a situation that feels manageable and how many people you're responding to or what, no doubt it would be easier on some level if all of those things stayed consistent. 

Decide based on your priorities, values, circumstances and needs.

So we could not have to think so much about the decisions that we make so consciously, and yet that isn't the human experience. And so our best course of action is to become a person that can flex and to change and decide based on priorities, values, circumstances, need, and be in touch with that, and then feel really good about those decisions.

Kim: Yeah. And look, I don't get the choices right all of the time, but I'm actually more aware now that there also is no right.

Trial and error. rather than in the moment questioning everything five times. I might go, don't know if that was the right choice, but it's not spiraling me in the same way, it's not emotionally draining on me in the same way, I'm able to take it, think about it, feel it. 

Giving space to feel our emotions.

We talked a lot about give space to feel it, and then really, how would I do this differently next time? If I would, maybe I wouldn't.

Rebecca: I love that.

Kim: Yeah.

Rebecca: I don't know if you caught on to the language, but that was really intentional for me. I want to get in the experimental mindset always, because life is always changing, and we don't always know what's going to work today and what will change and work tomorrow. 

And I would rather equip you to be somebody that's flexible and is able to make decisions in a very fluid way than to try to create a perfect set of structure for you in some way that supposedly magically is supposed to work in everything. I just don't believe that. It's just not the way it works.

Kim: Well, especially with kids. Right. With kids, they change so fast. There is, as soon as you've caught up, you're changing again. So I think that was also just really helpful because I do think that there was a part of me that was already feeling, oh, my gosh, I just figured out how to be a working mother, when I had this child at home. And now she's suddenly needing a whole nother level of emotional engagement.

Rebecca: Yeah, totally, totally.

Kim: What now? Oh, gosh. Ah. And should I keep working the pace I'm working at if she's now also wanting to have conversations about not wearing a tutu or wearing a tutu. And knowing that, okay, actually, there's some fundamental ways of viewing these choices and ways of showing up in her world and ways of showing up in my world and spaces. 

“I feel better equipped to handle the next mystery of whatever she's going to throw at me.”

Rebecca: Yeah, I love that. I love that. So, coming back to your word, you talked about seasons and being equipped to go in and out and fluctuate through seasons and how important it is to recognize that some seasons you work a little bit more and some seasons you work a little bit less. 

Or we talked about for your job in particular, there's cycles, cyclical cycles on some level, right? When there's sales and things like that, because you're in e commerce and equipping yourself and having the tools to be really intensely working for a very short period of time and then, and then preparing for yourself to be off after that for more than you would usually do because you ebb and flow, right. And allowing that ebb and flow to happen and riding the wave, if you will, feels so much better than fighting against the current.

Kim: Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

Rebecca: I love it. This has been such a, fun conversation, thinking about this in this way or framing it in this way. I don't know if I've ever talked about the work that I do and what we experience as working moms in this way. So I love it. 

Is there any other tools or exercises or practices that were really key for you in helping you to be present, in helping you to really feel like you can be the ambitious person you are and be the mom that you are?

Kim: Another one that comes to mind, I think, is I love puzzles, I love problem solving. I love getting to the bottom of the mystery, for better or worse.

Rebecca: And, do you like physical puzzles, just curious? Do you get the puzzle table out and, like…

Kim: I didn't mind the physical puzzles.

Rebecca: Like problem solving…I was just curious.

Kim: That's me. But I do. I like that feeling when you've got the. Aha. Yes. And, I think because of that, something we talked about was how sometimes there would be things that happen at work or not at work, just in life, and my brain would go into a spin of questioning, questioning, questioning, questioning. 

“It doesn’t mean something went wrong.”

And it would almost very often default to something went wrong. Why did something go wrong? What was the problem to solve? And something that you said that I found really helpful was, this is the safety brain, and it's wanting to look for those answers, but it doesn't mean that there was something that went wrong and starting to think about what went right. 

And you were saying our, brain defaults to something went wrong, and now we have to fix it rather than what went right in that situation. And then what are we learning from the entirety of it? Because I was seeing things as, okay, now I'm going to go pick at this and try and figure out what went wrong there to learn. 

I also then felt like I had to solve it and I had to make a decision to address it. Versus, I think when we were speaking through these scenarios, it was then realizing, okay, some things might have gone wrong, but some things might have gone right. And also, not everything needs a decision. Some things are just for observation.

We don’t have to fix every little thing all the time.

Rebecca: Yeah, yeah, just for observation. We don't have to fix every little thing all the time. We can choose, pick and choose. It feels so much better to think I did so many things right. Here's a couple of things that didn't go right, but, like, I did so many things right, and I want to improve in these little areas versus thinking, oh, my gosh, so many things went wrong. There's so much that I have to do.

When we realize that when we focus on the right, the things that we do right, it really shifts our energy. Right. We feel better. We're like, oh, yeah, I did so many things right in this situation. I mean, so many. This meeting went right in this, you know, in so many ways. This conversation went right in this many ways. Oh, yeah. 

I could improve upon it a little bit over here, and that's where I'm going to focus. But it has a dramatic effect on how we are feeling about ourselves and thinking about ourselves in that moment when we focus on the rightness instead of all the wrong.

Being present with our kids.

Kim: And I think it was also really a precursor for being present. It's so challenging to be present with my daughter if in the back of my head, I'm playing mystery detective with myself. Yeah. So the more I was able to notice, spiral into mystery detective work in my brain, the more I was able to be present with her, enjoy that time with her, and therefore feel less like I was not showing up in that space.

Rebecca: Yeah. I love that. I love that. Because problem solver is such a big part of you. Right? We named that in your values and your identity, and you, like, you are a fixer and a problem solver in so many ways, and yet that if that pop up window, if you will, is kind of always open the tab, and the browser is always open. 

Thinking about it, it is draining. Draining subconsciously, almost. Right.  It is constantly pulling, taking battery life, if you will, and suck in your presence from  where you're at in the moment. 

And and one of the tools we have is to, instead of constantly be in that problem solving, fix it mode, is to, nstead of always thinking about what's going wrong, it's redirecting back to, yes, there's some improvement. 

Kim: And it's a much shorter conversation with yourself. I think when you're looking at what went right, what went wrong can be a very long, time consuming, emotional conversation. What went right can still be equally constructive and far less time consuming. Yes.

Rebecca: Yes.

Kim: Thanks to the practice that we did.

“Doing this right.”

Rebecca: Yes, definitely. I say that to myself a lot. Like, I'm doing a lot of things right. Rebecca, I'm doing a lot, doing a lot of things right, particularly after difficult moments, moments with my kids or whatever the challenge is, I'll walk away and say, okay, I did a lot of things right.

Rebecca: And then my mind is forced to kind of think about it a little bit and find some evidence for it. I feel infinitely better if I just, instead of just focusing on all the things I want to change, what actually makes me a better problem solver when I approach it from what I did right instead of what I did wrong.

Coming back to prioritization. 

Kim: And coming back to prioritization, then I'm able to actually think about the priority things that should be spinning in my mind as problems to solve rather than, every single tangent that my brain wants to go down and dig into.

Rebecca: Yep. I love it. So good. Oh, that's such a good one. I'm glad you brought that one up. We're close. We got to wrap this up. Keep it under an hour for sure. But it's been so great to have you here. 

Kim, just as some final thoughts, what would you say to working moms right now that are feeling that need to be everything to everyone all at once? If they were to focus on just one thing, where would you direct them?

Kim: All my girlfriends who are going through the same thing?

Rebecca: Yes. I love that you get to be a light to them and, you know, enlighten them and give them probably a very different way of approaching being a working mom. So, good.

Be present and intentional with your choices.

Kim: If I were to really hone in on one thing, I think it would be really being present and intentional with those choices and appreciating that the choices aren't right and wrong, good or bad choices. 

They're choices and trade offs between two good and valid options. There's no right and wrong, and therefore there's not that same obligation of guilt. You didn't make a bad choice. You didn't make a wrong choice. 

You are just choosing between two difficult, equally attractive, equally appealing things. And that's the one you chose today, and you might choose different tomorrow.

Rebecca: Yeah, I love that. I love it. So good. Thank you for being here, Kim. Such a delight to have you here on the podcast and working moms. Until next week. Let's get to it.

Rebecca Olson