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Speaker 3♪♪♪ Hello and welcome. Welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat, and enjoy the conversation. This is episode 43, and today I want to talk about being a mother and being ambitious with it. And the kind of ambition I'm talking about is about personal ambition, rather than being ambitious for your children. Now, ambition can take different forms for different people. It might be about setting up your own business, or reaching a particular position in a job you have. Or it might be about being able to acquire and have certain things, certain possessions. Now, I wrote a blog called A Letter to All Ambitious Mothers quite some time ago. And I was reminded about this whilst I was on holiday. And I read Anya Hindmarsh's book. She's a handbag designer with a phenomenally successful brand, which she started at just 18 years of age. And her book, she was really, just sharing, I guess, the lessons that she's learned along the way, being a mother of five, to three-step children, and two children of her own. And how she's juggled that also with a career. Now, I'm not suggesting in this podcast episode that it is only for mothers that are juggling motherhood with that level of ambition. But it is about wanting something for you, which feels worthwhile striving for, and yet comes with the usual whole host of guilt, too, about juggling motherhood and your own personal ambitions. Now, I started my motherhood journey whilst returning to full-time studies. I guess my ambitions pretty much started with my studies. And then those ambitions, I guess, turned to wanting to be the best mother I could possibly be. And it was really, for me, probably only when my children were around eight years old. I can still remember it now. It was quite a profound time for me. And I was sitting in the garden. It must have been one summer. And I noticed that they were playing independently of me. They didn't need me. And it was at that moment that I then, I guess, my ambitions switched and turned, and my attention sort of turned to what I wanted. You know, my children didn't need me to play with them anymore in that way. Clearly, they still wanted time with me, but they were able to be independent and play without me. And I'd always been incredibly, incredibly ambitious in my working life. And that hadn't gone. I guess it had just shifted to my studies and then to being a mother. So you might be listening to this episode whilst juggling motherhood, or you might be listening to this episode while you're managing your own business, or maybe a career that you love or a career that you don't love, or you're just starting to think to yourself, I want more. So this, in this episode, I want to start off by reading out the letter that I wrote all those months ago. And then I just want to expand on the advice that I gave at that time. And I do hope you enjoy it and that you find it helpful. denying yourself your dreams and ambitions because you feel people may judge your motherhood. I see you not being completely honest with family and friends, worrying they will question why you aren't satisfied with what you have. Isn't motherhood enough? I see you worrying your ambitions will somehow damage your children's well-being. Didn't you read that somewhere? Anyway, ambitious women are masculine, aggressive and bossy and no one likes them, right? I see you. I hear you. I am just like you. I too have kept my ambitions to myself as though they were a dirty secret never to be uttered out loud. I too have judged myself more harshly than is humanly possible for daring to want more for me. How dare I be so selfish? I too have worried my ambitions may have screwed up my kids and I'm a psychologist who should know better. No! Now, at 52 years old, quite frankly, I couldn't give a flying F what anyone thinks of me, my drive and my ambition. I am unapologetically me. And by the way, I know I'm a great mother. What I know now to be true has always been true. I just wish I could have told my younger self and spared myself years of unnecessary self-criticism and worry. So, allow me to gift you the wisdom I have gained over the past five decades. Number one, surround yourself with like-minded women. Find your tribe. This doesn't mean you have to abandon your other friends. Just know all ambitious women need to have a sounding board with other ambitious women. Actively seek these women out in your workplace through coaches, mentors or mastermind groups. If you run your own business, it is even more important to do this as soon as you start out. Not only will you be able to truly be yourself, opening up about the challenges you face, these women will become lifelong friends and collaborators, not competitors. And I would love to expand on this, specifically comment. So, I am a female. I am an ambitious mother. I am the mother of two and I have found that I've got some phenomenal friendships that I have gathered across the years. I've got friends that I have had from school, from year seven, from when I was 11 that are still friends, that I'm still friends with now. That's some 42 years later and even some from my primary school. I've got mummy friends. I've got gym friends. I've got all sorts of friends that I've collected and sort of along the way yoga friends. And they are incredible. But there is something about when you are ambitious, whether that's because you're running your own business or whether because you've reached a specific sort of position within a company that you're working for or you have aspirations around certain things. It is incredible to have and be surrounded by like-minded women who have similar aspirations to you. Now, this doesn't mean that your school friends, your mummy friends, your yoga friends, your gym friends, your dog walking friends, whatever. Those friends are can't be there for you. But there is something very unique to that ambitious side that you need support in other ways. And it may well be that your friends are brilliant at serving that purpose or it may be that you need others. I have certainly found I'm part of an all-female mastermind group where we collaborate together and just being around other women who understand the similar challenges that I have that I don't necessarily need to explain all of the They understand it. They get the guilt of being a mother, but they also get the challenges around running a business. They get the challenges around recruiting staff, managing teams, all of these things. So it is so important that you surround yourself with like-minded women so that you can be open and honest. And I would also say, whether you're an ambitious mother or not, around where you are at the moment in terms of striving for more for you, it's exactly the same when it comes to motherhood. We need to surround ourselves with our tribe. other mothers who are raising their children in a similar way, who have the similar challenges that we do, where we feel we can be totally honest and completely ourselves without fear of judgment. And that is what is so key. We so often don't share things because we are so worried that others may judge us, may think that our ambitions or our desires, maybe you want to have a particular car, maybe you want to have a particular watch, maybe you want to have a particular house, maybe you want to reach a specific position within a company that you work for. And you feel embarrassed about saying that when you are with your tribe, with people who surround you, who understand, there is none of that embarrassment because they understand. They might not have the same goals as you, but they are striving for things which are similar. So I really think that that's such an important thing is about surrounding yourself with like-minded women. So I think that's my first tip is really, really key. The number two is about being realistic with your own expectations. No one is Wonder Woman, despite the comic book and film character who I absolutely adore. It is simply impossible to be able to do everything to an exacting, unrealistic standard. So stop berating yourself for an ideal which just isn't possible. Be honest with yourself and others about what you can and cannot do and, I know this is going to be a tricky one, where possible, delegate tasks. You don't have to do all of your household cleaning, for example. If you are financially able to pay someone else to do it and some other tasks, it clears more time for you to play with your children or go to the gym. Ask friends to help with school pickups and remember parenting isn't just your responsibility. It is your partner's too and they should share the load. And I know that this, I can just imagine some of you listening to this possibly slightly reluctant to do this. This comes up so often in the membership. This comes up so often with families that I'm working with. As women, we are our own worst enemy. We set a benchmark for ourselves that I don't even know where we get this from. I don't even know where we get this from. Because I don't see a single woman that is able to manage all of these things successfully and stay sane. And yet we berate and we give ourselves so much guilt for not reaching out and asking for help. And yet we then get cross with our friends who don't ask us to help them with the school run. So we're quite happy to kind of be that support for everyone else, but we then feel guilty about asking for it for ourselves. We must get better at delegating. And I say this with love, because if we don't delegate, we don't teach our children and we don't model to our daughters how important it is that they share the load. All we do is we create this next expectation of what it means to be the perfect mother to our daughters. And need I say, we then create this model for our sons about what it is to be mum. So please, can we stop this? Can we draw a line and can we try now and be more respectful? Realistic in terms of our expectations. Our house is not always going to be spotless. We are not always going to be organised. We are going to forget things. We are going to have moments where we lose our temper. We are going to have moments where our children are sat in front of the television for an obscene amount of time or on their iPads or they're being babysat by an electronic device or a film. And sometimes we will feed our children the food that is probably not ideal, but we are not going to beat ourselves up about that because we cannot be together. So please be realistic with your expectations. Ask yourself, where am I getting this model from? Why am I continuing to do this? And what I would say is if you are listening to my advice, number one, which is surround yourself with like-minded women, they will pull you up on this too. They too will know that it is impossible to be all of these things. And because you have, you are surrounded by the right tribe, you have the same, challenges of you who understand the challenges that you're facing. They will also hold you to account. So two tips so far is surround yourself with like-minded women. Be realistic with your expectations. And the third, and I am so guilty of this one, I have to be honest, is be fully present when you are present. Yeah, this is genuinely my own Achilles heel and a personal work in progress. I have two children. Well, two adult children now at 22 and 18 who will pull me up on this. In fact, funnily enough, only yesterday as I record this, I was on the phone to my son. Well, in fact, I wasn't on the phone. I was on FaceTime trying to get something out of the car at the same time. And he literally said, mum, could you just tell me what I've just said to you? Because I clearly don't have your attention. I am trying to be honest with you about, I know that this is something that I really need to work on, but it's so important to me. And I'm trying to be honest with you about, I know that this is something that I really need to work on, but it's so important for our children. When we are with our children, we need to be fully present. Put down that work phone, walk away from the laptop and be fully present in those moments. And it's in my case, don't juggle trying to put something in the car at the same time. Everything else can wait. Our children need very little of our undivided attention to thrive. And the time is very, is very much a worthwhile investment. And what I would say is, and I know this because I genuinely, of all of the tips I'm going to give you, this is the one that I am, the one that I need to work on the most.
Speaker 1And that's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to make sure that I'm not just trying to make sure that I'm not just trying to make sure that I'm not just trying to make sure that I'm not And that's exactly what Grow Therapy is here for. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S., offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or personal information.
Speaker 3Is that quite often we are so caught up in all of the things that we need to do and as an ambitious mother we normally are juggling one or two balls too many because we like to operate at that level. So we're already thinking of the things that we're not getting done because we're doing this that and the other. But actually when we are fully present, when we give our children our undivided attention and we are there with them completely, they usually only need a small amount of time. They don't need as long as we think. When we are fully present, when we are with them where our attention is spread across two or three things, actually we end up being with them for a lot longer. Five minutes of undivided time and attention feels like a lifetime to our children. So let's practice this and this is something I will keep checking in on and I will keep updating you with because I know that that's something that I need to work on. But let's be fully present. When our child says, mum let's put down that phone and if we're in the middle of something, this will take me, and be honest, this will take me two minutes, three minutes, five minutes, half an hour, whatever it is. As soon as I have finished this, I'm going to give you my undivided attention. And then when you're finished with the task, say I'm here, I'm ready, I've placed my phone away, you've got the next half an hour with me, the next 10 minutes, the next 15, whatever it is, I am here, I am yours and I am present. So surround yourself with like-minded women. Be realistic. I'm going to give you my undivided attention. I'm going to give you my expectation. Be fully present when you are present. Number four, leave comparison at the door. Why do we do this to ourselves? There are always going to be some pretty self-righteous mothers who will extol the virtues of being a stay-at-home mother and how their choice is the right choice. These are not your people. Stay in your own lane and don't worry about what anyone else is doing. Most mothers are open-minded, accepting and let's face it, are more worried about being judged themselves than judging you. Be true to your ambitions, your goals and aspirations and you will naturally attract the right people to you. Every family is different with differing personalities and family dynamics. There is no one size fits all formula for success. So focus on what happiness looks like in your family and this is so important. important. There are always going to be people who are going to be extolling the virtues of how they have chosen to raise their children, of what they are doing. In the same way as there are lots of people extolling their political opinions, their opinions on vaccinations, their opinions on health and what we should be eating and on exercise and on water and whether we should take vitamin, you name it, everyone has an opinion. And we're not going to get into the psychology around all of this but it speaks about where that person is at and not you. So stick to what you know works for your family, what's important for you because every single family is different and what we present and we know this, what we're presenting on the outside that other people see, we know is not the whole story and that's exactly the same for others. So please let's try to leave comparison at this. And I know this comes up a lot. It comes up very in those early stages when our children are such tiny babies and we're doing that whole comparison of, is your child sleeping through the night? Oh no, mine isn't. Oh my goodness me, I must be doing something wrong. Children being weaned, whether we've breastfed or whether we haven't breastfed, whether we've sent them to a Montessori nursery or not, whether they've sent them to independent school, whether they're doing after-school activities, whether they're doing a musical instrument, whether they're top of their class, what reading level they're on. It's exhausting. leave comparison at the door and I know it is tricky because in lots of ways when our children are at school or in these milestone stages it really tends to be the only benchmark that we tend to use much in the same ways I'm sure you'll remember that was pretty much the benchmark you compared yourself to your peers when you were at school but our children leave school they they work through all these developmental milestones they all learn to read they all walk they write they do all of these things and we forget about those sorts of things and instead they become adults and they make their own choices and we get away from this comparison in that sort of way our children will be who they will become and our role is to provide that scaffold in order to help them become those adults so we must stop getting ourselves caught in this comparisonitis trap that is not useful to anyone stay in your own lane let be compassionate to others who may have made different choices who may be preachy about the choices that they have made you don't need to respond to that you don't need to react to that you simply need to remind yourself that you are raising your children within your family doing what works best for you and your family so please let's leave comparison at the door so quick recap before we move on to the fifth and final one is number one number one surround yourself with like-minded women number two be realistic with your expectations number three be fully present when you are present and number four leave comparison at the door the fifth advice that i wish i had been given and in fact i've gained across these five decades of my existence are practice self-compassion we are so good at being compassionate with our children we are so good at being compassionate to others yet not to ourselves it's time to drop the constant self-criticism and cut yourself some slack ditch the shoulds and embrace the good enough oh i know some of you will be reeling with that one but we you know let's ditch that i should be doing this i should be this kind of person i should be this and instead that this is good enough it doesn't mean you're lowering your standards or accepting less it's about being real and protecting your sanity and well-being do not try and make up for mum guilt that you might have maybe you've been away on a business trip maybe you feel you've been working too much maybe you haven't been there to pick them up so don't try and make up for mum guilt by agreeing to do more than is reasonable i have been so caught up in that so many times whenever tempted to take something on through guilt remember no is a complete sentence all right no thank you remember when you truly step into who you are unapologetically you model to your children what it means to be themselves and that my friend is the greatest gift we can give our children and i really do believe that this whole notion of self-compassion was so good when our friends feel guilty that they've been working too much or they've been doing too much and that they've in some way they feel that they've been neglectful of their children we're so great at saying no you're not you're such a great parent your child is loves you and your child has extolling all of the wonderful virtues that our children have as a result of our ambition and our drive and our passion and our desire to make changes and to leave some form of legacy of the work that we have done and yet we are rubbish at being self-compassionate so i would urge you to do that and this notion of good enough is really important let's drop this need for perfectionism let's drop this need to constantly have a list of shoulds and actually look at it and saying do you know what what's good enough what is acceptable what are the real key priorities that i need to address that i need to make sure that i accomplish or achieve this week what are the things that i can just drop because they really aren't important maybe they feel important because you feel guilty for not doing this but i'm not going to do that because i'm not going to do that because i'm not maybe they feel important because they might be on somebody else's agenda maybe they feel important because maybe it's about keeping up appearances only you are going to know the real answer to that but it's about practicing more self-compassion being kinder to yourself cutting yourself more slack because what you are doing is you are modeling all of the things that are really important for our children in terms of practicing their own self-compassion when they get caught in the middle of this and they're not going to be able to do that because they're not that whole self-comparison and that comparisonitis that we talk about so let me just recap the five things that i wish i could have told my younger self and that i could have actioned in my younger self because sometimes we can tell our younger self and our younger self is like yeah yeah all right i know i'm doing it right yes i can be perfect so let me recap the first is surround yourself with like-minded women this doesn't mean ditching friends that have been there your whole life or your childhood friends but if you are ambitious in a particular area you will probably find that you need to surround yourself with a tribe of women who are striving and have the same level of mum guilt or the same challenges or the same issues as you have so that you can feel that you can be completely honest if you are able to do that already with the friendships that you have phenomenal if not go out and find your tribe and that can start with another mummy at the school gate that you know who is all equally juggling as much as you are and maybe you don't even see them at the school gate but you know what their their whatsapp number is and that you might reach out to them that way but it's so important you surround yourself with like-minded women numbers two is be realistic with your expectations wonder woman as a mother simply does not exist and that's wherever your aspirations and your ambitions are we cannot juggle everything we have to be realistic in terms of what it what can and can't be achievable and we need to get better at delegating tasks and also sharing the load if we are fortunate enough to be raising our children with a partner then it is their responsibility as much as ours to parent and we should not be doing everything ourselves and equally let's help our friends let's kind of help each other one of the wonderful things that she talked about hers was that she often would then agree to maybe in school holidays because obviously she's juggling a company as well as that she would say right i'm going to take a week off work and i'll take your children you know and have groups and hordes of children she'd take a whole week off and look after a number of different um women's children and then they would do the same on another week it's that kind of thing that's part of what you do in terms of surround yourself with like-minded women but it's also part of just being able to say oh i could do with some help i need to get some work done in the school holidays or i need to get some work done um in evenings or whatever it might be a school pickups because i've got meetings i've got to travel overseas let's help each other and let's not be afraid to reach out it's not a weakness it's a strength our third one is when we are present with our children let's make sure we are fully present when we are present put down the phone switch off our work mind and for those moments whether it's one five ten twenty minutes an hour let's be fully present and give that to our children because what we give them in those moments are just huge for them even if it is just one moment the fourth is let's leave comparison at the door let's not get caught up in other people's narratives as to what they think being a great mother is about and let's stick to our own lane let's remind ourselves that we're doing the best that we can for our family and we're doing what's right for our family if you need your own little mantra to remind yourself of that so when you get caught up in hearing other people and then feeling guilt about it that you're able to remind yourself i'm staying i'm sticking in my lane i'm doing what's right for my family i know that this is the right thing with for my family whatever that mantra is just keep reminding yourself of that and the fifth and not the the least one it's actually one of the most powerful ones that we need to be making sure that we do is that we need to practice self-compassion let's ditch the shoulds and embrace the good enough let's be as compassionate to ourselves as we are to others so my gift this week is actually a re-gift of my shine morning routine template i truly believe if we give ourselves the first 30 minutes of each and every morning to take care of our needs we are so much more effective at meeting the needs of our family our ambitions and we can have more fulfilling and enriched lives cliche possibly and yet i truly believe that we need to be more compassionate to ourselves as we are to others truly believe it is so important and why it's important that we you really give this a try if you haven't already done so so as usual head over to my free resource library drmaryhand.com forward slash library where you'll find the link to download the shine template all you need to do is pop in your email address and you can get instant access not only to this week's resource but all the other free resources across all my other podcast episodes as ever if you have enjoyed this episode i would love it if you could follow and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love so until next time
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