Episode #2: How to start showing up as your BEST self
Welcome to the first official episode of TLC for Working Mums!
This podcast is designed to equip you with the skills, strategies, and practical tips to confidently create a thriving career with motherhood.
I’m your host Loren, an ex-lawyer and CEO of a non-profit turned certified Career and Life Coach, and Mum to two miracle fertility babies.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
Why you might believe that you can’t have both a thriving career whilst also showing up as the Mum you want to be.
Why you may struggle with some form of self-doubt, Mum-guilt, overwhelm and a lack of confidence
What you need in your life to start feeling confidence, accomplished and content in both your career and in your family life
What you have control over vs what you don’t (facts vs thoughts) - and how to use this information to better serve you and what you want to achieve
Why it is crucial to manage your mindset as a working Mum and practical strategies on how to start doing this today
How managing your mindset is just a skill, which can be learned
Subscribe to this podcast here for more insights and proven strategies so you can learn exactly how to create a career that you love WHILST being an amazing and present Mum to your kids.
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TLC for Working Mums Episode 2 - Full Transcript
Welcome to TLC for Working Mums podcast, aka the Life Coach for Working Mums. This podcast gives you the skills, proven strategies and practical tips so you can confidently create a thriving career whilst being an amazing and present Mum to your kids. Whether you're a working Mum that wants to change careers, advance in your current career, or just become the best version of yourself, you've come to the right place.
I'm your host Loren, a certified life and career coach for Mums. I've worked in corporate, not for profit, and as an entrepreneur as a working Mum, and have learned that the secret to success and happiness lies in how well you can manage your mindset. I believe all Mums need TLC, so if you want to create a career that you love whilst showing up as the Mum you've always wanted to be, let's go!
Welcome to TLC for Working Mums podcast, aka the Life Coach for Working Mums. I'm your host Lauren, I'm so happy to be here with you, sharing the secrets to living your best life as a working Mum. So many Mums come to me feeling overwhelmed, and like they're not in control of their lives and careers. And I see you guys.
You have a lot of self doubt. You feel quite insecure. Perhaps it's just about your work, or even as a Mum, if you're doing it right. You're not sure how you can do it all, or do it all well. And you might feel guilty for being a working Mum. Some Mums think they aren't showing up as the best versions of themselves with their kids, because by the end of the workday, All your energy is used up and you don't feel like you can really bring your best selves to your children and you're not a hundred percent present.
And then some Mums feel guilty because you want to advance your career. You want to have an identity outside of being a Mum. All you guys want to feel is confident, valued, worthy, accomplished, proud and content as a working Mum. And most Mums believe that you can't feel accomplished or content or even confident as a working Mum without drastically changing something in your life.
Changing jobs, changing house, having more money in your bank account, better behaved children, a husband that shares more of the mental load. But that's not exactly the case. The truth is, you can feel so much better about where you're at right now, no matter your circumstances. And when I learnt this and became a coach, this work changed me in such a profound way that even though my circumstances did not change, I changed so much in myself, for infinitely for the better.
And when my inner world changed, my outer world changed. Because, you see, most of us think that it's the circumstances of our lives that's creating our experience in the world. But really, it's our thinking about those circumstances that creates our experience in the world. Believe me, the first time I heard this, I was dubious.
But stay with me, and I promise you, this will help. Because things happen in the world we can't control. We can't control events that take place. We can't control people, despite our constant effort of trying to control others. And more on that in future episodes. And also, we can't control what happened in our past.
We can't control the world, but we can control our response to the world. We can't control our circumstances, but we do have agency and control about what we choose to think about them. Because circumstances are completely neutral. until we have a thought about them. Our thoughts about a circumstance is where we create meaning about those circumstances.
They are the story we tell ourselves about our circumstances. They are opinions and impressions and judgements and descriptions. Notice how I didn't say facts? Most of us believe what we think about something is a fact. That it is a truth. But 99 percent of the time it's not. It's a thought. And it's what we choose to think about a fact.
So I'll give you an example. Say your son is playing with a rock. Son playing with rock. It's a circumstance. It is a fact. But you can decide what you think about your son playing with the rock. Is the rock a beautiful expression of the world? Or nature? Or is it a weapon? You get to decide your truth about a rock.
See the rock and your son playing with the rock is a circumstance. It's not a problem. It's neutral. But it's our thinking about your son playing with a rock that makes it a problem or not. And I actually see this so often at the supermarket with Mums and children. And I must admit, I've definitely been one of these Mums.
A kid will ask their Mum for something that they see in the supermarket. It's usually a treat of some sort. The Mum might say no, or not now, or you're having lunch soon, and the kid will proceed to have a mini or major temper tantrum in the middle of aisle 5. This is a circumstance. Your child crying in aisle 5.
Despite our best efforts, we can't really control our children's emotions, despite us trying all the time. But what can we control? It's how we choose to think about what is happening. Because how we think about something determines how we feel about something, and that drives our actions and behaviours.
So, if I thought something like, Oh my gosh, everyone's staring at me and my kid is out of control because I'm a bad Mum, I am going to feel embarrassed. And from that feeling of embarrassment, I don't know about you, but I react to my child by trying to quiet him down, probably by shouting at him, maybe taking away the treat that he picked up from the shelf.
I might scold him and tell him that he needs to stop being naughty. And the result is that I'm out of control, and I reinforce that initial thought and belief that I must be a bad Mum. And whilst I was trying to take all of those actions to ultimately quieten my child, I don't know about your child, but that reaction of mine has never really made my child put the treat away and say sorry and stand quietly next to me. In fact, it does the exact opposite of what I ultimately want, which is for me to explain calmly to my child that I understand why he's having big emotions right now, but we can't have the treat right now because it's almost dinner time. So let's play a little game here. If I ultimately want that result.
What would I need to be thinking in that moment to feel calm and compassion towards my son? For me, the thought, my two year old is having big emotions right now, actually makes me feel calm and compassionate towards him, rather than embarrassed. It's not about me. And from that place of calm and compassion, I shot very differently.
I would kneel on the floor, so I'm closer to his height level, I would touch his shoulder, and calmly explain why he can't have the treat right now, but he can hold the packet and we can have it after dinner perhaps. He might still cry for a little bit. As I said, we can't control our children, we can't control their emotions. But me not raising my voice at him and heightening the situation makes me feel so much calmer and allows me to show up in the way that I want to be, as the Mum I want to be.
Because you see, him crying and having a tantrum is not a problem. It's neutral. It's our thinking about him crying that makes it a problem or not. And when I truly discovered this, it honestly set me free. All problems in life are simply thoughts and we can control our thoughts. We can choose what thoughts we want to think over other ones. And now, I know, believe me, it's easier said than done. And in the moment, often I catch myself thinking thoughts that are creating a problem that don't serve me, and make me act in a way that I don't always love. But, just getting that initial awareness that our thoughts are not facts, they are the story we tell ourselves about those facts, and I can choose to think in a way that better serves me, has changed my life.
The things I hear working Mums say about themselves, you know, it's, it's honestly heartbreaking. These amazing, incredible Mums saying, I'm not good enough. I'm too old to change careers. It's all just too much. I feel like such a failure. I can't have a career that I want whilst being a present Mum to my kids.
Do these sound familiar to you? Because working Mums You tell me these things about yourself like you're conveying the news, like you're stating a fact. But these are not facts. These are thoughts, and these are thoughts that are no longer serving you. And probably never have. Because I bet you they make you feel so much self doubt.
They make you feel Mum guilt. They make you feel insecure, overwhelmed, and anxiety. And that's what they did for me. I had these thoughts running on a negative spin cycle for so many years. And it wasn't until I learnt how to manage my mind, I got coached, and then became a certified coach, did I fully grasp that this is everything.
Why? Because even though we can't control something that happens in this world, we can control what we think about that thing. And this is key, because what we think about something determines how we feel. Because, do a little experiment, if you're feeling sad, it's because you're thinking a sad thought. If you're feeling happy, it's because you're thinking a happy thought.
Our thoughts actually create our emotions in us. We always think, or often people think that, um, our feelings and emotions come from something outside of us, but they don't. They come from a thought in our mind, and then they generate a feeling in our body. And everything we do in our lives, Is because of how we think it will make us feel and our feelings drive our actions and behaviours, which ultimately produce the results in our life.
So if you're not loving something in your life right now It's ultimately because of how you're thinking about it. No circumstance is a problem until we have a thought about it. So our thoughts create those problems. And this does not mean that we don't want things to be problems. We just need to understand that we create problems with our mind, and we can solve them with our mind by changing the way we think about them.
And this is amazing news because this means that you have so much more agency and control over your life than you think you might and you have the power to create any result you want in your life. It just begins with your thoughts. I teach my working Mum clients the tools and the skills to manage and master their mindset so they can create thriving careers whilst they have a thriving family life and are present with their kids.
It is absolutely possible to have both. You need to just start truly believing that it is. And even though I have so much more to say on this, I wanted to keep these episodes short and sweet because I know as a working mom, we don't really have much time for a 45 minute podcast. So, in the next episode, I'm going to share all about how to get your mind to work for you rather than against you.
I promise that this is the secret to success in your career and in your life. So I'm looking forward to speaking with you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to another episode of TLC for Working Mums. If you haven't already, I would be so grateful if you subscribed to this podcast and popped a five star review on iTunes.
And of course, if you loved this episode, please also share it with a fellow working Mum. All working Mums need TLC in their life, and I'd love to hear from you. So if you have any questions or topics that you would like me to talk about on the podcast, please email me at podcast@lorenfinger.com. And if you want to hear more about my one on one exclusive coaching and programs specifically designed for working Mums like you head over to www.tlcforworkingmums.com. I truly hope this podcast helps you create an incredible working Mum mindset, so you can build a thriving career whilst being an amazing and present Mum to your kids.
