The Ambition Paradox of Motherhood with Dr. Anne Welsh

If you’re a mom who’s ever found yourself wondering, “Why am I doing all the things and still feeling stuck?”, this episode is for you.

I’m joined by Dr. Anne Welsh, a therapist and executive coach who works with working mothers navigating the identity shift that happens when your ambition meets the reality of motherhood. We’re digging into something she calls the ambition paradox—that feeling when you’re chasing all the right goals but still don’t feel fulfilled.

This conversation is packed with validation, practical insight, and one of the best analogies I’ve ever heard for how to clean out all the “shoulds” and expectations we carry as women and moms.

In This Episode, We Talk About:

• What the ambition paradox is and why so many mothers fall into it
• The invisible identity shift that happens when you become a mom
• Why chasing “success” can sometimes pull you further from what matters
• How to figure out what’s truly yours and what’s been put on you
• What can shift when you start living from a place of alignment, not fear

Connect with Dr. Anne Welsh:

• Website: drannewelsh.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/drannewelsh
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drannewelsh

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Transcript

[00:00:00] If you have ever felt like your ambitions, right, those big dreams, desires, et cetera, that you have are actually maybe working against you or making you feel stuck. Today's episode is one that you are going to love. I cannot wait to introduce you to Dr. Welsh and this concept of the ambition paradox.

[00:00:28] Megan: Hi everyone. I'm so thrilled that you are here. Welcome back to the Work Life Harmony podcast. I have a new guest that I have been eagerly awaiting to talk to all morning. Dr. Anne Welsh is here today, and one of the things that made me just go, oh my goodness, I know our, our audience will really benefit from having you on.

[00:00:47] Is along with all your other expertise, which I'll have you share here in a minute is that you are really an expert as well on helping parents transition women from being a working woman to all of a sudden a working mom. And it doesn't sound like you think of all the pragmatic, tactical stuff when we think about that, but I just, as soon as I was, you know, learning more about you.

[00:01:10] I can remember when my daughter was like one and a half, two standing in my closet in the mornings and not even knowing how to dress anymore because I'd be like, well, I'm gonna work, but then we're going to the park, so what do I, you know, how do I dress for that? And so, I mean, it, it, it seemed to affect every single part of my life.

[00:01:28] So thank you

[00:01:29] Anne: Totally.

[00:01:30] Megan: today. It is such a pleasure.

[00:01:32] Anne: I am really excited and I love that you started with that analogy because we'll get to it, but I talk about closet clean outs as kind of a, an analogy for the whole process, right? Like, like you said, I don't know how to dress this body literally for the function that it now has, let alone how to do this from an identity or um, a cognitive place either.

[00:01:52] Yeah.

[00:01:52] Megan: you have such an a fulfilling, impressive background. Why don't we kick things off by introducing yourself, let everyone know what you do. Kind of the fact that yes, you do have four kids, I believe, and how you got

[00:02:03] Anne: Yes.

[00:02:04] Megan: line of work

[00:02:05] Anne: Yeah. Well, it, it's kind of a, an overlap of how I do this work is an overlap with my life. So I'll, I'll kind of share both, but I you know, I started out when I was in grad school researching the transition to motherhood and, and I wasn't a mother at the time. I was really curious about. Transitions themselves, right?

[00:02:21] How do we go from being one thing to being something else? And how do we navigate that either well or not well? And a lot of the research out there on this, this kind of idea is around college, the transition to college, right? Because they're really easy sub subjects when you're in graduate school. I kind of stumbled into the transition to motherhood because it was so understudied.

[00:02:40] I mean, this was almost 20 years ago at the time. And the only literature was kind of from the nursing literature that was looking at the physical and, you know, kind of touched barely on the emotional. So it was this great. Wide open field, which as a researcher is like a gold mine, right? And so I started digging into it and digging into it.

[00:02:59] And I, at the same time happened to be also doing research on career from the same standpoint. How do we pick careers? What does that look like? And how do pieces of our identity impact our career? So I had these kind of two lines of research that we're looking at these things that were. Eventually gonna be related for me, but weren't initially.

[00:03:17] so I have all this expertise on the transition to parenthood. Fast forward a few years, I had grown up with lots of kids. I was one of four. I babysat from the age that I was allowed to, right? I nannied, I was. Yeah, I was probably like 10 babysitting, you know, for a baby. And then I worked as a camp counselor.

[00:03:35] I was always with kids. I thought, alright, you know, I'm not like overly confident, but I thought, I know kind of what I'm doing. I know what I'm getting into. And I was still totally rocked. I. By the transition to parenthood and the impact it had on my work identity, I did not see that coming. And I, part of that was, I was the daughter of a working mom.

[00:03:55] My mom was a physician. She also, like I said, had four kids and she just kind of made it look easy. And I thought, oh, you just have a baby and then you go back to work. Bingo. That's all you do. And that was very, very much not the case for me. And that kind of is when I started thinking about these things.

[00:04:14] Differently and wondering like, okay, where, what's the overlap here between these two research lines? And I, you know, then eventually had my second kid and I was working full-time at Harvard and I got to a point where I was like, this is not sustainable in this way. And so my motherhood and some other life circumstances really drove me to make a big career leap.

[00:04:34] I left, I firmed my, I formed my own firm. It was very part-time initially, and that's. Then kind of organically grown in some ways alongside my children to be this kinda multifaceted way of supporting working mothers. And so I still have a therapy practice that's all about maternal mental health, but I also have an executive coaching practice that helps women in leadership and working mothers in general.

[00:04:58] I run a. Group for working mothers, and then I do organizational level consulting to better support working parents. And it's all kind of these spokes on a, on a wheel with, with working motherhood, being at the center.

[00:05:10] Megan: It's so important. I just wanna thank you for the work that you're doing. I think back to myself, you know, 14 years ago when my daughter was born and I was in a, you know, corporate high powered position at the time, a lot of responsibility saved up all my vacation so I could take a full three months of maternity leave.

[00:05:26] I.

[00:05:26] Anne: Yeah.

[00:05:27] Megan: it was a very masculine office. I was the first woman to actually use maternity benefits. They had to look them up when I came in to say I was pregnant. So, you know, the first employee to ever have a child. and I remember two big things. First was the first time I actually, 'cause it was I worked from home.

[00:05:43] First time I went into the offices she was about four or five months old. And we were kind of hanging out before a meeting and it was all men. And I pulled up my phone to show them, but. A picture of my kid. I mean, I haven't seen

[00:05:54] Anne: Yeah.

[00:05:55] Megan: I gave birth and when the VP in the room at the time went, oh, is that all you're gonna be able to talk about now?

[00:06:01] Anne: Ugh.

[00:06:01] Megan: interesting thing was, five minutes before that, we were all talking about how he had just taken a day off to have a sleepover with his boy, his son's boy scout camp, and everyone was saying how, that was. I remember talking very closely with a coworker who after I'd been back to work for about two months, was kinda like, you ever gonna get your groove back? I was like, oh no, what does that mean? You know? And to

[00:06:24] Anne: Yeah.

[00:06:25] Megan: it was very lonely to not have anyone to, to talk to about how much things had had changed. So I think what

[00:06:33] Anne: Yeah.

[00:06:34] Megan: what you're doing is really important. One of the things that you talk about, which I find fascinating you call it the ambition paradox. Can you kind of introduce what this is and why this is such a trap?

[00:06:47] Anne: a paradox is kind of an unsolvable problem, right? And, and with the ambition paradox, it's the idea that essentially we're, we're kind of going after the wrong thing. We are pursuing external standards with this kind of relentless drive for what we are being told we're supposed to go after.

[00:07:04] Whether that is perfection or achievement. Or, and, and, and this. Is true at work and in our motherhood, but all of it is based on other people's wants. And so the further you chase those things, the more out of touch you get with yourself and the more unhappy you feel. Right? And I think for women, it's particularly dangerous because there are so many very loud voices telling us what we're supposed to be right from day one.

[00:07:30] We are told to negate our own wants and be a martyr. We are told that motherhood is the, you know, the best and most amazing thing you can do, and you have to sacrifice everything for it. And, oh wait, also, you're supposed to have this high power job and do it all seamlessly. And so we're going after this thing that kind of doesn't exist.

[00:07:49] Megan: body back two months after you gave birth and look the exact same, right?

[00:07:53] Anne: course, of course. And so it, it's like we're chasing these kind of impossible standards and they're not even what we want. And that's the problem, right? Because then we're getting further and further and further away from what we want, and we lose sight of ourselves. And that's actually what makes us miserable, right?

[00:08:09] It's not the drive, it's not ambition. It's the ambition for the wrong thing, right? For the, for everybody else's wants rather than for our own.

[00:08:19] Megan: Do you find that women struggle to let's just pretend this was me. Of course it is struggle to actually determine is this, is this an external voice or. this what I really want? Because I think, I know for me, I had a hard time, you know, in, in my head I'm thinking, well, of course this is what I want.

[00:08:36] Of course this, but then it was years before I could go, oh, that really wasn't what I wanted. But I had let that noise make me believe it actually was my voice talking. Do you see this a lot? And how do we handle this?

[00:08:49] Anne: Yes, for sure. one of the things that I do with clients, and it's the first thing we do in the group that I run, but I do with individual clients too, is like an identity closet cleanout, right?

[00:08:58] So it's kind of like if you envision you're gonna open the closet doors, you're gonna put everything on the bed and we're gonna label it. That's what Aunt Susan told me in third grade. That one comes from social media. That one. Oh, that's my mom. That is just kind of generic what I've heard moms are supposed to do.

[00:09:17] That's the neighborhood I live in. Like let's, when you can hang a source on it and sometimes the source is just, oh, that's anxiety, right? Like maybe we're not quite sure where it came from, but we know that it's not. Accurate. Having something like a container for it can be so incredibly helpful. And then once you've done all of that, you can look at it a little more objectively and say, okay.

[00:09:40] Do I actually wanna put any of these clothes back in my closet? Do any of them fit? Because it's not that everything, not all of it is bad, but maybe a lot of it is extraneous and doesn't apply. And I find that we really have to do that. Even if you've done that work. I mean, this is what I love about the transition of motherhood.

[00:09:58] Even if you've done that work and you feel like you've put a lot of these things to rest earlier in your life, motherhood kind of stirs it all back up again. But in this. Like really great opportunity way of saying be, you know, because there's so many new expectations that show up with motherhood and what of these ones fit, what of these ones are applicable to me.

[00:10:17] And then you get to start with like the two or three items, you know, that. Fit and feel good that are like you that, and then you can kind of rebuild from there and try new things on and see what you like. Because you know, you can imagine if you're wearing something that doesn't fit and isn't you, you're uncomfortable all day, right?

[00:10:35] Like if you're wearing like a sweater that's maybe it's beautiful, but it's itchy, right? Like you just literally physically feel right. I. And then you leave it in your closet and then you look at it and you're like, oh, I should wear this. And then maybe you put it on and you're itchy. So we just gotta get rid of those things so that you open your closet or you kind of look at your life and it's like, yeah, this all fits.

[00:10:55] Or at least I have a sense of the things that do and what I need to work to replace.

[00:11:00] Megan: I love this analogy. It's, I'm seeing so much of where this is gonna support me. How since there isn't a goodwill for these identities where I can take the itchy sweater and give it to, how do we go about actually not putting them back in our closet?

[00:11:15] Anne: That's such a good question, right? Because it's not as easy as just saying, well, that piece out and that doesn't fit me. Right? And that's where it starts to connect with boundaries internally as much as externally. Right? And I think that internal piece is actually the one that we don't always. Get to talk about like external boundaries.

[00:11:34] There's a lot there. I mean, there's wonderful books out there and I definitely talk about how do you set say no and set limits, et cetera. But those internal boundaries are like the, how do I not let that affect me? How do I let people maybe not like me or disapprove of what I'm doing and tolerate that and I will raise my hand as like a former people pleaser.

[00:11:54] That that was really, really hard for me. And in motherhood, it's. Escalated, right? Because everybody and their sister has an opinion on your motherhood, and I can guarantee you that whatever you're choosing to do, someone else is yelling very loudly about how that is the worst thing you could possibly do and will totally damage your children.

[00:12:12] And that was so, and you know, and, and it was so hard for me as a mom, like I wanted to read all the books and find the right answer. And there, there isn't, there isn't a right answer. You have to just know your own kid. But that's what I'm trying, like that's where we wanna get to, right, is to acknowledge that you are the expert on your own kid and what fits your kid will not fit every other kid.

[00:12:33] That you can start to build some trust in that and tolerate, like build up a thicker skin almost around other people's disapproval. You know, and I, I,

[00:12:43] Megan: of reading all the books because I'm like, I think that's a perfect illustration of that ambition paradox. I

[00:12:48] Anne: yes,

[00:12:49] Megan: single book because I wanted to be the best mom I could be and not screw anything up, right? The motive there was right,

[00:12:56] Anne: yes.

[00:12:57] Megan: it kept me so. Paralyzed because of course, books are giving different advice.

[00:13:01] So then your kid does the thing that you just read about, and then I'm stuck going, well, what do I do? This book said this, but this book said this. But that parenting expert says that, and then you're paralyzed and not doing anything you, you've, you know, overread essentially on trying, the motives were right, but now you've landed yourself in a really tricky spot where you're feeling very stuck.

[00:13:24] Anne: Yeah, and I think that's where so much, I mean, even, you know, we talk about mom shaming and mom judging. I think it all comes because we love our kids. On more than anything else in our life. And we want desperately to set them up for kind of successful, happy, fulfilling lives. And so the stakes are so high, and I think that's where actually where a lot of judging comes from, right?

[00:13:48] Like if I let you do it differently. Then that must, that must reflect on me doing it poorly. So I'll judge you or I'll shame you. And then we get into all of these battles and very strong opinions as opposed to recognizing, Hey, there's a, A, we as parents don't actually have as much control as we think we do over our children's lives and outcomes.

[00:14:08] Right. And b. We can choose different things because every family has different values and different needs and you know, I can say with four kids, every kid has different needs. I parent my children differently because they are different humans and need different things from me. And so if we can kind of open our minds a little bit to that across the board and see ourselves with a little more compassion, then you know, everybody benefits, including our kids, because then we're not, like you said, paralyzed or shaming ourselves or parenting from this.

[00:14:39] A place of fear, we, we get a little more access to the joy of it.

[00:14:44] Megan: Now, given that you work with so many women who are, you know, navigating this transition and I. What I love about it is I'm even thinking, you know, I, I recently been navigating the menopause transition, which is a

[00:14:55] Anne: Yes,

[00:14:56] Megan: and I'm like, God, what a great opportunity for me to do that kind of closet identity

[00:15:00] Anne: totally.

[00:15:01] Megan: now too. But do you see any patterns or any kind of, oh, these are the top X warning signs that someone is heading into. Ki burnout, if you will, as they are trying to navigate that transition. Is there anything that people could kind of be trying to get self-aware about so that they can prevent getting there and start doing the work earlier rather than when they're drowning? 

[00:15:26] Anne: the biggest warning sign is that sensation of I'm drowning and I don't know what I need. Like, I don't even know what to ask for. I just know I'm miserable. But I think a one other sign is just like a feeling of being almost numb. Like we, we talk about burnout a lot as like. I'm so depressed I can't get out of bed.

[00:15:43] But really, burnout can also be like, I just can't feel happy. Maybe I'm not miserable, but I'm also just like checked out almost. Or it can be I'm really cynical of everything. That's another way that it shows up kind of as a sneaky sign of just like, I'm kind of almost like critical of everything. But not necessarily like enjoying anything.

[00:16:04] So that's another one. The other one that I think is often what brings people, the, the two biggest things that bring people into my office and I'm, and I kind of recognize are, I feel like I'm failing, right? That this comes across as a personal failure as opposed to there's a lot of systemic stuff contributing to this and also like.

[00:16:23] It's not a me problem and the acknowledgement that like this is hard because it's hard, not because I'm doing it wrong. So the failure bucket or the, I did achieve everything I thought it was supposed to and I'm still not happy. So now what? Right. I have the, you know, the CEO title or whatever it is, a job.

[00:16:42] I have the kids I wanted, I did it. I feel blank or I'm unhappy, or I'm crying every night or whatever. So I, I got these external markers and it doesn't actually resonate internally.

[00:16:56] Megan: And I can only imagine that probably leads to a tremendous sense of guilt when

[00:17:01] Anne: Yeah,

[00:17:02] Megan: there going, like, again, almost that failure of like, well, what's wrong with me? I finally did all the check, I checked all the boxes, I. And I'm still not happy. So

[00:17:10] Anne: I.

[00:17:10] Megan: guilty about that as well.

[00:17:13] Anne: Yeah.

[00:17:14] Megan: Now as people work through this and start doing their closet clean out and you know, claiming the identities that are true to them, what do you see starting to shift for them just as they navigate life? Kind of what does, I think so many women listening can probably connect to being in it. What awaits us on the other side when we

[00:17:35] Anne: Hmm.

[00:17:36] Megan: do complete that closet clean out, and now we see the stuff that's us represented in our life.

[00:17:42] Anne: so it's really like a, a breath of fresh air. And I think in some ways it's like a, it's a sense of freedom, right? And in the little, and in the big. And so how does that kind of really look when you're in a place of unhealthy striving, which is that ambitious paradox, right? I, I use the word fear.

[00:18:04] Everything is out of fear. Fear of failure, fear of mistakes, fear of falling behind, fear of missing out, fear of screwing up your children, right? You're, you're basically scared and you're running all the time away from that fear. When you get to shift into healthy striving mode, it all comes out of joy, excitement, alignment, like there's permission to rest.

[00:18:29] It feels sustainable, right? Maybe you still have a really big goal, right? Maybe you still want to get to be CEO of your company or some company, but rather than doing it because. You're afraid of not doing it, you're doing it because you're so excited about it, because it feels energizing rather than draining.

[00:18:49] And that's the difference, right? Because then you're enjoying the whole process. You're enjoying where you are. A as a step towards this other big thing that you're kind of curious about. You know, for me it was like this shift out of. Out of that fear based to curiosity and really like just embracing that what's, what would happen if I do this?

[00:19:07] What if I try this new thing? How does this go with my kids? What, you know, what if we took an adventure and everything went wrong, would it be okay? Like, what if we traveled out of the country and, and just kind of taking risks from a place of like, if it doesn't work great and I've learned something, or we have a story to tell.

[00:19:26] Megan: Oh, that's so important. 'cause I think we feel, and I'll meet women like this where they feel like if they're in that trap, they're like, well, that means I have to give up on everything. Like I have to, I have to give up on my dreams and desires, whether it was, you know, to, to build the business or become the CEO or whatever those are. But I love that you're showing, no, it doesn't have to be, that you're just maybe redefining

[00:19:50] Anne: Yes.

[00:19:50] Megan: path that you're gonna get there, that you can still. You can still have you, you can still have big dreams and goals. It's not one or the other,

[00:19:59] Anne: Yes.

[00:19:59] Megan: you just create a different journey of what that's gonna look like to get there.

[00:20:04] Anne: A hundred percent. And I think that's one of the like kind of messages I, I'm really passionate about because I think so often women are told that the solution to working motherhood is shrink, get small step back, give up. That's the only way out. And I do not, I fundamentally believe that that is not true.

[00:20:20] And I talk to women about totally reimagining ambition from that career ladder. Mindset of climb up and up and up, and there's only one direction, and the only alternative is to fall off and fail to thinking of ambition as a web and on a web. Like if you can envision your kid or spider on a web, or if you don't like spiders, your kid climbing on one of those playground webs, right?

[00:20:43] They can kind of turn around. They can literally climb on the other side, right? Upside down. They can hang by their feet, whatever. There's a million. Different directions that you can climb and all of them are valid, and you can also change and pivot, right? You can say, I am ambitious for a little more peace and space, and then I shift and I'm ambitious for impact.

[00:21:02] Oh, and now I'm ambitious for connection. All of these things are wonderful things to be ambitious for. You get to have a big giant dream as a person and have it work with your motherhood as long as it's your big, giant dream.

[00:21:17] Megan: Yes. Oh my goodness. I hope everyone like rewinds and listens to that. One more time. I love the analogy I. Of the web, I always try and kinda talk about, well, you can change a direction on the map, but even that sometimes feels too rigid. So I I, have one of those big web things at a, at a

[00:21:37] Anne: Yeah, totally.

[00:21:38] Megan: and I, I am definitely going to take that with me. I just, I cannot thank you enough for being here today. I'd love for you to share with our listeners where they can continue to learn about your work. Potentially reach out to you if they are navigating this transition and could use some support as well.

[00:21:57] Anne: Awesome. Well, I mean, most likely place to find me is in my zoom room talking to women just like, your listeners about motherhood and work and the overlap and what they wanna be when they grow up. Now that they're grown up, or how to mom the way they want to. But you can get more information about that at my website, which is just dr ann wesh.com.

[00:22:17] Or you can even just Google Working Mother's Lifeline. That's the name of my group. And I also hang out on LinkedIn a whole bunch at Dr. Ann Welsh there and Instagram. Same is at Dr. Ann Welsh as well.

[00:22:27] Megan: Awesome. We'll make sure we include all those links in the show notes as well. Again, I just, the work you're doing is so, so important. Wish I had met you 14 years ago. It would've been so helpful to have that support through there. So thank you. Thank you so much. It was such a treat to have you here today.