Episode 34: The One for the Mom Looking for a Path Through The Mess: Finding Your Village and Building Habits That Actually Stick with Shannon Carothers

Ever wonder why your perfectly planned morning routine crumbles the moment your kid decides the kitchen floor is their art canvas? Shannon Carothers, expert on habit building in motherhood & host of The Successful Mama Podcast, gets real about the beautiful chaos of motherhood. This isn't your typical "5 AM club" productivity chat—it's an honest conversation about kitchen floor breakdowns, coffee-stained planners, and why celebrating washing ONE dish might be the secret to sanity. She's the missing link for those of us who love the 'self help' category, but struggle to relate those principles to the reality of motherhood.

Main Topics & Discussion

The Kitchen Floor Breakdown: When Perfect Plans Meet Real Life

Shannon opens up about her rock-bottom moment—sobbing on her kitchen floor while holding her baby, surrounded by the overwhelming chaos born of procrastination and anxiety. We explore how our messiest moments can become the foundation for our biggest breakthroughs, and how embracing the mess can actually be the first step toward finding yourself again.

Mom Dating Is Real (And It's Awkward AF)

Let's talk about the elephant in the playground—making mom friends is basically like dating, complete with the awkward "can I get your number?" moments. Shannon breaks down her three-step recovery plan from matrescence isolation: recognizing you're not alone, accepting that growth looks different for everyone in motherhood, and actually doing the terrifying work of building community. 

The One-Dish Revolution: Why Tiny Habits Create Massive Change

What if the secret to transforming your entire life started with emptying your coffee maker? Shannon shares her game-changing approach to habit building that doesn't require 5 AM wake-ups or meditation retreats. From the "super fast cleanup song" that gets kids dancing while tidying, to the gratitude planner that survived months of blank pages, discover why making things ridiculously simple might be the most revolutionary thing you do for yourself this year.

Connect with Shannon

• Podcast: The Successful Mama Podcast (available on all platforms)
• Instagram/Facebook: @

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Host & Show Info

Hosted by: Cally & Emily O’Leary

About the Hosts: We’re real moms and real sisters. We may look and sound alike, but our motherhood journeys are uniquely ours. We all do Motherhood differently, and thank goodness for that. Let’s learn and grow together.

Podcast Website: https://therealmomhub.com/

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Transcript

excited to dive in. This is going to be a really fun.

Yeah, me too.

So thank you so much for being here.

Well, thank you for having me. I'm super excited.

(...)

Um, would you mind telling our listeners just a little bit about yourself? We can start with what is a weekday look like for you and move into a bigger picture or however you want to start that.

Yeah, sure. So my name is Shannon Carruthers. Um, I am a mom of two boys, seven and nine. I still have to think that through the other day. I actually told someone they were five and seven. I was like, wait a minute. No reassess seven and nine. Um, but we live in Alabama. My husband and I are coming up on our 17th anniversary, which makes me feel really old, we did get married really young and then,

a regular weekday. Is that a thing?

(...)

I don't feel like no. So my boys are both in school now. Um, and so my weekdays vary. So, and I started, we were talking before the podcast started and I was just sharing that,

it's been a heavy year, right? And so for me, the years had ups and downs and curves and things that I've not really planned for. And so I think I've just been taking it day by day. Um, but obviously sometimes I spend a little bit of time at their school. I spend time working on my podcast. I spend time, you know, working around the house and I'm a, um, self-proclaimed DIYer.

Oh, I didn't know.

Yes. We actually moved out of our house in 2020 and we renovated from top to bottom and your, your general contractor you're looking at is right here. I learned, um, when we first started, I knew how to use a drill. That was the only power tool I knew how to use. And now I can do whatever you want. I can do drywall. I can do lay tile, flooring, plumbing, electrical. I did like a mix of all of it during the renovation.

So you're not the DIY wife that then assigns her husband projects.

No, no,

(...)

I have my, my tools out there. I'm the one who picked them out and was like, is it okay if we order these? These would be good for us, but I am the one who uses them most of the time.

Okay.

(...) Yeah.

I'm so impressed.

we could keep going down this, this DIY rabbit hole forever. And I hope we keep circling back because I'm interested,(...) but also you have your own podcast, the successful mom podcast

(...)

and you coach other moms. Yes. So you are into like, you have so many hats is what I'm learning right now.

Yes. So I have actually taken a little step back from coaching. I did one-on-one coaching for a while and I loved it so much. But again, for personal reasons I took just a step away. I had too many things, too many hats. I was trying to wear too much on my plate.

(...)

And so I do still do workshops or, you know, speaking opportunities. Sometimes I go on just about every month to a local TV show that we've got here called Tennessee Valley Living. And I talk about moms and growth and what that looks like and just kind of theme it. So I still have a lot of different things going on, but I have stepped back from coaching just

But I still do a bit of that on the podcast episodes.

I think why that matters to me is when you're listening to our podcast episodes,(...) you know, you talk about habits and how you can grow as a mom still. And it's valuable to me because I love to follow self-help, you know, motivational speakers, business podcasts. That's what I actually prefer to listen to.

(...)

And when I became a mom, I was like, oh, cool, this is great. You're selling me transformation if you're a coach, right? Like if I sign up for coaching, you're saying,

I see you stuck at point A, I'd like to take you to point C, you're paying for this transformation.

And as soon as I became a mom, I'm like, oh, you know what I don't have right now is like time or resources to tackle all of, like, it's fascinating for you to feed me all of this interesting psychological stuff, you know, all these theories, but it looks different for me in this season than it ever has.(...) So when you are in your podcast episodes, walking us through your different coaching tactics or habit builders, etc., you're still giving me those juicy little, this is who came up with this practice. This is what it does to your brain. This is why it works. So it's backed by all this. The science.

Yes. That's I'm like, okay, I'm in.

I love that. Thank you. I appreciate you noticing because I tried to put in a blend of the two because I know I've got moms who are listening her. Like I don't care anything about science. I just want to know how do I survive? But then I also know I'm the same way. Like I crave, you know, any kind of personal growth and development, anything like that. I'm always listening. Actually, this is the first, maybe last year was one of the first years that I've actually read a fiction book as an adult. Yeah. I usually read nonfiction, everything. Thank you. Thank you. I've been slowly inching into it and I'm reminding myself I can still have like positive takeaways that I can apply

even from fiction,

but I'm very picky.

think, you know, what you were saying, Emily, is just like the fact that you can listen to so many transformative coaching sessions or podcasts or whatever.(...) But so often they're like, okay, you need to get up at 5am and you need to meditate and you need to exercise for this long. And you need to keep to this very strict schedule when just like I said at the beginning, like what is a regular day in mom life? It's never the same. No matter if you're working mom, no matter if you're a stay at home mom, the schedule is always changing because life is chaotic. And as moms, we tend to carry so much of that weight as we go along that we've got to be willing to adapt. And so I think in turn we have to shift the way that that personal growth looks for us and allow ourselves to go, okay, my life is not like theirs. So I'm going to adapt and look at it a little bit differently through the eyes of a mom.

(...)

Yeah. Can you go way back for you, you know, five, seven years, I suppose, to your matrescence?(...) So now is, you know, like a coaching figure.(...) Are there maybe, you know, two or three things that you would tell yourself now about that matrescence journey?

(...)

Number one is I would say, you're not alone.

(...)

I think that was a really hard thing for me was I felt like I had all of these struggles and all of these challenges and I was trying to, you know, figure out what in the world I was doing, especially with, you know, two kids under two and my husband was working all the time. He was on swing shift. So even when he was here, a lot of the times he wasn't here. Um, you know what I mean? And so I think I just felt so alone and I felt so overwhelmed and overloaded, but I wanted to put on a pretty face. I wanted to smile and tell everyone, no worries. I've got it together. I'm holding things down and I'm good. And the truth of the matter was I wasn't, I was struggling. I was, I had so much anxiety. I had, and we could go down a rabbit hole into that story if you want to, but you know, I didn't know that other moms felt the same way that I did. And once I started being comfortable enough to share my story, I can't tell you how many times I've stood in front of a room of moms and I've told my story. And afterwards they come up to me and say, you told my story. That's exactly what I went through. That's exactly how I felt. And so we feel alone, but ultimately we're not, we're all going through the same thing. And I think that if we're willing to reach out to another mom and to just say, Hey, I'm struggling, they're often going to say me too. I'm, I'm doing the same thing. So that would be my first.

(...)

The next thing I would say is that

growth doesn't have to look a specific way. Your success doesn't have to look a specific way. Right. And it's okay to figure out just like in your matresence journey, you're figuring out who you are as a mother. You know, I'm no longer this person that I was before I had kids. It's also okay to figure out what you want for your life as this new person and how to get there kind of working around these new things that motherhood throws at you. So it's okay if it's not linear, it's okay if it's not like a straight shot because it's not right. Life doesn't work that way.

so just that you can design your success and that your growth is not going to look like it did previously.

(...)

last thing I

is to

find a community. And I know there's probably moms listening, her like, yeah, that's easier said than done. Um, where, where is this community? It's not like growing on trees outside. So how do I figure this out? I heard on an Instagram reels, I wish I could give credit to who it was, but she was basically going through this list of how do I make friends? You know, if, if I want to find people who go to church all the time, I'm going to go to church and I'm going to meet those people there. If I want to find mom friends who are like me, I'm going to go to maybe a playground where my kids are going to, you know, have fun with the other kids, but I'm going to start going consistently so that I can show up in the same place as these other moms. And I'm going to start trying to make those connections because you know, it's easy to say create a village, but if you're stuck at home and you don't get out and put yourself around other people, you're not going to find that village. So, you know, it's work and it's hard, but it's worth it.

I had a mom yesterday call it mom dating. It's just like about how awkward it is, you know, exactly that scenario you're at your playground, you know, you see another mom you might vibe with, we don't know.

(...)

And that was just so accurate. Mom dating is really,

it is real. It is so real.

And you have to do it.

Yeah, you do. Because if you're not, if you're not willing to like be brave and say, Hey, can we connect? Can we connect on social? Can I get your phone number? Like, yeah, it feels so awkward, but I've met some really great friends

taking that step and being willing to do that. And actually one of my very best friends, I remember a few years ago, she called me and she was like, you would be so proud of me. And I said, what, what did you do? And she said, I asked somebody for her phone number today. And I was like, I am so proud of you. She said, it was so scary to walk up to this stranger and go, Hey, our kids are playing together. Could we, you know, maybe have coffee sometime or maybe get together and let them play. And I think for some people, it feels really easy, but for some, it is so challenging. So just being willing to step outside of your comfort zone and you know, just ask because you never know. They may say yes.

Totally.(...) I'm sitting here thinking like, okay, so if there's this mom, I'm like really driving with them like, Oh, you're such a cool mom. And then the next piece for me is, okay, but like, how do you pair it? And does my kid like your,

yeah, there's so many things.

(...)

But honestly, like if you're jiving with the mom, I don't know. I feel like that's almost more important, at least with our kids age than if the kids are really playing.

(...)

Yes. It is horrible. You don't want that.

Right.

Right. They can play simultaneously and you can still have community and call it a play date.

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's great.

going back to your matrasas, and so we can go back to you're a fresh mom. You're so alone.

I mean, those three things, I'm like, yep, me too. Me too. So totally hitting.(...)

did you start to talk about feeling alone or how did you realize that other moms were in the same position you were in? How did you address that? It's when you're so isolated, it can be really tough to identify the problem and take action, both of those things.

I'm trying to think back to the exact time when I started kind of trying to branch out.(...) And I don't know that I have a real good answer for that. I think

I'm being honest, I had to work on myself first. I had to work on some of the things that I needed to fix in me before I was able to reach out and work with community.(...) And so for me, what that looked like and what started me on my coaching journey in the first place, or even just in my growth journey again, in the first place was that I was overwhelmed.

I wish I could just say it was hormones and the fact that I had two kids under two and like it was just crazy, but it wasn't. Because when I look back and I kind of do an assessment and I'm honest with myself, I know that so much of that came from my habits before I had kids and the fact that I had allowed things to start piling up.(...) And so for example, if I didn't feel like doing something, I wouldn't just go, okay, I won't do that right now. I'll do it later. And then it would never come. That procrastination, I'm really good at that. I just want y'all to know I'm like, if there was a gold star, like an A plus I could, I could earn that for sure. But

what had to happen for me is I went through this cycle where I'm looking around my house, everything is overwhelming because at the same time, while I'm a very big procrastinator, I also like order and structure and I want things to be in their place.(...) And when you have so much stuff that you've put off, there's no way to do that. Those two worlds don't coexist. And so what happened was I was overwhelmed and I was upset and I was anxious and I was having panic attacks all the time. And I would walk through my house and I would say, okay, today's the day I'm cleaning the house. I'm getting stuff done. I'm taking care of this clutter.(...) Yeah, I'm getting, getting rid of it. Right. But then I would feel overwhelmed

(...)

and then I would freeze and I wouldn't know where to start. And then I would feel shame.

(...)

And then I would feel anger. And I would take that out on my husband and take it out on myself and probably take it out some of my kids. And then the whole process would start again, because I would do nothing. And so

day I remember I was walking through my kitchen(...) and I was holding my youngest son who was probably maybe a couple months old.(...) And I just felt all the emotions and all the grief and all the things at one time. And I just fell in my floor and I just sobbed. And I was like, this, this can't be what motherhood is supposed to be like. This is not the experience that I've dreamt up in my head, which I know it's not a perfect fairy book story, right? But it's, it's not

I thought it would be. And it's me, I'm part of the problem here. I've got to fix some things. And I didn't know how, and I didn't know what I was going to do because I had too much on my plate already, but I knew I had to take some steps to figure it out. And so the work that I had to do was just figuring out me, figuring out how to step past some of that anxiety. And some of it would have been easier if I had some friends to help along the way, if I was willing to take those walls down and be open with someone. But I think I wasn't quite there yet. And so I started just listening to podcasts. I started trying to journal if I could a few minutes here and there. And I started working on my space and trying to take care of the things that were building up so much anxiety in my life.

then I think I got to a place where I was able to step outside and start to meet others and let those walls down and let them into what I had been going through.

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(...)

You know what, when you were talking about the kitchen and that's where you broke down and sobbed, I was like, wait, that was my location. Anytime I had a meltdown, Emily knows it was always the kitchen floor. It is. It's going through my trussons. I'm thinking through it. This might sound woo woo.(...) Like people call it the heart of the home.

(...)

And honestly, it's like you were like, we're working on our heart. We're trying to work on ourselves.(...) Like right now I'm like, it makes sense that it was the kitchen for me that I just like it came crashing in. And I was like, I have, I have to do something, but I couldn't write that. Like, so you have to go through the grief, but that's where the healing starts.

No, I've never thought about that. I love that analogy and thinking about that being the heart of the home and fixing your heart

and the heart of our meltdown.

Yes.

The irony here is that you're saying I feel so alone. I have all these anxieties and ultimately you save yourself in your story. Like you dive deeper into your loneliness and you pull on podcasts, you pull on external resources and support,

don't mean,

I don't

like this idea though of me. Like, I mean, listen, I think that

I had to make some choices to pick myself up,

but I couldn't have saved myself by myself because if I didn't have the support, you know, my husband was a rock star through all of that. He knew, he knew what I was going through and he tried the best that he could while he was continuing to work and continuing to do things to take care of our family,

give me time, to give me space and give me the things that I needed. He was so supportive. My family was so supportive when I would let them into those little bits or pieces or things that I needed. And so

I'm grateful for you to say, oh, you're amazing. You're rock started. I truly cannot take credit for that because I wouldn't have been able to do that without the people around me.

Yeah.

That makes a lot of sense. We just interviewed a therapist, a licensed therapist, and she just commented on how much we ignore community and

know, just how being individu- indiv- individualistic.

just not healthy for us and we try, but it's actually not possible, but you still have to have the gumption to like start accepting help.

Right. Right. No, that's, that's definitely true. And I think

had to take those first steps, but that growth continued because then I started to let those walls down. So I think I could only have gotten so far by myself. I'm saying that with air quotes as people are listening, but I was only able to get that far by myself and I had to have other people to help me the rest of the way.

Something I'm still,

(...)

when I see an injustice in the world, I just get mad and I get galvanized and I want to just fix everything. And so my journey into motherhood has really

me to say, okay, women deserve more. We deserve better. I wish America supported motherhood more culturally, medically, financially, all of these things. So I'm very pro taking up space and asking for more.

I really like about your story is that you're holding both. You're saying I had to ask for how, you know, my community showed up for me.(...) Also, if we're going to ask for more and say we deserve more, there's always going to be the person that we live with constantly, which is ourselves. So taking that autonomy or taking that responsibility(...) and making sure that you are fixing the parts of you that are not functioning.

I mean, we need to do both, especially on social media. I think with younger versions, I hear a lot more of women deserve more, especially after mother's day. I'm hearing here's how you can get the mother's day you deserve and it's like, okay, but it's both. How do you turn the mirror back on yourself and say, I'm actually the only one responsible for my happiness?

And that's what I was going to say is I think I'm fully supportive of the fact that we need to, you know, we need to support moms, right? We need to look at the policies we have in place and things like that.

I am very much

the side of the fact that we can't have the victim mentality either and go so much as owed to me. You know, I can't do this because I don't have enough support. No, listen, we all have struggles. It doesn't matter if we're talking about, you know, us as moms, if we're talking about race or religion or anything, any of the big things in politics right now. And I know we're not getting into politics and I don't want to go there and I'm sure you guys don't either. But the fact is that we have to

up for ourselves and take up the space that we need to, like you said, but we have to be willing to go, okay, these are my circumstances. And whether I'm happy about it or not, I have to be willing to do the work to make up for whatever struggles there are around me.

Yeah. Which then leads into your second point about what you would have told yourself in that matresence period that growth can and should and will just look really different, which is something I have not accepted yet, but I'm getting closer to it.

(...)

go through all this growth, right? You work on yourself, you find ways to survive motherhood and then it sounds like to start thriving in motherhood. At what point did you decide I can help other moms with this and how did you find, you know, the motivation and the energy frankly, to start doing that?

Well, first of all, there was no energy.

(...)

There was none of that.

(...)

But you know, I think that for me, as I was learning, as I was trying to figure these things out, I knew that there were other moms out there that had to be experiencing the same thing that had to be going through those similar struggles. And for me, since I learned a lot of that through podcasting, while I was able to listen and my kids were playing or my kids were occupying themselves and I'm unloading the dishwasher and I'm, you know, listening to a podcast or an audio book, those people became my teachers and it didn't necessarily apply to me where I was. And so

some of it, I had to definitely take bits and pieces, which is what we have to do, right? We have to take what we need and leave the rest for later and that's fine. But for me, I felt like I needed someone who was sharing both, who understood the mix between motherhood, this is where I am, and these are the things that I want to be able to grow. And so I was kind of trying to figure out how can I blend this? How can I make this into something that other moms could use too? Because I certainly don't have all the answers. You know, I'm learning as I go.

And one night I was rocking my son

his room, lights are out. And I was like, I remember I was just sitting there and I don't even know if it was on my mind, if I was processing like some of the things, but I just thought successful mama, because success looks different for all of us. We have to figure that out. And something I tell my guests on a regular basis is your story matters.(...) Your story matters. And it's worth telling no matter if you feel like you are quote, just a stay at home mom, or if you've been through some, you know, awful trauma and you've ended up on the other side. Both stories are relevant to someone. Because someone who is a mom is not necessarily going to take

same thing away from that trauma story, as she would from a mom who's just telling her story about everyday life and how, you know, the kids drew on the wall or got in the toilet or whatever. And so I think it's important to find both and to be able to share both.

so that was that was kind of what happened. And it

here we are a few years later.

Something I really, I think you were in my AirPods a couple of days ago.(...) I'm pretty sure it was one of your growth and chaos episodes, which are great.

(...)

You were really clear about saying, yep, falling off the wagon. I don't think those are your words, but basically acknowledging that like, as the kids change, as seasons change, as different thing happens in your life, you are constantly recalibrating. If you are nurturing and caring for small people whose growth is so rapid, it's really hard to keep consistent building blocks and keep everything rigid and structured in the same, because it's not necessarily going to serve them or you. So

really honest about the fact that it's constantly about a recalibration and reteaching yourself, what has worked for you in the past when you've had to let it go.

I think that was something that was really important to me in the beginning

want to show both sides of it because it's not,

don't know how many times I've listened to a podcast and I've heard someone say, you should do this and you should do this and you should do this. And I'm sitting there thinking, yeah, but do you do all those things? Like you're telling this story and preaching this concept of how this is how you live an amazing life.

(...)

But if we're honest with each other, that doesn't always happen. And that's okay. And that's the place where we're able to

the most is in our vulnerabilities.

And if we allow ourselves, like I said in the beginning, if we allow ourselves to let those walls down, to let people in, and I've just chosen to do that on a bigger scale.

(...)

Actually my son the other day, he's like, mom, why did you show on TV a picture of our room looking the way it did? And I was like, oh,

(...)

I'm so sorry. And he's like, they're going to know it was my room. And I said, yeah, but they're going to know I was your mama and I'm in charge of making sure you have your room clean. So it really, it shows on me more than it does you. And I explained to him about how important it is that we show people our mess sometimes, because it reminds them that

okay, we see each other because we both have messes.

the last episode that I did on Tennessee Valley Living on that show that I go on, I had moms send in pictures of their houses, of their mess, of their, you know, and of their spaces. And it was so great. And I got such good feedback from other moms who were like, Oh, my playroom looks just like that. My bedroom looks just like that.

just allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and, you

show those sides. And that's how we create that connection sometimes.

(...)

Honestly, that is one of my biggest areas of needed growth right now is I know my messy house, if it's messy, it negatively affects my psyche. But also I can't keep it clean all the time. And I am struggling, like just to show my mess. Like I am not,

(...)

I am more rageful when it's messy. I am not fun. And I want to be fun. And I want to just have people over when it's a mess. And it is really hard.

I created this rule. And this rule goes with all my friends. And anytime I have a new friend, and I ask her for her phone number, I say, you want to come over to my house and have a play date? I say, I have a rule with my friends. And this is the way it goes. You don't clean your house for me. And I won't clean my house for you. Done.

we if we just let that be, and I really do let it be okay that I have dirty dishes in my sink, and you know, clothes on the couch that I can push aside, she's going to feel so much more comfortable when I come to her house. And her house is a mess. Because she's seen my mess. And now I'm seeing hers. It's okay. So again, it's allowing that little bit of vulnerability. And I'm not saying you know, I've definitely had days where I don't want anybody coming to my house. And I need to like, clean to make it look like it's just messy. You know what I'm saying? So those days maybe don't come. But otherwise, on a regular, a regular day, it's okay. And I'm, I'm still working on this, because I was definitely raised with that mentality of companies coming, everything should be spotless, you pick everything up, and it looks like we don't live here. And I'm working on kind of breaking that down and letting it be okay. If it's not.

Back to the habits or the structure.

(...)

Do you have any anchoring

or needs in your life where say you're in a season of flux,

(...)

75% of your 95% of your habits and structure are fully out the window.(...) Is there a 5% that you hang on to that are crucial?

(...) Yes, I love this question. Because this is,

this is where I've been. So

just let listeners in on kind of what 2025 has been, I lost my gram very unexpectedly in March. And she wasn't just like the gram that you go and visit, you know, and go go to her house once a week for dinner or whatever. She was like in every part of our lives. She lived a couple streets over. She was with us all the time and one of my very closest friends.

was a lot and is a lot. I mean, I'm still processing that grief. And I really had to allow myself

just be okay with being broken with everything else going to the back burner. That was my house. My house has not been clean in the way that I normally keep it since then. We're getting there, I feel like. But every time I feel like that, it kind of goes back downhill again. And it just is what it is. And so I have been because of what I've taught, because of what I've studied, because of all of these, you know, years of this growth and understanding habits and how they work. And I love that you said anchoring habits, because that's exactly what I've been working on is making sure I get back to those things that kind of set the ball in motion that act as a domino. And so you start with one. And from there, it knocks over the next and the next. And so for me, what that looks like is I have a planner.

started this when I was in my messy season when I didn't know what to do.

think I started Yeah, in 2017, when my youngest was teeny tiny. And every day I would sit down and I would write down something I was thankful for for that day.

Because I think the hardest thing to do is start. And so if you start with one thing, it's easier to keep going. But it's hard to make yourself sit down and do the one thing. So if I just did one, that was enough. But I wanted to be a planner girl, I wanted to be one of the ones who drew and had all the pretty stuff. And, you know, all of these years later, I still have my planner and I still sit down in the mornings and I get my cup of coffee and I write down the things that I'm grateful for for that day.

And that is an anchoring habit that I've gotten away from.

And if you open, I keep looking to my right because I've got my planner sitting next to my desk. If you look in my planner right now, you will see months of blank pages or, you know, here's one or two days where I got back into the groove and I did it. I was like, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep going. And then blank space after that because I just couldn't get myself to do that.(...) So

me, that anchoring habit is just allowing that to be okay and working towards getting back to it. And just so you know, like the past week, week and a half every day, it's all there. And so it takes time and we have to give our self grace along the way. But in doing that, as I said, the rest of my house is kind of falling in order. Things are starting to get back to some kind of, I won't say normal, but I guess a new normal.

But yeah, I was, I love that question.

Gratitude. That's a good reminder for me because I used to have a whole journaling like before I had kids, I had a whole journaling like five different things that I would do every single morning. And yeah, journaling and gratitude was always the start. I have like a specific way I would do it. I don't think I've done that for more than five days straight since I had my kid.

Yeah.

(...)

So the biggest thing is you have to make it easy. You have to set the simplest goal possible because like, you know, if you go through a night and you've had no sleep, you're not going to sit down and journal for 15 minutes

do one thing or maybe for you that smallest step possible doesn't even mean writing it down. It means when I pour my coffee in the morning, I'm going to stand there and I'm going to think of something I'm thankful for from yesterday.

(...)

Because when we fill our mind with those things, it allows us to see that joy in every day. And it helps to combat some of those challenges and struggles that we go through, especially being sleep deprived.

(...)

Transcription Pending

So I think I am maybe the type A one here and you two are more type B. Is this true?

I'm kind of a mix. I'm actually I don't know.

(...)

Because I get so stressed when things are not in their place.

So it's like, is there an AB? I don't know.

I'm sure.

(...)

Maybe it's a C. I'm a C.

Yeah. I love a spreadsheet. Oh, yeah. Professionally, anything's done and I need them off my mind.

(...)

I think I'm a C. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

So I don't know if you're going to relate to this, but I listened to your podcast and there's so many like easy ways to be efficient and optimize, which that's like my bread and butter. That's like my personality.(...) But I also notice you talking about, you know, especially in this season, it's not getting done and I'm not doing these things that I normally do, like my habits and that's okay.

(...)

Do you have, you know, tips or advice on knowing when to let go? Oof. Does that make sense? Because that's actually my biggest issue is like saying, I can't keep these standards the way that they are right now.

Yeah.

To be a better mom, I need to let go.

Yeah. I think it's a really good question and I think I'm there too. I'm having to go through and weigh what's worth it, what's worth keeping, what's worth letting go of.

I think the biggest thing you have to do is you have to sit down and assess where you are. You don't have to assess this person that you think you are or this person you want to be, this person you expect yourself to be, but you've got to be really honest and go, you know what? Right now in this season when my kid is this many years old or, you know, this many months old, whatever, and I've got so many things thrown at me or I, maybe I've got an open space. It doesn't matter. Look at all of those things and assess

(...)

and then be honest and go, okay, this is working. My meal planning, working, spot on. Mine is not for the record. My meal planning has never worked, but this is a good example. Okay. Meal planning is working. I've got that under wraps. I'm going to keep going with that, but my organization system in my kid's playroom, this is a mess. Like we've got to do something different because it's causing me so much stress every day, right? If it's not causing you stress every day, let it go. It's fine. Work on something that is important to you, just like you talked about those,

you know, the habit stacking and the domino effect of finding something that matters.(...) Look at the things that matter most and let the rest go for this season. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And remembering that it's so different for you than the next one.

Absolutely. And that's a hard one. I think that's even harder for me now than it was when my kids were teeny tiny because I'm interacting more with the moms at school. And you know, I see them because now my kids are in second and fourth grade. So I've been seeing them for years and seeing all the things they're doing and I'm involved in this and I'm doing that. And it's like, Oh, I'm not doing all those things. Or, you know, I have someone who I go to her house and she's got teeny tiny kids and her house is immaculate and she seems like she's got it all together. So I've got to allow myself to let go of what others have going on and assess my own strengths, my own challenges.(...) What support system do I have? That's something I think that we also, you know, going back to that initial story, we often neglect that part of our story. We often don't say, who do I have supporting me in my life versus who do they have supporting them? You don't know if someone who's got it all together actually has other people who are taking their kids every weekend or who are cleaning their house or doing all of these things for them. And so you really can't compare what you're going through with what someone else is.

So much easier said than done.

Oh, a hundred percent.

(...)

Another thing that I was hearing as you were going through all of that is figuring out where your stressors lie. Like if you're going to do an audit of all of the things, energetically that are stressing you out or not even on your radar,(...) and maybe you just think they should be on your radar because so and so down the street does that. Right.(...) Just yeah. I love that tidbit about, okay, is it stressing you out? No. Cool.

Let it go. It doesn't matter.

Just address the stressors.

Right. Because you've got to start somewhere and you've just got to figure out what that looks like for you and just be honest. That's the most important thing. I think, I think we have this expectation for ourselves, you know, this idea of, well, I should have it all together. I should have these things done. I should be able to take care of all of this.(...) But when we step back and go, okay, maybe I don't actually have enough time or energy to be able to complete those tasks, what can I let go of? What can I be honest with myself about and let go of in this season?

Yeah.

(...)

So

say back in

your coaching days, you have a new client come to you. You have a new mom who's sitting across from you. You're both drinking your coffee or whatever, however your process looks.

It's definitely coffee. We're drinking coffee together.

(...)

She's saying, listen, I don't know why I'm here. I don't know what my problem is. I don't know where to start. I don't even know what feels bad. I just know I need help.

this is where I am now.

(...)

So if you have a map, okay, I want you to picture it. You're at Disney world, right? And you know, okay, where do you want to go? You want to go to the zoo? We're at the zoo. Don't go to Disney. It's too crowded. We're going to the zoo and you really want to go see the elephants.(...) The elephants are in the west side of the zoo.

you get to the elephants?

(...)

What depends on where you are.(...) So if you don't know where you are to start, you've got to find that's why they've got all of those places that say you are here. You are here, right?

(...)

Because if you exactly, because if you don't know where you are, you don't know the path to get to where you want to go. And so as moms, it's so important. When we start and we're saying, okay, I want to grow, I want to be somewhere different than where I am now. You have to start with where are you right now? What are your struggles? That's where that audit comes in. That's where that assessment and the honesty, because if you don't know where you are, you don't know how to get where you want to go.

What are your values? What are the things that matter most to you? Some people, their core values are, I'm going to build my career alongside my family. That's not my core value and that's okay. My core value is my people are first. They are my priority and I will figure out the rest alongside them and that's okay too.

I'm just saying it's important for you to get to know yourself and to understand the things that matter to you. Part of that journey is going to be more challenging because you are going through matresence, because you are trying to figure out, "Okay, it's not who was I before little Jimmy came along, right? It's who am I now as a mom and who is this person that I'm becoming and what are my values now?" Because they may look different than they did five years ago before I had kids and when I was so focused on my career. But now I've got this tiny human and maybe things look different or maybe they don't. Both are okay. You just have to figure out what it means for you.

did that look for you?

Are there any drastic changes or character traits that after matresence?

(...)

I think some of that started(...) happening with me a little bit sooner

when I had kids. I will say that because the reason I keep bringing up career versus kids is because that's what I went through when I was in high school before I got married and early college. I was very determined, driven. Everything was goal-oriented and purpose. You do these things and you struggle through this. That way, one day you can build and get this great job.

(...)

That was the track that I was on.(...) I thought, "I'll just do all those things. I'll travel. I'll be this big person in this company and then I'll have kids alongside and it'll be totally fine."(...) While some people may be able to do that and be really good at that, that's not me.

(...)

I started having these conversations with my husband. He really challenged me when we were dating and when we were newly married and just asking me questions that really made me think about what mattered most to me.

(...)

The more that I leaned into that idea

is great and it's important to have passions and goals and things that matter to you and things that allow you to think and use your adult brain and just pursue your passions and goals.(...) Ultimately,

(...)

at the end of the day, I'm not going to finish my life and go, "Man, I wish I would have worked extra. I wish I would have." No, I'm going to say, "Where are my kids? Where's my husband? How's my relationship with them?" That's who matters most to me and that's ultimately my main concern as I go through my life.(...) I tell my kids that all the time. I'm like, "Listen, it doesn't matter what people do. It doesn't matter what their job is or who they are in relation to you. People matter most, always, and you value them over everything else and the other things will fall in place."

one of the things I'm most proud of that I've taught my kids as a mom is to value people and to make sure that they understand how important they are

for me, getting back to your question,

(...)

I had to go and transition from this idea that my career was most important to me to my kids and my husband are most important to me and I'm going to figure out the rest alongside them. I will say, I think that transition happened just a little bit before I had kids, which was fine.

(...)

Same. Yeah, it hit me four months back into working.

(...) Yeah, it makes you question some of those things that you thought were important before and how they fit into this new person you're becoming.

(...)

Am I doing the math right? You're celebrating your 17th wedding anniversary and you have a nine-year-old. That's your oldest. Yes. You had some time to be an adult with your husband.

Yes, we did that on purpose.

for us, the fact that we were so young, we talked about we wanted to spend time growing together. We wanted to spend time growing up and learning about each other and enjoying that time of us before we added more into the chaos, right? Into this

making new this family unit rather than just the two of us. And so we did. And I'm really thankful that we took that time.

Yeah, I planned on that.

No, no. How long were you married before?

Before conceiving one month. Okay, gotcha. Ten months before we had a child.

Hey, that's awesome.

I mean, I wasn't planning on eight years or whatever you had. I was planning on like three or four.

Yeah.(...)

But you know what? Now you get to grow and learn each other more as you have kids, right?

Yeah. Our first dance song was "Grow As You Go" by Ben Folds.

Oh, that's sweet.

(...) I think I just like somehow I knew that we were gonna need it.

That's perfect.

We all had

After this week, I'm going to make myself so many charts. I'm actually excited about this because we will have released Caitlin's episode at this time. So this is a therapist conversation we had. I'm going to be tracking my energy.

Love it.

And I'm going to be tracking now my stressors and my anxiety.(...) Yes. Your gratitude.

Yes. Add your gratitude in there.

Right. No, that's not going to go on the chart.

Okay. Okay.

(...)

Are you ready for a lightning round?

Yeah. Let's go.

Self-care to you is.

often self-care to me is,

If I just go the like quick and easy answer, self-care to me is coffee. That's always happy.

(...)

Either with a friend or by myself in the library or a coffee shop. It's, but it always involves coffee. That's self-care.

If you could put one thing on a billboard for all moms to see, that would be,

hmm.

Can I guess? I think I know yours.

(...)

Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. I've got, I'm, I'm debating. You are not alone. That's, that was the first thing that came to mind was you're not alone.

(...)

And I also would say the little things add

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good.

Your favorite habit building technique for your own life is.

Make it really simple.(...) Make something ridiculously easy.(...) The hardest thing with building habits, the reason that we go back to the things we've been doing over and over and over again is because they're easy. And so if we want to shift that habit and we want to create something new, we want to, you know, make a change.(...) The best way to do that is to make it as easy as possible so that in those moments when you don't feel like you can do it, when you're too tired, you don't have time to sit down and journal. You don't have, you know,

make it as easy as possible and let that be okay.

something that I love seeing from your content, you talk about the pace, just being slower,(...) slower and smaller, all of the things. So it's really about stacking up. Yeah. If the things have to be smaller, just know they stack up over time, kind of trust the process.

Yeah.

What is the smallest change you've made in your life that made the biggest impact?

(...)

Okay. You're going to laugh when I say this. Everything in my life I think is related to coffee, but so

very first habit that I started doing, and I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't realize I was creating like an anchoring habit or anything to that effect. But I thought about the fact that the thing that was stressing me out most every day was that I would get up in the morning, I would go to make my coffee, and I would find yesterday's old wet coffee grounds in my coffee maker.

(...)

And I would immediately be like, I'm angry. I'm not going to wash this out. And because now it's wet and gross and that just seems, I can't do it. So every day would be grumpy. And so I thought, all right, the one thing I'm going to do that I'm going to put in place is I'm going to empty my coffee maker when I pour my last cup of coffee for the day.

And so that's what I started doing

guess what? The next morning when I got up and I went to it, it was clean and dry and easy for me to start my coffee for the day. And it's like it started my day off on the right foot, rather than that negative thing. And then,

dear husband, you know, something I say often is that the reason I like to pour into moms, the reason I think it's so important that we focus on our own growth is that it spreads to the people around us. Our kids are watching us. That was my first, most important thing was I wanted my kids to mimic me and see what I'm doing. I'm working on myself. You can work on yourself too. I want to set that example. But what I didn't realize was that it was going to impact other people in my life around me as well.

My husband started emptying the coffee maker when he would pour is like little things like that, or he would, he would set up the coffee maker for me. And it seems so little and so simple and silly almost,

but it's like it was setting these things in motion and allowing us to embrace this change that was coming.

So if you're thinking about some of the, your favorite results or your favorite challenges or habits that you've done,

(...)

top three.

The first one is reading.(...) I had not read a book as an adult in a long, long, long time. I had always loved learning. I had always loved that structure and just craved it. And then it was like, I just let it fall off my radar and I don't know.

(...)

And so along the same lines, I started with a very small goal. I wanted to read one book a month

(...)

and I finished that year and I had read 12 books. And then the next year I read like 35 books and the next year I read, I mean like, and so consistently I write down my books as I go. And I've got a list somewhere over here.

So I would say definitely reading. I think that has such a big impact on who we are. I love the quote from Dave Ramsey. He says that maybe it's not just Dave Ramsey, but he repeats it anyway. He says that you're going to be the same person you were yesterday, except for the books you read and the people you meet.

(...)

And so I just think it's really important that we, you know, pour into ourselves with that.(...)

Ooh, Ooh, we can talk about super fast cleanup. That's a fun one.

Okay. Yes. Super fast cleanup. It's super fun with toddlers. Okay. But my kids still enjoy it,

would let them pick their, and they ended up choosing the very same song all the time. It became our super fast cleanup song.

And so you turn it up really loud, like louder than you would normally turn your music up and you set a timer and then everybody cleans up as fast as possible and you make a big game of it. And it's so much fun and they're so excited because the music is loud and you're dancing while you're cleaning and you've got a start time and a stop time. So you're not procrastinating and you get so much done in 10 minutes and they learn how to be part of that process, how to tidy along with you, that it's part of their job and not just mommy's job to do the thing.(...) And so they're taking ownership over that as well. I mean, so there's a lot of great things packed in that. So I would definitely say that was a really good one that we did as well.

Third habit.

when I would put my kids to bed, some people, when they finish cooking dinner for the night, they have to go to bed with a clean kitchen.

Okay. I am not one of those people. I am a morning person through and through. I hate doing stuff at night. Like I'm falling asleep as I'm reading bedtime stories to my kids. And so the idea of getting up and cleaning the kitchen after I'm just exhausted, I'm like, no, I'll save it for tomorrow. I'll do it in the morning or I'll do it after the end of the day. Like I don't care. I can't do it before bed. So the one habit that I put into place was that I would wash one dish.

I got done putting them to bed. And if I did one, remember we're making it super simple. We're attaching it to something that's already happening, which is bedtime. So as soon as I put them to bed, I'm going to do one dish.

(...)

And what it allows you to do is once you wash one dish, the hardest thing to do is start. So once you do the one, it's so much easier to do the rest. And nine times out of 10, I would continue to go ahead and wash at least a handful of dishes, if not, you know, all of them, if not cleaning the entire kitchen. But it just took that little bit to to start and give myself that one small rule of just one.

That's what I need for laundry.

Yeah.

I've decided.

But here's, here's the important thing is you have to be okay on the days that you just do one dish.

(...)

Sometimes you're going to just feel like doing one dish. And that's worth celebrating too, because you did the one dish.

But that's the kind of mindset shift that we've got to work on as moms is allowing ourselves to not always be all or nothing. Because all or nothing doesn't always work with our schedules and our lives. And exactly.

(...)

I think that's my hardest lesson from this episode is celebrate the one. I don't know if I've done that in my entire life. So there's my homework.

There you go.

okay, that's my favorite. And I'm sensing a theme here. Just how easy can you make the task?

What was on a recent episode there? What is the theory when you think about all the things you didn't do instead of what you

this is a garnic effect.

The what? Say it again.

Zegarnik.

Zegarnik.

Yeah. It's Z-E-I-G-A-R-N-I-K that we focus on and remember the uninterrupted or the unfinished tasks rather than the ones we've completed. Is that what you were talking about?

Oh, that's even deeper than negativity bias. It's like specifically if we set out to accomplish something, like this is the result I'm going for and we only go 5%

(...)

or like more upset at the 5% than if we hadn't even started.

Yeah. We focus on that stuff that we didn't get finished.

(...)

Yeah. I just love that you named that.

Yeah. It's really helpful. I think when you're able to put a name to the things you're experiencing and I think that was one of the biggest things

(...)

with the books that I was reading and the things that I was learning was being able to go, "Oh, this is not just me. I can put a name to this because other people go through this too."

(...)

And just like if you have some kind of sickness and you go doctor to doctor to doctor and none of them can name it for you and you go to one and they're like, "Well, it's this." And you get that relief because while you're not happy to have some diagnosis, there's more relief there because you can actually name it for what it is. And then you can begin to figure out how to combat against it because you know what it is, right?

Yes. Mattressens did that for me.

Yeah.

It just named everything I was feeling. It gave me some relief where I could say, "Oh, maybe it's not a postpartum disorder. Maybe it was whatever." But it was like, "Oh, this is such a powerful thing for other women that there's a whole psychological term for it." Yeah.

What was the name of this? It's Garnick.

This is that Garnick.

Thank you. There's just so much power in a word.

What is on your nightstand right now? Oh, yeah.

Oh.

Bookwise.

So we currently...

(...)

I have several books.

(...)

Several, okay. Yes. I have Harry Potter, the fourth one. Is it a reread? No. So I have never... Listen, I told you all I didn't read a fiction book until last year.

(...)

Wait for your whole life.

No, no, no. I mean, no, but no, I haven't read the Harry Potter books before at all. Period. So I'm reading them with my boys.

So that's become our bedtime.

we've got these really cool illustrated ones. And so they're full size books. They're beautiful. They've got images, which makes it more fun for them to be able to see those. So I do have the Harry Potter book. What else? I've got...

have a switch for mine and my husband's lamps that we just added because we bought the fancy bulbs and each of us got a switch on the side. And I can turn on his or mine or both. I can make them dim or bright or colors or... Yeah, it's really cool. So I have one of those. Yeah, it's awesome.

(...)

And I don't want to know how much you paid for them. So we just are going to ignore that. But it does make me really happy when I go and turn that on. I have a crocheted little coaster from my Graham that she made.

(...)

And I've probably I've got another stack of books because I have been jumping through. I used to be, I read cover to cover one book at a time always.(...) Now I don't. I kind of dive into this book and that book. And if I like it, I'll pick it up and read it or sometimes I'll put it down for a while. Yeah, so I've got a stack of other books back there too.

The most joyful part of your day is...

I would say it's little boy hugs.(...) Anytime I get,

I think I know that they're getting bigger. I know that time is going by so fast. So anytime they come to me and just say, can I snuggle with you? Can I, you know, can I sit in your lap? Yes, you're going to hurt my legs, but yes, you can sit in my lap as long as you will fit and I can hold you.(...) Yeah. So anytime there are little boy hugs around.

What makes you feel beautiful?

(...)

My husband.(...) He, yeah,(...) he's really something I'd say.

think one of the things that

I cherish so much is that he's taught my boys that like the way that he looks at me, the way that he loves me, he's setting that example for them

has been so fun. Thank you so, so much.

Thank you guys for having me.

(...)

Where can they connect with you online?

Yeah. So I am on Instagram, Facebook at successful mama podcast and mama is spelled M-A-M-A. I'm a Southern mama. So that's how we spell it here. I

I'm there occasionally, but I do, I do check. I do try to update from time to time. So yes, you can always find

me. And your podcast is that on all the platforms?

The podcast, you can listen on any platform to search for successful mama podcast.

(...)

For all your habits.

Habits. Good stories from other moms.

(...)

Yeah.

(...)

Oh, well thank you so, so much. This has been delightful.

Well, thank you again.

Oh, the little boy hugs after school.

Oh, thank you so much. They're the best. They really are.

Bye.

(...)