Episode 08 - Ambition After Motherhood: Are We Allowed to Want More?

What happens to ambition after becoming a mom?

In this episode, we’re getting real about the tension so many mothers feel—but don’t always say out loud. The desire to be present with our families and still want more for ourselves.

We share our own career transitions, how motherhood reshaped our identities, and the moments we faced our fears and took risks to go after what we truly wanted next. 

Whether you’re:
 ✨ Climbing the corporate ladder
 ✨ Navigating a major career pivot
 ✨ Staying home while quietly dreaming about something more

…this conversation is for you.

We’re holding space for the complexity of ambition in motherhood—the guilt, the growth, the identity shifts, and the possibility that wanting more doesn’t make you less of a mom… it makes you human.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Welcome to Messy Minded Mama, a podcast for moms who look managed but might feel a bit messy on the inside.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

I'm Kate and I'm Jen. And we are here creating space for real talk about motherhood, mental health, and the invisible load so many women carry. Welcome back to another episode of Messy Minded Mama. I think we're at eight. We are, yes. We're doing it every week, and this feels so good to be here. Today I want to start with some big news and a big shout out and celebration, congratulations, all the good things to you, Kate. Thank you. For opening Summit Point Counseling, your very own private practice.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Yes, big change, scary change. I'm stepping away from a career I've had for nearly a decade to lean into something that I've really found a spark at for. Yep. All of it. And I opened my own private practice for counseling. We have an office in Littleton or virtual across Colorado, but I'm very excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah. Tell us a little bit about clients who you're wanting to see, who you're planning to support in this new venture.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, it's really a spectrum. There's a lot of focus on motherhood and women's mental health because that has been such a passion for me. Yeah. Why I'm here to do this. That is a huge focus for me. Motherhood, but caregiving in general has also been a really strong passion for me. I've spent the last decade working in adult services, mostly with aging adults and their families. And so I have seen firsthand the struggles that people go through in caregiving in general. And that's not just caring for an aging parent or caring for a child, but I really want Summit Point to focus on the spectrum. We have caregiving for children, that's parenthood, and then how it follows you across life. Yeah. And then I also focus on aging. So I've been able to take these two passions I have aging, caregiving, motherhood, parenting, and kind of squish them together, if you will, into this practice. So I'm very excited and terrified all at once.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Totally. I get it. I'm so proud of you for kind of taking this leap to be able to just expand on, like you said, all the things that you've been passionate about, all the expertise and knowledge that you have, and be able to provide such valuable support to a wide variety of people that need it. I think it's an amazing thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Thank you. I'm very excited. That actually leads us into our topic for today, yeah. Which is something that I think a lot of moms feel, but we don't really say out loud. It can be kind of a scary topic to talk out loud about. Yeah. But it's ambition and motherhood. And can we want more for our lives and still be good moms? Can we want the career? Can we want a project? Can we want something outside of ourselves as a mom and actually dive into that and lean into that? And so that's something we really want to focus on. Of motherhood changes you. We've talked about that. But it doesn't erase that drive that we have as humans. Right. And so I want to dive into that. We both have had career changes. I just talked about me stepping away and some at point, but you've actually done something similar. Yeah. Not that long ago, too. And so tell me what that looks like for you and why that ambition mattered and how you leaned into that.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

Yeah. So so much to this story for me. And like you said, the ambition in motherhood, I think it's something that almost gets stronger, if you will, like when you go through the identity changes, when you think about who I am now as a mom and how I want to show up for my family and then also for myself. I think that is kind of what was behind this big change and transition for me personally. So starting a little bit from the beginning. So I worked in the banking finance industry for almost 18 years total, right out of college, didn't know what I was going to do and kind of fell into this job at the time, but what turned into this very valuable, worthwhile career for me for that period of time. I met some of my best friends doing that work. I became a strong leader. I became a mentor. I was good at what I was doing. I was passionate about it in some ways, kind of while I was building it, because I knew I was good at it and that I had fallen into something that was building out what could have been this lifelong career for me. Loved what I did, grateful for that lived experience and everything that it brought to me. But when I fast forward to having Jack, my firstborn, the grind, I guess I'll say, of having to get out of the house super early in the morning, go to an office that I needed to be in person every single day from the eight to five, and then trying to think about how much time I was missing of being able to spend with him.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

How getting up in the morning and like we talk about the morning chaos, right? We've talked about what that can look like, but having that be such a strict schedule and having to drop him off with someone else, leave him, not be able to get back to him until probably six o'clock at night. And then really remembering in those early days him wanting to go to bed at 6:30 and me saying, like, I have no time with my kids.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

With him, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

And what that really, I think kind of forced me to do at that point in time was look at is the are the hours that I am away from him at this job worthwhile for me? Am I really passionate enough about the work that I'm doing that it is that making me feel okay about that time away? Yeah. And it took me a while. I didn't, I didn't transition careers when Jack was a baby. It took me until actually Elle was born later and Elle being a baby to actually like start to take the steps to do it. But having both my kids, kind of in that first like two to three years of having my kids, really asking those hard questions of what do I want for myself? What do I, how do I want to show up as a mom? How do I want to balance this? And I knew being a stay-at-home mom wasn't for me. It wasn't something that I had in me. I knew that I wanted to work and I wanted something for that I could consider maybe just for myself, but I wanted to be really passionate about it in order to make the time away from my kids worthwhile.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah. Did you fight that feeling at all? Did it feel like a battle internally?

SPEAKER_00 7:10

A little bit. Um, but I think more the fight was more of like this fear of taking this leap into something that was uncomfortable and unfamiliar to me. For me, so my career change looks like going back to school for my master's in clinical mental health counseling.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

You have to talk about the sneaky going to school.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Okay, I will. So, yeah, so there's this fear behind making the change, but there's also this thought of like I'm living a double life. And that's really what it was for me. I had a very limited um crew that I brought along on this journey when I started going back to school. So I mentioned most of my best friends are people that I was working with at the time. And they're people that I would share everything about my day with, but things that I was like, I don't know, I don't want to put them in a weird spot by telling them I am working on something that's eventually gonna pivot me completely out of this job. And just wasn't ready to do that for a long time. So I went to school for three years. I worked full-time for my other company while going to school and did feel like I was living this double life of, okay, I'm showing up, I'm doing everything I need to. I was still a good employee, I was dedicated to the work I was doing. But behind the scenes, I was staying up late at night. I was working on my weekends, trying to get schoolwork done and trying to balance both, but also kind of hiding it from a lot of people in my life. And then thinking about going back to school, I honestly didn't even know what I was gonna do with it. I knew I wanted to do mental health counseling, but I didn't even know for who. Right. Again, going back to kind of this ambition, this identity, the things that we think about after we become a mom. I think one day it just clicked after maybe two years into school of like, oh, I want to do perinatal mental health counseling. I want to show up for moms in the way that I needed and didn't realize I needed, in the way I still need today that I don't always think about. Um, so offering something that I felt like I could be deeply passionate about. So this all started of just this again dream vision that I had and built kind of slowly over time in those three years, a long road to get there and a lot of, I guess, just kind of soul searching of what do I want this to look like for me and why? Why am I doing all this at the end of the day?

SPEAKER_01 9:29

I love that story. And there's so many pieces that I hear in it too, because I think we tend to feel like we have to have everything figured out before we jump into something. It has to all align, it has to be tied up in this neat bow. And as someone that is perhaps a recovering perfectionist, in a lot of ways, it is scary to take that jump, to lean into it, to not have it fully be this nice, pretty plan. But that is where, for lack of better words, the magic happens, the change happens, the spark that you follow. And it is terrifying. Yeah, I'm living it. Poor Jen gets my text messages probably every week about it. But you didn't have it all tied up. You leaned into that uncomfortable, like you just talked about. Yeah. And here you are. You have your practice. Yeah. You have your practice, but you're also doing something that feels right for the season of life that you're in, that you're passionate about. Yeah. And that's the part that I think we lose as moms or parents, even. Yep. Is we're supposed to be passionate about our kids. Yep. And we are, but you can't have something outside of that. And you're living proof of that.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Yeah. Thank you. And I think going back to one thing you said about not having it all baked, right? Not having it all kind of figured out. For me personally, that actually felt like really exciting, motivating, and more comfortable for me when I was just saying, I don't need to have this. This, I can build this as I go. I'm still doing that, right? We're still doing that when it comes to the podcast and things that we want to explore and do together in this partnership. And there's so much beauty in the dream, right? And just being able to kind of take it one step at a time. I think what felt uncomfortable for me is when I started to share with others around me. And you get asked all the questions, and then when you don't have the answers, you get this look almost like, oh, is this gonna, does she even know what she's doing? Yes. That's what I felt. So I started to get in my head a little bit about maybe outside perspective of if I didn't know exactly what my focus was gonna be, if I didn't know exactly how long I was gonna work for another company and then go private. And I didn't have all the answers. I knew I didn't have to, but it it's part of the reason I think why we want to keep things private sometimes is because we don't want others to have that perception of us, like we don't know what we're doing. It's like, I don't have to know what I'm doing. And and I love that. I love being able to kind of build, explore new things. Um, I always love kind of like the test and then get just as you go. So why not try something and then you can pivot and you can learn from it? It's all about learning from our mistakes, learning from our missteps along the way. And I think it's taken a long time in my life to get that confidence to do that, but happy to be there, happy to get the opportunity to do all of that in this journey and really just go for what I want at the end of the day in all of this has felt really empowering.

unknown 12:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Also on the motherhood side, I do have more flexibility right now to be with my kids. And that was probably really behind the scenes of I don't want to go to an office eight to five and be away from them. I want to build something that if I'm away from them, it's worthwhile to me. I'm passionate about it, but also something that doesn't demand that out of me right now, but something that can continue to grow. So I think about all the places that we can take everything we're building and how that can be somewhat part-time if you wanted it to be now, but also develop into something that's more full-time as the kids get older. So I can pivot my career in a way that allows me to show up when I want to for them, be present for them, and also be very fulfilled in what I'm building with the passion I carry for it.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

I love that. I love all of the pieces of I talk a lot about the spark, finding a spark inside of you, reigniting it, leaning into it, because it feels like it can get dimmed a little bit when we're managing everything we talk about on the podcast, the mental load, the chaos, our identity. And then when you find something and that spark is there, I have always kind of shied away from it of it's there and I want to explore it, but I don't know what that looks like, and I'm scared. But you fully have leaned into it and you have so much more time with Jack and Alan Tyler, even and have offered them flexibility and that space. And you had to do some uncomfortable things to get there. You had to live a double life of secretly going to school and staying up late. And it's not an easy path to shift that way, yeah, but it's meaningful and worth it in a lot of ways. And even I think this was my mindset when I was shifting, sure. Is even if it fails, it's not that everything I did was a failure and I have to scrap it all, which is really hard to wrap my head around sometimes. I'm not a super big risk taker. And for me, I do like things in a pretty package bar. It's terrifying to me to not have it that way. But leaning into that has really just given me some excitement. Yeah. And I loved my job before. I did there's I've loved it. I've spent a lot of time investing in the program itself, but a lot of time investing in my own skills as a leader there, in my team, in the programming, in the population. Yeah. And to walk away from that has been a really hard mindset shift. Yeah. But when we do things like this podcast or when I'm working on things for my practice or the workshops, I feel a spark that I haven't felt in a really long time. Yeah. Something new and something creative and something for me. And I talked about in Messy But Manage, the blog, that that literally started from just a spark of someone saying, Oh, start a blog. And I said, Okay. Right. Sure. And I was able to pour so much creativity in a part of myself that I hadn't tapped into. And it really, we are almost six months to the day of when I started Messy But Manage. But that was something I had to lean into for myself. And then from there I've just built.

unknown 15:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

But you have to lean into that uncomfortable part.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

You do. And there's, I love your story as well, and want to give you space to share anything else that you want to. But I think some things that you said, you've been building this off to the sides, right? You're having to carve out time, you're having to find extra hours in the day that we don't have to be able to work towards the things that are bringing out that creativity, that are bringing out that passion. And kudos to you for all the hours and time that you've spent doing that and creating something so valuable and important that alongside everything else that you're doing, it's not easy. I think you're getting to the point now of being able to let some of those things go. And that can feel so freeing, but also there's so much fear behind that as well of okay, I'm letting go of something that was comfortable and moving into something brand new.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

You won't regret it though.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

You will not regret it. Thank you. I appreciate that. And you guys don't all know this, but Jen takes on a bulk so much for messy-minded mama because I'm still in the thick of balancing. And I I was telling you when we were coming up with ideas here of I saw a post of I can't just up and leave my job to do something I want. And we recognize that. We're saying yes, we hear that. And you can build a path for yourself, but it might be uncomfortable. Totally. You went to school and had a full-time job and had a family. I've spent the last year working two jobs with my kids, having my family, building messy-minded mama, building messy but manage, being at the horse barn. Yeah. And trying to build all that. And it's not comfortable. And it has been hard and exhausting in a lot of ways. But there's an end goal that I've been trying to reach. And I had to test whether or not I actually wanted to do the therapy job because I've liked it when I had done it as an intern, when I had kind of dabbled in it, but not fully. And so I said, I need a full year to explore to lean into this. But for that full year, it's gonna be hard and it's gonna be uncomfortable. And thank God I have my partner, Taylor, that I do because he's been so supportive. Yes, go do it, go live your dream. I support you. But that means he's having to take on so much more. Totally. And he gave me the space and the freedom to really test the things that I want and create it. And he is our biggest cheerleader. Him and Tyler both have been so supportive. But it's been hard and uncomfortable. But the point of me saying that is that it's not impossible. Right. But you have to be okay leaning into uncomfort, you have to be okay for a period of time, maybe being stretched thinner than we already are as moms for the sake of getting where you want to go. Yeah. But it is okay to actually do that. You're still a good mom. I sometimes say up late and write, write my blog, or we text about the other night. It was like 11 p.m.

SPEAKER_02 19:00

No, we're both awake.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

We were both awake texting about things for messy-minded mama. Sometimes it's having my laptop open while the girls are playing so that I can work on stuff or finding ways to make sure I have protected time for them. But sometimes I have to step away a little bit to have protected time for me. Yes. And that's not a bad thing. That can actually be self-care. So when you start to reframe pouring yourself, pouring yourself back into yourself. Yeah. Sounds weird, but that's actually self-care too. And that's how I've had to change it in my brain of I'm not pulling away, I'm actually giving back to myself. And to have our kids see us totally chase our dreams and that we can do it all, even if it's messy, that to me, I think means everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah. I think the getting to model this for our children too. And yeah, I get more time with my kids. I get to pick them up from school every day right now, which I'm so grateful to be able to do. But it doesn't mean in the day, those afternoons that I'm totally engaged with them all the time. There's days I do have work piling up and I do have things to do. And I might be sitting on the couch next to them on my laptop trying to get emails sent or do whatever I need to for work, but I'm still with them and getting more time with them. And they're getting to see, I'm working hard for what I'm building right now. And they'll make comments about that. They're, they always talk about the little different businesses and they're like, Pure mind wellness. Oh now, messy minded mama. Which one are you working on? You know, they get to be kind of proud without totally knowing what my work is and what I get to do. I am I am proud to share that with them. And I told you we came to the therapy office yesterday and they're like, Can I just see like what your space looks like? So getting it just hearing them take interest in this new thing that I'm building is really fun and rewarding too. So I'm loving that.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Me too. I was just showing Bryn, my older girl, some of the t-shirts. Yeah. And she put hers on and she was like, You're selling these? These are cute. I love that. I was so excited. Yeah. But she was proud. Yes. And when I was making some of the samples, she helped me. She was sitting there helping me, you know, weed out the vinyl. Or she got to sit and help create some of the stuff on the computer. Um, and she's invested, which means a lot to me that she's excited to see her mom do stuff. Yeah. We talked a lot about the parts of how we got here, how we how we've chased our dreams. Yeah. But there's a bigger question, which is why does it feel like motherhood sometimes stops us from chasing our dreams? What where does that come from?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Yeah. One thing that comes up for me that we haven't really gotten into in this conversation yet is the financial burden of things. And I think sometimes when I think For me personally, in my experience, chasing what I knew I wanted to do, I knew was going to bring so much value to me, but add this extra burden, if you will, to my whole family, right? We had to adjust our lifestyle to be able to say, okay, I'm no longer going to be working this full-time corporate job that I'd had for so long that we became comfortable with our incomes. I'm going to take that step back. I'm going to take this leap of faith. And what does that look like for us? So I think that that can be that's a big factor for people. When we talk about finances, when we talk about being able to live a life that is not only comfortable, but something that allows us to, you know, provide everything we need to for our families. I think that can be a big roadblock of wanting to do the things, wanting to take that leap and actually as a mom, like dive into something new and take those risks. So that I think is an important one to call out that it definitely exists still today in our family of as I'm continuing to grow the business and build this out, we have had to make some changes that don't always feel comfortable for us or fun, right? When you're having to look at the budget.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Yes. We just had a conversation. Brendan said, Hey, I want to go to Disneyland. And I said, I hear you. That would be really fun. And Disneyland is also really expensive. And for her, everything is shaped around how much it costs in relation to horse lessons. So she said, Well, how many horse lessons would I have to give up to be able to go to Disneyland?

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

She's like, is it worth it to me? And so I told her, I threw out a number like 30 or something. And she goes, Oh, I would rather go spend time with the horses. Okay. But even that, the horse lessons, that is something we have had to cut back on a little bit because I'm making this shift or saying, Oh, we usually go here this time of year, we do this, and having to take a step back from some of those things while I'm in build mode.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Because I don't want it to be, it's stressful anyway, but I don't want to add to that, like you were saying. I think there's a lot of for me, this idea too of societal expectations, perhaps, or expectations that I put on myself. You know, the word should, and I hate the word should for so many reasons. It attaches itself to an expectation, but that moms should be always self-sacrificing, yeah, or that we should always be grateful for what we have and not want more. And not that everybody puts that on us, or maybe it's me putting it on myself, but those are in the back of my head that ambition could actually mean neglecting other parts of my life. And I want to be there for my kids and be a good mom and show up. And for me, being a good mom means giving back to myself so I can show up as the mom that I want to be. Yeah. So it's this weird dichotomy that I've been battling from expectations that I perceive society puts on us, and I think a lot of moms do, yeah, but also the expectations I put on myself.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yeah, that relates so much. I feel like the second we become moms, we take a backseat, right? We are no longer the priority and we're no longer focusing on what we need in those moments. We give, give, give. And it feels so good in those moments, I think, to give to other humans and to be nurturing and to be caring and show up the way we need to. But that means that we take that backseat. And if you don't, I think do the work around identity and do the work around what do I need to kind of fill my own cup up, then that back seat can be a permanent position, right? We can stay in that. And I think for me, it was probably early on in motherhood recognizing that. I think spotting that and saying, okay, how can I do different work that is fulfilling for me, but also gives me that time. So it's just trying to view it and reframe it in a different way to say, I'm actually showing up better for my kids when I'm filled up, right? When I'm happy, when I'm feeling like I can come home and feel like I had a really good work day and it was worth my time to be out there and doing the work that I'm doing and then come home feeling happy about that and proud of that.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

Yeah. I think on the flip side, we talk a lot about what it's like as a working mom. And I've never been a stay-at-home mom. I am not built to be a stay-at-home mom. That takes a whole level of patience and grace that I have not been blessed with. Yes. Yes, I have not been blessed with that. But they, the the women that that stay home, whether they choose to stay home, they need to stay home, they want to stay home, whatever the case may be, they have ambition too. Absolutely. And things they want to build for themselves, even if it's not career-based. And I just want to make sure that we give a nod to that. Because for me, ambition was always climbing some sort of ladder or uh like productivity culture of always being busy. But I've kind of learned busy isn't actually productive always. But that for me has been what ambition has always looked like for me. But now it's what does ambition look like as just a mom? Yeah. Whether you're climbing a corporate ladder or you're staying at home, this idea that we can actually want something that is for ourselves. Yes. Etsy shops, building a life with your kids where you get to teach them and you get to travel with them for those that stay home. Yeah. Any of those pieces. So I want to hear from moms, real moms, real stories. That's something that we've really talked about. But we want to hear from you of what's your story? What are you ambitious about? Whether you're climbing a lot or you're staying home, what is something you're trying to build for yourself? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Yeah. And I think the permission, too, for all the moms out there to say, what I'm building for myself is okay and right. It doesn't have to mean a career change, right? There's plenty, I have plenty of friends, close friends of mine that are continuing to climb that corporate ladder and are working, you know, more than the nine to fives and are very content in the life they're building. And I think permission to say that is okay. If it's working for you, if you are fulfilled by that work that you're doing in that corporate climb, more power to you. Go for that. If you are like us and you are discovering new things about yourself and wanting to do the career pivot, absolutely good as well. And the stay-at-home moms cannot give enough credit to all the work that goes into being able to hold that patience, hold that space for your kids in such a beautiful way, too. So I think permission to look at your own life and feel comfortable, confident in everything that you're doing as well is just so important.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

And across all of those, yes, it's still good moms. Yes, right? You show your kids how what's important to you. Yes, what's aligning with you, what is something you want to build, and you create a life that fits your family and you within your own talents. Yeah. And there's no right or wrong way to do it. It's just making sure that you're rooting back into what's important to you. Yeah. So we talked a lot about our stories, how we got to where we are, opening Pure Mind, opening summit, even starting here. But the piece that goes into that is we shifted, but not everybody is looking at making a shift. You can still be look wanting a promotion, still want to be climbing the corporate ladder. You could be just wanting to explore a hobby. It doesn't have to be something within a career. Yeah. It could be I want to start a hobby, I want to explore a new method for teaching my kids at home or travel.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

And so what would you say to the mom who feels like she wants something more? That is hesitant.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Yeah, I think trying to remove this pressure of it has to be these big changes. So start small. Explore what you're thinking through. Get curious. We always say in therapy, like get curious about what's going on with someone. So get curious for yourself. Um, explore, explore what those potentials look like and let that allow that to take you where it's going to. I think the more we can put this confidence and trust in ourselves. And again, removing the pressure, I think is the biggest thing for me. It doesn't have to be big changes. It can be small changes, it can be small trusts built over time and allowing it not to have to be fully baked, right? Have to be fully built out.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:55

And just see where it takes you. I think is the best advice I would probably give myself if I were to look back. Um, and I think for anyone looking to explore new things, um, that's what I would want them to be able to do for themselves.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Yeah, absolutely. You don't have to blow up your life, right? You explore something new. You don't have to quit your life or your job tomorrow. You don't have to make a big dramatic pivot. You can truly bait baby step it out. You can say, like, oh, maybe I want to start a podcast. Yep. Okay, what would my topic be? What would that look like? Think about it. Maybe you start listening to a bunch. Maybe you want to start exploring a new career or you're not feeling fulfilled anymore, or you want to, like I said, look up a new method for something, or start sourdough baking. That's on my list. That's on my list as a hobby. But letting yourself test them in such a small way that it doesn't feel so overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 31:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

But you're able to kind of dip a toe into something you're interested in and see what that feels like. See if that reignites a part of you that maybe has been a bit quieter.

SPEAKER_00 32:06

Yeah. This reminds me, I actually came across a notebook the other day that I had written in probably five years ago. Um, maybe four. Elle was probably about one. And I had written down this timeline. I was like, I know I want to go back to school. I think this is what I want to do. If I were to start school now, how old would the kids be when I finish? Where would they be at when it comes to going from like their preschool daycare to elementary school? And I had like this timeline mapped out and said, if I'm gonna do this, now is the time. Because my timeline started to paint this picture for me of what life would look like and me actually accomplishing what I wanted for this balance that I was after. So it was me starting very small, trying to map out what could this look like? And then that started to say, like, okay, now I'm gonna call schools and I'm gonna figure out which program. Okay, now I'm gonna actually apply to the program, right? Like all those little steps started to take shape for me. And it was started by a simple what if question to myself.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

So I love that.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

It was a great little reminder for me looking back on my journey. How did I get here? What did I do to start? And it was very small steps.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

I love that. Oh, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got when I was trying to explore what I might want to do with life, which is such a daunting thought. What do I want to do for the next, you know, however long that we have to do? Who do I want to be when I grow up? And one of the best pieces of advice I got was from my dad about looking at job descriptions, whether or not it has a title that I want or I'm qualified, but reading the description itself and do I feel called to that in some capacity, and then looking at what do I need qualifications to get there? Yeah. And that's how I got into the social work field in the first place was just exploring what jobs I might feel called to. Yeah. And so do some research. Or if there's a part of you that you're like, oh, I really used to love to paint. I really used to enjoy writing, but I haven't done it in a while because I'm a mom. Yeah. And where's my time? Give yourself permission to take five minutes to go paint or to go write or sit outside and do something that feels like you and see where that takes you because you never know. You could feel inspired for more. So I think to wrap us up, I'm gonna, you're gonna do the last quote. I will. But I think motherhood asks a lot from us and it doesn't require us to are you gonna be able to say it? I can't say it. I hate the word becoming for those of you that don't know that. But one of the things we want to talk about is that motherhood asks a lot, but we don't have to stop becoming. And I hate the word becoming because I'm always saying becoming what? But that's kind of the point in this, is it doesn't have to stop us becoming whatever it is that calls to you. And so that's a quote that we really liked for today. I just have a hard time with the word becoming. So motherhood asks a lot from us, but it doesn't require us to stop becoming, to stop growing. And it might look messy and it might look different, but it's still important because wanting a life that feels meaningful and alive doesn't make you a bad mom. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

So with that, we'll leave you with one closing line today. Motherhood doesn't end your story in many ways. It's where a new one begins.

SPEAKER_01 35:41

Thanks for listening in, and we'll see you next week where we are going to talk about unsolicited advice that we have gotten as moms. And we would love to hear advice that you may have gotten that was unsolicited. So send us a text, send us a DM. If you like what you hear, post about it, tag us, we'd love to hear from you.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Yeah, and we'll see you next time. Thank you for being here with us today. If something in this episode resonated, we're really glad you listened. Messy minded or not, you're not alone in this, and you don't have to have it all figured out.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

If you'd like to stay connected, you can follow Messy Minded Mama wherever you listen to podcasts. And follow us on Instagram at messy.minded.mama. We'll be back to connect again soon. Thanks for being here.