Working mom guilt is keeping you stuck (and here’s what to do about it)

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What if the guilt you've been carrying as a working mom isn't proof that you're failing... but a signal that you're unclear on what matters most? In this episode, I challenge the idea that mom guilt is just part of the job description and share why guilt often points to a lack of clarity around priorities, balance, and success. Through real client stories and practical examples, you'll learn how defining what truly matters to you can reduce guilt, increase confidence, and help you feel more in control of your life as a working mom.  

In this episode, we unpack: 

  • Why mom guilt is often a clarity problem, not a parenting problem 

  • The hidden connection between guilt and your beliefs about "having it all" 

  • How defining your version of balance changes daily decision-making 

  • Allison's story of moving from chronic guilt to confidence and calm 

  • Practical ways to feel empowered instead of constantly second-guessing yourself  

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Transcript

Hey, real quick, before we get into this episode, I want to offer you something really special.

A 30-minute call, just you and me, where you walk away knowing exactly what to do to finally feel balanced. Like, actually balanced. Not just surviving. Not white-knuckling your way through the week. But genuinely in control of your time, your priorities, and your life.

I call it the Mental Load Reset, and it's only $9. Spots are limited, and registration closes on July 3rd. So head to ambitiousandbalanced.com/strategy to grab one of the final spots.

Okay, let's get to it.

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it.

Let's Talk About Mom Guilt

Hey, Working Moms, I can't even believe it's summertime. The kids are out of school, and more than ever, I've been having conversations about mom guilt.

And it's interesting to me. Maybe mom guilt actually increases during the summer. I don't know. I've never really run a study on that before. But it is interesting how many conversations I'm having about it.

The thing that always strikes me is that working mom guilt gets talked about like it's part of the job description. Like when you become a working mom, it just comes with the territory. It's the fine print, right?

And I want to push back on that today because I think we've normalized something that is actually costing us a lot more than we realize. And more importantly, I think we've misunderstood what guilt is actually trying to tell us. Because if you let it, I actually think guilt can be more of a guide. It can help point you toward the things that matter most. And so that's what we're going to talk about today: how to get unstuck from mom guilt.

The Biggest Lie Working Mom Guilt Tells You

So here's one of the biggest lies I think that guilt tells us as working moms. It tells us that we can't have it all.

And because guilt is so widely accepted and sort of goes unquestioned by so many working moms, we don't catch it early enough. And so the guilt just starts to feel worse and worse and worse over time, almost like we're sort of digging ourselves into a guilt hole of sorts.

It feels heavy, like we're failing our kids and we're failing at life. And then, of course, the longer that goes on—which for a lot of my clients really starts the moment they start having kids—and then by the time we work together, it's at least a few years in. So they've been dealing with this deep sense of painful guilt for years now.

Most commonly, what I hear from people that experience what I'll now call chronic guilt is that they have believed that guilt means they can't have it all.

Your Beliefs About Having It All Become Your Reality

Now, I've had a number of conversations with working moms over the past several weeks in a number of different spaces—like in my personal life. I've been interviewed on podcasts, I've had people on my podcast, I've done some LinkedIn interviews, and all these things.

I've had all of these conversations around guilt lately, and then inevitably what happens is we have this conversation about guilt, and then it sort of transforms into a conversation about having it all.

Then it kind of moves into this, like, "Well, what do you think about that? Some people think you can have it all, some people don't. Some people think that you can have it all, but not all at the same time. What do you think, Rebecca?"

I get asked that question a lot. And whenever somebody wants to talk to me about it, what I tell them is, "Hey, listen, I don't think it matters what you believe, but whatever you choose to believe is what's actually possible for you."

So if you believe having it all is impossible, then of course it will be, right? Because you aren't going to spend the time to figure out how to make an impossible thing work out for you.

Or if you believe that having it all is possible, but not all at the same time, then that's going to become your reality because you're not going to figure out how to have both at the same time. You're going to settle.

Your beliefs about what's possible are sort of like self-fulfilling prophecies, which is why it's so important to elevate your thoughts and really control what you think.

What Guilt Really Means

So many people that experience chronic guilt make it mean that having it all is not possible. I personally think it means something different.

I believe guilt is a signal that you're simply unclear on your priorities. All guilt means is that you have not made a decision in the moment, and you're feeling guilty about what you were choosing in that moment.

So you are literally feeling torn between multiple priorities, likely where both of them—or several of them—all feel very important to you.

So when you're not really sold on what your priority is or what matters most to you in that moment, every competing demand makes you sort of feel like a failure. When work is pulling at you and the kids are pulling at you, and you're feeling torn between both of those, it sort of feels like you're losing at both of those.

That's not a guilt problem. That's a clarity problem.

That's why giving your brain really clear direction and deciding what having it all really means to you, what balance means to you, what success means to you, what your priorities are, and what your most important things are to you—that's why it's step one of every single process I ever create: clarity.

It has to be step one. Your brain needs to have direction. It needs to know, right? It's the very first step in the Ambitious & Balanced process.

How One Working Mom Overcame Chronic Mom Guilt

A few weeks ago here on the podcast, you heard from my friend and client Allison, who graduated from the Ambitious & Balanced program back in December. I highly recommend you go back and listen to that episode, to her story, because it's really inspiring to hear how other women are figuring out how to have it all, literally.

They're talking about their process and their breakthroughs and their transformation. And when you hear it from them, it's going to help unlock it for you. So I definitely want you to go back and listen.

But if you remember, Allison talked about how guilty she felt all the time. She's a real estate agent, she has a four-year-old and a six-year-old, she's very active in her community, and she had sort of this low hum level of guilt that was eating away at her and had been for years by the time we worked together.

She never felt she could be super present. She'd be putting the girls down at bedtime but didn't really have the energy or the patience to, like, be really with them. And she was always thinking about things that she hadn't gotten done that day, second-guessing herself all of the time, feeling like, you know, there's got to be another way.

Getting Clear on Your Definition of Balance Changes Everything

If you remember on the podcast, what she talked about was how impactful taking the time to get clear on what her definition and version of balance was for her.

Literally, that's what she did. I walked her, in the Ambitious & Balanced program, I walked her and the cohort through a series of exercises of putting words to what it means to feel balanced. Because if your brain doesn't have a sense of direction on what the goal is and what it even looks like to achieve it, it's going to be really hard to create that life, right?

And so, in the end, that was the thing that really unlocked—or, like, it was a cascade of balance for her. Because as she went about defining and getting clear on what balance meant to her, then she was able to get clear on the priorities that sort of laddered up to that goal, to that version of balance that she had defined.

And when I say she got clear, I mean she got crystal clear.

She didn't just say, "Family is my priority." She said, "No, a distraction-free dinner around the table—that's my priority. Connection at bedtime with no phone, where I'm highly focused on them—that's my priority."

And so when she got really clear on those things, all of a sudden she didn't feel like she had to be present with them all of the time.

Then all of a sudden she could multitask in other moments throughout the day with her girls. She could be trying to finish a last-minute email and checking dinner, and her kids could be watching a show or doing something. And she didn't have to feel guilty about all of that because she'd already decided that those weren't the most important moments in her day. They weren't how she wanted to define balance and success.

Why Clarity Is the Antidote to Mom Guilt

And so that level of clarity for her on her priorities and what mattered most to her actually created this sort of absence of guilt.

Guilt is not the proof that you're doing something wrong.

I want to say that again. Guilt is not proof that you are doing something wrong. It is an indication that you are not clear on what is most important in that moment, and you're probably trying to do it all.

And so what happened for Allison is that we resolved a lot of that sort of overarching guilt that she was experiencing. She started to feel more at peace, more calm, more grounded.

Whenever guilt would actually creep back in, it became more of a data point for her instead of an identity of failure. She learned how to say, "Huh, that's interesting. I wonder why I'm feeling so much guilt about that right now."

And rather than going down that rabbit hole of, like, "Oh my gosh, I'm failing as a mom and I'm doing something wrong," she was literally able to strip a lot of that kind of self-crisis out of her language and out of her narrative by putting words to the things that are most important to her.

You'll Still Feel Guilt—But You'll Understand It Differently

Now, I really want to be honest here. I'm not saying that when you get super clear on your priorities and what balance means, and you put words to your version of success—those are all the types of exercises I walk you through in the Ambitious & Balanced process—I'm not saying you're never going to feel guilty again.

I'm not saying that it's always going to feel easy, right?

You are still going to have priorities that feel like they're in conflict with one another, and that's just the reality of being a human being and living an ambitious and full life, right? Which means you've got a lot of good things going that are competing for your time and energy. I actually think that's a really good thing.

You Need Better Decision-Making

So if you were to join one of my Ambitious & Balanced cohorts, I'm not saying that we're alleviating all the hard and all the guilt. But I am saying that I'm going to teach you how to make decisions in that moment that you feel really empowered by and aligned with, so that you don't feel guilty all of the time. That I for sure can promise.

What's on the Other Side of Mom Guilt?

So let's talk for a moment about what's on the other side of alleviating guilt, right? When you no longer feel guilty, instead what's left is a feeling of empowerment—empowerment over your schedule and over your commitments and your choices and your priorities.

I was having a conversation with a working mom recently that said that she, generally speaking, was feeling pretty balanced right now, but it sort of felt like it was hanging by a thread. That was exactly the phrase she used. It was hanging by a thread.

So when you give yourself space and structure to get clear on your priorities and on your definition of balance and success, work-life balance is no longer going to feel like it's hanging by a thread. You're going to feel so much more in control of it.

And in that moment, when your priorities still feel like they're competing with one another, or you've got two good things that are vying for your attention, rather than feeling this deep sense of guilt and failure, it's going to feel so much more manageable.

For so many of my clients, when we talk about getting clear on their priorities, and then their priorities start to feel a little bit at odds with one another—like a work deadline is coming up against family snuggle time, for example—rather than feeling an immense amount of failure and guilt and overwhelm, instead there's this low-level feeling of gratitude.

They're grateful for the amazing opportunities that work is providing, and grateful for the amazing family that they really adore and that really adores them.

Like, wouldn't you rather feel gratitude instead of guilt? I know I would.

Wouldn't you like to wake up every day sort of bouncing out of bed with clarity around what you're doing that day and what really matters to you, so that throughout the day and every moment through that day, you stop feeling like you should be doing something else?

Like, you are literally walking around feeling like you should make different choices all the time, right?

All that second-guessing and self-doubt is exhausting, and it's completely optional when you stop believing that sustainable work-life balance isn't an option.

You Can Have Work-Life Balance—But It Starts With a New Belief

When you stop believing that you don't have a choice or that you can't have it all right now, that is the first step.

But I don't want you to just take my word for it. I want you to listen to the interviews that I've been having on this podcast recently, showing you story after story about what it looks like in just three months to go from a place of guilt and overwhelm and stress and no ability to manage your time to a place of feeling like you get out of bed and feel crystal clear around what you're supposed to be doing that day, how you want to feel, and so much more in control of that.

Go back and listen to Allison's story or Kelly's story. I have other clients that are going to be coming up here in the next couple of weeks who are going to share their stories about how they experienced work-life balance, how it worked for them, and what the process looked like for them.

Book Your Mental Load Reset Strategy Call

I want you to experience this transformation yourself, and it's why I designed that special Mental Load Reset Strategy Call—this 30-minute personalized call with me, not somebody on my team, but with me.

We're going to paint a really clear picture around what a balanced life looks like for you, what success looks like, and what your priorities are. We're going to do that together, and then we're going to talk about what it takes to protect those priorities no matter the cost.

You're going to walk away feeling lighter, more hopeful, and really clear on a very defined next step for you to implement that vision immediately.

That's why I created those calls. I really do want you to take me up on that.

If you have not booked your Mental Load Reset Strategy Call, this is a $9 strategy call. Please, please, please do that now.

I am only taking calls through July 3rd, leading up to the next cohort of Ambitious & Balanced, which starts in the middle of July, and I would love for you to snag one of these last calls.

You can do that by going to www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/strategy. That's going to get you one of those $9 strategy calls.

All right, working moms, you do not have to settle for guilt.

Guilt is not just a way of life for us as working moms. It is an indication that you need to take some time to get clear on the things that are most important to you.

And if you need support in that, I would love to walk you through a very simple process on one of those 30-minute Mental Load Reset Strategy Calls.

Until next week, let's get to it.

The Mental Load Reset

One sec before you go, I want you to know that every woman who has ever transformed her life inside one of my programs started the same way. One session. Thirty minutes. Just the two of us.

In this strategy session, we cut through the noise of your life and get specific about what's actually driving your overwhelm. You walk away with one concrete thing to do about it.

And most women tell me this is the clearest they have felt in months. I've opened up a few of these Mental Load Reset spots exclusively for podcast listeners for $9.

If you've been listening and thinking, "Oh, I wish I could chat with Rebecca without making any sort of coaching commitment," this is the next step. And it's the one that makes everything else start to make sense.

There's a link in the show notes. Grab your Mental Load Reset spot, and I'll see you there.

Rebecca Olson