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I’m diving into one of the most foundational conversations I have with every client: enoughness. That quiet “not enough” voice shows up at work, at home, and even when you’re supposed to be resting. In this episode, I break down why chasing more never brings balance and share simple mindset shifts and practical practices to help you decide what enough actually means for you so you can end your days feeling calm, confident, and done.
In this episode, we unpack:
Why “not enough” thinking is one of the biggest blockers to sustainable work-life balance
How invisible expectations keep you overworking, people-pleasing, and feeling behind
The powerful question that helps you redefine success on your own terms
Simple daily practices to help you feel satisfied and done at the end of the day
How to stop chasing more and start feeling successful right now
Your next steps:
The Daily Kickstart {free download}: www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/daily-kickstart
Book a FREE breakthrough call: www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/book
Transcript
If you ever end your day feeling like no matter how much you did, it still wasn't enough, then this episode is for you. Not enough time. Didn’t get enough done. Not enough presence. Not enough success. That quiet, relentless narrative is exhausting, and it's one of the biggest reasons ambitious working moms struggle to feel balanced, satisfied, or at peace with their lives.
In this episode, I'm revisiting a foundational conversation that I have with every single client of mine. Not enough thinking. We're going to talk about how it sneaks into your workdays, into your parenting, and even into your rest time—and why more effort, more time, or more achievement is never going to fix it. If you're tired of chasing an invisible finish line and want to redefine what enough actually means for you, then this episode is for you. Are you ready? 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.
Hello, Working Moms — Why This Work Still Matters Years Later
Hello. Hello, working moms. I'm so grateful to be with you today. I recently hired a marketing manager in my business, and she's been having me go back to the very beginning of my business, like when I started coaching, like eight, nine years ago. And it has been so fun.
As I have gone back, I have reconnected with so many of my past clients that I worked with seven, eight, nine years ago. It has been story after story after story from some of my past clients that are just so grateful for the work that we did back then and are telling me these amazing stories of how our coaching that many years ago has, like, really impacted them today.
I've literally had, like, probably a dozen women that I've worked with over the last nine years respond back to me as I've been reaching out and just tell me how instrumental our coaching was for them way back when. And they talk about the lessons that they're still, like, sit with them, and how they learned how to prioritize and stick to their priorities, and how their confidence has really stuck with them, and how they're thriving today.
This is why I do what I do. I'm just so inspired by these women that are not settling but going after their ambitious and balanced life. So thank you, thank you, thank you to my loyal listeners and clients that have been working with me and continue to follow me. Thank you for those messages of support and encouragement. They really do warm my heart.
The Foundational Conversation I Have With Every Single Client
So today, I want to circle back to a topic that I have talked about several years ago, but it really is an essential conversation, and I literally have it with every single one of my clients. It's a foundational principle within the Ambitious and Balanced group coaching program that I teach and offer.
And so I want to talk about it here today. And that topic is enoughness.
The Not Enough Narrative Almost Every Woman Is Living In
Now, I don't know a woman alive that doesn't struggle with this. Right? It literally feels like it plagues everybody. Women out there feeling not enough, and like you're not doing enough, and living within that narrative that there's not enough time and there's not enough of you to go around, and maybe you're not successful enough or you're not a good enough mom. Like, have you said any of these things to yourself? My hunch is, of course you have. Right.
But the struggle with not enoughness is not always that obvious. Right? Living in a not enough mindset can also sound like, I should have gotten more done today, or I should be spending more time with my kids, or I should be able to be more present, or I should have been able to get that done. Right.
Why a Not Enough Mindset Makes Balance Impossible
Not enough thinking is a toxic narrative or mindset that literally has to be eradicated if you are going to experience more work-life balance in any sort of sustainable way. It literally has to be eradicated. Not enough thinking has you trying to live into some sort of invisible expectation.
In this case, it's an expectation of what it means to be successful at both work and home, and you're not living up to it. It's literally an invisible gap between where you're at today and where you think you should be, or what you think you should be doing, or what you think you need in order to be and to feel successful as a working mom.
And because you're failing at living up to this invisible expectation, you're trying to sort of close the gap between where you're at and where you think success and joy and balance and presence should be. You're constantly feeling behind, constantly feeling like you need to prove yourself and prove your value and prove that you're good enough.
And then because you're in a constant state of needing to prove yourself, and needing to catch up, and to avoid failure, you sort of fall into the trap of more people pleasing, saying yes to too many things, having an overcrowded schedule, working at times you don't want to be working, not being present in a way that you want to be with your family, not setting aside time for yourself, worrying and ruminating about if you're living up to those expectations and if you're doing it right.
It's like the complete opposite of balance. Right? It's not only exhausting, it shrinks us. It makes us feel less than.
Why Not Enough Thinking Is a Trap That Sets Us Up for Failure
Not enough thinking is a trap that sets us up for failure because not enough thinking has us believing that more is better. Right? More time to work is going to make us feel more successful. More time to get things done is going to make us feel more productive and more valued. More time with our kids is going to make us feel like a better mom. More money is going to make us feel safe and secure. More time for ourselves is going to make us feel balanced. More prestige, more honors, more certifications is going to make us feel like we have more to offer. Right?
Not enough thinking traps us into believing that we need more of something in order to have an experience of success and balance in a way that we want. But this form of balance and success, it's not sustainable. If you give in to the not enough thinking, it's never going to stop. Right? You will always want more and focus on believing that you need more.
Why More Never Feels Like Enough
I'll never forget my client Bri, who quit her job to spend more time with her kids, only to find out that more time with her kids didn't actually make her feel like a better mom. It made her feel worse.
Or my client Katie, who habitually would spend more time preparing for presentations. She would work late into the evenings. She would sacrifice sleep to prepare, only to get through those presentations or those workshops and feel like she should have done more and not really feeling satisfied with her success.
Or my client Jessica, who could get like 20 things accomplished on her list done in a day, only to transition home and feel like it wasn't enough. Because that's what not enough thinking perpetuates. It perpetuates a story that no matter how much you do and how much you achieve and how much time you give yourself and how much success you have, it's not enough. Right?
You cannot perpetually feel not enough, and feel like you're not successful enough, and feel balanced. It's impossible.
The Question I Ask Every Client to Reflect On
So the real question I have for you to reflect on today is the same question that I offer to all of my clients. As we start thinking about this not enough mindset, here it is. Are you ready for it? Write it down, if you can write it down. You ready?
What is enough?
Now, I say that in quotations if you're listening to this podcast and not actually watching it right now, because enough is completely subjective. You just get to decide.
Enough Is Subjective — You Get to Decide
You get to decide when you've worked enough. You get to decide how much time spent with your kids is enough. You get to decide if the house is clean enough. You get to decide if you make enough money or if you've reached the point of success. You get to decide if you've gotten enough done for the day. You get to decide if you've prepared enough.
Enough is individual to each of us. It's not universal. And until you put some words to what enough means to you, you're always going to feel like you're not living into it, and that you should be, and you're failing because of it.
What is the point of satiation for you? That's the point of enoughness, right? When you're trying to live up to an unidentified definition of success or enough, you're sort of setting yourself up for failure, right?
How Do You Know When You’ve Done Enough?
So let's get really practical. Let's define it. How do you know you've done enough for the day? Literally, if you got to the end of a typical workday, what would it take for you to say, I did enough for the day, and not feel like you have to log back on, or check your email, or be available, or do more?
Or if you're someone that tends to overprepare and always feel like you need more time to get things done, at what point have you prepared enough?
Now, my hunch is, as is with most of my clients, I ask you these questions and your mind is probably drawing a blank, right? And if that's true, it just confirms that that not enough story is one that you've been living into and that you have not really stopped long enough to decide for yourself.
And I'm sure you can see that without some sort of definition for that in your brain, you're always going to think more is what you need.
When I can't keep my eyes open anymore, that's when I've reached the point of preparing enough. When I have nothing left in me for the day to check any more off of my list, that's when I've achieved enough. Today, when my kids stop asking for attention from me, that's when I know I've given them enough on some level.
That's sort of how you've been defining it up till this point, right? Unbeknownst to you, you've actually been living into a definition of enoughness that's not really serving you, that's making you overprioritize work and underprioritize yourself and rest and health and your kids.
You’re Not Alone If This Feels Hard
If this is hard for you and you're feeling sort of called out by this, I want you to know you're not alone. We're having this conversation here today because I see so often ambitious working moms living into an unhelpful definition of enoughness or success that's burning them out.
So let's talk about how I coach clients to do this, or even let me give you some examples from my own life. Because so much of enoughness has to do with satiation, meaning feeling satisfied.
The Daily Practice That Helps You Feel Satisfied With Your Day
I teach one very important daily practice to all of my clients to help them get in the habit of feeling satiated or satisfied with their day, and that's the work to home transition.
Here's what one of my graduates from Ambitious and Balanced—this is what she said about the work to home transition. Specifically, she said, “The transition helps me shut down my brain, celebrate what I have accomplished, and actually be present at home instead of carrying work with me at night.”
That is the power of the work to home transition. Right? If you want to end your workday and not feel like you have to log back on, this is the practice. The work to home transition is the practice that you need to lean into. This is everything.
It's literally like putting a period at the end of your workday and saying, I'm done. I'm done enough for the day. It's a way of planning, celebrating, and preparing for your next day.
And I teach a really specific process to transition from work to home that's really effective for all of my clients. It helps them cut down on that urge to stay online or stay available or work after hours. And I'm not going to get into the weeds of it here. It's something that I teach in depth in all of my programs.
A Simple Practice to Help You Decide When Your Day Is Enough
Another helpful practice I have for you is something I call no more than three. These are three tasks that you decide that you're going to achieve for that day and no more. Just three that you have to achieve today to feel really good and feel really accomplished.
And you can even fold this into your work to home transition. That's usually what I do. But it's literally about deciding, what are the three things that I'm going to achieve today that's going to make me feel really good about my workday?
Okay, then you write them down on a separate piece of paper, not on your to-do list, right? Like, I literally have a bunch of sticky notes that I use for just this purpose. I write three things on that. It sits on my desk. And I know that when I've achieved those things, I get to deem my day enough and successful. Right? Three things.
Reframing Not Enough Into Enoughness
The last practice I want to offer to you is super practical. This is something I recently developed for myself. I haven't even taught this to my clients yet because I have found myself in this not enough trap in the later end of 2025. And I really wanted to work on my mindset around not enoughness in sort of a variety of areas of life.
And so I started each day making a list of things that my brain was offering to me that were not enough. But I would write them down, and at the end I would say, it's enough.
So it looks like this. Last year, I didn't hit any of my business goals, right? So on this list, I would write down, I made X amount of money and it's enough, or I had X amount of clients and it was enough.
Or sometimes I would look around my house, I'd get frustrated that it wasn't bigger and that I didn't have an extra room for my office and that I had to share it with the guest room. And I was getting irritated with that. And so I might write on that list, I share my office with the guest bedroom and it's enough.
Or I might find myself getting frustrated at my son, who I've talked about on this podcast, who has a lot of big emotions these days, a really deep, deeply feeling kid. And I might write, I have to help my son every morning get ready and put on his shoes and get out the door, and it's okay, he's enough.
And this list-making exercise, I've done it a number of times now. It always leaves me feeling really settled and grounded because I've sort of reframed all these things that my mind is deeming not enough. I've reframed them into this position of enoughness.
These Practices Are Just the Beginning
So you have the work to home transition. You have the no more than three practice. And then you have the it's evening enough list. Now, to be honest, this is really just to start, right? All of these are very, very practical and helpful in getting things in motion for you and getting out of your not enough thinking.
But the reality is that it takes practice. It takes practice to decide what enough is for you and to get to the end of your day and put a period on it and say, it's enough, I'm enough, I'm successful enough. Literally, you have to rehearse. You have to practice this every single day.
If You’re Ready to Get Out of Not Enoughness, I Can Help
And of course, I can help. This is what my coaching containers are all about—to give you space, to give you practical tools, to give you a step-by-step guide on how to get out of your not enough thinking, to get out of mindsets that are no longer serving you.
So if you know that this is your work this year, that you want to have a year where you feel amazing about yourself, about the work you're doing, the impact you're making, where you get to the end of every single workday and you're like, man, I nailed it today. I'm so good. I feel so good about myself and what I'm doing—if you want that experience, I can help.
I encourage you to book your free breakthrough call if you haven't done that already. This is a call where you and I can hop on and discuss the vision that you have for 2026. We can talk about your goals. We can talk about exactly what it's going to take for you to achieve those goals. I'm going to map it out for you, tailored to you. I'm going to answer all your questions about coaching. We're going to figure out which container is best for you. I'm going to give you all the logistics of that, and we're going to decide what it's going to take for you to live your best life this year.
Working moms, reach out. Book that call at www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com, and then book to find a time on my calendar. I can't wait to talk to you. This is the year where you get out of not enoughness. Don't settle for anything else.
All right, working moms, until next week—let's get to it.
Start Your Day Calm, Clear, and In Control With the Daily Kickstart
If you wake up most days spinning with a hundred different priorities vying for your attention, then the Daily Kickstart is exactly what you need. It's a simple, six-step process that helps you get your thoughts out of your head, reset your mindset, and refocus on what actually matters.
It's designed to help shift you out of overwhelm and into calm, confident action before the chaos. This daily practice is the same tool I offer to all my clients, and it's going to show you exactly how to lead your day instead of react to it.
It takes just 10 minutes a day, and the impact will ripple through everything—your mood, your energy, your presence with your kids, and how you lead at work. My clients indicate time and time again that this tool was the one that made the biggest impact difference for them, and I'm offering it to you totally free.
You can download it by going to www.ambitiousandbalancedmm.com/daily-kickstart, and of course, I'll have that for you in the show notes as well.
All right, working moms, let's get to it.
