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There’s something about back-to-school season that makes me want to reset everything: routines, schedules, priorities, family systems... all of it. But in this episode, I’m challenging the idea that a smoother fall comes from better organization. Instead, I’m sharing five powerful questions that can completely change how you approach this season. We’re talking calmer mornings, less resistance with your kids, letting go of what doesn’t matter, and making sure you don’t disappear from your own schedule.
In this episode, we unpack:
Why September shouldn’t be a “fresh start”
The question to ask before getting organized
Creating calmer mornings without controlling your kids
What you need to intentionally let go of this fall
How to keep yourself on the priority list
Work with me:
Join Ambitious & Balanced:
www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/ambitiousandbalanced
Book a Work-Life Balance Strategy Call:
www.rebeccaolsoncoaching.com/ambitiousandbalanced-call
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www.ambitiousandbalanced.com/daily-kickstart
Transcript
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.
The September Reset: How Working Moms Can Prepare for the Back-to-School and Fall Transition
Hey, working moms. It's the middle of August, and so it only makes sense that we start talking about back to school. Over the next few weeks, we're going to be tackling some of the biggest challenges and mindsets that I see working moms have in this back-to-school fall transition.
Today, we are going to start with the September reset, because September feels like the new January, doesn't it? You're thinking about new rhythms, new schedules, new goals, new priorities.
Let me just stop here for a second and say, if you don't have school-aged kids, yes, we're going to be talking a bit about the specificity of back to school. But really, I just want you to frame this up as being the fall transition, like transitioning from the summer rhythm, summer vacation schedules into the final push of the year. This is still going to be a highly relevant episode for you.
Because there's this energy that I find a lot of working moms get to as we get into the school year, into fall, and it's very similar to the way we think about January, and the planning and focusing that we often have at the beginning of the year. Except in this case, we're not just thinking about the whole year, we're thinking about school schedules, we're thinking about fall rhythms, activities, sports, a lot of family logistics.
If you're feeling that pull right now to want to get yourself organized for the back-to-school fall season and build some new systems for your family, or maybe you've even, like me, printed out and laminated a new checklist for your kids for back to school and after school to sort of bring some independence to your kids. If that's you, I want you to know that you, this is totally normal, and this episode is falling in the perfect time for you.
So having coached so many working moms in setting goals and setting them up for success during the back-to-school transition and into the fall, really, there is a best way to do that.
Why the “Fresh Start” Mindset Can Set Working Moms Up to Fail
And so today, I want to offer a really practical reframe to help you set yourself up for success as you go through this back-to-school fall transition. Because here's the problem with thinking about September, sort of in the same way that you think about January, right?
When it comes to the new year, setting resolutions, goals, focus, priorities, whatever you decide to call it, most people think about it as a fresh start, right? As a new beginning, and there's this sort of energy and this newness and starting over, and I'm going to tackle it and you feel motivated, right?
But this very approach for the new year has about 80% of people giving up on their New Year's resolutions and goals within the first month of the year. And I don't want your new rhythms and systems and mechanisms of success for the school year. And for the fall, I don't want you to quit on that by October, right? We want something that will last. We want something that will work.
Secondly, when it comes to the new year, we sort of get in this like, "I'm just going to do better this year," kind of attitude, right? As if you kind of missed the opportunity last year, you're starting all over again.
Don’t Start Over: Build on What Already Works for Your Family
But the problem with that is actually that I want you to build from the knowledge of what you have known has worked or not worked for you in the past, right?
You did some things last fall. You prioritized some things. You organized yourself in a certain way. Maybe it was super intentional. Maybe it wasn't, right? Maybe you consciously prioritized or maybe you didn't. But I want you to evaluate and learn from that, right?
We're not starting from nothing. We're not starting fresh. We are starting from what you already know about what works for you and what doesn't work for you. What works for your kids and your family and what doesn't, right?
We want to build off of that, which is why I think another reason why having this sort of January frame of mind as we enter the new school year, it's not really helpful to us. It doesn't leave a lot of room for optimizing from the past, right?
So this is not an opportunity to start fresh and get organized for the school year or for the fall. This is an opportunity to evaluate and be very strategic about where you want to put your focus based on what you already know works and doesn't work.
Here's how I actually do this with my clients. And it's sort of the opposite of a clean slate because the real lever isn't more organizing. That's sort of the part people miss. We think a better school year, a better fall is going to come from a better system, a better planning system, a better morning routine.
But organization is just a tool. And if it's built around the wrong thing, then when you have at the end of the day, it's just sort of tidy chaos, right?
The lever that I want you to pull for a better school year, a better fall is asking yourself better questions. Most of us start the year by asking, how do I get more organized? What systems can I create? How can I make this all run smoother?
Back-to-School Reset: Start With the Right Questions, Not Better Organization
Today, I want to offer five different questions you can ask instead, because the question you start with actually decides everything else afterwards. From better questions, come better results. And so I want to offer it to you top five questions to ask yourself as you move into the school year and the fall transition.
So here's the first question I want to reframe in this episode. Oftentimes, our starting point is, how do I get more organized? Right? A natural first question. But it's really the wrong starting point, because organization should really serve your goals and priorities, not replace it.
So rather than that question, here's what I want you to ask yourself. What's most important to me during this back-to-school fall season? Or maybe just what's my number one priority?
Now, you might say to be organized, but I want you to go beyond that response. What does an organization really get you? More time, less stress, more calm kids, more time for yourself. Why do you want to be better organized? What's the result of that?
So the first question to reframe is, not how do I get better organized, but instead, what's my number one priority that my organization should support?
How Working Moms Can Create Calmer, Smoother Back-to-School Mornings
Question number two, I want you to reframe is, how do I make the mornings go smoother? Getting our kids out the door can be one of the most challenging times in a back-to-school fall rhythm. Whether we're really talking about getting our infant out the door to a nanny or to take care, or getting our kids out the door to school either way, the morning is chaotic.
And so while wanting to make the mornings go smoother is a great question, there's an even better one you can ask yourself that would be more effective. Who do I need to be in order for the mornings to run smoother?
Because although likely what you really want to run smoother is like your kids not having meltdowns and getting them to be more compliant, we're actually going to address that in the next question. But what really makes your family get out the door with more smoothness and less resistance is actually the tone you set for the morning.
So it's really about you staying calm and more in control as you move about your mornings. Because when you're in that energy space, then you're much more likely to get your kids into that space too.
The Mindset Shift That Creates Calmer Back-to-School Mornings
So what's the mindset or the version of you that is cool and calm and making things run smoothly regardless of what everybody else is doing? When you've identified that, when you know how you need to show up so that the mornings can run smoother, that's what you need to be leaning into.
Now for my coaching clients, I give them a couple of different types of exercises for this. We have the Daily Kickstart, we have some mindset practices to really make sure their head and their energy is in the right space right at the beginning of the day because so much leans or depends on our morning going well.
As an example of this, and I know I've told this story before on the podcast, my kids just like all kids have gone through seasons of having really tough times getting out the door in the mornings. A lot of emotions, a lot of meltdowns, a lot of resistance, not following direction, which of course leads to my own frustration and getting snappy and yelling, none of which is contributing to a smooth morning.
So when I took a step back and I really evaluated what I needed in order to stay calm and create a really smooth morning for my family, what I realized I needed was I needed to drop the agenda of being on time.
Okay, now I'm not saying that being on time is not important, it's actually very important to me and I'm somebody that is almost always on time, but having that as my number one priority in the morning really just wasn't helping me. It was causing a lot of chaos and franticness and push and then of course nobody likes to feel pushed so my kids didn't like it and so then they would push back and so then I would not show up as the mom that I wanted to be in those moments.
And so what I realized is that I, in order to really have the smoother morning that I wanted for the whole family, I had to adjust my own priorities and expectations and when I did that, the resistance lessened, my frustration went down and to be honest, most of the time we are still on time, it's pretty rare actually.
How to Handle Kids’ Resistance, Pushback, and Meltdowns During Busy Mornings
So for question two, it's not asking how do I make the mornings go smoother, it's who do I need to show up as or how do I need to be in order for the rest of my family to show up in the smoothness and the energy and the calm that I wish for everyone.
All right, so question three, sort of ties to this last one, how do I get my kids to be more compliant or how do I just get them to do more? Whether that we're talking about chores and sort of helping out around the house and being, you know, helpful to the family or we're just talking about like getting your pajamas off and getting your clothes on, which you know they're perfectly capable of doing but they seem every single day to either forget or be incompetent to in some way, right?
So unfortunately, this question all around is setting you up for failure because at the end of the day, you can never get your kids to do anything. Okay, you are not in control of them or of any other human being, right?
So asking this question, how do I get somebody else to do something that's impossible, you just can't, you're setting yourself up for failure. Of course, you can influence, of course, you could create an environment in which the best case scenario is for something, but at the end of the day, if you want your kids to be more compliant or to listen more, asking how do I do that is not a very helpful question.
Instead, a much more helpful question to ask would be, how can I set my kids and my family up for success in common moments of resistance, pushback and meltdowns? How can I set myself up for success?
Redefining Success When Your Kids Have Meltdowns
Now, on some level, you might even need to define what success means in this case because what I want to offer to you is success cannot be your kids doing something, right? Success cannot be your kids don't have a meltdown or your kids don't resist because again, that's not something ever you can control.
Success has to be defined as something that you are in complete control of. How do I stay calm and in control and relaxed even when my kids are having a meltdown? That's a much better frame of that question.
Now, to get to the answer of this question, however, it's probably based on the age of your kids, right? Maybe you want to create an incentive program, some sort of sticker chart, right? Or that kind of builds some more screen time or something along that lens. Or maybe that's not really your thing. That's fine. Maybe there just needs to be a really big internal shift around this.
I had a client several years ago, let's call her Mary. And I believe her daughter was maybe three or four or so at the time and she was having so many meltdowns and tantrums. It was like chronic, right? Super exhausting. We've all been in that stage.
And I remember Mary came to our coaching call and she's like, "How do I get my kid to stop melting down?" Like, it is exhausting and it's so hard to get her out the door.
And I said the same thing to her, like that I just said to you, right? You can't ever get her to stop. So if you can't get her to stop, then what? She was like, "I don't know. I just need the meltdowns to stop."
Stop Trying to Fix Your Child’s Emotions and Focus on What You Can Control
And I said, "Well, why is it okay for her to be having an emotional response?" And I remember she just looked at me and she was like, "I don't know, Rebecca. It doesn't feel okay."
And so that's where we ended up having to take our coaching is to normalize all of the meltdowns and sort of the negative emotion that her daughter was experiencing, which to be honest, at the end of the day, it's really about normalizing your own negative emotions, frustrations, anger, failure, fear, kinds of emotions that come up as well.
Because when you can normalize that for yourself and allow your own emotions to take place, then you're going to much, much more likely be able to allow that within your children as well.
So over the next several weeks, she started to really normalize her daughter's emotions, to stop resisting it, to stop trying to fix it, to stop trying to push back against it, because she was sort of coddling her daughter and sort of walking on eggshells around her.
So instead, we took the emphasis off of getting her daughter to do something and instead onto her being able to be calm and connected and still very loving to her daughter, even in the midst of all of this.
And of course, what happened? Her daughter had less meltdowns. Her daughter became a bit more compliant. Her daughter started to go along with the flow because there was so much less pushback and sort of forced change that my client was trying to get her daughter to do.
Prioritize Connection Over Compliance During Stressful Morning Routines
For me, when I dropped this priority of being on time, particularly with my son, I started to prioritize connection instead. And so every moment of resistance and pushback or crying, I saw that as a sign that he needed me to connect with him in that moment.
And I even came up with a little rule for myself. And I still carry to this rule today. I only ask once of my kids, and if they don't do it, I'm not going to ask again. I'm simply going to go help them do it, because it stops me from getting frustrated and asking all the time and asking five times and them not doing it. And so instead, I just assume what they need is a little bit of help and connection in that moment, which I'm going to offer them.
Now, of course, over the years, my daughter, who's turning 12, she does not need as much help as my son still does. But I know one day, he's not going to need my help in tying his shoes and brushing his teeth and packing his lunch.
I know that because I'm not going to college with him. And I've never met a college student who doesn't know how to tie their shoes or brush their teeth or make a simple lunch. I know he's going to figure it out.
I'm just going to help him and stay connected with him during the process instead of trying to fix the meltdowns that happen around those executive functioning skills in the morning.
How Working Moms Can Prioritize When Everything Feels Important
The fourth question I want to reframe for you is, it's not how am I going to stay on top of everything or how am I going to make all of this work? Which, to be transparent, I've actually been asking myself that question. I'm realizing that now because this is the first year that I have to do two different school drop-offs with my daughter going to middle school and all of the various activities there.
And so I've been kind of going to what in the world, how am I going to make the logistics of all of this happen? How am I going to stay on top of this? But here's the reframe I want you to ask yourself. It's what do I want to de-prioritize this season?
It's not how do I make everything work. It's what am I going to de-prioritize to make it all work? Because sometimes the easiest way to get everything done is to not have so many things to get done.
There's always a commitment on our plate, even if it's uncomfortable to break that commitment or say no or turn somebody down. Even though it's really hard, there's always commitments or expectations that you can de-prioritize, that you can say no to. Editing out is sometimes the best way to get all the important things actually done.
Why Working Moms Need to Prioritize Themselves During Busy Seasons
The last question I want you to reframe is how am I going to keep everyone on track? How am I going to track success for everyone? How am I going to make sure everybody else is successful? Instead of that question, I want you to ask yourself how am I going to make sure I stay on track and remain successful?
Because when times get busy, and I know the fall season can be very busy for a lot of working moms, the first thing that gets dropped is self-care, me time, workouts, time with your friends, time with your spouse. It's all the things that fills your bucket. All of the things that help you show up is the best version of you for your family and at work.
In order for you to show up as the mom that you want to be, the question to be asking is how am I going to keep myself on track and cared for? Knowing that when you do, you will show up for everyone else in the way that you would like to.
A Better Back-to-School Season Starts With Better Questions
Let's wrap this up. A better school year or a better fall or better Q4 doesn't come from more motivation or starting from a clean slate or that sort of new year energy. It comes from starting where you are and then asking better questions. The people that ask the best questions have the best results.
Before the school year kicks off or before it sort of starts to run away with you, if school has already started for you, I want you to sit down even if it's for just 10 minutes and talk through the real pressure points with yourself, whether it's the morning or the after-school stretch or snack time and run through all of these questions.
What really matters most here? Who do I want to be and show up as? What am I willing to let go of? Where do I fit into this schedule and then let your priorities drive your structure? Not the other way around.
All right, working moms. I hope you found this helpful. I'm looking forward to this little mini series on transitioning back to the school year and into the final quarter of the year.
As always, if you need some support, please reach out and book a free strategy call where we will dig deep into exactly where you are at today, how we can make sure the fall and the holidays and the new year are exactly the way you want them, and to end all of the chronic overwhelm and stress that so many working moms experience.
I can help you through all of that. Please reach out and book your free strategy call. There is a link in the show notes. All right, working moms. If you wait until next week, let's get to it.
The Daily Kickstart: A 10-Minute Morning Routine to Reduce Overwhelm
For the 100 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 hits. 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 reacting 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 difference for them and I'm offering it to you totally free.
You can download it by going to www.ambitiousandbalanced.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.
