Why Working Moms Feel Like We're Failing at Everything

Welcome to the executive coach for moms podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy, while simultaneously leading people at work. And at home. I'm your host Leanna Laskey, McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic, and certified executive coach.

Hello, everybody. And welcome. Thank you so much for joining me. Today, I would like to talk about one of the main things that I found to be a challenge whenever I was working as an executive and as a mother. And that was that I always felt like I was failing at everything. Sometimes I felt like I was doing one thing well, but if I was doing that it was at the expense of the other. And really, it was these two main things of working and, and being a parent. And those were my top two priorities at the time. Notice, I haven't mentioned myself or my marriage, or my relationships or my health or anything else, because at the time those things didn't seem it didn't feel like they had much space beyond my job and my job as a parent. And so at that time, I just I always felt like I was failing. And I remember that feeling just being so crushing and defeating because as a high achieving woman for my entire life, feeling like I was failing was not a feeling that I was a. familiar with, or b. comfortable with or c. okay with. It wasn't something that I felt like I was allowed to do, I was not okay permitting myself to to fail. And so when I kind of spent some time breaking it down after I decided to leave in 2020. I became a parent in February 2019. And then I spent 2020 struggling through working parenting through the pandemic. And I'm sure when I say 2020, a lot of us have some flashbacks that are not so pleasant of trying to figure out what to do without childcare. So at the end of 2020, I ended my employment and decided to take a career pause. And so when I reflect back, though, on what were those thoughts and feelings that I was having at that time, and why I was feeling like I was failing all the time, I really attribute it to five things. 

So the first thing and probably the biggest thing was my perfectionist tendencies. So as a high achieving workaholic woman who had ascended the corporate ladder pretty quickly in my career, I was just always quite a perfectionist, I felt like everything needed to be done 100%, I never gave less than 100% I wasn't willing to. And I also just when I was growing up, I had a father who was a tech entrepreneur also and worked all the time and worked really hard. And a mother who was a full time mom of three, who also worked really hard all the time to make a loving home for us and to raise three children. And so both of them were excellent at their jobs. And I realized that what I was doing, was aspiring to be both of them, and be this amazing tech entrepreneur who worked all the time, and a lot, and this amazing mother who devoted all of her time to her child. And so I was just completely setting up for failure right there. Because there's no way I could be both of them. And actually, at the time, I realized I needed to find a coach and a therapist, and I found when I was explaining all this to my coach, she said, Yeah, it sounds like you're trying to be two people. But how is that possible when you are one person? And I remember in my brain, I was just like, because I mean, I can do anything, right? Like I believe I can do anything and that I'm fully capable. And if anyone can do it, it's going to be me. I don't care if you are going to tell me that this is impossible because I believe that I can do it. And so I just had this mentality that that was what I should be doing or was supposed to do. I was supposed to be really good at both and perfect or both. And it just wasn't possible was When possible, so that was the first thing really may perfectionist tendencies. 

And then secondly, going right along with that was all or nothing black and white thinking. So the idea that I am either all in or I'm out, I am going to do this really, really well 100% Or I'm not going to do it at all. And so I think that had always been my mentality. So the idea of kind of being on a workout routine or on a strict diet regimen or not at all. And so like the idea of moderation, I think was it was something I thought about, but wasn't something that I really embraced. Moderation in my mind at the time was for kind of lazy people who weren't willing to put in the work to go all the way, if I'm being perfectly honest, and so trying to do both of my jobs, and every component about them at 100%. I mean, it just, it's just not physically possible to do that and to feel good about my contribution in all areas. And again, not withstanding all of my other priorities and responsibilities in my life, besides my job and my baby, I remember people saying, "Done is better than perfect." And I really wanted to embrace that concept. But I really just didn't know how to accept myself or my work, if it was less than perfect. I didn't know how to put it out there in the world if it wasn't, quote, unquote, perfect. And so it was just really hard to try and do so much work at work and at home, all at the same time and do it all the way 100%. 

The third thing that led to me feeling like I was failing all the time was my people pleasing tendency. So on top of trying to be perfect at everything, and go all the way and give everything 100% for myself, I think I also wanted to make sure that everyone around me had everything they needed from me and thought I was good at everything that I portrayed competence. And so I would often if not always put the needs of others around me above my own needs. And so that meant that I didn't really take much time for myself ever. I wouldn't take time for myself until I had run myself in the ground so much that I reached a breaking point. And then I said, everybody leave me alone, I need some time for myself. But it was like, I had to earn that time for myself, I had to really get myself to a point of no return in order to be able to feel like it was okay for me to take some time for myself. So instead, I would prioritize what my boss needed, what my employees needed, of course, my baby needed. And I think on top of that, with people pleasing, I felt like I needed to portray this kind of, well put together person, and there was a dissonance because I felt like, oh my god, I'm doing terribly here. And so I had to almost work to cover up that reality. I don't think I was consciously doing that. But I just, I wanted to portray that competence so badly and make sure everyone else was taken care of that there was kind of that extra work and extra shame of feeling like oh my god, if they only knew how bad I was at all of this, you know that impostor syndrome kind of creeping in and saying that I'm not good at this. And I'm just trying to fake it and portray that I'm good at it because I don't know what the hell I'm doing here. And actually, whenever I gave my notice, my boss was shocked. Everybody was pretty shocked because it wasn't something that I talked about or shared publicly until I made that decision. And so I told my boss and he was shocked. And he said, I think you're doing a great job. I have never thought that you weren't, and looking back, it's interesting as I reflect on that moment, because rather than believe him that yeah, I was doing a pretty like a really good job. My initial thought was, Wow, I covered that up really well. 

The fourth thing was my work ethic as part of my identity and value. So I have always been very hard worker. And back in my early tech startup days, I was pulling all nighters. I was answering the support phone in the middle of the night, I was putting in the hours; many many hours a day and a week. And that, to me was a big part of my value and my identity. I've I always identified as a workaholic, as someone who would do anything, do whatever it takes to get the job done. And so that was how I believed that I brought value to a company. And so 60 hour 70-80 hour work weeks were the norm for me before I had a baby, because that work was my life. And that was a huge part of my identity. And so when I had a baby, and it was impossible, physically impossible to work that amount of hours, trust me, I tried it for several weeks in a row and didn't sleep. And it just, it doesn't work, it is not a sustainable model to work that much with a baby, unless you have, you know, 24/7 support, and you don't wish to spend time with your baby, which is not how how I feel. And so really kind of having to redefine my value to a workplace just wasn't something that I had kind of the space to really think about. But what I've realized since is that this is a really common thing for women that we don't believe, or we aren't aware of our value that we bring to an organization being the ideas that we bring to the table and the relationships that we build, and our communication style, and so many other things beyond just being a workhorse. At the time, though, I felt like well, if I can't put in the hours, then I'm letting down the organization, I'm not bringing the value that I have always brought, and that they signed up for that they brought me in knowing that I would bring. 

And the last thing that I think contributed to this, were my recurring thoughts. So one of the things that I have learned from The Life Coach School podcast with Brooke Castillo, which I highly recommend, is that our thoughts create our feelings, our actions and results. So essentially, what we're thinking is creating our lives. And so I talked about my perfectionistic thoughts, my people pleasing thoughts, you know, my thought that my value was my work ethic. And so those were all thoughts, too. And that's kind of the common theme here is that all of the things that were leading to this ultimate belief that I had, that I was failing at everything, were all of these different thoughts. And so at the time, when I hired a therapist, and one of the first sessions, she asked me, "How are you talking to yourself? What are you saying to yourself?" and she said, "Write down anytime you notice that you're saying something unkind to yourself, write it down." So I just started paying a little bit more attention to my thoughts, and a few of the thoughts that I realized I was having that I was thinking constantly, I was always thinking, "God, this is so hard," all the time. And how does anybody do this? So not only is this hard, but other people are doing it. And I'm not basically, and this is impossible, I'm just not cut out for this. When you think about it, if you have someone standing there all day long, saying into your ear, this is hard, this is impossible, you're not cut out for this, other people are doing this better than you then you know, it's gonna be really hard. It's gonna make it a lot harder than it is. So on top of the actual fact that it's just a hard thing to juggle all of it that reminder all the time, kind of reminding myself all the time about it certainly isn't the most helpful thought to have all the time. And it's making it harder, maybe, maybe it doesn't have to be as hard if I didn't constantly tell myself that it was hard, right? So I heard that all the time. And so of course, I was going to believe it. 

So perfectionism, all or nothing thinking, people pleasing, my value being my work ethic, and my recurring daily thoughts about my life and my situation all led to this kind of me feeling like I was failing all the time. On top of that, I also just felt really, really alone. I believed that other women had figured this out, and were doing fine. And I was just struggling on my own. I think because I was afraid to talk about how hard it was. 

In talking to and coaching several other working moms since then, I've really realized that I'm not the only ones the only one who's had these feelings, I'm not the only one who has had some of these different thoughts. And so I think talking with other working moms, and actually sharing these kinds of things, helps us and also helps them because then we can all feel a little bit less alone. I think it's really tough being a woman in a male dominated industry like tech, and many, many, many other industries. Because I was the only woman on the executive team, I was the only person who was a brand new parent. And so it was hard to kind of relate to others and explain why I had to go to another doctor's appointment and not feel like I was dropping the ball or that I wasn't pulling my weight, or that I needed to go home and work until two o'clock in the morning to make up for any work missed. 

So if any of this resonates with you, I would highly recommend starting to notice your thoughts by kind of just writing them down when you notice them, write them down when you notice yourself being mean to yourself. Or if there's a thought that you have all the time that you've just accepted as true fact that you haven't questioned ever or in a while, just write it down and notice it. And another great exercise is to do a thought download or a brain dump, where you just write down everything in your head on paper, and then read it back. And notice what feels familiar, what feels true, what doesn't feel true, what maybe is kind of driving your life and your decisions and how you feel about your life because you may or may not want to work on changing some of those thoughts. 

I also want to say and acknowledge that this is not your fault that you have these beliefs. I think that's something as well, that on top of having all these beliefs, I was piling on a lot of shame and blame on myself, again, since leaving and having a bit of space to process all of this. And just learning so much more, you know, I've just I've learned that the system is broken, the system is not supporting working mothers, especially in the US with no paid parental leave. And beyond that, our workplaces were created by men, right. And the workplace norms that were the work we were created by men and women weren't in the workplace, whenever whenever things were being created and so I think that, since women entered the workforce, we have shifted it a bit. And I have so much respect for those early working women breaking their way into men's way of work. But I think at the beginning, you kind of have to prove that you can hang with the guys and that you can work the way that they want to work, because that was the only option for women at the time. And so now I love seeing women-owned companies and I love seeing women coming in and changing the way that we work. But obviously, there's still a lot more work to do. And so my point is really that I just want to make sure that on top of all of the feelings that we have, and beliefs and thoughts that we have, we also understand that the system's not supporting us. And also a lot of these thoughts are derived from the system, the perfectionist thinking, the work ethic as our value. These are things that we learned along the way, if it was something that was if it was an individual thing, then no other women would have these thoughts. But these are things that we learn as part of our social socialization as part of our culture. And so certainly, millions of women having similar thoughts and similar challenges along the way can't just be a coincidence that we all just came up with it on our own, right? It's something in our culture. And so just something I think is it's important to recognize that this is not an individual problem. 

So if you've had any of these thoughts, if you're experiencing them now, feel free to reach out. I'd love to connect with you. I think it's so important to have a strong community of women around us, especially if we can't find them in our own workplaces, and just people that we can talk to who have experienced or are experiencing similar things to us. So we don't feel so alone. But know that you're not alone and know that it's not your fault. And hopefully some of my realizations over the last couple years maybe bring some light and some realizations for you. So thank you so much for listening to the episode today and I hope y'all have a wonderful day be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast. Thanks!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai