3 Micro-Shifts I Made To Stop Feeling Overwhelmed As A Mom

Welcome to Mom On Purpose, where it’s all about helping moms overcome challenges and live their best lives. My hope is by being here, you are more inspired to become the mom you are made to be. I’m Natalie, your host, a wife, boy mom, dog mama, Chicagoan, and former lawyer turned professionally certified coach. If you’re here to grow, I can help. Let’s go.

Hello, my beautiful friends. Welcome to the podcast. I have a really special announcement today At Your Goal. Weight is launching the first week of July. I am so excited. This is my signature weight loss program where I teach you exactly how to apply the Lose More with Less method. There is nothing out there like this right now, and I think it’s been so popular because my approach is just completely different. Everyone’s talking about get fit, spend a million hours in the gym, overhaul your eating habits, have at it if those are your goals.

But I want to speak to the woman who says, you know what? My life is so full right now. I just want to work on weight loss. And this is going to help you do just that. You will achieve your weight loss goal in so much of a more efficient and faster way, and in a way that I think is more energizing and motivating because I think the longer it takes to achieve a goal, the more self-doubt creeps in and then you have to manage your mind around that. And so I do think there is something to just choosing one goal and working on it and in this program and At Your Goal Weight, I give you not just information, right? That’s just one of my peeves when I take a new program and it’s just like a ton of information and then I have to piece together what to do.

No, not going to happen in my world. I am going to, and I’m am in this program, give you the step-by-step process. Like I tell you exactly what to do. So I take all of the guesswork out of it. You apply this process as soon as you get inside At Your Goal Weight and you start losing weight right away. It is lifetime instant access. And I’m going to talk with you more about all of it at something very exciting. I’m so excited to announce here I am hosting my first live training, my friends, the very first one of its kind since 2024. Where does the time go? I know where it goes it goes to having babies. I’ve had three little ones in three years. And so, um, I haven’t held a live training in about two years, which is so crazy. I used to hold them monthly and here we are, two years later, I’m ready to get back into it.

So live training, this training is not just going to be like information about At Your Goal Weight. Yes, you can ask questions about it, I’d be happy to answer them, but it’s not just going to be about that. It is going to be about the three top things I did and the three things I didn’t do to lose 50 pounds. So I know that my process isn’t just something that is helpful and resonates because of, you know, the methodology. Yes, and also because of my story and how I applied it to my life and then have subsequently helped so many clients with it. And so I’m going to talk with you about the top three things I did to lose 50 pounds as well as the top three things I didn’t do and why both of those are really, really important and the mistakes that you might be making.

So if you want to join me live, it’s coming up here in a couple of weeks. It’s going to be on Friday, July 3rd. I know that’s a holiday weekend. I think it’s the perfect time to hop on a call in the morning before you kickstart all of the festivities. If you are celebrating in, the United States for the 4th of July, I am as well. It was just a good time for our family and I think it could be a really fun way and, exciting way to kickstart summer and the holiday weekend and, just dive into something that’s really important to you, which is achieving your weight loss goal. So you can get all of the details and register to join me live over at momonpurpose.com/live and make sure that you register because if you register and come live, you are going to get a special bonus and it is a ridiculously insane bonus, but you have to be on there live in order to get it.

Alright, that is the announcement that I have for you. I am just beaming with excitement to get this out to you. The live training as well as, um, everything about At Your Goal Weight, it’s just been such a fun season for me to help so many moms with weight loss. And I want to help you and I will answer all of your questions there. It’s just going to be me live. I’ll have time to answer questions at the end as well. So make sure to come live. You can, you know, clock in from anywhere. I always like to say that on my calls on whether I’m live or in the membership, you won’t see other people. I know that some people host, zoom calls where you can see everyone that will never be me. Okay? I don’t like it when I’m on the receiving end of that, and therefore when it’s in my company, I don’t do that.

And so when you click the link and you join the call, no one can see you. Only I can see like the list of participants who’s on the call, but you’ll just be able to see me. So if you just want to hang out in the background or you want to ask a question, just to me, it comes through anonymously. It’s not like this chat where you’re chatting with others, okay? So I just like to say that ahead of time, you will be taken care of. No one will know you’re on the call and you can listen in, watch from, you know, your kitchen as you’re prepping a nice 4th of July fruit salad, whatever it is. Can’t wait to see you there, momonpurpose.com/live for all of the details. Okay? Now I want to talk with you about three micro shifts I made to stop feeling overwhelmed as a mom.

This is coming to you from a reel that I did a few weeks ago now, that I really loved and therefore I want to bring you the content because I’m always thinking about like the main challenges that these tools can help you with. And, you know, in this case, overwhelm comes up a lot, whether it’s parenting, whether it’s marriage, whether it’s the mental load, whether it’s some combination of work-life balance in your career, like all of the things, right? The word overwhelm comes up from time and time again. And so I’m always thinking about how can I approach this topic from a different angle to like add depth so that you’ll hear it in a way that will land for you in a, in a more helpful way. And that’s what today’s episode is all about. So these are three micro shifts I made to stop feeling overwhelmed as a mom.

Number one, I stopped using a to-do list and I started using a results based planning system. This is my time freedom method that you get inside the Mom On Purpose membership. Listen my friends, if you are using a to-do list, your brain cannot perceive time. And so it immediately will have scarcity driven thoughts. Like, there’s so much to do, I don’t have enough time. When is it all going to get done? It’s never ending. You know, I’m not doing enough. I need to do more. This is too much. Whatever your flavor of time, scarcity thoughts are, you are going to have that when you look at a to-do list. So my approach to overwhelm is not just to do mindset work. Doing thought work is extraordinarily important for overwhelm, but the way that I approach it similar to weight loss, actually, I don’t do it first because I don’t want to help you manage your mind around a to-do list because it’s, I think it’s somewhat of a waste of your brain power.

Like you can, but why? Like why make it harder on yourself? Instead, let’s clean up your time management system. Let’s get rid of that to-do list so that you’re using a results-based planning system. My time freedom method that has like many layers to it, but it’s very simple. It involves kind of time blocking as well as, using a flex time list for the time when it’s not as clear or you need to be flexible like with your kids. But anyways, what it does is it really gets everything from your to-do list onto your calendar so that you can visually see when things are going to get done. And this is a system that you just continue to use. I’m going to give you an example. I at the time of recording this, I’m about to leave for a girls trip. There’s nine of us, including myself from high school.

We are going on our 40th, birthday girls trip, and I’m so excited, and of course that is happening at the same time that I am launching At Your Goal weight. And then of course, in the membership, I create a monthly masterclass every single month. And I am still at the time of recording this, have a couple more lessons to complete in terms of recording in At Your Goal Weight. And then there’s all of the just regular content like this podcast. And so typically in my everyday life, I am able to easily fit that in, right? And I have a lot of white space, but if you take all of that that I normally do, add in a launch, add in finishing a course, then add in this girl’s trip, then add in father’s Day as well. Like there are a lot more moving pieces.

And so why am I bringing this up? Because I just kind of revamped my calendar for the middle and the end of June into July to make some tweaks and move some things around to make sure that I have a designated space for everything. If I put all of the things that I’m doing right now in the next like 30 days on a to-do list, I would be so overwhelmed I cannot stress that enough. And then it’s like what? I have to manage my brain around it and just tell myself like, I think it’ll get done. It’s okay if it doesn’t get done. It’s just such a waste of brain power because I don’t know, right? And so this is why it’s so important to have a plan and use the time freedom method so that then you know when things are going to get done.

Then you have decisions to make, and then you manage your brain and then you tell yourself what you want to think about your time and your choices and your life, okay? It has to be in that order. Okay? Number two, I let it be messy. Remember here we’re talking about three little micro shifts that help me to not feel so overwhelmed. I embrace the mess. I have three boys under five. I know this season of life is temporary. And even if it’s not, even if they grow up and they’re really messy, it’s fine. I have, come so far in my rigidity, in my type A-ness that is from being a firstborn type a, just high achiever. That’s just, you know, the archetype. I fit that stereotype so well. And I don’t use that as a limiting belief which is really important.

Anytime you’re looking at any sort of category, right? It can be helpful to bring awareness to who you are, but don’t use that as a limiting belief so for me, I really embrace the mess. For example, I keep the beds pretty much unmade. They’re not really made, like I’ll throw like the comforter back on it, but it’s not made in the traditional sense. I don’t fold laundry now. My kids have clean clothes, I have clean clothes, I do the laundry, but I don’t fold it typically sometimes my husband will, other times, like especially for the kids’ clothes, it just sits in a laundry basket and we pull from that. I love that. It’s totally fine. Everything that I could do has to be a trade, right? So if I am spending all of my time and energy on domestic chores, then what’s left, right?

And then I’m overwhelmed and then I’m blaming my life. And that’s just no way to live. And so you have to consider the cost of doing a bajillion things, okay? Now, I do a lot of things, but I’m very strategic and I have a lot of white space. And so this really goes back to the purpose and priorities framework that I taught inside the membership a couple months ago. It’s in there, if you join, everyone gets it. That will really be kind of the, the north star, because for me, it’s super clear right now that in life my family is my top number one priority and my business is my number two priority, and that’s really it. And so it is not a high priority for me to have all of the clothes put away and my house looking perfect. You know, we have our cleaners come and you know, otherwise I kind of let it be messy.

I, don’t make a big deal about any kind of like little bits of dirt that Benji, it’s mostly Benji, you would think three boys and two dogs. It’s a combination of all of them, but it’s mostly Benji boy. He just loves fetch, loves getting dirty, very, very athletic dog, and he just tracks in all of the things. So I will, you know, vacuum or sweep the floors like once a day, just very quickly but I, I set the bar very low compared to who I used to be. And this is who I’m comparing it to. I know we all have different standards, but the point of me sharing this with you is not that you need to do it this way, it’s just that if you are experiencing overwhelm and you’re thinking that because you’re a high achiever, you need to meet certain standards, I just want to remind you that those standards are a choice.

And so for me, I want to raise the bar for the standard of my emotions. I want to show up with excitement and joy and presence at a really high level, more than I care about the home being perfect, right? Because we remember how people feel. We don’t remember like whether the clothes were folded, okay? And so again, it’s about priorities. It’s about what’s the most important thing for you. And I think on default we are very reactive instead of proactive. And so it makes sense if you’re like this, like I was like that where you just like look at the home and the first things that you see are what you do. It’s like, oh, laundry needs to be done. Oh, the floors need to be cleaned. Oh, like, and you’re in reactive mode instead of being proactive about like what actually is important right now because your priorities become your strategy.

So remember that your priorities become your strategy. So it’s really important that you have your priorities in order. Priorities are in order. You can’t have a thousand things or even 10 things all at the same number one level of priority, it makes decision making too difficult, okay? And that really gets to the root of where some of you are struggling. And you can get coaching inside the Mon On Purpose membership, I highly encourage it. So you can clean that part of it up. Number three, third micro shift that I made to stop feeling so overwhelmed is separating out overwhelm as a feeling from my identity. So what we do on default is we take our past actions that have become habits, and we’ve repeated them so much that we make them mean something about ourselves. So if you find that you procrastinate a lot and you are looking to your past for evidence of that, then it is very likely that you will call yourself a procrastinator.

You took past actions that you did or in this case didn’t do, right? Turn things in late or something. And then you lump it all together to summarize a behavior about yourself, a characteristic about yourself, an identity about yourself. So you call yourself a procrastinator. The same thing is happening when we identify as being overwhelmed. When we say I am being or I am a certain way, we are talking about our identity and we do this kind of just in our common speak in our language day to day. And the problem with it is we don’t really realize that that’s what’s happening. So anytime you say I am, and then you name a feeling, I am angry, I am frustrated, I am overwhelmed. Immediately what you’ve done there is you’ve taken the feeling of your experience in one situation and you’ve made it who you are.

Not good, okay? We don’t want to be I identifying with feelings that we don’t want to be identifying with. And so there’s nothing wrong with you for feeling overwhelmed. There’s nothing wrong with me for feeling overwhelmed. And also that doesn’t mean that I am an overwhelmed mom. So be careful with the labels that you give yourself. Be more mindful of the identities. Some of you are carrying around identities that you wouldn’t choose for yourself, whether they came from your family of origin or whether they just came from you, yourself, and your adult life. Something that you notice based on a pattern I am, you know, just not a mourning person. Well, that’s a terrible thought to have and a terrible identity to give yourself if you want to become a morning person. Now, if you don’t care, totally fine. Like I talk about being a type a high achiever, firstborn daughter, and I do it in a way to add context to my transformation and shifts.

But that is a way of labeling myself, right? I don’t have to do that, okay? And so it’s helpful for me in this case, right? Because it helps me tell my story to you. But I want you to think about the labels that you are giving yourself. And in this case, I’m talking about overwhelm, but fill in the blank for anything. Labels are a choice. Now, what that doesn’t mean is that you just say, oh yeah, I’m never overwhelmed. That is missing the point and it’s just going to all or nothing thinking either you’re overwhelmed or you’re not overwhelmed. What I’m saying is that neither is true. Overwhelm is a feeling that you feel in your body and it’s coming from the way that you are living your life and thinking. And we can solve all of that. And as we’re solving it, the way that you describe yourself really matters.

So instead of, I’m so overwhelmed, I’m an overwhelmed mom, acknowledge and validate yourself for the feeling that you’re feeling, but don’t make it mean that that’s who you are. This really matters for who you’re becoming because you know, presumably you don’t want to be overwhelmed in the future. And so the one of the best first steps is to start putting that feeling where it belongs, which is in the feeling bucket, I call it. Right? And so instead of I’m so overwhelmed, I’m overwhelmed, you want to say, I’m feeling the feeling of overwhelm. I feel overwhelmed. The emotion I’m feeling right now is overwhelm. Any of those statements would be way more helpful. So this is just a feeling in my body. The feeling is overwhelm immediately when you name it like that, you get leverage over it, you get control over it, you separate yourself from it.

It’s a huge step in your awareness because you’re saying, okay, I’m a human being, having a human experience, and the feeling I’m feeling is overwhelm. That’s not who I am, right? You’ve separated out your feeling from who you are. You get to decide who you are, right? Don’t choose overwhelm, okay? Now validate your feelings and we’ll work on creating the feelings you want to feel given your life. Yes, of course. And also you’ll still have a human primitive brain that will from time to time create negative emotions that you wouldn’t necessarily choose. But before doing this work, you might be feeling overwhelm, I don’t know, nine out of 10 times. And then after doing this work, the work inside the Mom On Purpose, membership of coaching yourself and choosing your feelings on purpose and unwinding overwhelm, and using time freedom and using brain management. My three part thought work framework, you will likely feel overwhelmed one to two times out of 10.

So it’s not that you never will feel overwhelmed again, but instead of it being nine out of 10 times and the way that’s really like, you know, leading your life, you’re living through overwhelm, instead, it’s way smaller. It’s like, okay, one or two out of 10 times, I’m feeling overwhelmed. It’s a completely different life experience. And, I love to be an example of that because it allows me to continue to create the life that I want. I get to have more and create more and, just live into the future that I want to live into because I’m able to handle so much because my capacity is so high, because I have the skills of overwhelm management. And you can too, my friend. I wasn’t born this way. I learned these tools. Join me inside the Mom on Purpose membership this month. I am so obsessed with the brand new masterclass that came out in June called Mom Traps.

I share cognitive distortions, to get you out of shoulding, to get you out of worrying, to get you out of all or nothing thinking. Those are three of them. And there’s three more cognitive distortions. So you get six total. I teach you what they are. I show you exactly how to become aware of them so that you can catch them in real time so that you stop living from those distortions. They will create overwhelm, worry, judgment, kind of this like harshness and heaviness that is going to make motherhood and your life just not as fun. It’s, it’s not going to be as enjoyable. So I would love to see you inside over at momonpurpose.com/coaching. Until next week, my friend, take care.