After four years of building my own business alongside pregnancy and motherhood, I called it: the idea that as mothers, we can, and should “have it all” is not only a myth – it’s deep in the heart of what keeps us exhausted, defeated and buried deep in the comparison game.

“Having it all” tells us that we don’t need to sacrifice anything in our lives when we become mothers, and that instead, we can be everything, all at once, to the highest standards…but all this leads to is exhaustion, dropping the ball left right and centre, and, ultimately, burnout.

“Having it all” tells us we should be able to step into our roles at work as if we have no children, and take care of our children as if we don’t work…which leads us into a spiral of believing we aren’t enough, as parents, at work, and as human beings in our own right. 

“Having it all” tells us that becoming a mother shouldn’t impact how we show up at work – because we’re superwomen, right? We can do everything…except we can’t, can we? And the denial of our experiences of what it’s really like as we try to juggle all of our responsibilities, makes us feel like we must be the only ones not managing to nail every aspect of our life, without a single hair out of place. 

When I realised that I was pregnant, at the same time as I opened my first business, I told myself that nothing in my life would need to change in order to accommodate my new role as a mother. I thought that my life would simply expand to accommodate the role: I was the short-sighted Manager of my own life, offloading a terrifying list of responsibilities onto some poor unsuspecting underling, without offering so much as a whisper of a pay-rise, and without considering the long-term effects of overburdening my workforce (aka: me). 

Anyone with a half-decent perspective on good management practices would be able to recognise this approach as a disaster waiting to happen – and yet this is the approach most women take when they become parents. You can’t “work smarter, not harder” your way out of a list of responsibilities that is literally too long to ever complete, and yet we try to, all the same.

I know I’m not the only woman who walked into motherhood with the belief that nothing would change because I would be able to do it all. I know many mothers reading this will laugh in recognition at the naivety of pregnant me: little did I know, right? Yet while we can all, I’m sure, recognise that the idea I held about what my life would look like as a mother was overly simplistic to say the least, the idea that mothers can juggle all of their priorities successfully, without letting a single thing drop as we enter into parenthood, is so pervasive that even while we consciously recognise that the juggling act is impossible, at a subconscious level, so many women are still holding themselves up to this impossible standard.

It took me falling out of love with my business, hitting rock-bottom emotionally, and feeling like a complete failure, to realise that I had to find another way. Slowly but surely, alongside undertaking my coaching qualification, I started to pick apart this belief that I had to “have it all”, and asked myself a question I had never thought to ask before: “What do I actually want to have in my life? What do I think is actually worth juggling?” Beyond what society told me should be involved in my motherhood journey; beyond what people told me a successful career should look like; beyond what I was being told should make me feel happy and fulfilled in my own right…what did I actually care about? What did I want to make a priority?

Once I gave myself permission to pause, and reflect on these questions – essentially, a route into re-connecting to my own, deeply-held values, after years of tuning them out – I felt so much clearer on what I wanted to fight to carve out time for in my life, and what I didn’t mind dropping the ball on. I realised, for example, that I didn’t actually enjoy the baby and toddler groups I was putting myself under enormous pressure to attend, and that with those out of the way, I could prioritise seeing old friends, who reconnected me to my sense of self outside of motherhood. I realised that I was constantly berating myself for not working out more, when I was actually spending plenty of time exercising while I was playing with my son – and that the pressure I was putting myself under was much more to do with having an Instagram algorithm flooded with diligent mothers on their yoga mats, than how I actually wanted to spend my time.

Slowly but surely, I unpacked every pressure I was putting myself under. I questioned whether each pressure I identified was truly coming from me, because I valued that activity or way of being – or whether it was an external pressure I had picked up somewhere, masquerading as my own belief, and making me feel like I was always “behind”, despite the act that deep down, I didn’t actually care about it all that much.

In my work as a Life and Success coach, I am deeply passionate about empowering other mothers to make this differentiation: between what really matters to them, and what is simply external noise. Once we have learnt how to distinguish between the two, we can then create an action plan that will enable you to do more of what you love, while letting go of elements in your life that are not aligned with your values – and what it means for you to be living your best life. 

Join me for a free workshop with Frolo at 8pm on Friday 17th January, as we work together to uncover your deeply-held values, let go of pressures that are not aligned with creating a life you truly love, and make the first action step towards creating your very own, personally defined sense of work-life harmony.

We all have different values. We will all, when we do this work, reveal a different list – but what each and every person’s list will have in common, is that it won’t simply have everything in it. When you ask yourself, deep down, what you truly want out of life, the answer won’t simply be: “it all”.