82. Why Moms Try to Do Everything Alone and How to Break the Pattern
If you want to start a business or live a less stressful, more fulfilled life as a mom, but you're trying to figure it out on your own, you are creating an unnecessary delay in achieving those amazing results. In this episode, I'm addressing something that's coming up a lot for my clients right now: when we try to do something big entirely on our own, we create way more friction in getting to our goals.
This episode is especially for the moms who are telling themselves they need to get further before they deserve support, or that they need to have it all figured out before they're ready for help. Support is what gives you those things. Support is what gets you there and gets you started. I'm walking you through three identities or stories that many of us carry that make it really hard to ask for help, accept help, or invest in support.
By the end of this episode, you'll feel more seen and more equipped to shift these patterns that might be holding you back. You'll learn specific ways to tap into the support that will help you reach your goals faster, whether that's starting or growing your business, or aligning your life with how you want to show up as a mom. Because humans lean on each other, it's one of our best qualities.
If you're ready to stop feeling stuck, join my *FREE* webinar, Unstuck: How to Build the Business You Can't Stop Thinking About. It's happening on Wednesday, December 10th, 2025, at 1 pm ET/10 am PT. Click here to register.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why thinking support equals weakness actually makes us less resourceful.
How the "unsupported" story perpetuates less support in your life.
What happens when we believe we're the only ones who can do things right.
How to identify which identity shows up for you and where.
The key questions to ask yourself about your future supported self.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
If you've been thinking about a business for months or years, if you've been struggling in motherhood on a day-to-day basis, if your days feel chaotic and rushed or unsupported, I want you to know that you were never meant to do any of it alone. Humans lean on each other. It's one of our best qualities. And when we lean on support and resources, it collapses timelines. It creates confidence. It unlocks creativity and so much more. So many of the things you might not think you have right now, support will unlock.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. The holidays are here. We are in the thick of it. This time of year, it feels overwhelming and lonely. So much falls on us, so this episode is a must-listen going into this season. Or rather, it's a must-listen because the season is already here. Because today, I want to talk about something that's coming up a lot for my clients right now. And for so many moms that I see that are just quietly dreaming about a better life or a business that they truly can't stop thinking about or just wanting to feel more like themselves again.
And it's this. If you want to start a business or live a less stressful, more fulfilled life as a mom, essentially, if you want to create a life and business you love, like I always talk about, but you're trying to figure it out on your own and trying to figure out how to do all of that on your own, you are creating an unnecessary delay in achieving those amazing results.
Because when we try to do something big entirely on our own, we create way more friction getting to our goals. We make success harder to achieve and failure more perpetual.
And look, every person I've ever admired, every mentor I've followed, every coach I've learned from, they haven't done it alone. There is a regular theme among people who are really successful: they aren't doing it alone. So if you feel alone or unsupported in any way as a mom or an emerging entrepreneur, this episode is not just permission to lean into support, it's truly a nudge that getting out of your own head and inviting in outside expertise or counsel or support in any way will make all the difference.
This episode is especially for the moms out there who are saying to themselves, "I want support, but I need to get further before I deserve it." Or, "I can't keep living this way, but I need to hit some invisible milestone before I can ask for help." Or, "I need to have a business idea before I invest in myself. I need to work on myself and have it all figured out and have it all together before I'm ready for support."
Support is what gives you those things. Support is what gets you there and gets you started. Support is what helps you solve all of the current problems you're facing so you can move on to the next big one. The bigger, the more exciting problem.
So today, I want to walk you actually through three identities or stories that many of us carry. Stories that make it really hard to ask for help, accept help, or invest in support. And by the end, I want you to feel more seen, more understood, and more equipped to shift this pattern that might be holding you back and delaying the results, whether the results be starting a business, building a business, or aligning your life with how you want to show up as a mom.
Before we even get into the identities and stories that I want to talk about, I want to speak to something a lot of you need to remember. You have a ton on your plate. The reasons you haven't taken action yet, whatever those actions are at this point in your life and business, they're good reasons. It's so easy to lose ourselves in the work of raising humans, keeping a household running, making sure everyone else's life is happy and fulfilled. We are incredibly selfless and devoted, and honestly, I get emotional when I think about that.
But we also matter, okay? Your happiness, your fulfillment, your goals, those matter too. And I feel like I regularly need to not only remind everyone listening, but also myself of that. We are so good at taking care of other people and making sure they are happy and healthy and fulfilled. And we need to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled too.
And I remember this moment after I had my second son, Jude, who is now one, where I was so frustrated and resentful that my husband was ready to, he was ready to jump back into his workout routine. And I just couldn't physically. I mean, it wasn't possible for me mentally or physically in that postpartum phase that I was in. And I remember this huge fight that we had where I finally said, "I need you to put me above you on your priority list because I cannot put myself first right now. If you don't do it, no one is watching out for me."
And it took so long for me to say that, right? And even that was hard for me to say. We suffer silently because asking for help is hard. But today, I want to help you understand why it's so hard and what to do next. Because sometimes it is hard for us to hold ourselves accountable, for us to put ourselves at the top of our priority list. Sometimes we need support and we need to lean into that support.
So let's talk about the identities or stories that are holding us back. These are preventing us from leaning into support in various areas of our life. And the first is the story of support being weakness. This is the identity that says something is wrong with me if I'm asking for help, accepting help, or investing in support. This identity thinks things like, "I should be able to do it myself. I don't want people to think I'm weak. Everyone else seems to be fine. Why am I the only one struggling?"
So within this identity, we do a lot of comparison. We judge ourselves and we think that needing support means something about us personally and about our capabilities, usually something negative. I always find it fascinating because clients will ask me if I have a coach, and they look surprised when I say yes, as if needing support is some kind of flaw. And I want you to imagine if our kids asked for help and we judged them. Right? We'd never do that.
But we do it to ourselves all the time. We think that when we call on support, it means that we can't do it. But what it really means is that we see the value in us not doing it alone, the value for us, our families, our businesses, and honestly, the value for whoever is helping us. Leaning into support does not make us weak. It makes us resourceful.
When we were in corporate or in our traditional nine-to-five, we leaned on managers, mentors, trainings, and lots of other resources. And yet, when we step into motherhood or into entrepreneurship, we suddenly think that resources are a sign of weakness. No. No, no, no. I remember getting weekly one-on-ones with my manager and going through so many corporate trainings and meetings with mentors. And in that container, that sort of thing is celebrated. You're seen as someone who cares and who loves learning and growing.
I want to encourage you that nothing changes when you step into motherhood or entrepreneurship. Leaning into support and resources is something to be celebrated, not ashamed of.
The second story or identity is the story of being unsupported. And this is a bit of a victim mentality. And I don't mean that in a shaming way. This is just a default thought pattern many moms fall into. So it sounds like, "It always falls on me. No one ever helps. I have to solve this alone." And this comes up all the time with clients and myself, of course, too. And I want to offer that when we are so focused on being unsupported, we actually perpetuate less support.
This is the way our brains often work. Okay? The thing that we are thinking about and focused on creates more of what we don't want. I want to walk you through an actual thought pattern from one of my clients because this was such a strong story and identity for her, and understanding this helped her to stop self-sabotaging so that she could start creating results. And I know we can all relate to what came up in the coaching container for her.
So there are three circumstances I want to talk about. The first was a situation that we've all been in. Preschool or daycare closes last minute. For this client, it was closed and it just snuck up on her. She forgot and Sunday night she realized that she didn't have childcare figured out.
When she realized that, her default thought, the immediate thought that came to her mind was, "I'm the only one who has to solve this problem." And it was said in a sort of victim mentality like, "Why me? Why do I always have to be the one who solves this problem?" And it produced this feeling and the story of being unsupported.
And when she felt that, unsupported, her actions were to withdraw, not loop in her husband, not reach out to anyone for help, and really go into a downward spiral where she just kept thinking, "I always have to figure things out myself."
And as you can imagine, when we looked at this thought pattern and the feelings and actions that followed, the result was, no surprise, she was unsupported. But not because people weren't necessarily willing to help. She closed herself off from the possibility by not communicating, by shutting down. By believing she was unsupported before she even made an effort to bring people in and lean into support, okay?
She didn't communicate because she had already decided in her mind that she was unsupported. Her identity and story was that she's always unsupported and this was what perpetuated in her actions. When we explored this together, it was so obvious to her because when she thought about it, she realized that if she had communicated with her husband, he probably would have been more than willing to help.
The second way that this identity showed up for this person that I want to share because it paints such a perfect picture, has to do with support at work. Okay? She works a full-time job, plus she's building a business. Her workload doubled at work when one of her peers left.
And finally, her boss sat her down and said, "What can I do to support you? What can I take off your plate?" And being overwhelmed at work was something that we had been working on because for her to be able to build a business and an exit plan, she really had to be able to create energy and time to do both.
And so we had been working on this. And then her boss presents this question. Like, "What can I take off your plate?" And her default thought was, "He can't actually help me." And because that felt true, she shut down the conversation. She still felt unsupported even though support was literally being offered in real time to her.
And when we coached through it, she realized she had blocked the very support she desperately needed. And once she saw it, she created an entire plan to offload projects and streamline her role. She was able to go back to her boss and, surprise, he was actually able to help her. She got hours of time and energy back in her week. Hours that were now going into her consulting business and creating her exit plan. And all of that started because she shifted out of the unsupported identity and leaned into support that was around her.
I said there were three pieces. So the third piece that I want to bring up because I think that so many of us can see similarities in our own life of how this identity shows up, is oversupporting others. Okay? So this same client was burning herself out. She was saying yes to everything her team asked of her.
And she said to me, "I've been unsupported, so I want to support others." Which sounds kind, but it meant she was saying yes to everything, overextending herself and putting herself last. It's the same identity, right? This identity of being unsupported, and it has a different expression of how it holds us back.
Because when we have this identity of being unsupported, which makes us want to support everybody else, we are limiting the support we receive, which would give us time, energy, and resources and expanding the support we give, which limits our time and energy.
And one more important note about feeling unsupported, which might be harder to hear, but really is life-changing: support is subjective. I've had clients with zero family around and clients with tons of family and support around and both feel similarly unsupported. Our thoughts and stories about support are what create our reality.
So this identity is really tricky because I'm advocating for you to lean into support, but I want to warn you that even if you lean into support, you may find yourself still with the mental story that you are unsupported. And really what I'm going to talk about in the actions that you can take will help you to reflect on that and resolve that.
So the third identity or story that we have that holds us back from leaning into support is the one of our own importance or expertise. Okay? We think that if we lean into support, it'll actually make things harder on us. And when this one is true for us, we're saying things like, "I have the best way of doing things. Other people won't do it right. It's faster if I just do it."
This reminds me of a friend who said to me one time that she never lets her mom or husband help with washing bottles because no one does it right. Bless her. And if she has another child, I'm definitely gifting her the automatic bottle washer. That is amazing and life-changing. Though depending on how strong this identity is, even that might not get the job done. But this identity makes everything harder than it needs to be, right? It keeps us in the weeds. It makes it the default to deny help when it's offered, even when we desperately need it.
And again, all of that slows us down. There's a part of us that thinks it will be the end of the world if things are done differently. And yes, maybe we are the best person to do things. We know exactly how bedtime routine goes. We know what door to drop the kids off at. We know how to sign the kids in and out. We make the dinners that prioritize vegetables. Whatever it is for you, right?
You may be the best person or have the best way of doing it, and crowding your life with a bunch of things you can't delegate will delay having the time and energy for the more important things that you want to create in your life, like that business or sitting down with a tea to read that book or hanging out with old friends that you haven't seen in years.
Whatever you feel like is missing in your life, bogging yourself down with a bunch of tasks that could be delegated, if we just accepted that it was okay for things to be done differently, is life changing.
There are lots of other stories that hold us back from leaning into support, but these three felt most common and most exciting to talk about today because I think they are incredibly life-changing and will have you reflecting and thinking about your own thoughts and life and behaviors in a way that you may have never thought about them before, which may lead to leaning into support, which is the ultimate hope.
So hopefully some of those identities or stories resonated with you because I know that there are times that I fit into all three of those buckets. And I can clearly see the ways that I'm delaying getting the results I want by doing that. We all do it in so many different areas of our life.
And of course, you know me, I'm also going to share what you can do to break out of those stories and thought patterns that are delaying your success and making it harder for you to reach your goal.
The first thing I want you to do is I really want you to think about and identify which identity shows up for you and where. In what scenarios does it feel like a sign of weakness if you ask for help? In what situations are you denying help that's actually there because you have a story that you're unsupported? And where do you see yourself taking on everything because you don't like the way other people do things?
And this may sound simple, but this is a really hard question to answer. So please sit with it and be honest with yourself. On the surface, your brain might want to place outside blame for your lack of support, okay? Maybe it's a partner that isn't home or doesn't help. Maybe it's living away from family. Maybe it's being a single mom and so we see ourselves as unsupported because we don't have a second parent involved. Whatever it is, if we try to identify one of the buckets I shared as part of the problem, which one would it be?
The next thing I want you to do, like the next bit of reflection that I want to encourage is to ask yourself, "Do I like my reason for not getting support?" If you're holding back from support, do you like your reason for not doing it? Do you like your reason for denying help? Do you like your reason for trying to figure it out alone? Are you okay with the sacrifices that come with denying help? Are you okay with your goals taking longer and maybe taking more energy, time and energy? Think about the things that you want to create and how amazing it would be to live into those goals. Is it okay to delay those?
And trust me, the answer might be yes. It depends on the goals, it depends on the situation with help. It depends on who it is, the investment, all the things. But I want you to reflect on it and really get clear on if you like your reasons. Are they good reasons for continuing with your life as it is and delaying your results?
The third thing I want you to do is to tap into your future self, the version of you who is already living the life you want, the version of you who has whatever she needs to create the results that you want to create. And I want you to ask yourself, "How supported is she? Who's helping her? What does she delegate? Who does she learn from? How does she invest in herself?"
I want you to reflect on some of these questions. Really think about that version of you who is making more money or who has her own business or who feels calm and present with her kids. And I want you to think about what avenues of support she has in her life.
I threw out a bunch of questions here, and you're probably driving, you're probably doing laundry, you're probably not sitting at your desk writing all these down. So if you want to grab the transcript and copy and paste these questions, go to jenna.coach/81 to get the transcript in the show notes.
So now that you have tapped into the beautiful brain of the future you, the version of you who has all the results that she has ever wanted, this next piece is key. Okay? I want you to start tapping into that support now. Don't wait until you have the results. Don't wait until you get further along. Don't wait until you feel ready. Support is what makes you ready. Support in whatever ways you need it in your life are what will get you those results.
The version of you that has that support and has those results and the goals and the life and business that she loves, tapped into the support to get her there. It wasn't something that showed up after the results. So we want to tap into those results now and not put those off because we don't feel ready or we don't feel like we've achieved enough or we're waiting for some arbitrary milestone.
If you've been thinking about a business for months or years, if you've been struggling in motherhood on a day-to-day basis, if your days feel chaotic and rushed or unsupported, I want you to know that you were never meant to do any of it alone. Humans lean on each other. It's one of our best qualities.
And when we lean on support and resources, it collapses timelines. It creates confidence. It unlocks creativity and so much more. So many of the things you might not think you have right now, support will unlock. Support helps you get started. It helps you keep going. It helps you to achieve this thing and the next thing and all the things.
And this podcast can be a first tier of support. I know I've talked about that before. If you're tuning in for the first time or if you're someone who listens sporadically, make sure you follow so that you get the weekly support. We release episodes every Wednesday morning. And so it is a ping on your phone that I know you carry all day, every day, of support.
Another layer of support and resources I offer are live webinars around starting and building our businesses, ways that we can not only understand what's holding us back, but to also gain clarity on the actions we can take to start building momentum.
If you're catching this on the morning of its release, I have a live webinar today called Unstuck, How to Build the Business You Can't Stop Thinking About. So definitely join us if you're catching this in time. That webinar will be incredible for folks who've spent a lot of time thinking about their business without making decisions to move forward. Moms always leave those events feeling energized and clear on how they are going to take action and move their business forward. Even if they have no idea what kind of business they want to start.
And if you're catching this after that live webinar, I encourage you to schedule a free 1-hour consultation. That one conversation can be completely transformational. It can be the support that you need to get started. It can be the catalyst. Even if it ends up that coaching isn't a good fit for your goals, you can use that container to energize yourself, to get answers.
There's something energizing about showing up in a space and talking through your ideas and obstacles, talking about where you are, your biggest struggles, and then hearing exactly what you need to do to move forward. Just one conversation, truly just one hour, can change your entire trajectory. It happens regularly that moms leave that call and come up with creative and detailed plans and solutions that have them taking action. Those types of conversations aren't a regular occurrence in our life, and it's such a beautiful thing.
Okay, the links for all these things are in the show notes, jenna.coach/82. If you want to schedule a free 1-hour consultation, go to mom.jenna.coach/strategy. That link will also be in the show notes. Until then, please advocate for yourself and find the ways that you can tap into support so you can reach your goals faster, so you can start living a life you love sooner. That's what it's all about.
I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. The holidays are here. We are in the thick of it. This time of year, it feels overwhelming and lonely. So much falls on us, so this episode is a must-listen going into this season. Or rather, it's a must-listen because the season is already here. Because today, I want to talk about something that's coming up a lot for my clients right now. And for so many moms that I see that are just quietly dreaming about a better life or a business that they truly can't stop thinking about or just wanting to feel more like themselves again.
And it's this. If you want to start a business or live a less stressful, more fulfilled life as a mom, essentially, if you want to create a life and business you love, like I always talk about, but you're trying to figure it out on your own and trying to figure out how to do all of that on your own, you are creating an unnecessary delay in achieving those amazing results.
Because when we try to do something big entirely on our own, we create way more friction getting to our goals. We make success harder to achieve and failure more perpetual.
And look, every person I've ever admired, every mentor I've followed, every coach I've learned from, they haven't done it alone. There is a regular theme among people who are really successful: they aren't doing it alone. So if you feel alone or unsupported in any way as a mom or an emerging entrepreneur, this episode is not just permission to lean into support, it's truly a nudge that getting out of your own head and inviting in outside expertise or counsel or support in any way will make all the difference.
This episode is especially for the moms out there who are saying to themselves, "I want support, but I need to get further before I deserve it." Or, "I can't keep living this way, but I need to hit some invisible milestone before I can ask for help." Or, "I need to have a business idea before I invest in myself. I need to work on myself and have it all figured out and have it all together before I'm ready for support."
Support is what gives you those things. Support is what gets you there and gets you started. Support is what helps you solve all of the current problems you're facing so you can move on to the next big one. The bigger, the more exciting problem.
So today, I want to walk you actually through three identities or stories that many of us carry. Stories that make it really hard to ask for help, accept help, or invest in support. And by the end, I want you to feel more seen, more understood, and more equipped to shift this pattern that might be holding you back and delaying the results, whether the results be starting a business, building a business, or aligning your life with how you want to show up as a mom.
Before we even get into the identities and stories that I want to talk about, I want to speak to something a lot of you need to remember. You have a ton on your plate. The reasons you haven't taken action yet, whatever those actions are at this point in your life and business, they're good reasons. It's so easy to lose ourselves in the work of raising humans, keeping a household running, making sure everyone else's life is happy and fulfilled. We are incredibly selfless and devoted, and honestly, I get emotional when I think about that.
But we also matter, okay? Your happiness, your fulfillment, your goals, those matter too. And I feel like I regularly need to not only remind everyone listening, but also myself of that. We are so good at taking care of other people and making sure they are happy and healthy and fulfilled. And we need to be happy, healthy, and fulfilled too.
And I remember this moment after I had my second son, Jude, who is now one, where I was so frustrated and resentful that my husband was ready to, he was ready to jump back into his workout routine. And I just couldn't physically. I mean, it wasn't possible for me mentally or physically in that postpartum phase that I was in. And I remember this huge fight that we had where I finally said, "I need you to put me above you on your priority list because I cannot put myself first right now. If you don't do it, no one is watching out for me."
And it took so long for me to say that, right? And even that was hard for me to say. We suffer silently because asking for help is hard. But today, I want to help you understand why it's so hard and what to do next. Because sometimes it is hard for us to hold ourselves accountable, for us to put ourselves at the top of our priority list. Sometimes we need support and we need to lean into that support.
So let's talk about the identities or stories that are holding us back. These are preventing us from leaning into support in various areas of our life. And the first is the story of support being weakness. This is the identity that says something is wrong with me if I'm asking for help, accepting help, or investing in support. This identity thinks things like, "I should be able to do it myself. I don't want people to think I'm weak. Everyone else seems to be fine. Why am I the only one struggling?"
So within this identity, we do a lot of comparison. We judge ourselves and we think that needing support means something about us personally and about our capabilities, usually something negative. I always find it fascinating because clients will ask me if I have a coach, and they look surprised when I say yes, as if needing support is some kind of flaw. And I want you to imagine if our kids asked for help and we judged them. Right? We'd never do that.
But we do it to ourselves all the time. We think that when we call on support, it means that we can't do it. But what it really means is that we see the value in us not doing it alone, the value for us, our families, our businesses, and honestly, the value for whoever is helping us. Leaning into support does not make us weak. It makes us resourceful.
When we were in corporate or in our traditional nine-to-five, we leaned on managers, mentors, trainings, and lots of other resources. And yet, when we step into motherhood or into entrepreneurship, we suddenly think that resources are a sign of weakness. No. No, no, no. I remember getting weekly one-on-ones with my manager and going through so many corporate trainings and meetings with mentors. And in that container, that sort of thing is celebrated. You're seen as someone who cares and who loves learning and growing.
I want to encourage you that nothing changes when you step into motherhood or entrepreneurship. Leaning into support and resources is something to be celebrated, not ashamed of.
The second story or identity is the story of being unsupported. And this is a bit of a victim mentality. And I don't mean that in a shaming way. This is just a default thought pattern many moms fall into. So it sounds like, "It always falls on me. No one ever helps. I have to solve this alone." And this comes up all the time with clients and myself, of course, too. And I want to offer that when we are so focused on being unsupported, we actually perpetuate less support.
This is the way our brains often work. Okay? The thing that we are thinking about and focused on creates more of what we don't want. I want to walk you through an actual thought pattern from one of my clients because this was such a strong story and identity for her, and understanding this helped her to stop self-sabotaging so that she could start creating results. And I know we can all relate to what came up in the coaching container for her.
So there are three circumstances I want to talk about. The first was a situation that we've all been in. Preschool or daycare closes last minute. For this client, it was closed and it just snuck up on her. She forgot and Sunday night she realized that she didn't have childcare figured out.
When she realized that, her default thought, the immediate thought that came to her mind was, "I'm the only one who has to solve this problem." And it was said in a sort of victim mentality like, "Why me? Why do I always have to be the one who solves this problem?" And it produced this feeling and the story of being unsupported.
And when she felt that, unsupported, her actions were to withdraw, not loop in her husband, not reach out to anyone for help, and really go into a downward spiral where she just kept thinking, "I always have to figure things out myself."
And as you can imagine, when we looked at this thought pattern and the feelings and actions that followed, the result was, no surprise, she was unsupported. But not because people weren't necessarily willing to help. She closed herself off from the possibility by not communicating, by shutting down. By believing she was unsupported before she even made an effort to bring people in and lean into support, okay?
She didn't communicate because she had already decided in her mind that she was unsupported. Her identity and story was that she's always unsupported and this was what perpetuated in her actions. When we explored this together, it was so obvious to her because when she thought about it, she realized that if she had communicated with her husband, he probably would have been more than willing to help.
The second way that this identity showed up for this person that I want to share because it paints such a perfect picture, has to do with support at work. Okay? She works a full-time job, plus she's building a business. Her workload doubled at work when one of her peers left.
And finally, her boss sat her down and said, "What can I do to support you? What can I take off your plate?" And being overwhelmed at work was something that we had been working on because for her to be able to build a business and an exit plan, she really had to be able to create energy and time to do both.
And so we had been working on this. And then her boss presents this question. Like, "What can I take off your plate?" And her default thought was, "He can't actually help me." And because that felt true, she shut down the conversation. She still felt unsupported even though support was literally being offered in real time to her.
And when we coached through it, she realized she had blocked the very support she desperately needed. And once she saw it, she created an entire plan to offload projects and streamline her role. She was able to go back to her boss and, surprise, he was actually able to help her. She got hours of time and energy back in her week. Hours that were now going into her consulting business and creating her exit plan. And all of that started because she shifted out of the unsupported identity and leaned into support that was around her.
I said there were three pieces. So the third piece that I want to bring up because I think that so many of us can see similarities in our own life of how this identity shows up, is oversupporting others. Okay? So this same client was burning herself out. She was saying yes to everything her team asked of her.
And she said to me, "I've been unsupported, so I want to support others." Which sounds kind, but it meant she was saying yes to everything, overextending herself and putting herself last. It's the same identity, right? This identity of being unsupported, and it has a different expression of how it holds us back.
Because when we have this identity of being unsupported, which makes us want to support everybody else, we are limiting the support we receive, which would give us time, energy, and resources and expanding the support we give, which limits our time and energy.
And one more important note about feeling unsupported, which might be harder to hear, but really is life-changing: support is subjective. I've had clients with zero family around and clients with tons of family and support around and both feel similarly unsupported. Our thoughts and stories about support are what create our reality.
So this identity is really tricky because I'm advocating for you to lean into support, but I want to warn you that even if you lean into support, you may find yourself still with the mental story that you are unsupported. And really what I'm going to talk about in the actions that you can take will help you to reflect on that and resolve that.
So the third identity or story that we have that holds us back from leaning into support is the one of our own importance or expertise. Okay? We think that if we lean into support, it'll actually make things harder on us. And when this one is true for us, we're saying things like, "I have the best way of doing things. Other people won't do it right. It's faster if I just do it."
This reminds me of a friend who said to me one time that she never lets her mom or husband help with washing bottles because no one does it right. Bless her. And if she has another child, I'm definitely gifting her the automatic bottle washer. That is amazing and life-changing. Though depending on how strong this identity is, even that might not get the job done. But this identity makes everything harder than it needs to be, right? It keeps us in the weeds. It makes it the default to deny help when it's offered, even when we desperately need it.
And again, all of that slows us down. There's a part of us that thinks it will be the end of the world if things are done differently. And yes, maybe we are the best person to do things. We know exactly how bedtime routine goes. We know what door to drop the kids off at. We know how to sign the kids in and out. We make the dinners that prioritize vegetables. Whatever it is for you, right?
You may be the best person or have the best way of doing it, and crowding your life with a bunch of things you can't delegate will delay having the time and energy for the more important things that you want to create in your life, like that business or sitting down with a tea to read that book or hanging out with old friends that you haven't seen in years.
Whatever you feel like is missing in your life, bogging yourself down with a bunch of tasks that could be delegated, if we just accepted that it was okay for things to be done differently, is life changing.
There are lots of other stories that hold us back from leaning into support, but these three felt most common and most exciting to talk about today because I think they are incredibly life-changing and will have you reflecting and thinking about your own thoughts and life and behaviors in a way that you may have never thought about them before, which may lead to leaning into support, which is the ultimate hope.
So hopefully some of those identities or stories resonated with you because I know that there are times that I fit into all three of those buckets. And I can clearly see the ways that I'm delaying getting the results I want by doing that. We all do it in so many different areas of our life.
And of course, you know me, I'm also going to share what you can do to break out of those stories and thought patterns that are delaying your success and making it harder for you to reach your goal.
The first thing I want you to do is I really want you to think about and identify which identity shows up for you and where. In what scenarios does it feel like a sign of weakness if you ask for help? In what situations are you denying help that's actually there because you have a story that you're unsupported? And where do you see yourself taking on everything because you don't like the way other people do things?
And this may sound simple, but this is a really hard question to answer. So please sit with it and be honest with yourself. On the surface, your brain might want to place outside blame for your lack of support, okay? Maybe it's a partner that isn't home or doesn't help. Maybe it's living away from family. Maybe it's being a single mom and so we see ourselves as unsupported because we don't have a second parent involved. Whatever it is, if we try to identify one of the buckets I shared as part of the problem, which one would it be?
The next thing I want you to do, like the next bit of reflection that I want to encourage is to ask yourself, "Do I like my reason for not getting support?" If you're holding back from support, do you like your reason for not doing it? Do you like your reason for denying help? Do you like your reason for trying to figure it out alone? Are you okay with the sacrifices that come with denying help? Are you okay with your goals taking longer and maybe taking more energy, time and energy? Think about the things that you want to create and how amazing it would be to live into those goals. Is it okay to delay those?
And trust me, the answer might be yes. It depends on the goals, it depends on the situation with help. It depends on who it is, the investment, all the things. But I want you to reflect on it and really get clear on if you like your reasons. Are they good reasons for continuing with your life as it is and delaying your results?
The third thing I want you to do is to tap into your future self, the version of you who is already living the life you want, the version of you who has whatever she needs to create the results that you want to create. And I want you to ask yourself, "How supported is she? Who's helping her? What does she delegate? Who does she learn from? How does she invest in herself?"
I want you to reflect on some of these questions. Really think about that version of you who is making more money or who has her own business or who feels calm and present with her kids. And I want you to think about what avenues of support she has in her life.
I threw out a bunch of questions here, and you're probably driving, you're probably doing laundry, you're probably not sitting at your desk writing all these down. So if you want to grab the transcript and copy and paste these questions, go to jenna.coach/81 to get the transcript in the show notes.
So now that you have tapped into the beautiful brain of the future you, the version of you who has all the results that she has ever wanted, this next piece is key. Okay? I want you to start tapping into that support now. Don't wait until you have the results. Don't wait until you get further along. Don't wait until you feel ready. Support is what makes you ready. Support in whatever ways you need it in your life are what will get you those results.
The version of you that has that support and has those results and the goals and the life and business that she loves, tapped into the support to get her there. It wasn't something that showed up after the results. So we want to tap into those results now and not put those off because we don't feel ready or we don't feel like we've achieved enough or we're waiting for some arbitrary milestone.
If you've been thinking about a business for months or years, if you've been struggling in motherhood on a day-to-day basis, if your days feel chaotic and rushed or unsupported, I want you to know that you were never meant to do any of it alone. Humans lean on each other. It's one of our best qualities.
And when we lean on support and resources, it collapses timelines. It creates confidence. It unlocks creativity and so much more. So many of the things you might not think you have right now, support will unlock. Support helps you get started. It helps you keep going. It helps you to achieve this thing and the next thing and all the things.
And this podcast can be a first tier of support. I know I've talked about that before. If you're tuning in for the first time or if you're someone who listens sporadically, make sure you follow so that you get the weekly support. We release episodes every Wednesday morning. And so it is a ping on your phone that I know you carry all day, every day, of support.
Another layer of support and resources I offer are live webinars around starting and building our businesses, ways that we can not only understand what's holding us back, but to also gain clarity on the actions we can take to start building momentum.
If you're catching this on the morning of its release, I have a live webinar today called Unstuck, How to Build the Business You Can't Stop Thinking About. So definitely join us if you're catching this in time. That webinar will be incredible for folks who've spent a lot of time thinking about their business without making decisions to move forward. Moms always leave those events feeling energized and clear on how they are going to take action and move their business forward. Even if they have no idea what kind of business they want to start.
And if you're catching this after that live webinar, I encourage you to schedule a free 1-hour consultation. That one conversation can be completely transformational. It can be the support that you need to get started. It can be the catalyst. Even if it ends up that coaching isn't a good fit for your goals, you can use that container to energize yourself, to get answers.
There's something energizing about showing up in a space and talking through your ideas and obstacles, talking about where you are, your biggest struggles, and then hearing exactly what you need to do to move forward. Just one conversation, truly just one hour, can change your entire trajectory. It happens regularly that moms leave that call and come up with creative and detailed plans and solutions that have them taking action. Those types of conversations aren't a regular occurrence in our life, and it's such a beautiful thing.
Okay, the links for all these things are in the show notes, jenna.coach/82. If you want to schedule a free 1-hour consultation, go to mom.jenna.coach/strategy. That link will also be in the show notes. Until then, please advocate for yourself and find the ways that you can tap into support so you can reach your goals faster, so you can start living a life you love sooner. That's what it's all about.
I'll see you next week.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
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