94. From Maxed Out to in Control: A Working Mom’s Transformation
Have you ever thought, “I am already doing so much. How could I possibly add anything else?” If you are a working mom building something on the side and feeling stretched thin, this episode will feel very real to you. Being maxed out does not mean you are incapable. It often means your energy is leaking in places you can’t see yet.
In this episode, you’ll hear directly from one of my clients, Nicole, about what increasing capacity actually looks like in real life for a working mom. Nicole works full-time, is raising a three-year-old, and is building a consulting business on the side. She was capable and driven before coaching, but she felt chaotic and constantly under pressure. We talk about the shifts that helped her move from feeling maxed out to feeling deeply in control of her time, thoughts, and direction.
This conversation is not about hustling harder or squeezing more into an already packed calendar. It is about increasing capacity by plugging energy leaks and shifting the mental patterns that keep you stuck. If you want to feel lighter while doing more, and stop believing that burnout is the price of ambition, this episode will show you what is possible.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why feeling maxed out does not mean you need to quit your job.
How simple shifts in your calendar can free up physical energy.
The impact of changing negative talk tracks on your mental capacity.
Why letting go of caring what others think unlocks confidence.
How to build more without feeling heavier.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Episodes Related to Increasing Capacity:
89. Why Other People’s Opinions Hold You Back (& How to Take Your Power Back)
90. How to Stop Avoiding Disappointment and Start Building Capacity
91. Building a Business Without Quitting Your Job (For Moms Who Want Financial Security)
Full Episode Transcript:
Jenna: Hi, mom friends. Today's episode is a really special one because you're going to hear directly from one of my clients about what this work actually looks like in real life. Nicole is a mom to a three-year-old, she works full-time in a nine-to-five, and she's building a consulting business on the side.
So she wasn't sitting around doing nothing before coaching, of course. She was capable, she was driven, she was responsible, she was getting things done. But she was also maxed out. Her calendar felt chaotic, her mental energy was constantly split between work and family and all the things. She was trying to be a great employee, a great mom, a great partner, and build something of her own. And underneath it all, there was this constant hum of pressure.
What you're going to hear in this conversation is how she went from that state, juggling everything and feeling stretched thin, which we can all relate to as moms, to feeling deeply in control of her time, her thoughts, and her direction. She's actually doing more now than she was before. She has more responsibility, more business growth, but also more creativity and more fun. And it feels lighter.
So you'll hear her talk about some of the specific shifts that she made, how learning simple calendar system freed up physical energy, how addressing talk tracks freed up mental energy, how letting go of caring what everyone else thought unlocked a level of confidence that she had never experienced before, and how building capacity didn't mean burning down the nine-to-five. It meant showing up differently inside of it.
This episode is such a great and clear example of what increasing capacity actually looks like in practice. Not hustle, not grinding, not squeezing more into already full and impossible days. It means plugging the energy leaks so that you can redirect that energy toward what actually matters.
If you've ever thought I'm already doing so much, how could I possibly add anything else? Or I just want to feel less heavy in my days. This conversation will show you what's possible through coaching. And I hope you let yourself feel inspired by Nicole's transformation. If you notice yourself feeling resistance, or your brain starts coming up with all the reasons Nicole is special, or that this type of transformation wouldn't be possible for you, I want you to really pause and challenge that thinking as you're listening.
In those moments, I want you to ask yourself, what story am I desperately holding on to that I need to shift in order to create my own transformation? I want you to ask yourself, what if this is possible for me too? How would my life be different?
It's normal to feel resistance when we're hearing success stories. I want you to notice that and instead redirect your brain to feel inspired. To feel like if Nicole can do it, I can too. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Let's dive in.
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, Nicole.
Nicole: Hi, Jenna.
Jenna: Thank you so much for taking extra time out of your day for this conversation. As I talked to you about, like as we were prepping for this, I love hearing about your transformations in the coaching process and really kind of being able to look at the then and now. And I really want people to be able to grab a hold of that and make it tangible, like some of the shifts that can happen through coaching and also just through, I think, being open to another way.
So I'd love for you to maybe talk about life as it was before going through this process of kind of like reflection and learning systems and learning new ways of thinking. Maybe talking a little bit about or painting a picture of where you were, because I know a lot of moms can probably relate to how you were living your life and how things felt in your world.
Nicole: Yeah, I think that's a great starting point. So over the past year-ish have, as you said, kind of gone upon this journey with you. But I think setting some context for where I came from is really helpful. So I have a three-year-old daughter whom I love and a career that I am building.
And prior to having my child, I hadn’t really thought deeply about what it would mean to be a working mom. And so I entered into motherhood pretty much blindsided. And it took me off guard. It took me really a year to sort of feel like myself again. I was also navigating some career changes, having been laid off while I was pregnant and entering into sort of a space of unknown.
And so I think I came to you or found you just fortuitously through a mutual connection. But I saw the tagline as an email signature that you had and it was, I don't remember the exact words, so don't butcher me for it. And I perhaps I'm going to butcher it, but it was something like you can have the life you want as a mom and have your career, something to that effect.
And it just really resonated with me because I felt like I was kind of living my life in a dreamlike state where it wasn't my, I wasn't living the life I wanted. I was living some life that had been sort of laid out. It was happening to me. It wasn't happening for me and I wasn't kind of controlling my destiny or my future.
And I felt a little lost, to be honest. So after experiencing that and then starting to work together with you, just that precursor to working together, which was, I recognized that something was off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. And I didn't have all the answers and I knew that I needed someone else that wasn't my husband or my partner or my best friend or my mom or my daughter to help me figure this out even though I didn't know what this meant.
And so that's the backdrop with which we started engaging. And I will say, I was not in a very great mental state. And now looking back almost a year ago, I can't even begin to describe the transformation that has happened in my life both in my head, in my heart, with my relationships, with my career. It's kind of incredible. I feel like a different person. And I think I am a different person.
Jenna: Yeah.
Nicole: So that's a long-winded answer to your question.
Jenna: No, I love it. Well, my coach always says that she loves coaching so much because you can live so many different lives in one life. And it's true. It's like when we do put focus and energy into changing some of these pieces or, you know, finding ourselves when we're feeling lost or figuring out our career or figuring out how to enjoy motherhood, then we do feel like a different person and we are a different person. And it's powerful and it's beautiful. It's like amazing that there's an industry that helps us do that.
If you had to think about the most tangible shift that has happened for you, and I know there've probably been a few, but what comes up as one of the most tangible shifts that has happened?
Nicole: That's such a hard question, Jenna, because there's so many, but I think the one that kind of sums them all up, which is choosing to think and look at things and that I am in control of that choice. And that also influences my actions and my emotions. And so you helped me through with learning what that looks like in a number of scenarios that have played out in a million different ways over the past year.
So, for example, it's something as small as choosing to look at the things that my husband does for our house in a different light, or the manner in which I'm going about my work. So I run a consulting business and so the manner in which I go about acquiring new clients or facing disappointment if I don't get a new client, or the things that my three-year-old daughter does that piss me off sometimes.
But it really comes back to I get to choose. I'm in the driver's seat. I have the ability to look at things in a different way and you have helped kind of push me to think about, okay, well, what if you just completely looked at it from a different angle? Just asking the question, what would it be like if you looked at it from this way?
And that has been the most groundbreaking transformation that has unlocked for me a complete total mind shift in how every decision that I make throughout my life, throughout my day, the smallest to the biggest, you can't unsee something like that. And that's really been the most powerful tool in my toolbox that you've given me.
Jenna: Mhm. Yeah, I love that. I do remember like very specific examples of those conversations and how you can really just like the reminder that we are in control is powerful.
And I think more the next level of what you're actually talking about too is building capacity, the capacity to do more, the capacity to move through your day and not feel exhausted, the capacity to, you are working full-time in a, in a nine-to-five and you are building your consulting business, and you're a mom and a wife and a daughter. And I know that when we initially started working together, like all of that felt really heavy.
And there is this process where it's almost like you're plugging up those energy leaks where it's like the toddler being a toddler doesn't feel so exhausting anymore and the nine-to-five doesn't feel so demanding anymore. Not because anything in them has changed, but what you're talking about is, you changed, the way you looked at things changed and it just opened up so much more capacity.
Nicole: I love that. And I think a really great example was early on, it was as simple as you helping me kind of see that, you know what, Nicole, let's look at your calendar. Let's see what's going on. Let's get it written down. Okay, are you building this up in your head? Do you really have that much? Where are you spending your physical time? And then later, a couple months later, I remember spending time with you more thinking about where my mental energy was going.
So, first it was the physical how I'm spending my day. And I don't think we could have gotten to the sort of mental, where is my mind focused on piece of it without kind of addressing some of the just changes in my schedule and shifting things around conversations.
But then that mental energy, where can I put that focus? And that really has helped unlock the capacity, as you're saying, that almost feels limitless. It's obviously not, but like that is the mindset that I am approaching things now from, which is, it's kind of incredible how much I can get done in a day when I believe that I can and I'm putting my mind towards the things that I want to.
And so a very real example of a before and after would be if I had a spare 30 minutes between the hours of nine to five in the before times, I'm going to refer to before times and after times. In the before times, you know, I have a nine-to-five and I'm trying to build a consulting business and I'm a mom and I am a daughter and I have friends and all that good stuff and I'm trying to, you know, eat healthy and all those things.
In the before times, I don't know if I would have known what to do with that spare 30 minutes other than to kind of sit at my computer and pretend like I was focused on the company that I work for. In the after times, if I have a spare 30 minutes today, in this day and age, I now have a limitless energy to go tackle the things that I think are the most important priorities for me.
And right now, what gets me going is that I'm excited about the consulting work that I'm doing and the business that I'm building there. And so I get to typically focus on that. If it's other hours of the day, like I can also focus on family and really have just allowed my brain to be present in the moment versus thinking about whether or not I should be doing X, Y, or Z at any point in time throughout the day.
So, I think that kind of speaks to your question about capacity building, which is like that mental energy is really, it should be aligned with your goals and what you want to get out of in life. And first sometimes you kind of have to address that you have to do that inner work and figure out what it is that you want to be spending your energy on and then apply it. And that's not just like an overnight thing that I think happened over the course of many many months of working together.
Jenna: Yeah. But I love you talking about it as like the physical and then the mental piece because I mean to some degree, I think about it as that, but I remember so vividly like session one teaching like the systems for the calendar and you just being like, I can't unsee this. I think you sent me like a couple emails after like the subsequent weeks afterwards where you're just like, I feel so silly that this was so simple and I could have been doing this all along and saved myself so much energy.
I think it was something as simple as you and your husband like planning out who's doing pickups and drop-offs ahead of time. And you were just like, I can't unsee it. How I was operating before within my schedule was so exhausting, exhausting and like so disorganized. And you're a very organized person. So it was little shifts that we make that open up this like portal of energy, even in just like the physical how we're spending our time. And then to get into the mental piece, of course, that is where we can just create so much more capacity.
But you're right, we have to get these little wins along the way to see what's possible. It's like, okay, now that we have so much more energy in the mornings because we're so much more organized. What's possible next? Like now I could do so much more with my day. Now I can create so much more. Now 30 minutes doesn't feel like not a lot of time. It feels like I could do so much. I know exactly what I want to get done.
Nicole: And I want to touch on one other thing that I didn't mention, but that has like underpinned a lot of this, which is we had a session where I think it was when I was really struggling with my nine-to-five and just mentally showing up. And you asked me the simplest question, which is I don't know if you asked me this, but I think this is what you were implying, which is, Nicole, why do you care about what other people think?
And I like, I was like, oh, because I wanted to say I don't care, but what I think was happening inside for me was that I was leading my life only caring about what other people thought and about how helpful I was being to them and not about me being the expert and using my skill set and doing the things that I thought made the most sense for this organization, this company. And I was really just leading my day worried about what other people were thinking and trying to be helpful because I wanted them to see me as a helpful person.
And so that was like a hard session for me because it was such a mirror to be like, oh my gosh, I had no idea that I was living my life like this and that it was causing me so much pain in my job. And I was also leading that in other aspects. It wasn't just in my job, but then I realized I cared a lot about what other people thought about me. And I had to ask myself the question, well, why? Like, why do I care so much? And I don't think that I really had a solid answer for it.
And so then the question became, well, if I ditched this mental talk track about caring that other people thought that I was helpful and a good mom and a great employee and a great leader, and just started living like, for lack of a better word, like my own authentic self and my own actions, then it unlocked this whole other way of behaving that I haven't again, been able to unsee.
And now I do what I want because I think it's right and not because of what other people think. And that's been another transformation for me that has just really elevated all of the rest of the work that we've been doing together in these sessions.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. I think we really don't understand how much of our energy goes to that piece. And I know I did an entire episode on it, right? Because we will never actually know what your boss thinks of you. And the beautiful thing is that actually when we stop caring, you would think that we would not be as great at our job or we would start to slack off. But it's the exact opposite because now we're coming from this authentic place, like you said, and we're doing the work from our heart versus maybe our mind of wanting to impress people or wanting to shift how they think of us.
Nicole: Yeah, and there was a lot of fear associated with changing that mentality and that mindset. So I was afraid of doing the thing that I thought was right. And therefore I did the thing that I thought other people wanted. Whereas now that fear is removed and I do the thing that I think makes the most sense. And I have to tell you, it's paying off quite a bit in terms of dividends. And actually, I'm not trying to go after this, but I think it's improving how people are viewing me.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely.
Nicole: So ironic.
Jenna: Speaking of what other people think about you, because I do want to touch on this because I know you shared this in a session. Can you talk about how other people have started seeing you and noticing some of the shifts? I know you had a story about your sister and kind of like the unexpected impacts that doing this work for ourselves has on the people around us.
Nicole: Yes, I do think other people, close family and friends have noticed a shift. And I think the example that I shared with you was with my sister who I'm very close with. But I also want to share that my partner has seen a significant transformation and that is also, you know, one of the people that you spend the most time with. My sister lives halfway across the country.
My husband lives a little too close sometimes next to, in the next room over sometimes when we're working from home. I'm joking. And we both work from home is what I'm joking about. But he has noticed it. And it has fundamentally changed the nature of our relationship. It has changed the nature of my relationship with my daughter and our relationship as a family unit as a whole. And that has also been a part of conversations that we have with our counselor. We have somebody that helps coach the two of us. And she's witnessed it.
This other woman has witnessed it. And so doing the hard work on the self that change doesn't happen overnight, but people do start to see it in how you show up in your actions and in your daily lives. And same thing with my sister, I see her a couple of times a year and she commented, I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was sort of an off-handed comment. It was like, "Whoa, Nicole, you're doing like 5 million things. How are you keeping it all together?"
And my comment to her was, Well, first it was like, I was like, you should talk to Jenna." And my second comment was, you know, I actually don't feel like it's a lot. Like I don't feel the mental or emotional weight as much as I did, even though on the outside nothing has objectively changed except for I've taken on more work. And so that I think other people have noticed that piece and have said, there's I think maybe some utility in looking at things like that.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. Because sometimes we look at coaching or any sort of self-help process and we look at it as like this thing that we are doing for us. And I love that, right? I think we need to do more for ourselves. But there's also this ripple effect that we just can't see how it will impact all the people in our life.
Like as much as we can think about it or conceptualize on it, it is amazing how the people around us start to shift and what they notice and how they feel inspired and how we like start to communicate better, which leads into every single part of our life.
Also just the fact of like feeling not burnt out and feeling like you don't have too much on your plate when you have more on your plate now, arguably, than you did prior to this process. But the feeling like we don't have too much on our plate, it's lighter for everyone. It's not just lighter for us. Like our kids feel it, the people who we interact with daily feel it. I'm sure the people at your work feel it.
And even if they can't like put an exact language to it or describe it, there's a very different energy that we bring when we are taking care of ourselves in this way, meaning plugging up the energy leaks, focusing on things that light us up, having a space for us to talk through our stuff, our mental drama, our hopes and fears.
There's just so much value to how we shift and change when we commit to something like that, when we commit to investing a ton of time, energy, money, all the things, but we're saying like yes to ourselves in that moment and it can feel selfish, but it is anything but selfish because of how it impacts the people in our life.
Nicole: Yeah, and I would argue that it is the opposite of selfish because if you want to be a selfless person, the first place you have to start is yourself so that you can show up for other people. And just to build on that for a minute, like not to sound woo, but like it really is an energy piece. I think, you know, or energy, magnetism, like whatever you want to call it, like I do think it is spreading to not just my friends and family, but I'm getting more clients now.
There are I'm sure a few things that I am doing, but I think there's something that's intangible that's hard to describe that is, oh, I really enjoy what I do and I enjoy it so much that it attracts other people to want to be a part of it. And that's a great gift, sharing my skill set and my gift with other people in a professional context or just sharing my energy as a mom and as a friend.
This is sort of a silly example, but I really enjoy, it's dead winter and I live in Maine right now, so I'm constantly seeking out unique heat sources. And a friend of mine told me that you could rent a sauna. And so I decided I was going to rent a sauna mostly for myself, but I wanted some of my friends to participate. So I invited a bunch of ladies over and just had a wellness party and like we had this sauna in our front yard. It was hilarious.
And we had a wonderful time and we all kind of enjoyed being warm in the depths of like a really cold night and that was pretty much it. And that was me showing up for my friends. And I don't think that if you had asked me a year ago, if I had done something that charged me up and also charged my friends up and had health benefits and all that jazz, if I would have gone after something or even had the creativity in my brain to think of something like that, that just never would have happened. And so I'm so happy I did that. We're going to turn it into an annual thing by the way.
So next time, you have an invite, Jenna. But it's hard to predict the number and the ways in which the mental shifts through coaching can show up for you in a daily basis and how you lead your days, but just also how your life is so much more rich in experiences.
And, you know, isn't that what we all wanted to be after is, you know, happiness and having a rich life in terms of experiences, not materials, but like having a wonderful life and being happy about that. And there's nothing else that I've experienced that's really helped bring me closer to that and closer in alignment with where I want to be, you know, in my heart and in my mind and how I live my days.
Jenna: Yeah, I love that. And it's so true. It's like we can tap into a whole different level of creativity. I often hear moms when they're in that space of like feeling maxed out and like they have so much to do and so much going on, responsibilities, it's all heavy, like there's no time for creativity. And moms often say, like, I do want to be using this part of my, like I'm a creative person, that's something I had to leave behind.
I know one client that I love and I always talk about, like she was able to start doing pottery classes each week and not because anything, she actually like started a business, was still working at her job, and was then able to make time for the pottery because we start shifting the way our systems, we start shifting our mindset and then we get energy from that pottery class each week when we are actually tapping into the pieces of our creativity and things that make us a human and it's amazing.
Nicole: When you're in a space where you're operating in fear of your actions or in fear of what other people think of you, for example, it's really hard to be creative. You're not thriving, you're just surviving, right? Like you're creating actions based off of like this little very powerful amygdala part of your brain. You're not operating literally in the creative side of your brain when you are in that fight or flight mode, you know, however you want to call it in brain science, but creativity is squashed in those instances.
So, you know, if you can kind of look at what are the things that you are fearful of and as part of that journey to create a space of being able to be in a creative state, that is really what helped kind of shift some of that change for me.
Jenna: Mhm. Yeah, 100%. And it's so true. The other thing I want to say about that is, if you are in that space right now, you might look at Nicole and what we're talking about and say to yourself, well, she's different. She's special in some way, or like her partner sounds helpful and that's probably why and, you know, maybe she has a good friend group or a mom who helps, but that couldn't happen for me.
Sometimes those things, that's just like, what's the saying? A worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish or something like that where it's like, if that is the world, we don't really know another way of operating until we're open to seeing and experiencing a new way of operating. And then all of a sudden we're not in horseradish anymore. We're just like, "Whoa, look at this whole wide world. I didn't even know this existed." And I didn't need to move mountains for this to exist.
So, I hope you don't mind me saying, like there's nothing special about Nicole. There's nothing special about me or any, any of my clients. It is just small tweaks, simple tweaks, maybe not easy tweaks, but that we make in our day-to-day that all of a sudden what once seemed impossible for all the reasons becomes possible and you can see like the light at the end of the tunnel, you can see that you do have more energy or that you're not so resentful all the time or you're not so exhausted at the end of the week. You don't feel like you're on a hamster wheel. And that's possible for everyone.
Nicole: Yes. And I appreciate you saying that because I very much don't believe that I am special. Like I believe that the way that I'm feeling now, every mom, every working mom, everyone out there, men too, like can feel the way that I feel. And consistently too, right? Like that it is possible and that I am not a unique person.
Like we're all going through life in similar experiences or different experiences, but my experience in coaching, it's not the outlier. You're the one that speaks to all this, but like I don't feel as though I am out of the ordinary in my experience, but I feel like my transformation to me personally has been extraordinary.
Jenna: No, and I, that's what I was just thinking. It's like moms of all ages, stages, environments, they experience these breakthroughs and transformations, you know, whether they have one kid or four kids or a single parent or a partner who travels all the time or not having family around to help. There's just a whole bunch of different circumstances and it really doesn't matter, right? Because what we're talking about is the shifts that happen within us and how that can be so revolutionary. And it yeah, it doesn't, the circumstances around us don't matter.
One last thing I want to touch on, when you started coaching, again, like you were maxed out, you had the nine-to-five, you wanted very much to leave the nine-to-five, right? You wanted your consulting business to support you. That's what we are working on.
But there was like a shift that happened where it was like suddenly you wanted to stay at your nine-to-five. And I know there's opportunities around, like opportunities are coming out of the woodwork. But I want to maybe shed some light on that piece because I talk to a lot of people in my first conversations with them in like the consultation when they're exploring coaching and learning about it, seeing if it's the right fit.
And they want to leave their job so bad. They think leaving their job is the answer. And I love supporting people to leave their nine-to-five, right? That's why I do what I do, right? To help them shift into entrepreneurship and have more control over their time. But it's a pattern, right? That once we aren't feeling so overwhelmed in our nine-to-five, suddenly it doesn't seem so bad anymore.
And actually, it feels really abundant and it feels not even, like there's a fear around letting it go, but it's just it feels different. Can you shed some light to that because I know we've been working on kind of your exit plan, but like many people, it's like there's a date that we have that's like very soon when we first start coaching and then it kind of gets moved back in a really powerful way where we're like, "No, I kind of like want to keep making this money and it's not so overwhelming anymore."
Nicole: Yeah, I appreciate you asking that question and I think it is very poignant for me because we're actively in these types of conversations weekly. But I think it comes back to your point about the mental shift that takes place and the capacity piece. And I distinctly remember, and I think I'm sure other working moms are like this who live in a corporate setting or who work in a corporate setting, which is, yeah, you're like don't like how your nine-to-fives are going and you're stressed out because of it. And coaching is incredibly helpful for the whole person.
And that is one of the reasons why I wanted to work with you is because it's not just a career, right? It's your life. And your career is a means to your having the life that you want. It is not the end goal, or at least for me it's not, it's not the end goal. And so when I kind of came to that realization, I, you know, I have this opportunity to sort of take a leap of faith and move more fully into the consulting work that I do.
But also, you helped me realize that like, we got to make your nine-to-five feel okay in the moment because I don't just want to have a knee-jerk reaction. How can we work on that piece too? And so then I was like, okay.
So we worked on that for a number of months together on like making it so that my days weren't so miserable Monday through Friday. And I think over the course, it didn't happen overnight, but over the course of a number of months, I started to realize that it is up to me. I get to make the call on what this looks like and I finally got to a place where I like how I'm living my nine-to-five and I like how I'm living my five-to-nine as people say.
And I like all aspects of it. So then it's a matter of, okay, really need to dig in and decide what it is that you want next and what it is that, you know, three and five years ahead are going to be things that charge you up and the life that you want to live because you are in control of what that looks like. And then that may make things easier or harder, right?
Like it can make it easier to stay in your current state once you're mentally good with that or it can mean that you shift in a different direction. But you're making that decision out of thoughtful planning and you being in the driver's seat versus you coming from a place of fear and a place of, ooh, I don't know, like of course we can't predict the future and the unknown, but if you don't know where you're going, you're probably not going to get there.
Like you have to kind of be thoughtful about where you want to head. And maybe you take a different turn to get there, but you at least have a map that you've drawn out and a point A is where you're starting and a point B and it's probably going to look like squiggly and maybe you make a couple left turns and do a complete loop.
But you can move in the direction that you want to be. And so just I think the last thing I would say is that being receptive, just because I'm saying like you're in control doesn't mean that you can't be receptive and entertain opportunities and then also turn them down. And this is one of the things that we're actively working on right now is like, "Oh,” last week, I think you told me you said, “Nicole, you know, you could just say no." And like that's a powerful thought too.
To kind of bring it all home, I think having the wherewithal to operate in a space of confidence in yourself and also realizing that you do get to decide what your life looks like, putting aside any questions and fears that you have, that you are in control of what your life looks like is earth-shattering in terms of what actually happens in your life and what you choose to do.
That's the power of these conversations and having somebody right there with you to sort of navigate that together because if it's all in your head, it's, you know, can be a little messy space in your head. But if it's with someone else, not only does it force you to sort of think through things you wouldn't have. Two brains are better than one, in my opinion, but it makes you stronger.
Jenna: Yeah. And it's more fun, right?
Nicole: Oh way more fun.
Jenna: I think you have fun along the way. It's amazing. You don't actually know how it's all going to work out because once you have more skills and once you have more energy and capacity, it's sort of like, "Well, maybe I don't need to burn it all down. Maybe I like the way this is set up, or maybe I can put more energy here or there."
I always love, somebody shared with me when I was in corporate, you always want to be running towards something and never away from something. And I see that all the time. Like I always want all my moms to make the decision to leave their job, their nine-to-five from an empowered, intentional place, not because they feel trapped or like it's soul-sucking or like they have to run from it.
And we really do get to that place, right? Like you said, it's like the feeling better right now where we are, because then we just make so much more powerful and creative decisions. And sometimes it means that we keep that steady paycheck for a little bit longer and feel really abundant and go on some more vacations and do things like that with those extra funds. And that can be part of the journey too. Thank you so much.
The other thing I want to just give you kudos for is you mentioned it a little bit in bringing it home, but I just want to highlight that you were sort of on a journey of self-discovery or however you would describe it before we came together. And it has been so amazing to see this journey and it's been an honor to work with you. And something that I've loved is that you are open.
You are open to receive the different ways of thinking about things. You're open to receiving different ways of showing up in certain scenarios. It's easy for us to hold on to stories about ourselves that create a lot of misery and to almost want to argue for our limitations. And I know our work together, we've, we've done some really powerful work on like very specific themes and stories that you have had, whether it be with your upbringing or with yourself as a mom. And to be open to letting go of those stories is the most powerful thing we can do.
And it's just been so fun to work with you and because there is that openness to say, "Oh wow, this story isn't working for me anymore. It's creating a lot of misery, it's creating a lot of mental drama. It's holding me back. Staying in this victim mentality is not good for me. Let me walk into this other way of thinking and seeing myself." And I just want to say that's really hard to do and you have definitely been open to that and I love that because the coaching can only do so much if there isn't that openness to let go of some of the stories holding us back.
Nicole: Well, thank you for saying that. I very much view it as a two-way street too, right? Like you have to have kind of a willing person to receive. And it's hard. It's hard. It's not easy. Not all of our conversations are easy for me, but that's not why I signed up. I signed up because I want to have a happy, fulfilling life and be a better person and show up in the world the way that I want to. And we're very much doing that.
And I just will say, sometimes I find myself channeling you and some of the things that you say to me, like you said something like, okay, in one of our sessions, you were like, okay, so the talk track, yeah I think you were talking about yourself, but you're like, the talk track I was telling myself was X.
And I think that's really, just has been really a useful nugget for me because I particularly notice that my talk tracks sometimes are negative and that my talk tracks are that I'm the victim and that, "Oh, well, my employer is doing X to me."
And that's the talk track that I have for myself. But it's like, okay, that's just a talk track. Let's shift to a different talk track. We don't have to hold on to that. We can hold on to a different talk track that's, oh, maybe I need to relook at how I'm solving this problem for my employer, or maybe I need to completely do something else that I haven't even thought of. And those are also valid talk tracks.
And if you can shift yourself out of the fear-based, negative-based talk tracks, or at least even just recognize that that's what you're doing, then that opens up that world of possibilities to be in a different talk track. And I just like that terminology because it helps me sort of get out of your own head and observe it in a just an objective way.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. I don't even remember saying it, so I'm glad. And that's how things happen, right? Where it's just like you just never know where some of the biggest aha moments or breakthroughs are going to come and that's why the work is, is so much fun.
Well, thank you so much for having this conversation.
Like I said, I know that every week there's a little bit of like sharing these little wins and big wins and I just wanted to capture it because I think it's and hope it's inspiring because this is a shift and a transformation that is available to all moms who are feeling maxed out and resentful and stressed and my mission is for us to have more fun and for us to feel more abundant in life with everything we have going on. And I know that's possible for everyone.
Nicole: Absolutely. You're so welcome and thank you for having me.
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.
So she wasn't sitting around doing nothing before coaching, of course. She was capable, she was driven, she was responsible, she was getting things done. But she was also maxed out. Her calendar felt chaotic, her mental energy was constantly split between work and family and all the things. She was trying to be a great employee, a great mom, a great partner, and build something of her own. And underneath it all, there was this constant hum of pressure.
What you're going to hear in this conversation is how she went from that state, juggling everything and feeling stretched thin, which we can all relate to as moms, to feeling deeply in control of her time, her thoughts, and her direction. She's actually doing more now than she was before. She has more responsibility, more business growth, but also more creativity and more fun. And it feels lighter.
So you'll hear her talk about some of the specific shifts that she made, how learning simple calendar system freed up physical energy, how addressing talk tracks freed up mental energy, how letting go of caring what everyone else thought unlocked a level of confidence that she had never experienced before, and how building capacity didn't mean burning down the nine-to-five. It meant showing up differently inside of it.
This episode is such a great and clear example of what increasing capacity actually looks like in practice. Not hustle, not grinding, not squeezing more into already full and impossible days. It means plugging the energy leaks so that you can redirect that energy toward what actually matters.
If you've ever thought I'm already doing so much, how could I possibly add anything else? Or I just want to feel less heavy in my days. This conversation will show you what's possible through coaching. And I hope you let yourself feel inspired by Nicole's transformation. If you notice yourself feeling resistance, or your brain starts coming up with all the reasons Nicole is special, or that this type of transformation wouldn't be possible for you, I want you to really pause and challenge that thinking as you're listening.
In those moments, I want you to ask yourself, what story am I desperately holding on to that I need to shift in order to create my own transformation? I want you to ask yourself, what if this is possible for me too? How would my life be different?
It's normal to feel resistance when we're hearing success stories. I want you to notice that and instead redirect your brain to feel inspired. To feel like if Nicole can do it, I can too. I hope you enjoy our conversation. Let's dive in.
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, Nicole.
Nicole: Hi, Jenna.
Jenna: Thank you so much for taking extra time out of your day for this conversation. As I talked to you about, like as we were prepping for this, I love hearing about your transformations in the coaching process and really kind of being able to look at the then and now. And I really want people to be able to grab a hold of that and make it tangible, like some of the shifts that can happen through coaching and also just through, I think, being open to another way.
So I'd love for you to maybe talk about life as it was before going through this process of kind of like reflection and learning systems and learning new ways of thinking. Maybe talking a little bit about or painting a picture of where you were, because I know a lot of moms can probably relate to how you were living your life and how things felt in your world.
Nicole: Yeah, I think that's a great starting point. So over the past year-ish have, as you said, kind of gone upon this journey with you. But I think setting some context for where I came from is really helpful. So I have a three-year-old daughter whom I love and a career that I am building.
And prior to having my child, I hadn’t really thought deeply about what it would mean to be a working mom. And so I entered into motherhood pretty much blindsided. And it took me off guard. It took me really a year to sort of feel like myself again. I was also navigating some career changes, having been laid off while I was pregnant and entering into sort of a space of unknown.
And so I think I came to you or found you just fortuitously through a mutual connection. But I saw the tagline as an email signature that you had and it was, I don't remember the exact words, so don't butcher me for it. And I perhaps I'm going to butcher it, but it was something like you can have the life you want as a mom and have your career, something to that effect.
And it just really resonated with me because I felt like I was kind of living my life in a dreamlike state where it wasn't my, I wasn't living the life I wanted. I was living some life that had been sort of laid out. It was happening to me. It wasn't happening for me and I wasn't kind of controlling my destiny or my future.
And I felt a little lost, to be honest. So after experiencing that and then starting to work together with you, just that precursor to working together, which was, I recognized that something was off, but I couldn't put my finger on it. And I didn't have all the answers and I knew that I needed someone else that wasn't my husband or my partner or my best friend or my mom or my daughter to help me figure this out even though I didn't know what this meant.
And so that's the backdrop with which we started engaging. And I will say, I was not in a very great mental state. And now looking back almost a year ago, I can't even begin to describe the transformation that has happened in my life both in my head, in my heart, with my relationships, with my career. It's kind of incredible. I feel like a different person. And I think I am a different person.
Jenna: Yeah.
Nicole: So that's a long-winded answer to your question.
Jenna: No, I love it. Well, my coach always says that she loves coaching so much because you can live so many different lives in one life. And it's true. It's like when we do put focus and energy into changing some of these pieces or, you know, finding ourselves when we're feeling lost or figuring out our career or figuring out how to enjoy motherhood, then we do feel like a different person and we are a different person. And it's powerful and it's beautiful. It's like amazing that there's an industry that helps us do that.
If you had to think about the most tangible shift that has happened for you, and I know there've probably been a few, but what comes up as one of the most tangible shifts that has happened?
Nicole: That's such a hard question, Jenna, because there's so many, but I think the one that kind of sums them all up, which is choosing to think and look at things and that I am in control of that choice. And that also influences my actions and my emotions. And so you helped me through with learning what that looks like in a number of scenarios that have played out in a million different ways over the past year.
So, for example, it's something as small as choosing to look at the things that my husband does for our house in a different light, or the manner in which I'm going about my work. So I run a consulting business and so the manner in which I go about acquiring new clients or facing disappointment if I don't get a new client, or the things that my three-year-old daughter does that piss me off sometimes.
But it really comes back to I get to choose. I'm in the driver's seat. I have the ability to look at things in a different way and you have helped kind of push me to think about, okay, well, what if you just completely looked at it from a different angle? Just asking the question, what would it be like if you looked at it from this way?
And that has been the most groundbreaking transformation that has unlocked for me a complete total mind shift in how every decision that I make throughout my life, throughout my day, the smallest to the biggest, you can't unsee something like that. And that's really been the most powerful tool in my toolbox that you've given me.
Jenna: Mhm. Yeah, I love that. I do remember like very specific examples of those conversations and how you can really just like the reminder that we are in control is powerful.
And I think more the next level of what you're actually talking about too is building capacity, the capacity to do more, the capacity to move through your day and not feel exhausted, the capacity to, you are working full-time in a, in a nine-to-five and you are building your consulting business, and you're a mom and a wife and a daughter. And I know that when we initially started working together, like all of that felt really heavy.
And there is this process where it's almost like you're plugging up those energy leaks where it's like the toddler being a toddler doesn't feel so exhausting anymore and the nine-to-five doesn't feel so demanding anymore. Not because anything in them has changed, but what you're talking about is, you changed, the way you looked at things changed and it just opened up so much more capacity.
Nicole: I love that. And I think a really great example was early on, it was as simple as you helping me kind of see that, you know what, Nicole, let's look at your calendar. Let's see what's going on. Let's get it written down. Okay, are you building this up in your head? Do you really have that much? Where are you spending your physical time? And then later, a couple months later, I remember spending time with you more thinking about where my mental energy was going.
So, first it was the physical how I'm spending my day. And I don't think we could have gotten to the sort of mental, where is my mind focused on piece of it without kind of addressing some of the just changes in my schedule and shifting things around conversations.
But then that mental energy, where can I put that focus? And that really has helped unlock the capacity, as you're saying, that almost feels limitless. It's obviously not, but like that is the mindset that I am approaching things now from, which is, it's kind of incredible how much I can get done in a day when I believe that I can and I'm putting my mind towards the things that I want to.
And so a very real example of a before and after would be if I had a spare 30 minutes between the hours of nine to five in the before times, I'm going to refer to before times and after times. In the before times, you know, I have a nine-to-five and I'm trying to build a consulting business and I'm a mom and I am a daughter and I have friends and all that good stuff and I'm trying to, you know, eat healthy and all those things.
In the before times, I don't know if I would have known what to do with that spare 30 minutes other than to kind of sit at my computer and pretend like I was focused on the company that I work for. In the after times, if I have a spare 30 minutes today, in this day and age, I now have a limitless energy to go tackle the things that I think are the most important priorities for me.
And right now, what gets me going is that I'm excited about the consulting work that I'm doing and the business that I'm building there. And so I get to typically focus on that. If it's other hours of the day, like I can also focus on family and really have just allowed my brain to be present in the moment versus thinking about whether or not I should be doing X, Y, or Z at any point in time throughout the day.
So, I think that kind of speaks to your question about capacity building, which is like that mental energy is really, it should be aligned with your goals and what you want to get out of in life. And first sometimes you kind of have to address that you have to do that inner work and figure out what it is that you want to be spending your energy on and then apply it. And that's not just like an overnight thing that I think happened over the course of many many months of working together.
Jenna: Yeah. But I love you talking about it as like the physical and then the mental piece because I mean to some degree, I think about it as that, but I remember so vividly like session one teaching like the systems for the calendar and you just being like, I can't unsee this. I think you sent me like a couple emails after like the subsequent weeks afterwards where you're just like, I feel so silly that this was so simple and I could have been doing this all along and saved myself so much energy.
I think it was something as simple as you and your husband like planning out who's doing pickups and drop-offs ahead of time. And you were just like, I can't unsee it. How I was operating before within my schedule was so exhausting, exhausting and like so disorganized. And you're a very organized person. So it was little shifts that we make that open up this like portal of energy, even in just like the physical how we're spending our time. And then to get into the mental piece, of course, that is where we can just create so much more capacity.
But you're right, we have to get these little wins along the way to see what's possible. It's like, okay, now that we have so much more energy in the mornings because we're so much more organized. What's possible next? Like now I could do so much more with my day. Now I can create so much more. Now 30 minutes doesn't feel like not a lot of time. It feels like I could do so much. I know exactly what I want to get done.
Nicole: And I want to touch on one other thing that I didn't mention, but that has like underpinned a lot of this, which is we had a session where I think it was when I was really struggling with my nine-to-five and just mentally showing up. And you asked me the simplest question, which is I don't know if you asked me this, but I think this is what you were implying, which is, Nicole, why do you care about what other people think?
And I like, I was like, oh, because I wanted to say I don't care, but what I think was happening inside for me was that I was leading my life only caring about what other people thought and about how helpful I was being to them and not about me being the expert and using my skill set and doing the things that I thought made the most sense for this organization, this company. And I was really just leading my day worried about what other people were thinking and trying to be helpful because I wanted them to see me as a helpful person.
And so that was like a hard session for me because it was such a mirror to be like, oh my gosh, I had no idea that I was living my life like this and that it was causing me so much pain in my job. And I was also leading that in other aspects. It wasn't just in my job, but then I realized I cared a lot about what other people thought about me. And I had to ask myself the question, well, why? Like, why do I care so much? And I don't think that I really had a solid answer for it.
And so then the question became, well, if I ditched this mental talk track about caring that other people thought that I was helpful and a good mom and a great employee and a great leader, and just started living like, for lack of a better word, like my own authentic self and my own actions, then it unlocked this whole other way of behaving that I haven't again, been able to unsee.
And now I do what I want because I think it's right and not because of what other people think. And that's been another transformation for me that has just really elevated all of the rest of the work that we've been doing together in these sessions.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. I think we really don't understand how much of our energy goes to that piece. And I know I did an entire episode on it, right? Because we will never actually know what your boss thinks of you. And the beautiful thing is that actually when we stop caring, you would think that we would not be as great at our job or we would start to slack off. But it's the exact opposite because now we're coming from this authentic place, like you said, and we're doing the work from our heart versus maybe our mind of wanting to impress people or wanting to shift how they think of us.
Nicole: Yeah, and there was a lot of fear associated with changing that mentality and that mindset. So I was afraid of doing the thing that I thought was right. And therefore I did the thing that I thought other people wanted. Whereas now that fear is removed and I do the thing that I think makes the most sense. And I have to tell you, it's paying off quite a bit in terms of dividends. And actually, I'm not trying to go after this, but I think it's improving how people are viewing me.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely.
Nicole: So ironic.
Jenna: Speaking of what other people think about you, because I do want to touch on this because I know you shared this in a session. Can you talk about how other people have started seeing you and noticing some of the shifts? I know you had a story about your sister and kind of like the unexpected impacts that doing this work for ourselves has on the people around us.
Nicole: Yes, I do think other people, close family and friends have noticed a shift. And I think the example that I shared with you was with my sister who I'm very close with. But I also want to share that my partner has seen a significant transformation and that is also, you know, one of the people that you spend the most time with. My sister lives halfway across the country.
My husband lives a little too close sometimes next to, in the next room over sometimes when we're working from home. I'm joking. And we both work from home is what I'm joking about. But he has noticed it. And it has fundamentally changed the nature of our relationship. It has changed the nature of my relationship with my daughter and our relationship as a family unit as a whole. And that has also been a part of conversations that we have with our counselor. We have somebody that helps coach the two of us. And she's witnessed it.
This other woman has witnessed it. And so doing the hard work on the self that change doesn't happen overnight, but people do start to see it in how you show up in your actions and in your daily lives. And same thing with my sister, I see her a couple of times a year and she commented, I don't remember exactly what she said, but it was sort of an off-handed comment. It was like, "Whoa, Nicole, you're doing like 5 million things. How are you keeping it all together?"
And my comment to her was, Well, first it was like, I was like, you should talk to Jenna." And my second comment was, you know, I actually don't feel like it's a lot. Like I don't feel the mental or emotional weight as much as I did, even though on the outside nothing has objectively changed except for I've taken on more work. And so that I think other people have noticed that piece and have said, there's I think maybe some utility in looking at things like that.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. Because sometimes we look at coaching or any sort of self-help process and we look at it as like this thing that we are doing for us. And I love that, right? I think we need to do more for ourselves. But there's also this ripple effect that we just can't see how it will impact all the people in our life.
Like as much as we can think about it or conceptualize on it, it is amazing how the people around us start to shift and what they notice and how they feel inspired and how we like start to communicate better, which leads into every single part of our life.
Also just the fact of like feeling not burnt out and feeling like you don't have too much on your plate when you have more on your plate now, arguably, than you did prior to this process. But the feeling like we don't have too much on our plate, it's lighter for everyone. It's not just lighter for us. Like our kids feel it, the people who we interact with daily feel it. I'm sure the people at your work feel it.
And even if they can't like put an exact language to it or describe it, there's a very different energy that we bring when we are taking care of ourselves in this way, meaning plugging up the energy leaks, focusing on things that light us up, having a space for us to talk through our stuff, our mental drama, our hopes and fears.
There's just so much value to how we shift and change when we commit to something like that, when we commit to investing a ton of time, energy, money, all the things, but we're saying like yes to ourselves in that moment and it can feel selfish, but it is anything but selfish because of how it impacts the people in our life.
Nicole: Yeah, and I would argue that it is the opposite of selfish because if you want to be a selfless person, the first place you have to start is yourself so that you can show up for other people. And just to build on that for a minute, like not to sound woo, but like it really is an energy piece. I think, you know, or energy, magnetism, like whatever you want to call it, like I do think it is spreading to not just my friends and family, but I'm getting more clients now.
There are I'm sure a few things that I am doing, but I think there's something that's intangible that's hard to describe that is, oh, I really enjoy what I do and I enjoy it so much that it attracts other people to want to be a part of it. And that's a great gift, sharing my skill set and my gift with other people in a professional context or just sharing my energy as a mom and as a friend.
This is sort of a silly example, but I really enjoy, it's dead winter and I live in Maine right now, so I'm constantly seeking out unique heat sources. And a friend of mine told me that you could rent a sauna. And so I decided I was going to rent a sauna mostly for myself, but I wanted some of my friends to participate. So I invited a bunch of ladies over and just had a wellness party and like we had this sauna in our front yard. It was hilarious.
And we had a wonderful time and we all kind of enjoyed being warm in the depths of like a really cold night and that was pretty much it. And that was me showing up for my friends. And I don't think that if you had asked me a year ago, if I had done something that charged me up and also charged my friends up and had health benefits and all that jazz, if I would have gone after something or even had the creativity in my brain to think of something like that, that just never would have happened. And so I'm so happy I did that. We're going to turn it into an annual thing by the way.
So next time, you have an invite, Jenna. But it's hard to predict the number and the ways in which the mental shifts through coaching can show up for you in a daily basis and how you lead your days, but just also how your life is so much more rich in experiences.
And, you know, isn't that what we all wanted to be after is, you know, happiness and having a rich life in terms of experiences, not materials, but like having a wonderful life and being happy about that. And there's nothing else that I've experienced that's really helped bring me closer to that and closer in alignment with where I want to be, you know, in my heart and in my mind and how I live my days.
Jenna: Yeah, I love that. And it's so true. It's like we can tap into a whole different level of creativity. I often hear moms when they're in that space of like feeling maxed out and like they have so much to do and so much going on, responsibilities, it's all heavy, like there's no time for creativity. And moms often say, like, I do want to be using this part of my, like I'm a creative person, that's something I had to leave behind.
I know one client that I love and I always talk about, like she was able to start doing pottery classes each week and not because anything, she actually like started a business, was still working at her job, and was then able to make time for the pottery because we start shifting the way our systems, we start shifting our mindset and then we get energy from that pottery class each week when we are actually tapping into the pieces of our creativity and things that make us a human and it's amazing.
Nicole: When you're in a space where you're operating in fear of your actions or in fear of what other people think of you, for example, it's really hard to be creative. You're not thriving, you're just surviving, right? Like you're creating actions based off of like this little very powerful amygdala part of your brain. You're not operating literally in the creative side of your brain when you are in that fight or flight mode, you know, however you want to call it in brain science, but creativity is squashed in those instances.
So, you know, if you can kind of look at what are the things that you are fearful of and as part of that journey to create a space of being able to be in a creative state, that is really what helped kind of shift some of that change for me.
Jenna: Mhm. Yeah, 100%. And it's so true. The other thing I want to say about that is, if you are in that space right now, you might look at Nicole and what we're talking about and say to yourself, well, she's different. She's special in some way, or like her partner sounds helpful and that's probably why and, you know, maybe she has a good friend group or a mom who helps, but that couldn't happen for me.
Sometimes those things, that's just like, what's the saying? A worm in horseradish, the world is horseradish or something like that where it's like, if that is the world, we don't really know another way of operating until we're open to seeing and experiencing a new way of operating. And then all of a sudden we're not in horseradish anymore. We're just like, "Whoa, look at this whole wide world. I didn't even know this existed." And I didn't need to move mountains for this to exist.
So, I hope you don't mind me saying, like there's nothing special about Nicole. There's nothing special about me or any, any of my clients. It is just small tweaks, simple tweaks, maybe not easy tweaks, but that we make in our day-to-day that all of a sudden what once seemed impossible for all the reasons becomes possible and you can see like the light at the end of the tunnel, you can see that you do have more energy or that you're not so resentful all the time or you're not so exhausted at the end of the week. You don't feel like you're on a hamster wheel. And that's possible for everyone.
Nicole: Yes. And I appreciate you saying that because I very much don't believe that I am special. Like I believe that the way that I'm feeling now, every mom, every working mom, everyone out there, men too, like can feel the way that I feel. And consistently too, right? Like that it is possible and that I am not a unique person.
Like we're all going through life in similar experiences or different experiences, but my experience in coaching, it's not the outlier. You're the one that speaks to all this, but like I don't feel as though I am out of the ordinary in my experience, but I feel like my transformation to me personally has been extraordinary.
Jenna: No, and I, that's what I was just thinking. It's like moms of all ages, stages, environments, they experience these breakthroughs and transformations, you know, whether they have one kid or four kids or a single parent or a partner who travels all the time or not having family around to help. There's just a whole bunch of different circumstances and it really doesn't matter, right? Because what we're talking about is the shifts that happen within us and how that can be so revolutionary. And it yeah, it doesn't, the circumstances around us don't matter.
One last thing I want to touch on, when you started coaching, again, like you were maxed out, you had the nine-to-five, you wanted very much to leave the nine-to-five, right? You wanted your consulting business to support you. That's what we are working on.
But there was like a shift that happened where it was like suddenly you wanted to stay at your nine-to-five. And I know there's opportunities around, like opportunities are coming out of the woodwork. But I want to maybe shed some light on that piece because I talk to a lot of people in my first conversations with them in like the consultation when they're exploring coaching and learning about it, seeing if it's the right fit.
And they want to leave their job so bad. They think leaving their job is the answer. And I love supporting people to leave their nine-to-five, right? That's why I do what I do, right? To help them shift into entrepreneurship and have more control over their time. But it's a pattern, right? That once we aren't feeling so overwhelmed in our nine-to-five, suddenly it doesn't seem so bad anymore.
And actually, it feels really abundant and it feels not even, like there's a fear around letting it go, but it's just it feels different. Can you shed some light to that because I know we've been working on kind of your exit plan, but like many people, it's like there's a date that we have that's like very soon when we first start coaching and then it kind of gets moved back in a really powerful way where we're like, "No, I kind of like want to keep making this money and it's not so overwhelming anymore."
Nicole: Yeah, I appreciate you asking that question and I think it is very poignant for me because we're actively in these types of conversations weekly. But I think it comes back to your point about the mental shift that takes place and the capacity piece. And I distinctly remember, and I think I'm sure other working moms are like this who live in a corporate setting or who work in a corporate setting, which is, yeah, you're like don't like how your nine-to-fives are going and you're stressed out because of it. And coaching is incredibly helpful for the whole person.
And that is one of the reasons why I wanted to work with you is because it's not just a career, right? It's your life. And your career is a means to your having the life that you want. It is not the end goal, or at least for me it's not, it's not the end goal. And so when I kind of came to that realization, I, you know, I have this opportunity to sort of take a leap of faith and move more fully into the consulting work that I do.
But also, you helped me realize that like, we got to make your nine-to-five feel okay in the moment because I don't just want to have a knee-jerk reaction. How can we work on that piece too? And so then I was like, okay.
So we worked on that for a number of months together on like making it so that my days weren't so miserable Monday through Friday. And I think over the course, it didn't happen overnight, but over the course of a number of months, I started to realize that it is up to me. I get to make the call on what this looks like and I finally got to a place where I like how I'm living my nine-to-five and I like how I'm living my five-to-nine as people say.
And I like all aspects of it. So then it's a matter of, okay, really need to dig in and decide what it is that you want next and what it is that, you know, three and five years ahead are going to be things that charge you up and the life that you want to live because you are in control of what that looks like. And then that may make things easier or harder, right?
Like it can make it easier to stay in your current state once you're mentally good with that or it can mean that you shift in a different direction. But you're making that decision out of thoughtful planning and you being in the driver's seat versus you coming from a place of fear and a place of, ooh, I don't know, like of course we can't predict the future and the unknown, but if you don't know where you're going, you're probably not going to get there.
Like you have to kind of be thoughtful about where you want to head. And maybe you take a different turn to get there, but you at least have a map that you've drawn out and a point A is where you're starting and a point B and it's probably going to look like squiggly and maybe you make a couple left turns and do a complete loop.
But you can move in the direction that you want to be. And so just I think the last thing I would say is that being receptive, just because I'm saying like you're in control doesn't mean that you can't be receptive and entertain opportunities and then also turn them down. And this is one of the things that we're actively working on right now is like, "Oh,” last week, I think you told me you said, “Nicole, you know, you could just say no." And like that's a powerful thought too.
To kind of bring it all home, I think having the wherewithal to operate in a space of confidence in yourself and also realizing that you do get to decide what your life looks like, putting aside any questions and fears that you have, that you are in control of what your life looks like is earth-shattering in terms of what actually happens in your life and what you choose to do.
That's the power of these conversations and having somebody right there with you to sort of navigate that together because if it's all in your head, it's, you know, can be a little messy space in your head. But if it's with someone else, not only does it force you to sort of think through things you wouldn't have. Two brains are better than one, in my opinion, but it makes you stronger.
Jenna: Yeah. And it's more fun, right?
Nicole: Oh way more fun.
Jenna: I think you have fun along the way. It's amazing. You don't actually know how it's all going to work out because once you have more skills and once you have more energy and capacity, it's sort of like, "Well, maybe I don't need to burn it all down. Maybe I like the way this is set up, or maybe I can put more energy here or there."
I always love, somebody shared with me when I was in corporate, you always want to be running towards something and never away from something. And I see that all the time. Like I always want all my moms to make the decision to leave their job, their nine-to-five from an empowered, intentional place, not because they feel trapped or like it's soul-sucking or like they have to run from it.
And we really do get to that place, right? Like you said, it's like the feeling better right now where we are, because then we just make so much more powerful and creative decisions. And sometimes it means that we keep that steady paycheck for a little bit longer and feel really abundant and go on some more vacations and do things like that with those extra funds. And that can be part of the journey too. Thank you so much.
The other thing I want to just give you kudos for is you mentioned it a little bit in bringing it home, but I just want to highlight that you were sort of on a journey of self-discovery or however you would describe it before we came together. And it has been so amazing to see this journey and it's been an honor to work with you. And something that I've loved is that you are open.
You are open to receive the different ways of thinking about things. You're open to receiving different ways of showing up in certain scenarios. It's easy for us to hold on to stories about ourselves that create a lot of misery and to almost want to argue for our limitations. And I know our work together, we've, we've done some really powerful work on like very specific themes and stories that you have had, whether it be with your upbringing or with yourself as a mom. And to be open to letting go of those stories is the most powerful thing we can do.
And it's just been so fun to work with you and because there is that openness to say, "Oh wow, this story isn't working for me anymore. It's creating a lot of misery, it's creating a lot of mental drama. It's holding me back. Staying in this victim mentality is not good for me. Let me walk into this other way of thinking and seeing myself." And I just want to say that's really hard to do and you have definitely been open to that and I love that because the coaching can only do so much if there isn't that openness to let go of some of the stories holding us back.
Nicole: Well, thank you for saying that. I very much view it as a two-way street too, right? Like you have to have kind of a willing person to receive. And it's hard. It's hard. It's not easy. Not all of our conversations are easy for me, but that's not why I signed up. I signed up because I want to have a happy, fulfilling life and be a better person and show up in the world the way that I want to. And we're very much doing that.
And I just will say, sometimes I find myself channeling you and some of the things that you say to me, like you said something like, okay, in one of our sessions, you were like, okay, so the talk track, yeah I think you were talking about yourself, but you're like, the talk track I was telling myself was X.
And I think that's really, just has been really a useful nugget for me because I particularly notice that my talk tracks sometimes are negative and that my talk tracks are that I'm the victim and that, "Oh, well, my employer is doing X to me."
And that's the talk track that I have for myself. But it's like, okay, that's just a talk track. Let's shift to a different talk track. We don't have to hold on to that. We can hold on to a different talk track that's, oh, maybe I need to relook at how I'm solving this problem for my employer, or maybe I need to completely do something else that I haven't even thought of. And those are also valid talk tracks.
And if you can shift yourself out of the fear-based, negative-based talk tracks, or at least even just recognize that that's what you're doing, then that opens up that world of possibilities to be in a different talk track. And I just like that terminology because it helps me sort of get out of your own head and observe it in a just an objective way.
Jenna: Yeah, absolutely. I don't even remember saying it, so I'm glad. And that's how things happen, right? Where it's just like you just never know where some of the biggest aha moments or breakthroughs are going to come and that's why the work is, is so much fun.
Well, thank you so much for having this conversation.
Like I said, I know that every week there's a little bit of like sharing these little wins and big wins and I just wanted to capture it because I think it's and hope it's inspiring because this is a shift and a transformation that is available to all moms who are feeling maxed out and resentful and stressed and my mission is for us to have more fun and for us to feel more abundant in life with everything we have going on. And I know that's possible for everyone.
Nicole: Absolutely. You're so welcome and thank you for having me.
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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