73. When Motivation Fails, Your ‘Why’ Leads
The belief that motivation just happens is one of the biggest traps for mom entrepreneurs. We hope that one day we'll wake up with this magical surge of energy and clarity, finally feeling ready to work on our business. But motivation is like the weather - unreliable and unpredictable.
When you're exhausted from another day of juggling everything, when rejection emails pile up, or when your launch attracts zero buyers, surface-level reasons like "I want flexibility" won't carry you through. The real question becomes: what will keep you moving forward when every part of you wants to quit?
Tune in this week as I break down exactly how to dig beneath those surface-level reasons to uncover the deeper ‘why’ that will fuel your business journey. You'll walk away with practical tools to create your own motivation instead of waiting for it to magically appear. By the end, you'll have clarity on the vision that will carry you through every setback and challenge ahead.
Ready for clarity and a simple action plan to get your business started? Schedule a free 1-hour consultation with me here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why motivation is unreliable and how to create it instead of waiting for it.
Questions to ask yourself to uncover your true ‘why’ for starting a business.
How your ‘why’ evolves and becomes stronger as you build your business.
Why having a strong ‘why' transforms your business from nice-to-have to non-negotiable.
Practical ways to anchor yourself in your why when things get hard.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
Think about that next layer deeper. If it's, "I want financial freedom," I want you to step into the next reason, the why, "I want to build generational security so my daughter never feels trapped in a job that crushes her spirit.” That's the deeper why. That's the vision that pulls us forward when motivation isn't showing up on its own. We can tap back into that reason and it will absolutely drive us.
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. I'm recording this the night before leaving for a kidless trip to Italy for a friend's wedding. So when this goes live, I'll be in a lovely villa with wonderful people, and I can't wait. But first things first, this episode. Today, I want to talk about something that can really make or break your journey as a new entrepreneur, as a mom entrepreneur, and that is having a strong why. Not just a good reason for starting a business, a meaningful reason. A reason that will keep you taking action and moving forward no matter what.
So not the surface stuff like, "I want flexibility," or "I want to make more money." Those are good, but they're not what gets us through the messy parts of business and life. The real, deep why is what fuels us when motivation feels far away. It's what fuels us when we're tired, when life throws curveballs, and when business feels like a long, uphill climb.
If you've ever felt like you're just waiting for motivation to strike and it's not coming, this episode is for you. By the end of this episode, the wait is going to be over because you will have the tools to create the motivation you need to take action. And to get there, we're going to focus on your why. No more waiting to feel like working on the business. This is a tool that will help you take action even and especially when you don't feel like it.
And hey, if you haven't already, I want you to hit subscribe. And I also want you to leave a review if this content resonates. It's the highest compliment when listeners take time and energy out of their day to share their thoughts with me. And if you're new here, every week we're digging into tools and strategies that will help you keep taking steps forward to start and build a business, especially when life feels too full. So subscribe, leave me a review. I love to hear from you.
I want to start with something that trips a lot of us up in this episode: the belief that desire or motivation just happens. Okay, one day we'll wake up with this magical surge of energy and clarity and we'll finally feel ready to work on our business. The truth is that motivation is so unreliable. It's like the weather. And I'm sure that statement hits home for anyone who got married outside in the rain. Okay? It's the same with our businesses. Motivation is unreliable. If we're waiting to feel motivated before we work on the business, it'll be hit or miss.
And we'll likely be waiting longer than we'd like because motivation is really hard to come by for us moms when we have so many other things going on. We have to be motivated for things that the kids need and that family needs and that our work needs, and so our needs get put last. And worse, when we're talking about motivation for the business, when the motivation isn't there, I see it so often that it's easy to make it mean something about us. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe I don't want it enough just because I'm not feeling motivated to work on it.
And I want you to know that's absolutely not true. A lack of motivation doesn't mean you're not meant to do this or you're not cut out for entrepreneurship. Okay? It just means you're human. Our brains naturally resist discomfort, and starting a business is one hundred percent uncomfortable. That's exactly why we need a strong why for starting a business. Because that's what gets us through those moments when motivation is lacking. All those moments when you hear no, or when you launch something that no one buys, or you put on a webinar and no one shows up, or one person shows up, or when you post something and it gets crickets, right? No one comments, no one likes it.
All of those things without a strong why, those moments feel like a stop sign. But when you have a strong why for starting your business, they feel more like speed bumps. They feel more like data points. And that's why we're going to talk about how to really discover your specific strong why in this episode. We're no longer going to settle for surface-level reasons. We're going to go deep. We're going to figure it out so that you can lean on that when times get tough, when you don't feel motivated to go keep going in your business.
So if motivation isn't something we wait for, how do we then create it? And we create it by connecting to our why. Your why is like plugging your phone into a charger. It powers you up when you're running low, and it reminds you of what's on the other side of all the effort. Okay, that's what your why does.
For me, flexibility was always the surface-level reason. But when I dug a little bit deeper, the truth was that I wanted my family to experience the world. Okay? My husband and I wanted to be able to travel for extended periods of time. We will never forget meeting this French couple in Malaysia who were traveling the world with their kids, teaching them history through museums and lived experiences. And it just lit something up inside of us.
And at that time in our life, kids weren't even on the radar, but we knew we wanted to be able to give our kids those types of learning experiences. Maybe not traveling for the entire year like that family was doing, but we didn't want to be tied down by needing to go into an office or because of limited PTO. That was part of my why. And the beautiful thing is that as you start to build your business, your why can become stronger and also more diversified, which I'll talk about a little bit later.
Simon Sinek says, "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." And I think the same is true for us. Right? We don't keep showing up because of what we're doing, you know, writing another email or posting on Instagram. We keep showing up because of why we're doing it.
Now, every mom I talk to has a reason for wanting to start a business, and a good reason for wanting to start a business. More flexibility, more money, more choice, more autonomy. I hear those reasons all the time. And listen, if any of those reasons resonate with you, it's not wrong. It just means that you need to go a little bit deeper because those are all surface-level reasons.
I want flexibility or I want financial freedom might sound good, but they don't carry you through the messy days. You probably already have a schedule that's working for you, and you already have disposable income. You don't need more money. You don't actually need more flexibility until you dig a little bit deeper and get to a more fundamental reason. And the reason is usually connected to creating a life you love. The flexibility and financial freedom in and of itself, just by itself, is not going to be strong enough to fuel you when you're exhausted, when you've heard all the nos, or when you're questioning if this business will ever work.
So what does then going deeper actually look like? It's asking yourself, why do I want flexibility? Why do I want financial freedom? Why do I want fulfilling work? And you don't stop at the first answer, okay? You keep peeling it back. For example, flexibility might mean you want to be the one who picks your kids up from school every day instead of rushing through traffic after another late meeting, maybe having to get family members or grandparents to pick up the kids. Maybe it means you just never want to pay for extended care again. Or maybe it means being able to take a long summer trip to the lake house your family loves so that your kids grow up with those memories.
So, financial freedom as a reason, sure, money matters, money is great, but what does that money allow you to do? Maybe it means you can finally say yes to piano lessons without reworking the entire budget. Maybe it means never having to check the bank account before going grocery shopping. That one hits home, groceries are just so expensive nowadays, right? If it's financial freedom, maybe there's a piece of you that really desires creating generational wealth so that your kids start adulthood with opportunities you never had.
If you are leaning towards the autonomy or wanting choice or wanting to build something of your own, the ability to call your own shots on the surface, that might sound like being your own boss and really wanting that for yourself. But if we dig deeper, maybe it's about breaking a cycle. Maybe it's about proving to yourself and showing your kids that you get to decide what your life looks like. That you don't have to settle for a career that drains you. That you don't have to work for an employer, that you can choose and follow your heart and do something that you never thought was possible.
And I hope you see the difference here. The surface-level reason is like the headline, but your deeper why is this bigger, fuller, more fun story really. And the full story is what actually moves us forward when the surface-level reason doesn't feel powerful enough. The surface-level reason is not going to get us out of bed. So if you've found yourself actually stalling out on your business goals or if you find yourself saying, "Someday I'll do that," over and over again, it's not because you're lazy or undisciplined. It's not because you're not meant to do this. It's not because you don't want it enough. It might just be that you haven't gone deep enough to really define and understand your why.
And that's good news because you can start doing that today. That's the power of knowing your deeper why. It is what transforms your business from something that feels like a nice to have into something that feels non-negotiable. And when something is non-negotiable, I know us moms make it happen. We move mountains for things for our kids and family. Let's start moving mountains for this thing too. Let's decide that this is just as important to our kids' future as team sports and piano lessons.
And here's the thing. When we get to that deeper why, that reason for starting a business, it doesn't just feel motivating in that moment. It becomes this sort of anchor that we can return to whenever things get hard. And let's be honest, things will get hard. Like I talked about endlessly in episode 57, life will get hard. And I'm sure you know that.
Here's what I want you to remember. Having that strong reason for starting a business, having that strong why, doesn't mean you'll always feel fired up. It doesn't mean you'll jump out of bed every day excited to work on your business. There will be days when you don't want to open your laptop. That's normal. Every entrepreneur experiences that, right? The difference between those, though, who keep going and those who give up too early is not talent or luck, it's whether they have a strong enough why. Because that strong enough why will keep them moving forward, will keep you moving forward through the discomfort.
I want you to think about it like training for a marathon. And kudos to anybody who has done that. Nobody wants to run at 5 a.m. in the rain. But if your why for running a marathon and training for a marathon is that I want to prove to myself I can do hard things, or I want to show my kids what commitment looks like, or maybe you're running it for a cause and you're raising money and people are depending on you, suddenly lacing up those shoes feels possible, even if it doesn't feel fun. The why carries you when motivation fades.
So here's the action I want you to take this week. The next time you feel discouraged or unmotivated, pause and come back to your why. I want you to ask yourself, "Am I going to let this hard moment mean I'm not meant for this? Or am I going to let it mean I'm one step closer to becoming the woman and mom I want to be?" That choice to lean on your why instead of waiting for motivation to strike is the difference between spinning your wheels and actually building momentum.
So I want you to take action this week in this way. I want you to think about and come up with just your basic why, right? Maybe your surface-level why, and then I want you to dig deeper. And what's really cool too about this whole process is that what you discover as your why at the beginning, as you start the business, as you clarify what you do and how you help people, your why will get stronger and it will actually start to diversify and evolve.
So I have a client who really wanted initially to start a business to tap into a part of her identity that was missing. That's a pretty good reason, right? She also wanted to be able to support herself. She is a stay-at-home mom and though her partnership is awesome, she wanted the feeling back of being financially independent, that she could want something and buy it with money that she earned. That felt really important to her after so many years of leaning on her partner for the financial freedom and then her being responsible for everything else, basically.
So with that, there was a specific expensive bag she had in mind that she had been working towards and it was one of those things where every day almost in the coaching, we would reference that bag in moments when she needed motivation. We would talk about, you're almost there, you've almost got that bag. And it would be a part of our mantra of motivating her and moving her forward. And that might not be a strong why for everyone, but for her, imagining holding that bag and knowing that she earned it with money from her business was a true motivator.
And the really cool thing, though, is that in the process of clarifying her business and how she helps her clients, her why has grown and evolved. She sees the future of her business as starting a movement, and her why has become even more powerful. Now, when she hears no or feels discouraged, we aren't referencing the handbag, we're referencing the importance of the movement she's building.
So this topic is just so motivating, it's so fun to talk about. It's so fun to explore and define for yourself. And it's one thing to hear me talk about finding a strong why, and it's a complete other thing to actually sit down and uncover it for yourself.
So the other thing I want you to think about this week is I want you to pause and reflect on your surface-level why, the one that comes up for you first. And then I want you to dig deeper, okay? So maybe it's flexibility, maybe it's financial freedom, maybe it's autonomy, maybe it's wanting more fulfilling work, whatever it is, write that down and hold it in your mind. And then I want you to take it one layer deeper at a time by asking yourself a few reflection questions. And these aren't meant to overwhelm you, they're just meant to dig beneath the surface and find the fire that will carry you through in those especially messy days.
These questions, you can find them if you go to Jenna.Coach/73. In the show notes is the full transcript, and so you can copy and paste these questions and you can really reflect with them one morning or one weekend when you have some time and space. These questions are a suggestion, but you could also just ask yourself, "Why is that important?" And keep asking yourself why. Treat it like it's your four or five-year-old, whatever age it is that hasn't quite gotten to the why phase yet, but they keep asking you why. And that's a great exercise for yourself to reflect on why is it important that I start a business.
I'll give you a couple more deeper questions, though. If your why is, let's say flexibility, I want you to ask yourself, "If my schedule was completely my own, no boss, no deadlines, how would I spend my time? And what would life look like for me and my family five years from now with that kind of freedom?" If your why is financial freedom, I want you to think about if I already had all the money I wanted, why would I still choose to build this business? What experiences would that money allow me to create? Is it travel, opportunities for my kids, is it giving back to the community? What is it that would drive you if you had all the money in the world? And what would you do with that money if you had all the money in the world and didn't have to necessarily work?
If your why has something to do with like building something of your own or making your own choices or having autonomy, I want you to ask yourself, "What feels non-negotiable to me in this season of life? What do I want to protect or control about my work and my life? And what would hurt more, failing at this business or never giving myself the chance to try?"
Fulfillment. Okay, that's another really great why that people talk to me about, but it's surface level. So if your why is that you want more fulfillment or purpose, I want you to ask yourself, "When my kids look back, what do I want them to remember about me and how I showed up in my work? What kind of impact do I want my business to have on other people's lives?"
These are just some questions that move us from, "I want flexibility," to, "I want to take my kids abroad for a summer every year so they grow up bilingual and globally minded." That was mine and my husband's. We wanted to take our kids and our family to Buenos Aires for at least a month every single year for the rest of our lives, which we did last year in 2024 when I was pregnant with Jude. So think about that next layer deeper. If it's, "I want financial freedom," I want you to step into the next reason, the why, "I want to build generational security so my daughter never feels trapped in a job that crushes her spirit."
That's the deeper why. That's the vision that pulls us forward when motivation isn't showing up on its own. We can tap back into that reason and it will absolutely drive us. So like I said, do that work this week. You never need perfect anything, but you especially don't need perfect answers here. You just need honesty and you need to really think about and give your time to define why this is important to you.
Remember, motivation won't just strike. We create it. Okay? So don't sit around waiting for it. And a lack of motivation doesn't mean you're not cut out for this. Okay? I promise you're just human with a lot going on and you're tired. Don't make a lack of motivation mean anything about you or this business.
I want you to also remember a strong why is what gets us through discomfort and setbacks. So defining that, having it on a post-it, having a vision board, those things are cliche, but they work. The deeper you go with your why, the stronger your desire to keep going. Don't wait for the perfect mood or the perfect timing or the perfect anything, right? We're moving away from perfectionism. I want you to anchor yourself in the why that you come up with and let that carry you forward.
And I also would love for you to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss next week's episode. I release episodes every Wednesday morning, and it is a kick in the butt, a motivating conversation about what you can be thinking about. Think of it as your weekly recharge, your reminder that you're not alone in this journey. You don't have to do this alone. And go to Jenna.Coach to learn more about how I work with clients. You can join my free Mom Entrepreneur Circle and really just learn more about how to get hands-on personalized support for this business journey ahead. It's so much more fun to do it in community. 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. I'm recording this the night before leaving for a kidless trip to Italy for a friend's wedding. So when this goes live, I'll be in a lovely villa with wonderful people, and I can't wait. But first things first, this episode. Today, I want to talk about something that can really make or break your journey as a new entrepreneur, as a mom entrepreneur, and that is having a strong why. Not just a good reason for starting a business, a meaningful reason. A reason that will keep you taking action and moving forward no matter what.
So not the surface stuff like, "I want flexibility," or "I want to make more money." Those are good, but they're not what gets us through the messy parts of business and life. The real, deep why is what fuels us when motivation feels far away. It's what fuels us when we're tired, when life throws curveballs, and when business feels like a long, uphill climb.
If you've ever felt like you're just waiting for motivation to strike and it's not coming, this episode is for you. By the end of this episode, the wait is going to be over because you will have the tools to create the motivation you need to take action. And to get there, we're going to focus on your why. No more waiting to feel like working on the business. This is a tool that will help you take action even and especially when you don't feel like it.
And hey, if you haven't already, I want you to hit subscribe. And I also want you to leave a review if this content resonates. It's the highest compliment when listeners take time and energy out of their day to share their thoughts with me. And if you're new here, every week we're digging into tools and strategies that will help you keep taking steps forward to start and build a business, especially when life feels too full. So subscribe, leave me a review. I love to hear from you.
I want to start with something that trips a lot of us up in this episode: the belief that desire or motivation just happens. Okay, one day we'll wake up with this magical surge of energy and clarity and we'll finally feel ready to work on our business. The truth is that motivation is so unreliable. It's like the weather. And I'm sure that statement hits home for anyone who got married outside in the rain. Okay? It's the same with our businesses. Motivation is unreliable. If we're waiting to feel motivated before we work on the business, it'll be hit or miss.
And we'll likely be waiting longer than we'd like because motivation is really hard to come by for us moms when we have so many other things going on. We have to be motivated for things that the kids need and that family needs and that our work needs, and so our needs get put last. And worse, when we're talking about motivation for the business, when the motivation isn't there, I see it so often that it's easy to make it mean something about us. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe I don't want it enough just because I'm not feeling motivated to work on it.
And I want you to know that's absolutely not true. A lack of motivation doesn't mean you're not meant to do this or you're not cut out for entrepreneurship. Okay? It just means you're human. Our brains naturally resist discomfort, and starting a business is one hundred percent uncomfortable. That's exactly why we need a strong why for starting a business. Because that's what gets us through those moments when motivation is lacking. All those moments when you hear no, or when you launch something that no one buys, or you put on a webinar and no one shows up, or one person shows up, or when you post something and it gets crickets, right? No one comments, no one likes it.
All of those things without a strong why, those moments feel like a stop sign. But when you have a strong why for starting your business, they feel more like speed bumps. They feel more like data points. And that's why we're going to talk about how to really discover your specific strong why in this episode. We're no longer going to settle for surface-level reasons. We're going to go deep. We're going to figure it out so that you can lean on that when times get tough, when you don't feel motivated to go keep going in your business.
So if motivation isn't something we wait for, how do we then create it? And we create it by connecting to our why. Your why is like plugging your phone into a charger. It powers you up when you're running low, and it reminds you of what's on the other side of all the effort. Okay, that's what your why does.
For me, flexibility was always the surface-level reason. But when I dug a little bit deeper, the truth was that I wanted my family to experience the world. Okay? My husband and I wanted to be able to travel for extended periods of time. We will never forget meeting this French couple in Malaysia who were traveling the world with their kids, teaching them history through museums and lived experiences. And it just lit something up inside of us.
And at that time in our life, kids weren't even on the radar, but we knew we wanted to be able to give our kids those types of learning experiences. Maybe not traveling for the entire year like that family was doing, but we didn't want to be tied down by needing to go into an office or because of limited PTO. That was part of my why. And the beautiful thing is that as you start to build your business, your why can become stronger and also more diversified, which I'll talk about a little bit later.
Simon Sinek says, "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." And I think the same is true for us. Right? We don't keep showing up because of what we're doing, you know, writing another email or posting on Instagram. We keep showing up because of why we're doing it.
Now, every mom I talk to has a reason for wanting to start a business, and a good reason for wanting to start a business. More flexibility, more money, more choice, more autonomy. I hear those reasons all the time. And listen, if any of those reasons resonate with you, it's not wrong. It just means that you need to go a little bit deeper because those are all surface-level reasons.
I want flexibility or I want financial freedom might sound good, but they don't carry you through the messy days. You probably already have a schedule that's working for you, and you already have disposable income. You don't need more money. You don't actually need more flexibility until you dig a little bit deeper and get to a more fundamental reason. And the reason is usually connected to creating a life you love. The flexibility and financial freedom in and of itself, just by itself, is not going to be strong enough to fuel you when you're exhausted, when you've heard all the nos, or when you're questioning if this business will ever work.
So what does then going deeper actually look like? It's asking yourself, why do I want flexibility? Why do I want financial freedom? Why do I want fulfilling work? And you don't stop at the first answer, okay? You keep peeling it back. For example, flexibility might mean you want to be the one who picks your kids up from school every day instead of rushing through traffic after another late meeting, maybe having to get family members or grandparents to pick up the kids. Maybe it means you just never want to pay for extended care again. Or maybe it means being able to take a long summer trip to the lake house your family loves so that your kids grow up with those memories.
So, financial freedom as a reason, sure, money matters, money is great, but what does that money allow you to do? Maybe it means you can finally say yes to piano lessons without reworking the entire budget. Maybe it means never having to check the bank account before going grocery shopping. That one hits home, groceries are just so expensive nowadays, right? If it's financial freedom, maybe there's a piece of you that really desires creating generational wealth so that your kids start adulthood with opportunities you never had.
If you are leaning towards the autonomy or wanting choice or wanting to build something of your own, the ability to call your own shots on the surface, that might sound like being your own boss and really wanting that for yourself. But if we dig deeper, maybe it's about breaking a cycle. Maybe it's about proving to yourself and showing your kids that you get to decide what your life looks like. That you don't have to settle for a career that drains you. That you don't have to work for an employer, that you can choose and follow your heart and do something that you never thought was possible.
And I hope you see the difference here. The surface-level reason is like the headline, but your deeper why is this bigger, fuller, more fun story really. And the full story is what actually moves us forward when the surface-level reason doesn't feel powerful enough. The surface-level reason is not going to get us out of bed. So if you've found yourself actually stalling out on your business goals or if you find yourself saying, "Someday I'll do that," over and over again, it's not because you're lazy or undisciplined. It's not because you're not meant to do this. It's not because you don't want it enough. It might just be that you haven't gone deep enough to really define and understand your why.
And that's good news because you can start doing that today. That's the power of knowing your deeper why. It is what transforms your business from something that feels like a nice to have into something that feels non-negotiable. And when something is non-negotiable, I know us moms make it happen. We move mountains for things for our kids and family. Let's start moving mountains for this thing too. Let's decide that this is just as important to our kids' future as team sports and piano lessons.
And here's the thing. When we get to that deeper why, that reason for starting a business, it doesn't just feel motivating in that moment. It becomes this sort of anchor that we can return to whenever things get hard. And let's be honest, things will get hard. Like I talked about endlessly in episode 57, life will get hard. And I'm sure you know that.
Here's what I want you to remember. Having that strong reason for starting a business, having that strong why, doesn't mean you'll always feel fired up. It doesn't mean you'll jump out of bed every day excited to work on your business. There will be days when you don't want to open your laptop. That's normal. Every entrepreneur experiences that, right? The difference between those, though, who keep going and those who give up too early is not talent or luck, it's whether they have a strong enough why. Because that strong enough why will keep them moving forward, will keep you moving forward through the discomfort.
I want you to think about it like training for a marathon. And kudos to anybody who has done that. Nobody wants to run at 5 a.m. in the rain. But if your why for running a marathon and training for a marathon is that I want to prove to myself I can do hard things, or I want to show my kids what commitment looks like, or maybe you're running it for a cause and you're raising money and people are depending on you, suddenly lacing up those shoes feels possible, even if it doesn't feel fun. The why carries you when motivation fades.
So here's the action I want you to take this week. The next time you feel discouraged or unmotivated, pause and come back to your why. I want you to ask yourself, "Am I going to let this hard moment mean I'm not meant for this? Or am I going to let it mean I'm one step closer to becoming the woman and mom I want to be?" That choice to lean on your why instead of waiting for motivation to strike is the difference between spinning your wheels and actually building momentum.
So I want you to take action this week in this way. I want you to think about and come up with just your basic why, right? Maybe your surface-level why, and then I want you to dig deeper. And what's really cool too about this whole process is that what you discover as your why at the beginning, as you start the business, as you clarify what you do and how you help people, your why will get stronger and it will actually start to diversify and evolve.
So I have a client who really wanted initially to start a business to tap into a part of her identity that was missing. That's a pretty good reason, right? She also wanted to be able to support herself. She is a stay-at-home mom and though her partnership is awesome, she wanted the feeling back of being financially independent, that she could want something and buy it with money that she earned. That felt really important to her after so many years of leaning on her partner for the financial freedom and then her being responsible for everything else, basically.
So with that, there was a specific expensive bag she had in mind that she had been working towards and it was one of those things where every day almost in the coaching, we would reference that bag in moments when she needed motivation. We would talk about, you're almost there, you've almost got that bag. And it would be a part of our mantra of motivating her and moving her forward. And that might not be a strong why for everyone, but for her, imagining holding that bag and knowing that she earned it with money from her business was a true motivator.
And the really cool thing, though, is that in the process of clarifying her business and how she helps her clients, her why has grown and evolved. She sees the future of her business as starting a movement, and her why has become even more powerful. Now, when she hears no or feels discouraged, we aren't referencing the handbag, we're referencing the importance of the movement she's building.
So this topic is just so motivating, it's so fun to talk about. It's so fun to explore and define for yourself. And it's one thing to hear me talk about finding a strong why, and it's a complete other thing to actually sit down and uncover it for yourself.
So the other thing I want you to think about this week is I want you to pause and reflect on your surface-level why, the one that comes up for you first. And then I want you to dig deeper, okay? So maybe it's flexibility, maybe it's financial freedom, maybe it's autonomy, maybe it's wanting more fulfilling work, whatever it is, write that down and hold it in your mind. And then I want you to take it one layer deeper at a time by asking yourself a few reflection questions. And these aren't meant to overwhelm you, they're just meant to dig beneath the surface and find the fire that will carry you through in those especially messy days.
These questions, you can find them if you go to Jenna.Coach/73. In the show notes is the full transcript, and so you can copy and paste these questions and you can really reflect with them one morning or one weekend when you have some time and space. These questions are a suggestion, but you could also just ask yourself, "Why is that important?" And keep asking yourself why. Treat it like it's your four or five-year-old, whatever age it is that hasn't quite gotten to the why phase yet, but they keep asking you why. And that's a great exercise for yourself to reflect on why is it important that I start a business.
I'll give you a couple more deeper questions, though. If your why is, let's say flexibility, I want you to ask yourself, "If my schedule was completely my own, no boss, no deadlines, how would I spend my time? And what would life look like for me and my family five years from now with that kind of freedom?" If your why is financial freedom, I want you to think about if I already had all the money I wanted, why would I still choose to build this business? What experiences would that money allow me to create? Is it travel, opportunities for my kids, is it giving back to the community? What is it that would drive you if you had all the money in the world? And what would you do with that money if you had all the money in the world and didn't have to necessarily work?
If your why has something to do with like building something of your own or making your own choices or having autonomy, I want you to ask yourself, "What feels non-negotiable to me in this season of life? What do I want to protect or control about my work and my life? And what would hurt more, failing at this business or never giving myself the chance to try?"
Fulfillment. Okay, that's another really great why that people talk to me about, but it's surface level. So if your why is that you want more fulfillment or purpose, I want you to ask yourself, "When my kids look back, what do I want them to remember about me and how I showed up in my work? What kind of impact do I want my business to have on other people's lives?"
These are just some questions that move us from, "I want flexibility," to, "I want to take my kids abroad for a summer every year so they grow up bilingual and globally minded." That was mine and my husband's. We wanted to take our kids and our family to Buenos Aires for at least a month every single year for the rest of our lives, which we did last year in 2024 when I was pregnant with Jude. So think about that next layer deeper. If it's, "I want financial freedom," I want you to step into the next reason, the why, "I want to build generational security so my daughter never feels trapped in a job that crushes her spirit."
That's the deeper why. That's the vision that pulls us forward when motivation isn't showing up on its own. We can tap back into that reason and it will absolutely drive us. So like I said, do that work this week. You never need perfect anything, but you especially don't need perfect answers here. You just need honesty and you need to really think about and give your time to define why this is important to you.
Remember, motivation won't just strike. We create it. Okay? So don't sit around waiting for it. And a lack of motivation doesn't mean you're not cut out for this. Okay? I promise you're just human with a lot going on and you're tired. Don't make a lack of motivation mean anything about you or this business.
I want you to also remember a strong why is what gets us through discomfort and setbacks. So defining that, having it on a post-it, having a vision board, those things are cliche, but they work. The deeper you go with your why, the stronger your desire to keep going. Don't wait for the perfect mood or the perfect timing or the perfect anything, right? We're moving away from perfectionism. I want you to anchor yourself in the why that you come up with and let that carry you forward.
And I also would love for you to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss next week's episode. I release episodes every Wednesday morning, and it is a kick in the butt, a motivating conversation about what you can be thinking about. Think of it as your weekly recharge, your reminder that you're not alone in this journey. You don't have to do this alone. And go to Jenna.Coach to learn more about how I work with clients. You can join my free Mom Entrepreneur Circle and really just learn more about how to get hands-on personalized support for this business journey ahead. It's so much more fun to do it in community. 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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