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The Mindset Shifts Every Executive Mom Needs to Balance Ambition and Well-Being (Taking Care of Yourself #1)
31 Plays1 day ago
In this episode, Leanna kicks off the fall series with the theme Taking Care of Yourself, a deeper, more practical alternative to what’s often labeled as “self-care.” She explores why so many high-achieving women and busy moms put their own needs last by unpacking five key barriers that keep working mothers from prioritizing their well-being.
Leanna reframes each barrier with empowering shifts, reminding working mothers that caring for themselves isn’t selfish; it’s essential for longevity, resilience, and showing up fully in every area of life. This conversation invites women to recognize their worthiness, challenge old narratives, and begin building a more sustainable rhythm of care to support themselves in order to better support others.
Full transcript available here.
Connect with Leanna here.
Strong leadership starts with strong foundations. The Executive Mom Reset Foundations begins October 21. Join us to gain the tools, strategies, and support you need to thrive at work and at home without burning out.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:04
Speaker
Welcome to the Executive Coach for Moms podcast, where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home.
Meet Leanna Lasky-McGrath
00:00:15
Speaker
I'm your host, Leanna Lasky-McGrath, former tech exec turned full-time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic, and certified executive coach.
00:00:27
Speaker
Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am really excited because last week we wrapped up the summer series and this week we're kicking off our fall series.
Fall Series: Theme of Self-Care
00:00:43
Speaker
And fall is my favorite season of all. We actually moved back to the Northeast and there were two reasons why we wanted to move back. One was family and the second was fall.
00:00:54
Speaker
I love it. The leaves are starting to change. It's, just love this time of year.
Importance of Self-Care for Women
00:00:59
Speaker
and this fall, I have decided that the theme for our fall episodes is going to be taking care of yourself.
00:01:10
Speaker
I had thought about calling it the self-care series because that has a nice ring to it and it sounds more catchy, but i don't really like the term self-care. I feel like it's gotten like a weird connotation with it.
00:01:24
Speaker
When I hear self-care, I think of like a bubble bath or a massage. And when I think of taking care of yourself. I think more of like what we have to do as adults, the responsibilities that we have to make sure that we are taking care of ourselves.
00:01:42
Speaker
So that's what this is about because I know that so many high achieving, ambitious women, especially moms are doing everything for everyone else.
Essential Self-Care Activities
00:01:53
Speaker
And then somehow there's nothing left for us. It's like our own care ends up being at the bottom of the list, or let's be honest, it doesn't even make the list often. And so when we think about taking care of ourselves, there's some basic things we need to be doing, like going to our annual doctor's appointments, paying some attention to what we're putting into our bodies and exercising and lowering our stress levels and things like that, that
00:02:24
Speaker
are just for our own longevity and quality of life.
Sustainable Life Pace: Sprint vs. Marathon
00:02:29
Speaker
How long we're going to live and then what those years are going to be like for us. Are we going to be able to enjoy them? are Are we going to be full of anxiety and stress or our bodies so worn down that we can't really enjoy the time that we have here?
00:02:46
Speaker
For me, at least, these are much bigger concerns in my 40s than they were in my 20s or 30s because we're hitting midlife and it's kind of like, okay, I've got to kind of think about the long game here.
00:02:59
Speaker
i could have my foot on the gas and flooring it on this game of life in my 20s and much of my 30s. But, you know, then it kind of became a question of like, is that the way that I want to continue to operate?
00:03:14
Speaker
And i often use the metaphor of, you know, that we're running a race and we're doing it at a sprint speed. And then at some point in our maybe late thirties or early forties, or some, some time in our lives, we realize I'm running a marathon.
00:03:31
Speaker
This is not a
Self-Care Worthiness
00:03:32
Speaker
sprint. at This pace is just not sustainable. So for all of those reasons, and so many more. i hope that it is helpful for you.
00:03:42
Speaker
So the first thing that i want to talk about, because whenever I was thinking about what do i want to make sure that an executive mom knows about taking care of herself, I think the first thing i want you to know is that You are worthy of care.
00:03:58
Speaker
And not because you finished your to-do list, not because you hit every goal, not because you made it to some invisible finish line where you've decided, oh now I can take care of myself.
00:04:14
Speaker
But because you're a human and because we are all worthy of care and having needs is part of being human.
Barriers to Self-Care
00:04:23
Speaker
I know that there are a lot of things That keep us from taking care of ourselves. And i want to talk about some of those as well as talking about some of the ways we can counteract those.
00:04:37
Speaker
Because at first I had a whole list. There's there are a million different reasons why we don't take care of ourselves. And I thought, I don't really want to just list all of these out because everyone's going to agree, right? You're going to resonate with all of them.
00:04:50
Speaker
But I also just want to provide some reframes or opportunities for shifts to maybe think about it a little bit differently.
Cultural Conditioning Against Self-Care
00:04:59
Speaker
But I do think the awareness is important because, i mean, if you're just going and going and going all the time, of course, you're not stopping to think about why am I not taking care of myself?
00:05:12
Speaker
That's not really even a thought. You just kind of, you know, you you just believe the reasons that your brain offers whenever you think, oh, I should set up that appointment or I should take a day off. And then your brain says like, no, here's the reasons why you can't do that.
00:05:28
Speaker
So let's talk about those. First is social and cultural conditioning and what continues to get reinforced as girls and as women.
Reframing 'Selfish' as Necessary
00:05:38
Speaker
For so many of us in our culture and our society, we were raised to believe that being selfless is a good thing and that being selfish or self-centered is bad.
00:05:49
Speaker
And you see so many people, especially girls and especially women, praised for sacrificing, rewarded even, both it implicitly and explicitly.
00:06:03
Speaker
But it's like, oh look at her. She is really taking care of everybody else. She is really sacrificing herself. And it's like she's pointed to as that that is what we should aspire to.
00:06:18
Speaker
If you had a martyr mother who, you know, always told you how much she sacrificed for her kids. These are the kinds of things that we grow up with and that become internalized.
00:06:33
Speaker
in our brains and in our bodies. And we just believe that that's the way that it should be, that there is like a hierarchy that selfless is good, is better, higher on that hierarchy. And we should strive for putting other people's needs and wants and desires before our own.
00:06:50
Speaker
That's a good thing. And at the bottom, the bad part is whenever we are selfish. I mean, have you ever heard selfish in a positive context? Like she's so selfish.
00:07:02
Speaker
That's not usually a compliment. So we kind of have those values and expectations drilled into our minds throughout our childhood and then into our adulthood.
00:07:16
Speaker
What I would offer here is that selfish resourced, having your needs met actually allows you to give more generously and also more sustainably.
00:07:30
Speaker
The better that you're cared for, the more you can pour into others.
Time Constraints and Guilt
00:07:34
Speaker
And I think so many of my clients who are struggling with this, who are always putting everyone's needs before their own and not meeting their own needs and not taking care of themselves,
00:07:47
Speaker
A lot of times the bridge to get to a place where they can really focus on their own needs is to understand that when I focus on my needs, when I make sure that I have what I need and that I'm feeling sufficient, that I show up better for everyone else. I mean, think about when you've had a really good night of sleep.
00:08:09
Speaker
It might've been a long time ago if you've got little ones, but when you have a great night of sleep, Think about how you show up that next day and how it's different from if you were up all night with a baby or with your toddler or with your children.
00:08:26
Speaker
It's so different, right? Because you have more capacity. You have more of an ability to respond rather than react. And when we're tired and depleted, that's whenever we get snappy and mean, right? We don't show up the way that we want to show up.
00:08:46
Speaker
And that can be from sleep. That can be from food, you know, not having enough nutrients in our bodies. That can be from just being like completely touched out. That can be from so many different factors. But essentially what it boils down to is that we don't have our needs met.
00:09:04
Speaker
And when we don't have our needs met, we don't show up as the best version of ourselves. So I think it's so important to reframe that that idea that we have to put everyone else's needs first to, I need to put my needs first so that I can meet everyone else's needs, right?
00:09:25
Speaker
I need to take care of myself so that I can show up better for my kids, so that I can show up better for my partner, so I can show up better for my co-workers.
00:09:36
Speaker
And not that that's the end goal. The end goal is that We show up better for ourselves because we have that desire. But I think, like I said, kind of that bridge is really to think about that if we want to show up better for other people, we need to take care of ourselves.
Myth of Low-Maintenance
00:09:53
Speaker
The second reason why we do not take care of ourselves is because of time and guilt. So this is why it feels impossible. Because the story goes, there's never enough time.
00:10:06
Speaker
That's what we say to ourselves all the time. I don't have time for that. How many times have you said that today even? I think it's important to notice when we tell ourselves this. And when I do carve time out for myself, I feel guilty. I feel like I'm taking away from other things that I could be doing that are in service to other people.
00:10:27
Speaker
So like, for example, if i take a night off work, That's work that I could have been doing to, you know, get closer to my promotion or to support my team or to take care of my customers, right?
00:10:45
Speaker
If i decide to go have me time. whatever that might be, maybe it is a bubble bath or a massage, but maybe it's just going for a workout or going for a drink or a coffee with a friend.
00:11:00
Speaker
When we carve that time out for ourselves, a lot of times we feel this guilt because we're like, man, I work so much. I should spend all my time that I'm not working with my kids.
00:11:11
Speaker
And so then we feel guilty. So it's almost like we already believe that there's not enough time And we believe that story. And then whenever we do actually take some time for ourselves, we feel terrible the whole time. Or maybe we enjoy it, but then we feel terrible afterwards.
00:11:31
Speaker
And so then we're like, well, it's not even even worth it because it wasn't recharging. It wasn't refreshing. It didn't really do anything for me. I should have just spent the time with my kids or working or catching up on emails.
00:11:44
Speaker
So I think that this is a similar reframe, but I really, really believe that every minute and every dollar that you invest in yourself multiplies back to your family, to your team, to your relationships.
00:11:59
Speaker
Every time we invest in ourselves, it's not time taken away from something else. It's not money taken away from something else. It might look like that on a spreadsheet, right? Where you reallocate some funds to ah girl's trip or to just investing in a program or an experience that you know is going to help you to show up better instead of maybe something else for for your kids or for your partner, or for someone else that you love. And so you think like, oh, I look at these numbers and I'm taking away from that.
00:12:38
Speaker
And whenever we believe that, then it makes it really hard to do. But if we looked at that, just like we look at things when we're making strategic decisions at work and we looked at their ah roi which feels really intangible,
00:12:53
Speaker
but We know that the ah ah ROI of investing in ourselves means that we can give so much more back. It's not just that we take that away. The ah ROI is so much higher. It's time and money that returns value to everybody around you, your kids, your partner, your friends, your family, and your team.
Critique of Hustle Culture
00:13:16
Speaker
The third reason is beliefs that we have about needs. And I'm going to dive further into needs next week, but this is why we devalue them, why we devalue our needs.
00:13:32
Speaker
Because i think many of us believe, maybe not explicitly, but like, you know, there's maybe a secret belief that being low maintenance and not having a lot of needs makes us stronger, makes us more independent, makes us a better employee, makes us a better partner, more lovable, more likable.
00:13:59
Speaker
We think that not needing anything is a badge of honor. Just like I said about selfish, like have you ever heard someone say, she's so needy and that meant something positive.
00:14:12
Speaker
So we don't want to be needy. We like to be independent. We like to be able to take care of ourselves. And certainly, especially I think at work, we don't want to ask for anything at all because we don't believe that we should have needs at work, that we should have any needs beyond what is already kind of accounted for and expected.
00:14:36
Speaker
And so whenever we have a need, we try and talk ourselves out of it. Like, I don't really need that or i can figure it out. So instead of advocating for a needs, instead of going to ah HR and saying, i need this extra time off or I need additional resources or I need an assistant or whatever it might be.
00:15:01
Speaker
We think I can just power through, i can muscle through, and we even will tell ourselves a story that needing that must mean we're not strong enough, especially if our counterparts don't need the same things, right? And I think this is also a part of societal conditioning that somehow like it's better to not need anything.
00:15:22
Speaker
and as strong, independent women. I mean, it's nice to know that we can rely on ourselves and we don't have to ask other people to help meet our needs. But the reality is, is that sometimes we might have to.
00:15:35
Speaker
So I think the reframe here is that we need to recognize that we are human. I know that we want to be superhuman. And I know that we believe that we should not have needs like a regular muggle should have, but guess what?
00:15:56
Speaker
We are humans. We might be doing superhuman things, But at the end of the day, we are still human and we still have needs. And having needs as a human is not weakness.
00:16:08
Speaker
Your needs are valid and worthy of being met just like anyone else's. So like I said, we'll talk a lot more about that next week. Number four is hustle culture and perfectionism. So this is kind of why we push through.
00:16:24
Speaker
Coming from the tech startup world, I remember myself. always hearing that you need to keep your foot on the gas. You need to keep moving forward because if you stop, someone else is going to pass you up.
00:16:40
Speaker
If you slow down, there's always someone else, always a competitor out there running faster than you and they're going to pass you. And think that we have this fear, like a real fear that someone else is gonna come in and take our job. And I think especially for moms, there's a real fear that if we have to take too many days off to take our kids to the doctor or to be home with them while they're sick or whatever we need to do for our children,
00:17:18
Speaker
that there's a younger, single, childless person, usually a man, who's willing to step in and take our jobs, right? And we kind of like have that fear in us.
00:17:32
Speaker
And I'm not saying it's not a legitimate concern. I'm not saying that it's not true. But what I think is important for us to recognize is the value that we bring to a workplace that is not replaceable. So the culture is always telling us, keep your foot on the gas or you're going to fall behind.
00:17:56
Speaker
So I think then we're like, oh my gosh, like I've got to push through. I've got to keep pushing, pushing, pushing. And we push through exhaustion and illness and burnout just so that we don't fall behind and just so that we don't get passed by.
00:18:11
Speaker
And so I think the opportunity for a reframe here is to recognize that rest and care are performance tools.
00:18:22
Speaker
We may need more rest than we did in our 20s, but that doesn't mean anything bad. It doesn't mean that we are weaker or less capable or that we are a drain on our organizations or higher maintenance or anything like that.
00:18:39
Speaker
It just means that we have learned what we need to show up at our best. And when we honor that, then we're able to continue showing up at our best.
00:18:51
Speaker
And so the 20 year old just out of college can probably do all the late nights and early mornings and travel and everything like
Permission and Trust for Self-Care
00:19:01
Speaker
that. And that's amazing.
00:19:03
Speaker
They bring something different to the organization than you do. And that's great that we have all different people doing different things and bringing different kind of value to the organization. But if we are comparing ourselves to the younger version of ourselves, then we're never going to measure up.
00:19:20
Speaker
We have to just be real with where we're at today and meet ourselves there and stop denying the reality of what we need. Okay. And then the final one is this idea of needing permission,
00:19:38
Speaker
So this is kind of why we hold back. I think that oftentimes we're kind of waiting for someone else to tell us that it's okay to slow down. It's okay to step back. It's okay to say no.
00:19:50
Speaker
It's okay to take a break. It's okay to meet our own needs. And we kind of outsource our autonomy and our own decision-making, our own trust in ourselves, in knowing ourselves,
00:20:06
Speaker
what our body and our minds need because we're looking externally and we're waiting for somebody else to say, Hey, why don't you take a break? Hey, looks like you need a vacation.
00:20:19
Speaker
Hey, it's okay to rest. Right. A lot of times we're looking for someone else to kind of tell us that. And we sit in this kind of victim seat.
00:20:30
Speaker
Our culture Our hustle culture that loves to go progress, progress, progress, go, go, go, hustle, hustle, hustle is not reliable. We cannot rely on other people to determine that for us.
00:20:42
Speaker
In adulthood, we need to be responsible for checking in with ourselves and determining when we have a need that's going unmet and then meet that need.
00:20:54
Speaker
And that's true for every adult. Obviously, we aren't all amazing at this. So You know, we can certainly help each other out. But again, we need to be responsible for that. We need to be responsible for ourselves and to trust ourselves to know whenever we have a need that we can meet it without anybody else telling us that it's okay.
00:21:16
Speaker
So really the reframe here or the thing to think about here is that you do not need permission. Your worthiness is enough. You are allowed to choose yourself right now. I just want to invite you.
00:21:29
Speaker
to imagine something different. What if prioritizing yourself and taking care of yourself didn't take away from anyone else, but it actually made you better at everything else?
00:21:43
Speaker
What if your kids got the best of you because you weren't running on fumes? What if your team at work benefited because you were centered and clear instead of depleted?
Reflecting on Personal Barriers
00:21:52
Speaker
What if you could show up for your partner, your friends, your community from a place of wholeness? That is not selfish.
00:21:59
Speaker
That is caring for yourself and caring for those around you. And that is sustainable. So here is what I'd love to invite you to reflect on this week.
00:22:10
Speaker
Which of these five barriers that I talked about resonates most for you right now? What comes up whenever you go to take care of yourself or when you just think about it or you have a passing thought about it?
00:22:21
Speaker
Is it that one about not having enough time? Is it that one of that no one's given you permission? Is it that one that you're not supposed to have needs? You know, what is it? The first thing we always do in any kind of program for transformation is to build awareness, to get aware about what's going on.
00:22:46
Speaker
And then what would shift for you if you tried on the reframe that I offered instead, even just for one small choice this week. So I want to encourage you to try it just once this week and see what happens.
Introduction to Executive Mom Reset
00:23:01
Speaker
And i think that as we do it more and more, we get more in the practice, then it starts to become our default way of being and of showing up rather than feeling like it is totally out of the ordinary for us.
00:23:17
Speaker
So this is exactly why i created the Executive Mom Reset. Because I really want to help executive moms really build a foundation for making themselves a priority without guilt.
00:23:30
Speaker
Because I believe that you are worthy of care. And I believe that when we invest in women and moms, we get so much back. Our communities get better. Our workplaces get better. Our families and friendships get better.
00:23:44
Speaker
And so over the next several episodes, we're going to get even more and more practical about what this looks like day to day. So I have created a new program within the Executive Mom Reset.
00:23:57
Speaker
I have previously only offered this as one-on-one coaching program. But what I would really like to do is bring together women because I've done some group coaching programs where women come together and it is so powerful.
00:24:12
Speaker
And so I want to bring together women to talk about these kinds of things and to help to teach you the tools and the skills to really start taking care of yourself.
00:24:25
Speaker
Through coaching, through that program, we will also identify those barriers and work through them together so that you are supported by me and by a community of women. So if you're interested in joining us for that, it's called the Executive Mom Reset Foundations.
00:24:42
Speaker
The next program will begin October 21st, and you can head on over to CoachLiana.com to learn more and register there. I hope to see you there.
00:24:53
Speaker
And so over the next several episodes, we're going to get even more practical about what this looks like day to day.
Details of the Executive Mom Reset Program
00:25:01
Speaker
But today, the thing I want you to carry with you is that taking care of yourself is not optional, and you do not need to earn it.
00:25:11
Speaker
I'll see you all next week. Thanks so much for tuning in. If you're loving what you're learning on this podcast, I want to invite you to come join me for the Executive Mom Reset. We offer both one-on-one and group coaching formats, and our next group is starting in October 2025. I created the Executive Mom Reset to help high-achieving moms feel less anxious, more confident, and more in control of their lives.
00:25:36
Speaker
Instead of feeling like you're being pulled in a hundred different directions, you'll learn how to pause, reset, and approach challenges with clarity and confidence. You'll stop running on autopilot, stop second guessing yourself all the time, and stop letting stress, guilt, and overwhelm dictate your day.
00:25:54
Speaker
You'll walk away with the tools and the confidence that you can use every day to feel stronger, more empowered, and more in alignment with the life you want to be living. Head on over to coachleana.com to learn more and to get signed up.
00:26:08
Speaker
I really hope to see you there.