Episode 54: #1 Ready or Not: Navigating Change as a Working Mom
ITUNES | SPOTIFY
In this first episode of the Ready or Not mini-series, Katelyn tackles the question so many of us ask when we're considering change: Is it the right time? Whether you're thinking about a new job, tweaking a routine, or making time for something new, the timing rarely feels right. She explains why your brain resists change, even when it’s for the better—and how waiting for the “perfect time” might keep you stuck, and why small steps matter—especially in busy seasons. Plus, hear how her backyard garden became a powerful reminder that starting now is almost always worth it.
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
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 Hey there. I've got a quick question for you. Do you ever feel like there's never enough time to do all the things that you need to do as a working mom? If you're anything like my clients and a lot of the listeners I've been talking to, I'm guessing the answer is yes, no matter what. You try from time blocking and turning off notifications to fancy planners or intricate lists, full of color coded categories.
Nothing seems to really have an impact on the size of your to-do list, let alone how you feel about how much you got done each day. If you resonate with that, I've got something for you. I am bringing back my popular training called Plenty of Time, four Steps to Create More Space in Your Working Mom Schedule.
During this class, I'm gonna walk you through exactly how to get things done in the time that you have, no matter what season of life you're in or how busy you are. It is happening on Thursday, July 31st at 12 noon Eastern time, 9:00 AM Pacific. No complicated tools or just double down mentality. This is just a simple, repeatable way to make progress on that never ending list.
Go to the mother nurture.com/class to get all signed up. Again, that's the mother nurture.com/class. I can't wait to see you there.
  📍 You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.
 Welcome back to the podcast. I have something so fun to share with you, which you probably noticed as you were logging into your podcast player. I just dropped several episodes at once. I decided to record a mini series. About change called Ready or Not Navigating Change as a working mom. This has been coming up with my coaching clients, in my group program with you, all the listeners here, and even in my own life. the topic of change and navigating change to give you a few examples there are working moms who are questioning whether to change roles or jobs or to just stay in their current role because it's familiar.
It is a known variable. Moms who are feeling like it's time to change a sleep schedule or a feeding routine, but that just feels like this huge thing to tackle and to do and, and maybe, maybe things are just fine as they are. Others who are thinking about training for a race, or even just taking a new workout class or a supplement, it's one more thing to add to the schedule, to the morning routine or to fit in.
And do you really have the capacity for that? Will it be hard? Will you be able to follow through? And this doesn't even address the changes that feel like they are happening to us. I hate to use the word forced, but you know what I mean? Forced upon us. What's happening at the macro level in our world right now, maybe at your work with our families and with our health.
So there are the changes happening whether we like it or not, whether we're ready or not, and then the changes that we are contemplating making on purpose, initiating ourselves. There's also a lot of uncertainty around change. , what does this mean? What will it look like? And that leads to feeling a little bit anxious and overwhelmed, which I find also leads to avoiding change, to second guessing if this is the right time, and wondering if a change is worth it given everything else that is happening.
So over the next few episodes in this series, I want to address change. I want to dig in and talk about it with you. I want to help you think through how to decide if this is the right time to make a change, how to prepare for and navigate the changes that you might make on purpose. And then how to manage change and really embrace it.
So some shifts in perspective that I have found really helpful that I want to offer to you. I. You can take me on a series of walks over the next few days. Listen to these episodes one at a time. They're very short. You can listen to them all at once. If you are in a season of change and this is feeling really timely or relevant for you, you can dive in and binge listen to them all at once.
That's why they're all here being released on the same day. But ultimately I want you to feel confident in your ability to navigate change, to initiate change, and to embrace it. Now, even if you're listening and thinking, I'm not scared of change, like change is the norm. I I understand that the only constant in life is change.
I'd still encourage you to listen to the series and recommit to that perspective, to that belief, to feel even more grounded in your perspective on change. So much of the work that I do with my clients in coaching is about initiating change and trusting themselves to be able to navigate it. I mean, that is what coaching is.
Essentially. It's change. It's about assessing where you are right now in the present, deciding where you want to go, or what you want your work or your life to look like, and then creating a plan to close that gap to make changes that will ultimately get you to the life that you want.
I am teaching a class coming up on July 31st. That is all about changing how you think about your time. It's about changing how you use your time and manage your time. I'm teaching a four part framework that will require you if you choose to follow it, and I highly recommend that you do. It will require you to change a few things to be less reactive and more intentional with your time.
If you wanna get things done in the time that you have and stop feeling so rushed and behind, or like you never have enough time, then the changes I'm teaching in this class will 100% be worth it.
If you haven't yet, you can go to themothernurture.com/class to get signed up, and I hope that this series helps you feel prepared and confident to make those changes in a way that's not overwhelming, but totally doable in your already busy life. All right, let's get into it. So in this episode, I wanna talk about this question of is it the right time?
How to know when it's time for a change, when we're thinking about making a change from, I don't know, something small like. Taking a morning walk when you're not doing that already, or adjusting a nap schedule to something bigger, like a potential career change or taking on a new project at home or at work.
One of the first questions we ask is, is it the right time? Before you can answer that, it's important to remember that your brain is wired to favor the familiar. It wants to be efficient, so it looks for patterns. It looks for what it already knows because it is faster and more efficient to just repeat than to do something different, to learn something different.
The phrase creatures of habit exists for a reason. Now I will be the first to say that routines and habits are so important. I teach the skills of developing these for yourself so that you can free up space and time and energy for things that matter more than you know, loading the dishwasher or brushing your teeth, but your brain interprets change as risk.
Even when the current situation isn't ideal, at least we already know what it's like. Again, that known quantity, that known variable, I. Maybe you are just in a really busy season of life right now. Work is insanely busy. You are tackling a big project at home. You are potty training or in the middle of a sleep regression, so it doesn't feel like
The quote unquote right. Time to change jobs to implement a new routine to. Focus on your finances or tackle that home improvement project, or add in a new weekly exercise routine. You're going from not doing something to adding something new in and changing the way you do things.
It makes sense why we wait, why we push things off, or procrastinate or delay. We want life to be less chaotic before we introduce something new because we wonder could we handle something new? Could we handle anything more than what we are already managing? Do you have the time that that something new will take?
Or do you have the energy? How much energy will this new thing or this new way of doing something take. These are all valid questions, and if you are asking those of yourself, I love that you are asking those questions. You want to keep yourself safe. You don't want to push yourself over the edge, take on too much or overextend yourself.
But you also have to ask, what if the right time never comes? Because when is life ever not going to be full or busy or chaotic? As parents and especially as parents who are also growing a career, we are never not in some sort of transition. If it's not a transition at home, it's a transition at work. And if it's not at work, then it's something at home.
Think about it. How many times have you said to yourself or to someone else? I just have to get through X. When you get through that thing, you'll be ready for rest. You'll be ready for a break, and then you might have the capacity.
But even if you get a little break, it's in most cases short because either right on the heels or shortly thereafter, the next thing comes. You could wait weeks, or months, or even years for it to feel like the right time for it to feel like you have the time or the energy to make this change.
Or you could decide that there is no such thing as the right time, that the abnormal is normal. That the unexpected or the unplanned weeks are the normal weeks,
and you might not truly feel ready to make a change on purpose to take on that project, to go after that promotion, to change the way you parent or change the way you take care of yourself. Because the truth is that any change often does feel inconvenient, at least at first. But that doesn't mean it's wrong or it's the wrong time.
It doesn't mean that it's not worth it. And you almost always thank your past self for starting that thing when you did, for making that change when you did. I was out in our yard this weekend. We hosted a lot of people for an outdoor grill out potluck, and
I was looking around at all of the landscaping projects that we've done over the seven years that we've been in this house, typically one per season. I looked at our raised beds where we are now growing all sorts of veggies and cut flowers. I looked at our overgrown raspberry bushes that gave us pounds of raspberries just a couple of weeks ago.
I looked at the beds that I've planted around our patio and throughout the yard full of plants and flowers that I love. And I remember when we did each of those projects, it's, they're imprinted in my mind. I think our raised beds were during 2020 when we were trying to work at home with three really young kids and, and for all of them really.
I remember being tired, sleepless nights with kids, or potty training one of the three, or taking on a new role at work and starting my business. Even those landscaping projects felt like extra. An extra something that we chose to do on top of everything else. And I remember thinking, do we really have the capacity for this?
Do we really have the time and the energy for this? Maybe we should just be surviving. Maybe we should just be making it through our days. There will be time in the future. There will be a better time, an easier time. Now if you garden at all, you know that those plans take time to grow, to fill in, and I am so grateful to my past self for doing those projects, even when it didn't feel at the time, like the right time.
I am grateful that she did it with young kids. Because today I'm enjoying this beautiful yard that I love to have people over too, to spend time in. And also I'm grateful because I'm not afraid of the next project, the next new thing. If I could do it, then I can absolutely do it now. So the question you have to ask yourself is what if there is no such thing as the right time?
And what if the change you are considering doesn't take as much time or energy as you think it will?
In my upcoming class, plenty of time, I'm teaching you how to make small, sustainable changes to your schedule and your to-do list that will help you get things done with the time that you have so that you can create more space. I. Don't wait for đź“Ť things to get easier, for life, to be less busy, or the kids to be older.
Let me show you how to do it in a way that fits into everything else that you have going on as a working mom. Head to themothernurture.com/class to register and I'll talk to you in the next mini episode.
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