Episode 59: From “I Can’t” to “I Did”: Ashley’s Beyond Balance Story
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If you've ever thought - "there's no way I can do that with everything I have going on" - you're going to want to listen to this episode. I’m joined by my Beyond Balance client Ashley — a working mom of two young kids who shares her journey of setting and actually achieving her goals by meeting herself where she is.
We talk about how she finally started strength training after months of “thinking about it,” how a simple calendar shift helps her get more done, and how she’s now making space not just for workouts, but for hobbies, community, and even planning her first solo trip in years.
This one’s an honest, encouraging reminder that progress is possible — even in the busiest season of motherhood.
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
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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 another episode of the podcast. I am so excited to share with you a conversation that I had with my client, Ashley,
who is a member of the current cohort of my group program Beyond Balance. If you have ever thought, there's no way I can do that with everything I have going on, you're going to wanna listen to this episode. Ashley is a working mom of two young kids and she shares her experience of setting and actually achieving her goals by meeting herself where she is in her current season of life.
We talk about how she finally started strength training after wanting to fit that in for so long. The simple calendar shifts that she has made to help her get more done and feel better about how much she's getting done and how she is now making space not just for her workouts, but for so many other hobbies and community, and even thinking about what is next in terms of her goals.
I'll let you listen in now, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as we enjoyed having it.
Hey Ashley. Thanks so much for joining me for this conversation on the podcast.
I'm really excited and it's an honor to be on this podcast that I myself find very useful.
Yay. Love it. So, Ashley has been a client for a little while. She's done one-on-one coaching and is currently in the Beyond Balance Group program.
And so Ashley, could you just to get us started, share. A quick intro about yourself, what you do, what family, life is like for you, and then we'll get into talking about your experience.
Yeah, absolutely. So my name's Ashley. I live in the Southeast United States and I work for a conservation non-profit.
I work remotely and I manage, a couple of , their national programs. , my role is wide reaching, I work from home and we live in a very rural area, so both of my kids are also at home while I'm here, , with a nanny and they are two under four years old.
So baby stage, toddler stage.
Yes, which is a whole stage. We were just talking this week about that dynamic. For anyone listening who can relate. Who has more than one child where they're not quite playing together yet, and you're doing a lot of, you know, don't destroy this thing that you've built or this craft that you're making, but still trying to be with both of them together.
And, , it does go by quickly, but when you're in it, you're in it. Yes.. So, , I would love to hear from you, if you think back to, as we were wrapping up one-on-one coaching and thinking about what was next for you and you were considering beyond balance the group program, what interested you maybe about trying a slightly different coaching experience from one-on-one, which you'd been doing.
Yeah, so I loved the one-on-one coaching. But as we neared the end of kind of our, first term together, if you wanna call it that, , I didn't feel like financially we were in a place to continue one-on-one coaching.
Our family wasn't. And when you mentioned beyond balance, I was like, well, it's a little bit less intensive than one-on-one coaching in terms of FaceTime.
, but it still felt like it would be supportive, and as somebody who works from home and as a mom of young kids, I'm always on the hunt for community, so I thought maybe it would satisfy those three things and another thing, is that in our one-on-one coaching, we worked a lot on. My mindsets and, , we definitely did some like tactical, strategic concrete things and changes that I made. , but I, I felt a desire to drill down a little bit more on routines and about how to strategize just like the minutia of.
Family stuff and I, it seemed like beyond balance was the place to do that.
Hmm. So what were your goals when you came into the group? So one of the things , that we do in the first week or so, as the group is forming and coming together and getting used to each other, is think about , for each of the women in the group, what is it that you want to walk away with at the end of our time together?
What do you want to. Have learned, what do you want to be making time for that maybe you're not currently. So there are always a variety of goals that everyone is focused on. Can you share a little bit about what you were hoping to walk away with?
The biggest goal that I articulated on paper into the group was that I wanted to be weightlifting twice a week.
Strength training two times a week. , when we began, it's weird to say now, it was only eight weeks ago, but when we started Beyond Balance, I was not doing that. And it was something that I really, I don't know, it was something that I had arrived at as the next. Step in my health evolution, I guess. , so that was the big one.
I didn't really write down many more that were specific because one skill that I gained in one-on-one coaching was to set achievable goals and things that were realistic. Um, so obviously I wanted to be working out five days a week, but I set it for two days a week. There were other things too that were in my mind and that have come up throughout the course of beyond balance.
I'm just looking around at my desk right now and there's so much that has changed. So maybe that's a different talking point. But for goals it was the working out twice a week.
I do wanna come back to that of looking around and what else has changed, because there are certainly lots of things that are popping into my mind when I think about you and what you've been able to do, in just eight weeks, .
But can we start with , the working out goal, because I think that's such a common response when you think about something that you really want to do. You, haven't been doing it in a while. Probably , the working out consistently strength training again. And so of course what we want to do is be doing that five times a week.
And so let's just set our goal at five times a week and I love. Your approach and would like you to share a little bit more about what that experience has been like in practice of setting the goal at two,
yeah. Well, I think there's actually a lot of layers to this. Historically in my life, I would've been like, yeah, I work out five times a week, and then I don't know what I would've done, gone out and found a YouTube video or something.
We don't live anywhere near a gym. That's not like a realistic thing to drive to the gym. So. We do have a home gym set up in our garage that we invested quite a bit in. My husband, , is very into CrossFit and so that exists out there on the other end of the house. Um, but again, to make things achievable and realistic, I started, , following a program.
It's actually a pelvic floor therapy. I guess that's the start of it, but it's kind of like rehab to fitness, and after having my second baby, I had some pelvic floor health issues and so I started there. And that was really important because it was just a matter of click and go on the video. So barrier to entry was very low.
, I started doing it in my, and I'm still doing it actually in my office, so I don't have to go into the other parts of the house and get roped into whatever's happening with the kids, which is why the garage while physically close is not. A great place for me to try to go do this.
I so relate to that.
Like before you go on, I can't tell you the number of times I would just hide out in my office when the kids were at home with a sitter or a nanny. It's like once you go out there, all bets are off.
Yep. It exactly.
But in my office, I didn't even have like the proper equipment that the videos talked about having. So I don't even have a yoga mat in here, but I have like a anti-fatigue mat, you know, that people stand like at their sink or whatever. Yeah.
That was in here. And then, , a lot of times the exercises called to have like a small ball held between your knees. And this is also our guest bedroom. So I had like a stiff pillow that I just folded up in between my knees and for two months I'm making it work. And I think that is something that old me would've been like, well, I don't have the right equipment.
I can't do this. And that would've been that. Mm. But now I was like, well, it's just gonna be good enough. And it has been. I've had. A lot of progress. , I'm now into the phase of actually building strength, , and I've learned so much about my body and health and I feel very empowered.
Hopefully in the next month or so, I will be making time to go out in the garage and lift real weights. But, , yeah, and I guess the frequency too. So this is a little bit of a sidebar, but I also, through the course of Beyond Balance, came up with a new, I dunno, I guess you'd call it, time management system, calendar System, planning system.
, anyway, I scheduled in time for this during my workday, and so it's on my calendar. And I have everything time blocked, and so when the time comes up for me to do that, I'm like, all right, this is what I'm doing. So I was actually able to do much more. I would say my average is three times a week.
I've frequently gotten four sessions in per week. , and I think it's just a matter of having it scheduled in there and again, letting good enough be good enough in case I don't get the whole thing done. , so recently, I dunno if it was last week or the week before, , I was actually only able to do it twice that week and I had been doing it much more frequently. And so it felt kinda like a failure. And then I reviewed, I was like, well, actually two times a week is my goal, so I'm just gonna be fine with that.
That's gonna be good. I met my goal and I think that was important to have and powerful.
Yes. I think we just forget that just because we say two times a week or a one time a week or whatever your goal is, doesn't mean you have to stop there. If you have a week where when you're looking at the calendar and you're setting your priorities, you can put three or four sessions in, you can do that.
But as we know with kids and. And you could give so many examples of the unexpected things that have happened just in the last eight weeks. Pretty significant, unexpected things for you that you can still feel good about two times a week because that was your minimum. That was your minimum baseline when you started, and that was more than what you were doing before, which is just wild.
Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about the calendaring, , system planning system that you've put in place? It's so interesting how everyone ends up with their own version, and I hope you would agree it, it's very different from person to person. We have seven women in the group right now, and everybody's doing their own way, using their own tools and.
I was looking back at some of the things that you've shared so far and.
You have shared wins. Like I had a super productive morning and crossed things off my list that have been on there for a long time, or, I love this time blocking approach because when I finish things early, I can treat myself to a walk or to a shower. And I'm, and I remember one that you shared where you said, I've been adhering.
To this new system. So it's not that you just set it up, but you're actually following it. And I'm curious, one, maybe to share a little bit about what that looks like for you, but two, what that has allowed you to do that you weren't doing before.
Oh my gosh, yes. I'm gonna try to remember all the things that I wanna say about this.
Okay. Because I'm, I'm like, this is very, I love this so. I'll just preface by saying I am very much an analog person. I've never liked using digital tools to organize my life. , I know for some people that's amazing. They love it. For me, I don't, I'm a paper person. So for years now, I would say for seven years probably, I've had a moleskin notebook.
I have, I don't know, eight of them now in the dresser drawer where I just write, it's where I would write my to-do list for the day. Which, frequently would just snowball into like two pages of things that haven't gotten done yet, and then where I take notes during meetings or jot down thoughts I have, it's just like a catchall.
And I thought it was working good enough, which I guess it was, I was living, surviving, but I don't remember exactly how I came to this. Through the group, I decided to start using, we use Outlook, , our organization does for our email. Calendar management and so I, in Outlook, what I do is I.
Block out my meetings and my appointments that exist, of course. And then also the tasks that I have to do. So for the week, I'll have, like, I have this podcast recording on there, obviously, but, , before that I had 30 minutes of inbox management and later today I have to send out some invoices to some partners.
And so I have, 45 minutes blocked for that. And by doing that. Not only was it something that I can print out, so Outlook has this feature where you can print, like on one page, it's Monday through Friday of your calendar. So I print it out and I have it on my desk for the week. Actually, I print it out on Friday, which is awesome because then all weekend I know what the next week is gonna look like.
, and the night before I can see what tomorrow looks like without having to log into my computer, which for me is just like low grade stressful. I don't know why, especially on the weekend. So visually it's very nice because by doing that, previously I didn't, I don't have that many structured appointments for my work.
Typically, like a typical work week has quite a bit of open space where I can dictate how I'm gonna use that time. But when I put in all the things I have to do and how much time I think they're gonna take, my calendar is very full. And being able to see that and understand that has helped me so much when I come to a task.
I see how much time I have to do it, so I'm motivated to get it done in that timeframe. And I've found I'm very motivated to not procrastinate and push things off because I can visually understand there is no other time this week where I'm gonna be able to come back to that. And likewise, if I get derailed with something with the kids or what have you, I can very quickly prioritize what I still have to do in the time that I have.
So. I love it. I don't know if that covers everything, but
yeah.
How have you found estimating time? So like you mentioned invoices, how are you able to know or guess that that's about a 45 minute task? I think that's something that I hear a lot and I recognize that maybe it comes easier for some people than others. So I'm curious what that has been like for you.
Well, I've been in my current role long enough that most of what I'm doing are repeated. , there are things I've done before at least once, so I have a little bit of a baseline there. But the other gift that this has given me is that I overestimate now how long something's gonna take. So if I think I can get it done in 20 minutes, I'll schedule it for 40.
The reason being. When I need to go and nurse the baby and I also need to find something for the nanny. And then, oh, the dog needs to be let out. Like I've, that's how I build in buffer time, which is something that I think you brought up maybe in one of our lessons and beyond balance was like going to the bathroom, filling up your water bottle, whatever it is, like that also takes time and that's something that needs to be accounted for in scheduling, which previously I never did.
So I overestimate how long something's gonna take, and then it's like a double benefit, because if I finish something in less time than was required, I've given myself the gift of breathing room where I can take a shower if one's needed or you know, like, uh, an example, so before this meeting, I had inbox management on my calendar.
I finished it and I had 15 minutes left before this meeting. Historically, I would've just. Use that time to lose myself in the internet. , but we've had , a significant dietary change. We have a dietary restriction in our family now that we just found out about, and so I spent that time scanning recipes out of a book that I got from the library for us to try.
And that was something else that was on my list to do. I probably would've done it on the weekend, but I was able to just knock it out in that time. So I'm able to use my time much more efficiently, I think, because I have a 30,000 foot view of what needs to be done, and then I create these little pockets that I can do it in.
Mm. So some of it is repeatable tasks that you just have the experience and knowledge that this generally takes me this long. But what I'm hearing is that a lot of it is you overestimating on purpose so that you are accounting then for the interruptions, for the things that take a couple of minutes here or five minutes there and.
It just gives you that extra breathing room.
Yeah, and it makes me feel much more accomplished at the end of the day to see that everything on my list, which is my calendar, got done or was addressed. Before coaching I would, have a list of more than 20 things to do every day.
And at some point in our interactions, I whittled that down to three things, which sounded absurd at the outset. I was like, three things. I need to get way more than that done. But I just made my list be three things and I. Was very most often able to achieve those three things and then sometimes more.
And the feeling kind of going back to working out twice a week, being a realistic goal, that feeling kind of snowballed into. I don't know. I used to go into like a procrastination spiral, feel like I didn't have enough time to do stuff. And then it was like, well, I'm not gonna have enough time to do this.
I might as well just not even try, kind of thing. , so really overestimating the time things are gonna take, I think helps me achieve more, which is paradoxical, but true. Yeah.
I'm so happy to have someone else say that here, because I feel like. I dunno. It's like when your mom tells you to do something, you're like, yeah, that's not true.
Yeah. So thank you for being another voice to say, and I've just seen it happen over and over again when we constrain, when we, I hate to say lower our expectations, but we just expect that we are not going to get through all 20 things. It does shift something for you and trust me when I say if you're listening to this, you just have to try it to believe it, like you need to experience it for yourself.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Can we go back, well, you started to get into sitting at your desk, looking around the room at the things that feel different for you now. Is there anything else that we haven't touched on that comes to mind for you in terms of what's changed?
Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things I think I don't even order.
Again, I could just name all the things at my desk, but, for one thing, , my calendar system, which. So much more than a calendar system is really important to me. I can look right now and see that I've already, I already have one workout session done this week. It's Wednesday right now.
I have two more scheduled and so it's another visual way for me to track. Historically, I would've been like, how many times did I workout this week? I don't really know. So it was easy to just put it off because who knows how close to my goal I actually was. Hmm. So tracking, I have things up on my wall.
That are highlighting my priorities. So, , in my job we're coming up on our annual reviews and I am gonna be asking for a raise. And so I have. A lot of things up on my wall that I look at every day. Practicing , those talking points for that conversation, and understanding the value that I bring to the organization and having all of that stuff kind of ready in my mind, which is not something I ever would've thought to do before.
,
, looking out my window, my garden is just like insane. And it snowballed into not only. Something that I'm passionate about and I care about, but I'm actually gonna be going to an event by a local master gardener's group, , in a couple weeks to learn about something I've wanted to learn about.
And I'm excited about integrating more into that group and maybe becoming a master gardener myself, which previous to coaching is something that I would've just laughed off as absurd. , trying to find the time. Why,
why would you have laughed that off as absurd?
I think just , the prospect of it sounds so big, right?
Like before I would've been like, all right, I need to become a master gardener and researched all the things that that means, and then been overwhelmed and not done anything about it. , but instead I decided that I wanted to reach out and make some connections in our community. And so they have an event coming up and I have, I don't know what it takes to become a master gardener, but I wanna know about growing fall veggies.
So I'm going to this event and I'm just gonna ask people there about it and see where it goes. , so instead of thinking about it as like this massive time commitment, it's a two hour event that I'm just gonna go to.
Yes. I that for you, you'd be an amazing master gardener. I think you're a master gardener already.
I have made a lot of headway in the last few years. Yeah. With gardening, which I'm proud of. , also there's like a. A couple toys that we picked up actually just last night at the store because in our most recent coaching call I identified, , afternoons, like when my husband gets home from work and the nanny leaves as a major pinch point for a family.
It's just like a really challenging time to get through. , and so by crowdsourcing that in the group, , having like special toys that only come out at that time and having some high quality snacks. Or something that, , we identified as potential ways to smooth that transition. And so I've got those in here in my office today.
It's gonna be the first day that we try it.
Mm.
I don't know. There's other things too, but it is a lot. Like, I think the biggest thing for me is, and this has happened during our one-on-one coaching, and also now in beyond balance, it feels very small. Everything that we do and talk about.
But after a few weeks or a month or two months, I stand back and look at it all, and I'm just blown away by how much has changed. And just by doing little things, like taking little bites.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, who knows at what point you'll be looking back and saying, I'm a master gardener now, and it all started by just going to this one.
Class or workshop on fall veggies. Yeah. I didn't make it into this huge thing. I can just start where I am and I love your examples so much because you came into this group and your goal was the strength, getting the pelvic floor exercises done so you could feel strong enough to work out.
And while you are making progress on that, you're also shifting and making small changes to all of these other areas because the skills apply, whether you are talking about master gardening or strength training, or how to get through your work task list or. Anything else, the skills apply across all of those, and so you pick one to start with and then I see it over and over again.
It can't help but influence all of the other areas of your life and there's so much space and opportunity for you to bring whatever else is on your mind to the group, to coaching, and , I loved that in our recent call. We could think through, okay, , how can we make these afternoons just a little more manageable?
, and then everyone else in the group who is, you know, we're all parents, we're all managing careers as well, came in with other ideas for you , to consider and think about, all right, what might I wanna try and experiment with? And here you are, a day later, taking action.
Honestly talking about the skills transferring is something that, like the concrete things that I've.
Done are wonderful and valuable, but having those skills as a touchstone are what's most valuable to me. And I think being in the group, hearing a lot of women talk about their experience with their partners and in their families has helped normalize some of the challenges that I've had being a mom and trying to navigate those spaces and.
Has given me some inspiration in how to approach pinch points. So like an example, just yesterday I talked to my husband about this. He, his goal is to come home from work and work out for an hour immediately, which is like devastating to me, right? Because after the whole day I'm just wrung out and the last thing I want to do is watch the kids alone while he goes and has his gym time.
, but. With this, the new strategies that we're gonna employ. I brought up to him yesterday. I was like, you know, a whole theme of coaching for me has been just like, take a small step, right? Like try one thing. And so I asked him if he would be interested in just trying to work out for 30 minutes when he gets home.
Like, can we just test run that and see how it is? And I was like, I know it's not a full, like you do your warm up and cool down and so like it eats up a lot of time, but it's the starting point. And. I guess maybe I didn't give him enough credit because much to my surprise, he was like, yeah, I mean 30 minutes is better than nothing.
And that felt like a really big win for me. And that was something that I pulled directly from my experience being coached.
I love that. That's great. Love it when people surprise us and he is already seeing that that's better than nothing. And I think too, it's important to remember.
For you , and for anyone who's again thinking, well, that doesn't feel like enough. Or, two days is not five days, or 30 minutes is not an hour. It's also about what can you do in this season and seasons change and are often shorter than we think they're going to be. And who knows?
You've seen how much has changed in the last eight weeks for you. Who knows what the next month or two or six will bring. And maybe as the kids get older or as the seasons shift, , you just have no idea. And so an hour might be possible again, but for right now, 30 minutes is the place that you wanna start.
Let's try it. Let's see how it feels for both of us. Yeah, everything's changeable, really
yeah, and I, this just popped into my mind. I don't know if it's germane, but it feels big to me. And maybe there's other people with little ones, really little ones that can identify with this. But hunting is a big part of my life and my, our family culture.
It's something that we both grew up doing and so we feed ourselves and my husband goes on hunting trips every year, and I haven't been on one since my first child was born, more than four years ago now, because I just never felt like I could be gone from them for that long. It wasn't that anyone told me I couldn't, I just didn't feel like I could and.
Now this coming fall, I don't quite feel ready, but I reached out to one of my good friends and told her that for 2026, I am for sure going on a trip. So let's plan it. Let's think about where we wanna go and who we wanna bring with us. And that's something that for a long time has just felt.
Like, I know it's something that would gimme so much life and would be so valuable to me, but it just has not been something that I was willing to prioritize and I'm finally coming into the season like I can see it on the horizon where that is not only gonna be a possibility, but a reality. So I'm excited about that.
Yeah, I think a lot of these practices as well, there is something. To the experience of proving to yourself that you can do something that previously felt impossible.
Yes. And you
start with the small, like, let me work out twice a week and follow through on that. Let me plan my week and follow through on that.
Let me set up a new. Schedule or way of managing the afternoons with the kids and follow through on that. And then you start to think, well, if I can do that, if I can show up to my gardening workshop this weekend well, maybe I could take the steps to become a master gardener.
Or if I can do this thing that felt hard a couple of weeks ago or a couple of months ago. Maybe I can go on a trip next year. And so part of it is, yes, the kids get older, circumstances change. But the other big piece of that is the more you prove that you can do these things, the more it opens up for you in terms of what else might be possible.
Perfectly articulated.
That
is what
I was trying to get across. I mean, it's such a great example, and again, it's, you will look back when you're on that trip, I bet in 2026. And this will feel just like a completely different lifetime. You know, you remember when I, when I could never, I couldn't even do this simple thing and now look at me.
Yeah. I love that. As we wrap up, , is there anything that you might say or offer for consideration to someone who is maybe on the fence about joining or jumping into a group experience like beyond balance?
I mean, I think for me it felt in some ways like maybe it would be a lesser or less valuable experience than one-on-one coaching was.
That was one hesitation that I had because I'm like, well, you know, there's seven of us, or however many of us all trying to glean insights and information simultaneously. So how much can I really get? And I think that. Being in the group. And you know, there's also the virtual community side of it. So it's not just strictly our video meetings where we interface and get ideas and inspiration and all that, but , being in the group and seeing other people go through similar things and understanding how they navigate them and watching them be coached, , is something that has been really valuable and something that I think has made it very worthwhile for me.
. And I think too, just again, I said before, like normalizing the experience, you know, I talk to my friends on the phone and we talk about things that you know, are going on or challenges of being a mom right now in this day and age, but there's something about having a dedicated time and space where you go and that's what the call's about, you know?
Mm-hmm. Like I'm on all these work calls all the time that are about whatever, and. Things are happening with the kids in the background and it feels like other people aren't having the same experience that I am. And so that in and of itself was very valuable to me as well.
Yeah, I appreciate you saying that so much.
I think that is a very common thought. That group is less than one-on-one. I know I've had that thought as well, and my personal experience aligns with yours. Very closely that I actually get so much from watching other people be coached. And I'm often able to see similarities to my own experience and get a different perspective, a different way of thinking about it, even.
Coming from maybe vastly different parts of the country or the world or different jobs or different age kids, there is so much that we share, which also goes to support your experience of just normalizing what we're all going through. , we know we're not alone, but it is really powerful to see it in people, other people and hear it that you're not alone.
Yeah, definitely.
Thank you so much for so many great examples. It has been so fun to coach you now in multiple formats and. I still can't believe made so much progress in our one-on-one time together, but also , the stories that you've shared here today, I am also blown away by eight weeks is what we've had so far.
And look at all you've done and navigated in life while doing those things.
Yeah, that's something we didn't even touch on, but we've had a number of curve balls thrown our way through this process, and historically , the focus would've been on the times of struggle, but I've been able to experience a lot of growth even through that because of being in this group.
Yeah. Yeah. It's so impressive. It's always so great to talk with you. I love the stories that you share , and how you articulate things. So I appreciate you so much, , and I think we'll wrap it up there.
Thank you. I appreciate you very much too and the opportunity to speak about my experience on this podcast. Thanks, Ashley.
Thanks so much for listening all the way to the end of the episode. Enrollment for my time training and coaching program Beyond Balance is opening up on July. 31st, you can learn all of the details, including about a special early bonus by signing up and coming to my live class on July 31st at 12:00 PM Eastern, 9:00 AM Pacific.
Head to themothernurture.com/class to learn more.
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