Episode 121: The Fall Reset Every Working Mom Needs

ITUNES | SPOTIFY

There's something about back to school that hits different, even when you're not the one walking through the school doors. Our kids get the fresh notebooks, the new outfit, the clean slate. We just... keep working. In this episode, I'm talking about how to use that back-to-school energy for yourself this fall!

I'm sharing why I wait to make changes until after the first week of school, how I'm using the concept of essentialism to choose just a few priorities for this season instead of trying to do it all, and the exact three things I'm focusing on this fall in my home, my business, and beyond. If you've been waiting for the "right" moment to pick something back up or start something new, this is it.

Listen in for a practical way to think about seasonal resets, how to narrow your focus without the guilt, and why working moms especially need to give themselves a fresh start every now and then, not just once a year.

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

• Essentialism by Greg McKeown

• Beyond Balance launches again this fall. Get on the waitlist here!  

• + Click here to read the full episode transcript

  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.   Hello, hello. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I'm so excited to be here with you this week. I said last week that I wanted to do a complimentary episode that was less about the tactical, logistical things that we need to do to get ourselves and our families ready for back to school, and more on the energy side, if that's how you wanna think about it I wanna talk about harnessing the spirit, the energy, the shift, the change of the season for you. A lot of that is built in for our kids because they are literally walking through the front doors of a building with a lot of change, right? They are going from summer to putting on their backpacks, walking through the door of school, and into this new season, very literally into a new season. But for us, we just continue working, right? We work all year round, unless you're a teacher, then this probably feels a little bit different for you because you are also walking through the doors of change. But, you know, we drop our kids off on the first day of school, and then we go back to our office, or we go back to our desk, or we go back to whatever it is that we've been doing. And I know there have been years for me where that has felt disconnected in a way. I have all of these feelings through my kids of the change and the shift and the new energy, and then when I look around, my life looks pretty much the same as it did the week before or a month before. The work still needs to get done. It's not necessarily tied to the school year, And so if we want to gather some of that excitement and use it to our advantage as we go through this transition, it's on us to do that. And I happen to find that really exciting. I love this time of year. And so I wanna walk you through today how I approach this back to school season to make it exciting for me as well, to use it as an opportunity to, not to sound dramatic, but walk through a portal, if you will, right? I have to create my own school door entrance on the first day of school because, yeah, it's not built in for me Now, the first thing I wanna say as we start to think about this in the episode, remember to put this into context with where you are in your back to school journey. So if you're not going back to school until later this month or September, listen to this, maybe give it a little bit of thought, but there's not much that you have to do, just like you're not quite ready to wash book bags or purchase school supplies probably either. If you are already in the midst of that transition, I shared last week that we have one more week to go, and then we'll be back to school. I think the time is now for you to think about what you wanna use this season for and do a little bit of a, a reset toward the end of the year. But I wanna caution you against doing too much on the implementation front, and that is because as we know, or I hope you know, and if you don't, I'm telling you now, that back to school transition for kids can be rocky. It can be smooth sailing, and I hope that for you, but it, it can come with lots of feelings and resistance or frustration or overwhelm because we're settling into something new. So maybe the school year looks pretty easy for you and you're not worried about and everybody's excited, great. Still give yourself a little bit of time to settle in before you go changing up a routine or adding some new project or initiative to your plate. So for me, that looks like, again, thinking about all of these things, but not really stepping into action until probably the second full week of school that we have. That first week and a half of back to school, I am doing everything I can to make our lives as simple as possible. I am reducing activities, social events that we do. I am making easy dinners. I am focused mainly on supporting everybody's emotions and feelings about back to school. I'm making sure that we're all getting to bed at a decent hour and getting the sleep that we need because there's just a lot to manage. I'm filling out paperwork like we talked about last week. I know there's enough other things that go into managing this transition that anything I come up with as a result of what we're talking about here, again, I'm gonna wait until we're a couple of weeks in and the dust has settled and I feel like I have the capacity to not just add something else or shift my focus for myself, but also everyone else feels well supported When I think back to my times in school, I'm probably picturing more like junior high, high school, even college, those first couple of weeks were really the golden time. Everything felt fresh. Everything was exciting. Your back to school outfit was still nice and crisp. The homework hadn't started in earnest to really pile on yet. Your teachers didn't really know you that well, so not that you would get away with things, but right, there was a little, a air of mystery about you to everyone as you started to get to know people and figure out where you were going and who was who. You had fresh notebooks that were largely empty, ready to be filled. Your locker was clean. Your book bag was still clean, right? It's that fresh energy, and even though I'm still carrying the same work bag around, I'm not gonna buy myself a back to school outfit, I love that feeling. And so part of what I try to create for myself, and what I would invite you to think about creating for yourself as well, is that, that feeling of freshness, that clear mind, , reasonable expectations. And we don't need January 1st or a new school year or a new job to create that I was noticing too, since I mentioned January 1st, I joined a gym over the summer. It's a very low-key gym. I can pop in. I feel like I'm at a rec center. I love the vibe. But I was noticing, I was there on Monday, it was very empty. And granted, it is summer, and probably lots of people are traveling, and I'm really curious to see if with the return of school in our area here in the next couple of weeks, if people come back to the gym, if it is an opportunity for a, a reset on routines, or if we won't see that influx until January 1. I'm so curious to see this because here's the thing, it does not need to be a new year to pick back up on things that you thought you would focus on or areas of your life that you wanted to move forward back at the start of 2026. There is still a lot of time between now and next January, and I'm a big believer that we start whenever. I actually don't love January 1st as a huge goal-setting time. I don't have that energy, but I have that energy now. I definitely have that energy now. And so whether you're a January 1 person or not, whether you've been showing up at the gym, or reading those books, or making progress on your networking, or your house projects, or anything else that you wanted to do this year, there is still so much time. There's always time We just have to know what it is that's important to us that we wanna focus on, and we just get started. So why not start with this back to school energy on something that has been on your mind, that you've been thinking about wanting to work on? Maybe you wanna create something. Maybe there's a relationship that you want to develop or deepen, a friend that you've lost touch with, or just friendships in general. I hear that a lot from my clients, , which makes sense. As we spend more and more time raising our young children, focused on childcare, completing our work, friendships often fall to the back burner. And so could this be a season with its renewed energy where you make an effort to text a friend, to go on one friend date over the next couple of months? It doesn't have to be huge. It can be something as reasonable as that. Maybe there's a new skill in parenting that you wanna practice. Goodness knows there's always, phrases and situations and responses that we would love to improve. I know, at least for me. I wo- I don't wanna speak for you, but I can always improve there. And so maybe there's something that you want to make a priority right now. Maybe there is a goal that you want to achieve, a race that you want to complete, a project that you want to have done, a certification or, , a pitch that you wanna send. I don't know. You could start it now and have it done before the holidays roll around at the end of the year. How exciting is that? I run a quarterly planning session for my momentum coaching program, and so this last week we met to think about fall. And for some of them it was very early, it felt too early. For others, like me, it was right on time But the area where we spent the most time in thinking about the change in season and what we are trying to create and prioritize and focus on this fall was not looking at our calendars necessarily, though we did do that because no one likes to be surprised. We looked at our calendars for August, September, and October to see what's coming. We thought about the prep that needs to be done for certain things. We blocked time on our work calendars, created more buffer space, all of those things that is just good practice planning ahead. We did all of that. But where we started was actually thinking about a concept that has stuck with me ever since reading the book Essentialism. If you're not familiar with it, I will put the link to the book in the show notes, which you can always find at themothernurture.com/podcast. I read it years ago. I'm probably due for a reread. But it is this idea, and it's nothing new, but bears repeating, that we cannot focus on everything at once. We think we can, just like we think we can multitask, but we really can't. And we are better served by constraining down our focus to just what is essential, to what is our primary focus for right now. And that primary focus will change. It will shift. It will evolve. Some seasons we have more capacity, others we will not But that we move that primary focus, that thing or couple of things that are essential, we move them forward at a much faster rate, more thorough rate. We have fewer distractions. We actually get the satisfaction of completion when we are not spread so thin So my momentum clients and I, we spent some time thinking about What is the thing that we most want to move forward this fall? Now, I allowed them to pick up to three. One, two, or three areas of focus, and that's really subjective, and you have to trust yourself, and you have to be honest with yourself about what your capacity is. If you are navigating a huge work deadline, if you are moving houses, if you are taking a big trip, if your kids are involved in so many activities that the fall feels crippling when it comes to your schedule, well, you are not gonna have the capacity to move three things forward in your life. You're maybe gonna move one. Whereas someone else who has a very light schedule in the fall, who feels like they have that capacity, maybe they can move two or three things forward. And so we spent a lot of time thinking about that. What are the things that we really want to move forward above others this fall? And then we get to reevaluate as seasons change, as we complete those things. So that is my question for you. When you think about this as a seasonal shift, we think about the energy of the fresh start that back to school brings. What do you really want to move forward in this season? I'll tell you mine. I love to hear people's examples. It helps me think of my own, and so I'll share mine. I had a list. We started with a brainstormed list, which you might want to do as well. I think I had seven or eight options on that list. Ugh, I would love to do all of them, of course. I would love to move them all forward. But the reality is that in the fall, all three of my children play sports. We are transitioning to a new school for my oldest, and I wanna have capacity to support him. And, we also celebrate some birthdays in our family, three actually, in this season. And so I have capacity professionally. I feel like that's where actually most of my capacity is. And then I have some capacity in my personal time. Now, one of the things that I will mention, as I mention to my clients, is that there are plenty of things that I will still be doing through this fall season that I don't need much capacity for because I've developed them into such a habit and such routines that I don't really have to think about them. Yes, they take time. You'll see that reflected on my calendar. But it doesn't take energy from me to do them, to complete them. So I use the example of my workout schedule, which has really fallen into a good place. in the last four months. And so while in previous seasons that would've been one of my main priorities, it is not right now, and that doesn't mean I'm not gonna do it, just means I don't really have to think about it, so I'm not counting it as something that requires my capacity. I hope that makes sense So I'm choosing three, and here is what they are. My first is our home. We have several small to mid-sized projects that we are about halfway through with. And so I would love my focus when we have evenings or weekends with a little bit of extra time to go toward prioritizing completing those projects. So completing the move of my daughter into her own room. We are, like, 65% there, and so getting that over the finish line. Setting up a little reading nook in our bedroom for me so I can read and not have to read in bed, because I really wanna separate those two so I can put my book down and not stay up too late. Hanging a gallery wall in our living room on this big empty space. If you've seen any of my Instagram videos lately, you probably saw a bunch of paint swatches painted behind me in the background. Completing that. Again, we're over 50% of the way through. And then my husband will be doing the bulk of the work on our front porch and replacing some rotted wood and boards across there, but just, of course, that means I'm on kid duty while he's out there working. So those small projects, that's gonna be my personal focus. There are many other things that I would love to prioritize, but for the fall I am choosing those. I really want to have those completed. I wanna go into the winter with those, rooms and areas finished, so that's what my one priority is at home. And then professionally I am having so much fun learning the art of yapping on camera, talking direct to camera. And so I made a commitment to a yap challenge, , maybe a couple of weeks back. And so as much as I would love to dabble in lots of other things, I'm gonna really, really try to constrain and focus just on that as far as my marketing goes. Of course, I'll still show up here on the podcast and send my weekly Working Mom Journal, which if you're not getting that, please hop over to my website, themothernurture.com and subscribe. It's so much fun for me to put together. But as far as anything new that does require capacity, I am awkward on camera sometimes. It takes me a long time to edit these videos. I often second-guess whether I have anything meaningful to say, which I know I do, but just to normalize that we all have that voice in our head. , that is gonna be my main focus. I wanna see what I can do, prove to myself that I can complete this challenge. So for the fall, that's gonna be my main professional goal. And then my secondary one, just because this does take capacity, is launching my group program, Beyond Balance, again, which I have not run since early twenty twenty-six. We did not have a summer cohort this year just due to my personal schedule. So if you've been interested and waiting to hear when the next round of that group would launch, information should be coming out soon-ish once everyone gets back to school. So those are my three. Like I said, there were eight items on the list, so there were five that I had to look at and say, "Not right now." And I know that is very uncomfortable. We wanna be able to do it all. But I think if we want to have a season that feels good, if we wanna have a season where we get to the end of it and think, "I spent it well. Look at what I was able to do, and look at also how I felt throughout it," I think we have to choose. And so I would encourage you, as you create your syllabus for this fall semester, we could think of it in that way, what is gonna be the priority? What are the things that you wanna be tested on? Don't you love this analogy? That you wanna be tested on at the end of the semester, right? If we think about any class, I'm picturing my college courses. Each course was actually quite narrow in scope, right? You were gonna learn about this piece of history, or you were gonna learn about this, section of math or this particular study of science. And your teacher, your professor, your instructor would outline for you, "Here is what you're gonna be tested on come the end of the semester How do we create that for ourselves? How do we say, "Look, we can't do everything, but in this semester, you're gonna make a lot of progress, and here's what you're gonna know by the end. Here's what you're going to have moved forward." That's what I want for you this season Now, along with that, of course, I would encourage you to preview your calendar, make sure that you have, again, that visibility into what's coming, adding enough buffer time in the days or the weeks where you know you're gonna need that extra space And then of course, you can never go wrong with some new school supplies for yourself. Maybe that is a new notebook where you're gonna track your progress on some of these priorities that you have set out for the fall Maybe you are gonna harness the newness of back to school and you're gonna learn something new this semester. Maybe that is your priority. You're gonna learn a new skill. You're gonna learn a new game, right? You're gonna learn Mahjong like everybody else. You're gonna learn a new sport or, , take a new class. Maybe you wanna set up a better system for meal planning or getting your laundry done or for sorting paperwork or reconciling your family budget. There's so many opportunities, and there will be so many more opportunities for whatever you don't choose now for you to move forward in the next season or the next after that We may not be packing up our book bags or putting on our first day of school outfit or smiling for that picture that marks the first day of school, but I think you are never too old to harness the spirit of what this change in seasons represents. A fresh start, something new, energy for routines, and consistency again. And so I would love to hear from you how you're going to use this back to school season. Whether your kids are in it right now or not, it's still available for you. All right, I hope this was a fun one for you. I love this season if you can't tell. If you need any help with ideas, thinking through what your back to school syllabus is going to hold, please reach out. I'd love to help. You can always send me a DM over at Instagram @lovemothernurture all right, I will talk with you in the next episode. Until then, take care. Thank you for listening and as always, for being a part of this working mom community. You can find everything related to this episode in the show notes at themothernurture.com/podcast, you can also find information about how I support working moms just like you through one-on-one, and group coaching, as well as access a number of resources and articles all on my website at themothernurture.com. I will see you again next week for another episode of the podcast.

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