Latest / That Mom / How to Stop Trying to Do It All — And Start Living Better
Transcript
- Maria Woods: To That Mom, the podcast where we explore finding more joy and more meaning in the beautiful chaos of motherhood. I'm your host Maria and I'm so glad you're here. Welcome back. Today is a really fun episode. I have my friend Marissa here interviewing me. Today is your opportunity to get to know your host. Welcome to That Mom. Marissa, this is a little different. This is different for me especially. Because you are actually interviewing me to learn a little more about me. ⁓ some people were asking questions and wanted to get to know me as a host. So now I'm in the hot seat. The tables have turned, Maria. I know. So Maria, tell us what made you want to do this podcast? What made I know it's a very loaded question. ⁓ but what made you want to do this? You know, it's funny. I really just wanted to empower moms like me who are kind of like in the thick of it with kids. My kids are six and four right now. ⁓ but yet I feel like I have a little space to to do some things for myself. And I wanted to empower other moms to do the same. I think. There is so much talk about the mental load online. ⁓ especially now that I've been doing this podcast and seeing people post about whiplash from working moms, like going from mom mode to work mode. And I think a lot of that is super validating. I'm glad that people are raising awareness of it. But for me, the piece that's missing is how do we actually live better? Then what? Right. Like what do we do about it? Yes. Yes. Like okay. Lots of talk, but now what are we gonna do about it? How are we going to really live our life to our fullest? Like you want to. Totally. Because and I think I'm so lucky to you're part of my larger friend group that I got adopted into. I always say, ⁓ the story is that my husband went to school with Marissa and a bunch of her girlfriends. And when I had my first son, there happened to be a couple women, moms in the group having One was their first baby, one was their second baby. And so like through motherhood and through we kind of live geographically close, they were like, okay, come in, be friends with us. Everyone else has been friends since college, but you guys adopted me, I say. Yes. I know. We've I've been very lucky to know the many lives of Maria Woods. I've known Maria before she was Maria Woods. I've known college Maria. I've known corporate batty Maria. I've known now mom Maria, friend Maria. I've seen wife Maria, and ⁓ I just I'm so fortunate to have you in my life and your family in my life, and just I'm in awe of what you are doing with with everything on your plate. You are an incredible friend. You really are. Always willing to step up and help your friends when they're going through a hard time, when they're moving, when they're needing a pick-me-up in their corporate baddie experience. So ⁓ just I don't know how you do it all, but You are that mom. ⁓ my gosh. Thank you. I mean, I I think it's hard. It's hard to be a mom, to be a working mom. You know, when I became a mom for the first time, I really, and I've shared this a little bit here and there, but I just thought that I was gonna be excellent at it. I love kids, I love babies, I was always good with kids. I was an aunt to four kids, my sister, twin sisters, four kids already. So I just thought like being a mom, I had it in the bag. If there was someone qualified, it was me, right? Yes. And I think from my corporate experience is like you try and you work. And my educational experience, like you put in effort, you get that reward eventually. You figure it out. And motherhood wasn't like that. Like all of a sudden I had this child. ⁓ my son wasn't particularly happy or easy. And I couldn't problem solve my way out of what to do with this unhappy newborn. Yeah. So like I was so lucky to have this friend group, your friend group that adopted me, as I say, but I don't know that everyone has that group. So I think in part I want the podcast to be a space where people feel like seen and heard and that someone has their back. Like you've got this. Support system of someone who knows what you're going through c can be a voice of reason or just a ⁓ A shoulder to cry on when you need to, or someone to cheer for you when you need a little pick-me-up. Totally. Yeah. Makes all the difference having the right people in your corner. And having like these real conversations, because I know and that brings it back to too, like when we get together with our girlfriends. ⁓ my gosh, I'm glad there's no cameras rolling. What are you about to say, Maria? ⁓ but like we laugh, we cry, it's all the things. And people open up and share about their lives. Mostly motherhood and relationships with our husbands and family stuff that's going on, you know, with extended family. And that's so therapeutic. Yes. But I also feel like this is where I feel like the if we want to come together and validate each other about something that's challenging, we're here for that. But I think the podcast and I think good relationships in life don't linger on the negative, right? Like There's things that aren't ideal. It's good to talk about them, get them out there, but then turn towards a more solution-oriented conversation. Yes. I love that. Cause even at work in our professional lives, you know, with my team, they say, ⁓ I have this problem. Okay, what are we gonna do about it? How are we gonna fix it? At work, I'm so quick to move on past mistakes, you know, that are made from myself or my team and how are we gonna fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again. But in my personal life, I would be sitting in the in the negativity and feeling overwhelmed and not being able to necessarily see past it sometimes, you know? So just being able to talk about it with friends and and get feedback and perspective about how to maybe action and make some changes. whether it be a new bedtime routine or let ⁓ cry it out or whatever the r the suggestion is, but just learning from friends who've been going through it too and not fixating on, yeah, the negativity, it it can really take you out. Yeah, and I think we can, you know, it's my belief that we can live the life we want. We can live the motherhood that we want. Yeah, we're moms. And if we're working, we're balancing a lot, you know, more often than not. But we talk about like what's real support? You know, like you have someone who helps you with occasional childcare that Yes. Well, I've loved those conversations. This particular person, you're like, I love her. She came in, she read my mind, she opened my shades, or she closed my shades as needed. Yes. And sometimes like that's the support that a mom needs. Yeah, and every like life phase it's gonna be different when you're maybe if you're working or if you're not working, or if you have two young ones at home or ones in school, ⁓ depending on what your needs are, I mean, I'm into taking the help where you can get it. You know, outsourcing what you can, taking help where you can if you have the ability to do that. But yes, my I call her my nanny or my my house assistant, my my life assistant really. you know, she's just great with the kids and she really helps. And it just the littlest things, like you said, opening the curtains or shutting them at night, just it's one less thing that I have to do, one less thing that I have to think about and own and have mental space for. ⁓ yeah. She's everything. Yeah. Shout out, no, I'm just gonna And so I think yeah, I'm sure she'll listen to that. Yeah. And so I think like that's just one small example. But I really believe that, and of course, like you mentioned, you're fortunate to be able to hire her to help you a little. Your kids are a little older, they're in full-time school, but you know, you can get some help because you're also working full-time. And I just think that whatever changes need to be made in your life or optimizations, like people can live a better life. We don't have to martyr through. motherhood. We can prioritize what matters to us. It's not always easy. It's not always glamorous. Right. But we can have fun and live a good life and I think live a life that's aligned to what's most important to us, which can change from season to season. Yes. Yeah. ⁓ but I want to have fun too. Yes. I wanna have fun with my kids. Have yeah. And I want to be a woodsie, which is what me and my friends all say about Maria and her husband and her family, because Maria is just very positive and and says yes and puts herself out there and puts her family out there. And I always would say, I want to be a woodsie. Cause we go to the beach, you get the lobster roll, you, you know, say yes to the trip to Nantucket. We just do, you know, say yes. Try it. Do it. Experience it. I wanna be a woodsie. So because Maria is, yeah, just a incredible, incredible friend again to it just been really fun to to see you explore this new avenue and yeah. the the entrepreneurial mindset, just go get a mindset with again, you're already very full plate. It's it's a lot. Yeah. I mean, I think putting myself out there is totally new for me. Like I think I was really pushed to do this intro episode. ⁓ open myself up because for me it's all about the guests. Like I'm like, let me bring in some great guests that will show people, show moms how to live better. some mindset shifts, some practical tools. But, you know, it's like, hey, I got the feedback that people listen and follow people that they can relate to, right? So I never I kind of fell into this podcasting because I'm just so interested in what other people have to say and kind of the expertise that they can bring. but through the process I'm reluctantly learning to open myself up a little bit. ⁓ Because for me, like it's not all about me. But I just want to bring these conversations that I think are really important to moms. So Maria, I think a lot of people also want to know why a podcast? Like, how did we get here? What what did you do? How did we land at a podcast? It's so funny because I think there's a couple of things that are important here. Like one is that I've always kind of been a nerd about Why people do what they do or why things are important to them. So, like for my undergraduate study at Boston University, I studied cultural anthropology, which is basically just the study of people and culture. But how people pass meaning ⁓ in cultures and society. And so I think I've always viewed life a little bit from that lens. Like in motherhood, there's a motherhood culture. So Why do we feel like we feel? Why do we feel mom guilt guilt? Why is there this mental load? There's reasons behind it. So I wanted moms to understand a little bit like I understand that you don't feel guilty because of some personal flaw in you, or you don't feel ⁓ that you're not able to do it all because you're failing. That there's structurally these kind of impossible standards put on motherhood today. That, you know, that you're feeling guilty is a rhetorical strategy in the law, in media. So it's all these kind of dorky concepts that I find fascinating. Yes. But they impact us in real life as moms, right? So it's like bringing these conversations that are a little bit nerdy, a little bit intellectual into the everyday because it's not it You don't just feel bad because you feel bad. You don't feel like you're failing or you're on a hamster wheel because motherhood is just hard. It's hard for all these reasons, I think, are important to recognize. and I think that you can't design a life that works better or a daily schedule that works better, or give yourself permission to take time for yourself if you don't understand why you're not already doing it, that these pressures are real. Right. So kind of take like some of my background there. And then in terms of a podcast, I I have a friend who is in radio, was in radio, and he had just some recording equipment. He helped me get these microphones, for example. And so the idea was that maybe we would do a podcast together talking about just how to live better in general, how to have a positive attitude. So Me and him did some ⁓ back and forths, had some conversations, recorded some stuff. And even though we're great friends, we just were not on the same page. ⁓ Yeah. So he was all over the place. I like structure and a little bit of order. Yeah, I'm trying to like guide the conversation and he and he's funny, he's swearing, he's whatever. And I'm like, ⁓ no, that's cringy. I don't want to talk about that. So it was just kind of. It wasn't a good fit. And so I left that a particular day feeling discouraged, like, ⁓ it's such a fun idea, but we're not on the same page. And then the next day he called me, being a good friend, and said, You know what? I listen to the sum of the recordings back and you should do your own podcast. You have something to say. And it's not exactly the same thing I want to say. And I was like, No. Like what? Yeah. He's like, no, your voice sounds great. You have a point of view. And I was it honestly I was I was kind of dumbfounded, like, no, that's not the plan was that we're supposed to do this together. Exactly. so that wa it took me a minute to sink in, but I realized that like the gift of believing in me was something he was really giving to me and push me to Say, yeah, I do really enjoy having these conversations. ⁓ so that's how we landed on a solo podcast. And it's just been a learning journey of almost a year now, even though we just launched last month, deciding like refining what is the topic that I'm most passionate about. And it's motherhood and it's empowering moms, it's having these real conversations. Finding guests and doing this cold guest outreach and ⁓ and recording. We played around with recording where are we gonna record? ⁓ we started up in New Hampshire and we've recorded in different studios that didn't really work because we didn't have a consistent look or feel to the videos. And so it kind of seemed like, you know, one thing if you know me, I like Do everything to a certain degree, right? ⁓ weird. Yeah. So for better or worse. ⁓ and then of course I met Kyle, who's ⁓ outside here on video. And ⁓ and luckily Kyle shared a strong vision with me as well on like what this could be and how moms could relate. And so when it comes to like the audio and visual video quality, I just wanted it to not be distracting. To be of the quality that would allow people to hear the conversation and to hear the message without being distracted by like really poor audio, which I'm sorry if you're listening, some of the first episodes probably have a little sketchy audio. and the visual too, right? Just create like a home warm environment and the consistency we're recording in my home studio now. ⁓ so it's all just been a big process, ⁓ a little bit of a painful learning journey because I want everything like yesterday. Yes, yes. That is true. That is one thing about Maria. Maria's always, I want it, I'm gonna get it. How do I get there? And does it? And and I will say, ⁓ that's a great idea. Let me do this and sit on it for a year before I can even make a follow-up doctor's appointment. And meanwhile, Maria is starting a business and I'm it's just amazing that you can ⁓ Push yourself and and really get stuff done. Yeah. and it's been interesting because I my biggest fear was like, if I'm gonna start a podcast, I might be researching these really cool guests and I think they're neat and I reach out to them. And what if I just hear nothing back? That was honestly my biggest fear. ⁓ I guess a little bit of like, who am I to be reaching out to these people asking for their time. Right. but I tried it, right? And I reached out to some people that I thought were really neat. ⁓ some of my first guests, and actually I remember the first response I got was from someone at Harvard ⁓ studying happiness. And I got an email response back from this person, and it was a really nice no. And funny enough, I never considered that. And it was like, hey, the work you're doing is so important. Thank you for what you're doing. You know, unfortunately, such and such person doesn't have the time, but they really wish you well and they think it's great what you're working on. And that touched me. Like it was the most surprising thing because I thought the worst thing that could happen, I owe you know, you I think as humans we've run through the worst case. Yes. And I felt so uplifted by this nice No. Yeah. It was so validating. So it that gave me just enough courage to keep going. ⁓ and then I've been surprised at how many people say yes. They connect to the mission, whether they're big authors or big professors, or have big successful coaching programs. ⁓ I've been so humbled and honored by the people that say yes. ⁓ and they just want to have a genuine conversation and it's where our passions tend to overlap. And that's been really kind of rewarding just to have meet all these great people and have them say yes and have a great conversation with them. So Maria, we've talked about how you've started this podcast and why you did it, but how are you managing this podcast, your career, your family, this beautiful life that you've built? How are you managing it all? You know, it's such a good question. And I think personally, I just prioritize like My thing is ruthless prioritization. And and I think we need to do more of that as moms, like what actually matters to me in the moment. And sometimes honestly, throughout being a mom, it's like sleep was my priority and I didn't have enough time or I didn't have enough bandwidth to get my exercise together, or it was only five or ten minutes at a time, right? ⁓ Other times I would take like a work call, ⁓ where it's more informational, listen only, and I would lift weights in my office. I would keep them in my office and just like do 15 minutes of weights then, right? So for me, I'm constantly juggling what's a priority in this season of life, in this week, in this month, in this day. And I think that's how you can fit in what's actually most meaningful to you and most impactful for your life. So it is Hard to do everything. I think it's impossible to do everything. But the good news is we don't really want to do everything. There's only certain things that are really most important to us. ⁓ a lot of the guests that I've had on so far kind of talk to this taking a pause where you take stock of what they say it in so many different ways, depending on their background, but what's important to you? ⁓ and What is it that you want to do next? So I think for most moms, I really believe that they might have three top priorities. Maybe it's their health, maybe it's their career, maybe it's family time or relationships with their husband. Maybe it's something more, you know, entrepreneurial. But there's really only a few things. And then what are how can you take steps for those things every day? And how can you enjoy your life every day? Because the things that are important to us should bring us joy. So, what is a sustainable way to continue doing those things that are important to you every day? And it can look different in different seasons. Seasons where you're not getting any sleep. Right. Or long seasons. Yeah. Or seasons where your career are asking a lot of you. Right. Or seasons where your marriage might be asking more of you. So I think it's I think it's just about intentionality, realizing that you need to take time, a moment, a space to figure out what is important to you. So you can intentionally align your time and your actions. And I think that in and of itself brings so much joy and meaning. And and when you have to say no to something, which we all do, it allows you to understand why and to for it to be a more confident no, to know that it's not for this season, I might pick it up later. Or it's a no because I'm purposely prioritizing something else. I think prioritizing, like purposely prioritizing something is just it's seems so ⁓ simple, but at the same time for me, when you're just trying to get through the days of early motherhood of no sleep and not, you know, you're just you're just waking up and doing it all over again. You feel like you're on this hamster wheel and being able to prioritize and think about what am I doing and is this aligned with what I want? Is this aligned with with my happiness is this is this part of what ⁓ I'm meant to be doing. Yeah. You know, it's ⁓ I'm fucking all up right now. Sorry. No, it's that was perfect. I even spend a few minutes every day kind of reminding myself of my intentions, my priorities, and it's super short because I have a lot Yeah. I have a lot to do. I like I help get my kids ready for school in the morning. I value that time with them, but if I just have five minutes to like write in a journal what my priorities are for the day, it helps me to clear out the noise and feel less like I'm not getting it all done. Because I think that pressure to get it all done is you can't do everything in the world. You can only do so much in a day. So I I think just like reminding yourself of that on a daily basis, that's just one small thing that's really helped me. ⁓ and so when I start to feel guilty that I'm not doing something or that, you know, I can't fit it all in, I can just remind myself of what my prior priorities are for this day or this season. Right. ⁓ 'cause I've just taken a look at them that morning, even if it's five minutes, writing them down and reminding myself. Yeah, well, and you're bringing on really great guests. ⁓ I've met some of them and I've seen and listened to your podcasts, and you brought great guests on that a lot of women and and moms can look up to. I don't think you even realize that's you too. You could easily be in the other chair giving advice on someone else's podcast, on parenting, on motherhood, on just you know, living life to the fullest. Life is too short to, you know, not not be happy. And ⁓ you are that mom, so. This is Maria, and you've been listening to That Mom. Thank you for being here. If this episode resonated, share it with a mom who needs it too. And if you're ready for more, your next episode is waiting. Because every conversation here is meant to empower you to live better.