Some Workaholism Wins in Motherhood

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Let me be clear, workaholism is not the goal. In fact, workaholism was the reason for my professional burnout in 2016-2018 and very nearly a second round in 2020 in response to the uncertainty of the pandemic. Yet as I continue to reflect on how things have changed for me as a new mom with a now five month old, I find myself grateful for some of things that workaholism has taught me. Although stressful, painful and bad for my health, in some ways I feel workaholism prepared me for the challenges of being a mom! Here’s what I mean:

1)    Waking at 3am: Whether I found myself wide awake at 3am with a new creative, entrepreneurial idea or waking up at 3am to feed the baby, I’ve found that it hasn’t been nearly as painful to be awake at this early hour. It’s almost like my creative wakings were a rehearsal for the important job of handling odd hours as a mom.

2)    Embracing Flexibility: As a Type-A person, flexibility isn’t always my strong suit. But being an entrepreneur has taught me to be flexible, changing up routines and pivoting to add projects and ideas to keep my brain engaged. This same flexibility is something I had to call upon as a new mom who was learning her daughter’s wants and needs. Planned a lunch but the baby tells me it’s time to go home? I go! Wanted to watch a movie and got interrupted? We try again another time. Hoping to get some work done but she wakes early from her nap. We pivot! Flexibility is a must in motherhood.

3)    Setting up Systems: Workaholism for many is about fitting in lots of work projects and thinking about work 24/7. Although I don’t recommend this level of hustle for anyone, the constant mental energy directed towards my business led me to discover systems and tools to keep things running smoothly. Why does this matter? When on maternity leave, this allowed me the privilege of taking quality time with my baby and still having my business running, mostly without me. Without systems in place, this would have been a lot more stressful to manage on minimal hours of sleep.

On the flip side, what has motherhood taught me about workaholism?

4)    Downtime is Good: Taking time to rest, cuddle my baby, and take a nap are all good for creativity. It’s important to be bored and let our minds wander once in awhile. I felt my creativity coming back on maternity leave about halfway through and attribute it to downtime where the baby was sleeping on me and there was no work I wanted to do or could do. Enter new ideas and goals for the future!

5)    Work-Life Balance is Better: We all strive for work-life balance but how do we know if we’ve achieved it? I’ve been pleasantly surprised at my shift from working all the time to working enough to meet my business needs and nothing more. This allows me to have quality time with my baby while not adding too much financial stress. I couldn’t do this for myself in my burnout, but it’s been easy to do when thinking about how much I want to be there for my daughter.

6)    It’s a Different Flavor: Don’t get me wrong, like most moms, I don’t get the luxury of sitting around and doing nothing in working less hours with clients. The demanding work hours are still present, just a different flavor. It’s a flavor composed of meeting an infant’s needs and attempting to still get other functioning things done like laundry and emails. I’ve added to my stress plate in some ways, and taken away from it in others. It’s a balancing act that’s constantly evolving as my daughter grows.

Can you relate? Just a few musings on workaholism and motherhood. Although I don’t wish workaholism on anyone, I have found gratitude in my experience, including being thankful for the things it has taught me at this stage in my life. What has workaholism taught you? You too may find yourself pleasantly surprised at the unexpected gifts it reveals!

Stopping the Steamroll

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We’ve all been there. Talking down to ourselves, allowing our inner critic to drive, or letting imposter syndrome win. I felt all that and more as my baby cried for an agonizing sixty minutes. I’d gone through the new parent checklist. Hungry? No. Wet? Nope. Tired? Not really. Too hot? Maybe? It was another 6pm witching hour and I felt helpless as she cried. A helplessness that was made worse by my inability to fix things when I usually feel somewhat capable.

Motherhood is different. Thankfully my daughter tired herself out and reset her little body through a nap in the soothing vibrations of her bouncy chair (thank goodness). The sudden absence of scream-crying allowed me to reset too, which had me wondering if the same strategies I’ve used with driven professionals could help me reset after a challenging time with an infant.

Such as how do we stop the steamroll? I originally described stopping the steamroll related to productivity, workaholism, and desires for control in my book Perfectioneur: From Workaholic to Well-Balanced. I highlighted how driven professionals may steamroll over internal and external warning signs of poor work-life balance and burnout or even steamroll over others for a sense of control. But what about when the steamroll happens in our own heads? The negative thought spiral that says we’re stupid, horrible, or not good enough? I knew I needed to revisit my strategies to stop the steamroll after the difficult evening with my 2-month-old. Let’s look at “the Four R’s” together.

Strategy #1: Rest

I found myself sitting in the quiet after her witching hour. I could have distracted myself with food, chores, or my phone. But instead I allowed myself to take a few breaths and just notice what my body and mind were doing. My body was trying to bring my shoulders down from around my ears. My mind was trying to find an explanation for why my daughter struggled this evening. For you, rest may be sitting still, gentle walking, or intentional stretching in a quiet place. After so much stimulation, I welcomed the cool and quiet of my room to finally rest as my baby slept. Bringing the body to rest allows us to start the reset process.

Strategy #2: Reframe

The more I talk with other parents, the more I realize I’m not alone in having a baby who fusses sometimes. To have the witching hour confirmed as something other parents experience was immensely affirming. Now that we were out of the most current witching hour episode, I knew I wanted to reframe the situation to avoid setting up camp with my inner critic. After all, she’s pretty harsh. So instead of allowing my critic to repeat how inept of a parent I am, I reframed the situation as another learning experience. Statements like, ‘I’m still learning about my daughter, she’ll 11 weeks old. I can do this. She’s safe, I’m safe.’  What reframes do you need in the face of stress?

Strategy #3: Reinforce

Once I reframed the situation, I wanted to put energy towards the more positive statements. I wanted to reinforce the good over the bad. Reinforcing can happen through bilateral tapping or mindful walking. It could be sharing your experience with others and practicing the reframe out loud. I found myself turning to fellow mothers who understand the difficulties of a baby’s witching hour and shared my reframes with them. Not only did this help me feel connected, the reinforcement allowed me to access gratitude and self-compassion in a tough situation.

Strategy #4: Restore

The last piece of the stopping the steamroll puzzle is to restore. To get back to square one. What energizes, invigorates, and restores you? In my motherhood example, restoring meant bonding with my daughter and engaging in pleasant activities to remove the spotlight on challenging moments. It meant cuddling and walks together in the sunshine. It meant finding reasons to laugh instead of cry. It meant making new memories and getting some sleep.

Whatever your stressor, know that steamrolling doesn’t have to be your first response. We can stop the steamroll and quiet our inner critics together. The four R’s helped me find more laughs than tears in motherhood. The same could apply to other stressors in your life. It’s not perfect, but I’m right there alongside you! We are doing our best and that’s enough.

Dear Workaholic Mothers

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I see you. Motherhood is a different flavor of workaholism. It caught me by surprise. It’s a workaholism where society normalizes sleep deprivation, never having time to yourself, constantly being touched, and being overwhelmed by tasks. It’s made lighter by saying you are successful if you get to brush your teeth and take a shower each day. Knowing these things, I did my best to prepare for a significant change, however the lived experience of motherhood has brought some new perspective.

Perspective that came to me in a flood of tears. I was attempting to watch a movie with my spouse on a Sunday together when my mood tanked. As a therapist, of course I wanted to know why. As I sat with the heavy emotions, I recognized the feelings as familiar to my worst workaholic days. The feelings–and the thoughts that went with them–were all themed around not having enough time. Not enough time as a mother, time with my spouse, time to create as an entrepreneur, time to relax, and the list goes on. I found myself back in neuroticism about tracking time. When did my daughter last eat? What time do we need to get ready for bed? Do I have time for a nap? Can I find time for that phone call? What time will her witching hour start? Can I run that last errand before she loses it? 

Having to track time as a mom has triggered the unpleasant, familiar feeling of scarcity. Time scarcity. Which is wrapped up in a workaholism response for me and other driven individuals. Now the tears make sense! If I believe I have no time, would I feel forced to forgo quality time to work? Skip a much needed nap to create? Cram in a task out of a sense of urgency? Fixate on all the things I haven’t done in the day? This was new territory for me as someone who embraces structure in her day-to-day life, including nine wonderful hours of sleep a night and carving out time for writing and creativity each week. Alas, a baby doesn’t subscribe to that schedule. 

Luckily, I have a loving spouse who wishes to remain an involved parent and partner. So we started talking about the tears and what they represented, allowing me to gain even further clarity on how workaholic women can make motherhood work for them rather than our knee-jerk reaction to cram it all in.

Motherhood can be manageable if:

• You aren’t isolated – The isolation of being alone with your child all day, every day is intimidating at first. Can isolation make postpartum anxiety and depression worse? Yes. How can you get out a couple times a week, like sitting outside, a walk around the neighborhood, or a drive where your baby can sleep?

• You have help – Becoming a mom has given me an additional dose of respect for single parents. This job is hard! I’m grateful to have a support system that includes my spouse and family who love to spend time with my daughter. Who is in your support network? Embrace times where baby can be held or watched by others to allow moments of productivity, creating a welcomed mood boost for workaholics.

• You focus on routines instead of schedules – Babies are constantly changing which means they don’t stick to a schedule, no matter how hard a workaholic mom tries. I, myself have learned to embrace routine over schedule. The routine might be to change a diaper, bathe my baby, and then feed my baby, but the timing of that is really dependent on her needs rather than the time on the clock each day.

• You try to be flexible – This is a big ask for workaholics as we want to control everything! So flexibility might be being gentle with yourself when you’re running late, have to reschedule plans, or need to cancel a meeting for a nap that keeps you functioning.

• You know your limits – Yes, even workaholics have limits. We want to cram it all in, even in motherhood. So what are your warning signs that you’ve overdone it? Do you find yourself more irritable? Clumsy? Fatigued? Take these cues into account as you plan your weeks so you can adjust accordingly.

• You watch for the witching hour – Did you know your baby has a witching hour? I didn’t until I experienced it several days in a row at 6PM. After a day of stimulation where everything is new to your baby, they may just decide they’ve had enough at the end of the day. And by enough, I mean they lose it including crying, screaming, and being inconsolable at times. This is extremely tough when you too are tired and fatigued at the end of the day. To feel more prepared, I’ve announced to friends and family that we have to be home by 6PM from any event or gathering, at least for now. You too can set limits on socializing to be home for those routines that regulate your baby during the witching hour, such as limited sounds, smells and the dark and quiet of their room.

As a new mom, I know this is just the beginning of what I can only imagine is a steep learning curve. Yet I hope these thoughts will help other workaholics (or recovering workaholics) embrace motherhood from a place of wonder and curiosity. It’s an opportunity to stretch out of our comfort zones for the better. As driven individuals we can frame it as a challenge that helps us move into better work-life balance, if not for ourselves, then for our children. 

Challenge accepted.