The Mental Load Survival Guide for Working Moms

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Today, I’m talking about something every working mom knows too well: the mental load. You know—that invisible checklist running nonstop in your brain? After a full month of birthdays, family visits, and a DIY deck project (yes, really), I found myself wide awake at 5am, completely overwhelmed. So I decided to record an episode about it. I’m breaking down what the mental load really is, the 3 biggest lies we believe about it, and the exact 4-step process I teach my clients to finally feel some breathing room again. If your brain feels like it has 47 open tabs and no off switch—this one’s for you. 

Topics in this episode:

  • What the mental load actually is (and why it’s more than just to-dos) 

  • Why common solutions (like quitting your job) won’t fix it 

  • 3 myths that keep working moms stuck in overwhelm 

  • The exact 4-step process I teach clients to manage the mental load 

  • How managing your thoughts gives you your time and joy back 

Show Notes & References:

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Transcript

Intro

Let's talk about the 47 tabs that you have open in your head at any given moment, things that you need to get done, emotions that you are feeling or that your kids are feeling that have kind of stuck with you. 

The worry and the anxiety of not doing enough, not being enough. It's the working mom mental overload. 

In a recent poll that I gave on LinkedIn, the mental overload was the number one thing getting in the way of working moms experiencing work life balance. 

And so today on this episode, I'm talking not just about what the mental load experience is like and normalizing it and kind of debunking some of the misconceptions around it, but I'm also walking you through my very practical four step process that I walk my own clients through and helping them manage their mental overload. 

Plus, I have a free, downloadable tool for you that I'm sharing with you to help you get ahead of all of those swirly, overwhelming, anxious tasks and thoughts before they even start. Are you ready? Let's get to it. 

Welcome to the Ambitious and Balanced Working Moms podcast, your go to resource for integrating your career ambitions with life as a mom, I'm distilling down thousands of coaching conversations I've had with working moms just like you, along with my own personal experience as a mom of two and sharing the most effective tools and strategies to help you quickly feel calm, confident, and in control of your ambitious working mom life. You ready? Let's get to it.

Hello. Hello working moms. Happy Monday.

If you're listening to this, at least when it first got released, you might hear it in my voice a little bit. As I'm recording today, I'm a little bit under the weather because I'm coming off of a really busy season, and I think my body just said, hey Rebecca, it's time to take a little rest.

And I have done that over the last few days, but I wanted to make sure to get this podcast out to you.

It is mid-May when I am recording this podcast. The next cohort of Ambitious and Balanced has formed. I am in the middle of preparing for our virtual Work-Life Design Retreat that comes along with the program.

I'm not sure if you knew that that is a piece of this three-month program, but it launches with a Work-Life Design Retreat where we really talk about what success is for you in this season of life, what some of your goals and your dreams are for this season of life.

We talk about what your priorities are, and we sort of map it all out and talk about what's sort of going to get in the way of you achieving that life that you dream of and kind of then talk through all the tools that we're going to use through this program to help you achieve exactly that life.

So I'm in the middle of prepping for all of that. There's been all of these moving pieces going on.

Life Lately

And then in my personal life—oh my gosh. My husband had a birthday a couple of weeks ago, and then my son just turned 8, and it was Mother's Day. We hosted some family for almost three weeks in our house. My daughter ran her first 5K that she's been training for.

My husband, in the last like six to eight weeks, has dismantled our entire back deck and rebuilt it himself. It has been the largest construction project he's ever taken on himself. I mean, when I say life has been full, it has been very full.

And that's why this podcast episode feels really timely to talk about—because we're going to talk about everything related to the mental load. All the things that we tend to carry as women, as moms, for our families, for our jobs, for our neighborhoods, for our greater community. Right? And we're going to get into all of that here in this podcast.

Mental Load and Working Moms

The other reason that this podcast came about is because I recently put a poll out on LinkedIn. Now, if you're not following me on LinkedIn, I really highly suggest that you do. I'm very, very active on LinkedIn—more than I'm active in any other social media platform.

I do a lot of videos, I do a lot of Lives, I do a lot of interviews. There's a ton of content there to help you continue receiving the tips and strategies and kind of the real-life experiences of me as a working mom. So that's a great place to find me. There is a link in the show notes to my LinkedIn profile there, but you could just find me at Rebecca Olson. Even Rebecca Olson Coaching is on there.

So I took this poll, though—I put it out on LinkedIn—and the question was: What's the number one thing keeping you from experiencing more work-life balance as a working mom? And 80% of the people that responded to that poll said the mental overload.

So of course, when I get that kind of response, I'm gonna do a podcast episode on it, right? We're gonna talk about it right here.

What Mental Overload Looks Like in Real Life (and Why It Disrupts Everything)

So let me talk a little bit about my own experience with the mental load. Just even over the last several weeks, with everything going on in my life—obviously, as I've kind of listed out—lots of things going on. A big impact to the tasks, the events of my life right now. And it’s been really impacting my sleep.

I've been finding myself waking up somewhere around 5:00 in the morning, in the 5:00 hour, and just really not being able to get myself back to sleep because my mind is thinking about all the things that I have to do and the amount of time that I have to do them.

And if you've listened to one of my recent episodes on overwhelm, I kind of laid out the idea of overwhelm like an equation, right? It's like the number of things that you have to do, the amount of time—or the lack of time—that you have to do it, plus the level of expectation you are putting on yourself to execute on that. And that is like the perfect equation right there for overwhelm.

And I found myself over the course of the last month or so really having to tap into my own strategies to get myself out of overwhelm and to manage all of the things that are going on in my head, so that I can feel really successful and really grounded in what is a very full month of my life.

Understanding and Managing the Mental Load

So here's what we're gonna do today on the podcast. I'm gonna break down a bit more like this understanding of what the mental load really is. I wanna sort of talk about that definition of what it actually is, because then I can address some of the misconceptions I think that there are around this mental load that we carry as working moms.

And then I want to walk you through my four-step process that I use in my programs—with my one-on-one clients, in my group program Ambitious and Balanced—as I start talking about the mental load with them.

So I'm going to break down that process for you as well so that you really have something tangible that you can walk away with from this episode to help you manage any of that mental load that's going on for you.

The Invisible Weight Working Moms Carry

Okay, so let's define the mental load for a moment. Oh my gosh. I just hear myself talk and it just is—it's kind of settling into my chest here. I'm going to push through. This is such an important topic.

Okay, so I sat down to think about this episode and to kind of better understand how I would even like frame the idea of the mental load. And it was interesting to me because I realized, you know, obviously there's no actual definition of this. You can't open up the dictionary and look up "mental load that working moms experience" and come up with the definition of it.

It's an experience that we sort of have. And so I put kind of pen to paper to think about how would I describe this experience. And so here's what I came up with:

The mental load that we experience is an invisible weight that we carry around in our head, right? It's a list of things that we have to get done, that we should get done, that we feel like we need to get done in a certain way—and probably like, yesterday.

It's expectations. Expectations we put on ourselves. Expectations that come from our culture. Expectations that we've just simply accepted over time. It's expectations about how things should get done, who should do them, how fast they should get done. Right?

Mental Load in Action

The mental load is remembering the birthday party gift for your kid who has a birthday party coming up this weekend. It's remembering a work deadline at the same time. It's remembering the tone of that one email that you still haven't replied to because you haven't figured out how to best reply to it.

It's the snacks that you need to buy for your kid's baseball game this weekend. It's that feeling that maybe you're probably actually disappointing someone because you can't be everywhere to everyone all at once—and you're sure that you're like dropping the ball somewhere, right?

It's literally like having 47 open tabs in your brain all the time—and nobody else gets to see them.

But one thing I think is really important to understand about the mental load: it's not just tasks, right? It's thinking about if you're doing enough for them. Right?

Worrying, Strategizing, and Wanting to Get It Right

Like right now, part of my mental load is thinking about my daughter who is turning 11 in a couple of months. And I don't know why, but her whole eating habits have changed. All the things she used to love to eat before, that were super healthy and had a lot of protein in them—she doesn't like them anymore.

It's been really frustrating over the last maybe two to four weeks to see her just not eat as much as she was eating before, and tell us, “I don't like that anymore. I don't like that anymore. I don't like that anymore.”

And I'm carrying that conversation in my head, like thinking about, strategizing for: hey, what's going on with her body right now? What does she really need? What else can we buy her, that we could have in the house, so that she'll eat healthy in this season of life, right?

It's also me thinking about the fact that my son is 8. He is graduating from second grade, and he still doesn't know how to tie his shoes. Like, we've barely even thought about teaching him how to tie his shoes.

Literally, that is a piece of my mental load—thinking, Am I doing right by them? Am I strategizing on their behalf?

 

The Invisible Effort of Leadership

And then, of course, you could think about this as it relates to work. You're thinking about your team members. It's thinking about the people that are your direct reports.

Are you giving them enough? Are you challenging them enough? Are you thinking about their career path enough? What do they really need from you right now? Are you available to them enough?

All these things are not necessarily tasks. They're like a slow churn in your brain that is you sort of strategizing and thinking and optimizing for the people in your life.

The Mental Load Metaphor: A Herd of Sheep with No Shepherd

Here's another way that I like to talk about the mental load. This is more of like a metaphor that I hope will be really helpful to you.

Sometimes I like to think about the mental load as being a whole herd of sheep. And that herd of sheep is literally running loose in your head without a shepherd.

Now, if you know anything about sheep, they're not very smart animals, right? They will literally walk off a cliff or be swept away by a rushing river—literally to their death, right? They need the voice of a shepherd to help them, to guide them, to bring them back to their home, to keep them safe.

They don't remember ever where they live. They literally will wander aimlessly until something or someone calls them back to safety.

And the mental load sort of feels like you have a whole bunch of sheep that are simply wandering aimlessly in your head. There's no direction. There's a lack of safety. They don't know how to be managed or get back to their home in an efficient manner, right?

And so here's the truth: when the mental load goes unmanaged—meaning when your brain is full of sheep that are running loose outside of their pen—you are gonna start to feel discombobulated. You're going to feel paralyzed by indecision.

You might get stuck in what I would call like over-functioning mode, where you're just trying to do it all. Or you might even just completely shut down out of feeling paralyzed by not knowing what to do, right?

The Hidden Cost of Mental Overload

If you're like me, you might lie awake in the middle of the night worrying, or wake up at 5 a.m. and not be able to get back to sleep. Right?

You might walk through your day with this kind of constant, quiet sense that you're probably failing. Like the ball's gonna drop any time. That somebody's gonna find you out.

I think the hardest part for working moms is that when you're carrying that much mental weight—when you have that many sheep that are wandering around aimlessly—it's almost impossible to be present. Right? Because your mind is almost always somewhere else.

Common Misconception of the Mental Load

All right, so if that is the definition, let's talk about the misconceptions about the mental load. I kind of want to clear these up for everyone out there.

The first is the idea that the mental load is just par for the course. Right? This is kind of what it is to be a mom, to be a working mom, or even a woman for that matter, right?

You're just gonna carry the mental load for your family and for your kids and for life, for the household, for the team. Like, there's just nothing you can do about it. You're better at it than the men out there in your life. This is just what it is. It's your role in life to carry the mental load.

And while I do think it's true that women do typically carry more of the mental load for a household than men, and I also think it's true that we have culturally been indoctrinated as women to take on more of the mental load, I do not believe that you have to settle for it as if there's nothing we can do about it.

Like, you just need to resign yourself to having 47 open tabs in your head at any given time, and a bunch of wandering sheep that don't allow you to be present—where you don't control your time and your energy and your decisions. No way.

The moment you decide that you are done feeling overwhelmed, carrying the mental load of the family, and that you're not going to settle for it—that is the moment you'll take your first step to figuring out a solution.

Which, by the way, listening to this episode is a good first step. And we're gonna talk a bit more about the process of managing that mental load as well.

Misconception #2: Less on Your Plate = Less Mental Load

The second misconception that I think there is about the mental load is that the solution to dealing with it is to figure out how to have less on your plate. Right?

Whether that is because you've delegated some of it out, or you've accomplished enough things on your to-do list, or whatever it is—it’s about, like, having less to do. On some level that is not yours to manage.

And now, I'm not suggesting that having less things wouldn't bring some relief. Of course, it's gonna bring some relief. I just don't think it's the most sustainable solution.

Because the reality is—in being a mom with kids and having a career you love, that you're successful in—life is always going to feel full. And you might have multiple goals and dreams that you want to achieve in your life.

And I don't want you to feel held back because that list feels so long to you. I don't want you to have sleepless nights during the full seasons of your life. Right?

The solution to getting out of the mental overload—or getting kind of out from under the mental overload—is not to have less to do on your to-do list or to figure out how to check more things off. Right?

Because that would lead you down the path of trying to be more productive with your time. I mean, for sure, I help my clients do that. And we do that effectively. And we figure out how to manage your time in such a way that there likely will be less on your to-do list.

But that's not how you manage the mental load at its core.

Misconception #3: You Need a Big Life Change to Fix the Mental Load

The last misconception that people have around the mental load is that it's going to require some sort of big change to fix it. Right?

I can't tell you how often women schedule consultation calls with me—I call those breakthrough calls—and they tell me that they think their solution is, they just got it. You know, they’ve got to change jobs. Like, their company is just not working for them anymore.

Or maybe they need to move closer to their families so they have more help around the house. Or maybe they should just take a break for a while, be a stay-at-home mom for a while. Like, that's the only way to deal with all of this.

And again, I'm not saying those things wouldn't help. But I don't want you believing that you have to make a big change in your life in order for you to experience happiness—for you to experience presence—for you to really enjoy your life. Right?

You don't need a new job to do that. You don't need more time to do that.

How Dana Found Balance Without Quitting Her Job

If you listen to the most recent episode I did with Erika and Dana—who are both current members of my Ambitious and Balanced group coaching program—Dana talked about how she started the program and was convinced that the result of the program was going to be her leaving her job. Like, that was her solution.

She said that in the interview. And then when we were talking in this interview, she was only seven weeks into the program, and she had undergone this massive change. But it wasn't that she'd actually changed jobs.

She had done this massive internal change where she found so much more control over her time, over her energy, over her presence. And it allowed her to feel so much happier in her job. And at this point, she doesn't even feel the need to leave it anymore.

Just seven weeks. It doesn't take a lot of time in order to figure out how to manage the mental load in a sustainable way.

All right, so let's talk about that mental load. Let's talk about how to manage, how to manage it, how to get yourself out from under it. These are some of the things I even did over the last several weeks to kind of help get myself out of that overwhelm so that I sleep better, so that I feel more present and more calm. Let's talk about the process. Okay, so four steps that I ultimately, I walk my clients through when they're dealing with a whole lot of mental load overwhelm. Number one, you got toa get it all out of your head, right? The tasks, the expectations, the worries, the feelings. Literally, you got to do a brain dump, okay? If you are in a constant state of stress or anxiety or waking up in the middle of the night or waking up early and not being able to get yourself to sleep, whatever it is, you got to get those thoughts out of your head so that your brain stops trying to hold on to them. 

A Simple Trick I Used Before I Was a Coach

I remember years ago, long before I was a coach—like, I was in my early 20s—I would, when I thought of something as I was falling asleep, and I was like, oh my gosh, I have to remember that for tomorrow. Oh my gosh, I have to remember that for tomorrow. But I'm literally, like, in bed. Lights are off.

And of course, when that starts to happen, your brain starts to, like, start to think about things, right?

And I remember what I would do is I would, like, pick something up. I would pick up a coaster from my nightstand or a book or a pencil, and I would throw it in front of the door so that when I woke up, I would see the pencil or the coaster or the book on the floor, and I'd be like, why is that there?

Oh, I remember.

And I would remember the thing that I was falling asleep thinking about, that I didn't want to forget the next day, right?

The Brain Purge

I did that because I wanted to get it out of my brain, so that then my brain could kind of calm down for a moment and kind of ground itself in the idea—like, I'm going to remember it in the morning because I have... I've just... I've placed this thing on the ground that's going to spark that, and I'm not going to forget it.

And when your brain can feel that release and feels like you have a plan for how you're going to manage the various things that you're thinking about, it calms down. And that allowed me to go back to sleep and not worry about it and not have to, like, get up and write it down, which is really what I didn’t want to do.

So you have to get these things out of your head. And when you do that, that allows you to actually look at them and be able to do something with them, right?

So this first step, though, is the purge. It’s the release. It’s the download, if you will.

Why Downloading Your Thoughts Works

I know for myself and for a lot of moms that I work with, you know, writing the things down is—a big piece of it, right?

Every last thing that you're thinking about, worrying about, having anxiety about, emotion that you're carrying—you literally get it all out of you. You could write it down. You could talk it out loud. Sometimes I use voice notes to talk to myself. You could talk to ChatGPT if you want to.

Literally, when you speak it out loud and you put it down on paper, you're closing a tab in your mind, right? And your brain literally starts closing these tabs because it recognizes it doesn't have to hold on to this information anymore for you—because it's… you're downloading it and you're actually gonna do something with it.

It's only holding it in your head because you haven't decided what you're gonna do with all of these various tasks and all these various expectations. And so it thinks that it needs to hold on to it for you, otherwise you're going to forget, right?

It's kind of—your brain's kind of doing you a solid by holding onto it.

You have to step into the role of the shepherd, literally pull each thing out of your head, close each of those tabs so that you can figure out what you want to do next.

So that's step one: the download. The mental download, if you will.

Use Your Priorities as a Lens

So step two, once it's out of your head, is to examine that list through the lens of your priorities.

Essentially, once you get it out of your head, the next logical thing to ask yourself is, you know, what do you want to do with these things? When are you going to do these things? How do you want to handle these things?

And the most powerful way to actually evaluate that list is through a higher vision, right? In order to actually get to the practical decisions of which of these things you're going to do, if you're going to do them, when you're going to do them—your brain sort of needs a little bit of a compass to help make some of those decisions.

And so in step two, what you're doing is you're remembering your bigger vision, your bigger goals, your bigger priorities, your bigger values, your bigger definition of success. And you're thinking about those things and remembering those things so that as you get into the actual practical decision-making process, you have something to come back to—to kind of guide you, if you will.

How My Clients Define Success in Ambitious and Balanced

And so for an example—for my clients in the Ambitious and Balanced program—this is part of their Work-Life Design Retreat that I walk them through. I help them define for themselves success. What is success as a working mom today? What does that mean to you?

I help them define their four essential priorities and why those things matter to them. I walk them through a process of kind of naming what I would call like your core identity—who you are. Right?

Why a Personal Compass Makes Decision-Making Easier

The goal is to give their brain a bit of a compass for who they are, what's important to them, what matters to them, what their bigger goals are right now in their life—so that they have actual language to look at that says, this is kind of me and this is what I'm about right now.

It's very grounding when you do it. You feel so much more confident when you actually have words to describe those things. Right?

Lightening the Load by Letting Go of What Doesn’t Matter

And so what we do in this program—they have that definition. And when they're experiencing this mental overload and once they've dumped it all out of their head, I say, hey, go back to your vision. Go back to your priorities that you've named. Go back to that North Star—your definition of success. Nobody else's—just yours.

Go back to that and look at your list through that lens. And automatically decide which things—if there's anything on this list—that can just be let go of, because it really doesn't ladder up to a bigger vision or your definition of success or your priorities. Right?

Automatically, you could look at this long, unmanaged list—mental load list—that you've written down through the lens of your priorities and vision, and you'll likely look at it and immediately there's a bunch of things that will just come off of it. It's like, I don't need to worry about that. That's not my job. That doesn't matter right now.

It’ll almost feel like light—you'll feel lighter when you do that—because it'll feel so clear to you that some of these things really just don't matter. And they're going to come off of your list immediately.

So it's almost like this first purge, if you will, where you're just kind of letting some of those things go that don't have any connection to your bigger definition of success and your version of goals and priorities today. Right?

So that's step two: to look at your list through the lens of your bigger vision and goals and things like that.

This Is Where the Clarity Process Begins

If you don't know what that vision is—if that feels really unclear to you—and you are not alone if that's true, that's the clarity process that I teach in the program.

This program is 100% going to be effective for you if you feel that lost. I'm going to actually walk you through the process—that clarifying process. That's a big piece of what the Ambitious and Balanced program is all about.

So definitely, definitely, definitely be on the lookout for the next cohort that will be starting, kind of late summer, early fall, that will help guide you through that clarity process. Okay? Just want to put that little seed out there.

Choose What to Do With What’s Left

Okay, so now you've examined the list and kind of immediately taken some things off of it based on your own priorities and your own vision.

Now the next step—the third step—is to start deciding what you're going to do with each task or kind of mental weight that is left on the list. And I would expect there's still several things that are left on the list right now.

Here's the thing: we like to overcomplicate this. There's really only five things that you could ever do with something on your mental load list.

You can either:

  • Do them immediately,

  • Delay them, meaning you're gonna do them at another time,

  • Delegate them so you don't do them at all,

  • Dump them, because they really just don't make sense for you to do, they don't matter right now, they're not important—whatever it is.

Those four—I call those the four D's. There's a whole system out there that's about the Four D's. Those are them. So I didn’t make those four D’s up.

The Fifth D: Downshift and Let “Good Enough” Be Enough

But I have added a fifth for my ambitious working moms out there. I call it the Downshift. That's essentially where, instead of thinking that you need to do this task at 110%, it's just deciding to do it at 75% or 80%—and that being enough. Just downshifting the expectation of that particular task, right?

That's it. There are only five things that you can do with the things that are remaining on your list.

Okay, and so you literally go through and you decide which of the 5 D's corresponds with each of these. You could literally write that down next to it.

If it's something you're going to do now or in the near future, you literally put it on your calendar. If you're going to delegate it, you start that email to let the person know that you're delegating it. If you are going to downshift it, you somehow take a mental note of that or put that to the side so that you can figure out at what level of expectation you're actually going to achieve that thing.

That is gonna help your brain realize—like, this is you literally stepping into the role of the shepherd, right? And taking back control of your sheep. You are reining them all in, every single last one of them, and bringing them into the pen and saying, Hey, I got you. I know exactly how we're going to handle this. This is how and in what order we're going to do that.

Step Four: Managing the Emotions That Come with Letting Go

And then the last step, the fourth step, is to manage all of the emotions that come when you do delegate, delay, dump, and downshift. Particularly when it comes to delaying and dumping and downshifting—there's a lot of emotion that comes with those things.

It does not feel good, often, to decide to delay something that feels important to you, or to dump something off of your list entirely, or to downshift an expectation of something. Right?

It might bring some relief in the moment. It’s gonna help you manage life in this moment today. But there could still be some disappointment associated with that, or a little bit of worry or anxiety about how somebody else is going to feel or think or whatever it is.

Emotional Guilt 

I don't want that worry and that anxiety to be like another piece of your mental load. Right? You actually need to learn how to release all of those emotions and stay calm—even through some of the disappointment and the anxiety of that moment.

I don't want you feeling anxious or disappointed because you're delaying something or you're delegating something, and then think to yourself, Oh, maybe that's the wrong choice. I feel so anxious about it. Maybe I should really do it. Maybe I should put it back on my list to do.

I don't want any of that. Right?

There is emotion that comes with trade-off decisions. There are emotions that come with deciding what to prioritize now and what not to prioritize now, right?

That's okay. You just need to learn how to manage those emotions so you don't carry them around with you—so they don't become a piece of your mental overload moving forward.

The Outcome: Presence, Peace, and Belief That It’s Possible

When you truly learn how to manage your mental load—and not let the thoughts and the worries and the anxiety sort of just run around like sheep out of their pen, right?

When you actually learn how to be present, to enjoy the life that you've created today—because you have the most amazing life.

When you allow yourself to truly rest, to have more fun, to have more adventurous moments—because you are literally living a piece of your dream right now…

That, my friends, is when you really begin to feel in control of your life. When you really see that you can have both. When you really believe that life, in the ways that you want it—the dreams that you have—are possible.

How Stephanie Created Space Without Changing Her Life

I remember my client, Stephanie, who told me after we were done coaching together—she said to me, 

“My circumstances in life look almost exactly the same on paper, like when we started. Literally. I have the same job, my kids are exactly the same, my family scenario is exactly the same. I still have roughly the same amount of commitments. And yet I feel entirely different.”

“I feel calm. I feel in control. I feel joy. I feel rested—more so than I ever have in years.”

She was literally creating time for herself in her life and in her calendar to have more fun with her kids, to go on more adventures. I remember—I can't remember if she was like a hiker or a biker—like she liked to bike with her kids and go on biking trips. I can't remember what it is.

But she started planning those trips and actually executing on those trips—things that she had never allowed herself to do before. And that’s what happens when you start creating spaciousness in your head, because you've learned how to actively manage the mental load.

Balance Isn’t One and Done—It’s a Regular Practice

In my Ambitious and Balanced group, one of the things that I teach is that managing the mental load and creating sustainable work-life balance is not just a one-and-done deal.

Right? You're probably listening to this podcast and you're thinking, okay, like, you see the steps—but you can’t just do them once.

This is an active process. Creating sustainable work-life balance is not like a Crock-Pot where you set it and forget it. There is intentionality that comes with living a really balanced life.

It is literally learning very simple tools and practices and rhythms that create space and that give you back more time—that have you leaning into the things that bring you energy instead of the things that drain you.

Which means that you likely have to actively go through these four steps on a regular basis. Now, they won’t feel so overwhelming as much anymore, because if you're doing them actively, then there shouldn't be as many things on your list in your head that you're trying to hold on to.

But you're essentially going to make it a habit, right? You're gonna practice it regularly.

That's a piece of the sustainability that we talk about here in the Ambitious and Balanced community.

Free Tool: The Daily Kickstart to Clear Your Mental Load

And if you want another practical tool to help you stay ahead of the mental load—like to alleviate the buildup of anxieties and worries and overwhelms that can happen for working moms—I want to encourage you to download something that I call the Daily Kickstart.

Now, you can find the link to that in the show notes, but this is essentially a morning mind management tool that helps you get ahead of all of the overwhelming thoughts before they happen throughout the day. It literally helps you not create overload in your head.

It's the exact same tool that I give my clients in the Ambitious and Balanced program. It should take you no longer than 10 minutes. I literally walk you through it step by step in a workbook and then through a video.

And it's my gift to you—because you don't need to settle for experiencing the mental overload every day. Literally. There are ways to get ahead of that so that you don't experience it on a regular basis.

Quick Recap

All right, so—quick recap. The four steps to managing the mental load, or the mental overload, are this:

Step number one: Get it all out of your head. The brain dump.


Step number two: Look at the things that you have written down that are in your mind through the lens of your priorities, your goals, the things that are most important to you—and immediately take things off the list that don't make any sense as it relates to your bigger vision.


Step number three: With what's left on your list, decide what you're gonna do. Delegate, dump, delay, or downshift—those are the five D's.


Step number four: Manage all of the emotions that come when you do those things.

And then I’ll add this fifth little step: Use the Daily Kickstart to get ahead of all of that, so that you don't have so many things swimming about in your head all the time. A bunch of sheep running amok in your head all of the time, right?

The Daily Kickstart is going to help you do that. Very practical. It's a free gift from me to you. And again, you can find the Daily Kickstart in the show notes where you can download that.

Final Thoughts: You Don’t Have to Settle for Mental Overload

Working moms, let's get ahead of this mental overload. You do not have to settle for it.

There are tools and strategies to help you figure out exactly how to handle all the things you're holding—all the weight you're holding in your life, and on behalf of your kids and your family and your teams.

You can do this. Until next week—let’s get to it.

Rebecca Olson