Juggling Modern-Day Motherhood, Career, & Entrepreneurship

I am excited to have Tanya on the show because we're talking about a common topic that I am not familiar with but can totally relate to, and that topic is children, having— being a mom. There's so many parallels at times that I have found with my clients on what that looks like having children and feeling the need to be a certain way with your children around people who have expectations about different things. And in this podcast, I am doing things a little bit differently and having an expert on this topic come in to talk about the modern-day mom juggling. What does that look like? How can we reframe some of the thoughts and expectations that we put on ourselves as women and as mothers and also as women living with chronic illness? And I thought no better than to have Tanya, a French-born, um, a London-based executive coach who is coming to share with her, her own personal experience living with, working as a mother specialist. She helps mothers navigate their guilt journey and balance their lives personally and professionally so that they can have a more intimate relationship with themselves and with their family. So if you're curious about what this looks like, especially in entrepreneurship, as a woman, as a mother, and as a chronic illness warrior, Stay tuned. Welcome to She's Crafted to Thrive, a globally ranked podcast for women living with chronic illness and creatives in business. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, chronic illness warrior and photographer turned digital marketer turned award-winning coach. I love helping chronic illness warriors and creatives to live with their chronic illness and creativity as their superpower in life and business. On the show, you will hear the very stories that helped our guests, my clients, and myself to define our dream way of making money with proven strategies and marketing and mindset, all to grow a business that thrives without sacrificing our health. So stay tuned because you'll find the inspiration and tools and the resources you need to craft a life and business that thrives.

I am so excited for this episode. It's going to be a little different y'all. So I'm sure you're going to enjoy it. But I am excited to have this conversation with Tanya. And I want her to, for a second, to introduce herself, tell us where you're talking to us from and what you do and how you got to where you are right now.

Thanks so much, Nikita, for having me here. You can hear my accent. I actually live in London, UK.

And I love your accent. Like, I just eat— like, it's so ooey gooey gummy to me. Like, I love it.

Thank you. And I I love you. I've been following you for at least 3 years now and listening to your podcast. So, so grateful to be here. I'm French. I was born and raised in France and then I moved to London. It was my dream, always my dream. I worked in finance for 9 years and then I reconverted as a coach, an executive coach, but now I specialize in working mothers. I help them navigate their guilt, journey and, and their— and balancing their lives and personal and private.

That is awesome. And yeah, we have been connected on Instagram and Kenzie, who we've had on the show, and you guys know me and her had like a whole series a couple— like a year or two ago, has connected me and Tanya a bit. And so I have been following her the same and I've kind of seen this evolution, if you will, of where you were and where you are now. And I just feel like you really have found like your sweet spot with like Talking to mothers, because being a mom and being in that corporate world and now being in your own business, I love, I love all of that. And that's what we kind of want to talk about today. So usually I, you guys know, I do like an interview style where I'm asking specifics about the journey and all those different kinds of things, but we're kind of going to do a little different kind of a conversation today. And we're going to talk a little bit about like the modern woman, like what is that now? What is it when you like are a mom or a wife, you have kids, you're running a business, how is that different than, you know, let's say our parents, our generations behind us. So I'd love to know, what does that look like for you, Tanya? Like when you're working in your business and then you're working with your clients, how is this, what are some of the things that are getting in the way that we don't even realize because we're thinking they should be something?

Oh, where, where do we start, Nikita? Honestly, so I just— just to give a bit of background, I'm a mom of 3 kids under 6 years old, and I had literally no idea what I was doing. So I went through a fertility journey, so we had to do quite a few IVF rounds before getting pregnant. And so when we had our first child, it had taken us almost 4 years to get pregnant, and we had a few miscarriages, etc. And so then after a year of kind of babymoon with our first child, we were like, okay, let's not wait any further and let's have more kids. So we put 2 embryos, the same thing that we had done with the first one, and both of them actually also worked. So we had twins after that. We have 3 kids, and we know that we're done. We're done. But look, I I didn't know and we didn't know. We just knew we wanted to have children and that was about it. But clearly, clearly the challenges that come from having, you know, a lot of emotions to deal with at the same time were not exactly what we expected. And I don't think you can ever get ready for this. But it's interesting what you were bringing about the modern woman and specifically, you know, like in my case, I would say, the modern mom or the modern or the 21st century mom, which is kind of a concept I'm testing out a little bit. So I would say that a mother, a modern mom is maybe not a mom that will want to spend 100% of their time with their children, you know, and she doesn't want to be with the kids at all time. And she kind of accepts that she wants to maybe do something that will fulfill her and that she's maybe more inclined to do. Because I believe, and I truly believe, that motherhood is a skill, like, you know. Yeah. You wanna be, some people want to be teachers in kindergarten and some others want to work in politics. So we all have different set of skills. We all have different kind of age groups that we might like to spend more time with. So there's always a, like some, mothers will say they love the baby phase. Some others will say they love, you know, the more challenging phase of the toddler, or when they get older, etc. So I think what— to go back to what you were asking about our mothers versus, versus us, you know, or the women of the past versus us, is kind of accepting that the time that was spent before will look different to the time that you spend today. So let's say you decide not to have children, you have to be coping with what people expect from you, what— how people will judge you and will be asking maybe indiscreet questions or, or questions that will make you feel almost bad for children. And I, I'm sure you can—

oh, I can totally relate to that. It's every, every couple, every I shouldn't say this, I'm going to speak for myself, but I do know I have friends who don't have kids and they're married. It is almost a given of a conversation of like, oh, you're not— like, it's almost like they feel whether it's by choice, whether it's by circumstances, you can't have children. People in general from a different generation. And also, I mean, I think we've carried it to this expectation in this generation of thought, like Well, you get married, you have kids. Like, that's what women do. And if you say you don't want to have kids, Lord have mercy, people are looking at you like you're crazy. Or if you're like, you know what, we just want to be married for right now and like, you know, enjoy that, and maybe we might have kids— like, girl, no, you gotta have kids now. Like, there's all these thoughts that are given. I mean, I've had many conversations where I just have to nod and smile because I'm like, there's no point in having this conversation with you. And I can imagine even for my clients who have children, they have similar conversations, but in a different way about how they should be raising or whether they should be at home. Like there's all of these like things that we would— like for me, I would never come up to a woman now and say, why, when are you having kids? I would never say that. Like, unless it's like a friend that I know who wants to have kids, like that's a different conversation, but I'm not just going to assume that because you're married or with your person that you're going to have kids. I'm not assuming that. And I'm not going to judge you for not wanting to have kids. Like, you just got me lit by this conversation.

And I'm so happy that you're sharing this as well, because obviously, you know, like, it's important to know that, you know, whether you decide to be a mother or not, the same kind of judgments will come. So when— if you have only one child, why don't you have another child? Or when are you going to have another child? Of course, certain cultures will be more pushy towards that or will have something to say around that. And I think that to your original question, which is, you know, what did it look like before for our moms versus now? I think this is not very different, but at least now we are able to kind of pause and ask ourselves, what do we actually want?

Yeah.

And we have tools now, especially as coaches and doing coaching, to to say or to process this emotion that says, okay, I, at this stage of life, I don't want to have kids, you know, this is not something for me. Or at this stage of life, I think I'm good with one child because there's a lot of things happening in my life. I had the child maybe too young, or I want to develop my career, so I'm going to press the pause button in having another child. And we Even though at times it's difficult to overcome the guilt, we realize, you know, that there's certain things that we do not want to sacrifice. Like, for instance, we might not want to sacrifice a career because, because we want to be able to dedicate that much time with our children as well. So we are able to, and that's, that's where the balancing comes from, you know. I think I don't really believe in work-life balance, but I believe in, like, in personal life balance or work balance, you know, but not the two, the work-life balance. I believe more in juggling the work-life balance.

I call it— I call it harmony, like really trying to find the flow of it all together. Because women in general, we have to— like, we have to know how to flow in and out of the different roles that we partake. We take them all with us in all of the different roles. A mother takes being a mother into being, you know, a business owner or corporate executive. Executive leader, to some degree she takes in that motherhood piece because it's needed. Like, it's needed in that, in, in that place. But in a lot of ways, I think something that you're bringing out too that's important for us to realize is that back in the day— and whatever back in the day might be, I just think of like my grandmother, my great-grandmother— they weren't given— like, first of all, they weren't necessarily in the workplace like this, and they weren't given an option of being in flow or in harmony. It was like they had to sacrifice being at work and being at work and not bringing in the fact that they are like the mothers. Like, there's that— there's a different nuance to it now, and I think that's what you might be getting at as well.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that nuance. And there's this comedian who's amazing, Jen Fulwiler, and she talks about about how actually back in the days, we have this conception that mothers were spending 24/7 with their kids, but they were not. And she studied anthropology as well. And she was saying, you know, back then they were doing different things. They had to get food for children. So they were doing things that were related to children, but they were not necessarily with the children. Unless the children were working with them, et cetera. If they were working in farms, et cetera. They were not doing things that we expected to be, being 24/7 with the children, enjoying every single moment with them. And that's, I have to say, I was guilty of that. That's what I thought motherhood would look like. I have children, then I'll feel fulfilled. But actually, I realized that having children made me doubt a lot about what I truly wanted to do. And I found my calling with coaching before I had children, but it's actually even emphasized my calling. And, and the reason, one of the reasons why I've specialized in working moms is also because it's, I find it so such a struggle and a challenge personally that, you know, I've done so much work on parenting and connecting and creating like a village of people that are helping me in this, in this motherhood journey. And there's something else that we think that whether we're moms or not, we believe that we can do everything on our own because what we see on social media, it looks like the successful influencer look, it looks like they're doing everything on their own. But there's a lot of, a lot of myth around that when actually we always have needed a lot of people to help us do everything. So in the concept of parenting, there's this psych— this physicist, Gabor Maté, that I've been following for many, many years. And he talks about this concept of village. So as a mother, you know, we feel guilty for not spending or not choosing our children over our work. But it's actually okay to, for instance, choose work over doing certain activities with your children, as long as you've created a strong village of people that can help you. Around educating your kids. And that's something that I've been working on myself personally. But I see my clients, it gives them a lot of satisfaction and reduces their guilt when they know and they ask for help. It doesn't have to be because now we don't live always next to our parents or our siblings, etc. But it can be friends, it can be, you know, school parents, it can be any other adult that you think will have a positive impact with your children. And, and it's allowing yourself to ask for help as well with this, with this group of people. And whether you're a mom or not, I think that advice works really well.

Yeah, while you were talking, I was thinking about that in my own journey of being in my clients who don't have children. I have clients who have children, clients that don't, but the clients that don't have children, this concept of having a village around just being a woman and specifically the women who are living with chronic illness, having a village of people that can support you when maybe you aren't at the place that you need to be is— it's like paramount. Like, it's like absolutely, because you can't do everything. You know, you're missing, like, you know, research is showing that. Like, I was reading a book called Happy Women Live Better by Valerie Burton, and she talks a lot about positive psychology and that. Recent studies show that women in general, whether married, whether with children or not, are less happy than they were 10 or 15 years ago because of the thought that we believe that we, one, have to do it all by ourselves, and two, that we want it— like, we can have it all. But having it all and doing it all by yourself do not work. Like, it does not create happiness. It creates this paradox of like frustration and anger and like all of the things. I can only imagine if you have children and you're feeling like, well, I have to do it all by myself, but I also want to have it all. Those two thoughts can't live in the same place.

No, it's a lie. It's a massive lie. And it's a myth, right? And it's true that when you think about this concept of having it all or nothing, then you're not happy because you don't realize what you actually have. But because this is true, and this is something that I would say most of our clients go through, this idea of having it all, and how do you help them around that? Because it's a real issue. And this guilt realization that that, you know, you want to have it all and you want to do it all by yourself because you think that others are able to do it all by themselves. How do you actually help them overcome this? And, and by meeting other women going through the same kind of pain point really helps. Doesn't have to be— and that's something that I really enjoy and I find in your community because I've been in, in a few of your calls as well— is that everybody comes from, like, they do different things, their mothers, non-mothers, but they come from different backgrounds. So, you know, like this idea of like-minded, I don't, I don't agree with it 100%. I actually like the fact that we're not necessarily like-minded, but we, we have the similar kind of pain points of guilt, of wanting to do it all, of wanting to have it all. And, and that's what I like, and that's what I am trying to create also with my community, with my ladies that join. And I think it's hitting that pause button of our life that is key. And asking yourself, what is it that truly matters to me today as a mother or as an entrepreneur or as a business leader or, you know, as someone working for corporate, etc.? What is it that truly matters to me today? Because it might be as simple as, oh, I actually want to teach my daughter how to swim, or I want to help her with her assessments. Okay, so this is what matters to me today. So I'm going to spend the next 90 days working around that. And it's, it's a lot about planning. But first of all, you need to understand your priorities. You need to kind of understand if it is for you, connection is what matters the most at the moment. Is it more family focused? And are you going to compromise your work a little bit because you can't be doing it all? But once you've clarified what is it that matters to you right now, maybe it's achievement. So actually work is going to be more important, that project is going to be more important. Once you realize that, then you can prioritize and plan and get rid of things that you want to do, but less than your priorities. And that's the key kind of juggling things. So like you were talking about the harmony, that you would get harmony when you know what to juggle.

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree with that. You know, especially about knowing what it is that is most important to you. That's something— I mean, we always go back to that in coaching. It's like, what is it that you want, what's important to you, what's your purpose, what's your reason for doing something and taking that pause. You know, that's key in my, in my own framework. That's the first thing we do. Let's like pause, reset, like let's figure out what it means to you. And do you think that— and I think, I think this happens because we have to do that, because like you were just saying, like there are so many different expectations labeled on women.— like what women should be doing in general, especially as a mother, as, you know, living with, being married, you know, being a woman, period. There are labels that are expected of us. We kind of take those expectations. Do you find that your clients realize that they're holding on expectations that they don't even care? Like, it's not even something that they want. It's not even something that they care to want, but they've been carrying it around because, you know, that's what the world said that you're supposed to be doing. And this is what it looks like.

So, so true. And sometimes they— it's not just the expectations of others, but sometimes they are disappointed about themselves because they think that they actually miss their younger selves in a way, or they miss a version of themselves from the past in a job that they were so proud of having done in the past. And they actually feel bad not being exactly like that today. And they kind of, I don't know if it's mourning, but what I want to say is that they just, it's another myth as well. It's another lie that they are the same as they used to be. So imagine your values, as you know, are not the same today than they were when you were at university, but somehow you keep longing for the same feeling of motivation. Right? You keep wanting to be as driven as when you were at university, but it's not, it's just not possible. You will have other values today. And one of the biggest realizations, even though it sounds obvious, it's saying, okay, so I'm, I've got different values. I'm the same person, but I've got different values today. And let's figure out what they are today. And something as simple as sometimes achievement, realizing that achievement is one of your values today and realizing that they are just not achieving anything, even if it means responding to 5 emails.

Right.

You know, that's an achievement for the day. But if one of your values is achievement and you're actually not finishing or achieving anything, you feel this frustration constantly. So then, like you said, figure out what you want, but go even deeper in, you know, how do you translate this, what you want into time, right? How can you make it something that is, that you can at the end of the day, even so, so the way I find it really helps, and I'm sure it's the same for you is, okay, let's get some quick wins. To get a momentum going. So it kind of increases the confidence. If someone wants to exercise, you know, how can you create quick wins to keep that momentum and make sure that you carry on rather than quitting? If, for instance, getting in shape is one, is one of the priorities that they may have. And it's so easy to quit, isn't it?

Yeah, it was so interesting. I just had a coaching call this this afternoon where I was talking with a client about this limiting belief about not being enough. And it's something that this client is very aware is in their presence. Like they know that this is a thought that they are challenging with, but the work to overcome that thought, it takes those tiny actions. It takes those tiny actions of believing that, that even though you believe it's not enough, that I'm still gonna do it anyway. Like I'm still gonna do it anyway. And then that that creates the momentum of whatever it is that you are seeking to finally feel like you are enough. It comes from the doing. And I think what I have found for myself, just like what you were talking about, the quick wins comes from first embracing that you are different. Like you, you, especially if I can, I can imagine if you're a mother, cuz even with me living with chronic illness, like right before I started dealing with chronic pain, And I look back— like, I was talking with my therapist a few weeks ago, and I was like, I realize I'm a different person. Things mean different things to me now than they did back then. But I can't— just like you said, I can find myself romanticizing this former version of me who didn't have chronic pain and measuring myself to that person. That's crazy talk. Like, it doesn't help you. Take the actions now with where you are now. So I find that too with my clients who are like, I am a different person as a mother than I was. But then at the same time, they're comparing themselves to the previous them with no children. Like, you're in a different space now.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, you see that there's some things you can keep, like, for instance, okay, let's— if you remember a peak moment of your life and you say, okay, what I liked was the interaction with several individuals, let's say, you know. So it's in a professional element, I think it can make sense to miss your, you know, your old, your past job. And maybe you're doing something now because you've got children or maybe because it gives you a good income and then you are at a different stage or phase of your life and you are unhappy, you know, you've lost your mojo. And that's when you say, okay, is it because I'm a different person now? Or is it because it's actually my job? Because sometimes you need a trigger to realize that maybe the job you're at is not— doesn't suit you anymore. Or you might need to, you know, change department or ask for something different from your boss. And so I find that a lot of clients that come to see me, they are at this kind of turning point where So it's not about the achievement necessarily. So we talk a lot about achievement, but this esteem of self and recognition from others, but then they start thinking about what do I actually want for myself to feel that I'm doing something that I love and that I wake up and I feel proud of myself of doing, et cetera. And then there's the conflict of it, I might not, make enough money in that transition. And that's, that's a difficult, that's a very difficult moment for, for us to realize. And it goes even deeper sometimes as mothers, you know, where you're making money and you're like, okay, so I, I'm actually feeling guilty because I, even though I'm not happy in this job and I have children, I would rather work than staying at home. And spending time with my kids and doing kids-related activities and planning their days, etc. That's where it goes back to, you know, going back to understanding, okay, what are actually my skills? Are your skills around, you know, looking after children? And, you know, is this something that you love doing? And would you be— and I asked them, would you be, if you didn't have kids, would be a kindergarten teacher? You know, like, I mean, the teacher of my 6-year-old doesn't have children, but you can tell that she was born to be a a teacher. That is something she loves. And when you ask her, why don't you have children, she'd say, look, I, I, I, I, I have children in my second grade class.

I have lots of children.

I have lots of children. I don't need any children. But you see, her skills, she was born to do that. That's something that she, she— and she fulfilled the need of having children by actually being a teacher. So that, that makes total sense to me, right? I mean, I'm simplifying things, but I find that there's a lot of sense in, in that as well.

So would you say that— so while you were speaking, I was thinking just conversations I've had with my clients, which is a very common conversation, which is mom guilt. Like, I should be as excited about sitting down with my kid to, you know, teach them something as I am in doing something in my business. Or the other thought is I should be finding fulfillment enough from just being a mother and not from getting more fulfillment from doing something else outside of being a mother. I find those are, you know, conversations that I hear mothers have. I've even had women on this show who are saying like, yeah, I always deal with this mommy guilt. What do women do when that comes up? Like, what, what are the conversations or questions that they need to have to give themselves some grace and the fact that they're more— I feel like it's like really grace, just acknowledging like, yes, I believe we were created to procreate and create humans. That's part of a woman's thing. But that's not it. Like, that's, that's not all that we have within us. So yeah, your thoughts.

Plus, like, you don't— it's— there's a lot of women on this planet. I mean, and, you know, a lot of— I mean, everybody has different preferences, etc. Et cetera. So I don't believe that everybody came to this world to procreate, or to— like, the same way I would say not everyone came into this world to be a teacher or a warrior or in the front line, et cetera. And there's this book that I love, The Highly Sensitive Person, that talks about that, you know. As a highly sensitive person myself, you know, back in the days, what job would I have been doing back then? I don't think, you know, if it I was in the Roman Empire, I don't think I would have been in the front line fighting. Or, you know, if I had had the choice— of course, maybe I didn't have the choice, I wouldn't have had the choice— but what I mean is you need people that are the philosophers, the historians, and you need people in the front line the same way as, you know, you had—

you need, you need people's gifts to be in different places. Like, their, their gifts are used in different ways. We're not all created the same. So like, we all have different We all have different desires. Like, that's okay.

Exactly. Like Frankl says, like, we're all a little piece of the mosaic. And when you put everybody together, then the mosaic makes sense. But individually taken out of its context, the piece doesn't really make sense. It's imperfect. But when you put it all together, it does make sense. So I truly believe in that. But to go back to your guilt, to the guilt thing, I think what's, what's helped my clients and what helps my clients is the concept of quality time. Because, because, you know, we talk about, okay, quality time is better than spending so much time, but how much is quality time? Is it 10 minutes a day? Is it 20 minutes a day? Is it an hour? And I get asked that question a lot. And I ask that question to also a child psychologist, etc. And the answer varies a lot. But, but at the end of the day, it's actually, you need to redefine quality time for both of you. So you go with the flow of the child, but also you ask yourself, what am I good at as a mom? So am I a creative mom? Am I an outdoorsy mom? Am I a mom who likes to have chats and tell stories, etc.? And then you try to match the quality time of the child. Let's say the child is a child that loves, I don't know, cars, etc. And you try and match it with what is it that fulfills you as well as a mother. And you try and find common grounds as well and create this quality time situation and accept that, you know, a child, even back then we were talking about the past, the past moms, etc. So when they were getting or preparing or cooking, or they were doing housework stuff, etc., they weren't spending 100% of their time with their children. If anything, they were even spending less. And there was the village as well. So that's, you know, we were— I was talking about Gabo Maté, but Jen Fulwiller also, this comedian, talks about that village, you know. And she specifically says, you know, when you had enough, you could have— you could give your child to someone to put to bed. You didn't have to put him to bed every single day, every single night. And that's, that's something we need to demystify, you know, this perfect mom, and, and go back to the concept of good enough mom. And, and there's, there's another person that, that I've been following for a long time. Her name is Georgia Anderson. And one day she told me about the 40% rule. It's so— you can be, you can be perfect for 40% of the time, and the other 60% and you just try your best. So that removes a lot of pressure, right, on your shoulder of, in terms of how you spend your time with your children or how well you are with, you know, you respond to your children as well. Sometimes, you know, you might let your emotions take over and you might shout, you know, and some, and that amount of guilt that comes from that also from mothers at times of thinking, oh my God, how is that gonna impact my children? Right? Yeah. It's the fear of the consequence also that feeds that guilt. And the other part that feeds the guilt is not realizing that you might enjoy working more than you enjoy mothering for the same reasons. As long as you realize that actually you love your children more than you love work, that's okay. Right. Those are two different things, right? Working, mothering, fine. You know, you might enjoy working more than mothering, but your children, you love them more than work. Always like this is always a priority anyways. But two different things. You realize that. I think it helps a lot with the guilt.

Wow. Yeah, that was a lot of good stuff in there. Y'all listen to that again. I love that because I think I think it's what you really did just bring out there is just the nuance, the reframe of like, it's not— a coach has said to me, and I love this— it's not always a this or that. It can be a this and that. Like, it's not— it doesn't have to be a this or that all of the time. And you don't have to have— you know, you can't say, oh, my favorite color is blue, but actually I hate the other kind of blue. It could be like, my favorite color is blue and the other blue too. Like, it can be both. And I think that's what you are bringing to the conversation is like, remove that pressure of it being this or that. And why not? It can't— why can't it be this? And so I think that's great. And I think that's great advice for any woman who's dealing with that pressure of feeling like you have to be this or that. You can be this and, and I think most, I mean, everyone is a this and, and like, that's the whole purpose of a lot of the different things we experience is so that we can experience things that are beyond maybe this fixed— again, it kind of going back to us coaches, that fixed mindset of being like, you're only in this one square peg and hole.

We're not.

Like, we're multifaceted. We are not one thing. And giving yourself permission for that, I think, is what you were bringing out in that point.

Yes, thank you. And you can love your partner and hate him at the same time.

Exactly. 100% happens. It happens. Well, I, I think this was so good of a conversation. I would ask you to, if you were to tell the modern woman today, there's like 3 things that they should work on or would need to work on around their mindset of being, you know, in this corporate world, or whether it's entrepreneurship or leadership finding that harmony, that sprinkle of being all the different parts of you in the, in the world right now, what would that be? What would be the advice?

All right, I think that my best— well, not best, but my— the one that worked the most for my clients and I is the word connection. Connection. And with connection, I mean connection with your children and connection with your village. So quality time is about connection. So basically when the child misbehaves, etc., the first thing that you want to do is actually flee away from the child or walk away from the child most of the times. But it's actually remembering that that child needs you more. And it's the same in actually any relationship with your partner. It's the same thing. And you just want to walk away. It's okay. It's okay to walk away, but then you have to come back. So connection, I wanna give as one thing. And the other thing is guilt. So work on defining your motherhood, having a definition of your own motherhood, what it means to be a mother for you, or not being a mother or not wanting to be a mother, and just be in touch with your skills then, I think. That's something very important. And I guess there's a lot of little points there, but to finish off, I think help you some by kind of doing some planning as well and realization of what is truly important for you at this stage is always a good one, you know, decluttering, because that really helps and feeds the confidence. At any stage in your life.

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, those 3 points, I think— I mean, whether you're a mom or you're not, you're single, you are a partner to your spouse, or your best friend even, like, these are conversations— like, these are things that I think we all have to lean more into, especially the connection piece and the planning. I think we all have this feeling when it comes to planning that it's gonna break us, like the planning is going to break.

Yeah.

This, you know, creativity, it's like, makes it icky, but it makes it work and it makes it feel better for you. Like, you know, it makes it feel really good. And I love the point about village. I think everyone should have a village. I don't care No matter what circumstance you are in, everyone should have a village and be really connected to that village. It's probably why me and Tanya are both huge coaches, like, about that community feel, because it's important that you have people in your corner that one understands, like, your kind of view of the world. Like you were saying, not necessarily like the like-minded, but I love that you said the pain points, because not everyone understands the pain points of being a mother. Even, even within being a mother, like, I'm thinking about even some of my clients. Like, I have clients who are mothers, but they are mothers to children with special needs. And then there are mothers who are not. That might not— they may not be in your, in your village because they don't have that same pain point. And so it's the same thing that I think even with my community of women who are living with chronic illness, I even find even a deeper connection with women who say they have similar pain points because of the similar, exactly the same type of chronic illnesses I have, because we get it, you know, we get it, we can tap in. And I think that piece of what you're saying is really crucial at any point of your journey as a mother, as a woman, as a business owner, as a leader, as an executive, whatever it is. Yeah, for sure, for sure. So how can we connect with you online? Do you have anything special coming up that the ladies should know about? Tell us.

Yes, thank you. I'm mostly on Instagram and, um, Tanya Koutouri Coaching, and I'm redoing my website, which I'm very excited about, which should be ready in the next month or so. I have— look, I have a group coaching that I launch every, every 3 months. So anyone interested in joining, please give me a shout. But yeah, apart from that, I do some, some also one-to-one and talks as well.

So Tanya, in the group coaching program, what happens? What's your program promise, if you will, at the end of the 3 months?

Yeah, so it's, it's to find, to find more more kind of pausing on your life, making sure that you understand your priorities. We do a lot, a lot of clarification on what you want and how you're going to get it. So we start, we start with a lot of different exercises around that. And we move on to time management exercises, and then we do some goal setting and accountability. As we continue meeting on a monthly basis, It's the beginning is very much a mixture of group and one-to-one so that, you know, we dive deeper in the exercises in the one-to-one. So the first 3 and a half months are quite intense in terms of, uh, of work, of working together and diving into the exercises and the coaching. And then it's more relaxed, which I, I love, where you don't have to continue on that rhythm, but at least usually you come at a point where it's a bit of a turning point where you're starting a new job, you're returning to work after, after a break, or you're in a position that you'd like a change, or you're not sure, or you just need to kind of create this community in your life and you're missing out on that village because for whatever reason, and, and you join us. So really enjoy that.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. And yes, you guys must follow her on Instagram. She has lots of awesome content for sure.

Having fun with the reels. Thanks, Nikita, for having me.

All right, y'all, that's a wrap. Thank you for listening, and I hope this conversation inspired you. Be sure to visit the website at craftedtothrive.com to check out the show notes and grab all the goodies that I or the guests mentioned in the show. Join us for our next one. In the meantime, remember, you are crafted to thrive.