Three weeks ago my productivity came to a grinding halt. While I had two new exciting projects to tackle—my mind was focused on one thing.

The thing for which I had no control.

The thing I judged myself for obsessing over even as I wrote this.

It seemed like such a teeny, tiny thing relative to all that was happening in the world and for other people. And yet, there I was. In a place where it was the only thing I could write about.

My daughter’s New York City middle school placement for next year.

A week later, I now know where she will go and the uncertainty is over.

But when I sat in the unknown—waiting on this important piece of data for our family—I was driven to ask, “Why is this taking up so much real estate in my brain right now?”

I’m an entrepreneur. I live in the space of uncertainty. My job and my path are completely unpredictable to me—and I thrive in this world where I create many things out of nothing.

So what’s different here? Why for weeks, did I painstakingly finish my writing and then decide to do my 57th Google search to see if anyone had heard anything about the day the placements would be released? With each search, I simultaneously prayed that I would be a more evolved parent by the time we hit high school and college anticipated results.

I’ve deduced that it wasn’t about:

My daughter’s mental state, because she was 100 percent cooler than me throughout the process.

The actual schools, because I know they are all good in their own ways and that we, as parents, have the power to make them even better.

Yet, it was about a practice of:

Releasing perfectionism and the notion that there was one more thing I could have done better in the process.

Breathing through my pre-feeling of what I expected her emotions to be.

I can’t protect her from disappointment or heartbreak and if I do, I’m robbing her of the experience of learning resilience in the face of those life moments.

And so, I breathed. I let go. I instituted a Google embargo for the week the results were released. I sat with the discomfort in the hopes that it was the very thing that would make me evolve before the next milestones come our way.

I did what I do during moments of stress. I wrote (thanks for listening), walked in the park, belted out show tunes with my girls and played rowdy games of tug of war with my puppy.

I drew the direct line between the career-focused resilience I’m helping my clients build in our work and the moment my daughter was facing—and I knew that no matter what news would be revealed, we would learn and we would be OK.

Despite my evolving feelings about Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, one gem of wisdom that I continue to find critical as I’m coaching those who plan to become working parents in the near future is, "Don’t leave before you leave." Women take themselves off their career paths and out of workplaces that could potentially be supportive because of looming fears that they will be overwhelmed—needing to do it all and look perfect while doing it. Yet Laura Vanderkam points out in her book, I Know How She Does It, that often times the more senior roles bring greater autonomy and control over one’s schedule—so continuing on the rising path can offer more flexibility than most women assume.

Instead of taking yourself out of the game prematurely, if you’re considering starting a family within the next three years, I recommend these three paths forward:

1. Learn the art of authentic self-promotion
As I continue to point out in my writing, workshops and work with clients—doing good work is important. But it is not what gets you a larger budget for your project, head count on your team, promotions or raises. Most importantly, it does not help you make a bigger impact in your organization or in the world. You MUST tell people about the good work you’re doing, the work you’re proud to produce and the teams you’ve built. I’ve outlined ways to practice this skill in my 5 Commandments Of Self-Promotion. If you plant the seeds of your value early and often, when it comes time to have conversations about flexibility to navigate working parent life, you will find yourself having a vastly different dialogue than if you begin proving your value at the very moment you need support.

2. Practice boundary setting
How do you envision your working parent life to look? Truly, you will never know how it will go until you get there, but you can run some experiments and simulations that include setting clear boundaries around time. You can practice leaving the office at 5:30, perhaps exercise or cook a healthy meal instead of ordering in. Make your health a priority during this time, and beyond the benefits you will receive in energy, you will learn the art of asking for what you want…and holding to it. You can always get back online for an hour or so after you’re exercised, fed and on your couch—if you think it will help you get a better night’s sleep and start fresh in the AM. Notice how it feels for you to set different boundaries. What comes up? How can you work through it with your leaders? How can you be more efficient with your time while you’re in the office so that the organization will not be negatively impacted by this change?

3. Build out your network
Seek out other working parents who appear to be doing it well. Learn from them. Nurture these relationships so you can expand your understanding of what’s possible and be inspired by all they’re pulling off. Also, use this time to find advocates within your company and beyond. Before I had my first daughter, a former colleague was looking to recruit me into his new organization. I was transparent—as I have a tendency to be—and told him, "I’m on the path to having a child. If you have something flexible to offer in a year or so, I’m in." Eyes wide, he was not expecting that to come out of my mouth, and yet he hired me a year and a half later for a flexible marketing role where I controlled my hours.

As with anything in life, the more intentional you are about what you want to create, the more likely it is that you will make it so. While you don’t need to switch gears to get on what you assume is the mommy or parent track, you can begin thinking about your vision—redefining what success looks like for you as you enter working parenthood, while testing the waters to see if you’re in a place that will support you in claiming it.

At my 5th grade daughter’s Parent Teacher Conference, we discussed her report card. Her grounded, wise teacher held up the card and cautioned us—"Please make sure she knows she’s thriving and this isn’t the only proof. Do your best to reinforce success is not about this."

In our household, we’ve always focused on kindness, empathy, curiosity, and a hunger for learning—and frankly, both our girls could recite the Garrett TED Talk on the importance of effort word for word. But when the mirage of validation stares you down in the form of a lineup of high marks—it’s difficult to take a measured approach to praise.

The achievement seduction is real.

It’s the belief that if I get the grades, win the awards, get into the schools, land the good on paper jobs—I’m guaranteed a successful life. A happy life.

To be clear, I know that academic effort, striving and persistence toward goals are important variables in moving through childhood into an adulthood where both happiness and financial health are possibilities. But these things do not make up the full picture and they do not provide guarantees. Our maniacal focus on achievement is out of proportion to what it can offer—leaving many of us in perfectionism, anxiety and a desperation for validation, promotions and external praise. At the same time, those who focus on accolades are often out of touch with what drives them outside of our society’s formula for success.

When I support women mid-career, they hit this identity-shifting moment. After a lifetime of striving toward things that seemed important, they realize that these aren’t the things that are important to them. Acknowledging the dissonance to anyone feels like a failure and an unimaginable risk. There’s no roadmap for doing life outside the formula.

The first step out of these woods is compassion for that young person, who dutifully followed the rules and diligently worked to get to this place. Who wouldn’t want the life you were promised? You were expecting certainty where it never truly existed, and now the idea of taking a path where uncertainty is known can be terrifying. This process of uncovering how you want to live your life requires courage and patience. A simultaneous quieting of the noise of others’ expectations and a deep listening to your intuition that you’ve become skilled at silencing.

From there you can find pride and momentum in both the weaving together of those moments that ignited you throughout your life and the relentless exploration of things you’ve always hungered to learn and do. My clients who move down this path build their own companies and create new roles at organizations they admire by writing job descriptions around their strengths. They finally give themselves permission to pursue their creative projects and they unapologetically show up in their lives as the people they are, rather than those others wanted them to be. Once you are free from whatever your 5th grade report card said about you, the university you did or didn’t get into and the title you’re supposed to have by your age, you regain control of your choices and your life.

Lately, I’ve been tucking in my nearly eleven-year-old daughter at her set (early!) bedtime, only to see her pop out of her room an hour later with an energized grin.

"Can I read you the poem I just wrote? It’s three pages. I’m really proud of it."

Then, she weaves her words—descriptive and dark—connected by metaphor and hope. Leaving me wondering—uhm—what happened at school today?

I ask what inspired her to write this thoughtful and expressive piece and she reminds me of something I know, but also something I allow my rigid adult brain to resist.

"Mom, when I write a poem, I have the idea and then I just sit down and it comes out. I don’t even think about it."

After highlighting some details that stood out to me in her work and watching her smile grow, I thought, "Profound. I want that."

While I do feel those moments of flow with my writing—there’s often that editing voice I’m quieting as I go. I’m skilled at navigating that voice in my reserved weekly three-hour block—and most days, I wish that time didn’t have to end. Yet, I would be lying if I said it was always a flow or that each time I truly let go.

Even as I work through shifting my presence in my writing practice, for the past two plus years I’ve proudly made my creativity a priority in my business and my life, and that commitment has transformed who I am.

I schedule out writing time on my calendar a month in advance.

I guard that time with my life, not accepting any sessions, meetings or phone calls. OK, so I do look at emails and texts, but this is a work in progress, people!

During those hours, I gift myself the chance to observe the world, to make sense of it, to be raw and human. It’s a time to simultaneously be imperfect and whole.

And what I receive in return is immeasurable.

Energy.

Points of connection with people in my life and those I’ve never met. A playground to make mistakes. A place of joy where it’s safe to practice letting go, a lesson I then bring to areas of my life where I continue to indulge my fears.

I’m reminded of creativity’s impact on who we are as humans when I bear witness to my child’s ability to go deep in a quiet place, to be a vessel and to listen without thinking. When I see who she’s becoming, the confidence she’s building and her knowledge of self that is a direct result of her practice, I am moved by what’s possible for both of our lives and the life we share together.

When I coach job search and career transition clients, they define their non-negotiables for their next roles. Nine times out of ten, a top variable is: a leader who supports me. We then clarify what that means to them. 

It often sounds like someone who:

1. Pushes them beyond what they believe are their capabilities. 
2. Offers visibility with senior leaders and a chance to shine for their own work. 
3. Backs them up when they are taking unpopular points of view. 
4. Allows them space to take risks and to make mistakes. 
5. Truly listens to their needs for flexibility and does their best to advocate for those parameters. 
6. Thinks about them and nurtures them as whole people with long careers, rather than just employees fulfilling on current needs and projects. 

It’s no mystery why this need comes up as one of the most important desires in a new role. When you don’t have the support of your boss, your job can be hard in ways that have nothing to do with the content or tasks of your actual role. It can range from annoying to the dreaded…unbearable. 

When you’re in this situation and do not yet have an exit plan that is signed, sealed and delivered, there are several strategies that can help to get you through it:

1. Own up to your part in the relationship
Like it or not, this is not all about your manager. Who are you being in the face of these challenges? Is this situation bringing out a side of you that you don’t like or respect? It makes sense that you would act this way under stress, but when you note your behavior and own up to it—even if it’s simply to yourself, you can begin to learn how to handle this difficult time with strength, resilience and confidence. 

2. Find other advocates in the organization
Your direct manager is not the only one who can offer you support in your role. Who are the other leaders with whom you’ve worked on projects and those who have championed your work in the past? Meet with them, take them out for coffee, stay positive and be clear on how they may be able to help. Perhaps they can offer you opportunities to work on projects with their teams, make introductions for new roles or give you feedback that may be able to provide a path to a more effective relationship with your manager. 

3. Contain it
If you feel awful in the moments you have contact with your unsupportive boss, why would you extend the time period you feel that pain ten-fold by talking about your boss and his or her actions—All. Day. Long. Shut it down. Venting is not helping you feel better and it’s not helping anyone else help you. Your continued focus on this other person and what he or she is doing to you and your career is the equivalent of you handing over your power on a silver platter. I will remind you of one of my coaching mantras: The person responsible for your career is you. 

4. Prioritize energy and forward movement
If you have decided that the only way out of this toxic environment is to leave your role or your organization, focus your energy there. If you spend all of your hours outside of the office either rehashing the things that drove you bananas during the day or working your butt off on tasks that are not mission critical in an effort to get in your leader’s good graces, you will have no time to focus on your search or the networking conversations that will bring you momentum. Do a truly good job in your role, but evaluate whether now is the time to take on extra volunteer office work or committees. Make the space for you to focus on your priority. The more traction you get in your search, the more power and confidence you will feel in the relationship with your manager—which will inevitably change the dynamic. 

If you feel guilt about the relationship not working or leaving because of it—that is absolutely normal and expected. Know that you can always reframe the scenario when you lead with your curiosity. What can I learn from this moment and this person? How might everyone involved—including me—be better off if I moved on? If you’ve analyzed your role in this relationship, then you also know that this challenge is not all about you either—it is about a bad fit. Reminding yourself of this message often will be critical to your moving forward with confidence, knowing that you did all you could do. Your talents will be supported elsewhere by a leader who sees you for who you are and is energized by what you can create, together. 

A few weeks ago, I was cozying up with our seven-year-old on the couch and without warning she blurted out, “I really wish women could propose to men.”

“They can! They do! And women propose to other women. And some people decide to simply be in love and not get married at all.” I sharply responded, my feet firmly planted on my soapbox. But as the words left my mouth, I was already in a well of shame. How does she not know this is possible? And why at her age is she focused on proposals? What an antiquated custom for my modern daughter to be pondering on a Saturday afternoon. While I would love to blame Fuller House, I scolded myself. Bad feminist mom!

As I emerged from my spiral, I decided to use this cringe-worthy moment as a way to dive into it with her. “What brought this up for you?”

“Well, I don’t want to wait around for someone to propose to me. I just want to do it myself.”

Phew. All is not lost. She’s questioning a custom I thought was law growing up and actively participated in as part of my own rite of passage.

It reminds me of how far I’ve come in the past 15 years—and also brings to light the nuanced approach to parenting one must take when the landmines that live within our own muscle memory are reinforced by all of the media and messages around us.

It’s why—in our home—we talk about bodies being strong and healthy and capable of impressive swimming and soccer feats.

It’s why I am always kind and positive about my own body in front of the girls which has offered a wonderful side-benefit of taking in those messages and believing them. In the process, I have healed years of body shame passed down by multiple generations of the women in my family.

It’s why I held my tongue in criticizing women not wearing makeup on the red carpet when watching the Academy Awards with my daughters. My gut instinct was to go there. The years of beauty programming and messaging are in me at a cellular level, but my girls are helping me notice the hypocrisy in those moments.

It’s why my husband does most of the cooking and I handle the finances—even though I initially handed over all financial responsibility to him when we got married. I wanted somebody to save me from dealing with something this hard, something our culture deems out of my realm and I finally realized that I was that person.

It’s why I don’t tell my girls, “You can be anything you want to be.” as I was told. That was not true then and it is not a foregone conclusion now. I tweak the message to acknowledge our reality. “I hope you can be anything you want to be, and we will fight together to bring down the barriers and the customs that diminish our power—and the biases even we ourselves have accepted as truth—to improve your odds.”

I’m learning that in order to be the feminist parent I want to be, I must have compassion for myself as I challenge the biases I carry with me. I can model my questioning for my daughters who will also inevitably internalize many of the biases of our culture. My hope for them is that they will also have the confidence to challenge gender norms and what’s possible for us—while our culture makes incremental shifts toward a bigger change.

When I started my coaching practice, I was juggling: a digital marketing role, coach training, building out the infrastructure for the business and—oh yeah—being a mom to seven and four-year-old daughters. When experts told me I needed to network in order to get my business up and running, my head sank in despair.

When am I going to find time to do that?

How will I go to events and coffees and lunches and drinks?

Is this the wrong time for me to be doing this?

Knowing that adding two to three events per week was most likely out of scope for my life at that moment, I decided to run an experiment. I naturally see a lot of people throughout my day. School drop-off, kids’ birthday parties on the weekends, extended family gatherings, the line at the local coffee shop—these were all opportunities to talk about the business and I was letting them pass me by.

I adopted a new mantra: Network where you are.

And to this day, while it did not come easily at first, I credit it as THE tactic that officially launched my company. Sure, the website, social media presence and successful client experiences helped, but it was the practice of sharing my message and my mission with a multitude of people, and being clear about ways they could support me that drove my referrals, connections and momentum.

With my clients who are busy working parents in the midst of career transitions or job searches, we use the same approach and see remarkable success in gaining traction and landing the right jobs for them. Here’s how they do it:

1. Get clear on your elevator pitch. Here’s another blog post where I provide an elevator pitch formula. For those in career transitions, here’s a variation on that pitch framework.

2. When you’re in a conversation with someone who shows up in your natural daily path, play this game: how seamlessly can I plant a seed about my job search into the conversation? Practice new and different ways to bring up the topic to keep it both fresh and interesting for you and your audience.

3. Remember, it’s about practice—not perfection. The more you speak your pitch out loud (without dying), the better you will get at delivering it—tailoring it to each new audience and owning it. You will stumble. You will lose your way. Learn from those moments instead of beating yourself up about them.

4. Use these conversations as a way to learn about the work others are passionate about, their roles and what’s possible out there outside of being a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, etc. Lead with your curiosity so you can expand your understanding of what a potential path could look like for you.

As you walk through your life increasing the frequency of your pitch conversations, you will go through a period of battling "the ick factor." It will feel awkward or salesy or fake or whatever label for fear that resonates with you. But make no mistake—fear is what it is. It’s the fear that you will forget how to string sentences together in that moment. That you’re an impostor. It’s the fear that you will get what you want and fail at it. Know that on the other side of that fear is the ability to control your message so that you can take charge of your career and your life. This skill you’re practicing for a job search right now will eventually translate into authentic self-promotion in your future roles and organizations. And at the heart of these conversations, there is a pride in what you do, a hunger for what you want to learn and a passion for the problems in the world you want to solve. If that’s not the conversation you’re having, that may be part of why this is so hard for you. If it is, step out of your own way and go forth in finding your collaborators, wherever you are.

I spoke on the phone last week with a new potential partner—another coach supporting working moms. We talked business for 20-minutes, discussed potential client engagements and rates, and then, with the most natural conversation flow, she launched into her pro-mom tips for my upcoming LA trip with my 7 and 10-year-old daughters. After I hung up, I took in both the simplicity and the gravity of what just happened.

In a 30-minute professional conversation, I was a focused business owner, advocating for myself AND I was a mom. Both roles were normal. Both roles were accepted. Both celebrated.

This is quite a different experience to what many of my clients are navigating in their corporate roles.

In our coaching sessions, each part of their lives is one that could bring them to a breakthrough on all parts of their lives. So we go there. Diving into their challenges in giving feedback to a nanny or family member provides insights on the issues they’re having in leading their teams. When we flow so freely between the topics, I often hear a sigh of relief.

“It’s so nice to talk about being a mom WHILE I’m at work.”

“I’m constantly compartmentalizing. I feel like I’m living a double life.”

“I feel like I have to hide one of the most important parts of me. And that’s exhausting.”

With my clients, we break through those fears of acknowledging their kids and the importance of being a mother—by experimenting with bringing those things into view in small ways.

If they lead teams, they ask parents on the team about their kids—in front of other team members—normalizing the conversation. Removing all judgment and shame from the topic.

They find that natural way to drop insightful comments about parenting or learnings from it that have impacted or transformed their thinking.

The dialogue is not all about flexibility, the leeway they need from a boss or the time they will be taking away from their jobs. While these are important pieces of the picture, and things to advocate for, my experience is that this is where we focus when we talk about being parents in our career—which is hard to sell as a win-win.

Parenting can be an additive experience to an employee’s life. It can bring them leadership knowledge before they ever become leaders in their career. It brings them joy. Clearly, for me, it brings me life stories to share with those who want to listen.

I begin each one of my corporate workshops or trainings with a story about my kids that’s relevant to the topic. It gets the biggest laugh of the day and it leaves my audience with the vision that it’s possible to be an expert on leadership, run a successful business and be a mom. And that’s exactly the takeaway I want them to have, so that if they so choose, they can do their own version of that, too.