Confident Decision Making: Moms achieving genuine self-expression, purpose and autonomy in your work and at home, with Marin Laukka

Digital Audio Health by Cymotrax. Hey, welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Would you like to worry less and keep your cool with your kids? Are you ready to gain your kids' respect and trust without having to always teach them a lesson?

If you're willing to step up as a leader for your family with confidence, that also creates curiosity in your kids and gets them to pay attention to what you say. I invite you to join us in the No Problem Parenting community. This community was created for parents who want to get to the bottom of why their kids are behaving the way they are. Parents, you're going to learn how to support and guide your kids specific to your family's morals and beliefs.

No Problem Parenting teaches you how to improve and preserve your family relationships by getting to the root of the problem and then dealing with it and overcoming it. In fact, in the definition of the word problem, it says right in there that problems are meant to be dealt with and overcome. Learn what it takes to be the best leader and advocate for your child so that you can become the confident leader your kids crave you to be and turn any problem into a no problem.

By joining the membership community, you're going to get access to the on-demand three-step parenting program. And in as little as a few minutes a day, you're going to see a difference in the dynamic of your family. There's a link in the show notes to get started. Go to noproblemparents.com for more information.

Thanks for listening. Let's get into today's topic. All right, so welcome back, No Problem Parents, the No Problem Parenting podcast, where we choose to deal with and overcome the emotional and behavioral challenges within our home. Today's episode is all about self-care and self-doubt as a mom.

My guest today is Marin Lauca. She is a decision coach and speaker with a master's degree in positive developmental psychology and certifications in life coaching and yoga. As the business owner of Yes And, Maren passionately supports women with one-on-one and group coaching programs to overcome exhausting patterns of perfectionism and self-doubt so they can make confident decisions that lead to authentic meaning and freedom for their life. Over 276 clients and international audiences have applied Marin's coaching to end procrastination, overthinking, indecision, and regret so they can clarify what they want, strengthen self-trust, and experience true happiness.

Marin is also the number one new release author of Ready Enough, your seven-step guide for life's hardest decisions. For an introduction to her work, you can preview chapter one, and I'm going to have a link in the show notes for that. Welcome to the show today, Marin. Thank you so much. I'm so excited for our conversation. So tell us a little bit about, you know, you're a positive psychology life coach with expertise in supporting women to make decisions based on their values, goals, and preferences in life. And many of your clients are actually new moms. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on the show today, because you say motherhood is often a period of time when women are facing big questions about their identity, their life balance and prioritization and deciding what they want in this new season of life. And so you've got some tips and tools and ideas for us today. Just give us a little background about why you're doing what you're doing these days. Yeah. So thank you so much for that introduction and my bio and all the context for the training that's gotten me here. I'll add a little bit of that, you know,

personal story element of why I'm so passionate about what I'm doing in tandem with all the research and certifications and degrees that I have as well. So if I rewind, I'll use one example from grad school is often one that resonates with regards to that, my subtitle of my book, Life's Hardest Decisions. What I have found in my own experience, and then after coaching now over 300 clients through the decision-making process, some of the harder decisions are the ones where you're making a decision truly based on what you want, not on what needs to happen or what other people advise or like this logistical pro-con list best choice. When it comes down to what you value and what you want in life and making those kinds of decisions, I find that whether it's a combination of the education system we often, many of us grew up in, or just the pressures of life and typically following a rule book or everyone following a pretty similar path, those decisions feel more comfortable in my experience working with clients and with myself, because we have the rule book. We have the agreement of what seems like everyone of the pretty much overall next steps to take. But when it comes to, again, what you're wanting or in with my clients who are in motherhood and some transitional phase of motherhood, because there are many deciding what's next based on purely what you want and value for yourself, for your family, for your

goals, for your desires, there isn't as much comfort again, in my experience, because there isn't something to stand on that feels as foundational as, well, this is what everyone says to do, or this is the already agreed upon track forward. And so circling this all back to one of the first places I experienced this was in grad school. I was in a PhD program and decided for myself, I wanted to move to the master's program. And that's when I started my business to apply positive psychology and use that with my clients rather than study it and stay on the professor track, which is what my original intention was. In many ways, it was in direct combat between what others expected or thought was best. And so it added to that pressure.

I added that pressure to my shoulders to make that decision. And I realized how vital it was to have support and to have a space where I could clarify and really understand why I was doing it and what I really wanted so that I could create the foundation that wasn't as naturally there. And that's what I do with my clients every day now. So what's often going on when someone feels sort of lost or without direction or trapped or stuck in their situation where they know it's just not, they're not doing well, they're not feeling well, like what kinds of things are going on when someone feels lost or without direction?

Yeah. With this question, I like to also add the nuance or the caveat to my degree of positive psychology in that whole field. Oftentimes when people hear positive psychology, they think, or a positive psychology coach, they think, oh, they're just there to make me happier, to focus on happiness, which is understandable from the title. And that's definitely a part of it.

But really the basis of why I fell in love with positive psychology is because it's how do we foster flourishing and wellbeing for ourselves? And flourishing and wellbeing includes the hard things. It includes the grief and the transition and the challenge and the sadness or all of these other feelings that sometimes get labeled as negative. So I love your question of how to be with this.

And the first thing that actually comes to mind for me, and maybe we won't love to hear this if you're in this phase, but it's just to feel what you're feeling. It's to feel the grief of losing what was. It's to feel the uncertainty of not knowing exactly where you are, where you're headed next and to let yourself be in that phase for a little bit. And I know from experience, again, both personally and as a coach, that's not the most comfortable sometimes to be and to sit with that. But also in my experience, it passes more quickly when we lean into it and lean toward it and admit that we're feeling those things, because then we actually know what problem we're grappling with. We know what we're dealing with. We're dealing with grief or we're dealing with a loss of direction, like you said, or wanting therefore direction or a new understanding of what we want to do in this season of life. So then you can get at the real root of that. So the first step would be feel what you're feeling and let it be a little uncomfortable and find a safe space, potentially with a therapist or a coach or a friend where you can admit that and share that so that you can be in it and then get at what's actually going on. What I love about what you do and with positive psychology. I know a lot of people think it's like, oh, white picket fence. And you're just supposed to put on the happy face every day and turn everything into this positive. You know,

even with no problem parenting, people will say, well, what do you mean? No problem. Like the problems I'm experiencing are a problem. And I couldn't agree more. They are. And what do we do when we have problems? Let's only give the problem as much attention as it deserves. Acknowledge it like you're saying, and just realize that, yeah, you're going through a problem right now, or this, this situation or whatever you're in is a problem, but let's only give that problem as much attention as it deserves. And then to figure out, like you said, getting to the root of what's happening, what you're feeling, what's going on around you, what your situation is, deal with it and overcome it. And that I think with the way that you coach and the no problem parenting program, that they're really in line with that. So I just absolutely love that. So if there's a mom out there that's feeling really overwhelmed and like, there's just, there's just too much going on and she just doesn't know where to begin or where to start. What are some helpful ways that you can suggest that will help us reduce that overwhelm? Yeah. A few really practical ways. And with my work specifically in what I see when someone comes to me and is attracted to this, what they're really needing is to hear their own voice. So one of the common things I think that happens with overwhelm is that we're looking out for all of our answers. We're looking for advice. We're asking opinions.

We're having conversations with friends who are well-intentioned, but oftentimes friendship conversations end up in that kind of spiral or just like agreeing with each other and therefore almost building the problem, like you're saying, giving it a lot of attention. And so what I really encourage my clients to do and what we do in our coaching sessions is to illuminate and to amplify their own voices. So one practical way, if you're into journaling, is to try journaling. And this can be so simple as just a brain dump, just writing what is going on inside your mind, similar to that first question that you asked of just coming to know what you're feeling and what's going on. But it also strengthens your relationship with your voice and with what you're feeling and wanting, and therefore giving direction eventually of where you need to go or what you're wanting to or needing to address. It really starts with hearing your own voice. Coaching, of course, I'm a huge advocate of as well, bringing on expertise where they can help reflect back what you're hearing. Because sometimes we've just been swimming in that water for so long of always seeking out that it's hard to find. It's almost like a treasure hunt of what is my voice within all of this. And the other thing too, is as much as possible,

I know sometimes this is easier said than done, but creating little pockets of space to just connect with yourself. And that can be two breaths that can be so small of just what, like, what am I feeling? My shoulders are a little tense right now. That's a connection with yourself.

And it helps to reduce overwhelm because it finds this grounded center place for you to return to in the midst of everything else that's going on. That's really good. I think sometimes we let our thoughts get away from us. And so journaling and putting them down on paper is a great way to get out of your head and just, and then you can look at what you've journaled and you can pull out and identify what's factual about what you've written or what you've been thinking or what you've been feeling.

And it's so great to have a coach, whether it's a business coach, because you're struggling with business, whether it's a life coach, because you want to hit every different aspect of your life, or it's a parenting coach would really benefit from you to like get some feedback or input on from from another person, which, again, friends are great. But sometimes we just end up venting. And then afterwards, you're like, okay, it kind of felt good in the moment to vent. But now like, now what I'm still not, yes, I haven't moved the needle at all, you know? Um, but you also said at the beginning, you were talking about how it's important to allow grief in transitions. And so even if you're happy about choosing a new direction or entering a new season in your life,

it is still okay to grieve the transition. So tell us a little bit more about what you mean by that. Yeah. Yeah. And this goes along with the theme of what we've been talking about too, of just letting yourself feel whatever you're feeling and not making yourself wrong for that without giving so much attention to it that it becomes your everything. But yeah, with this grief piece, I like highlighting this because this is one of the areas I find a lot of my clients labeling as wrong or thinking that there's a problem when this is actually one of the things that almost resolves itself on its own when we lean into it, this grief piece. So two examples coming to mind, one, especially with your audience of the grief of moving through parenthood or through seasons of parenthood and just grieving what was and letting that be a beautiful thing and letting current be a beautiful thing, but also letting it be okay that you might miss some aspects of what came before, or you might acknowledge some loss that you've had of loss of independence or loss of some sense of freedom in at least in one definition of what that looks like.

And that's okay. It doesn't make you a bad parent. It doesn't make you a bad person to grieve what was. It's just honoring your holistic self and your holistic life journey. The other example that came up often in the last three years, I can't believe it's been that long since the pandemic journey, but a lot of people were grieving what came before.

And the whole concept, I think this is a little bit blown over now, but the new normal in quotes of like, what is, what is now and grieving what was and acknowledging that it may never be the same. And there might be some things that we really miss about what was before, but also we can pull from that to what was before the things that you're missing, you still value in some capacity and how might they show up in the present.

And that's one of these important aspects of grief is when you allow yourself to grieve, you allow yourself to see what's important to you. You allow yourself to feel what feels good for you and what you do long for. And it might, again, not look the exact same right now in this new season. It can still look and honor the values that were represented in whatever it is that you're grieving.

And that's the piece that can feel really healing for a lot of my clients to find what that is and recognize. I can still recreate that in some capacity. And again, not to say that the point of doing that is to get rid of grief, but to allow that to all be part of the process. I can grieve, I can feel loss.

That might always be a part of my story. And that teaches me something about what I want to continue to create in my life moving forward. Yeah, this is really good. And I like that you say that too, what all the stages of motherhood.

So from nesting, as I say, I had no problem parenting from the nesting phase, preparing for the kiddos to come and then all the way through till when our kiddos leave the nest. And that's part of the reason for the no problem parenting logo. But we have those grief stages throughout, whether it's grieving the independence or as our kiddos get older. In my situation, our son is a senior this year and he's ready to leave the nest to launch out and into adulthood, which is exciting. And I'm thrilled for him. And at the same time that you have those little moments of, oh, what is life going to look like without him? So yeah, I think the transitions from each of those phases can be really exciting. And also there is some grief and just acknowledging that sometimes can be enough. Like you said, it doesn't make it, we don't want to minimize the grief or like try to make it go away, but just acknowledging it can be so beneficial.

What it really, this part of the conversation really reminds me of is where the inspiration for my company name came from, yes and. It's accepting what is and, or it's living in this dichotomy. And our brains are wonderful things, but they do love problem solving and black and white thinking oftentimes. That nuanced space sometimes feels a little challenging, especially for a lot of the clients that I work with who tend to be in that like perfectionist, all or nothing train of thought.

And so it can be a new concept to say, I can grieve something and be happy in the present and look forward to the future. All three of those feelings and experiences can cohabitate in myself. And that feels a little messy. It's not very organized or black and white, but it doesn't need to be. It can all live together. And just like leaning into that a little bit and letting it be uncomfortable or unfamiliar is sometimes the first step.

Just yes, yes, and yes, that, and this. Yeah, I absolutely love it. When a mom is looking at making a big transition, a life transition, a work transition, I think sometimes when we're making transitions, money gets in the way. And sometimes we think, oh, it's not the right time.

I can't afford it. I couldn't make a job change. Or I couldn't explore doing more with something I'm passionate about because of money. And you really help women with that aspect of this kind of life transition, right?

I do. Yeah. And this is a newer element I've added to my toolkit because it came up so frequently. So although I was started off life coaching and with the transitions and decision-making, making these transitions in life, almost always, whether it was under the surface or talked about directly, money came up.

And so I took courses along the way to make sure I felt confident to lead, not overstepping my expertise and always referring out when one was required. But so I had some basis for it. And then it came a point where I knew I just needed a direct coaching intensive for money specifically because it was almost always there. So I earned my budget coaching certification in 2022 and have since created an intensive based on that because sometimes it's so consuming.

We can't even start asking, well, what do I want or can I make this job transition or do I want to even explore this question of staying at home or going back to work or whatever that looks like for the client in front of me? If money feels so overwhelming and so anxiety producing, sometimes they can't even get to what we were talking about earlier today, their voice, what they're feeling, what they're wanting, because it's just always in the room.

And so with financial decisions, sometimes, and it depends on the client and they will have this conversation and you know yourself best, either one of two things is happening. One, either there's just a story or a belief that is so all-consuming that that's what we really want to tackle and it actually has nothing to do with the numbers. And usually my clients have a pretty good feel if that's what's happening of saying, I am safe or this is okay or I know I can figure it out.

It's really just this story of responsibility or trying to optimize my financial situation or whatever it is. And that's then what we coach around. or going back to the budget coaching intensive that I created, it really does help. It can help to lay it out and just see the facts so that when we return to your decision, your transition, and coming back to that authentic place, we already have the facts laid out. You know how many months you have of transition, or you know how much you want to set aside for your kid's education or for the family trip coming up. And you know that your expenses are covered or, you know that they aren't. And therefore this is the next step that makes sense for you. And again,

I feel like this has been a theme all day is what is the foundation that we're standing on, or is there a foundation we're standing on? And sometimes that block needs to be added to the mix of foundation of, okay, I also know my finances and just having the awareness then allows you to have that information and then move forward so that you can come back to, okay, knowing this, what do I want from this point? Or knowing this is that story that felt so scary, actually even true. Right. Oh, that's really good too. And I think money gets in the way of a lot of people's growth and moving forward and things. I think that we have lots of excuses. We can have those negative beliefs or those things that just kind of creep into our head and they put up the roadblocks. And again, a lot of times it's not true. And, or like you said, if it is,

there is a budget issue, well then let's put it down on paper. Let's figure it out so that it doesn't have to be an issue anymore. You can say, this is, if I'm going to make this transition, this is how much money I'm going to need to be able to bring in or what it's going to cost. And you can feel comfortable about that. So it's not just this like barrier that, you know, that that's holding you back for something that really, I mean, anything is, um, figureoutable.

I love that book by the way. Yes. Everything is figureoutable. Right. So, well, this has been so great, Maren. Um, how would someone know if coaching with you would benefit them to make a decision in their life? Yeah. So coaching, if specifically for decision-making, if you're feeling like that sense we talked about earlier, feeling directionless or feeling lost or feeling that overwhelm sense, you're needing a space to really amplify your own voice and find your own guidance. And I'll add, if you're ready to at least attempt to act in alignment with that, I'm very much a passionate coach. I will hold you accountable to what we say in a compassionate space. I will not force you ever to do anything. You know what's best for you. And ultimately,

It's your life and your life decisions. But if you're not, if you don't feel ready to actually act, you already kind of know in the back of your mind, I, I'm kind of just still in that limbo stage. And I actually think I'll fight to stay here for a little bit. Sometimes that's okay.

You just need to, again, feel the feelings, be where you're at, accept that. But if you do feel like you're feeling the sense of loss and you really are craving to find that clarity and have a step forward and have an accountability partner by your side to move forward and make that decision, that's when coaching comes in to really strengthen that self-trust, reflect back what feels currently muddy and all over the place right now, organize it, and then have some plan to move forward, whether that's a budgeting plan to make those dreams happen, whether it's a plan of the job transition or what you will do next in your new season and making that declaration for yourself, that's where what we do toward the end of our coaching together is make that plan and actually put it into action and move forward with it.

No, this is really great. And as I, we began, I was talking about like self-care and I think sometimes we think self-care is, you know, going to a spa day or getting your nails done or a bubble bath or just some, you know, reflection, meditation, some yoga, things like that. Yes. those are all great things for self-care and, you know, really having somebody there that's in your corner that you can kind of process some of this stuff with and just kind of figure out your next steps or what it is that you truly want in life. That's where I just am such a proponent for coaching because I really believe that coaching can help, help you to take better care of yourself and get your needs met. So I love that. All right, before we wrap up,

I want to talk about your book. I love the title, Ready Enough. And it's the seven step guide for life's hardest decisions. So tell us a little more about that.

Yes, I wrote this book during the pandemic. And it was my pandemic project. And I really took my own story. I shared a little blip of the PhD master switch at the beginning of our conversation today, but also relationship decisions, which add a whole element to decision making when someone else or multiple others are involved.

And then I also included my client stories to create a framework which helps our brains to just organize and take in information. So there's these seven steps to really walk through and learn how to amplify your voice and trust yourself and take action in alignment with what you're hearing in a way that doesn't send you into fight or flight. And then a really big emphasis, hopefully, as this has been obvious during our conversation today of that, like you were saying, self-care in a really, I don't want to say broad because that feels intangible, but just self-care in a sense that maybe we don't think of it usually.

So self-care in the sense of you're really caring for yourself, like you would care for a different person from that holistic, emotional acknowledgement, understanding sense. You're really getting to know who you are and being compassionate with your journey as you do that. So there's these seven steps to follow with stories interwoven throughout all of it. And I've had many individuals share that they picked it up, maybe a little hesitant because it's another self-care book or a self-help book.

And there's maybe a connotation around that. And they've sent personal messages to me that it's one of their favorite reads. And it feels very compassionate and enlightening. And there's practices interwoven throughout that they feel like they actually not only felt inspired, but they actually learned about themselves as they went through the process of reading.

Well, this is great. I love that. And I, you know, at No Problem Parenting, we're all about helping you become the confident leader that I say your kids crave you to be. And confident leadership as a parent does not just mean all of the, you know, getting your kids to listen and to follow through with things and to, you know, it's not all about your kids.

Really becoming that confident leader starts with you feeling confident in your role as mom in your just really everyday life and how you, how you feel about your job or how you feel about raising your kids, just all of that. So I love that the book really is going to help moms that maybe are feeling some doubt or fear around change and transition. Maybe they're not trusting their gut. They, their gut feelings are coming up and they're like, oh no, no, I can't do this right now because, you know, I'm, I'm raising my kids or whatever. Um, the book is really going to help them as, as you're coaching to make that decision of transition, whatever that means for you all, um, with confidence and ease. Absolutely. Yes. All right. So moms, if you're ready to clarify what you want and build self-trust and live the life that you choose, tell, um, the moms out there how they can get ahold of you, Maren. Yes. I mostly hang out these days on Instagram.

And I have many resources, both free and paid on my website. Everything is yes. And by Maren, all one word Y E S A N D B Y M A R I N. That's Instagram handle. That's LinkedIn. That's Facebook page. That's website. So yes. And by Maren, if you want that free, we talked at the very beginning, that free first chapter of the book, yesandbymaren.com slash ready enough is the direct link. I'm sure that'll be shared somewhere. And then I highly encourage you to follow me on Instagram. I have almost daily content to get you thinking and to really help you get in tune with everything that we talked about today. That is so great. All right. Well, I appreciate you being on the show with me today and giving us some great tips and tools to get started. Thanks so much for being with me today. Thank you so much for having me. All right, parents, that's it for today, make sure you head over to the website, noproblemparents.com. Sign up to get our emails.

We're going to be giving away tips, tools, techniques, and resources, updates on podcast episodes, roundtable events, and more. Check out noproblemparents.com. For now, hugs and high fives.

You got this.