You’re the Best Mom for Your Kids—It's Time to Believe It | Charlotte Haggie | Work Like a Mother Podcast, Episode 53

Feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and like you're juggling 100 things at once? In this episode of Work Like a Mother, host Marina Tolentino welcomes resilience coach Charlotte Haggie to dive into the chaos of motherhood and the working mom life. Charlotte, a mom of two and passionate coach, shares her journey from building preschools in Zimbabwe to helping moms worldwide rediscover balance, build resilience, and reclaim joy.

In this candid and inspiring conversation, Charlotte and Marina unpack:

• The "good mom syndrome" and why it’s holding you back.
• Tools to lower expectations without losing ambition.
• The power of the Enneagram to understand your stress triggers.
• Practical tips for thriving during the hectic holiday season.

If you’re ready to step off the hamster wheel and create a life that feels more fulfilling and less frantic, this episode is for you. Plus, don’t miss Charlotte’s free guide, 5 Simple Resilience Habits, and Marina’s personal hacks for slow mornings and meaningful moments.

Charlotte Haggie
https://charlottehaggie.com/
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The Managing Mum Podcast

Mentioned in this Episode
Resilience Guide
Daring Greatly, Brené Brown

Marina Tolentino
https://www.marinatolentino.com/
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Transcript

0:00

But I end up going back to Zimbabwe where I'm originally from and setting up a little charity, building preschools for orphaned and vulnerable children. There. A woman comes to you and she finds you online or somehow what is she facing? What are some of the common questions and concerns that she has? So she is generally overwhelmed, incredibly stressed, really struggling with emotional self control, shouting at her children, distracted, unable to focus in her work. Yeah, it's fun to look at social media, but we don't even have to share on social media. All right, today I have a wonderful woman named Charlotte Hagie who is a coach on a mission to help working moms build resilience so they can handle stress better and build incredible deep relationships, feel fulfilled and successful in their work and look after their well being in the best way possible. She's a mom to a six year old son and a four year old daughter. So very similar stage of life to me and Charlotte. We're so excited to have you here. So thanks for being on the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here. Yeah. Well, I want to hear a little bit of your backstory. So how did you become a coach? What was life like before momhood? I mean, give me the full story. Yeah, so I have always been kind of fascinated by people and I did my, I originally wanted to be an actress. I was going to be on stage, I was going to do all things and, and then I actually, when I went to university realized that I was fascinated by people and I got into industrial relations and then ended up doing workplace change and labor law, which was fascinating. And certainly in South Africa we have very interesting labor legislation. Very protective of the employee and with all of our history. So that was really interesting. And then I went to London and did my thing there and ended up studying social development practice. So really looking at, again at people and you know, we go into people's lives and think that we know it all and we want to make change. And after that, you know, long story, but I end up going back to Zimbabwe where I'm originally from, and setting up a little charity, building preschools for orphaned and vulnerable children there. And obviously doing that, I wasn't earning a salary so I qualified as a personal trainer, which is so random because I've never, I had never been into any kind of exercise or any kind of sport. But again, people and our bodies fascinated me and so I qualified as a personal trainer and from there started noticing how working with people in the gym, they actually just wanted a place to Talk and, you know, that experience of seeing some, the, you know, the, the physical exercise itself was one thing, but just having that space to share what was going on for them and to be safe enough to be able to do that with an objective person. And so from there I kind of was thought, oh, coaching is interesting. And have done my own, gone through my own journey and then having children post that and recognizing how my children needed something from me that as the person I was, I actually wasn't really able to give them and myself and my work all the things that everybody needed. Yeah. And it's been a fascinating process of doing the work myself and then seeing how the people that have come to me have been in the same situations and have been struggling with the same things and just. Yeah. Creating a kind of process that I love to work with. It's been a fascinating and exciting journey. Yeah. Amazing. Well, how so when a woman comes to you and she finds you online or somehow, what, what kind of state is she in? Like, what is she facing? What are some of the common questions and concerns that she has? Like, describe this woman to me. So she is generally overwhelmed, incredibly stressed, really struggling with emotional self control, shouting at her, distracted, unable to focus in her work, very often unable to manage her. What she's eating. You know, often mindless eating, mindless shouting, mindless scrolling through social media. And relationships are rocky. She's frustrated with herself. She's not getting the results that she wants at work. And she's just got to that point where something has to change. Yeah. And she, she can't carry on like that. Really. Yeah. That's such a good description. And I think we've all probably found ourselves there in one season or another, and we can recognize that feels good to be out of it, but I think there is still a lot of women and especially young moms. Right. Their kids are young, they're under five. It can be very overwhelming because the kids just need a lot. And so we feel like we don't have time, we don't. Like, there's no margin. It's all about them. So what do you feel like is the biggest lie when someone is a working mom? She has to work or she chooses to work, but she's also a mother and a wife. What's that misconception that women have about motherhood and working? I have this term that I use, good mom syndrome, but I think it's good anything syndrome. I think it's, we want to be good, we want to do it all right. We want to you know, we were pre mum. You know, you asked me what was I like, pre mum or pre being a mom. I was free and I could do things in my own time and I could choose what I did and I didn't have any responsibility. Yeah. And there's, to some extent, we are trying to be good at that point, but then we get into this career that we start and then we get into this motherhood and, you know, from the moment you fall pregnant, everyone's like, oh, you know, having a glass of wine or, oh, you're eating sushi. Are you. Oh, are you going to breastfeed? And, oh, why not? You're going to. And are you having a. Are you finding out what it is and why aren't you? From that moment, it's almost like that becomes the focus and actually the thing, you know, the thing that you were good at, the job or the just being you almost become, you know, that gets pushed to the sideline and here you are wanting also, I think there's an inherent drive in us to be a good mom. And so what we see as a good mom is all the things that we get told and we kind of lose sight of, actually. I mean, I tell my children often I'm an excellent mother and you're excellent children because we just. This is who we are. Yeah. And we're in this together. And I'm the mum you've got and I'm the only one you've got, and I'm the best one you'll have because you're mine, you know? But I do think that there's so much striving and there's so much longing to be a good mum. Yeah. And a good manager and a good wife and a good friend and all the things that we're trying to be good at. Yeah. So how do we lower that expectation? Because I think we need to have a benchmark that we're striving towards. Right. We can't just all settle and be like, well, this is good enough. You've got something. We want to do the best that we can, but how do we let go of that expectation that we're not enough? Is there a tool or a trick that you have to, like, accept the grace and the forgiveness in ourselves to just be. Sometimes I think the trick is to know that you are enough without striving to do it. You know, one of the. One of the activities or tools that I use with my clients is picture your A grade life. Who would you be if you were living an A Grade Life. Life. What kind of person would you be? How would you behave? How would you think? How would you feel? And then we look at, okay, so what's standing in the way of that? A great life. Because you can live that a great life. But there's a whole lot of misconceptions and thoughts and beliefs and perceptions that actually are taking away the hope of ever being in that place. And so first of all, we have to have a vision of what, what would that look like? And most of the time, I don't think that we know what that is. Often I'll say to clients, what do you want? And they're like, I don't know. Not this. That's all they can say. Yeah, not this. I mean, I know that I want something different, but what do you really want? They've never been asked that or they've never asked themselves that. Hey ladies, real quick. If you are looking for a mentor, I just wanted to remind you that I offer mentorship to entrepreneurs. So if you're someone who has a never ending to do list and you're smiling out of control and feel like your business doesn't have a track plan, I want to work with you every single week for a month at a time. It's super simple. But I come from over 10 years of experience doing this myself and now I'm willing to give that information back to people. So I've mentored real estate agents, I've mentored wedding photographers, I've mentored other business owners and they've come from a place of overwhelm mostly and they really just needed clarity and a couple of action steps to move the needle. And we've seen seen Gigantum leaps and bounds in their business. Like I can't even tell you. So if you're interested and you want to know what that looks like, I want you to go to marinatolantino.com and there's a calendly link there to do a 15 minute discovery call with me just to see if we're a good vibe check to make sure we're on the same page. And I would love to work with you one on one to really boost your business to the next level. Let's dive back in. And again, you know, does the good person ask themselves what they really want? Because, you know, we've been told that we shouldn't really ask ourselves that we're. Second priority or third or whatever. Yeah, absolutely. No, that's such a good reminder. And I used to do this with my coach too. She Would just say, in your dream life, what are you doing in the morning? What are you doing in the afternoon? And then you just reverse engineer. Okay, why can't you do that next month or next week? Like, well, I don't know. It's just on me, you know, I'm the one designing my life right now. And it's. My problems are my fault almost because I've chosen to act the way that I did. So today I'm living that life where I have slow mornings, I'm not rushed, I have margin in between things. And looking back two years ago, that was like impossible. Like, I didn't even think that I could do that. I thought I had to be running at, you know, 110% all the time to be successful. That if I wasn't pushing and pushing, the business wouldn't come. And it's just been a 180. And so it's so nice and slow right now. Not slow like no income, but slow paced. Because we've structured my calendar that way and it's like, oh, this is what the other side feels like. So I just want to put it out there for anyone listening that absolutely, you can design that life. And I get it. There are some occupations where, yes, the workplace is very fast paced. And when you have that work hat on, maybe it's going to be a little bit different. But as soon as you can pop back into personal life, slow it down, you know, really create that margin and almost like an unwinding time after work to get to family time and unstructured time. But one of the things I asked you on the pre show form was about your holy grails as far as tools, technology and anything else that keeps you going and indispensable. And you mentioned Enneagram. So I've heard a little bit about it. I haven't deep dove into it. I think when I first did the questionnaire, I'm like a three and a seven. But can you give a quick overview of like, what is the Enneagram? Why does it matter? Why should we pay attention to it and kind of how you use it? Absolutely. So I, I look at the Enneagram as a tool to help us understand the survival strategy that we created. So, you know, when we were cavemen, we came across a tiger in our paws and our very clever brain said, oh, I got a fight or FL this and we were surviving. And in this day and age, you know, we don't go to the supermarket and you buy your food. You don't have to Face tigers to go and buy your food. And so if we think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we've moved up into this desperate longing for love and belonging. Yes. And when we were little, to some extent, and, and you know, people who practice with the Enneagram, not sure the exact distinction between nature and nurture, but at some period, we learned there was a strategy for us to be accepted and to be, to belong and to be loved. And that became our default personality style. And what I love about the Enneagram is it's. There are nine Enneagram types or styles, but you have a default type. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you're stuck in that type. Sure. And so you can move around the Enneagram. So I'm also a seven. My default type is seven, which is one of the terms. And the reason that they use numbers is because there are lots of different terms for each of the types. So one of the terms for a 7 is the enthusiastic visionary. So I have lots of great ideas. I am very positive, very future oriented. And when I was growing up, I was praised for being positive. I was praised, I got it, saw that, oh, if I behave this way, then I will get that acceptance, that love, that belonging that I so desperately wanted. And from there then I created this default style which then motivates how I show up, how I think, how I feel, how I behave in the world. So it, it became the strategy that I used. And knowing the strategy, I can see how I can move around the Enneagram. So sevens, and it's quite hard to explain it without drawing it, but sevens have wings. So sevens have a six and an eight wing, and the six is a different type and the eight is a different type. So I as a seven, have access to different characteristics of those types immediately next. And what I think happens is that we think that we are stuck in the way that we are. And the joy of our work is actually there's so much more to who you are. You're not just this person. And so the Enneagram gives you an opportunity to see what motivates you. So what drives the way that I think and I feel and I behave and how do I have access to other types, other personality styles around the Enneagram that I'd like to make use of. Yeah. So for me as a 7, very can be quite flighty all over the place. But a five is called the investigator and has a lot likes to learn a lot about one thing. And I have a line from 7 to 5. And I go to that 5 style. I find huge relief from this kind of tension of all of these ideas and all of these thoughts. And actually, if I just focus on one thing, I find huge freedom interesting. And freedom is the one thing that I'm after as a seven. I really want freedom, but actually I end up often are what what we want, we lose because of the way that we show up. Yeah. I don't know if that explained it very well. Oh, it does. So I think just your definition of like, that's kind of how we designed our life to survive and get that positive reinforcement. And it kind of rooted as like a personality style, but absolutely we have the flexibility to pivot and shift through the different types based on what we need or if we want to experiment with. Does this other thing make me feel better in different situations? Can I use this part of me to do this thing? I think that's a really good overview of it. Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things that I always love the idea that our weaknesses are our strengths taken to extreme. So, you know, when you look at your style, there are kind of healthier characteristics and unhealthier characteristics. The unhealthy ones are when you take those healthy ones to the extreme. So if I'm so positive about everything that I never actually am realistic about the state of affairs or have no idea about what I really feel, that's taking that to the extreme. And we can live in the positive elements of our type. Life is so much more joyful and vibrant. Sure. Yeah. No, that's so good. Okay. And then right now I feel like, I mean, it's the holidays, right? So things are getting faster, quicker, busier. Like our schedules are jam more than ever and yet a lot of us are finding us so fatigued and so tired. And even if we rest at night, we're not fully resting because our brain is still going. What's your advice to get energy back this season? I think that we don't realize that we are in that stress response state the whole time. So we are inundated with tigers on a day to day basis. Yeah, they're not tigers like the tigers that you meet on the path. They are tigers that threaten our need for love and belonging. So social media, you know, you look at social media and it says you should look like that and you should be like this. And oh, if I'm going to be a good mom, I've got to make sure that I have Christmas presents for all the teachers and they need to be really thought out Christmas presents. And also I need to make sure that I attend every nativity player. And also I need to make sure that I meet all the deadlines I said I was going to meet. And also I've got to make sure that the turkey is basted and that I didn't forget to buy the potatoes because we're trying so hard to make sure that we're doing all the things and in that state of doing that, we're. We're fight or flighting. So we're fighting the to do list. Okay, I see my to do list. I'm going to fight it. I got to do every single thing. And then I can cross it off the list and then I will, perhaps I'll feel calm. Hey, I'm sorry to interrupt, and I hope you're enjoying this episode of the Work Like a Mother podcast. Real quick. I just want to remind you guys, if you are worried about missing an episode, you don't have to worry anymore. Because we are creating a weekly email that's going to go out automatically every single time there's a brand new episode. And this email is going to have everything you need to know about this week's featured guest. It's going to have all of the. Links and the resources that we're going. To talk about in this episode so you don't have to go around and fumble through the show notes, but it's going to be served in your inbox every single week. So if you guys want that access, be sure to click below one time in the show notes today. Sign up for that email and then you'll never have to worry about it in the future. And bonus, if you really love this, we'd love it if you share this with a friend, give us a review on whatever platform you're listening to, and we'll continue to bring new episodes and new information that's going to help you. Level up your life every single week. But we never get to that point of, I'm actually safe, I'm okay, I'm calm, I'm at ease. Yeah. And who cares if the turkey doesn't arrive, we'll have something else, you know, and so it's noticing, oh, when am I in a stress response? When am I in a. In an emotional state that is depleting. Yeah. If you think about the difference between a state of guilt versus a state of, you know, like joy or state of anger versus a state of peace. Yeah. You know, we live in these depleting emotional states and knowing how to shift into a more energizing, more renewing state. That's one way of doing it, is learning those self regulation tools. And the other way is just noticing. Oh, I mean, curiosity for me is literally the most amazing tool that you can use. Notice, oh, something's happening inside me. You know, I often say to clients, what do you feel about that? And they're like, oh, well, I think that they do. I'm like, no, not what do you think? What do you feel? Yeah, they have no idea because we don't, you know, we've pushed our feelings aside for so many years because they weren't acceptable or. Yeah, you know, we, we didn't see them as acceptable. And so noticing, oh, I'm feeling something here. I'm feeling a bit stressed out here. And then when you notice, you have more capacity to decide. I love the. I, I actually got this. I can never remember it, but the Latin meaning of the term decision is to cut off. So when you make a decision, you are cutting off the other choices. So decide. Yeah. And once you've made a decision, you've cut off the other choices. So there's no room for guilt or rumination or catastrophizing or whatever. I've decided and now I've made the decision and now I move on. So. Good. That's a great definition. Yeah. Instead of like, I'm going to hold on to the what ifs because we have to be prepared for 360 decisions. It's just one decision. Yeah, yeah. And you know, you decided that you weren't going to attend that event. You've decided, and if somebody wants to think something about you, so be it. Yeah, but we think that someone's thinking about us when actually no one's really thinking about all the time. Yeah, absolutely. Letting go of the expectations of an unsaid and uncommunicated don't exist. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. That's so good. And I think for us too, like with the holidays, moms do so much. Like, we need to give ourselves credit. First of all, we're the ones that make all the holiday magic happen. But we can also do a better job of communicating to our partners and our family of how they can help. We don't have to do it all. We, like, literally carry this burden because if I don't do it, it won't be perfect or special and all these. And then there's like the 30 things to do in November for Thanksgiving and then 30 things to do in December for December, and it's like, holy moly. Like, it never ends for these next months. And I think I put so much pressure on myself when my kids were young, like under five, to have perfect Christmases. And then it wasn't until last year, like, my son's 9 now and my daughter's 4, that I was like, they aren't going to remember a thing. They aren't going to remember how the cookies tasted or if I bought the gingerbread or made it from scratch. Like, I don't know. It's such so freeing to realize, like, okay, what if we just make one special moment instead of 20 to 30 special moments? Like, really. And it's about being present than anything. And so if anyone can just take away something from this episode, it's to let go of that expectation, just be you and show up uninterrupted. And that's going to mean more to your kids than the perfect presentation or your elf on the shelf or something. Absolutely. And you know, as you're saying that, I'm thinking about us remembering this Christmas, because if your attention is on 30 things at once, you know, if you think of your attention as a flashlight. So we don't have 10 flashlights. We have one flashlight. And my attention is here, and then my attention is there, and then my attention is there, and it's all being waved all over the place. I mean, don't you want to remember the Christmas when they were 5 and 9 and you can remember the look on their faces? Even if they can't remember it, you can remember the look on their faces when they open that present that they really wanted. But when you're trying to bake the cookies and make the coffee warm for everyone and, you know, make sure that whatever's else. Yeah, yeah. And that moment is. Is gone. Yeah. And they don't remember it, and you don't remember it. And actually, if we. Then again, we decide these are the things that are going to be my priority. And one of the ways of doing that is looking at what are my values? Not what are the values of the world, but what are the things that are really important to me and then use that as a guiding tool. I mean, is it really important? Does this activity fit in with my values? Yeah. And then you can decide the freedom to be able to decide for yourself and not to let the world decide for you. Oh, yeah. We canceled Halloween this year in our household, and it was so refreshing to just not do it for a year. I was like, every year we regret doing it, we wonder why, and it's so expensive and this year we just stayed home and had a movie night and I was like, oh, we can do this. Like, this is so freeing. And yeah, we had a couple of curious friends that were like, oh, why did you do that? And so I just had like a couple one liners that I could give them and they're like, oh, I didn't like that sounds great. We might do it next year too, you know, and it's like, okay, absolutely. It's your family, your roles, you can live however you want to. And letting go of the expectation of what everybody else is doing. Yeah, it's fun to look at social media, but we don't even have to share on social media. No one has to be on social media. You have permission to not be on social media. Sometimes I'll meet someone who's not on it and I'm like, oh yeah. I forget that people literally function without it. Still like they exist, but how freeing, you know, they just have so much time. Well, I think this episode was really, really great. You have a great calming sense about you and just your voice is beautiful. So I feel calmer just talking to you. But I wanted to hear one last piece of advice. What do you want someone to do that's listening to this episode today? Do you want them to go to your site or how do they find you? Yeah, so I have a podcast called the Managing Mum Mum South Africa. Well, actually in five they say mom, but yeah, the Managing Mom. So that I have, you know, just some more resilient strategies for working moms. And I also would love to offer a gift of a free download, 5 Simple Resilience Habits that you can practice today as you go into, into this season, into the next, the new year and. Yeah, or come check me out. My, my handle for social media is at Charlotte Coaches and my website has all the information and I just love showing moms that they don't have to be stressed and that in for me it's an intergenerational thing. Building your resilience means that you're going to help your children build their resilience and it's good. We can, we can change the world. Absolutely, yeah. So important in every episode, I end it with a fun rapid fire. So do you guys have Starbucks in South Africa? I would assume you do. We do, yeah. Okay. Do you have a favorite order? I'd have to. Or what's your coffee order when you order? I do. I always, I generally order an almond milk flat white. But every now and again I love a chai Latte oh, yes. Love a chai. What do you make for dinner when it's last minute? Ah, good. Chicken schnitzels and salad. It's a schnitzel. It's like. It's like a kind of battered chicken breast that's deep fried, but it's delicious fried chicken. Yeah, I got it. And then you guys don't have a target, I'm assuming, right? No, but we have something similar. Try me. Okay. What's your favorite designer at your favorite big box store? Do you have one? So we have. Actually, we have Checkers in the uk they have Uniqlo. I don't know if you have it in America, but we have. We have checkers, which has actually taken on, I think, a kind of. They're a fake Uniqlo. They've created a brand unique, and I love it because it's. It's not very unique. It's very classic, very simple, but easy for moms to just throw something on and still look like you are fairly respectable. Love it. Okay, awesome. Name a book or a podcast you'd recommend to our audience and why. Good question. Oh, that's so. Actually, I've got one right now. It's Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. And I think that she just. We're talking about wanting to be the good mom and good mom syndrome and, you know, this whole idea of shame. And what stops us from daring greatly, what stops us from stepping out? She is. She's got so much to. To say and so much that's of value for us as we go through the season. Yeah. Very encouraging author. That's a great one. And then TikTok or Instagram? Instagram. I have to. I've never even been on TikTok before. Oh, good. That's good to know. Well, thank you so much, Charlotte. This was so much fun. I'm excited for people to discover you and hear a little bit more about you and hopefully reach out and connect with you too. So we'll make sure all of your links are in the description for the podcast and then same thing, how to get that freebie that you're offering. Thank you so much, but we'll definitely stay in touch. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Yes.