The Mama Making Podcast

Jessie Larson | Changing Your Mindset in Motherhood

• Jessica Lamb, Jessie Larson • Season 3 • Episode 90

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On this week’s episode of The Mama Making Podcast…

Jessica is joined by Jessie Larson, the voice behind the Positively You podcast, for an uplifting conversation about the role of mindset in motherhood. Together, they explore how to shift from autopilot to intentional living, the impact of self-talk, and the importance of offering yourself grace in parenting.

Jessie shares her journey into mindset coaching and provides practical tips for moms looking to rediscover themselves and embrace their unique experiences. They discuss the power of taking small steps, being real about emotions, and cultivating positivity in everyday life. This episode is a heartfelt reminder of the strength in vulnerability and the transformative power of mindset.

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Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (00:01)
I'm actually going to wait a second that the garbage trucks are coming around. It's like literally right in front of my house. Yeah. Yeah. I recorded an episode earlier this morning and there was like landscapers and they had their like beeping on the entire time. I was like, my gosh. okay. I might be good now. All right. Hello everyone. And welcome to the mama making podcast. If you're new here, I'm your host, Jessica. If you're not new, welcome back.

Jessie (00:04)
It's always that I'm like it's garbage or people mowing their lawn or every time.

Yep.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (00:32)
Today I'm very excited to have Jessie here with us. Jessie is the voice behind the Positively You podcast, as well as her website where she does, sorry, I'm going to redo this. It didn't copy over. Sorry. Where's all my stuff?

So I'm going to say voice behind the Positively podcast and.

Jessie (01:00)
Perfect.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (01:00)
Focus, unchanging mindset. Okay.

Jessie (01:10)
No, you're fine. I love the behind the scenes of the podcast. I mean, it's never what it never what it is produced to be.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (01:10)
Sorry about that.

I know. Now.

Okay, sorry about that. Okay. Today I'm very excited to have Jessie here with us. Jessie is the voice behind the Positively You podcast and focuses on changing mindsets and we are all going to dive deep into changing your mindset in the thick of parenthood. Jessie, welcome.

Jessie (01:38)
Nope, you're good.

Thank you so much for having me. I love when I get to join another Jessica and have a fun chat. So we already have that in common. I'm excited to chat with you today and have a good time.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (02:03)
I know.

Yeah, I'm super excited. I noticed we also have the same initials as well. which is amazing. Yeah. So, as I've mentioned to you and I've mentioned on the podcast, I'm kind of rebranding the podcast and I really wanted to be intentional about my first few guests and making sure it was like really relatable and.

Jessie (02:17)
There you go. Double win.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (02:35)
positive and inspiring to kind of launch the podcast again. So I'm very excited to have you on to talk a little bit more how us moms, as I said, right in the thick of it can start to work to change our mindsets to be a little more positive and kind of get out of that autopilot of being a mom. I feel like when they say the days are long, they meant it. So.

Jessie (03:01)
Yep, they sure did.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (03:02)
So, yeah, I'd love to chat more with you about that. But first, tell me about you, your family, where you're from. And I look forward to getting to know you.

Jessie (03:16)
Yeah, hi. So I'm Jessie. I am the host and the voice behind the Positively You podcast, which this fall will be coming up on four years of podcasting, which I cannot believe. So even with that, the days are long, the years are short, right? So it's been such a fun journey and it definitely started out as a place to kind of just talk to other moms and have that mindset shift. I know as moms sometimes we can really get stuck or fall into kind of that martyrdom where we put ourselves last.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (03:26)
Wow.

Jessie (03:46)
where the days do seem really monotonous, where we operate on autopilot. And I really wanted to help us all, myself included, right? We sometimes do these things for ourself and then just pull others along with us. That was fully my intention. But to help us kind of live a life of intention and a life that lights us up and excites us, because it can get real dull and real like monotonous when it's just making everyone dinner, cleaning up everyone's faces, changing all the diapers, right?

And so really kind of helping moms shift into that they have more control than they think. We're not a victim to our circumstances. We don't need to be this martyr that gives up everything for the sake of others. And it's been a really awesome ride to be on this podcast journey and to be talking to moms and to getting to know moms and experts from all over the world to kind of help me on this mission. So that's a little bit about me and the professional world. I am a mom to three kids.

My oldest just turned 13, so I am entering the teenage years, which is a whole new ball game. And my youngest is eight. So I'm kind of in that like middle parenthood where my kids, my young, young ones, I'm mourning that loss when my Facebook reminders pop up and tell me this day nine years ago or this day 10 years ago and I get to see my little babies. But I'm loving this phase of parenting. I've loved all of them. They have hard things. They have really awesome things, but it's really exciting. So that's a little bit about me.

personal life and professional life, I guess.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (05:17)
Yeah, thank you. I am. I loved kind of going through your social media. It's all like happy and amazing. And I think we definitely need that as moms. Like you said, the day to day is like we're judging through, or we feel like we're judging through. And so I think having kind of a positive spin on things and figuring out how to get ourselves out of that is a tough roadmap to create for ourselves.

So I love kind of jump the gun on it for us to say, hey, here are some things that you can do to start changing your own mindset. So tell me a little bit more about how you got into mindset coaching. What did you do before? How did it kind of get you into the position you're in now?

Jessie (05:47)
Yeah.

All right, we're gonna journey way back then because I have been kind of a mindset nerd since I was a kid. But before I dive into that, I wanna give a little bit of a caveat because I know my handle on social media is Positively Jeffy. My podcast is the Positively You podcast and it is all about, how can you have this positive spin? How can you put control into your life?

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (06:08)
Yes.

Jessie (06:28)
It is not about toxic positivity though. It is definitely about, you already mentioned being real and being relatable. And I am definitely that. I don't want to just gloss over and tell everyone, put your rose colored glasses on, look for the silver lining. Truth be told, I was crying an hour ago. So like, it's not always sunshine and rainbows. It's about kind of feeling all of your emotions. And part of that is being intentional, right? Because you're not just trying to force your way into happiness. You're not trying to force your way through. So.

Just as a quick caveat, I'm not here to promote just put your rose colored glasses on all the time and find the bright and shiny and slap a smile on your face because life is real and we're going to go through that roller coaster that spectrum of emotion. So there's my little quick plug there.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (07:12)
Yeah, no, I love that because I think, I think that's part of the barrier for us. It's like, I can't be this way all the time. And there's actual shit happening in my life. I can't just gloss over. So I love that caveat. Thank you.

Jessie (07:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. I've had, I remember when I first got started, I had someone reach out to me and said, you know, you, you kind of trigger me a little bit because it is, it felt like toxic positivity a little bit. And so I always kind of want to make sure that we're coming at this from a real space because life is not just one dimensional or two dimensional. It is a full spectrum of colors and emotions. So there's that, but, but yeah, I, I remember being a kid and being like 12 or 13 and getting

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (07:45)
Absolutely.

Jessie (07:52)
a Stephen Covey book that was like 13 habits of highly effective teens. And I loved these like chicken soup for the soul books. So I've always kind of been this mental health junkie from a young, young age. And I have always been kind of a bright, sunshiny person. That's naturally my like fallback, my go -to. And as I've gotten older and been an adult and had to deal with real world adult things, I remember thinking to myself,

Okay, am I actually a positive person? Am I actually resilient? Or have I just kind of been skating along? And that's kind of been interesting is to throw myself into different experiences and different circumstances and be like, crap, but this is actually really hard. How can I use the skill set that I think I have that to kind of push through? And it's a skill set that

I naturally do have as a gift that I'm super, super grateful for, but I do think that it's something that you can work on and that you can train yourself to be a problem solver, to look for maybe creative ways to get to a solution, to find how you can take something that really sucks and an experience that you really don't want to be a part of and figure out a way to be like, well, if I'm here and if I'm in this and this is my situation right now, I don't really want to hate the next month or six months or a year or whatever.

So I have control here, what can I do? And I think that's the first step. That's one of my big passions is we don't have a lot of control over our situation and our circumstance sometimes. We have full control over how we're gonna show up and how we're gonna be in that.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (09:30)
Yeah, I love that. And I think, I think being real about the fact that we're going to come into some really hard life stuff just as, as people and then as moms as well. I mean, you mentioned your kids getting older and kind of grieving that process. And I think it's true that with having kids, like you're wearing, like you're putting your heart out into the world and like,

hoping everything goes okay. So I think that we really do go through some tough stuff as people in general and adults, but then also as a next layer as parents. So I think being upfront about that with yourself, but knowing that that stuff you can't control, but the way that you like, you just said the way that you show up to it or show up after it or through it, wherever you're at in the process is choosable. You're able to choose how you kind of exist.

Jessie (09:58)
Yeah.

Absolutely. I think words matter too, the words that we say to ourselves. And so if we're relating it to motherhood, I think there's a lot of really great messaging out there about motherhood. And there's a lot of really, I would say like tongue in cheek kind of funny messaging, but those words stick with us. So if we say, motherhood is so hard, motherhood is so draining. you know, insert whatever funny meme or saying that you have seen. We absorb that and we take it in.

And so if I'm waking up every single day and I think, my gosh, the terrible twos, right? The terrible twos and my gosh, and this is terrible. I don't think I'm really setting myself up to have a super great day if that's the mindset that I'm starting off with. So that's one of the very, very first like places I would start is think about the words that you're absorbing and the words that you're saying to yourself, especially as a mom of little kids.

If we're not having a lot of adult interactions, like 99 % of the conversations I'm having are inside my own head, right? So I don't want that to be like a toxic place where I'm just like reciting these negative things over and over again. And it's interesting if you start kind of paying attention, you'll catch yourself and be like, whoa, what kind of conversation am I having in here? And just being aware of the kind of messaging you're taking in and then the kind of like just conversations you're having with yourself inside your head.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (11:28)
Yeah, exactly.

Jessie (11:51)
can really set the tone for your day.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (11:54)
Yeah. And I think, like your kids feel it too, especially when they're not talking yet, like they're so, I have a, my son will be two in October. So like he's in the middle of like figuring out his words and emotions. And I feel like anytime there's like a spike in my, my adrenaline for whatever reason, he knows. So I think, I think kids pick up on it, especially when they're in that learning phase of language. cause they're just like,

Jessie (11:58)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (12:23)
reacting to whatever you're bringing. So I think that that is great advice to like, pay attention to what you're telling yourself first, because that is can kind of make or break your day.

Jessie (12:31)
Mm -hmm.

You know, there's that saying that's like if mom's not happy, nobody's happy, right? We kind of bleed in and I remember kind of getting mad at that me like well No, I want to be unhappy and not have it be everyone else's problem. Like let me have this But you know it goes back into that of kind of thinking about how do I want to feel and how do I want my? motherhood experience to be and this is something that I do a lot and that I coach other people on a lot about really kind of taking a step back and visualizing a

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (12:39)
Yep.

Mm -hmm.

Jessie (13:07)
as small as you want or as big as you want. You can visualize your next year, you can visualize your next six months or even just the next day. Laying in bed for a minute and saying, okay, if this day goes really, really well and it's a great day and I get to come back to bed and lay down and be like, that was a good day. How does that look? What does it feel like? How are my emotions, right? I'm probably not losing my cool and snapping at my kids. I'm probably not this. And so just that quick little visualization practice is super, super helpful. And I do that all the time.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (13:22)
Mm. Yeah.

Jessie (13:34)
all the time with many different things. I'm actually teaching a summer survival series right now. And part of that is a visualization practice. So you can do this with any area of your life, but even just day to day, right? Especially if you're coming off of a day that maybe wasn't so great and you're like, definitely don't want to relive that whenever again, just kind of thinking and thinking about the things that set you off. So if I'm going for a fun, peaceful day where I feel really great, okay, that probably means maybe my house feels

clean to me. So I'm going to get up first thing and make my bed because that's going to help me to feel just kind of on top of things and put together. And then you know, and then you can kind of craft your day in your head before you even have it. And then again, you're being more intentional instead of just operating on autopilot.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (14:20)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think environment is huge too. I'm very big on like, I'm kind of a messy person, but I know myself now that like, if this bedroom or this kitchen is a disaster when I walk into it, I'm picking up on that. So not only are your words mattering so much, your environment matters too.

Jessie (14:29)
Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. And I know sometimes if you're listening to this and you're already overwhelmed, you're like, okay, so now I've got to keep track of my mindset. I've got to keep track of my words. Now I've got to make sure my environments are all good. Because obviously we all want a clean house, but also we have kids and we live and have families and we live and function and do all of the things in our houses. So having a Pinterest worthy house all the time, it would be nice to have, right? But it's also kind of causing more stress. So with that, it's...

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (14:49)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah, right.

Jessie (15:11)
going back to starting small and picking something very small, which is why I brought up the bed. Years ago, when I was feeling really out of control and kind of having a negative mindset and all of this stuff, that was the thing I started with. I was like, listen, I can't control a lot. I can make my bed. I can make my bed. And so when I'm feeling stressed, I have a place to go where I can sit and it's put together and clean. And literally for months.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (15:16)
Yeah.

Jessie (15:35)
That's all I did. I just made my bed. The rest of my house was a wreck, right? The living room had toys all over it. The dishes didn't get done, but I was like, guess what? I made my bed. And you just start there, right? And that was the intentionality that I needed. So sometimes we think we need these big overhauls. We go to Pinterest, we find the whole plan to help us with managing our home, to help us with doing all the playdates and to help us with, you know, educating our kids and doing all of this stuff when...

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (15:45)
Yeah.

Jessie (16:02)
You know, we last two or three days doing that and then we feel super defeated and beat up ourselves a little bit. So pick something small that feels intentional. And that was for me making my bed and it, that changed a lot of things for me.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (16:18)
Yeah, because I think it's just starting you off. Like even if you're just choosing something that you know is going to be easy, you know, you're going to be able to do it doesn't feel grand or big, but that positive reinforcement that you're giving your brain of I did this thing, I can check off the box and be happy about it. I feel like that can make a huge difference. Even though it's super small, you're still telling yourself like I did the thing. And if at the end of the day, you didn't do all of the things that you wanted, you still did that one thing.

Jessie (16:49)
Absolutely. I like treating myself like my kid too. If my, as the mom, right, we're the encourager, we're always giving our kids like that encouragement and like, you did a really good job. And it's something like so little, like they put their shoe back on the shelf and we're like, yes, you did it. Seriously giving yourself that same kind of enthusiasm and encouragement and you might feel totally silly at first, but we need that as moms. We need to feel.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (17:04)
Yeah, right.

Yeah.

Jessie (17:15)
Like the little things that we're doing matter because there are so many things that we do as moms that go unnoticed. That noticing yourself, right? And give yourself that positive re -encouragement. Give yourself that pat on the back, that high five of, yeah, you made your bed five days this week. That is awesome. High five. And you might feel like a total idiot saying that to yourself or thinking it. But again, words go a long way and you're going to feel good. You might feel silly, but you're going to feel good.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (17:40)
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I think that's a great pivot to, this kind of perception of autopilot or feeling of like, I'm just on autopilot. I'd love to talk more with you about what you're seeing in your clients that are, whether they're moms or not moms, but what you see in your clients that you would define as autopilot, what that can look like, kind of how to identify it in yourself. And then we'd love to talk more about.

getting out of that in a very tangible way.

Jessie (18:15)
Absolutely. I think it's when we stop doing things for ourselves, which we can slip into easily as moms. I remember when I had young kids and someone mentioned reading a book and I laughed to myself and thought, when was the last time I read a book that wasn't a picture book, you know, or a bedtime story for somebody. And I think that that's a big part of it because we just get going through and we're just doing tasks. We're just doing tasks all day and we're not doing anything that actually lights us up. And...

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (18:30)
Yeah.

Jessie (18:42)
So finding just the simple, simple things that you can infuse into your day, whether that's turning on music while you are cooking dinner and throwing it back to like whatever you like to listen to in high school. Just like, again, going back to little, little things you can do. But I think that's a big thing of how we shift to autopilot is we stop doing the things that we enjoy and we start living only going task to task to task. And yes, it feels good to have that to do list and to check them off. And we get that little dopamine hit when we get to.

have a completed to -do list, but that's the autopilot, right? That's when nothing exciting is happening. We know our schedule from the time we get up till the time we go to bed. And there might be something thrown in there like a potty training accident or a tantrum or something, but it still feels just monotonous and like that everyday thing. And so it's coming up with things that you can do, whether that is, think about the things that you like to do as a kid or something that you're interested in now that could be joining a book club.

And that could be virtual or it could be in real life. I could be going to the gym and meeting new people or getting outside in nature. There's a lot of different things that you can do. And when your kids are little, especially this in the summertime, I used to theme our days. So, and that can start to feel like autopilot a little bit too, but just introducing some novelty, introducing something new, maybe not every day, cause that can feel like a lot.

at leaning into the things that you love, doing something for you, and introducing something new. Those are three easy ways that you can kind of like jumpstart yourself out of autopilot.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (20:15)
Yeah, I love that. I think, like you said, like we get so hung up on the to -do list. And for those of us who can never check all the boxes on a to -do list, it's so much harder to try to like, you're just back at square one, the list is long. So I think, the spontaneity of like doing something different in the day can be super helpful and being like, okay, well I did the fun thing I enjoyed doing.

Jessie (20:25)
You

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (20:43)
But I think one of the things that I find interesting about having this podcast and then social media is that I think as moms, we very quickly forget what things we like to do. And I think that's an interesting area as well.

Jessie (20:56)
Yep.

Yeah, that I did a community night a couple of years ago and it was a friends and favorites night. It was so much fun, but we had women around a table and we were asking kind of these thought provoking questions to just evoke conversation and friendship. And one of the questions that we asked was if you had a day to yourself and like no budget, what would you do? You have eight hours and you have unlimited money. And it was shocking, but not shocking how many people were like,

dumped. They did not know they were like, I have no idea what I would. I know and I got in my own head too. And I it was kind of an eye opening, like conversation for me to be like, okay, it's not the time because this is just a make believe question, right? We've removed all of the barriers your kids are taking care of. You have all the time in the world. There's no time restraint. There's no money restraint. And even with those things taken away that we sometimes use as an excuse, right? Like, well, who would watch my kids are like, well,

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (21:35)
I'm in my own head like, my god, what would I do?

Jessie (22:01)
you know, the budget's tight or whatever. We took all that away in this fake imaginary world that you got to live in and we still couldn't come up with something to do. So if that's you, you're not alone. This is a problem, but also kind of a fun thing to maybe start thinking about a little bit of like, yeah, what would I do? Or what is something I used to do that like what I want to try that again or like, no, I'm totally done. I don't ever want to do that. And just even starting there and just

thinking about it because you're not alone or even asking, you know, like, what's your hobby? What do you do for fun? And people would be like, moms are like for fun.

I don't know. I don't know what I do for fun. So exactly, exactly. I got a new scent in my kitchen counter spray. It was really exciting. Yeah, so.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (22:41)
I cleaned my counter. The toys are organized, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's challenging, especially in like, I can only speak from early motherhood, but I distinctly remember people saying like, well, you have to carve out the time to do something. And while that's very easy to say in the beginning, there's so many different things pulling you of like, well, I want to be home with my baby, or I feel more comfortable at home or whatever it might be. I think,

Jessie (23:13)
Yeah.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (23:22)
I think the part of like, well, I'm a new person now. I don't know what I like. Like if somebody gave me an hour and was like, go do whatever you want. I don't think I would know what to do in those early days. But someone gave me really great advice of it's going to be hard to do, but you have to force yourself to have some sort of time, whether it's an hour, whether it's 30 minutes every week, not even every day, just one designated hour or 30 minutes a week to.

try different things because you're never going to happen upon them otherwise. So whether it's like going out alone and sitting in a coffee shop for an hour or just to like get yourself in the routine of I'm going to try new things and I'm going to figure out what I want to dedicate this time to. That was probably the best advice. And I don't even know who gave it to me, but it was the best advice I ever saw to.

Jessie (24:12)
Mm -hmm.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (24:21)
have this designated time that for the first part of it, you're going to figure out what you want to do at that time. But then once you figure it out, that's the time that you do the thing to remind yourself like, I'm my own person. I can do things alone. I don't have to have a baby on my on my hip all the time. I am my own person and I can have fun alone. And sometimes maybe that is with friends. But yeah, I think it can be very daunting in the beginning.

Jessie (24:52)
Absolutely. That's great advice and I love whoever gave that to you. I think about becoming a new mom and like you, I love how you word that. I'm a new person now. And sometimes that can feel daunting and overwhelming. And especially when I do ask those questions and you think, my gosh, I've lost myself. I don't even know who I am. And we start on this spiral, right? I lost myself to motherhood. Instead of going to that spiral, right? Cause I don't know that that thought is serving us very well. Shift it a little bit.

to excitement. Wow, I am a whole new person now. And I have shift this baby and becoming a mom has shifted me. And what a grand adventure this is going to be to figure myself out again. Right? Because just as a little kid, I didn't know the things that I liked. I got to go to classes, I got to meet new people on the playground, I got to try new things. And some things I liked and some things I didn't. And that was a part of growing up. So if we can shift, because I think a lot of times we think that that's the messaging out there, right? no, I've lost myself to motherhood. And it's a horrible thing.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (25:51)
Yeah, and there's no next step. Yeah.

Jessie (25:51)
Instead of, yeah, yeah, because then you're just going to have another kid and another kid and you're just going to get more and more lost. Instead of that I also get to grow as my kids are growing and they're learning new things. I'm also a new mom. I'm also a new person. And how exciting is this? And then again, I'm going to go back to baby steps because I'm always going back to baby steps and small stuff. If you do find that you have that half hour and you don't know what to do to fill it with, go to a park and park, grab your drink and just look. And then the next week,

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (25:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Jessie (26:21)
Go to a different park and just give yourself a different one. And I was interviewing someone. There are these two women who run this adventure company for women that I think is an absolute genius idea about getting women out and adventuring and making friends and doing new things and getting out of your comfort zone. I asked them for their advice on this and they said, you know, if you have an interest in something, go and observe it first, right? You might be too scared to show up or to sign up for the thing.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (26:45)
Ooh, I love that.

Jessie (26:49)
So it even was like, I want to go to a paint night. And she's like, I literally drove to the parking lot and sat there and watched the people go into the paint night. And she's like, and someone might've seen me in my car looking like a complete idiot, but she's like, that was my baby step. Was I drove to the parking lot and I looked at the place and I saw the women in there and was like, okay, that doesn't seem so scary. And then the next week I signed up for the paint class or whatever it is. But I loved that little baby step. And sometimes our baby steps seem ridiculous and silly, but they're movement.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (27:02)
Yeah.

Jessie (27:17)
and it gets you moving and it's part of that, you know, that mindset shift of what a grand adventure I'm on right now of getting to figure out myself instead of wallowing and feeling like, where did I lose myself?

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (27:18)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I love that. That I think that's a great example of a mindset shift of this is the messaging I've gotten for this. And you're so right that you have to just spin it in an exciting way to say, I have a huge opportunity to learn and experience and do. And yeah, I love that. I'm thinking back to when I was pregnant, I gave myself so much grace and was like, whatever, I'm pregnant.

My mindset was immaculate, but then like the baby comes and life starts and you're off and running. And I think we very quickly, feel like we're not doing enough or, or being the best mom we could be or whatever it might be. And we get, we lose that like self positivity and, grace with ourselves. So I think that's a really good, example of a shift.

Jessie (27:59)
Mm -hmm.

Mm -hmm.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (28:29)
that you have a new opportunity to learn more.

Jessie (28:29)
Yeah, I think as moms, yeah, as moms, we put so much pressure on ourselves. And the number one thing I would say that we need as moms is grace. Try to at least match the amount of grace with the amount of pressure that you're putting on yourself, because you've never done this before. Even me, right? I'm 13 years into this with my oldest. I've never had a 13 year old before though, you know, and even my next kid.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (28:40)
Hmm.

Right.

Jessie (28:58)
So I have boy, girl, boy. I've never had an 11 year old girl before and she's much different than the last time I had an 11 year old. So every single time, like it might seem that you get more and more seasoned with motherhood, but it's still just new. And you need so much grace because I could sit here and put pressure on myself and be like, you're not even a new mom, Jess. Like get it together. You're 13 years into this. Instead of giving myself that grace and saying like, yeah, okay, maybe I could step it up here, but also like,

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (29:02)
Right?

Yeah.

Jessie (29:27)
I'm doing my best and I need to give myself grace. Like, number one advice for moms everywhere is more grace than pressure.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (29:29)
Yeah.

Yes, I love that. So what would, if a mom is like, I just cannot get my mind turned around, I need a mindset intervention, what does that look like to be a mindset coach and working with some of your clients? What are they coming to the table with? What would mindset work look like?

Jessie (30:01)
Yeah, absolutely. It's all across the board, you know, because we each have our own individual struggles and our each our own individual trials and things. So it can be a different thing. Sometimes it's, you know, I'm really struggling with motherhood. Sometimes it's I'm really struggling with my body image now. Sometimes it's I'm super lonely and I need friends. So it's across the board of what that kind of is, which is why I love coaching so much is because I don't have to get on autopilot. I don't get stuck in a box. I get to really connect one on one with somebody.

And instead of just being like a friend vent session, because those can be good. And sometimes all we need to do is just word vomit it out. And then we're like, wow, I feel better. Right. But then sometimes we're putting that on our friends and that's not fair all the time. So that's where like having a mentor or having a coach can really come into play because you're not being a burden. You're not putting on all this extra stuff onto your friends. Your friends are there to.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (30:39)
Yeah.

True, true.

Jessie (30:56)
They have another role. They don't need to be therapists all of the time for you. So it looks like I do one -on -one coaching and I also do group coaching in different cohorts and stuff. I don't have any going on right now, but a lot of what we do is we sit down and define where you're at right now and kind of where you think you should be or what your vision is. I'll have you kind of vision that of if everything was going great, if you had your perfect...

motherhood, marriage, friendship, house, whatever your thing is that you feel like you're really struggling with right now. And then we take those two pieces and look at them together and figure out how big that gap is. Right? Okay, you're actually really not that far from your vision, right? A couple of little tweaks here and there, boom. Or sometimes it's like, wow, girl, we, you have a canyon, we have to bridge, what are we going to do here to get from this place to this place? And that's why you're feeling so off because you're totally living out of alignment if this is.

what's important to you. We also break down if that's actually what's important to you or if you are making things up based on what you're seeing on social media, based on comparison. So one exercise I really like to do is figuring out your core values because that's going to be different to everybody. If someone, if you are super jealous of someone that's gallivanting around Europe all year, but you actually literally have no desire to do that.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (32:18)
Ha ha ha.

Jessie (32:19)
but you feel jealous, right? So it's really about defining your vision, your core values, where you're at now, and then kind of coming up with a plan to bridge that gap through, you guessed it, baby steps and starting small and then coaching through there. So it's such a fun process. I love doing it. I love getting creative and problem solving and having it be a fun experience, not like a, you know, I'm not a trained therapist. So we're not digging into your traumas. We're not.

going back and doing all this, but we're coming up with ways to move forward and how we can help you fill and live more in alignment and more intentionally.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (32:55)
I love that. I imagine it's somewhat creative work for you and that every situation is different and then you kind of get to use your creative side to figure out different ways to change that mindset and path for your clients.

Jessie (32:59)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun and it's really fulfilling and it was fun. I was actually looking back on some of my past cohorts that we had done last summer and some of the testimonials that came through. And I was getting kind of teary -eyed about where they were at, the testimonials they wrote immediately after, and then looking at where they're at a year later from graduating on and some of the leaps and bounds that women have made. And they are completely different people.

and in a completely different spot than where they were when they first started. And that is, I mean, there's no better thing than to see. I love seeing myself thrive. I love seeing my kids thrive, but seeing people and women and moms really step in and thrive. Well, I love it. I love it so much.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (33:59)
that's so amazing. I think everyone can benefit from kind of a mindset shift. I am the number one person to be like, okay, I need to figure this out and change the way I'm thinking. But it can be hard. And so I, to even like make that step and sometimes it feels good to wallow. But I think at the end of the day, you keep going back to baby steps and I think it's perfect. It doesn't have to be this big grand thing. It can be very small.

Jessie (34:09)
Yeah.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (34:28)
attainable changes towards whatever your, like you said, your ultimate goal is. So I love the idea of baby steps, keeping it small and attainable.

Jessie (34:40)
Absolutely. And I mean, look at our kids, right? That's how they learn. That's how they grow. We don't look at them and hand them, you know, put on their pair of shoes and tell them to walk. We get super excited when they they let go of the couch for a second and then they come back on. And it's these little things. That's the same for us. We're just bigger, more emotional, more complicated little babies. But yeah, we applaud them and we praise those baby steps. And we think it is so monumentous when they do those.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (34:50)
Right.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Jessie (35:10)
But again, giving ourselves that same encouragement of when we take the baby steps. We downplayed a lot, like, it wasn't that big of a deal, you know? I only drove to the parking lot and sat there. But giving ourselves a lot of credit for those baby steps that we take too, because it is big. It's bigger than we give ourselves credit for.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (35:18)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I love, like, keeping that in tandem with grace. It's not going to be perfect all the time. It's not going to look how you want it to look all the time. But I think partnering those two can be very helpful in moving you out of whatever it is you feel stuck in. Awesome. Well, anything else on mindset changing from negative to positive?

Jessie (35:35)
Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (35:55)
getting out of autopilot, motherhood, anything.

Jessie (35:59)
Yeah, I love that you said going from negative to positive because sometimes that can feel like a big huge leap or if you've ever been told to say affirmations and you say them and you feel like you're lying to yourself. So again, without you guys, I'm going to you're like, I know just baby steps, but baby steps. Don't try to shift all the way. Like if you are in a wallowing mood and you're having the worst day ever, it's not just again, putting on the rose colored glasses and be like, hold on, let me shift. Let me make this positive really quick. Sometimes it's just getting back to neutral.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (36:09)
Yeah.

Jessie (36:29)
Okay, what are the facts, right? Because I'm really worried about XYZ or I'm spiraling about XYZ and I'm, you know, crying and everything is wrong and the world's on fire and my life is a dumpster and everything. Okay, this feels awful. I don't want to fill here, but I definitely don't think I can jump to like Pollyanna sunshine right now. Can I get back to neutral or can I just maybe not the entire world's on fire, but like, yeah, this is a really bad day.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (36:29)
Mmm, yeah.

Yeah.

Jessie (36:59)
the world is not ending, I'm not gonna be homeless on the street, you know, or whatever, can I just baby step it up? Because shifting from negative to positive, that can feel like a big leap. So even there, I don't know, I guess the motto of this is grace and baby steps.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (37:03)
Yeah.

Mm -hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I love the idea of getting just back to neutral. Sometimes getting to positive is, like you said, challenging depending on the situation. So I think getting back to like your homeostasis and a space where you can just like think clearly and not feel so heightened. Yeah. I love the idea of being neutral.

Jessie (37:16)
Yeah.

-huh.

Absolutely. You know, the neutrally you podcast didn't sound as good, but definitely go there.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (37:38)
Yeah, not as exciting. Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on. This was amazing.

Jessie (37:47)
Yeah, this was so much fun. I love listening to you and hanging out with you and this has been a great place. So thanks.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (37:52)
Aw, thanks. Well, tell people where they can find you, social media, website, email, whatever you'd like to share.

Jessie (38:00)
Awesome. Yeah, so I'm most active over on Instagram. That's where I like to hang out and I love chatting in my DM. So if you've listened to this episode and you want to pop over and let me know, that'd be so fun. I love conversations over there. That's actually how me and you connected. So you can come over there. I'm at positively .jesse, Jesse with an I E. The podcast is the Positively You podcast and episodes come out weekly.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (38:12)
Yeah.

Jessie (38:23)
I also have a monthly personal growth book club where each month we dive into a new topic in a new book and then have a live book club at the end of the month. You can sign up there at jessilarson .com. So that's where you find everything else. Yeah, lots and lots of fun. So fun things going on over there. Come on and say hi.

Jessica | The Mama Making Podcast (38:33)
that's so fun!

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here. I've definitely learned a lot. I'll be deep diving for sure on some of your episodes of your podcast as well. I have my own little download list of the ones that I'm like, this one's for me. So, it was so great to talk to you and hopefully I'll talk to you soon. Awesome. Thank you.

Jessie (38:57)
Yeah, we will for sure.