I’ve noticed that so many women already know they’re overwhelmed. We know we’re carrying too much. We know we’re stuck in “I should” thoughts all day long.

But what actually changes things is understanding the belief underneath those thoughts.

Because underneath “I should be doing more” is usually something deeper.

If I rest, I’m lazy.

If I need help, I’m failing.

If I’m not the one holding everything together, I’m not enough.

In this episode, I talk about the guilt, pressure, and all or nothing mindset that keeps so many women stuck in overfunctioning at work, at home, and inside their own minds.

I also walk through the deeper work that has to happen before real change can actually stick. Not just replacing thoughts with positive affirmations, but questioning the standards, expectations, and beliefs that have been running the show for years.

This conversation includes real examples from coaching women through motherhood, leadership, rest, productivity, and the fear of slowing down.

If this episode resonates, I want you to pay attention to the questions that come up while listening. Your answers will tell you far more than your to do list ever will.

Resources Mentioned:

• The Should Session: To Stop you from bringing work stress home! Find out exactly what belief is keeping you stuck in should energy. Only 5 spots available, open for 2 weeks only.

Work with me:

1. The Leaders Table: https://www.samanthapenkoff.com/leaders-table
2. Breakthrough Intensive - You already know you should slow down, delegate more, stop overcommitting & be emotionally present. So why can't you? That's what we figure out in 90 minutes + integration call 1 week later. Book your Breakthrough
3. Exhale: Private Coaching - For women ready to do this work until it sticks and you can't revert back. 3 open spots: Work with me

Connect with Sam: Instagram | Facebook

Hello and welcome to Beyond Awareness. I was actually interviewed on someone else's podcast earlier this week and she asked me a question that made me want to record this episode. She asked me, what is the main belief beneath the mom or leader?

who feels like she should be able to do it all. And when she asked me that, I was in my head, I was just spiraling. was like, my gosh, there's so many things. And I tried to say it as succinctly as I could because it was just one question of many. But I was like, this needs to be said on Beyond Awareness because the awareness that so many of us women have is that we feel like we should be able to do it all or we should

be doing X, Y, and Z. And we know that. That doesn't take rocket science or journaling or a therapy session to realize that. That's what we know. But what is so insightful and I believe necessary to work through that is understanding the belief beneath it. Because once you know that, you can then work on breaking the cycle.

And the first layer that we need to address before we work on the actual belief is how this woman feels about all these shoulds and the expectations. And I'm actually picturing the woman that feels like she should be able to do it all. And in my mind, doing it all is like running the business. And within that, whatever you do for your career, you often have a super long to-do list.

of your own, but then people come into your office or call you or email you asking you to help out on their work or answer their questions or need guidance. And so you're kind of like the jack of all trades and stuck in the trenches, in the weeds of doing every single day instead of kind of pulling yourself out and up and working on these higher level projects that you are paid to do or

that you want to do in your business or your career, you're kind of stuck in the doing, right? Stuck in the action of the just like, what is that? Menial work? I like that's the wrong word. But anyways, that's like kind of what your day to day is like. And then you have to go pick up the kids at school, make dinner. There's tons of chores to be done. And then there's bath time. And then there's this

pressure to connect with your partner, but then you also want to disconnect and dissociate with Netflix or scrolling or whatever it is, and then you just do it all over again. So there's just so many shoulds that you are in charge of all of that, of performing all of that. And so when I picture that woman, she has a lot of guilt if she doesn't do it. She's got a lot of guilt if she's not the one

to do it. And that's when the judgment and shame comes in. And so I think first, if you're relating to this woman, ask yourself, what is the main feeling that I feel if I'm not the one? And that's kind of your trigger throughout the rest of this of whenever I feel that feeling throughout the day, I'm in should energy.

So maybe it's, feel guilty. I shouldn't say no to this, or I should be the one to go pick up my kids or whatever. That's your should energy speaking. Now, I'll tell you what the common beliefs are for this person that feels like she has so many shoulds, but to figure out what yours is right away, you can ask yourself, if I'm not the one to do X, and Z,

What does that mean about me? And oftentimes, it's something like, if I don't do the dishes tonight, I'm lazy. Or I just like, am a bad housekeeper. I don't like, live well or something. If I don't pick up the kids exactly on time, I'm a bad mom. If I don't finish one more thing at work, I didn't do enough.

Or for some of my clients, it's if I don't log back in at the end of the day or check my emails first thing in the morning, I'm not doing enough and work will stack up, right? If I don't stay on top of chores, I'm a bad partner. Or if you're like me without a partner, I'm a bad adult, right? They'll have a hashtag adulting, like quotes and posts and whatnot. There's also this like belief underneath it that if we're not doing those things, we're not a good...

adult. But anyway, so that's how you can figure out your own belief underneath it. And even within the leaders table, the leaders table is a local women's dinner group that I run. And someone inside the leaders table is working through feeling like she has to be present for a family member right now. And she's not even that close with this family member. But she

feels like she needs to be the one to be there. But she's also a mom of four. Four? Yeah, four. I almost said five, but I think it's four. A lot of kids. And she's running her own business, scaling that business. She's got a lot on her plate. And the belief underneath it all is if she isn't the one that is there for this family member, she's a bad daughter. So that's what's running the show. And so

Your awareness is that you realize that you should be doing it all. You should be getting more done. You should be there for someone else. The belief beneath it is what you just identified. Is that if not, I'm lazy. I'm not enough. I'm not a good partner, whatever it came up for you. But here's the thing. Underneath all of that, what I find in my clients is this

black and white mentality. The all or nothing mindset. It's if I'm not performing, I'm a bum. I'm lazy. Or if I'm not at every kids sporting event, I'm a bad mom. Like there's no middle ground. It's either all in, like I'm an all in mom or boss or employee or human, adults, or nothing.

And now I'm picturing rest, those of us that have a poor relationship with rest, feeling like we have to earn rest. And if we don't earn it, then we don't deserve it. And if you stop to question that, even just while listening to me right now, I think that you can easily realize that there is a gray area, that maybe you know someone who lives in the gray area, that they do allow themselves rest, that they are

always running late, that would be me. Right? There's a gray area. But when your core belief is telling you the opposite, you won't ever fully believe that you are a good leader if you're not the one to do all of the work, or if you do less one day than the other, or if you leave earlier than some of your employees.

You won't ever fully believe that you are a good mom if you hire out help to clean or if you let your partner help with homework while you rest on the couch for two nights a week or let's say every night. Right? So the work isn't just knowing your belief and swapping it. I see a lot of people doing that. And quite honestly, back in the day, that's what I used to do.

And that's what you can't do. You can't just go from, I'm a bad mom to I'm a great mom. You can't go from, I'm lazy to I can lead with rest without guilt. This reminds me of like these positive affirmations that I used to start my morning with before strategic journaling. I would down, like, I am earning a million dollars. I have a successful team of, you know, X, Y, and Z. And it was just these like,

these statements that almost I was just disconnected from them because I wanted them so badly, right? Who doesn't want a million dollars? But at the same time, my physical body was like, yeah, no way. That's what? How? When? With who? Where? How? how? And so the work is dismantling the expectations.

and the standards and those deeper rooted truths like the all or nothing mindset so that you have space to believe something else and space in your real life to show up differently. I'm just going to let that land for a second because that's what it's all about. We can understand the belief that is keeping us in that cycle.

And then we need to understand what are those deeper rooted truths and understanding that and questioning that and those expectations and standards and all of that. That is what will allow you to have that space to believe something else and to show up differently, right? To try something new, to take a different action, to go sit on that couch, even though you didn't quote unquote earn it, to ask

somebody else to pick up the kids because you have something else to do or to leave work early to get the kids or to leave work early to go get a massage. That's something that I worked on with one of my past clients and she was so proud of herself when she did it and we were making baby steps because her whole goal is when she got pregnant, she wants to be able to leave the office at three o'clock, three or three thirty and she was in this

habit of leaving the office at five. And one of the beliefs underneath it is that she has to stay as late as her employees, because if not, she's a bad boss. Essentially, it kind of boils down to that. And so we worked on that. And what I love about our sessions together is after our work wrapped up, two weeks later, she got pregnant, which I just think is so cool. I feel like she had the full, you know, butterfly transformation and then what she wanted to have happen.

and she got pregnant. Anyways, getting off track, once you do all of that with the belief work, then you're showing up differently, you're doing different actions and more comes up. So then there's the work of managing how it feels when you behave differently and all of that. But knowing your beliefs is the best and only first step to actually freeing yourself from the should energy, from I should be able to do it all.

mentality, however that is applying to you. I am sitting here feeling like some of you are going to listen to this and automatically know your beliefs and your deeper truths maybe. And then others will save this episode so that you can listen again or maybe look at the show notes and come back to the questions again when you have more quiet time, like maybe tonight before bed. And then others will think, my gosh, this is good.

this is like exactly what I needed to hear and I need to do that. You're going to add the questions that I asked you to your mental to-do list. And then you're never going to come back to it and repeat the doing it all cycle and just let that to-do list build and build. And then as an episode a couple of weeks ago talked about, or sorry, clutter is delayed decisions. This episode will become...

clutter for you, one of those delayed decisions. Instead of taking action now, you're going to think about, ooh, those questions were so good. I should just do it now. You'll be thinking of, I should really do that. I would really love to not feel like I should be doing X, and Z. And so if you are the latter and or you just feel like you need extra support with letting this should energy go,

I just feel so confident that I can help you identify your unique belief and quickly, like work through it quickly, that I came up with a super fun and limited time short-term offer that is only for those of you that listened to this episode. I will not be talking about this anywhere else. I'm opening it up for only two weeks and the first five women get to grab a spot.

Those five women will have up to a month to schedule it. So here's what it is. You will get one coaching call with me where you'll get to bring one specific area of your life that you want relief in, that you've been desiring a change. So like finally feeling enough without doing more, or maybe creating quiet space in your brain without all the mental chatter, or actually leaving work at work at the end of the day.

feeling comfortable turning off, whatever it is for you, you can bring one thing and I'll help you understand your unique belief and the deeper truths that are coming up that have been reinforcing that should cycle. Plus, you're going to gain clarity and a couple action items to start to free yourself from those beliefs. Super quick in 30 to 45 minutes. And it's only $97.

deeply discounted compared to all of my other coaching services. And it's because I'm recording this the day after Mother's Day. And I really wanted to do something special and different for the moms and really for any women out there who's carrying that should energy, that I should be doing more and is ready to put it down, especially before summer hits. And that's typically when even more of it gets piled on.

And so if that's you, then click the link in the show notes. And something to note is I do have three one-on-one coaching containers opening up in June. So if you do want to go deeper, some women do a call like this with me and feel so much clarity that they're ready to move forward. Others use it to decide if coaching is right for them. Whatever it might be, both are totally valid. And either way, I'm excited to help you finally do

what you want without feeling like that means you're dropping the ball elsewhere. Or like if you're showing up for yourself, you can't show up for someone else because that's not true. So if you want to be one of those five women, click the link in my show notes at least within two weeks that this episode airs and I would love to work with you. Thank you guys for tuning in and I will see you next time.