What Motherhood Taught Me About Running a Coaching Practice

Dear Worthy Woman,

People don’t use the word “relentless” enough when describing motherhood.

You hear that it is exhausting, terrifying, scary, anxiety-producing, and heart-burstingly rewarding in ways that can’t be described in words. But, to me, those feelings are a result of the relentlessness.

When you’re caring for a child, their needs don’t clock out. Whether Baby Girl is asleep or awake, with me or someone else, my daughter’s physical and emotional needs are always humming in the background, pulling at my attention in a way that makes it genuinely hard for me to hear the important over the urgent.

In the competition between urgency and importance, the overflowing laundry basket will always win if I let it. So will the unread emails, the dinner that needs to get on the table, and the need to wipe down the countertops for the 100th time that day.

The maddening part is that while I’m managing all those day-to-day needs (which require so much effort and work), I can miss the mark on my actual job as a parent.

To me, that job lies in the moments of real connection where I remind Baby Girl, with or without words, that she belongs, is always safe, and can always come home to her family.

This Mother’s Day, I’ve been sitting with that tension between urgent and important, and noticing how much it also describes my experience running a coaching practice.

The content calendar is always pulling. Client follow-ups, newsletter drafts, strategy sessions, and the logistics of keeping a small business alive are always necessary items on the to-do list. At the same time, those tasks can become a barrier to the deeper question underlying my practice: What do I want this work to mean, and what impact do I want it to have?

This summer, I’m making time to answer that question.

Introducing the Summer Reading Series

Starting this month, I’m publishing a curated retrospective of some of my most meaningful blog posts. Every other week, I’ll republish a post from the archive, going all the way back to 2018 with these questions in mind: Which posts get to the heart of what this work is actually about? Which ones best illuminate what Woke Up Worthy is really trying to say and to whom?

Why This, Why Now

There’s something I’ve noticed in my coaching work. Women of color who have built impressive careers and full lives often reach a moment when they need to stop and take stock, creating the space and mental clarity to decide what’s next. Even though they know that pausing and reflecting is the next best step, almost no one feels like they can stop. Instead, they fear that things will fall apart if they don’t keep going too. I feel that fear when it comes to my business. But I want to lead by example for my clients and, ultimately, Baby Girl. Sometimes the way forward is reflection and stillness.

To move forward at Woke Up Worthy, I have to create space to look at how this work has evolved, what I understood when I started, and what I’ve come to know since. The Summer Reading series will be the result of that work.

So if you’ve been following this newsletter for years, welcome back to the beginning. If you’re new here, consider this your orientation. Either way, it’s going to be a great summer.

​In power and solidarity,

Toya

You deserve to listen to your own voice rather than the voice of oppression. I help my clients distinguish between the two and the first step is The Decision Hour. Book your confidential session here.