You’re not bad at motherhood. You’re just trying to fit all the dreams you had before kids into a life where everyone expects those dreams to disappear and wondering why you feel guilty for still wanting them.

Here’s what nobody tells you about becoming a mom: the woman you were doesn’t just pause. She doesn’t go dormant. She’s still there, with all her desires, ambitions, and goals, except now she’s constantly at war with the mother part of you that society says should always win.

And that internal battle? It’s affecting everything. Your kids feel it. Your relationship feels it. Your business feels it. Because when you’re at odds with yourself, that chaos doesn’t stay contained. It seeps into every corner of your life.

The Silent Struggle Moms Aren’t Talking About

Dana Malstaff, founder of Boss Mom, has coached thousands of mothers and seen the same pattern play out again and again: moms who won’t say out loud what they actually want.

“I hear crazy stuff, ladies,” Dana shares. “Women saying for the first time, ‘I’ve never said out loud that I really wanna make money, but I’m nervous that if I do that, it’s gonna take away from my time with my kids.’ Or ‘I feel guilty about the dreams and desires I have because I feel like it’s at odds with my goals as a mother or a wife.'”

Sound familiar? Maybe you’re the mom who feels resentful about what you’ve given up, even though you gave it up excitedly because that’s what you wanted at the time. Or maybe you’re the mom who feels like you’re not allowed to want more now that your kids are getting older.

The problem isn’t that you want things. The problem is that you’re not saying it out loud.

When you don’t voice what you’re feeling, it festers. Like fruit that doesn’t get air, it molds. Like still water, algae and bacteria grow. Your unspoken desires and frustrations don’t just go away. They fester in a way that keeps you from achieving anything.

Why Your Inner Turmoil Is Affecting Your Kids

Here’s the part that’s hard to hear: when you’re in a state of internal turmoil, your kids can feel it.

Dana explains it this way: “When we’re at odds with ourselves, that trickles out to our family. Our kids can get anxious, our kids can feel stressed, our kids can feel sadness because they can see it in us. We become less patient, have less capacity, less joy, less playfulness.”

Think about it. You know those days when you have unlimited capacity, when the neighborhood kids can come over, when your son dribbling a basketball inside and breaking something feels manageable, when you have patience for all the friction. Those are the days when you’re not at war with yourself.

And yes, there’s the mother part of you that loves to nurture, that finds joy in self-sacrifice. The part that would rather sit in an uncomfortable chair on the sideline of your son’s basketball game than be on a beach somewhere because when he looks at you with excitement after making his first basket, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.

That self-sacrifice is made with joy. That’s real.

But then there’s the woman part of you who wants to dress up, feel playful, feel free. And somewhere along the way, you started believing you can’t have both. You can’t be sexy because you’re a mom. You can’t pursue your ambitions because it takes time away from your partner and kids.

And that false choice is tearing you apart.

The Two Things That Change Everything

If you want to stop feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, and at odds with yourself, if you want to achieve your goals while actually enjoying motherhood, Dana says there are two non-negotiable practices:

1. Say It Out Loud

You need a safe container to voice what you’re really thinking and feeling. Not your partner (who loves you but might not understand). Not your parents or in-laws. Not even all your friends.

You need a space where other moms get it. Where you can say, “I want to make money and I’m scared that makes me selfish” and hear a chorus of “ME TOO.”

“When we say things out loud, we bring them into conscious awareness,” Dana explains. “This is not woo-woo, ladies. When you bring it into conscious awareness, you start to go, ‘Oh crap. Maybe that thing has been holding me prisoner for longer than I thought.'”

She gives the example of a simple thing like cleaning the garage. One mom kept putting it off. When Dana asked why, they went deeper: “Oh, every time I clean the garage, my husband and I get in an argument. And I don’t want to have an argument.”

Once you say it out loud, you can actually solve the real problem. Not the surface-level “I need to clean the garage” problem, but the underlying issue that’s been keeping you stuck. (Want to dive deeper into this process? Read more about Say It Out Loud: Curing Mom Guilt for Good.)

2. Know What You Want

Not what you think you should want. Not what would make you a “good mom.” Not even what task is next on your to-do list.

What do you actually want?

Dana challenges: “What do you want to feel? What do you want to experience? What do you want to happen in the world? How do you want to live? How do you want to be experienced? What do you want to build up in the world?”

We spend so much time doing that we forget to ask what we want the outcome to be. What we want the future to look like. What we want to create.

And here’s what’s magical: when you figure out what you want and start saying it out loud, you unlock that genius mom brain. Not the foggy, exhausted version, the one that can do 18 things at once with focus and capacity. If you’re struggling with clarity on what you want or feeling stuck trying to niche down your business, you might be experiencing what Dana calls the mom brain’s natural resistance to limitation. (Why Our Brains Won’t Let Us Niche Down explores this phenomenon in depth.)

What’s Possible When You Stop Fighting Yourself

Dana paints a picture of what becomes possible when the three parts of yourself (the woman, the mother, and the voice) stop threatening each other and start cheering each other on:

“You can achieve all your goals. You can have calm. You can have complete and utter delicious capacity. You can be more resilient. You can feel integrated, not balanced. You can stop feeling overwhelmed and burnt out.”

She’s not talking about the toxic positivity version of motherhood where you pretend everything is fine. She’s talking about deep satisfaction, the kind where you’re sitting on those uncomfortable bleachers watching your kid’s game AND building your business AND feeling like a woman AND not resenting any of it.

Because here’s the truth: when you get centered, when you stop fighting yourself, that calm emanates out through your entire family.

Your kids feel it. Your relationship improves. Your work gets better. Not because you’re doing more, but because you’re not carrying around the weight of all those things you won’t say out loud. This shift in mindset is foundational to everything else. (Master your Mindset to Successfully Grow your Business breaks down exactly how this internal alignment translates to business growth.)

The World-Changing Power of Mom Brains

Dana has a vision that might sound audacious, but stick with her on this: “If we collectively put mom brains together, not the foggy mom brain, but the mom brain in total alignment, in total synergy of ourselves, and unleashed that brain power into the world? Life changing. World changing.”

She believes that if all moms were practicing this (saying things out loud, figuring out what they want, showing their kids what emotional honesty looks like) we’d solve bigger problems than just mom guilt.

“I actually think the anxious generation would be fixed. Because it’s our inner turmoil that causes instability emotionally in every aspect of our community.”

Bold? Yes. But also… what if she’s right? What if the best thing you could do for your kids isn’t sacrificing every dream you have, but showing them what it looks like to be a fully integrated human who pursues her goals while deeply loving her family?

Small shifts in how you think and operate can create massive ripple effects. Hannah Keeley calls this The Mom Brain Reset: Small Shifts That Create Big Change, and it’s exactly what Dana is talking about here.

Your Next Step

You can keep trying to balance being a mom with being a woman with having a voice. You can keep feeling guilty about wanting things. You can keep that exhausting internal battle going.

Or you can start saying things out loud. You can start figuring out what you actually want. You can join a community of moms who are doing the same thing, not to complain, but to get unstuck and actually build the life they want.

Because here’s what Dana knows after coaching thousands of moms: all the business strategies could work. All the dreams you want could happen. Everything is available to you, but only if you stop fighting yourself first.

The woman you were before kids didn’t disappear. She’s still there, and she’s allowed to want things. The mother you’ve become is real too, and she’s allowed to love the sacrifice. And the voice you have (the impact you want to make) is allowed to take up space.

They can all win. But first, you have to say it out loud.

And if you’re trying to build a business while doing all of this? Your content strategy might not be working for the same reason you’re feeling stuck everywhere else. It’s not aligned with who you actually are or what you actually want. (Why Your Content Strategy isn’t Working and How you Fix It will help you connect those dots.)

Ready to start saying things out loud in a space where moms actually get it? Join the Boss Mom community for free at bossmom.com/community or download the Boss Mom app.