Belonging Project Podcast

Fiorenza Rossini (00:52)
In our last episode, I spoke with Hannah Douglas about voice, confidence and identity after becoming a parent. And it was a phenomenal conversation. And since that conversation, I’ve been thinking about how often this topic comes up in conversations with moms, but also in coaching conversations that I have with moms.

So today I want to unpack something that we touched on briefly. Why confidence at work often feels different after becoming a parent and what we can gently do about it. I really wanted to zoom in on this. One thing that I hear again and again from parents returning to work is I don’t feel as confident as I used to.

And perhaps you were very confident and perhaps confidence was never something that came up before you left for your maternity leave. This isn’t just anecdotal. Research from Leaning and McKinsey shows that the transition into motherhood is one of the moments where many women’s confidence and sense of belonging at work drops most noticeably. Not because competence has disappeared all of a sudden, no, but because your context has changed. I mean, it’s a huge context shift. Also your sleep, your relationship to sleep has changed unless you have a unicorn baby and

but also your mental load has increased, time has become more fragmented and your priorities have shifted, or rather your list of priorities has increased. There’s also something called the motherhood penalty, which researchers have documented for years. Studies show that mothers are often perceived as less committed or less available professionally.

even when their performance has not changed. Even when their performance has not changed. And when you feel that you’re being seen differently, guess what? It’s naturally affecting how confidently you are showing up. Of course, that makes sense, right? Confidence isn’t built in isolation. It’s built on stability,

preparation, energy, and feeling psychologically safe. So when one of these conditions or two or all of them move, shifts at once, what happens to confidence? It’s shifting too. And when we feel that, the first thing that comes to mind is, I’m not good. I’m not as good anymore. I used to be good, but now I’m not sure. Well, actually,

the circumstances have changed, the context has changed and perhaps the way of doing things might need to adapt but you’re still as good. Repeat after me, you’re still as good. You’re fantastic at what you’re doing.

Also, research from the Office for National Statistics in the UK showed that mothers still carry significantly more unpaid care and household management responsibilities, even in dual-career households. Which means that many women return to work carrying not one job, but two jobs mentally. Your brain is…

running so many tabs at the same time, the logistics, the nursery schedules, the school schedules, illnesses, appointments, food, clothes, work deadline. Yeah, it’s a lot. And your mental bandwidth is stretched, right? So when your mental bandwidth is stretched, confidence also naturally feels more fragile.

We’ll actually go much deeper into this topic in a future episode because I really think that mental load deserves its own conversation.

So what can we do to reset our confidence, to give ourselves some little boosts? ⁓ I like to see those as small resets and if you haven’t listened to my podcast episode with Hannah Douglas, please go back on the podcast list of episodes and do so because it is fully packed with

tips around confidence, especially when it’s ⁓ about your voice. Now, ⁓ I’m gonna share some of my favorite ones because really I am passionate about confidence, not needing big intervention. It can really be about small resets, small little things, small strategies, small tools that you can do on the daily. So,

Taking one minute to breathe before entering a meeting, that is a very, very good one. We are talking about ⁓ deep breath ⁓ here. Dropping your shoulders, ⁓ reconnecting with your body perhaps. What are you feeling in that moment and where? perhaps you’re feeling nervous. Ask yourself, where are you feeling that nervousness in your body?

And then beyond the physical tools, mindset shifts also do matter here. accepting that preparation looks different now. If before you became a parent, you used to leave the preparation element to the last minute, to the day prior the big presentation, you might need to review how you organize your work because yes,

little kids can get sick, ⁓ yes, the nursery can call you and ask you to pick them up in the next hour or so. So give yourself a little bit of buffer so that you do get the prep in and also if something happens, ⁓ you’ve done the prep already. Choosing fewer priorities, right? Not everything.

is a do it right now, a do it today or do it this week. You’ll be surprised if you are to sit down with your to-do list and be a little bit ruthless with it, you’ll be surprised how many things can be delegated or how many things can be delayed to the following week. Okay? The next one is thinking about growth, what growth means to you right now.

And that might be very different to what growth looked like for you last year or two years ago. And that’s okay, right? ⁓ Growth and your definition of growth evolves over time. There’s a beauty in that and I hope you get to see it too.

And really remind yourself that confidence returns gradually. And one thing that really helps for your confidence, one thing that really helps your confidence to return is to be realistic with your expectations. Okay. Give yourself a bit of time as well. ⁓ You’re not starting a new job. That’s right. If you’re returning to work.

after a maternity leave, after leave, you are not starting a new job, but lots of things have changed. You have changed and probably your project and the topics you’re working on now, maybe they are still the same topics, maybe it’s still the same project, but things have evolved, of course, because time has passed, right? And that’s okay.

Fiorenza Rossini (09:16)
Thank you for being here. I hope you’re enjoying today’s episode. If you want to hear more about this topic, join me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/fiorenza-rossini

Fiorenza Rossini (09:35)
Talking about growth, research consistently shows that the period after becoming a parent is one of the highest risk moments for losing talented employees, particularly if we look at retention in women, leadership and in the women leadership pipelines. So supporting confidence and belonging.

at this stage isn’t just kind, it’s actually quite strategic. So if your confidence at work feels different right now, know this, it doesn’t mean that you’ve lost it. It simply means that you’re in a season where things need to be done directly and you are getting a cue there. So use it. Let’s do something about it.

Confidence returns once we give ourselves the permission to adapt, to do things differently so it works for us right now.

Once more, I encourage you to listen to my podcast episode with Hannah. You’ll find some more reflection and tools on this topic. And if these questions feel familiar in your own life, please know that you’re not alone. Thank you for listening.