Episode 99: How to Build Resilience as a Working Mom When Everything Falls Apart
How to Build Resilience as a Working Mom When Everything Falls Apart
When you’re a working parent, disruptions are inevitable: a sick kid, a canceled school day, an unavailable partner, a car problem, or a crisis at work. The goal isn’t to become the perfectly calm person who can handle everything—it’s to build the resilience to adapt when life inevitably throws you a curveball.
In this episode, Hannah Morgan shares practical ways to prepare for the unexpected, from creating backup plans and investing in your village to building margin into your schedule and life. She also introduces the RESET method for navigating a crisis in real time: regulate, establish what’s urgent, simplify, execute the next smallest step, and take the lesson.
Because resilience isn’t about having it all together. It’s about knowing what to do next.
Key Takeaways
Resilience doesn't mean staying calm all the time. It means being able to experience stress and disruption, then figure out what to do next.
Create your backup plans before you need them. Think through the crises that are likely to happen again and create simple if-then plans for how you'll respond.
Talk to your workplace in advance. Establish expectations around sick kids, working from home, or shifting your hours before you're in the middle of a crisis.
Invest in your village before you need it. Build relationships with friends, family, neighbors, and other people who can step in—and be willing to reciprocate.
Build margin into your life. Leaving some space in your schedule, having meals in the freezer, and maintaining an emergency fund can give you much-needed breathing room when things go sideways.
Use the RESET method when you're in crisis: R — Regulate: Pause and regulate your emotions before reacting. E — Establish: Identify what's actually urgent. S — Simplify: Lower the bar wherever you can. E — Execute: Take the next smallest achievable step. T — Take the lesson: Reflect afterward and use what you learned to improve your plan.
You don't have to manage everything yourself. Knowing when and how to ask for help is a form of resilience, too.
Quotes from the Episode
“Resilience does not mean being this polished, calm, best version of yourself at all times.”
“You can experience that disruption, feel the stress, and then figure out what you're going to do next.”
“Invest in your village before you actually need it.”
“Operating at 85 or 90% gives you that margin. So when something does go wrong, you've just got a little bit more buffer.”
“Simplifying means lowering the bar everywhere you absolutely can.”
“Pick one small achievable step, one small thing you can do in that crisis moment that can help move things forward.”
“You can be the person who knows how to ask for help, and that is a wonderful thing.”
Resources Mentioned
The RESET Method: A five-step framework for navigating unexpected crises as a working parent.
Heron House Management: Virtual household management for busy families looking to reduce their mental load and get support with the never-ending to-do list.
About Heron House Management:
Heron House Management is a virtual house management service that takes the stress out of your busy life by taking on your mental load and managing your To Do list. We provide fractional virtual house management for busy families at 10, 15 and 20+ hours/month.
Meal planning, signing up for kids activities, scheduling doctor's appointments, finding a house cleaner, planning your kid's birthday party, getting quotes for that home renovation project, or scheduling a monthly date night with your significant other and so much more. We do it all! Learn more at www.heronhousemanagement.com.
About Hawkeye Focus Coaching:
Hawkeye Focus Coaching helps ADHD executives, entrepreneurs, and busy professionals turn ideas into action. Through personalized, hands-on coaching, deep work sessions, accountability, and practical systems, we help clients overcome overwhelm, stay focused on what matters most, and make consistent progress toward their goals.
Whether you're launching a business, leading a team, managing a major project, or trying to get out of constant firefighting mode, Hawkeye Focus Coaching helps you work with greater clarity, confidence, and momentum. Learn more at www.hawkeyefocuscoaching.com.
-
Welcome to De-Stress the Nest, a podcast for busy parents where experts share bite-sized tips on how to create systems that minimize stress at home. I'm your host Hannah Morgan. Unknown 0:13 Today's episode is sponsored by Heron House Management, the first ever virtual house management service that lightens your mental load by handling your to-do list with monthly subscriptions of 1015, and 20 plus hours a month, from meal planning and doctor's appointments to birthday parties and home projects, Heron House Management helps busy families reclaim their time and live their best lives. Learn more at herronhousemanagement.com. Unknown 0:37 Today's episode, we're going to be talking about how to handle it all when it's all falling apart all around us, picture this: you're at work, you get a call from school, your kid has a fever of 102, and they have to be picked up immediately. What do we do? Unknown 0:53 Immediate panic, immediate scramble, run out the door. How do I salvage my day? Instead of letting this spiral and let this be the downfall of your day, your week, the project you are in the middle of. Let's take a moment to talk about how resilience can actually help us prepare for, and react to, and adapt to these moments that come up more frequently than maybe we really realize as working parents. Unknown 1:19 So let's start by understanding what resilience really means. It's the ability to recover quickly from some challenges, some difficulties, the ability to adapt to that change, and then ultimately bounce back from the adversity. So we, as working parents, have to be adapting to change constantly. But today's episode, we're going to focus on how we can get out ahead, have a plan in place and make sure that we're bouncing back quickly. We're going to talk through what plans we need to have in place, and then the reset method for when you're on the fly trying to deal with a crisis and not letting it get the best of you. Unknown 1:53 Okay, for starters, let's talk about what resilience is not. Resilience does not mean being this polished, calm, best version of yourself at all times, even in a crisis, being resilient means that you can experience that disruption, feel the stress, and then figure out what you're going to do next instead of just completely feeling like you're shutting down. So yes, this is a nightmare. How can I handle it going forward? How am I going to plan for the rest of my day, the rest of the week, given this curveball? Unknown 2:22 True story. Last time my husband went out of town for a full week-long work trip was when my kids got lice. So I had three kids who were, I think, all under the age of five at the time, trying to work full time, keep us all afloat, and also get rid of the lice. Thing we want to think about is having a plan in place, ready, waiting in the wings to activate for when we need it most. A great example is your kid is sick home from school. Maybe school is closed. Maybe you've had your own illness. Your partner is unavailable. Car breaks down. Think through what maybe some of your recent crises have been, and let's say those are probably going to be repeated. So let's talk about how we can come up with a plan for how to deal with it if it happens again tomorrow, so maybe this is sitting down and mapping out a few if-then statements. If my kid gets sick, I will be able to work from home, and if I can't, then my partner will be able to to put in on who has the most demanding meeting schedule, whatever it may be. Now, how you're going to leverage that into a plan that you can then activate that actually gives you that advantage is you're going to go and talk to your boss or your team, and you're going to say, "Hey, just so you know, sometimes my kids get sick. I want it to be okay and understood that I can work from home on those days, or maybe work after bedtime, depending on how old your kids are, so that we don't have to have this like big conversation or conflict moment at work while I'm trying to deal with this disaster at home. So having those conversations in advance can make you better prepared for when you need them. The next thing you want to think about is investing in your village before you actually need it. Start by taking a look around friends, family, neighbors, key people in your life that you can call on if you need them, near or far. Talk with them about what they might be available for, and then make an effort to reciprocate the same way. An example: I have a wonderful single friend, and I said, "Hey, make me your emergency contact. I was like, "I have three kids. I can leave my kids with my husband and come pick up your kids from school and stay at your house for as long as you're in the hospital for. Put me down as your emergency contact for your kids' school. More than happy to do it. Similarly, sharing contact information with other members of your village. For example, we have somebody in our neighborhood who can take our dog in a pinch. Somebody in our neighborhood who can take our kids in a pinch, and then we have a next door neighbor. So I made sure that she has all of those numbers. So God forbid she was to realize something was happening and we needed more help. We weren't able to facilitate. She could easily activate our village. These are ways that we can get ahead of building those resources for when we really need them, but then also making sure that we're participating in the same way. Building our village means reciprocating. Unknown 4:52 Okay, the next thing I want to talk about is building margin into our life. So this is anticipating that there are going to be problems and challenges, and not filling our schedule, our day, our plate to 100 or 110% capacity at all time. Think about bringing that down a notch. I'm very guilty of this. Operating at 85 or 90% gives you that margin. So when something does go wrong, you've just got a little bit more buffer. A couple of ways you can think about this and examples would be like not scheduling meetings back to back all day, maybe having a couple of meals in the freezer for those nights that you really don't want to cook. Having an emergency fund, great classic example. So having these things waiting in the wings is going to make a difference when you really need them. Okay, so now let's talk about what happens when you've done all the planning and you have all the frozen meals, but your backup plan is still falling apart. What are we going to do here? This is where we're going to employ the reset method. So the first R regulate before you're trying to problem solve. Think about how you can regulate your own emotions and needs. Take a breath, pause, take 60 seconds just to think and process before having a big reaction. Unknown 6:01 The E of reset establish what's actually urgent. So figure out, okay, what do I really need to deal with here, and what is something that I can deprioritize, deal with another time. Unknown 6:10 The S of reset is going to be simplifying, lowering the bar everywhere you absolutely can. Unknown 6:17 Maybe this means we're having frozen waffles for dinner, and that is totally okay. Great common example. Your house can be messy. It's it's going to be fine. We're all going to survive. We are in crisis mode here. Doing the laundry not the highest priority. Unknown 6:29 And then the E executing on the next smallest step. This can be really challenging when we're feeling extremely overwhelmed. We have so much going on, so many things flying at us, and we feel frozen and unsure of what the next step is pick one small achievable step, one small thing you can do in that crisis moment that can help move things forward, and then the last is the T, taking the lesson. So after things have died down, don't just be a lame duck waiting for it to happen again. Actually reflect on what worked and didn't work when you are dealing with this crisis, and then build that into your plan for how you're going to anticipate future needs when it inevitably happens again. Unknown 7:07 And here's my disclaimer: you don't have to be the person that can manage it all at all times. Ask for help, build systems to support yourself, but don't feel like you're the only one who can solve the problem because that can be a very dangerous. track. You can be the person who knows how to ask for help, and that is a wonderful thing. Thanks for listening to De-Stress the Nest, the podcast where experts start bite-sized tips on how to minimize stress at home. Don't forget to subscribe and tune in every Tuesday for more ways to simplify your life
