PEP TALK | Why You’re So Hard on Yourself (And How to Stop)

Motherkind

Zoe Blaskey

Kids & Family, Parenting

4.8 • 863 Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If December already feels like ‘too much’, this pep talk is your permission slip to breathe again. This month can feel like the mental load Olympics for mothers—pressure, perfectionism, school events, work deadlines, matching pyjamas, curated magic… and somehow we’re meant to smile through it. In the second of our December pep talks, Zoe shares five powerful steps to help you stop being so hard on yourself and bring the pressure down. In this pep talk, Zoe covers: Why you’re not failing – December really is intense How to drop the “Good Mum Myth” and stop comparing yourself to an imaginary perfect motherThe simple mindset shift that reduces self-criticism instantly Why lowering the bar actually raises connection with your children Tiny, nervous-system resets to help you stay grounded through the chaos This December, be softer with yourself. Let something go on purpose. Choose connection over perfection. Your children won’t remember the wrapping paper, the curated Santa visit, or whether you had it all together. They’ll remember how it felt to be with you ♥️ Remember to subscribe to Motherkind — it helps more mothers find the show and keeps our community growing. Feeling like you’re carrying it all? Download your FREE Mental Load Cheat Sheet and learn how to start feeling lighter, even if nothing in your life changes. Connect with Zoe: Follow Zoe on Instagram Get Zoe’s Sunday Times bestselling book, 'Motherkind: A New Way to Thrive in a World of Endless Expectations’ This Motherkind episode is sponsored by: Headline sponsor Wild Nutrition, the brand raising the bar for women’s supplements. Want to feel the Food-Grown difference yourself? Get 50% off for three months at wildnutrition.com/motherkind. Ts and Cs apply. For a £100 sponsored job credit, visit Indeed.com/ Motherkind Get 40% off a Calm premium subscription at calm.com/motherkind Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Zoe. Welcome back to Mother Kind. We are sponsored by Wild Nutrition's Women Supplements. And every Monday in December, I'm going to give you a little December pep talk because let's be honest, December is the mental load Olympics. Everything rumps up and I want to be a
0:22.4	voice that is the antidote to the Christmas pressure and perfection. So today my message is a simple
0:29.0	one. Stop being so hard on yourself. You are holding yourselves to impossible standards. You're
0:36.2	comparing yourself to an unrealistic version of the perfect mother.
0:40.1	You are pushing and you're pushing and you're doing it all with a commentary in your head that says
0:44.9	that you are falling short and it's exhausting. So today I'm going to help you stop being so hard on
0:50.9	yourself and I'm going to show you how to do it in three simple steps.
0:56.1	Okay, so the first step is you've got to label your reality. You can't change what you don't
1:01.5	acknowledge. So say to yourself, this is hard. December is intense. I'm not failing. It's just a fact
1:09.7	because the moment that you label something,
1:12.7	what you do is you give yourself a bit of space from that experience and you're acknowledging
1:16.7	the load without making it your fault. That is step one. Step two, I want you to drop this,
1:23.9	we call it the good mum myth. In my work with mothers, I see the same pattern over
1:28.5	and over again. When pressure increases, self-criticism skyrockets, we start to believe other moms
1:36.1	are doing it better. Our kids will remember all the things we didn't do. I'm failing because I
1:42.4	dropped a few balls or forgot a few things or the magic and everything
1:46.9	depends entirely on me and that you're failing if you do anything wrong or you drop any balls
1:53.1	or that everyone else is coping better. Now hearing that narrative, that's what the sociologists
1:59.3	call the good mum myth in action. It's super
2:03.4	insidious and actually it's completely unattainable. So the truth is, despite what you might be
2:09.8	hearing internally, your worth as a mother has nothing to do with you performing perfectly
2:14.9	at Christmas. Let's say that again, you just don't need perfect
	...

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