Mental Health for High-Achieving Moms
The Hidden Cost of Perfectionism: Why It’s Time to Let Go
Perfectionism can look like “high standards,” but for many working moms it’s really a fear-based loop that drains your energy and steals your joy. When the goal is to get everything right, you end up feeling like you’re never doing enough, which fuels stress, self-doubt, and burnout. This episode reframes perfectionism as something that can quietly become a mental health issue, not because you’re weak, but because the pressure is constant and impossible to satisfy.
The way out is not lowering your ambition, it’s shifting your relationship with yourself. Three practical tools shared are: a nightly “three good things” gratitude practice to retrain your brain to notice wins, a quick self-compassion break (name the hard moment, remember you’re not alone, speak kindly to yourself), and savoring small positive moments instead of rushing past them. These tiny practices interrupt the perfectionism cycle and help you feel present, steady, and human again.
HERE ARE THE 3 KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE:
1️⃣ Perfectionism runs on fear.
2️⃣ Self-compassion breaks the loop.
3️⃣ Small wins count.
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“Perfectionism isn’t your gold star.”
Full Transcript
Tia Graham (00:03.224)
Hello, I am so glad that you are here. Welcome back. Or if this is your first episode, welcome. Whether you are folding laundry right now or waiting while your kid is at soccer practice or maybe driving somewhere or maybe you're just slowing down after a crazy day of work and kids, I just want you to know
fact that you took the time and you planned something and you're investing in you right now is awesome. You deserve it and just acknowledge yourself. So let's just take a breath together.
Tia Graham (00:56.354)
You made it here to the Feel Good Club podcast and that is what counts. I want to ask you something and I really want you to sit with it. What is the very thing that you have always been praised for? Being the one that has it all together, being the one who doesn't drop the ball at work, who always delivers.
who shows up being the one who brings the family together, who does it all and does everything really, really well. What if that exact thing is the thing that's slowly draining you or maybe even this sensation of hollowing you out? What if...
your superpower is also your wound. Today we're going there gently and together.
Let's just name it. You are a perfectionist. You are a successful, high achieving working mom, and you want to do really well at work, and you want to be a really great mom. You want your house to be good. You want your vacations to be really good. You want everything to be successful.
and you are tired in a way that has nothing to do with sleep. You're juggling deliverables and dance recitals, school projects and Slack messages. You're remembering all of the school forms, the dentist appointments, the gift for your friend's birthday shower, what you need to do for your top clients or for your team.
Tia Graham (03:07.686)
And you're doing all of this while leading a meeting, answering emails at 11 o'clock at night, because that's the only time when the house is quiet and maybe when your brain is quiet. And on the outside and on LinkedIn, maybe on Instagram, you look amazing. You look like the woman that a lot of people say to your face.
or maybe behind your back. I don't know how she does it all. How does she have this huge career and these kids and everything else? They do so much. How does she do it all?
But on the inside, there's a quiet dread that lives in your chest and a voice in your head that constantly says, it's not enough. You're not enough. You should be doing more with your kids. You should be doing more with work. You should be better, faster.
You should be calmer. You should have more presence.
Tia Graham (04:33.102)
Here's the cruelest part. When you finally do sit down to rest, which probably isn't very often, you can't. Because the second your body stops moving, your mind moves even faster. Did I do enough today? Am I screwing up my kids? Why did I snap this morning when my daughter was putting on sunscreen? Am I behind?
Look at what they're doing. Look at what I'm not doing. Am I doing this all right? That, my friend, is perfectionism in a working mom body. And it's not a personality quirk. It's a slow burning mental health issue. And we're going to talk about it because I know it really, really well.
Here's the reframe that I want to offer you and I'd love you to really hear it. Perfectionism isn't high standards. Perfectionism is fear. Specifically, it's fear that if you let go of the controls even for a second, you'll be exposed as not enough, as not good enough.
maybe even as a fraud, as the mom who is failing her kids, as the woman who is not achieving enough in her career, as the daughter who is not doing enough, the wife who is not doing enough, the friend who hasn't called in a month. And researchers have a name for this.
And this is a new term for me. It's evaluative concern perfectionism. The version of perfectionism that's tightly linked to anxiety, depression, burnout, and chronic stress. It's not about wanting to do well. It's about your worth being on the line every single time you do anything.
Tia Graham (07:00.622)
You're worth tied to every single action or inaction you take. And for years I'll share, I had this referee in my head with a scoreboard of 29 different things that I had to do every day and I could not do them. And so it was never enough and I never felt worthy enough. And here's
but I don't think we talk about enough. I certainly didn't talk about it with a lot of people for a decade, is that working moms are uniquely set up for this because we're told you can have it all. We're told lean in. We're told go do it. And somewhere along the way that got quietly translated in you have to do it all. You have to do it perfectly.
You have to make it look effortless. It has to look really, really good on social media. Don't complain. Look amazing. Be ambitious. Still bake the birthday cakes. And this is a setup. This is all a big setup. So if you feel like you're failing, you're not failing at all. You're functioning inside a system that was never, ever designed.
for human beings, for working moms to thrive in. So let me say the thing, maybe nobody has said to you today or this week or even this month, it makes sense that you're exhausted. It makes sense that you are anxious. It absolutely makes sense that you cried in the car or like me,
used to cry myself to sleep four or five times a night when my girls were younger. Nothing is wrong with you. Something is wrong with the script that you've been handed as a child, as a young woman, in our society, and with all of the messaging.
Tia Graham (09:21.27)
I want to share something with you because I do not want to be this podcast host who pretends that I figured everything out from this high mountain. I am in this with you truly.
Couple years ago, two years ago, I was consumed with fear and anxiety over both of my girls' And my husband and I always really liked school, naturally thrived in school, naturally wanted to do well and do homework and...
You know, we were both those weird kids that a small percentage of the population is. And our older daughter, who is autistic, and both of our girls are ADHD, our older daughter refused academics for years. And even though she's intelligent, was extremely behind. And my other daughter, who got diagnosed with stealth dyslexia,
does not like school. She likes friends, she likes doing creative things, but in terms of like reading, writing, math, no, does not like it. And I was hyperventilating, I was so chronically stressed, I was so full of fear and anxiety, and on a regular basis during the day,
or after the kids went to bed, would be having these anxious, almost panic attacks to my husband about, what are we gonna do? How is this gonna be okay? my God, they're never gonna be okay. We're not doing enough. I need to be researching more. Such frantic, anxious, anxious energy. And I would wake up in the morning with this weight on me, this weight of how...
Tia Graham (11:31.917)
Are we gonna help them? And these beliefs of like, you need school. You need to be great at school to be successful. I'm failing as a parent. We're failing as parents. We completely suck. And my mental health was not okay. And even though I'm this expert on the science of happiness and I know that.
I have agency over how I think and how I behave. The circumstances and the environment were completely, completely overwhelming to me.
And then I had a thought that broke me open and I realized if I don't heal this anxiety and fear in me, I'm gonna hand this over to them, wrapped up like a gift. And she's gonna spend her 30s and 40s unraveling the same way that I'm unraveling right now.
And that was the moment where everything shifted. Not because I solved it overnight. I did not. But it's because I finally really got honest with myself and looked in the mirror and started facing the fear. Like all of the worry and all of the anxiety came from fear. And so much of it was fear that I'm not good enough, not that they're not good enough.
fear that I'm not good enough. And so if you're in this version right now of 11 p.m. spiraling over grades or over behavior or over screen time or friendships or milestones or whatever it is, I see you, I am you, and there is a way through, I promise. So here's what I wanna give you, something real.
Tia Graham (13:40.053)
not a 47-step morning routine, not a $3,000 weekend retreat, even though I would love one of those right now. I'm going to give you three small evidence-based practices from positive psychology, the science of happiness, that you can actually do in the middle of your real messy life to support your mental health. Number one.
three good things. This comes from Dr. Martin Seligman, known as the father of positive psychology. And at the end of the day, when you're brushing your teeth, name three good things that happened today and why they happened. Tiny things count. And you answer the heart email, you had a good family dinner, et cetera.
And studies show that people that do this consistently increase their happiness and happiness lasts. All right? Just from a very simple 90 second practice. It works because our perfectionist brains are wired for what went wrong. And so you can retrain your brain for what went right. Number two.
the self-compassion break. If you know me and if you know the Feel Good Club, you know I am obsessed with grace and self-kindness and self-compassion. And I've learned a lot from Dr. Kristin Neff. And I cannot overstate how much this practice has changed me and my life. So when you notice that you're being hard on yourself,
that you're being critical of yourself, that, you know, the voice that says you're failing, that you're behind, that you should be doing more, that you're not doing good enough. You pause and you acknowledge, you say to yourself, this is a hard moment. I'm struggling right now. Okay, that's mindfulness. Second, remind yourself that this is not something that's only happening to you. You say, I'm not the only one.
Tia Graham (16:03.828)
Other working moms feel this too. I'm not alone. And that is connecting to what Dr. Neff calls common humanity. And then third, put your hand on your heart. Actually do it. Put your hand on your heart and say, may I be kind to myself right now? May I give myself the kindness that I give to my best friend?
It's going to feel awkward. It's going to feel weird. It's going to feel dorky. Do it anyway. You are rewiring how you talk to yourself and you're rewiring your nervous system. And number three is savoring. Savoring just means consciously stretching out a good moment. When something nice happens, you're hugging your child or you finish something on your website.
or your boss is super happy with something, or you are outside with a cup of coffee and the sun hits your face. Just pause for five seconds and tell yourself, this is good. I am here. This counts, or this belongs. You and I, the perfectionists, are sprinters. We are always running from one thing to the next.
And savoring teaches your mind and your soul that in the moment is already enough. You don't have to earn the next one. Three good things, self-compassion break and savoring. That's it. No app, no subscription, no 4.45 a.m. wake up, just three little doorways back to yourself. So let's bring it home.
Perfectionism isn't your gold star. It's a survival strategy and you don't need to survive anymore. You're allowed to actually live this life, not just manage it. And listen, I know you're tired. Even self-care can feel like another thing on the to-do list. So I made you something. I put together my 30 ways to practice self-care in five minutes or less.
Tia Graham (18:27.148)
All you need to do is go to tiagram.com slash blog. That's tiagram.com slash blog. Grab it for free and I'll also put it in the show notes.
You are not too much, you are not too little, you are not behind, you are not broken. You're a woman that's doing something that's really, really hard some days, having a big career and raising human beings. And the fact that you care so much about everything, it's not your flaw, it's a gift. So be soft and be kind with yourself this week. Prioritize your wellbeing.
and I'll see you next time on the Feel Good Club show.