Career Mama newsletter - August 2025

Hi Career Mamas,

August was all about Protecting Your Priorities. We focused on clarifying what matters, cutting the noise, and setting boundaries. These small shifts created more space for family, eased overwhelm, and built confidence at work. Here’s a recap for the workshop that made our mamas cry, AMA packed with gold nuggets, Slack highlights, and September focus (AI as your ally):

How to Let Go of the Pressure to Be the “Perfect” Mom Workshop summary (with Zoe Blaskey, Founder of Motherkind)

• Perfectionism nearly broke me: Zoe shared how her own journey with breastfeeding revealed the destructive cycle of perfectionism, where “never good enough” thinking robs us of joy and presence.

• Why motherhood feels harder than ever: We’re raising kids in unprecedented pressure: sky-high childcare costs, lack of community support, social media comparison, and workplaces not designed for parents. Struggling doesn’t mean you’re failing—it means the system isn’t built for us.

• The 3 traps high-achieving moms face: Perfectionism (always raising the bar), Pressure (piling more on top of already heavy loads), and Proving (trying to show nothing has changed at work after kids).

• Shifting out of perfectionism: The antidote is self-worth built through action, not just mindset. Every small act of self-care or boundary-setting reinforces “I matter.”

• Practical tools to try:

• Presence: even 10 minutes of undistracted connection with your child boosts emotional regulation by 40%.

• Strengths-based parenting: lean into what you’re naturally good at instead of obsessing over weaknesses.

• Rupture & repair: mistakes don’t ruin kids. Repairing (naming, apologizing, reconnecting) strengthens trust.

Watch the full workshop recording here.

AMA with Shivani

Our first-ever AMA was a success, we ended up going for 1.5 hours! We covered a variety of topics including notetaking tips, creating LinkedIn content, meal prep, juggling multiple work identities, how I do it all (I don’t 😉), advocating for a tech-lead role, and giving feedback to a peer on their work. You can watch the recording on our Career Mama platform in Kajabi. Below the video, you’ll see time stamps for each question to help you easily watch the topics you’re interested in. 

💬 Monthly Slack roundup:

• Career Mama Featured on Fair Play!: From being inspired by them to now being featured as a recommended resource - a full-circle moment worth celebrating!

• Negotiating a promotion during maternity overlap - advice and suggestions: Huge congrats to Jamie Caldwell on her new role! She asked for advice on how to negotiate maternity leave logistics alongside pay and long-term career growth - lots of advice for how to advocate for ourselves through these transitions..

• Torn between work commitments and family moments: Cynthia Gubbels opened up about feeling torn between attending her son’s preschool animal day and honoring her work commitments. Members shared how they’ve navigated this challenge.

• Finding confidence through our community: Ashley Perez shared that Career Mamas gave her the courage to step up for a big work opportunity while a leader is on parental leave. She credited the Career Mama community for helping her raise her hand with confidence. Congrats Ashley!

More threads that resonated this month…

• A health kick that became so much more - what helped me “Bounce Back”

• 18 summers with kids - a reminder to prioritize presence

• Brick app - recommended app to 'lock' your phone from distractions 

• Weeknight dinner struggles - tips to navigate this

• Building the Career Mama Cookbook - share your recipes here

• Is five too young for the bus?

• 3-year old birthday/Christmas recommendations

As we turn to September, we’ll explore how to use AI as your ally - to save time, communicate with confidence, and lighten the mental load at home. You’ll learn practical ways to get ahead at work without burning out, and we’ll launch the CM AI Comms Coach to help you shine in tough conversations.

🤖 AI Comms Coach by Career Mama

This is a tool that will help you communicate clearly and confidently, whether you’re replying to a Slack message, writing an email to get buy-in, or prepping for a meeting update. Stay tuned for details.

🗣️ Events

• Milestone momentum check-ins (September 5th): Align on your quarterly goal and receive coaching on your questions with other Career Mamas in your milestone track. In preparation, identify 1 actionable goal you want to achieve by year-end for work.

• AI Q&A (Date TBA): Introduction to our new CM AI Comms Coach, AI Q&A with Jamie Caldwell (our own Career Mama and AI expert), and an informal sharing of learnings.

🎯 Challenge for September: The AI Advantage

This month, we’ll experiment with using AI to create more time, clarity, and confidence, at work and at home.

Weekly Prompts:

📆 Week 1 (Week of 9/1): Save Time at Work
📆 Week 2 (Week of 9/8): Lighten the Load at Home
📆 Week 3 (Week of 9/15): Strategically Communicate
📆 Week 4 (Week of 9/22): Reflect & Reimagine

Reply back if you’re joining this challenge.

✅ Every Monday, post in Slack what you tried and what shifted for you.

✍️ Circle prompt for September:

AI is changing expectations at work, but the bigger challenge is how we see ourselves. Let’s explore that.

1. When you think about AI at work, what’s your first reaction: excitement, pressure, fear, curiosity?

2. What’s one story you tell yourself about your ability to “keep up” at work? Where do you think that belief comes from?

3. What’s one action you can take to feel better positioned at work or more confident in how you stand out?

🕒 Please reflect on this for 15 minutes before your Circle discussion.

🌟 Member Spotlight:

Congrats to Yina for her promotion to Sr. Principal User Researcher at Autodesk! 🎉 We’re so proud of her for not only getting promoted but also she did it while developing a stronger relationship with her kids and partner (and got rid of her guilt)!!

Yina credits the support she’s received from you all in making her feel seen and being a sounding board along with our practical tools and frameworks. I’m also so proud of how Yina invested in herself and achieved these transformative wins!

Yina’s win is a reminder of the beautiful space we’re all creating together to lift ourselves and each other up!

Protecting our priorities this month gave us space for what matters most. As we step into September, we’ll explore how AI can be an ally to make us more impactful.

Cheers,
Shivani

P.S. Let’s welcome our newest Career Mama members! Check out their intros in #intros and say 'hi'!