I’ve been listening to a new book called the subtle art of not giving a F*ck by Mark Manson. I’m not done yet so I can’t give a full review but so far it’s interesting and entertaining. It’s also kind of what I need right now in the face of a ton of mom guilt I’m harboring since I went back to work 2 weeks ago.

You would think going back to work after your second child would be easier but it’s really not. Okay, it’s easier in that I know he will be absolutely fine at daycare and actually grow to love it. It’s easier in that I already know and trust his daycare teachers but the mom guilt is strong as ever. Maybe more so with this one because it’s likely he will be my last baby. Which means I’m holding onto and trying to savor every last minute of his babyhood. See I know all too well that in a blink of an eye, he will be three, like his big sister, and I will be wondering where the time went!

So this time around, the mom guilt is hitting hard. It’s mostly about working and trying to get a new business off the ground and being the mom I want to be. Should I just give it all up and stay home with my kids? Can we afford that? Can I handle that? What about my business? What about my job? I’ve been doing a lot of research, talking to other moms about their experiences, googling etc and the conclusion I’ve come to is: I still don’t know the right answer but here is where something Mark Manson wrote comes into play.

He asks, What metric are you measuring your success by? Meaning we care or “give F*cks” about so many things in life that it’s overwhelming. We need to take time to ask ourselves how we are deciding what to care about and what not to care about? What is our metric to measure by?

For example, in college, you might have measured your success and how important something was by your ability to pass a class and still go out with your friends Saturday night. But as life goes on our metrics change. An obvious one is having children or getting married. It’s basically the age-old question of what do you value put in a different light.

As a coach, I’ve asked this question many times to my clients but in that moment of listening to the book, it was exactly the reminder I needed to kick myself into gear. What are my values now? What am I measuring my success as a person or a mom by?

Family is my highest value but my ability to bring in money to help support them is also a big value. So becoming a stay at home mom would be a huge mental shift for me. I also really value being able to work for myself and the business I’m trying to create. So where does that fall in the grand scheme of things?

You can see how I don’t have it all figured out yet and that’s okay because I have somewhere to start, a question to answer to get me on the right track. (and some conversations to have with my coach!) I’ll keep you posted on when I have an answer!

In the meantime, if you are feeling stuck on a decision, try starting with asking yourself what you most value and how each choice would fit with those values. At the very least you’ll be able to rule out things that don’t fit at all and when you do make a choice based on your highest values, the odds are good it will be the right one.