Ep307: How to Take Credit for How Far You've Come

Ep307: How to Take Credit for How Far You've Come

Vanessa: [00:00:00] When it's the last time you actually stopped and looked at how far you've come. Not where you're going. -You've got a whole vision board for that- probably color coded, probably laminated. I'm talking about turning around, looking back and giving yourself actual credit for the distance that you've already traveled.

Because here's what I've noticed, and I've noticed it in myself too. High achieving women are often the last ones to recognize themselves. We celebrate everyone else. We champion all of the people around us. We show up for the work, and somehow we still walk around underselling who we are and what we've built. And today we're talking about that.

And if you've been waiting for permission to finally take up the credit that you've earned, consider this your episode. 

You are listening to the Free to Be Mindful podcast, where busy moms get practical tips and real talk conversations to find calm joy in a little more breathing room in everyday life. I'm Vanessa [00:01:00] Licensed therapist, mom, coach, and a mom to a tween and toddler. Each week we get honest about motherhood and mindset helping you live with more presence, less pressure without losing your well, you know.

Here we go.

Hello and welcome to episode 307 of the Free To Be Mindful Podcast. I hope that you're feeling good, looking good and doing better in this world than you were yesterday. So we are officially in quarter two of 2026. And I've been thinking a lot about this idea of deliberate living because if you've been around for a while, you know that deliberate is my word of the year. And part of living deliberately is being intentional about how we see ourselves and not just where we're headed. And something happened just last week that cracked this wide open for me, and I knew I had to share it with you.

So I had the privilege of volunteering my time at a speed mentoring event for my alma mater, The College of [00:02:00] New Jersey, and that was sponsored by the Alumni Association Board, which I'm actually a part of.

And if you've never done speed mentoring, think of it like speed dating, except instead of looking for love, you're sitting across from a first generation college student who's trying to figure out their path. And you have a few minutes to talk to each and every one of them to share, to encourage, to answer whatever need that they ask.

And what was really beautiful about this particular group is that they were all first gen, but it was not a one size fits all room, because there were your traditional college students, the one who came straight outta high school, figuring out their first steps. And then there were also the ones who were older coming back for a second career, maybe pivoting from something that no longer fit who they were becoming. And there were students from all cultural backgrounds, which as a first gen Latina who walked across through those very same doors, was not lost on me.

And as I was [00:03:00] moving through the rotation, sitting across from these students, having these quick but genuinely meaningful conversations, at some point I mentioned that I had had three careers.

I started off as a teacher, and then a school counselor, and then I left education after 18 years to become a licensed therapist, opened up my own private practice, launch a podcast, build a mom coaching business, and have the therapist coaching business on the side as well. And every time I mentioned these three or maybe more careers, their faces did this thing, this pause, this widening of the eyes. And honestly, I couldn't tell if they were genuinely impressed, or if they were just trying to do the math on how old I actually am. But either way, it registered with them in a way that even stops me.

Because the truth is, I don't really think about it much. I don't really give it a lot of attention. And up until those students kept reacting in the exact same way, table after [00:04:00] table rotation after rotation, I hadn't really given myself much credit for it either.

And this is what I wanna talk to you about today, because sometimes it takes someone who is behind you on the path to show you what you can no longer see from where you're standing. And those students weren't flattering me, they were just responding honestly to something that I never really gave much credit to, and I almost let it pass me by without actually registering it.

And so I wanna ask you, because I think that you may be doing the same thing. You're a woman who's always building, who's always focused on the next goal, on the next credential, on the next version of your life. And that drive is a gift, right? I'm not asking you to put that gift away.

But that forward facing focus comes with a quiet cost. And that cost is that you rarely turn around and look at how much ground you've actually covered. You've had these seasons, you've had [00:05:00] these pivots, you've had these decisions that were terrifying probably at the time, and now they just look like chapters, right? Like things that you've built from nothing. Rooms you've walked into when you weren't sure that you even belonged and you showed up Anyway.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, without even realizing it, you probably started calling it "JUST." I am just a school counselor. I just changed careers. And for so many women I talk to, "I am just a mom." Just a mom, right? As if raising these humans while also trying to hold yourself together is somehow small Print at the bottom of your resume. As if there's a job description anywhere on this planet that requires more skill, more patience, more emotional intelligence, and more crisis management- with no onboarding by the way, no HR department, and absolutely no sick days than being a mom. And yet we say it like it's nothing- just a mom. Right? That word is doing a lot of [00:06:00] quiet damage, and most of us don't even hear ourselves say it anymore.

And none of it is just. Not the careers, not the pivots, not the businesses, not the motherhood. And the first step to owning your story is noticing how often you've been editing yourself out of it.

So let's talk about how we do that. The first tip I have for you is that credit is not bragging. And I wanna start here because for so many of us, and especially those of us who grew up in cultures where humility wasn't just a virtue, it was a requirement. Owning what we've done feels like too much- like we're gonna make someone uncomfortable, like we're just gonna jinx it, like somebody somewhere is gonna pull us aside and say, excuse me, who do you think you are?

And that message of stay humble, don't put yourself forward, don't make it about you, of "calladita te vez mas bonita," it came from people who loved us. [00:07:00] And in many ways it shaped us into women who lead with service, who show up for others, who make sure that everyone else around us is okay before we even think about ourselves.

But what it also did, my friends, was without anyone realizing it, it taught us how to sand down the edges of our own stories. How to shrink what we've done before anyone had a chance to respond to it. And the tricky part there is, is that it becomes so automatic that you don't even notice that you're doing it anymore.

And the way it shows up the most often is in that word, just. I'm just a mom. I just changed careers. I just started something. And every time you say it, you're quietly making yourself smaller before anyone even asks you to.

So here's the practice. Notice where it shows up for you, and then say the sentence again without it. I am a mom. I've built [00:08:00] businesses. I have changed careers. And feel that difference in your body each and every time you say it that way because that piece is yours to own.

The second tip is to keep your own record. And here's something that I've learned about the hard days, is that your memory is not reliable. Even if you have the best memory, it is not reliable when you are in the middle of a hard day, or even of a hard moment. Because when things feel uncertain and when comparison creeps in, when you're wondering what you have to show for all of this, your brain will not volunteer the evidence, especially if you haven't made that practice.

It will not say, oh, actually, remember when you did that really hard thing and it worked out? No, it doesn't do that at all. On the hard days, your brain likes to catastrophize. It likes to make you feel like you're starting from zero when you're absolutely not.

And this is one of the reasons why I genuinely [00:09:00] love LinkedIn. And I say this as someone who's not there posting necessarily every single day, but I love it because it's a living, running record of who I've been and what I've done. Because I'll tell you, if LinkedIn disappeared tomorrow, I would genuinely not even know where to piece my own timeline back together. Because every role, every transition, every credential is documented on my LinkedIn.

And not for the algorithm- please, not for the algorithm, it's really for me and for the days that I forget and for my memory, that's also going.

And the other thing that fills in the gaps is my speaking page on my website, free mindful.com. It does the exact same thing, every engagement, every publication, every time I stood in front of a room and shared my voice, even with a therapy dog visit, it's there. It's there timestamped.

And on the days when I'm questioning myself because yes, that happens to me [00:10:00] too. I can go there and I can see the receipts. Because the receipts don't lie even when our confidence may lie. 

Build yourself that record- a LinkedIn profile that you actually keep current, a notes document, a folder, a page on your website, whatever it is that works for you, make it somewhere real that you can access it, that you can return to it, and let it do the talking for you on the days when your own voice goes quiet.

And tip three that your reinvention may be someone else's roadmap. And honestly, to me, this tip carries the most weight, and I don't want us to rush past it. Because that thing that feels ordinary to you, to me- the pivot, the career that you left behind, the business you've built from your kitchen table, that degree that you finish while raising your children and running a household and somehow kept everyone fed and alive- that my friends, is evidence to someone else, that it is indeed possible. And that's not a small thing to dismiss. [00:11:00] That is everything to a person who's still standing at the beginning of their path, wondering if someone like them can actually make it somewhere worth going.

Those students at the event that I just attended didn't need a perfect linear structure or picture perfect story. What they did need to see was a first gen woman from New Jersey, whose first language was Spanish, who started off as a teacher, then became a school counselor, then a therapist, then a business owner, and was standing there on a Tuesday evening pouring back into the next generation.

That was a proof they needed not perfection of any sort, just simply proof. And Amiga, you have that too, the life that you've built. Even the messy parts, and really especially the messy parts, that is roadmap for someone who's still trying to figure it all out. For someone who's trying to see if it's even possible for them.

We must not shrink it. We must not hide [00:12:00] behind a just. We have to let it be what it is, which is remarkable because to someone behind you on this path, it absolutely is. And when we stop editing our own stories, two very important things happen. First, you actually start to take up the space that you've actually earned. Not more than what you deserve, but exactly what you deserve. And you become more visible to people who need to see that someone like them made it somewhere worth going. And it's not a vanity metric or a vanity stance. What this is, it's actually responsibility. It's owning our stories in an act of service to every woman, to every person who's coming up behind you and needs to know that it's possible.

And I think that the best way of doing this work, really doing it, not just thinking about it, is to take a moment right now and actually look at [00:13:00] it. Not looking at what's next, but instead looking at what's already there.

So wherever you are right now, driving, walking, folding laundry, doing whatever it is that you do while you listen.

Just take your attention and turn it inward towards yourself for just a moment. I want you to think about your own timeline again, not the next chapter, not what's unfinished, or what you haven't figured out yet, just what's already there. If a stranger looked at your path right now, like these students looked at mine- with fresh eyes, with no inside knowledge of how hard it was, and no awareness of how many times you almost stopped, or how many times you fell and got yourself up, what would they see?

And actually walk through it. The versions of you that existed before this one. The careers, the pivots, the seasons that have [00:14:00] asked everything of you. The rooms you walked into when you had no idea what you were doing. The things you've built when you had no blueprint. It's those moments, the moments you chose to keep going when stopping would've been so much easier.

And now sit with one thing on that list that you've been calling "just." And say it again this time without the just. Feel what it costs you to really own it, to embody it. And then feel what it gives back to another person. That is yours. It's always been yours. You just forgot to pick it up.

I want you to take a breath and exhale slowly, and as you come back into the room and back into [00:15:00] your day, I want you to carry that feeling. Not for this moment, not just for this moment or just for today, but the next time that that little word tries to sneak back in, because you know it probably will, now you know what that word is doing. And acknowledging it is the first step to choosing differently.

Amiga, if this episode resonated with you, please share it with a woman in your life who needs to hear it. A colleague, a friend, someone who is out there building something meaningful and hasn't stopped to give herself credit for any of it.

And if you've been listening for a while and haven't left a review, wherever it is that you listen, I would appreciate it. This is your nudge. It genuinely helps more women find this community, and it takes about 30 seconds. Everything is linked down below in the show notes.

And if this resonated with you, and your values align with my messaging, know that I am [00:16:00] available for speaking engagements and for private one-on-one mom coaching. Again, the links there are also in the show notes.

As always, remember in a world where you are free to be anything, you're always free to be mindful. Catch you next time. 

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