By Georgia Mahony

Maybe I Want Something for Me Too:
Mum Guilt, Identity and Emotional Intelligence

There’s something about this stage of the year that can bring our own wants and needs back into focus.

The summer holidays have ended and September is here. Routines begin to return, and perhaps there’s a little more space to hear the thoughts that have been bubbling away underneath everything and everyone else.

Maybe I want something for me too.

A business. A course. A new direction. An idea you’ve been thinking about for months. Or simply the desire to give a little more time and energy to yourself again.

I know that feeling well.

For many mums, that desire can arrive with guilt. Emotional intelligence gives us a practical way to understand what that guilt is signalling, check what genuinely needs our attention, and make choices that support our family, our capacity and our own growth.

I’m a mum, a coach and a business owner. Holding all of those parts of my life is a very real challenge.

My family and my business are both my babies.

I care deeply about my children. I also care deeply about the businesses we’re building, the people we support and the impact I want to make.

I’ve had to accept that I can’t be everything to everyone, all at the same time. Emotional intelligence has helped me enormously with that.

What mum guilt can tell us 

I’ve worked with lots of mums who experience a real mix of emotions when they start bringing some of the focus back onto themselves.

Guilt can be a big one.

There’s useful research around this. A 2019 interview and diary study on work-family guilt found that, in the mothers’ diary data, higher guilt was associated with lower wellbeing and less time planned for themselves. Their actual parenting behaviour remained unchanged.

A 2023 study also found that internalised gender stereotypes predicted higher work-family guilt among mothers in situations where they prioritised work over family. That helps explain why guilt can feel so convincing: it can carry personal information alongside learned expectations about what a “good mum” should prioritise.

Learning to get curious about what we’re feeling can be really supportive.

What is this feeling trying to tell me?

Is there genuinely something that needs my attention?

Am I missing connection with my children?

Do I need more support?

Or has guilt appeared because I’m giving myself permission to do something for me?

This is where self-awareness and emotional awareness come in.

There’s a whole area of psychological research known as affect-as-information, which explores how our feelings provide information about value and importance, and influence the way we think, judge and make decisions. 

Our emotions carry information: emotions are data. They can give us clues about what matters to us, how we’re interpreting a situation and what might need our attention.

When I give myself the space to understand what I’m feeling, I can decide what I want to do with that information.

I can hear the emotion, understand the message in it, and choose my response.

Switching hats: mum, coach, business owner, me

One of the biggest skills I’ve had to develop is knowing which hat I’m wearing.

Mum.

Coach/Educator.

Business owner.

Me.

And then learning to be present with the one I’ve chosen.

Reality testing helps me look at what is actually happening and check the stories and expectations I’ve attached to it.

Does my child need me right now?

Does the business genuinely need my attention today?

What can wait?

What support could I ask for?

Sometimes I get it right. Sometimes I don’t.

So I test. I learn. I adjust.

Letting go of perfect

This has probably been one of my biggest lessons:

There is no perfect balance.

Some weeks, the business needs more of me, sometimes my family does, and sometimes I need more of me.

That’s where flexibility becomes such an important emotional intelligence skill.

Capacity changes.

Needs change.

Life changes.

Recognising that and giving myself permission to adjust has helped me stop holding myself to the impossible standard of doing everything brilliantly, all of the time.

We’re not meant to be superheroes. I’m human, my capacity is allowed to be human too.

Stress tolerance helps too.

Building something while raising a family can feel uncomfortable. There are busy periods, uncertainty, competing priorities and moments when you wonder whether you can hold it all.

I’ve learned to recognise my capacity, regulate myself, ask for help and create more space when I need it.

I’m still practising that last one!

What our children see when we keep growing

This is the piece I keep coming back to.

Our children are watching how we live.

They’re watching what we prioritise.

How we speak to ourselves.

Whether we ask for help.

Whether we allow ourselves to rest.

Whether we believe our dreams matter too.

They see us make mistakes, change our minds, try again, set boundaries and do things that scare us.

So when I choose to build something that matters to me, I’m showing my children something important too.

I’m showing them that becoming a mum didn’t mean I stopped becoming me.

Perhaps that’s something worth thinking about as September arrives.

If there’s a part of you asking for more attention, you don’t need to have the whole thing figured out before you begin.

You can listen, get curious, try something, see what works, and adjust when it doesn’t.

Your needs matter too and your children get to see what it looks like when their mum truly believes that.