The One Strong Mother Podcast

Embracing Failure: How a Mom's Yes Led to Motherhood Lessons in Consistency

• Ashley Mussyal

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Ever feel like you're failing at something new? Like maybe you should just quit before embarrassing yourself? That's exactly where I found myself recently - hesitating to record this podcast after taking time off for my new full-time job. But then I remembered a pivotal moment with my teenage daughter that changed everything.

When my daughter asked to make cloud bread in our kitchen, my first instinct was to say no. Kitchen messes stress me out, and I knew the first attempt would likely fail. But something made me say yes - and what followed was a masterclass in persistence. After seven failed attempts, detailed note-taking, and countless eggs, she finally created the perfect, fluffy cloud bread. The kitchen was a disaster, but the lesson was priceless: consistent effort combined with intentional reflection leads to growth.

This principle has transformed how my family manages our chaotic schedule with five kids, two full-time careers, and both parents in school. Instead of completely overhauling our systems when things get overwhelming, we identify one specific adjustment to make each week. We take notes, track results, and gradually build processes that work. The results aren't instant, but they're sustainable.

Whether you're struggling with establishing routines, building habits, or simply getting out the door with kids on time, remember: consistency matters, but not just any consistency. It must be paired with reflection and adjustment. Let yourself make messes, take notes on what works, and keep showing up. What's your "cloud bread moment"? I'd love to hear what you're consistently working toward even when it's difficult. Message me on Instagram @onestrongmother_ashleym

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Speaker 1:

Hey there, welcome to the One Strong Mother podcast, the space where empowering and inspiring moms unite to embrace strength, balance and well-being amidst the beautiful chaos of motherhood. I'm your host, ashley, a military spouse and mom of five walking this incredible path beside you. In each episode, I'll bring you candid conversations, expert insights and heartfelt stories that touch on every facet of modern motherhood. Whether you're sneaking in a listen during a quick coffee break or savoring those rare moments of quiet, together we'll tackle the hurdles, boost each other up and cement our place as the strong, resilient women we are designed to be. Thanks for tuning in and let's dive into today's episode. Shall we designed to be? Thanks for tuning in and let's dive into today's episode, shall we?

Speaker 1:

Okay, do you ever try to start doing something and then you realize that you don't like the way you're doing it, so you stop doing something, and then that something just never gets done because you feel like you're never going to do it good, you're never going to do it the right way and you're just not going to be good at it. So maybe it's a new thing, Maybe it's something that you've wanted to get good at for a long time, and then you just stop because you know insecurities take over and that inner voice takes over and like it's just you know what, like just stop before you embarrass yourself or before you feel too uncomfortable, because feeling uncomfortable is scary. Well, if that's you, that's also me too. I just take a break from podcasting. I started your girl started a full-time job and I was going crazy in the house. I needed out. There were life circumstances, so I had to get a big girl job, which I'm deeply excited about and I love it. I work for a nonprofit and it's great. I'm getting to do the things that I'm good at and that I love and all the things.

Speaker 1:

But that kind of pushed myself into a whirlwind of not necessarily knowing how to stay fully organized. Because this is like I just feel like as life goes on, as my kids get older, we're getting busier and busier. You know, no one ever said they had five kids and then also said that they weren't busy. In one sentence, joke's on me, anyways. So I even find myself hitting I literally hit the record button like five different times and undid what I did and I almost just was like I'm not going to record today. But here I am, I'm recording, I'm going to show up, even though I'm uncomfortable. It's been a hot minute, so it kind of like takes me a minute to get back into the comfort of podcasting and recording episodes and not feeling like a complete weirdo which I do, and you know but also. But also, I'm learning I'm. I am learning how to be okay with that. I actually sometimes enjoy feeling like the weirdo because at least I'm being authentic to myself. I'm not trying to be something that I'm not. I am, however, trying to be something that I am and that's me. I'm a little weirdo and secretly I think we're all little weirdos. But anyways, the moral of this little rant is just keep showing up, and that actually I have a really good story to go into with that, as far as, like, keep showing up and the more you show up, the better you get at it right, we've all been told this, I've talked about this before. Be consistent, but I have a story that's been on my mind because I'm having to reiterate this with my daughter, who is 15 at the time, or right, she's 15 now. When this story happened she was 14, almost 15. So over the summer she had a friend that came and visited us and stayed in Texas with us. We used to all live in Wyoming. They were best friends back in Wyoming and she came and stayed in Texas with us.

Speaker 1:

Some background on myself I do not option or I don't option. I don't function in clutter. It is very difficult for me to be clear-headed and get things done if I see a lot of clutter around. So therefore that results a lot in me saying no to a lot of the things that the kids ask to do when they're all home at the same time. So this was one of those moments where, as a mom, I've tried to work really hard on that, because that's not my kids' fault. That's something for me to work on internally. That is not something that they should be responsible to bear the weight of my discomfort, because they're just trying to be kids and play with their stuff. So what does this have to do with anything?

Speaker 1:

My daughter came I was outside working from home this particular day and I had other kids outside playing and her and her friend came to me and asked if a they could make some cloud bread. If you don't know what cloud breaded, I actually don't even know what it's made out of. I think it's like eggs and something. I don't know. It's a keto thing, she's not keto. She just really wanted to make it because it looks cool and it's fluffy and it's like eggs and something. I don't know it's a keto thing, she's not keto. She just really wanted to make it because it looks cool and it's fluffy and it's beautiful when done, right.

Speaker 1:

So she asked if she can make some cloud bread and I, very hesitantly, said yes as much as I wanted to say no, because I hate when my kids are in the kitchen because they leave a disastrous mess, which usually results in me having to go behind them even after they think that they've cleaned it and done a good job. There is still stuff that like has to be scrubbed off the counters and you get it. If you're a mom, you get it. Doesn't matter what age your kids are, you get it. So, anyways, I said yes, go do your thing. I gave her the freedom. I said the one condition is you have to clean up after yourself. She said, okay, I promise, mom, I'm like, all right, I don't have high hopes, but okay, so anyways, fast forward.

Speaker 1:

Um, the first time they made, the first recipe they used failed absolutely miserable. She was super disappointed. She came out and she showed me and you know she was just like oh man, I was really hoping it worked to to. To spare you some details. She was disappointed that it didn't work out and thought she was like I'll get started cleaning up. And she was like do you think we could try one more time?

Speaker 1:

And in a moment everything in me wanted to say no, we don't need to waste that many eggs. You know why. Don't you go ahead and clean up and we'll find something else to do? However, I did not. I stopped myself before the words could come out because I am trying to get better at fostering that type of mentality for my kids, in the sense of like, if you just consistently show up, no matter what, you're going to fail when you first try something new. I didn't realize that was a lesson in the moment, but now in hindsight I realize like, even subconsciously, I'm trying to foster that. So I just kind of smiled and I looked at her. I was like you know what? You're not hurting anything. At the time eggs were cheap. They're not now. I might've had a different answer now, but at the time eggs were a normal price, so it really wasn't just like a crucial cost in our house, right? So I said you know what? Just go ahead and try it as many times as you need. Just again, please clean up after yourself. And the girl got the biggest smile on her face. She said, really? I said, yeah, you go for it, keep trying.

Speaker 1:

The only way to get good at something, whether it's in the kitchen, in the weight room, in school, anything, is to do it, be really bad at it, do it again, be a little less bad at it and then do it again. So she, god almighty, how many times did she go through this? I want to say she probably probably those girls probably made like six or seven different variations of this one recipe. The kitchen was a disaster. But the moment arised that this girl brought out the most beautiful fluffy cloud bread and they even got fancy with it and swirled in cinnamon, and she was so excited because her hard work had finally paid off, the consistency had finally paid off of trying, failing, trying, failing, some more, trying again and then failing again and again and again, until eventually it wasn't a failure or it wasn't a lesson. I don't even like to use the word failure, I like to use the word a lesson. What lessons did you learn and how can you improve those the next time? So she comes out and she was so excited to have finally mastered it.

Speaker 1:

Um, and she, with each time, she was like I tweaked that, like she was learning. It was so cool to to learn the things like oh, you know, this much of this didn't work out or this much of this caused this. So I'm going to use a little bit of less of this. And it was. It was the problem solving. Like there were so many things happening that she didn't realize that were happening and that I also didn't realize that were happening in the moment until I, like really took a step back. I'm like holy cow, like look at all the things that she just fostered and is going to walk away with just by choosing to let her make cloud bread until she got it right.

Speaker 1:

And at the price of what? Okay, we wasted a little bit of food, but was it even a waste? No, because that's the only way to get better at doing any. Quite literally anything is to use whatever you're using, probably waste a little bit of product and then get better at it the next time. So she got to end the day feeling like a success. Had a wonderful time with her friend, made the most of it. It was. It was a beautiful experience. Time with her friend made the most of it. It was a beautiful experience. Meanwhile I got to taste some super cool cloud bread and then it just really drove home something that I was currently struggling with then and now I find myself coming back to that memory because I am also currently struggling with it in such a new way with taking this new job. But really the biggest lesson was it doesn't matter how hard you fall, just keep showing up, keep applying that consistency, and every time you show up it's going to get a little less bad, a little less ugly, a little less flat. It's going to be a little fluffier. The next time it's going to be a little shinier. The next time it's going to be a little stronger the next time.

Speaker 1:

I have struggled with this time and time and time again in my life, whether it's in the gym, whether it's in motherhood, whether it's in business, whether it's working for someone else, whether it's on projects, personally, professionally, all the things. Even today, it drives me crazy that this is something that I struggle with, but it's real life and thank God, I'm so thankful for having the ability to reflect on memories like this because how beautiful. I struggle with hitting the record button. I literally hit record five or six times, had to erase what I had recorded because I feel stupid, because I haven't done it in a long time. And then finally you just kind of like, okay, just start talking. Just start talking like I'm talking to my friend and telling my friend about this memory. You are my friend, you are my strong mom that we get to vent to and share stories and share lessons, and that makes me so happy.

Speaker 1:

But I didn't. It didn't get there without consistently showing up and being willing to be super duper bad at podcasting. Until one day I felt like I was a little less bad and then one day you just hit that record button and it comes so naturally that it's not, it's suddenly not scary anymore. There's also another lesson hidden in there that I didn't realize was hidden in there until actually, like months later that I was reflecting on this one day. It was that she was taking notes on each batch of recipes and that's where, like when, she would come out and like, tell me, like, oh, I used a little bit less of this and a little bit less of that. She was also writing those down on a piece of paper and taking notes, and that way she could kind of review her notes. And what's funny about this is that's literally like what's inside the 90-day project planner is a section of like. At the end of every week you kind of reflect on what worked, what didn't work and what can I anticipate next week, and ironically, that's what she was doing, without realizing that's what she was doing, and it just it. It's such a powerful tool to be able to use and reflect on.

Speaker 1:

On that consistency comes notes, like take notes every single time that you're showing up consistently and maybe something goes a little bit wrong. It doesn't go. It doesn't mean it's a failure. It goes wrong. Yes, like nothing is gonna be perfect. First of all, there's always something to learn. But what's beautiful is when you choose to be consistent. In general, you're building a muscle that is very difficult for people to build. But also it's the opportunity of reflection and genuinely asking yourself and being able to look at that lesson and say man, what went wrong with that? What small thing can I change? It's perfect, like in my health coaching business that I used to have. That's something that I would do with a client is okay if you're up a pound this week instead of down a pound. Where do you feel like that happened? One it could be so many things right, it could be your cycle, you're about to start your period, or maybe you drank a lot of water before you went to bed the night before and you weighed yourself in the morning and you're still up a pound. There's so many variations to that, but those variations don't come to light if you don't take the time to reflect on why those changes are happening during that time of consistency.

Speaker 1:

Consistency doesn't matter if you're not willing to look at the changes that are happening and ask yourself why, whether those are good nor bad changes, you still need to reflect and ask yourself why, if they're good, cool, keep doing them, keep showing up consistently and doing the things that are resulting in positive outcomes. Or two, they're not so good and they're not as desirable. Outcomes still great. Take note of those and maybe do a little less of that If you know that like going back to the weight loss example if you know that certain foods sit heavy with your body and your body just doesn't tend to process those as quickly or your body tends to hold on to them. Like my husband, if he eats a higher fat diet, his stomach is torn up and he really retains weight. But if he eats a moderate fat amount within the day, he feels great, he processes it great and he'll usually be down the next day. So so those things are great.

Speaker 1:

To take note of A cleaning schedule there's been so many times that, like I've had to redo my cleaning schedule. There's been things. A perfect example of this is, since I've taken this job, we have been insanely busy, like insanely busy. Just to highlight what our life looks like not only do we have five kids in ages that range from almost 17 down to six years old, so we have a little bit of everything multiple kids in sports, multiple kids doing different things. My husband works full-time for the Air Force. I work full-time for a non-profit. I work 20 minutes away from our house. My husband also works 20 minutes away from our house. Our kids are 20 minutes away, in a completely different direction, so if I have to go pick them up, it takes me at minimum 40 to 45 minutes to get, just to get home to work, and I'm not even leaving the city, which is this is that's so new for us. I am in school full-time, finishing up my degree. My husband is working on his master's full-time right now, so we are both students. I am currently back in the phase of business building and I have another side project going on. So lots, lots going on personally, professionally and in the form of motherhood and parenthood in general. We are one busy family to the point where we, like I feel like my minutes are like calculated down to the minutes every single day.

Speaker 1:

But what I want to highlight is the weekends. Talk about, like the need to review and take notes. When I first started working, it was back, like getting back in the groove of me. Working was insanity. Our weekends felt like we like we were busy trying to play catch up, doing all the things that we weren't getting done during the week and catching up and meal prepping and all the things, and like by the end of the weekend there were things that weren't getting done, that still needed to be done, and so we were feeling like we were starting the week off already behind, and it's not even Monday yet. So what we noticed is, at the end of those first, like I'd say, month and a half.

Speaker 1:

We would reflect on Sunday evenings and this happened organically. It's not like we sat down and we're like, all right, it's time to reflect. We would kind of we would be going to bed and like I would kind of like throw out a comment of like dang another weekend, like I feel behind. And so it kind of turned into a conversation of like okay, how can we make improvements? Like let's analyze our weekend, what all did we need to get done and what did we get done and where did we go wrong? Kind of a conversation.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, the conversation wasn't as clean, cut and dry as that. Like it was an organic, nice, connecting, bonding conversation between me and my husband, but nonetheless, that was the objective of the conversation, right, and it helped so much because we were able to like, hey, let's plan, let's try this next weekend and see how this works. And the crucial thing is we were only picking one thing to change. We weren't saying like, you know what, scratch everything, let's try something completely different and let's see if that works. Nope, we were picking one thing to implement the next weekend and hey, let's see how that works, let's see how that affects our weekend and the timing and the schedule and free time, like we still need time to rest and recover and use that as some downtime. We need to, like bond with our kids and make time for our kids still. So let's implement this system and let's see how it works, maybe like one or two weekends. If it's not working, we'll reevaluate and mix it up from there. You guys like that's.

Speaker 1:

That is the power of why I created the systems that are inside the planner. That is why it is so important. With consistency comes note-taking and and keeping track of what is working and what is not working. It matters in the kitchen, it matters, like ingredients matter, whether it's food, whether it's systems and processes in your personal life, in your professional life, if you feel behind at work, cool, this is the same system. It doesn't matter where you apply it. But notes matter. Systems, processes, ingredients they all matter, they all play a role, they all have something to intertwine and it makes a beautiful positive result or it breaks the beautiful positive result. You know, like it's a make or break kind of a scenario.

Speaker 1:

And I am so happy that we took the time to reevaluate our weekends because, while they're still not perfect and they're still super busy, I don't know if they'll ever be slow, to be honest, considering where we're at in life in general. But what I can tell you is that at least, dadgum, at least like we have some breathing room, like we've definitely been able to implement a little more recovery and some slowness and some time to just sit like, just turn my brain off. We've implemented a system where we do get more schoolwork done now during the week and setting some time aside during the week to get it done to where we're not busting our butts on the weekend and spending the weekends doing schoolwork. That comes at a cost. During the week Maybe that means going to bed a little bit later or a little less free time during the week, but I like that balance of the reward system of more time on the weekends. I prefer that. So it works for me. It may not work for you, but it works for me, it works for my husband and that's something that we both like. We're okay with that price tag.

Speaker 1:

But again, to tie it all back to that story, it was no different than Natalie sitting there taking notes on her cloud bread and what was working, what wasn't, what ingredient caused what effect, how it changes whenever you add more or take less or add less? How much time is it spending being cooked and baked and how does that play a role? All these things matter. They all matter. It's so in. Details are so important in your process, but that only happens when you are so willing to show up consistently when it's hard and uncomfortable and you're really bad and you might be embarrassed, and you might, which is a whole nother. Being embarrassed is a whole nother topic. That's a podcast for another day on embarrassment and how. Actually nobody actually gives a crap what you're doing. You're the only one embarrassing yourself internally and everybody else is too busy focused on the things that they also feel embarrassed about, but not the point for today's episode.

Speaker 1:

Be consistent. Be consistent with absolute intention. There is a difference in consistently showing up and wandering around. There's been so many times in my life, especially in the gym I love being able to tie this back to the gym because it's held such a place in my life for so long there's times that I've shown up consistently and not seen absolutely any results and really it comes down to yes, I was consistent, but I really wasn't even like tracking anything. There was nothing that I was. There was no data, there was no notes, there was no progress. I didn't even actually care about progress, it was more just well, I did the thing. I guess I'll do the thing tomorrow and maybe the next day.

Speaker 1:

But then I was left like kind of frustrated, not understanding, or I mean, I did understand, but being frustrated about the lack of results. But I'm working out every day, well, yeah, but are you getting stronger? Are you? Are you too tired? Are you fueling? You know there's so many things that can be tracked. Consistency without the details is just not the right kind of consistency. So if you feel like you're in a season where nothing feels like it's working whether it's a new routine, a habit you're trying to build, or just getting out the door with kids on time, or just getting out the door with kids on time just remember cloud bread. It takes a flop and failures before it gets fluffy. Let the messes happen, you guys. Let yourself try again and build the kind of persistence that pays off, not just in the kitchen but in your dreams as well.

Speaker 1:

I would love to hear what your cloud bread moment is as well. What's going on in your life? What moments are you struggling with? Where is consistency paid off? What are you working on? What are you dreaming about? I would love to hear them so we can cheer you on from the One Strong Mother community, because that's what we do we band together and we cheer each other on through the good, the bad, the ugly and the consistency. So DM me, email me. You can find me on Instagram at OneStrongMother, I think my I don't know. I'll link it. I always forget. I'm not on Instagram a lot, but I'm going to start being more active. So shoot me a DM. I would love to celebrate your cloud moments and your consistency and the work and the build that you have ahead of you. In the meantime, don't forget you guys, go out and be one strong mother and please stay tuned for the next episode, because we have some exciting news coming up very soon.