185. The Courage to Break Your Own Rules | All or Nothing Mindset

Tessa returns after a break from the podcast and warns that the episode will be raw, vulnerable, and less organized than her usual mindset, marriage, or motherhood episodes. She explains that, for roughly ten consecutive months, she kept noticing rules she had created for herself without consciously choosing them. The central question became whether those rules were helping her live intentionally or quietly controlling her. She identifies an all-or-nothing pattern in both her personal and professional life. Tessa says she tends to become extreme about things and to care deeply about following rules and being a good person who follows them. Her challenge was learning to recognize when a rule she considered morally or practically important was directly competing with the person she said she wanted to become. She uses her morning routine and her work as examples of rules that initially seemed beneficial but eventually became rigid, stressful expectations.

When Tessa’s youngest child was about six months old—roughly 18 months before the recording—the baby commonly nursed between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m. Tessa discovered that she felt better getting up after that feeding than trying to return to sleep and waking 30 minutes to an hour later when another child was already awake. She began stretching, moving, reading her Bible, journaling, and drinking coffee quietly, then shared the routine on social media. The routine worked for about eight months, but gradually became rigid. Once the baby stopped consistently waking at 4:30, Tessa’s body still woke early, and she began believing she had to get up at a particular time to feel her best and to model the right behavior for her audience. Waking at 4:45 made her feel behind; waking at 5:00 or later made her think she could no longer complete the full routine, so there was no point in doing anything. She would skip journaling unless she could fill a page, skip Scripture unless she could read a whole chapter, and reject exercise unless she could lift weights for 30 minutes or run five miles. She recognized that the clock and the image she had created online had become more important than the benefits of the routine itself.

Tessa asks herself what the most important part of the morning routine actually is. Although Scripture, journaling, and exercise all make her feel good, she realizes that she would abandon all of them if she missed her preferred wake-up time. That showed her they were not the core purpose. After slowing down and approaching the question with curiosity instead of judgment, she concludes that the most important part of her morning is the attitude with which she greets her family. She has experienced both extremes: sleeping until her children wake up and rising two hours early for an elaborate routine, including five-mile runs at 5 a.m. During one run she even saw a shooting star. Neither extreme guaranteed that she would be the mother or wife she wanted to be. Sometimes her best attitude comes from waking at 4:00, praying, reading Scripture, working out, and journaling. Other times it comes from staying in bed beside her sleeping two-year-old and husband, noticing their features and feeling grateful for her family and her life. This realization led her to turn off her alarms, stop laying out clothes, and stop requiring herself and her children to sleep at fixed times.

Tessa says the morning rules had begun affecting bedtime. In trying to get her children asleep on a schedule so she could sleep early and wake early, she became stressed, rigid, forceful, controlling, stern, and serious. That alarmed her because she did not want to be that kind of mother or wife. She specifically says she did not want to decline intimacy with her husband simply because it was 9 p.m.—or because it was any particular time. At the beginning of summer, she intentionally broke the rules to see what would happen. She allowed her children to stay up until 9 p.m., tolerated the discomfort of seeing them still jumping on the trampoline at 8 p.m., lingered through bedtime, and made more spontaneous time for intimacy and connection with her husband. She calls the resulting perspective the “sometimes mindset.” Sometimes staying up late is appropriate; sometimes getting up at 4 a.m. is appropriate. The goal is not to maintain a perfect routine but to stay connected to the larger vision of who she wants to be. When she feels selfish or immature at bedtime, Tessa uses questions to redirect herself toward a broader perspective, including the possibility that a particular night with her children could be the last one they share. She says rushing them to sleep by whatever means necessary has never left her wishing to repeat the experience.

Tessa says the same all-or-nothing pattern appeared professionally. She decided to publish two podcast episodes per week, schedule episodes in advance, continue her Good to Great mastermind, create new curriculum for its second six-month cohort, provide monthly challenges inside the Momset membership, and launch Strong-Minded Mothers, a 12-week program about maintaining authority over five key pillars. She genuinely believed she was capable of doing all of it and that it was the right next step. The natural consequences eventually showed otherwise. Maintaining two episodes a week became extremely difficult, so she considered using AI to turn stories into scripts. That approach conflicted with how she works best: for years she had spoken without scripts, and she says her energy, heart, and important “runoff” stories disappear when she tries to follow one. She also compares scripted talking-head videos, which can take her 50 takes, with speaking spontaneously, which does not make her second-guess herself. Tessa concludes that higher output had produced lower-quality work. Her personal experiences, convictions, and actual thinking about her life and relationships were being cut out. She says she had been following advice from people she believed were further ahead, but learned that her path is to stay present, do the next best thing, and trust that her own timing is enough.

Tessa questions why she needed another program when she already had courses, the Momset membership, the podcast, Instagram, and the mastermind. Although she felt excited about teaching authority over self, she decided the concepts could be taught through what she already offered rather than requiring an entirely new program. She jokes that creating another program might make more sense when she is 55 and her four children—currently ages 8, 6, 4, and 2—have moved out, and says it may ultimately be something she never needs to create. She tabled Strong-Minded Mothers until further notice. The decision gave her the same relief as turning off her morning alarms: she felt as if she could take her first full breath in six months. Tessa says she has already worked hard and done uncomfortable things to build the life she dreamed about, yet she kept running toward the next project instead of experiencing that life. She asks listeners to examine how much of their current life is something they prayed for, wished for, or hoped to have five or ten years ago. For Tessa, being invited to play basketball or jump on the trampoline, having her children ask what she thinks, and being loved by her husband are not distractions from her ambition. They are the life she wanted and must learn to notice.

Tessa reflects on social media’s influence on her and on the criticism she receives. She tells a client, Tiffany Florio, about how deeply negative comments affect her. Florio teaches “intimate storytelling” to help women create a mood for intimacy rather than waiting passively to feel one, and her work is mentioned as an example of something Tessa admires. Others have advised Tessa to build a “brick wall” against criticism, but she resists because she has spent 12 years lowering the walls and defenses that once made her feel impenetrable. Tessa remembers being unable to cry when a grandfather died while she was in high school and describes a more recent desire to become someone who could cry while studying her children’s faces, watching her husband at a race start line, or witnessing tragedy. Now she cries over beautiful, funny, painful, and anger-provoking things. She cried at her husband’s start line and when her children told her she was a great mother, and she sees this sensitivity as evidence of healing and softening rather than weakness. She rejects the idea that considering mortality is automatically toxic. Questions such as “What if this is the last time?” or “What if we do not wake up tomorrow?” can help someone choose gratitude and wholehearted presence, not suppress difficult feelings. During an 11-mile training run for pacing her husband’s upcoming 100-mile race, she did not want to run because of the elevation, but told herself that if it were her last 11-mile run, she would make it a good one.

Tessa says her professional life must not damage her personal life. If something has to give professionally to protect who she is becoming personally, she is willing to let it go, and she applies the same principle across her personal, professional, spiritual, and physical life. Moving forward, she plans to share real experiences on the podcast without forcing a script. Her main professional focus will be the Momset membership and the Good to Great mastermind, while she gives herself more freedom around social media and content volume. She also announces a monthly “I am” statement-building workshop. Tessa says an effective statement should challenge and call someone toward the person they want to become without feeling so distant that it seems impossible. Her own statement is: “I am the Father’s goofy girl, certain and attuned to His will etched on my heart.” She says the workshop will help participants create a statement they can use in ordinary moments, even when their children’s behavior, their husband’s attitude, or their job remains unchanged. The October workshop is identified in the episode description as taking place October 26, with an additional Q&A day for VIP participants. She closes by pointing listeners toward the Momset membership, whose October theme is fun in marriage, and by anticipating her husband’s 100-mile race after a year of preparation.