Adrienne Temple - CDMP, PCM, CDMS

Mommin’ ain’t easy.

You’ve been bestowed with one of life’s greatest—and most challenging—gifts. Accompanied by every mom’s reliable companions, guilt and fear, you embark on a journey to raise little people into decent human beings in a world that often feels stuck in perpetual turmoil. And if that weren’t enough, there’s a class party on Thursday (don’t forget those sixteen individually wrapped, allergen-free treats!), a BIG client presentation tomorrow, little Maddie started running a fever last night… and what’s for dinner?

The chaos ebbs and flows, but the pressure to consistently perform at home and at work does not. In the middle of a staff meeting, you may find yourself replaying that morning and wondering if you said or did the right thing. You might get to the office, toss your purse onto the chair, and realize your coffee—and your laptop—are still sitting on the kitchen counter. The struggle is real. There’s no denying this is a bumpy ride, but what matters most is how we manage to weather it.

Honestly, I don’t have all the answers. Most days, I’m not entirely sure I know what I’m doing. But here are a few things that have made this exciting, frightening, and joyful journey a little more manageable.

Find Your Tribe

It might take a village to raise a child, but it takes a tribe to keep a mom sane.

There are moments when it feels like you’re the only person in the world carrying these burdens. Trust me, you’re not. There are countless professional women performing the same juggling act with similar results. The hard part is finding and connecting with them.

Depending on your industry, that can be easier said than done. When I worked in manufacturing, most of my colleagues were men, some with spouses who stayed home with their children. While we all had kids, our day-to-day realities looked very different. If you find yourself in a similar situation, look beyond your workplace. Church, your neighborhood, and your child’s school or daycare are all opportunities to build connections with moms who understand your reality.

Once you establish your tribe, something powerful happens. Empathy replaces isolation, and comparison starts to fade. You quickly realize that everyone is navigating some kind of challenge. The specifics may vary—from balanced nutrition to screen time—but the underlying question remains the same: Am I doing this right? Raising good humans becomes just a little easier with the support of people who truly get it.

Ask for Help

This one is tough, especially for those of us who feel responsible for everything and everyone. But the truth is, we can’t be in two places at once, and life has a way of reminding us of that at the most inconvenient times.

A client meeting gets moved, and suddenly you realize you can’t attend and make it to car line before they start calling the authorities. Awesome. Now what?

Everyone, parent or not, has experienced the strain of competing priorities. If you’ve found your tribe, now is the time to use it. Send out an SOS in the group chat and see if someone can step in. If that is not an option, it is time to communicate with your manager or team. Yes, it requires vulnerability, but it also provides important context when you need to adjust schedules or rearrange commitments.

If you’re in an hourly role, flexibility may be limited. When I worked in manufacturing, many of my team members were mothers of young children, and the attendance policy did not flex for unexpected illnesses or emergencies. That often meant taking the attendance point and dealing with the consequences. Some systems simply do not accommodate real life. In those moments, having a strong support network becomes essential.

Show Yourself Grace

No one is perfect, yet that truth can be hard to embrace when we are constantly exposed to curated highlight reels. Our feeds are filled with star-shaped PB&J sandwiches, smiling vacation photos (where are the ones with the meltdowns?), pristine meal-prep plans, and Pinterest-worthy teacher gifts.

We know, rationally, that no one is posting their behind-the-scenes chaos. But that nagging voice still creeps in and tells us we are falling short.

Whether you’re training for a marathon, starting a new job, or raising children, the journey is inherently imperfect. Setbacks are inevitable. When they happen, it is easy to spiral into “would have, could have, should have.” But that mental loop goes nowhere good.

Here is the harder challenge: show yourself grace.

Things did not go as planned. You fell short of your expectations. That does not make the experience a failure. It makes it human. Grace allows you to shift your perspective away from self-criticism and toward growth.

Theodore Roosevelt said it best: “Comparison is the thief of joy.”

When everything feels off, resist the urge to measure your life against someone else’s highlight reel. The comparison is unfair and unwinnable. It chips away at your confidence and amplifies mom guilt when you are already vulnerable. Protect your peace. Love yourself through the chaos.

Bottom Line

Just keep going.

I said it before, and I’ll say it again: mommin’ ain’t easy. When you’re juggling the many roles you carry in a single day, the weight of expectation can feel overwhelming. But you keep showing up, and that matters more than anything.

Build your tribe. Ask for help when you need it. Show yourself grace when you miss the mark.

This road is rough and rugged, but every so often, you will pause and catch a glimpse of something so beautiful it takes your breath away.

And in those moments, you will know it is all worth it.

The start of a new year signals fresh starts and the best intentions to become better than we were yesterday. If we’re lucky, we begin with a clear vision and build a realistic plan that sets us up for the greatest chance of success. How we launch a new journey is just as important as the measurement systems we use to monitor our progress. The same holds true when organizations embark on new initiatives.

In manufacturing, there is rarely a shortage of new initiatives or transformations aimed at improving the business. Often driven by corporate directives, facilities are expected to implement new processes or methodologies with little familiarity or guidance on how to execute them successfully. Still, site leaders forge ahead, setting goals and incentivizing adoption in hopes of achieving corporate objectives. What happens next, however, often explains why so many initiatives fail in manufacturing.

Many of us have watched newly launched programs falter within months. Tensions rise, and leadership grows frustrated by the lack of progress, questioning teams and demanding better results. As a Kaizen Leader and Six Sigma Black Belt, I spent years facilitating and overseeing projects and events at my facility. Over time, it became clear that the success of any new methodology or practice is rooted in how it is introduced—and how consistently it is supported—across all levels of the organization.

So what was going wrong?

As I dug deeper into why these initiatives struggled, a pattern emerged—one so common that it was almost hiding in plain sight. It all came back to a question we do not ask often enough, or at least not out loud.

But Why?

If you have children, or have ever spent time around them, you are probably familiar with the relentless, circular conversation that starts with a simple question:

“Why?”

Although it can feel exhausting, there is value in that persistence. In the workplace, employees are encouraged to use the “5 Whys” approach for incident investigations and problem-solving. In other words, keep digging until you uncover the root cause.

Yet when organizations implement new programs or processes, they often overlook one of the most fundamental principles of change management: explaining the why.

If you are disrupting what is familiar to employees, it is absolutely critical to clearly define the reason for the change and explain what is in it for them. Without the why, resistance is immediate. People feel as though something is being done to them rather than accomplished with them.

Just like any personal transformation we pursue at the start of a new year, clarity of purpose is essential. But purpose alone is not enough—we also need the right way to measure whether we are moving in the direction that purpose intended.

Measurement Systems Matter

Your why defines your what.

Read that again:

Your why defines your what.

Once you understand the purpose behind the journey, you can better define how success should be measured. This is one of the most common reasons well-intentioned improvements lose momentum.

Think about beginning a health journey. If cardiovascular health is the ultimate goal, but the primary metric chosen is weight loss, the true objective may never be achieved. A person can lose weight without making the dietary or lifestyle changes necessary to improve cholesterol or blood pressure. So if heart health is the overarching goal, what should actually be measured?

Lean implementation often follows the same pattern when it is launched haphazardly in manufacturing facilities.

Why is lean being introduced in the first place?

What business problem is it meant to solve?

Are changeovers taking too long and slowing throughput?

Are production standards consistently being missed?

Is work-in-process (WIP) inventory piling up between work centers?

Are downstream processes sitting idle while waiting for parts?

Any of these could represent the true why.

But when the why is glossed over, the metrics often shift toward activity instead of improvement. Instead of focusing on meaningful KPIs, organizations begin measuring the number of lean events conducted or practitioners trained according to a predetermined schedule.

And if that sounds familiar, it may explain why lean did not deliver the results you expected.

If activity becomes the measurement system, the initiative is doomed from the start. Morale and organizational culture absorb the fallout, making future programs even harder to implement. Measuring what truly matters always pays dividends.

But even when the why and the what are clear, there is still a larger challenge ahead: sustaining the change.

Not “One and Done”

One of the most underrated elements of a successful initiative is the ongoing, iterative support required to keep it relevant and effective. There is no such thing as “one and done.”

If a 5S event takes place in a work cell, the fifth S—sustainability—is what carries the effort forward. And without question, this is one of the hardest aspects of lean deployment. It requires an ongoing commitment to changing behaviors and reinforcing new habits long after the initial excitement fades.

Just like a weight-loss regimen or smoking cessation program, the real challenge begins after the initial results: maintaining the gains.

While lean provides a natural example, the same pattern appears in strategic planning, new safety policies, and nearly every other organizational change initiative. Launching the initiative is the easy part. Sustaining it and living it every day is where true transformation happens.

Walking the walk and talking the talk are only small parts of becoming the change. The real work lies in consistently showing up in alignment with it.

True change—whether professional or personal—requires unwavering commitment. Transformation takes root when the why is meaningful, aligning everyone toward a shared true north while defining a measurement system that matters. But even with clarity and alignment, momentum is sustained only through perseverance, especially when progress becomes uncomfortable or setbacks inevitably occur.

Launching something new is the easy part.

Keeping it alive?

That is where the real challenge begins.

But it is also where the magic happens.

When teams stay committed to the long game and the small daily actions that support the why, momentum naturally builds, culture begins to shift, and change evolves from being an initiative into becoming part of who we are.

Conclusion

If there is one thing my years in manufacturing have taught me, it is this: meaningful change is rarely loud or flashy, and it almost never arrives with fanfare.

Instead, it is built through the everyday choices we make—how we show up, how we communicate the why, how we measure what matters, and how we continue moving forward even after the excitement fades.

The companies that thrive are not the ones with the most initiatives.

They are the ones with the most endurance.

Because in the end, change is not a sprint—it is a marathon.