Welcome!
These resources were created to help you go deeper with the exercises and reflections from Ambitious Mother. You can use them at your own pace, return to them anytime, and choose whichever feels most useful for the season you are in.
Healthy Striving Audit
A reflective tool to help you notice where your ambition feels aligned — and where it may be tipping into pressure, guilt, or burnout.
This audit walks you through:
• Boundaries
• Bandwidth
• Trust
• Joy
• Self-compassion
• Connection
Use it to choose one focus area and one small next step toward striving with more clarity, care, and sustainability.
Closet Clean Out Worksheet
A guided worksheet to help you take inventory of the roles, expectations, and beliefs you may be carrying.
This exercise helps you explore:
• What expectations you’ve inherited
• Where those expectations came from
• What you want to keep
• What you’re ready to toss
• What beliefs fit your life and ambition now
Use it to make space for expectations that feel more honest, supportive, and aligned with your current season.
Fireside Chat Recording
A conversation with Jana Hartjen and Dr. Anne Welsh, originally created for Postpartum Support International’s CLIMB event.
This recording explores:
• The transition to motherhood
• The ambitious mother paradox
• Redefining ambition beyond the traditional ladder
• Caregiving as a meaningful part of ambition
• Finding yourself again after becoming a mother
• Small, practical steps toward support, connection, and wellbeing
Use this conversation as a companion to the book as you reflect on ambition, motherhood, identity, and what thriving can look like in your current season.Passcode: !2LY*v+n
Journaling Exercise
A flexible journaling worksheet to help you reflect on the season you’re in and the version of ambition that fits right now.
These prompts invite you to explore:
• What this season is asking of you
• What pressure you’re ready to leave behind
• What support you want to carry forward
• What permission you want to practice
• One small next decision that matches what feels true
Use it in whatever way works best for you — written, typed, spoken, or revisited over time.About the Author
Dr. Anne Welsh Clinical Psychologist | Executive Coach | Mother of Four
Dr. Anne Welsh is a clinical psychologist, executive coach, and a leading voice on the future of working motherhood. She's known for her warm, grounded style that blends clinical insight with real-life practicality.
Anne helps ambitious women shift from overwhelm to clarity and healthy striving, and partners with organizations to build workplaces that truly support modern parents.
She earned her PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Maryland and worked at Harvard University before leaving to establish her own practice. Her work has been featured in New York Times, Fast Company, Forbes, Parents.com, HuffPost, Scary Mommy, and more.
Anne lives outside Boston with her husband and four children–proof that ambitious motherhood is messy, imperfect, and absolutely possible.