When Control Slips Away: Understanding the Type A Transition into Motherhood with Sarah Hart

If motherhood has felt harder than anything you’ve ever done — even harder than the things you were once really good at — you are not failing.

For many high-achieving women, especially those who identify as planners, problem-solvers and doers, motherhood can feel like the one thing you just cannot master. Not because you’re incapable. Not because you’re doing it wrong. But because the very strategies that once made you successful don’t work the same way here.

In this episode of the Thriving Parenting Podcast, Jen sits down with Sarah Hart — former Google marketer, founder of Hart Studios and self-confessed type A achiever — to unpack what happens when control slips away.

This is a conversation about identity. About grief. About surrender. And about redefining success in a season where nothing looks the same.

The Identity That Work Built

Before motherhood, Sarah’s life was defined by achievement.

She spent over a decade in corporate marketing, working in high-performance environments including Apple and Google. Success was measured in promotions, performance reviews and professional milestones. Productivity equalled worth. Busyness equalled progress.

Like many high achievers, Sarah lived by the belief: I’ll be happy when…

When the next promotion comes.
When the next pay rise lands.
When I reach the next level.

But even when she reached those milestones, the goalposts shifted. There was always another rung on the ladder.

Planning, researching, having a back-up plan for the back-up plan — these weren’t just skills. They were coping mechanisms. In corporate life, they were rewarded.

And then motherhood arrived.

The First Lesson in Surrender

Sarah’s entry into motherhood began with a birth plan that didn’t go to plan.

After preparing for a physiological birth, trying every method to turn her breech baby — chiropractic care, acupuncture, moxibustion — she ultimately needed a planned C-section. It was the first major reminder that control has limits.

“I tried everything on paper,” she shared. “But there’s another little person involved who has their own agenda.”

For a type A personality, this can feel destabilising. When you’re used to effort equalling outcome, surrender feels foreign.

And that was only the beginning.

When Being a Beginner Feels Like Failure

One of the hardest parts for Sarah wasn’t just the sleep deprivation or the feeding challenges. It was becoming a beginner again.

In her career, she was the expert. She knew what she was doing. In motherhood, she was guessing.

Was that cry hunger? Wind? Overtiredness?
Why wasn’t breastfeeding “just natural”?
Why did everyone else seem to have it figured out?

Sarah and her husband navigated triple feeding — breastfeeding, pumping, bottle feeding — around the clock. They saw multiple lactation consultants. Each expert offered a different method, a different plan.

And as someone who loves a plan, she followed them all.

But in doing so, she slowly realised something: she had outsourced her intuition.

Instead of watching her baby and trusting her own cues, she was hanging off external advice, desperate to “get it right”.

And when something didn’t work, it didn’t feel neutral. It felt like failure.

When Productivity Is Your Baseline

Before becoming a mum, Sarah measured success by how much she achieved in a day.

After her daughter was born, she found herself making to-do lists that included both caring for a newborn and ticking off household tasks. When those lists didn’t get completed, the internal dialogue was harsh.

“I’ve not done anything today.”

Except she had. She’d fed, soothed, held and cared for a human being.

But productivity in motherhood doesn’t look like productivity in corporate life. And for women whose nervous systems are wired to equate busyness with safety, that shift can feel deeply unsettling.

The Maternity Leave Shame No One Talks About

As a business owner, Sarah didn’t have a traditional maternity leave. She stepped away for three months before slowly re-entering work part-time.

What surprised her most wasn’t just the exhaustion — it was the shame.

She didn’t love maternity leave in the way some of her friends did. She missed work. She missed feeling competent and confident. She missed feeling like herself.

And in mothers’ groups where others were talking about second babies and never returning to work, she felt like the outlier.

“Something must be wrong with me.”

But nothing was wrong.

Sarah came to understand that loving your work and loving your child are not mutually exclusive. Needing intellectual stimulation does not mean you love your baby less.

For her, dipping back into work supported her mental health. It helped her integrate the old and the new parts of herself.

Parenting in Hustle Mode

One of the biggest revelations in this conversation is how easily high achievers try to “optimise” motherhood.

The best feeding.
The best sleep routines.
The best solids.
The best development.

It can start to feel like a performance review. Like the biggest project of your life.

But babies are not projects.

They are humans going through developmental leaps, regressions and rapid neurological changes. They will wake early sometimes. They will feed differently sometimes. They will disrupt your perfectly crafted routine.

And that doesn’t mean you’ve failed.

Sarah began to soften when she zoomed out. When she realised that phases end. That regressions pass. That teething, developmental leaps and growth spurts are normal.

Control shifted into perspective.

The Nervous System Piece

A turning point came when Sarah began to understand nervous system regulation.

When she was in fight-or-flight mode — trying to fix every short nap, every disrupted feed — her anxiety amplified. The more she chased certainty, the more dysregulated she became.

Slowing down. Zooming out. Taking advice with a grain of salt. Reducing the external noise.

These became the practices that allowed her intuition to return.

Motherhood stopped being about finding the perfect answer and started becoming about responding to what was in front of her.

Letting Go of Martyrdom

Another powerful shift was recognising the subtle martyr mindset many mothers fall into.

Putting yourself last.
Running on empty.
Feeling guilty for needing space.

Sarah realised she was uncomfortable enjoying time away from her baby — even something as small as going to the shops alone.

But stepping away didn’t mean she loved her daughter less. It meant she was refilling her cup.

“You can’t set yourself on fire to keep everyone else warm.”

For high-achieving women, this can be one of the hardest lessons. Especially when people-pleasing tendencies are already present.

Motherhood amplifies everything. Without boundaries, burnout is inevitable.

Redefining Success

Before motherhood, success was climbing.

Now, it’s presence.

It’s gratitude for micro-moments. Watching her husband play with their daughter. Hearing her toddler say no to everything. Noticing the small milestones that pass quickly.

It’s being content in the in-between.

Not optimising every stage. Not rushing through seasons. Not striving for the next thing.

Just being.

For the High Achiever in the Messy Middle

If you are a planner.
If you are a perfectionist.
If you have always coped by doing more.

Motherhood may feel like the first time your strategies stop working.

But that doesn’t mean you are failing.

It means you are being invited into something deeper.

Softer.

More human.

The transition from type A achiever to mother is not about losing yourself. It is about expanding your identity. Integrating ambition with intuition. Structure with surrender.

And if you are in that messy middle — not quite who you were and not fully settled into who you’re becoming — you are exactly where you need to be.

Motherhood is not a ladder to climb.

It’s a transformation to live through.