Would you describe yourself as an “Opt-Out” mom if you decided to leave the workforce to stay at home with your children?

A recent article in the New York Times highlighted the stories of a number of women who made the choice to leave their high paying careers to stay at home when they became moms.

They have been giving the title the “Opt-Out Generation.”

I’m not sure the world “Opt-Out” is how I would describe what they did. I see these women more as “Opt-In”.  They made the conscious choice to “Opt-In” to a life most in line with their values at that time.

For these moms it was being at home with their children over a high-powered demanding career. They were fortunate to financially be able to make this choice. Many moms don’t have such freedom even if they wanted to.

The desire to make changes in our lives can often happen when we become moms. We experience a Passion Shift the moment we hold our first child in our arms. Everything changes. Our lives are never the same again.

For many women it is a time in our lives that our priorities and values suddenly and profoundly shift.  With this comes a lot of happiness and joy.

However for more and more moms in our modern world it also brings a lot of stress, overwhelm and guilt into our lives as we try to juggle the demands of our work and careers with raising our family.

The NY Times article highlighted many of the key challenges for women in the workplace when they become moms.

The long demanding hours that can keep us from spending the time we want with our family. The lack of flexibility or opportunity for maintaining our career when we become moms. The doors that close in our face if we decide to put our career on the back burner for a while as we raise our kids.

The reality is for many women it can still feel like it comes down to career or family. That we have to sacrifice one or the other along the way.

However one thing stood out for me above all else in the response to the article.

It was fear.

Fear around what might happen to us 10 years into the future. Fear around that we will have less worth or value if we make a decision to stay home with our kids or shift our careers so we can spend more time with our family.

Here is what I have found often to be the truth.

The first is that our worth or value is not determined by the position we hold, the money we earn, or whether we choose to stay at home with our kids or not.

Our true worth comes from who we are no matter what our situation in life is at the time.  No matter what anyone else tries to tell us otherwise.

The other truth is that there is no prediction of how the future will unfold. We really have no idea what will happen in the next 10 years in our lives, in the world, in the workplace.

In my life there have been times I have been happily surprised by how things turned out. Way better than I imagined. There have also been times when I have been completely blindsided by situations and things did not go at all as planned.

There is really only one thing we can do. That is to make what feels like the best decision right now for our unique family and us. This will be different for everyone.

For some it might be leaving the workforce for a while.  For others it’s shifting their career to fit better with their family life. For some everything might stay the same.

When we do this we start to live our lives and make decisions that reflect our deepest values rather than live a life driven by fear or what others might think about us.

The 22 women interviewed in this article highlighted this. Not a single one had regrets for leaving their high-powered positions to stay at home with their kids no matter what price they had paid.  They simply made the best decision they could at the time.

Some doors closed for them but new ones opened. Many of the women are now doing work that might not bring in the big dollars or prestige they previously had but provides them a more rewarding, supportive and fulfilling career than before.

Although these women represent only a small sector of moms out there they still took a risk. They gave up what had provided them with their sense of value and worth – their high-powered careers – and often years of education and hard work.

It wasn’t always easy and it didn’t always turn out as they planned. But not one regrets her decision.

When I became a mom I took a similar risk. I chose to leave my job and start my own business to provide more flexibility and freedom to be the mom I felt compelled to be.

It was scary. There were challenges and it hasn’t always gone as planned. But it has been worth it. It has allowed me to create a life that truly reflects my greatest values. I am not sure what I will think in 10 years but at this moment I know it is the best thing I can do for my family.

So I take this article as a reminder of this. Even if it feels scary, even if others are telling you no or saying you’re crazy, even if you’re worried about what the unknown future will bring. If you are being pulled in a new direction that just feels like the best decision you can make right now for you and your family then go ahead and do it.

You can’t predict what the future will bring. All you can do is make a choice right now. The choice as these women did to not live a life with regrets of what you had wished you’d done.

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Karen Steele is a Mom, Entrepreneur, Founder of The Passion Shift and an avid rule-breaker in how she lives her life. Through her powerful 7-step Passion Shift™ program Karen shares her expertise and life-changing tools, tips and strategies to teach busy, overwhelmed working moms how to change the rules they live their life by so they can free their time and energy, find their passion and revolutionize their work life to create the fun, freedom and financial security they dream of for their families. Karen brings to her work over a decade of experience empowering women to build the confidence, courage and belief to create the lives they truly want.  Download Karen’s FREE Training Audio Master The Passion-Shift Mindset: Learn How To Change the Rules So You Can Start Living Your Passion, Revolutionize Your Work Life & Free Your Time & Energy to Have More Fun With Your Family. Follow Karen and The Passion Shift on FACEBOOK