I think this is the number question I get from my readers. How do you juggle it all? Seriously you must have way more energy than I do, which let me promise you couldn’t be further from the truth, I need a solid 8.5 hours a night to be able to function. Or my personal favorite…I get how you do it now that you stay at home but how did you do it when you were working full time and traveling for a living? How do you balance being a wife, mother, and blogger, and still manage to be happy? Well friends the secret is out. I don’t!
I believe the key to happiness is in remembering to be grateful. We all have lots of daily reminders of just how blessed we are if we choose to look for them all and guys God sure has blessed me. But juggle it all? That’s a concept I believe we as woman need to redefine for ourselves.
Let’s start with an important piece of wisdom one of my mentors shared with me early on in my career – “You can have all the hats you want, but you can only wear one hat at a time.” These wise words have only become truer through motherhood and even in this season of staying home with my babies. When I was in work mode as a consultant that is what I was focused on. When I am in blogging mode that is where my energy and effort is focused. When I am in mom mode that is my priority for that moment. The amount of time and focus is something I always have to work on, but I’m getting there.
When I was in college, balancing a full-time courseload, running my own mobile gymnastics business, working as a student note taker, involved in a sorority, dating Josh long distance, and all the extracurriculars that come along with all of that it was all relatively simple – the key to my success was in creating lists of everything that needed to be done for every role I was in, and plugging in times throughout the week for each of them. With some scheduling and time management, it all could be done.
Fast forward several years, and “simply” scheduling isn’t as easy anymore. With motherhood, as you moms well know, naptime is never guaranteed, moods can never be predicted, sickness comes at the least convenient times, and you sort of just have to go with the flow! My days of perfectly scheduled blocks of time for each task on my large to-do list are over for this season.
With letting go of my sanity-saving scheduling ways came a new way to get things done. I still keep a constantly updated to-do list for tasks that need completing, but I keep it on my phone so I can easily update it whenever I get the chance, and utilize it whenever I have free time. I also give myself the freedom to take some “me time” when I need to knowing that it is ok if not everything gets checked off that day.
Thankfully I’m not alone on this journey of trying to juggle it all, and hopefully you aren’t either. Having Josh, our parents, our friends, and our village is crucial to our families survival.
But most importantly I believe we need to be kind to ourselves. Despite having less time and control over my time than I had pre-kids, I don’t feel like I’ve lost much of my productivity. I have certainly become a lot more of a go with the flow kind of worker, but you know what…I have also had days that are more full of joy than I could have ever planned on a calendar. I have had moments of cuddling sick or whinny babies that I will cherish forever. I have had an unexpected decision to take the kids to a playground turn into to more laughter than I’ve had in a week. Yes I have cleaned up messes but that is not what I remember. What I remember is the memories we made together when we made brownies and licked the batter from the bowl. I think that’s the real message I’ve learned from motherhood and I hope to share with you all – you just make it work. You rise to whatever the situation demands, and through this you achieve greatness. It’s nice to be in a comfort zone, but you only grow by leaving that comfort zone and taking on the next challenge.
I hope this post can help those of you who feel like you’re trying to juggle it all. One last piece of advice I can offer is to stop the comparison game! Especially with social media, it’s so easy to see another mother or woman’s instagram feed and think she has a perfect life! Don’t compare your life and all the ups and downs to the little squares that make up someone’s highlight reel! I know personally I prefer not to share negative things on social media, with just a few exceptions I prefer it to be a space for all my happy memories but please remember a square isn’t always the full story. Everyone has good days and bad days. But man, life is still so good. It’s all about perspective.
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