A listener asked me ‘how I do it:’ How I’m successful and manage a podcast, a blog, being a mom, and make it all work. Truthfully, I don’t know how to talk about this without sounding self-righteous or like I have it all figured out, but I am going to talk about my thoughts and some of the things that I’m working through that have freed me up a bit to feel a little more confident and successful. Let’s do this thing.
The truth is, many days I don’t feel like I make it all work. I wonder if I’m spending enough time with my kids, if I force too much quality time with everyone in my family. Truthfully, I don’t believe I’ve arrived or really that I’ll ever arrive. That would be boring. I’ve thought for hours about the list of things I would try to give you in order to be successful, but I mean, truthfully, my kitchen island…I don’t try to do “it all.” The last time I tried to do it all, nothing in my life was thriving and I had to get a prescription for Xanax. Xanax is awesome, and if you’re on any kind of prescription drugs, know that it’s totally okay. I just knew that my anxiety was stemming from a place of trying to do it all at the time. Everyone lost out, especially me.
To give you background, my husband and I are business owners. We own a company of 16 franchise fast food restaurants, with plans to grow exponentially over the next several years. This is where people stop and talk to us like we’ve walked on water. Now, I promise that I’ll have Byron on the show and we’ll talk allll about how we came to be on this business path and answer all of your burning questions. In fact, you can send your questions in to hello@thesupermomwannabe.com and chances are that we’ll answer them on a show in the very near future.
Our kids are 13 and 14 years old, which means they’re heavily involved in sports, friends, school, working for the business, and they. need. rides. everywhere.
I’m very involved with MOPs (Moms of Preschoolers), which I love. I teach a Bible study. I’ve been involved with my kids’ sports and extracurricular activities. I have a blog and now the podcast.
It’s a lot. Now, I COULD tell you all the things that I feel like are ideally the best things to do in order to manage a hectic schedule and a life with a lot of priorities. Like, I make a lot of lists that, um, I almost never follow through with or complete. I buy a LOT of spinach because successful, strong, healthy people eat spinach, but it really just goes bad in my fridge. Or Could tell you how I have this elaborate cleaning and meal planning schedule to keep us all on track.
But I’m not gonna do that. Because I don’t do any of those things well. And honestly, I don’t believe that there’s any one specific formula for success and managing all the demands on us moms.
The way I see it, we live in a world right now where everyone is into the ‘side hustle’ and that’s awesome, but I think there is so much noise out there about how to get rich quick or be an overnight success. People have this attitude of “this is how I’m successful and how you can be too.” And I just don’t think it’s very fair. Yes there are habits that are common to successful people, and there are attitudes you can take to work toward success in your life. But at the end of the day, it’s ultimately not about success. It’s about what makes you happy; what lights you up inside, and making that a priority.
It’s not all about making money or having a clean, Instagram worthy house. I don’t even think that it’s about managing a mom schedule and making sure everyone has equal, quality time, or all the best things from the Pinterest blogs we read.
It’s not about balancing it all. It’s about finding your center. It’s about embracing the chaos and standing firm in the storm of all things motherhood, marriage, and just life. So instead of giving you a list of how I I’ve found success in motherhood (cringe) or how I manage it all, these are the things I’m doing to help me find my center, what’s most important in my life, right now.
Self improvement
I’m always looking up articles, reading books, and listening to other podcasts about how to improve myself and the processes of my life. The trick is not letting those outward influences convince you that if you don’t do everything they say that you’re not doing it right. Find what’s right for you. I have learned so much about how I operate and how to counter some of my bad habits, and from that I’ve felt less like I’m drowning in all the things I have to do.
Quieting my inner critic
I’ve named my inner critic “Sheila.” Listen to the show to hear more about her!
Outsourcing my life
We just can’t do it all, and we shouldn’t! There are several ways that I “outsource” my life. I order my groceries online, I’ll sometimes use a laundry service, and not to mention we have a whole team around us in our business that helps us to be successful.
Scheduling
When I’m on top of things (and I’m pretty inconsistent with that) I schedule everything, down to the hour that I’m going to run specific errands, rest time and podcast time.
Self care
For me right now, that’s in taking notice of myself, with my health, stopping and resting, finding my voice, and worrying much less about the approval of others (although I still have a very long way to go there)
Doing what I’m passionate about.
I could not survive the “have to dos” if I didn’t have the “want to dos” Having vision, being inspired is something I believe we’re hard-wired for.
Date nights
We get asked a lot about how we balance our romantic life with running a business together. I imagine we’ll talk more about this in a future episode, but to give you a glimpse, dates and quality time are a priority for both of us. It was foundational to everything, even before we had a business. We just make it happen…whether we have a sitter, whether a kid is sick…we find the time. That looks so different from a formal date, but it’s how we’ve survived (more tips and details in the episode!)
Family Time
We’ve learned that family time isn’t always what Pinterest tries to tell us it is. I think us moms can get real carried away with what family time is supposed to be that we forget the uniqueness of our kids and our family. Like, ‘spend 30 minutes of quality time with your kids every day and ask them open ended questions.’ I’m a huge fan of quality conversation and open ended questions, don’t get me wrong. But I’m coming from a place where I have tried to script my life and my family’s life based on how I thought it was supposed to be. I didn’t really care that my kids didn’t like formal story time at the library or long,…… it was what other successful moms did so that’s what I needed to do.
Since then I’ve learned that formal family dinners are a thing of the past in my family (except Christmas and Thanksgiving, of course…but even then, those only last about 30 minutes). We enjoy the occasional dinner together, but it’s mostly when we decide to go out to dinner and I’m not busy or weighed down by the preparation of it all. The most quality time we have with our kids right now is in the car. We share music, they’ll sometimes let me in on their day, and the most meaningful conversation (and most surprising questions) have come from car rides to and from practice.
There is ONE thing that I try to do almost every day when it comes to time with my kids. Rather than forced family fun and scheduling my kids from here to high heaven, I have tried to come home every day when they get home from school and just be available for 30 minutes. I try to do things that don’t mind being interrupted, and just be there.
That’s when I’ve had the most success with family time.
I have to humbly point out the order I put these things in. Because your center, how you’re fed, how you take care of yourself is most important. Not the roles that you play. It’s so instinctive to want to take care of everyone and everything else first, but in order to find a center and flow into everything else, you have to make yourself a priority.
You were given a life that’s unique, that was entrusted to no one else on this planet. I just don’t think anyone can hand a formula for success to you. You can absolutely take tips from other people, but at the end of the day it’s about what works best for you and your family. It’s up to you to listen closely to what rings the truest for you. You’ve gotta find what you’re most passionate about and chase it, protect it, and nurture it.
That’s what I’ve got for you guys today but before I go, my Wannabe Confession this week is this…Never do I feel more like a failure than when I have to throw away bad food. All those vegetables and always that spinach. Man, the plans I had for it.
Until next time…