I am 8 years into being a mom, but only four years into my “actual career”. As a busy mom of three super energetic and unnecessarily rough boys, and one “queen B”, life is hectic. Next, add being a wife, business owner, and just turning 30 into that mix, and life seems to become almost impossible! Let’s face it, I was a stay at home mom at one point, and parenting by itself is a full time job, let alone adding in another 40 + hours a week to work or run a company. As women, we tend to try to keep it all together when deep down inside, there are some days we just want to lock ourselves in the bathroom with a glass of wine, turn on some music, and cry! If we can even make it to the bathroom, our one hour of alone time (if you are lucky) turns into 5 minutes of alone time before the kids are screaming, things are breaking and your husband wants to know where his socks are. Trust me, I have been there plenty of times. So, instead of continuing to be stressed, I decided to do something about it! These are the top 5 things that I learned I need to live a stress free (well, as stress free as I can get) home life while still being an amazing mom and focusing on my career simultaneously.
- Work/Home/Life Balance is B.S.
Everybody hears it… that daunting term “work/home/life balance”, but what does that even mean? That is the thing, work/home/life balance is portrayed as this foolproof symmetry of two things that work in perfect harmony with each other, and come on ladies, we know that is not true. No matter how hard we try to create this hard line between work and home, it just doesn’t seem to work. Maybe you get a good two days out of the month where you think you have this all under control, but let’s talk about the other days. Most days you’re rushing to put your makeup on in the car while dropping the kids off at school, and you would be on time but you are running late because you just had to stop and get your morning coffee. Maybe you had to stay at work late, so in the middle of the day you had to run down the list of people who could pick up the kids because your spouse is unavailable. When you get home, you expect to relax but you still need to do homework with the kids and cook dinner. On top of that, you received an emergency email and you have to jump on the computer instead of watching that movie that you promised you would watch with the kids tonight. Do you see what I am getting at? Once we understand that there isn’t a perfect balance between work and home, but rather a specific lifestyle that we need to create for ourselves that helps us navigate work and home a bit better, then we will become less stressed. Notice, I did not say stress free.
- Find some alone time…even if it is only 30 minutes a day.
I know, I know…you are thinking how am I supposed to find alone time in the midst of all of this chaos? While it may be hard, it is important. Time to ourselves allows us to reset, think and get some much-needed time to figure out what WE want and need. Let’s talk about that specific lifestyle that we are trying to create. This lifestyle includes time for yourself. Think about the things that you like or need and do just that. This doesn’t need to take up a lot of time, but it does need to happen every single day. You can go to the gym, take a walk outside, drive around the block and walk up and down the aisles of your favorite store (mine happens to be Target) or get to the kids’ school a few minutes early to just sit in the car and read a book. If all else fails, there is always the bathroom! Whatever it is, just make sure you are doing it alone!
- Wake up at least an hour and a half before the kids.
This was something I had to get used to. I just had a baby, so my sleep schedule is completely out of whack. Between getting the kids down and waking up between two to three times a night to feed the baby, waking up EXTRA early was only in my wildest dreams. BUT I started forcing myself to wake up at least an hour and a half before the kids do, and what I found was magical! I was able to shower without little people in the bathroom trying to brush their teeth because the other bathrooms were being used. I was able to focus and plan my day, as well as just sit at the table by myself with my coffee reading my favorite book before that 7am alarm rang. After about a week of doing this I realized I was less cranky in the mornings, could handle my fussy children a lot better and there was less of a need to rush. Plus, I already had my morning coffee so the days were already off to a great start!
- Write it down and manifest.
I am an avid believer in journaling. My personality is type B, however I always need to write everything down! There is something about getting the words out of my head and on to paper, so that I can physically see it. This allows me to move with more intent. You can journal about your life, your goals, or just plan your day. Whatever it is, write it down! Once those words are on paper, manifest. To me, manifestation is just seeing your goals, setting your intentions, speaking it into existence and then going after it. Once you start doing this on a daily or weekly basis, your life will change. Trust me!
- Focus on one thing.
While this may seem hard with everything that you have going on in your life, it will really help your sanity. Instead of worrying about all the things you need to get done this week or month, write a plan and then focus on one thing a day. I suggest separating work and home. Normally I focus on one home thing for the day or week and then one work thing. This will allow you to have laser vision and do that one thing with an extremely high execution rate.
As women, we tend to overextend ourselves and offer everyone all of what we have, without giving back to us. I mean, even when you’re on the airplane, the flight attendant tells you to put your mask on before helping anyone else. I truly believe that as moms, finding a lifestyle that caters to us and what we need at this point in our journey will help us grow in our home lives and in our careers. If we don’t have on the mask first, how will we put the mask on others? We’re all figuring it out and doing it on your own terms is the most important thing.
Brittany Nelson- Founder, CEO of B.Michelle Beauty