How to Let Go of Expectations and do Motherhood Your Way

Are you living your life the way you want to? Are you experiencing exactly what you wished for when you first made the decision to become a stay-at-home mom? Or are you spending your days frantically checking items off your to-do list - one eye always on the next task - and working yourself to the point of exhaustion until the kids are finally asleep?

If this is your experience right now and you’re realizing that this is not the motherhood you signed up for, take a moment to ask yourself whether you’re living according to your desires and your truth, or whether you’re trying solely to meet the expectations of the people around you.

The expectation to be productive

I felt so much pressure to be productive in my first seven years as a stay-at-home mom because I believed that my worth lay in successfully getting through my to-do list each day. There was always laundry to be done and bottles to be sterilized and fresh air to be had and all the million-and-one other things that I was telling myself simply must be done - or else I’d fall behind and never catch up.

Of course this is only natural, because we’ve been raised to first meet the expectations of our parents, and then our teachers, and then our employers, and society in general. But when we put so much weight on meeting outside expectations in this way, we start to lose ourselves entirely.

For me, trying so hard to meet these expectations eventually led to lots of unnecessary “busy work” and time-filling as I became more and more efficient in the tasks I was performing every day. I never reached a point where I felt I had actually done “enough” - it actually felt horribly uncomfortable for me to be “done” with my list - and I would always find a way to continue to be useful in some way, rather than choose to rest and just enjoy being with my daughters.  

What this created for me was never being fully present in any moment of my day and never getting to experience all the fun things that had made me want to become a stay-at-home mom in the first place. I stayed busy juggling all the tasks I felt I had to do immediately, and never once stopped to ask myself whether this was the way I wanted things to be for me - or for my kids.

Choose a different way

When I eventually noticed I was starting to become more and more distracted and scattered as I became more and more exhausted, I decided to find a different way. Because at no point during those years had I felt anything close to fulfilled, and I faced this head on when I read this quote from Glennon Doyle’s ‘Untamed’:

“Something’s off about my life. I feel restless and frustrated. I have this hunch that everything was supposed to be more beautiful than this.”

I decided there and then to start resting on purpose - to give up the relative safety of perpetual busyness that my brain had focused on so fiercely for many years - and to show myself complete compassion and understanding for having placed so much weight on the importance of productivity. I learned that the brain is wired for survival, not pleasure (and my brain knew that I’d survived very well with this singular focus because I was still alive!) and that it also wants to conserve energy rather than make the effort required to switch to a new way of thinking. 

So if you’re thinking of making a change to become more aligned with what you want for your life at home with your kids, know that it’s natural and normal to resist change, and that giving yourself permission to do something different will not be easy at first - or likely feel at all comfortable!

How to start resting

The first thing to remember is that our worth does not lie in our productivity. We are all inherently worthy. And that you being more you is always going to be more valuable to you and your kids than you performing according to the expectations of other people.

Next, consider making rest your first priority, before you do anything else in your day. This is, of course, something that will depend on how old your kids are, but it offers the opportunity for you to choose how you want your day to go from a resourced place, rather than simply reacting to whatever life throws at you.

And then ask yourself: What is rest for you? I love how Instagram’s FeministTimeCoach Vikki Louise talks about rest being what happens when you’re not resisting the moment you’re in - when your brain is quiet in whatever activity you are doing (or not doing!); when there is no shame, or judgment, or guilt. So think of a moment when you’ve felt this way, and ask: What’s the story that you were telling yourself about you in that moment? 

For me, I know that I’m truly resting when I’m dancing, and I’ve recently begun to start my morning this way because it gives me much more clarity on what I want to do with the rest of my day. I can then see clearly how I want to spend my time according to my own priorities and values, as opposed to outside expectations.

And when I dance I’m not thinking about what anyone else thinks or needs, I’m not aware of time passing - I’m just loving being me in that moment. I feel incredibly powerful and fully alive, my body moves and flows naturally with the music, I feel the energy in me vibrating, I’m in harmony with myself, and I feel profoundly right in who I am. I experience peace, love and joy all at once, even if I’m playing a sad song that I cry to as I dance.

So once you’ve identified what it is that you believe about yourself when you’re resting, you can transfer these thoughts over to other areas of your life and create much more restful experiences for yourself in your motherhood and in your relationship with yourself.

In this way we start to feel like we’re truly coming home to ourselves, that we accept and understand and love ourselves for who we are (not according to how we perform), that we can trust ourselves to make decisions quickly and move forward efficiently with any change we want to make, and that we know with certainty that we will always have our own backs - to do motherhood our way and to create whatever we want for ourselves in our lives. 

Remind yourself often that you always know what’s best for you and your family, and that the more you listen to your inner voice that speaks your truth, the more you will thrive (no matter how much you do or don’t “get done” each day!).  

If you want to learn more about how to let go of other people’s expectations and tune into your own wisdom to create your unique motherhood, sign up for a free coaching consultation call at the link below to find out if my six-week, 1:1 coaching program is right for you.