How to Make Decisions You Love as a Stay-at-Home Mom

When I told people we’d decided to move to Charlotte from Chicago, naturally the first question they asked was “why Charlotte?”. Then they’d laugh as I told them honestly that I’d Googled “where in the U.S. has four seasons?” and picked from there. The fact that my decision-making process came pretty close to shutting my eyes and sticking a finger on a map was surprising to most of my family and friends. But how do you make life-changing decisions?

We had been restless in Chicago for a while - knowing with certainty that we wanted to live somewhere both more in nature and without a long and brutal winter. But not knowing where we were headed had left us stuck in indecision for years. So I picked a place.

Google has always been my friend when it comes to making life-changing decisions (yes, I asked the internet whether we should have a third child, and, thankfully, it agreed that we should). I’d realized just how ridiculous this was when I came across this quote in Glennon Doyle’s brilliant book ‘Untamed’ last year:

“Finally, I turned to the World Wide Web to see if an invisible conglomeration of strangers, trolls, and bots knew what I should do with my one wild and precious life.”

But this time felt very different. Once I’d gathered together my list of cities blessed with all four seasons and checked whether my pilot husband could be based there, I chose to let me decide whether a move to Charlotte felt right.

It did.

So we signed the girls up for a school, put our condo on the market, applied for my husband’s transfer and waited for everything to fall neatly into place.

When things don’t go smoothly

Three months later, our condo was still on the market, and my husband was hearing from within the airline that transfers were likely to remain on hold for a year, or possibly even longer.

Friends started asking whether it might make more sense to put our plans on hold: “What’s another year?” they asked. I found myself getting increasingly flustered every time I was faced with this question, trying to explain that our reasons for making this decision hadn’t changed, and questioning whether I was being ridiculous in sticking so firmly to it in light of the fact things weren’t working out as we’d expected.

And as our leaving date approached (the girls were all set to start school), I felt a horrible mix of nerves and sadness all day every day for two long weeks.

What’s meant to be will be

But what actually happened once I finally plucked up the courage to follow through with my decision and say goodbye to everything and everyone I’d known for the past 16 years? 

We received an offer on our condo soon after we’d climbed into the car to start the long drive south!

A week later, my husband found out his transfer to Charlotte would come through in mid-October.

And a week after that we had an offer accepted on a house we loved, four minutes’ drive from the girls’ new school.

What had looked like a mess of a situation that no one except me could seem to understand, suddenly made sense to all of our family and friends (who thought we were very lucky that our “gamble” had paid off!).

Which made me think of another quote from ‘Untamed’:

“The braver I am, the luckier I get.”

Because it does take courage to fully commit to something you have no proof will work out; to listen to that small voice inside telling you to go for it when there are other much louder voices telling you your plans make no sense at all.

But this whole experience only proves the incredible power of boldly making a decision, and having enough trust and faith in yourself to honor it wholeheartedly. And that goes for anything you may be choosing in your life - big or small - such as committing to working out three times a week, coming up with a plan to make healthy meals for your family, or taking time for yourself each and every day to do something that lights you up.

Stop indulging in confusion

Having indulged in confusion and “I don’t knows” for so many years, I can now see that believing I didn’t have the answers to where we should live was never going to get us anywhere other than exactly where we were - stuck wondering what we should do.

Which is great if you love your reasons for being where you are; not so great if you love your reasons for wanting to move! 

We have to remember that not making a decision is a decision in itself - and one that wastes a lot of time and energy - because as long as you remain stuck there, you’re not taking any action at all in the direction you want to go. And, in the words of Brooke Castillo from The Life Coach School:

“Decisions are always made in an instant. Thinking and pondering and discussing only seems necessary. All it does is prevent you from making a decision until you make a decision.”

Life is always going to be 50/50

So once you’ve made your decision and followed through on it, what comes next? For me, it was total fear and discomfort - I even contemplated jumping in the car and heading right back to Chicago on those first few nights in our empty apartment. 

But I knew that, rather than do anything rash, I needed to allow the discomfort to be there for a while - our brains were, after all, designed to maintain the status quo (so this leap out of my comfort zone unsurprisingly stirred up some emotion!), and life is, in any case, always going to be 50/50, wherever you are in the world. 

And after that long first week had passed, I saw my focus slowly start to shift  - away from all the comforts we’d left behind towards all the reasons why we’d made the decision to move in the first place. And as I looked around at the lush green trees and drove down the beautifully hilly streets (how I had longed to see hills living in flat Chicago!), I could see that we were getting exactly what we’d been dreaming of all along.

If you’d like help in making decisions - big or small - contact me at jojoyfullmama@gmail.com or