Reject Perfection by Letting Go of These Four Things as a Stay-at-Home Mom

We all want to do our best for our kids and this can often end up looking like the daily pursuit of perfection, which only ever leaves us exhausted and depleted. I battled with this for years, rushing about in a frenzy, and always striving to get “there”: to the point where the last item on my to-do list could be firmly crossed off and I could finally collapse on the couch with Netflix and chocolate.

But what do I actually want to say when I look back and retell the story of this time in my life? I finally got through the last of my tasks after 150,000 hours of resolutely keeping my head down and getting it done? Or I laughed and played and danced my way through all the craziness? 

Life is always going to be 50/50, so of course we can’t expect rainbows and unicorns all the time. But our days certainly should not be weighted in favor of overwhelm, obligation, resentment and struggle. And being fully present in a life that’s vibrant and meaningful is available to us any time we choose. 

So here’s four things to let go of right now - because striving to be a perfect parent and losing yourself to overwhelm in the process will never be the best thing you can do for yourself - or for your kids.

Your commitment to busyness and rush

My first seven years as a stay-at-home mom were spent running around in a mad rush, believing I had to do everything and be everything to my three young daughters. With a pilot for a husband and my family far away in England, I felt like I had no choice but to do it all during this particular season of my life.

But the more I felt I had to get done as my family grew over the years, the more I began to take myself and my to-do list far too seriously, and the more inflexible, fearful, frenzied and panicked I became.

Trying to be perfect by getting it all done - not just at home but with sports, music lessons, dance and art classes too - is not necessary for your kids, and it’s certainly not healthy for you. Our immune systems are, after all, not designed to handle this state of mild panic all the time!

It took one simple, magical moment for me to realize that, if I was ever going to live the life I wanted, I was going to have to learn to slow down. I walked into my middle daughter’s bedroom one afternoon, arms laden with laundry, and saw her favorite book “Swatch: The Girl Who Loved Color” open on the floor. I noticed that she had plucked a yellow flower from the plant pots on our roof deck and placed it carefully over a yellow flower of the exact same size right there on the page. I took a moment to read the book’s message about refusing to live life trapped in a jar, high up on a shelf, and knew right then and there that I wanted to get off the hamster wheel of never-ending to-dos.

I love this quote by Dr. Libby Weaver: “For you to feel happy, for you to feel the joy, for you to be able to appreciate the many, many magical moments on offer to you, you need to slow down.” 

Starting the day with ten long, slow breaths, taking time for a walk, journaling, meditating, and choosing to focus on one thing at a time are all great places to start with this.

Putting your relationship on the back-burner

With so much going on, it can be very easy to neglect the one person in your household who does not need your attention to survive! And you can quickly reach the point where you feel you’ve lost the connection you once had with your partner - with no idea of how to get it back.

But more than this, you may also start to suffer strong feelings of resentment about the fact that your partner gets to come and go as he pleases while you’re stuck at home, that you always seem to be the one responding to your kids’ needs, and that the responsibility for running your home always falls squarely on your shoulders. You might even convince yourself you’re no longer seen as anything beyond your role as a mom.

I felt this way for years, and felt alone in my relationship with my husband for much of it. I longed to get back to the feeling of connection we had before our first daughter was born but couldn’t seem to get past my conviction that I had to do it all, alone. This was partly down to the fact that my husband is often gone for several days at a time but, even when he was home, I still insisted on doing everything myself because it was easier (whilst complaining that I didn’t get any help from him at all!).

But when I came across this quote by Elizabeth Gilbert, I saw that I absolutely had the power to bring back that connection with him any time I wanted - by changing the way I was looking at things:

“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day.”

Whether we realize it or not, we get to choose our thoughts every single day - and those thoughts are our responsibility alone. You may tell yourself that you’re not happy and don’t have what you need because of your circumstances or your partner’s actions, but you’re actually choosing to feel angry, resentful and upset by thinking those thoughts. You can always choose to believe the very best of another person in any given situation - and this is always preferable to assuming some sort of malicious intent behind their actions.

Getting clarity on exactly who you want to be and how you want to feel is so important to improving any relationship - and the next step is then committing to showing up as that person every single day. This of course takes a lot of effort, particularly at first, but you’ll soon start to see the changes your positive actions are bringing to all aspects of your relationship.

Putting your needs dead last in favor of people pleasing

Do you ever give yourself permission to prioritize you? To really put yourself and what you want and need ahead of everyone else? 

It’s so easy to lose ourselves entirely to the servitude of life at home with little ones that we often get to the point where we no longer know what our favorite food or song is, yet we can easily answer these questions on behalf of our kids. But it’s important to remember that you were someone before you became a mom - with your own interests and passions - and you’re still that someone now!

Putting yourself and your desires dead last only ever ends in resentment and frustration, and can be an indication that you believe you simply don’t matter. 

So if you’re currently feeling that you’re sick and tired of running on empty and want to make a change, take the time to think for a moment about what exactly it is you want for your life, and what kind of person you want to show up as in the world. 

Learning to listen to exactly what you want, and knowing what your dreams and desires actually are, is so important - and a big part of this is being able to say no to other people when they ask you to do something you know you don’t want to do! Because if we’re always doing what other people require of us, and ultimately becoming dependent on their approval to feel good about ourselves, we’ll never be able to show up as our true authentic selves or have any sustained sense of self-regard.

A good place to start with this is to take a piece of paper and write down exactly how you want to live your life day-to-day, moving through each aspect and focusing primarily on how you want to feel. What is your relationship with your kids like? With your partner? How do you look? What about your home? What is your money situation? What are your dreams for this year? And the next?

When you’ve written it down in as much detail as possible, choose one new thought about yourself that you’d like to focus on first, and write out that new thought every single day. By doing this, you’re beginning to change your story, and you’ll see that you start to take small action steps to get closer to making it your reality. For example, if you’d like to feel more connected to your kids, decide right now to start talking to them in a calmer voice, or commit to spending five minutes one-on-one with each child every day. Small changes add up and soon begin to make a noticeable difference.

Believing play is frivolous and futile

Do you take time to play - to do something that truly lights you up - every single day? You may think this sounds frivolous and silly, and that there’s no way you’d ever find time for it. But play actually holds the power to completely change your life!

Since I discovered play a year ago and committed to playing for ten minutes every single day, I’ve not only become hooked on my daily dose of joy - created by me, for me - but am now happier, more free, more playful in my relationships, and more capable than I ever thought possible.

I started by doing something I knew I loved to do (dancing around the living room with music playing full blast) and, in that moment, finally felt capable of being the mom I wanted to be when I saw the awe on my daughters’ faces as they saw me in my element; shining with happiness, silliness and joy.

And that feeling of being truly capable has now spread to all areas of my life, giving me the confidence of knowing there’s nothing I can’t handle and that the answers I need have been within me all along. 

So what exactly is play and why should you do it? You’ll know you’re truly playing when you’re doing something you love so completely that you lose all sense of time passing, and are fully absorbed and focused. You’re not remotely self-conscious in that moment, and you feel fully alive and filled with joy. When you stop, you can’t wait to do it again!

Playing in this way is key to finding our way back to ourselves. When you start to play, you see that your true, authentic self quickly reemerges. You don’t care what you look like, or what anyone else thinks or needs - you’re simply doing what you love, and enjoying the feeling of total freedom. 

The simplest way to find out what lights you up is to look back at what you loved to play as a child. What was that thing you used to do over and over again that gave you the same sense of joy and excitement every single time?

Take a few moments to write down everything you can remember playing when you were little, starting at age five and working through your childhood years. Once you have your list, go through it again and put an asterisk next to any activities you could see yourself enjoying now. Make sure to eliminate any concerns about embarrassment or looking silly - when you’re truly playing you will not be feeling self-conscious at all! And don’t be tempted to start thinking about any of the benefits you could reap from your new adventures (“ooh, I could lose some weight if I took up biking!”) because true play has no result at all, other than giving you that feeling of pure joy.

My commitment to prioritizing play has allowed me to finally get to a point where I happily reject perfection every day - because true play is about anything but being the best you can be. I’m no longer striving to be the perfect mom, or focusing on this for my girls either. I love this brilliant quote from Dr. Tovah Klein:

“Don’t let your passion be the perfection of your children. Because when you solely define yourself in relation to another, it’s not enough.”

I hope that this blog post gives you permission to be imperfect too. I’m now offering free one-on-one coaching sessions, and would love to chat about whether this is right for you. I look forward to seeing you there!