Why Asking Yourself this One Question will Transform Your Life as a Stay-at-Home Mom

Are you exhausted by your days at home with your kids? Do you fall into bed each night feeling “less than”, wondering why you’re living in a chaotic mess of clutter and conflict when other moms seem to be managing just fine? Are you tired of the fact that, no matter what you do or try, you simply can’t seem to get on top of everything that needs to be done each day?

Stop and ask yourself this one simple question

As you’ve noticed yourself become more and more depleted while struggling through long days with your little ones, have you ever paused long enough to ask yourself this: What do I really want for my life as a stay-at-home mom?  

We all know in our hearts that our lives were not meant to be lived only to cross items off a to-do list, putting out one fire after the next, before collapsing in front of the TV for what precious little “me-time” is left at the end of the day.  

And we know that we want to be fully present in a life that’s vibrant and meaningful. But what exactly makes it meaningful? 

The answer is simple: Spending your time on the things you want to be spending your time on.

When you take the time to establish your priorities as a stay-at-home mom and cut out the things that aren’t important in your life, you quickly find that you have more time than you ever did because you’re no longer wasting it on things you don’t want to be doing.

And that doesn’t mean tasks like cooking and cleaning no longer get done at all (because you’ll likely want a clean(-ish) house and some home-cooked meals), but they’ll be done according to your own standards and comfort levels, not to any external influence or pressure.

And they become so much easier to manage when you put the most important thing at the top of your priority list…YOU. 

Why you should be your number one priority

When it comes to making changes to the way you live your life at home, there is nothing more important than first managing your brain and finding your way back to yourself - to who you truly are.

Parenting is an incredibly important job but it’s also temporary - motherhood is not your identity and yet so many of us lose our sense of self entirely to the servitude of life at home with our kids.

The easiest, most simple way to rediscover who you really are is to find what it is that truly lights you up - what you love to play - and experience that feeling of being fully alive and fully YOU every single day. 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 feeling absorbed, focused and full of joy!

Now, you may be thinking that this sounds entirely selfish and, in any case, impossible for you to fit into your day - and you’re correct that this may not be easy because it involves an entirely new way of thinking about how to prioritize your day. But it is, in fact, the very opposite of selfish.

In fact, when you live for a longer period of time in the overwhelm of trying to do and be everything to everyone and, naturally, become exhausted, depleted and stressed in the process, that’s when you’re actually selfish because you’re existing only in survival mode. And when you’re struggling to survive and fighting to get through the day in any way you can, your focus is wholly on that. 

Which makes it impossible to even see anyone else’s needs!

But when you truly prioritize yourself and bring joy into your life, it radiates from you and naturally makes you the best mom and partner you can be, bringing happiness to those around you, too.

So how do we start to prioritize?

A priority is simply whatever is most important to you in the life you want to lead as the person you want to be.

What’s interesting here is that we often say something is of utmost importance to us (e.g. our relationship with our partner) but then, when we really look at our day and how we’re actually spending our time, we quickly see that we’re not giving that particular thing anywhere near the amount of time or attention we want to be giving it!

So take the time to note down your top five priorities, making sure that your own happiness and well-being is at the very top of the list. Then, write down absolutely everything that you spend your time on hour-by-hour in one day or, if your days tend to look very different, for an entire week. 

When you’ve done this, look to see whether you're living in line with your priorities and, if not, start to make the changes necessary to bring what you actually want for your life as close as possible to how you spend your time.

A final note

If you’ve been living in chaos and exhaustion for a longer period of time, try asking yourself if there’s something you could be getting out of staying stuck there, because it’s possible you may actually be choosing to stay safe in your life and hide.

You may be afraid that if you truly begin to prioritize yourself, you’d perhaps find something you love so much; something you’re incredibly good at; something that is uniquely you - and would then feel a pull to share your gift to contribute to the world for the benefit of others.

If you’d like coaching on this or any aspect of creating a life you love for yourself, please click below to sign up for a free coaching consultation.