It may sound like a funny concept – your kids getting the short end of the stick when it’s *your* habits that are at fault.
You might think, “I’m shorting *myself* here! *I’m* the one who doesn’t get enough sleep or down time or time to manage the family – *they’re* getting the best of everything!”
But are they, really?
Are they truly getting the mom who has tons of time to play with them? Sit with them? Read to them?
Or if you’ve got older kids, wander off to their room and just sit and hear what’s been going on in their not-so-little heads? (Instead of putting a 10-minute time limit on it because you’ve still got to clean up the kitchen before you go to bed.)
Where is a lack of productivity actually *hurting* your kids’ experience of life with you as their mom?
Put another way, what *would* you be doing if your time management was on point, you were super efficient, and you had all the time in the world to do stuff with them?
Would you be doing every-other-day after-supper walks with the family?
Would you be baking once or twice a week with the kindergartener, just so she could practice measuring and scooping and numbers?
Would you be reading books galore on the couch before naptime, just because you could?
Look – your stress is costing someone. Not just yourself, but your kids and your marriage, too.
Don’t you want to be the real version of you-the-mom and you-the-wife for them?
Don’t you *want* that kind of no-pressure, I’ve got all the time I need to life?
The real secret is that this “best you” version doesn’t come about by you forcing yourself to do more, be more, and get every possible thing done.
No, your best mom self prioritizes ruthlessly, says no to a whole bunch of things, and delegates some more to her kids.
Because that gives her the mental margin – and physical time – to spend on her preferred relationship-building activities with her kids. (Whether that’s park walking, baking, or reading.)
So don’t think that upleveling means turning you into Miss Perfect. It doesn’t. It just means optimizing your current life and shedding a whole lot of stuff.
(I mean physical stuff, mental expectations, and emotional pressure to do this or that when your gifts are somewhere else.)
What’s going to shift in your #momlife when you let go of this super perfectionistic-focused vision of “getting productive”?
Where does it feel like a huge sigh of relief to tone down the “do it all” voices and tone up your time management skills in what matters? (Like maybe speed cleaning the bathrooms but delegating the celery scrubbing?)
And what’s going to be different about this future you – this new you – who’s on top of her productivity game, but in a totally supportive, not self-recriminating, kind of way?
*That’s* what you’re going for today.
