Being a “mom” usually involves much more than raising children. You may be working, have a household to maintain, and countless other responsibilities. Oh, and don’t forget the activities you do to make time for yourself. I’m becoming tired just thinking about it! With all the hands-on attention a child needs, how does a mom achieve anything else?
I found myself asking that question and beating myself up for struggling to stay afloat like a rock on water. Life became more manageable when I started setting goals. Now, before you roll your eyes about goal setting, just hear me out and read below. It may just help you too!
Defining a Goal as a Mom
As a mom, a goal is anything to be done in addition to the daily musts of life. You must feed yourself and your children. You must do your job. However, you don’t have to dust. You don’t have to bake cookies. In this scenario, dusting and baking are goals.
With a newborn, my goals for the day were to brush my hair and get dressed because that’s how crazy life was. Goals can be as simple as that. Set the goals you need for your situation.
Daily Goals
Every morning when I wake up (or plan the night before), I set my goal for the day. “Today, I need to put away the laundry. Today, I have to finish my blog post.” This is a mental declaration I give myself, but it may help you to write your goal down, set a reminder in your phone, or tell someone.
I set ONE to TWO goals a day. There might be more you have to do, and you may accomplish more than that, but keeping one to two priorities will make it more feasible to actually complete.
Avoid setting too broad of goals. Cleaning the house, for example, is too broad. Dusting and vacuuming are more reasonable.
Now that you have your goal set, as soon as you find yourself with some free time (baby is napping, kids are out, before bed, etc.) work on that goal and try not to deter from it. If my goal is to put away laundry, I avoid becoming distracted with reorganizing the drawers or tidying up the bedroom. I put away the laundry and then if I have any leftover time, I take care of the reorganizing and the tidying up.
Once you have accomplished your goal for the day, view everything else as bonus!
Weekly Goals
In addition to daily goals, I also make a weekly goal. For me, this is usually something that takes longer to complete. Recently my weekly goals have been, painting the basement stairs, completing a Cricut shirt craft and rearranging some furniture.
When I find myself energized during the week with some spare time, I work on my weekly goal.
Final Thoughts
Goal setting was never a thing for me before Berry was born, but it has helped me significantly stay on top of things since. There are days when I am too tired, or something unexpectedly comes up where I am unable to reach my goal. That is ok. Don’t let a bad day or two deter you. If there was a list of every single thing you did in one day, you’d probably think, “WOW!” Sometimes we don’t realize how much we actually do in a day, and if you’re a mom you’re doing a ton!
Let’s Set Some Goals!