Procrastination is your enemy. Even if it is a little. It is a force that comes against your opportunity.
Motherhood can be so unpredictable. Anything can catch you off guard or jump into your lap unexpectedly.
There are things in life that can prepare you for some of the nuances motherhood brings but nothing can prepare you for the unpredictable, for the surprises.
We can learn how to be patient and we can learn how to handle pressure in life, but nothing can prepare you for the unpredictable and the surprises.
Already made your plans? Great!
Set your schedule? Great!
Did you say you were going to read alone? How lovely!
O, that’s the time you normally work out? Wonderful!
You have to be at you appointment in less than 20 minutes with the little one in tow? Nice!
Well guess what: either your baby had a poop explosion as you were about to walk out the door; your breastfeeding baby decided he/she wanted to eat earlier than you expected and you had to stop in your tracks to be the cow that you were made to be; your toddler refused to take a nap so buh bye alone time; your toddler decided to wake up at 4am and stay awake for hours so the work out will have to wait because at that point, your just exhausted; or you can’t make those important calls because somehow, your child thinks its the most appropriate time to shout and sing and bang on the drums.
The list goes on and it varies for a lot of you, but this is NOT a mommy diary complain fest. It’s part of the point that I make when I say how important it is not to let procrastination steal your opportunities. Eventually the madness ends for about 5, 10, 20 and if you’ve really got it going on, 60, 120 minutes. Seize the opportunity then. Make it a time you invest in you and your projects. Forget about the cleaning, the cooking and the laundry for a minute and get your mind right (confession: regular conversations I have with myself).
Remember, children themselves are learning this thing called life each day and we are here to guide them. They have they’re own personalities and their own way of doing things (its part of the creativity they were born with). Keep that in mind each day when you think you can do something later instead of NOW.
My son is 2 now and even now I find that he is just so unpredictable. He’s experiencing so many changes that even though he is on a schedule, he surprises me with the times he chooses to wake up in the morning; he surprises me on the random days he chooses not to take a nap but be reckless in his crib.
So I realized how difficult it is to have a personal schedule for the mompreneuring and the me time. Dude, stick to your schedule so I can stick to mine (confession: regular conversations I have with my son). At this point, I know he would somewhat understand what I am saying, but in reality, what kind of thing would that be to say to a 2 year old.
So I digress.
Motherhood is about seizing the opportunity in every blank space of your day to have your me time, to mompreneuring, to cleaning up, to taking a shower (yes I said it).
Like the hustling and bustling of NYC streets, you dodge left and you dodge right to quickly get to your destination (whatever that may be for you).
Disclaimer: I don’t speak for everyone when I say this because everyone’s family dynamic is so different, but I think it is a general rule of thumb that people can live by because aside from motherhood/parenting, life in general can be very unpredictable.
Anyway, I woke up one morning realizing that many times I say to myself “instead of staying up tonight, I will just wake up early to get things done.” The next morning, guess who chooses to wake up at the same time as me? I look at him in all his energy and I realize. “I should have seized my opportunity when I was awake and somewhat alert”
I used to get so angry. Really angry because my child didn’t respect my schedule—as if he even knew I had a schedule, as if he knew mentally what a schedule was. Anyway, thats neither here nor there. I began to realize that motherhood does not and cannot have a set schedule.
I know mothers who are able to literally create a work schedule around their child’s routine. I have yet to master that art (because yes it is an art to be mastered).
- Don’t put things off (aka procrastination).
- Seize the moment (even if it’s 5 or 10 mins) to do something beneficial to you and your goals. I think that when you consistently adopt that mindset, you create a lifestyle that is goal driven and goal oriented without compromising your goals for your child and your goals for yourself. In the event that things go according to schedule, you have already invested extra time to your personal projects. It took me a long time to figure that out.
Wife to an amazing husband, mother to an exploring toddler and an MPA graduate aspiring to impact the world with encouragement in mothering and in social entrepreneurship.
