I am writing this as my sons sleeps. Most of my posts are written in the pockets of time that he sleeps, which is sometimes and hour and a half and other times a mere thirty minutes. In truth, right now I would rather be doing anything but writing; ideally, I would like to be curled up on the couch reading a good book with a cup of hot coffee and a bowl of dark chocolate pretzels (I love anything dark chocolate). Lately, I have been struggling to dedicate a solid chunk of time to my priorities. Having a ten-month-old baby does make it harder to devote large chunks of time to, well, anything, but I don’t want to be one of those people who just makes excuses and gives up on any and all things most important to me.
But I have to question: How do I set goals for myself when I never know what my week will look like from one day to the next? Since my baby is now walking all over the place, I can’t leave him alone for two seconds or I’ll catch him trying to go up the stairs or thwacking our peacefully sleeping beagle on the back with his blocks. If he is awake, I can’t write—or do much of anything. And during his (usually short) naps, I am often catching up on household chores, like washing dishes or making a meal or doing a load of laundry.
Perhaps I just haven’t figured out the chaotic dance of motherhood yet, but I do feel discouraged that some days I get nothing done. I’ve always heard that is how it goes, and many mothers just resign themselves to having no life outside of their kids for the first five years of life, but I guess I am still fighting against it.
Don’t get me wrong—I feel privileged that get to stay at home with my son! While many women want to go back to work after having children, some would prefer to have the option to stay at home and can’t. And for those women who do choose to stay at home with their babies, I have always felt that it is every bit as noble a calling as those who choose to go back to their jobs, whether it is as an attorney at a prestigious law firm or a receptionist at a car dealership. In fact, I have often seen stay-at-home moms shamed for their decision to leave the workforce and that is unfair (but that is another post for another day).
Despite the fact that I am happy to stay at home and raise my son, I still am left with the question of how to balance my care for him and ultimately, for myself. I do believe that his care and his needs come before my own, but I also don’t think it is beneficial to anyone in my life to completely neglect myself.
It is important to create space for me to continue to expand as a person. Growth and expansion will look different from one woman to the next but it is important nonetheless. For example, some of my top pleasures before having a baby were reading, writing, and working out. I still want to create a little room for those things in my life. I still want to find ways to generate success.
The question—which seems obvious (and might be too easily answered for some)—is this: What does success look like for me? What does it look like for you?
I think my husband has a really good handle on what success looks like for him, and what his priorities are. Recently we were talking and he mentioned how he thinks it is important to work your life around your priorities, not your priorities around your life. When I asked him to clarify this point, he said it means being crystal clear on what your priorities are and creating your day around those. For example, one of his biggest priorities is spending as much time as possible with his son, making sure he is there every evening for his bath and story time. To ensure that happens, he doesn’t schedule late afternoon meetings (unless it is absolutely necessary) and he often does work after our son goes to bed so he can sit on the floor and play with him during his awake time.
Exercise is also a top priority for him, and has been for many years. Even though he could make the excuse that he is too busy now, he chooses to work his life around that priority by getting up at 4:45am and going to the gym. He could just as easily go after work, but that would conflict with his priority to spend time with our son so he makes a sacrifice and gets up early. He could also just as easily say that he doesn’t have as much time to work out now that we have a baby—and that would actually be true—but that isn’t what you do with your top priorities. You find a way to make them happen.
It sounds simple, but if he wasn’t intentional about this priority, it would be too easy to do that work as soon as he got home and our son was awake, or to say yes to later meetings, or skip his workouts; but then he would also be dealing with frustration over not experiencing success as it looks to him.
I have realized over and over lately that intentionality is so crucial to a life well lived. So many people are paddling furiously to just stay afloat in their lives but they have never stopped to ask themselves what a life well lived looks like to them. It doesn’t matter what it looks like to your best friend or your mom or your coworker, but so often we base more of our decisions on their opinions than we would care to admit.
One financial book I read recently (I Will Teach You To Be Richby Ramit Sethi) talks about how we all need to get intentional about our spending. He was quick to explain that this doesn’t mean cutting out everything you enjoy in your life—it means examining your life and cutting out the things that you don’t value so you can have more to spend on things you do value.
It is the same in all areas of life I think. We need to examine what we value—in other words, figure out what our top priorities are—and create our life around those things. Some people in your life might make you think you should value a high-power job that requires 10-12 hour work days, but what if your dream is to be a real-estate agent who only works part time and doesn’t do any showings after 4pm? With intentional choices, I believe we can each work toward creating that life we want. But we will never get there if we don’t stop and ask ourselves what it is that we truly value and how we want to live.
After that begins the journey to make it happen.
