Busy Moms Finding Balance

Quick wins to help you balance, grow, and succeed in all areas of life

Today’s post is all about empowering working mothers to find balance! Finding balance is important for busy moms because without balance burnout is inevitable.

I will be sharing these tips from a lens of prioritizing, managing your time and understanding your competing priorities. When you finish reading this post, I assure you that you will have a better understanding of balance and practical steps that you can implement right away and create balance in your day-to-day life.

Busy but not a Busybody

First, let’s level the conversation. I’m not talking about being a busybody because busybodies are rarely productive. To me, this character trait includes someone who is into everything without purpose or perspective. Someone who is busy has various competing priorities, ambitious goals, and so forth.

Your framework of busyness can include having an active or a growing family while wearing a million hats. Perhaps it includes serving your community while balancing career goals or business goals. The scenarios are abundant. Each of our motherhood journeys is uniquely made, but it is up to us to navigate the journey with purpose, wisdom, and sound strategy for the benefit of ourselves and our families.

I’ll admit, it’s easy to fall into busybody mode. Easier than many of us may be willing to admit! The fastest way to fall into busybody mode is by taking on more than you can handle or by trying to be all things to all people. In doing so, your hands will become tied with way too many activities. And just like that, you can go from busy to busybody in the blink of an eye.

Quick Wins

I hosted a series called “The truth about balance for working moms and mompreneurs”. I presented this mini workshop at a networking event and hosted several Facebook lives around this topic. I shared practical steps that you can implement so that you can find balance when you have competing priorities.

Top 3 Tips

Delegate

Respectfully decline

Negotiate Deadlines

Finding Balance by Delegating

Remember to ask for help and to delegate activities so that you can find your balance. Whether it’s asking for help around the home, help with your children, help with work, just ask. I can recall a busy season in my life not so long ago. I was swamped with work and decided to reach out to one of my colleagues for help. Guess what, they helped me, and it was a huge relief. I freed up my time to help my daughter with some virtual school challenges. It would have been easy for me to assume they would say no, to feel that they would judge me, or to feel like I was dropping the ball, but I chose to ask for help and dismiss all the extra negative thoughts. In the end, it worked out on all fronts.

Finding Balance by Saying NO

Always remember that “No” is a complete sentence. I’m talking to myself on this one. I love helping others and serving in any way that I can. As a result, I find myself taking on more than what my capacity can handle at times. I’m learning to check in with myself and my schedule to avoid overbooking, overextending, and overexerting myself.

My current practice includes, referencing my purpose statement before committing to major obligations. Do you have a purpose statement? Let me know in the comments. This practice helps to ensure that my activities align with what I am called to do in each season of life.

Finding Balance by Negotiating Deadlines

How often do we, as women, negotiate? Some studies suggest, not nearly enough in the workplace. This is odd to me because most of us KNOW how to negotiate well. Anytime we can convince flailing toddlers to take a bath when they don’t want to, is evidence that we can negotiate!

As I mentioned before, I check my schedule before making commitments. This gives me the opportunity to negotiate timelines and maneuver around competing priorities.

What Next?

You implement it! Take the tips and find what is going to work for you and implement the strategies outlined in this post. In order to see real impact we must move from knowledge acquisition to implementation.

Your success awaits – Debranetta