Mom Boss Vibes: Building Confidence While Motivating Yourself and Your Family

Hello, friends! As we've addressed a couple times this last week, this time of year so far has been horrible: between the Holidays and entire households getting sick all at once. we have all been struggling a bit. Which is actually a great way to head into our topics for today: confidence tips for the busy mother while keeping family motivation. I know with the insanity that has been going on lately, I have lost a lot of confidence in myself and feel really low. Whenever I get over busy, or super sick, I lose my self-confidence because a part of me feels like I'm failing; this then causes my motivation to finish and/or continue things to tank.

Building Confidence

Today, I bring you two major tips for keeping up your confidence as a busy mother. As a mother of an eight and ten-year-old, I will be the first to admit that my life is insanely hectic. I have the joy of being able to volunteer on their PTO; however, I have two different PTOs to juggle as they are in two different schools. I am a full-time caregiver for my mother, and co-owner of this amazing space. Getting sick recently has taken me from just being overwhelmed to losing any confidence I have in myself.

As this is a place where we want to be totally honest, I will dig deep: I have honestly started to feel the tall-tell signs of a burnout recently, and thankfully managed to stop it in time before I spiraled into a full on burn out. How did I do this? By remembering to take time for self-care. This is our first tip, and something we have covered in the past. Self-care is so important and that is something that cannot be stressed enough. Even if you have to stop and set an alarm to schedule that time. Full honesty, there are some days that I don't have time until after I put my kids to bed; but that's okay because I am still taking time for myself. When my kids were still toddlers who took naps, sometimes I would stop and self-care while they were asleep if I had nothing else to do. Self-care cannot always be scheduled, sometimes it has to be spontaneous; but even 30 minutes a day can make a difference. Some people need more time than that to decompress, there is no perfect set amount of time for what will or will not be a good amount of time for self-care. The next thing for building confidence that is extremely important is how you treat yourself in the emotional aspect. While self-care, to me, is all about the mental and physical aspect, we have to remember to be kind to ourselves emotionally; we can do this by remembering to celebrate even the smallest of wins. We've brushed on the subject before, but not we need to take a deeper dive. I've talked before about how it takes 7 positive things to change the damage that just 1 negative can bring to you emotionally. However, those 7 things can also be given to yourself by yourself; you do not have to wait for others to celebrate you, instead celebrate yourself! These wins can be anything from getting a promotion at work, to the fact that you were able to even get up and out of bed for the day. Depression and negativity surround us daily, celebrating the little things can not only help combat those things, but also build your self-confidence. I, personally, struggle with not only depression but also chronic pain; some days it's literally a challenge just to get out of bed, both physically and emotionally. Once I am up, dressed, and moving about (especially on busy days) I take a second to tell myself good job. Why? So that I don't fall back into that state of mind of feeling worthless, to keep my confidence up, and to remind myself that I did something that maybe an hour prior felt like a massive challenge.

Motivation

I will be the first to admit that keeping motivation when you have a family is a big challenge. Mothers especially are looked to in the aspect of being the member of the household to make sure everyone is on track. Not only to they have to keep everyone else's motivation up, but they have to keep their own up too; this leads to being burnt out and, sometimes, depressed very quickly. One of the best ways to keep motivation up is to make sure that there are set schedules for the house. Especially if you have kids, this is crucial to them not only to keep motivation up, but it also gives them stability. Most adults these days that didn't have set schedules can feel like they had a bit of an unstable childhood; it can cause struggles as an adult and cause an unstable lifestyle or struggles to have a set schedule when it comes to having a job. Not having set schedules can cause problems when adjusting to being an adult and having independent, adult responsibilities. This is one reason why schools have specific schedules, and why it's a good idea to have one before your child starts school. It will be an easier adjustment when they enter school because they will be used to it.

The next tip to keep up motivation is something we have talked about before: SMART Goals! Remember that having goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time framed will help you achieve them in a realistic manner. How does this help with motivation, you may ask? Keeping your goals in the parameter of being a SMART goal means that you have milestones. Celebrating any milestone not only helps your self-confidence but it also helps with your motivation because it is a personal reminder that you completed a step; that the next step of your goal is within reach. When you make a SMART goal, you set up those milestones. Who wouldn't want to celebrate reaching a milestone? Celebrate everything milestone you complete, and you will find it easier to get to the end goal because the want to get there will be even stronger; your motivation to get there will be stronger!

It's difficult being a busy mother, a busy parent. Trying to keep up your confidence and motivation to do things at the same time can be difficult and frustrating. I hope that these tips will help you even in the littlest way to keep them both up. Until next time, friends; stay safe, and stay hydrated!