Reality vs. Mom Goals | A Stand-Off

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I know I’m not the only one guilty of setting extremely high personal expectations which have led to pure disappointment in myself when things don’t go exactly according to plan. As mothers, we take caring for growing humans to a level beyond, love, safety, and provision – apparently, we’ve got to be perfect and put together in every way. The standard we set for ourselves can be far too high at times. So, when reality kicks in and plans change it can make or break our confidence.

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Getting lost in the process.

A very wise mama I know once told me that it can be very easy to lose yourself in the chaos of simply being a mom. Between the diaper changes, boogey noses, back- talk and telling them for the millionth time to stop endangering their lives in numerous absurd ways we forget about the sheer joy and anticipation we went through waiting for their arrival.

It can be easy to forget that we’ve got God’s greatest gift and the purest love right in front of us when they're in the form of a patience testing, tantrum throwing, booger picking minion.

Now part of this problem is because of the sheer miracle of pregnancy and childbirth that has taken a massive toll on our body, right? But it’s not just our physical body that it takes a toll on.

Studies say that approximately 70% to 80% of women experience “baby blues”. This typically leads to clinical postpartum depression which is at an estimated rate of 10% to 20%. That means 1 in 7 women will experience PPD after giving birth.

We can talk baby blues all day because I can tell you firsthand how debilitating it is. We may not even realize that we're in it when we are. We feel like we're going crazy since there’s no explanation for the random crying spells and excessive worrying. It all comes and goes normally as a part of our day amidst the adjustment that takes place as a new mother.

We reluctantly hide these feelings, as if pretending they don’t exist will make them randomly disappear. Even though we want to talk to someone we wouldn’t want anyone to know we aren't 100% happy and they wouldn't understand anyway because all the other moms are doing fine. Or, are they?

Truth is, although we all don’t experience severe PPD, we ALL know what it feels like to worry about our child, to feel like we’re not doing good enough or like we’ve failed after things don’t go precisely how we had intended.

It's the sad truth that even after doing what we thought we could never do and getting as far as we’ve gotten, comparison inevitably creeps in followed by high ambition and many goals/ to dos that we believe will make us a better mom, but in reality don't have significant effect on anything but our mental well being.

We have all gotten lost in the process of doing what we believe is best for our kid, gotten angry and upset, cried, and wanted to quit. But we still swallow our emotions and put on a happy face so that baby doesn't know mommy is going through a hard time.

Meanwhile, we’re conjuring up more self-deprecating explanations as to why we’re the reason things aren’t going right and coming up with new daily habits or changes that must happen to make things better.

Why do we set these standards of perfection for ourselves?

How setting high expectations can become a problem.

Some of the issues that pop up when we plan on doing new things or making positive change can be quite laughable. It’s almost like the universe is teasing us, “How bad do you really want it huh?”

How about when we're stoked to get baby down for a nap and end up falling asleep with them and losing 2 hours of the day instead of finishing the first half of our to do list?

Or when we tell ourselves we won’t eat out anymore but forget to pack food in the rush out the door and end up stopping for a happy meal instead?

These are just a couple trivial examples representing a fraction of the mayhem that takes place while raising children.

Although it can be funny, there comes a time though when it isn't so laughable anymore . It begins to feel like each little bump in the road adds a weight to your shoulders and then by the time you’re ready to push them back and move forward something worse happens!

For me it was when my son had an adverse reaction to the flu shot. I was totally freaked out, but worst of all I was furious at myself for letting them give it to him. Because we also have a horrible habit of blaming ourselves for every mishap.

It is different for all of us and I’m sure you know what I am talking about. But maybe it wouldn’t all be so hard to handle if we allowed ourselves to “fail” gracefully sometimes and not experience the feelings of disappointment when our plans change.

Failure is different for every person.

 Perhaps you were raised where dinner was on the table by six in the evening every night no matter what so you feel that’s the perfect quality in a mother. Then when you serve dinner by seven instead one night you feel like a failure.

Now that is a very dramatized scenario but the point is to illustrate that how we are raised and the examples of mothers we see in our lives play a significant factor in the establishment of our standards and expectations. 

It's vital we recognize however that these limited beliefs don’t determine our overall value and quality as a parent.

I am a huge advocate for going after your goals as a mama because it most definitely is possible to achieve whatever you want if you put your mind to it, having a baby won't change that. My only concern is the rising desire to be #momgoals.

In this time when social media is a prominent influence and such a huge factor in setting standards of perceived value in people, it’s almost impossible to avoid comparison.

If it isn’t on our social media feed it’s directly in our face when other moms come around and whether they say something demeaning or not we can’t help but notice how much more put together they look than us…

Boom. We raise our standards. This isn’t always a bad thing – but it can be sometimes.

A time when setting high standards for yourself can be bad is when you attempt to make excessive change in minimal time.

For instance, let's say I want to start a blog. I know I'll have to wake up earlier then my kid to get some work done, but if I'm going to wake up early I might as well use that time to get a workout in too since I never have time to during the hectic day.

Hm. I can’t eat waffles for breakfast like I usually do if I'll be working out so I'll just make a healthy smoothie instead. So, I set the alarm for 5am and create my workout playlist for the next morning.

The problem is, I typically sleep in until eight or nine and haven’t worked out in a while, plus I always have waffles for breakfast and don’t even know what kind of smoothie to make. I'm not sure I'm ready to make that many changes by tomorrow... So I back out and sleep in.

Although setting huge goals for ourselves is awesome, it’s important to keep in mind how much we're adding onto our plate because we may end up overwhelming ourselves, resulting in only temporary motivation which lacks action. 

Managing goals realistically by setting reasonable expectations. 

Now, I am most certainly not saying we aren't capable of making massive change. All I would advise is starting with one thing and adding something new when you feel solid with that first new discipline/ habit.

For instance, (continuing with this hypothetical scenario, but each person's action steps are unique to them) start with waking up early, find your morning flow and get your body used to that drastic change for a couple days before taking on your next action step.

Chances are, if you have goals, you have a list of action steps that need to be taken, and changes that you want to make to your day in alignment with said goals. If you don’t have a list of action steps I highly recommend making one.

Start with the one that you feel needs to come first and master it. Then add another. Master it. Add another – and so on!

This will prevent overwhelm and leave room for readjustment if needed since you’re able to focus on mastering one discipline at a time instead of all of them at once.

Remember, these goals do not define you as a mother and so long as you provide the love and care for your child that they desire you are a supermom.

Mental snapshots focused on love and gratitude.

One thing I'll end with is to find moments in the midst of the chaos to get present and bring awareness to the blessings we have in our life.

What I mean by this is completely ignoring the fact that we just changed poopy diaper number 27 and some got under our fingernail this time - I mean simply shifting our focus to the fact that we're so lucky to have a healthy, beautiful child in the first place.

We are likely living the miracles we prayed for in the past, life happens so quick and we get so caught up in the motions that we may go through each day frustrated and frazzled without realizing this.

It’s important to experience the feelings of gratitude and love for your life and don’t let comparison or expectations affect your happiness.

Find moments in each day to take a mental snapshot and be thankful, it’s the only thing that makes it all worth it.

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Let's fill the world with positivity!