About Carly Cooper
A certified Life Coach for Moms and creator of www.balance-the-mother-load.com, Carly Cooper’s blog offers helpful strategies for mothers struggling with guilt, unrealistic expectations and the inability to balance it all – with a generous dose of laughter.
What Did You Expect?
balance the mother load canada
(Sep.15.09)
Think about all the roles you play; mom, wife, sister, daughter, friend, cook, caregiver, chauffeur, housekeeper, employee, just to name a few.
Moms today are expected to do it all and they think they should love every minute of it. If it doesn’t always turn out that way, they feel let down, guilty or unhappy. Cut yourself some slack, moms!
There’s also a tremendous amount of pressure moms put on themselves. They try to be perfect while living up to the expectations that have been put on them. This will almost always lead to disappointment and a sense of failure because you can’t reach the unattainable. Perfect doesn’t exist. Especially when it comes to motherhood.
The key to surviving motherhood is to get realistic. Here are 6 ways you can start:
1) Embrace your imperfections and allow yourself to be human. Give yourself a break! Learn from your mistakes and find ways to improve the things that don’t come naturally to you. Focus on what you’re really good at and rediscover your sense of humor. Remember, if things don’t work out the way you planned, it’s usually a funny story.
2) Redefine motherhood. Create your own realistic definition of what motherhood means to you. Take out the stuff that doesn’t fit in your world and introduce new ways of doing things that jive with your personality and values.
3) Nurture all the roles you play. Be a mom, a friend, a wife, a career woman and whoever else you want to be. But don’t define yourself in one role or give all your energy to just one area. You’ll burn out and neglect the other wonderful parts of who you are and all you have to offer.
4) Stop trying to be Supermom. She doesn’t exist! The sooner moms stop comparing, judging and envying each other, the sooner we’ll all embrace who we are as individuals. No one is perfect even when it looks like it on the outside. If you still feel inferior to that mom who always looks so put together, I guarantee she hates having to get her roots done every 3 weeks.
5) Be who you are regardless of what others may think. Be strong, courageous and dare to be different. Be honest and do what feels right for you and your family. If others have a problem with it, realize it’s their problem and they are probably just jealous that they don’t have the strength to go against the grain.
6) Accept that you won’t please everyone. If you’re back at work and you can’t be at every field trip your child has, be ok with that. It will mean more to her when you can attend. Make a commitment to let go of guilt and learn to say no. When you say no to things you don’t want to do you’re saying yes to things that excite you.
A certified Life Coach for Moms and creator of www.balance-the-mother-load.com, Carly Cooper’s blog offers helpful strategies for mothers struggling with guilt, unrealistic expectations and the inability to balance it all – with a generous dose of laughter.