I sometimes get questions from people, who are struggling, asking me how I find the motivation. For the bigger things such as eating well, as a rule, or sticking to a fitness routine; but also the little things, like throwing on makeup, and getting out of my yoga pants. 😉 This always surprises me a little because I don’t think of myself as someone who always has their stuff together. (I spend my fair share of time in yoga pants.) I think of myself as someone who is always striving to get my stuff together. The reason I do these things daily is because I enjoy them. They make me feel like I have my stuff together.
If I wake up, have coffee, work out, and start my day with a healthy meal choice, I feel like I’ve already won today. The rest of the day breezes by. That’s not to say that there aren’t any struggles, but I feel prepared to handle those struggles. If I wake up, have coffee, rush out the door without my self care routine, my whole day is a disaster. That sounds melodramatic, but it’s actually not. Everything in my day will be a little bit off, and I will struggle throughout the entire day. The reason for that is, my self care routine grounds me. I find strength in it. It’s routine. It’s necessary. It’s what taking decent care of myself means to me. Taking an hour in the morning to get myself together.
I remember when my kids were all under 10, and in public school, that feeling of the sky falling, if I dropped the ball, on anything. It’s no joke. It will land on the mother. That’s why mothers are so intent on doing everything perfectly. You know it will land on you. It does. Kid makes a mistake? It lands on you. Spouse makes a mistake? It lands on you. I can go on and on about the injustice of this, and I do, but it hasn’t changed anything yet. It’s no wonder we never feel like we can take a minute for ourselves. We already know who’s going to pay for it. But it’s OK.
People are going to judge you no matter what you do. Nobody can be perfect all of the time. You will make mistakes. People will make comments. Mothers are now stretched so thin, that they can’t possibly meet all the demands on them, without occasionally making a mistake. But you still have to make time for yourself. I don’t, necessarily, mean days at the spa, or 12 hr. shopping sprees, these things are fun, and occasionally necessary, but they are not going to help you achieve a daily self care routine that helps you shape your best self, over time. For me, it’s more about checking in with myself every morning, making sure I’m eating well, moving often, setting goals, attaining a level of personal and career growth that I am happy with, while taking care of my family, to the best of my ability.
If I take my top priorities and break them down here I’ll end up with these five, in this order :
- Family/Relationships
- Career/Education
- Health
- Financial Health
- Home (organization & cleaning routines)
But when I schedule my day it looks more like this:
- Wake up & Caffeinate.
- Morning Workout.
- Breakfast Smoothie.
- Make daily work lists, school agendas, schedules, goals, charts.
- Manage household accounts, (lists, schedules, meal plans.)
- Get ready for day (shower, brush teeth, hair,makeup, etc)
- Make healthy breakfast for kiddos.
- Start their schoolwork. (ex. book work, writing projects, art projects, stem etc.)
- Complete my own work. (ex. soaping, writing, designing labels, building blogs, etc.)
- Break for healthy lunch.
- Clean up from lunch.
- Finish afternoon work. (Both, kids & I.) Sometimes we take this on the road, through tech, because we have errands and appointments.
- Cleanup from school.
- Get some time outside.
- Start dinner.
- Dinner time.
- Clean up from dinner.
- Put house to rights for next day.
- Try to get some more work done.
- Get ready for next day. (check for appts. organize papers, make lists., charge devices, plan meals, etc.)
I need to fit each priority in the space that makes the most sense with my scheduled day. If I don’t get my workout in directly after coffee, it’s just not going to happen because my day gets hectic as soon as the small one’s feet hit the floor. I need to fuel up on a quick, high energy breakfast (why I choose smoothies) immediately after or I’m probably not going to get breakfast at all. Next, I take a minute and start planning my day. I usually do this standing up, guzzling a bit more coffee, while I work. I quickly jot down all of the necessary tasks to accomplish first so I have a master list, of sorts. If I get through that before anyone wakes up, then I break the tasks down further, into a more detailed list, that I can check against, throughout the day. Once everyone is up, clean, and fed, we all get to our respective jobs, and work independently until lunch, with the kids, taking occasional direction from me. After lunch we clean up quickly, regroup, and finish up our work. Once the schoolwork/my work is done for the day, I try to send everybody off for at least a half hour so I can just breeeathe, for a minute, and maybe grab a cup of green tea ( or more coffee).
Then it’s time to clean up our papers, notebooks, supplies, laptops etc, put them away, ideally, until the next day, and prepare for dinner. This is usually a much bigger ordeal than it has to be, because I love to teach the boys how to prepare different healthy meals, and they will often join in, which is really fun, but also messy. So, of course I could do it much faster, not to mention neater, alone, but where’s the fun in that? After dinner, we do another quick clean through, and set up for the next day. By this time, everyone is so sick of looking at each other 😉 that we all go find something quiet to do. Alone. Books, video games, writing. This is where I may try to get a little more work in. If I’m just completely over working for the day, I may do some drawing, painting, reading, or just stretching, to decompress, which I also consider part of a great self care routine.
Self care is going to look different to you, depending on what your priorities are. Only you can decide what takes the top five spots in your life. The only way to find time for the important things is to let go of the things that are not so important. When you have decided which things are most important, create a schedule that allows you to incorporate them into your life daily. Feel free to start small, adding in one thing at a time each month until your are giving your full attention to the things that matter most to you. Before you know it, you will be living your best life, full of authenticity and self-motivation.
What tips do you have for staying motivated every day? Feel free to leave them in the comments. I can be found on insta@canigetaramen, & on pinterest and FB @ canigetaramen.food.blog. Thanks for reading!
