The problem is, you tend to see all these “growth” gurus talking about taking time away to really focus on yourself. Or they recommend you take periods of time to “intensively” focus on one aspect of yourself or another. Unfortunately, that just doesn’t work for most parents – especially moms.

Just what is personal growth to the mother? It means working where you are – right in the parenting trenches – and becoming a better person while you’re doing it. It’s focusing on self development while you’re mothering, keeping track of your household, and running your business (or businesses)… even while you help your spouse make the most of his life!

I think the modern world lies to mothers – there’s a lot written about “finding yourself” and “being fulfilled.” The past held its mistakes, but in the past mothers were not expected to go off and find a life apart from their family. There are experiences that can enrich a woman beyond her family, however the decision to have a family is also the decision to grow within the role of motherhood, and as a wife.

It’s a mistake to think that “being a mom” holds you back in any way. In fact, much of your personal growth is going to happen right in the middle of the parenting trenches. So how do you find life balance while you’re in the trenches? And just what is the life purpose of a mother – because it’s certainly not what the world wants you to believe.

These things come as you develop as a mother, as an entreprenuer, as a wife, and as a woman. You gain perspective, especially as you strike out to do “something different.” The internet has allowed hundreds of thousands of mothers to be home with their family as they build a business – which is allowing women to realize that the lies of the world are just that – lies. You don’t have to cut your children off or even send them away for somebody else to keep just so you can find your life purpose and your fulfillment.

Your purpose and your fulfillment is right here – in your home, in your family, and in your business. The savvy modern woman is able to have a blast taking care of her family and growing a business – right along with her children. As both grow, you’ll be amazed at how much you do.

Of course, there are times when you’ll feel stressed and frustrated, and really wish for 8 hours of time with no family members needing you – but that’s where time managment and organization help both you and your kids to be happier and more effective.

Personal development is a process. You’re not going to become the woman you want to be overnight. But you can make huge leaps of growth while you’re in the middle of caring for your family – don’t let anybody, not even “personal development gurus,” tell you that you need to “get away” to grow. Your personal growth happens right in the parenting trenches. Embrace and enjoy it!

That refrain from the song has been running through my head this evening, however. I’ve come pretty close to tears a few times today because the last few days have been a huge emotional roller coaster.

There have been a lot of ups – my brother came to visit, Galen is eating well, and January was my highest income month, ever – by a pretty large margin. It’s super exciting to see my hard work paying off. It gives me a warm rush to think that all my studying and testing is really working.

But then there’s the inevitable downs, and wow, have there been a lot this week – and it has hardly gotten started.

Transferring my sole proprietership into an LLC has been very exciting, but it has also been a little trying. It’s confusing to figure out everything I need to do. And it’s a bit intimidating. I was able to get the bank accounts set up just fine, but applying for credit for the LLC has been challenging. Since my credit was absolutely ruined during my first marriage I am still trying to get back to the place I was before. It’s really aggravating that three years of never being late on the one credit card I was able to keep hasn’t seemed to make much difference in my credit score.

Basically what it means is that the LLC will be completely bootstrapping it for awhile. I’ve bootstrapped pretty much the entire way so I don’t really mind, but it’s hard not to let the “powers that be” of the credit world get demoralizing in their judgements.

Then I have a package coming that I’ve been waiting for. It was supposed to get delivered today, but it’s apparently lost somewhere since it didn’t get here. And the tracking on the package hasn’t been updated in about five days. So God only knows where that thing is.

Then, there’s Google. I love Google, actually. I like the Adsense program because it pays me well (lol). And I like Adwords, I like Gmail, I even like Google Wave. But apparently Google doesn’t quite like the LLC because I cannot get the LLC approved for an Adsense account. This causes issues because, well, the LLC is about to own Natural Birth and Baby Care – and Getting-Pregnant.com . Getting-Pregnant doesn’t serve Adsense yet, but Natural Birth and Baby Care certainly does. So now I need to figure out how to please Adsense – and their customer support is really unfriendly. There’s really no way I can get in contact with them to find out exactly what they think is wrong. I got a generic “your site is under construction” message and, well, this site is not exactly “under construction.” It’s pretty constructed!

On top of trying to find packages, dechiper Google, and get over the insults of credit denials, I’m way, way behind on writing. So I have tons of articles to write and post and get done. All while I’m trying to sort all of this stuff out.

Oh, and my brother went home. Which makes me sad because I don’t know when I’ll see him again.

But at least we had a visit. And Galen is eating well. And Scott is happy because his package did arrive today. And, well, I shattered my income goals for last month. That’s always cool.

But sometimes the bad things outweigh even the very good, so I found myself looking at my goal board and I found myself reading something over and over again. I can’t remember where this came from originally so forgive, but I’m going to type it out here. Because yeah, I may get knocked down – but I’ll get up again. Nothing will keep me down.

“If you think you are beaten, you are.
If you think you dare not, you don’t.
If you like to win but think you can’t
It is almost certain you won’t.

Life’s battles don’t always go
To the stronger or faster man;
But soon or late the man who wins
Is the man who thinks he can.”

This battle is going to the gal who knows she can

So I often find myself learning new things and teaching myself how to do things. I’ve developed a way to help myself learn things more quickly and thoroughly, and I thought I’d share with you.

I pick up new skills and knowledge through periods of intense focus. I actually got this idea from a male blogger. He takes the strategy to the extreme – spending time focusing on what he’s learning and ignoring everything else for whatever his period of time to learn is (days or weeks). It works well for him. That strategy just does not work for mothers. We have too much that needs to be done every day.

If you’re a work at home mom like I am, you have even more that needs to be done each day. But you can’t just dump parenting to take time to work on a project. You can’t forget that your children need three meals a day while you spend hours devoted to your sewing project. Your meals just won’t get planned and your grocery list won’t get made if you’re devoting weeks to a project and decide to chuck everything else. I think this strategy could work very well for a single person, or for someone who is not the primary caretaker of children and home. It could probably work if your children are in school during the day, too. But for me homeschooling my older children and caring for preschoolers the “pure focus on one project/area of study” just won’t work.

However, I’ve found a variation of it that’s very effective, even while you’re a busy mother and/or work-at-home mom.

My strategy is as follows: first decide what you want to focus on. Then devote your time to learning just about that focus. Where you may have read a novel or two, a book on gardening, a book on parenting, and a book on having a well behaved cat all in one month, you’ll now choose just one focus. I did this right after Christmas and through the first several weeks of January with our nutrition. I got a stack of books on nutrition I wanted to read. Then I devoted my free time to reading about nutrition or working in the kitchen to implement what I’d learned.

This may sound like a really simple concept but I’ve found it works tremendously well. Most of the focus of my free time to read was on nutrition. Since the books I was reading were similar in subject I found I could move through my reading more quickly. I could skim over bits that I was already familiar with from another book because the information was so fresh. I could quickly compare what I’d read in the different books. And I could try out many different things in the kitchen throughout the course of those few weeks, refining my time in the kitchen and my family’s good nutrition.

The strategy of focusing intensely on one subject of interest worked really well for me. I’m doing it again right now as I go through several books on parenting and family rhythm. Reading all the books one after the other is allowing me compare the ideas and thoughts each author presents. It’s helping me to look at our day-to-day life and my day-to-day outlook and figure out where to make changes to be more effective. It’s also allowing me to work out a plan for changes that I want to make in our daily routine and my parenting. I can work out my plan now and revise that as I work through all the books. Then I’ll be able to work through the plan and see how things go for us – rather than continuously changing things around as a read a new book on family issues here, and then another one there, and so forth.

As with the nutrition study, I feel like my mind is focused on what I’m reading now and I can quickly increase my knowledge and work through things in my own mind. It’s very nice. During my focus on parenting I’m also keeping a notebook of things I glean from each book – my hope is that when I’m done reading I’ll have my own “parenting book” full of the wisdom I gleaned during my time of focus.

I plan to use this approach throughout the rest of the year with each area that I decided to work on this year (mostly issues having to do with home management and family life, as is evidenced by nutrition and parenting in my examples!)

If I have novels I want to read I’m planning to do so between my times of focus. Scott says I don’t read enough novels or books just “for fun” but alas – I have a lot I want to teach myself and I really want to continuously improve my mothering and my household management. That just doesn’t leave much time for fiction!

I’ve also found that picking focuses that are highly relevant to my life currently helps me to spend more time working with what I’m learning. Since I’m in the kitchen at least five times a day anyways, experimenting with what I learned during the nutrition study was pretty easy to do. And parenting and family life issues… well I get the chance to work on that every day – day in and day out (isn’t one of the joys of mothering that no matter how bad you mess up one day, there’s still the next day, and the next day, and the next day to try again)!

If you’d like to read the article that inspired this one, it’s Steve Pavlina’s article on rapid improvement – I think it’s a good article. I do, however, disagree with a lot of what Steve Pavlina writes and I want to say that I’m not endorsing him in any way, shape, or form. I do find some of his articles to be thought provoking, this being one of them. And I’m sure he’ll appreciate the link. :p

A lot.

This law says that heat doesn’t go from a colder body to a warmer body – it can only flow in one direction, and that natural process is irreversible. The rest of the law states that all natural things move toward increasing entropy. What does that mean? It means that according to the law all ordered things move towards disorder and dispersement naturally.

What does this have to do with you? A lot. Because it’s true. You go and clean the house every day. And every day it naturally gets messy again. You clean the kitchen and 8 hours later it’s in chaos. You scrub the kid and 20 minutes later you’d mistake him for mud puddle. Everything in our lives as mothers moves from order to disorder.

The only thing that changes the natural law is for you to step in and intervene. And oh the interventions you must make. In fact, there are many days when I want to look at my kitchen, or our hectic schedule, and give up. Let chaos reign while I put my feet up! Those are the days I’m particularly glad I have a dishwasher to help at least somewhat.

But the real way to deal with the irreversible nature of your household is to implement and oversee a plan. Humans are intelligent and many, many great women before me have realized this. Go to your library and you’ll find any number of books on organizing, ordering, and tackling your life (there are some books by men that will help you a lot too, they just tend to write on personal and professional effectiveness, not household management). Check out the rest of this site for other ideas.

But a big thing is to realize that things can and will get overwhelming at times. And those are times that you need to find and implement a plan. Intelligently tackle the problem.

I think (as you’re well aware ) that organizing your home is a great first step (setting up a schedule is another good place to start). But as I’ve moved through organizing rooms in the house I’ve realized it’s just that – a first step. I need a plan or it’s going to go back to the same disorganized state really, really quickly.

So you identify the issue – for me it’s that everyone (including myself) is going to leave “stuff” lying all around everywhere until it all builds back up again. So what’s my solution? First I’m training myself to put things away when I’m done with them. My mother really should have taken more time to hammer this into me as a kiddo because it’s a harder habit to develop now :p But I’ve been working with the kids on it. I’ve at least gotten more regular about having them straighten up.

Another strategy is to have an “inbox area” where paperwork and the like goes until I can go through it. This is done regularly (every Friday for me, when I update our family’s ledger and track bill paying and such). I’ll write more about managing this area in another post.

And yet another aspect has been identifying a place for things that makes sense as I organize. I.E. I need to store things near where they’re used – so I can get to them and put them away easily.

Diligence is of course an important component too. I have to keep at it. It’s a continual thing. My house is always going to move towards chaos and if I don’t keep on top of it relatively well it’s going to overrun me again.

After awhile plans like these can get turned into habits – as you train yourself (and also teach your children so they don’t have to battle to create the habit in their adult life).

Of course some things, like those muddy kids, are going to go to chaos before you get a chance to blink, regardless of your well-laid plans. In that case just plop them in the tub and rest assured that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is alive and well in your world today :p

I wish that I could say that I’ve come to a place in my mothering where I’m not effected by feelings of failure but I can’t. In fact, right now I’m dealing with a major one. Feeling like I had a moment of weakness, stress, and frustration. And in that moment I made a choice, which I now think was an idiotic choice. And I’m going to have pay the price for years and years. And it hurts. Especially because it’s something I feel so strongly over, and it involves my children – the ones I’m supposed to be able to protect.

I should be doing another write up on the Pink Kit, because Scott and I worked through another video section the night before last. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it yesterday, and I don’t want to right now. Everything at the forefront of my mind is getting in the way. Fears, feelings of failure, mounting feelings of frustration.

It’s times like this that I find lists helpful. Specific lists of what I need to do to relieve the frustration – usually that is somewhat straightforward. Identify what is frustrating you (a disgusting bathroom, an unfinished project, whining children, etc.), and then identify a solution. Even if it involves several steps, writing them down and beginning to act upon them can ease the frustration.

But feelings of failure are much harder to tackle. They often bring frustration too, because you feel like you can’t deal with the results of your perceived failure. Notice I said “perceived” – you may not have actually failed as you feel you did. But if you feel it, it can be hard to overcome it. No matter what well-meaning friends say to comfort you.

Often this feeling can paralyze you – which is one thing you shouldn’t let it do. And I’m trying not to. Again a list (or a schedule) is helpful, because even as you are feeling bad you can lean on the list or schedule and let it tell you what needs to be done. Even things as simple as eating can get to feel overwhelming so it’s good to rely on routine.

Don’t let your feelings immobilize you and prevent you from living your life and taking care of yourself (and your family). As you lean on simple to-do lists and daily routines you can begin to work through your feelings. Sometimes talking it through with someone does help. You realize that your feelings were unfounded, or the issue is something you can now overcome.

Other times it just takes time to come to peace and acceptance and pick up and start from where you are – not lament the choices you made in the past. All mothers have feelings of failure and guilt at some point.

As for me, I’m not sure how close I can be to peace about this issue, no matter how much I’m able to lie to other people about being ok with it. It’s just something I need to work through and at this point I think it’s going to take a lot of time. I’m grateful for routines that can carry me through the day, and simple things like reading books with them that make my children happy – so I can keep everyone taken care of even while I figure out the hurt inside.

Today I’m going to take a bit of a different track and talk about your overall vision for what you want in your life (and in the lives of your children). But I felt it was important to start with the practical. This is for a couple of reasons: first, I gave a solid step-by-step framework that makes logical sense. You can follow it. Secondly, you are a mortal being with a mortal body (though many of us moms think we have to be superwomen). But point is, no matter what other beliefs you hold the first way you’re going to relate to your world is through your body. Your body takes the action that achieves your goals. You are going to go ahead and do something no matter how challenging that is.

An Overall Dream

Ok. That said, I do think it’s important to have an overall idea of what you want. Your goals helped you start to grasp just what you want. They give you a very concrete way to define what you want and begin working on getting it. Your “vision” or “dream” encompasses what you want your goal setting to lead to. It’s important to know what end you’re working to. This is where you can get a little more open-ended.

One of my dreams is to have a peaceful, clean home. I want it to be welcoming to me and I want to enjoy being in it. I want to enjoy cooking in my kitchen. And I want my husband to come home at night to a house that’s clean and looks nice – and provides him with a place to relax after working hard. I want my children to have a good example of a clean and well-functioning household. I want my home to be a place they’re happy to bring their friends to and a place their friends enjoy being.

That’s a lot to define out and if I look at it just like that, it’s overwhelming. How do I take my cluttered house and small kitchen and create that haven of peace and relaxation??? That’s where the concrete goals come in. Sometimes you can achieve a goal without having a bigger end-result in mind. I could probably say I want to organize my house just “because” and get it done. But it helps a lot to know I’m working towards that clean house my family will enjoy, and that will do good for all of my family’s state of mind.

Gaining Definition as a Mother

Mulling over your dreams and vision is important to your mothering as well. Parenting can be very hard work. When you’re up to your ears in dirty diapers, screaming toddlers, morning sickness, and sulky school children it can be very, very hard to figure out why you’re even bothering with all of this. And if you want to change it (so you don’t have screaming toddlers and sulky school children) it can be very hard to see any sort of place to start. So you need to sit back and develop a vision for yourself as a mother and for your children. Dream for them.

If you don’t really get a break from your children – and believe me, I know how this is – you need to steal some time. Put the kids behind a baby gate and go get in the shower. Go for a drive with them all strapped in their car seats. Call grandma for a couple of hours. Put a table full of so much food in front of them it will be 30 minutes before they stop to take a breath. Do something so you can sit back and think. And think about where you are at now. Think about where you want to be. Don’t be specific and goal-oriented right now. Dream. Think about how you envision yourself as a mother. Think about how you’d like your children to be.

When I say that, don’t think about how you want them to be personality-wise. No matter what I do, I’m never going to change my social chatterbox into a reserved, quiet child. It’s not going to happen. But you can dream about how you’d like your days with them to go. About how you’d like them to behave on outings. I’m pretty sure you’re going to want to have mostly peaceful days of being with them. So go ahead and dream about that. Think about the kind of people you want them to be. This is really helpful. Do you want your children to grow up to be good people? Young men and women who have strong values, are willing to work hard and help others? Do you imagine them growing to be smart and cheerful? I do.

I also picture my daughter growing to be a happy and fulfilled mother. I picture my sons growing to be dedicated fathers who are willing to work hard for their families. These are things I desire very deeply. They’re a vision I have for my children.

Now take that dream – the dream of what you’d like your children to become, and look at yourself. Measure yourself against that dream. It’s very revealing isn’t it?! I want my daughter to grow to be a happy mother. But there have been times when she’s seen me be a pretty exhausted, frustrated, and burnt-out mother. I want my children to be hard workers, but there are times I complain about household chores (then fuss at them when they do the same about theirs!) Your vision for your children can help you define your vision for yourself. The kind of person you’d like to be.

Making the Vision Reality

Of course there are some things you can’t control. You can’t control (completely) the influence of others in their life. But you can control you. You can dream for them and for yourself, and you can take action. So sit down and figure out what you’d like for yourself, your home, your children. Put that vision in your head.

I’ll give you one more example from my own life:

I picture the time after my new baby is born to be a wonderful time. A time when the baby is content and curled up with me or Scott. Where I have a week or so to relax completely and be with my baby, and a couple weeks after that when I really don’t have to do very much. I imagine that there are good meals to help me recover and nourish the babe, and to keep the rest of the family content. I picture my house staying pretty neat and clean. There are lots of things to engage the older children during this time when their normal schedule is somewhat disrupted. Overall, it is a happy and peaceful time.

Big vision. A lovely one, too, in my not so humble opinion It’s a “vision that motivates.” It’s important to have dreams and vision like this as you are mothering. Dream up some of your own to help you through those tough times. And use them to build your goals. Remember that you are a mortal, physical being, and you relate to the world through your mortal and physical body. You can dream dreams and develop visions. They’ll help you. They’ll motivate you and give you focus. But do remember they’re a starting point. To make my postpartum dream come true I need to take that dream and create some goals (like organizing my house!), and then I need to work on those. Then I’ll see that dream manifest. And it will be a very, very, nice one.

You can do the same thing with your dreams. You can take them and create goals. You can break down your goals into steps, put them into your schedule and work on them. And you’ll see that vision realized, and that dream will happen.