Better Each Day

As moms, we want to get it right. Though we may say we’re not striving for perfection, we constantly battle the burden of unrealistic expectations. We put tremendous pressure on ourselves. Where we might have incredibly high standards for ourselves in all areas of life – career, fitness, etc. – motherhood is an entirely new level.

Whether you work outside the home or as a stay-at-home mom, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of tiny things you do each day in support of your children’s well-being. Add to that the tasks you do to maintain your household, the daily decisions you make for your family, your own personal activities.

I’m a working parent but have been on maternity leave for the past three months. A day can pass in which it appears I have done basically nothing. The house is in the same state it was in yesterday, and I’ve made no progress on any current goal, ticked no items off a to-do list. Yet, if I were to list everything I did that day, I’m a superhero. I worked it. I took exceptional care of my kids. They are alive and happy.

My husband made a comment last week that maybe I could make the bed during the day. In the moment, I was irate. My three-month-old had not napped in her crib for more than 10 minutes at a time the entire day. I had been on the run for nine hours straight. At lunch, I had maneuvered hot soup into my mouth at impossible angles while dancing baby Emilia to sleep in a front pack and feeding Matthias with my third hand.

If you don’t know my husband, he’s not a jerk. He actually does about 90 percent of the cleaning and household tasks. Taking a breath and a step back, I realized his comment was not malicious; he simply thought that I could probably find a way to make the bed during the day. And that’s not unreasonable.

The next day I made the bed. (Out of spite, I also did two loads of laundry. He always does the laundry; in fact, he prefers no one else touch the laundry). I’ve been making the bed every day since.

When we finally lie down each night, it can be easy to fall into the sick thought cycle of “I’m not good enough.” I only read to my kids for 10 minutes today. I forgot to do tummy time with the baby. I lost my patience with my son. I didn’t exercise. I didn’t read. I forgot to ask my morning gratefulness questions.

Let’s stop for a minute and turn this narrative around. What did I do today? I read to my kids. I played with and smiled at my baby. I was patient with my son 47 out of the 48 times that he asked for the little basketball, which has been lost since 2017. I was active the entire day lifting kids, cooking, tidying, playing, walking the baby around the house 475 times.

We do so much in a day to be proud of. Stay-at-home moms: You are trying to accomplish household, family and personal tasks at the same time that your children are already occupying 110 percent of your physical and mental attention. This should be impossible, but you still do it! Working moms: You have two full-time jobs. This should also be impossible, but you do it! There is absolutely no reason we should be getting it all right.

A very obvious light bulb went off in my head the other day, and I’ve been trying to make a simple mindset adjustment that I believe can go a long way in alleviating mom anxiety. I’m trying to look at my mommy routine in this way: You don’t have to do everything, every day. Instead, try to do one thing better today than you did yesterday.

Here is just a fraction of the daily tasks and goals we might have as mothers: Have patience with my kids, practice gratefulness, read, listen to a podcast, write, work on my business, exercise, get outside, eat healthfully, cook and feed kids, bathe kids, morning/evening routine, clean, tidy up, read to kids, practice letter writing with toddler, play with kids, tummy time for baby, call mom, call sister, check off a household to-do list item, get to bed on time.

Are you dizzy yet?

Today, I might have missed the mark on half of these items. But that means I accomplished the other half, and that is a job tremendously well done. At night, I’m trying to get self-aware about which unaccomplished task is making me feel the most bummed out. If it’s my lack of patience with my son, then tomorrow I can reset and make this a priority.

What if, as moms, we could stop the self-destructive practice of shaming ourselves over what we didn’t get done, and turn those unchecked items into goals for tomorrow? Again, this may sound very obvious or simplistic. But I guarantee this is not our mindset most of the time.

You didn’t get time to work out today, and you feel badly about it? Tomorrow, make it a priority. Put it at the top of your mind, not as a failure, but a goal. Something interesting happens when we get clarity on our goals and insert something into our mind as a priority. You will find yourself making time for it. We all have the same number of minutes in a day. However, when you know exactly what you want to accomplish, you will naturally start restructuring your day in a more productive way.

Following this, when you accomplish something today that you weren’t able to make happen yesterday, you build confidence with that tiny win. You feel good for keeping a promise you made to yourself, such as working out. Your confidence will make you more inclined to work out again the next day, and the next. This is how habits are formed. Once you have a solid habit of working out (or whatever else), you will be able to start on another goal more easily.

I want to go back for a minute to what I said earlier: You don’t need to do all the things, all the time. Think back to that 157 item to-do list we face daily as moms. You aren’t going to have time to do it all every day, no matter how many great habits you form or how efficiently you structure your time. It helps me to look at those tasks holistically, in a big picture framework. I might not get outside with my kids every day, but if this is a priority in my heart, can I make it outside with them a few times a week? Maybe we make it out every day this week while it’s sunny, but only once next week when the rain hits. If yesterday I was impatient and didn’t have time to just enjoy my kids, can I make 30 minutes after breakfast today to play with them? This might mean I replace tidying the family room with playing. Or today I replace a workout for taking the kids for a walk. Rather than trying to complete my to-do list in a day, I realized I can rotate through the tasks on a weekly basis to achieve some kind of… “balance.”

The point is, when the week or month is over, can I look back and recognize that I’ve done all the things I should be doing as a mom? Not all of them all the time, but a lot of them most of the time. Am I improving with my patience, if that’s an area I’ve identified that I need to work on? Have I started to form an exercise habit? Can I see that I’m remembering to ask myself what I’m grateful for most mornings? Have I started to listen to a self-development podcast while pumping instead of watching trash on YouTube (if this is important to me)?

By the way, my goals do not have to be your goals. If your goal is to get 10 minutes of time daily for yourself, and you want to unwind watching YouTube, that is perfectly fine!

Don’t forget that you will always have those days where it all goes to hell in a handbasket. The baby is teething and needs constant attention. Or you just feel low. On those days, breathe, do what you gotta do, and at the end of the day be proud of yourself: Are your kids alive? You succeeded today.

Raising young children is a season of life. I think the reason it can produce so much anxiety, especially for us moms who have big dreams and high standards, is that it can feel like we aren’t moving forward. We fail to recognize the incredible feat that caring for our tiny humans is in and of itself.

If we are going to get down on ourselves when we don’t accomplish a mundane mom task, such as cleaning up the playroom, then let’s flip it around. The flip side is: We should celebrate our accomplishment of even the most mundane daily tasks. I don’t mean we deserve a trophy for giving our kids a bath. Just give yourself some credit. Be proud of the exceptional work you did as a mom today. Keep trying to do better tomorrow. Give yourself grace when you have an off day. Do one thing better tomorrow than you did today.