17: How Real Moms Set and Keep Goals

I've always felt like goal setting for moms is much different than for everyone else. We have to account for our kids and often have to alter our plans to accomodate them. So here's how I set and keep my goals as a real mom!

goal setting for moms

Links In This Episode

Tune In Here

Listen to The Merry Messy Moms Show on iTunes

Mom Goals

So today I’m going to talk about something I’ve done a lot of work on, a lot of healing work on and that’s self sabotage. I believe self-sabotage is the number one reason we don’t hit our goals. It’s not outside circumstances that keep us from having what we want in life, it’s the battle within our own minds! 

Think about what your goals for yourself are. Goals for us moms might include things like yelling less at our kids, keeping the house cleaner, working out more, eating healthier, getting more sleep at night, and if you own a business or have a job in addition to being a mom, you probably have a lot of career goals.

Let Real Life Be Part of Your Goal Setting

I know for me, I can come up with quite lofty goals that in reality, are not realistic. Like, I’m going to workout 5 days a week! I’m cutting out ALL sugar for a month! No more carbs for two weeks! I’m never going to lose it with my kids again! I’m going to wake up and listen to my affirmations every single day!

A lot of why I set goals that way is my personality – I’m an ambitious, driven person and I’m ALL in, or I’m out. I have a hard time doing anything halfway! So I make these extreme goals but even I can’t stick to them!

What we leave out is the normal part of living life – that you might get a cold and working out gets put on hold that day. Or spring break, or Christmas break comes and fitting in exercise gets super hard. Or you had a birthday party, and a date night, a church function and a girls night out all within two weeks of each other and cutting out sugar and wanted to enjoy the food so you ate the sugar and the carbs!

You're Not Falling Off of the Wagon

So instead of just seeing it as living life, we tend to see it as falling off the wagon. Failure. Disappointment. And we start to beat ourselves up. We let those old, familiar, self-abusing thoughts creep in.

I blew it again! That there’s no turning back now – might as well jump ship and quit because I’m never going to succeed at this!

Why don’t we make living a balanced, normal life part of our goal so there is no losing? No failure. You’re just being human. 

No More Extreme Diets or Exercise Plans for Me

I no longer stick to any extreme diets or try to purposefully cut out certain food groups anymore, which really could be a whole different podcast for another day! I decided I want to live life fully, enjoy myself and have fun! 

We can be successful and still live life – we can do BOTH. We can have our cake and eat it, too!

This is also part of extending grace to ourselves. Knowing that being successful in our goals doesn’t mean doing it perfectly, or allowing it to hold us hostage, in bondage and stress us out. 

No More Legalism

I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to turn things into legalism – I think that our brains like to think in absolutes. It’s human nature to be close-minded because our brain’s number one job is to keep us safe and survive. And we have to train ourselves not to be. To learn new things and open our minds to new concepts does not come naturally!

This is the mindset I’ve been working to have for four or more years now and guess what? I’m more successful than ever about working out because I’m no longer all or nothing, black and white about it. I have weeks when I exercise 5 days a week, and other weeks, like when the kids are on break or I get sick, where I get 1-2 days in. I know I can always, always pick right back up the next week and get back in the groove. I remind myself that I HAVE NOT FAILED. I’ve only been living life and being flexile. I’m still a discipline, successful mama and it’s easy to start the schedule back up again! 

Same with food – I eat to enjoy food and to fuel my body. I want to eat as healthy as I can because I feel great when I do, but I allow for REAL LIFE. Eating the sugar, the carbs, even the processed stuff when I’d like to (though I want way less of it than I used to want).

It may sound silly, but I will actually tell myself, “Thank you brain for trying to keep me safe right now, but I’m actually not in any danger. It’s safe for me to speak in front of this group, or try this new exercise class, or put myself out there to make a new friend.”

goal setting for moms

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *