Do you find yourself frustrated with your current circumstances?
Wish things could drastically change or just improve even a bit?
Whether you’re a fulltime parent battling to balance parenting, your marriage and work pressures, or a fulltime parent battling to find balance in raising your children and finding some personal time, know that you aren’t alone. You can however, do something to change things. As the wise old adage goes
‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail’
3 STEPS TO IMPROVING YOUR CIRCUMSTANCES
1. Take time out and evaluate things objectively
Sometimes being in the situation, in the heat of it all, can cloud your judgement and view on things. Take a half day off on a Saturday, sit at Seattle with a latte’, or [insert favorite relaxing activity here], and evaluate what you are frustrated about, what you’d like to see changed, and make sure you have a goal or end point. I personally pray for guidance when I do this. Maybe you’re a fulltime career person battling to spend enough time with the kids, or find you aren’t fulfilled in your chosen career. Perhaps you aren’t spending enough time with your spouse, or you’re battling to meet deadlines at work because you stay up too late with your family and are exhausted every morning at work. Maybe you’re frustrated or bored being a fulltime parent, and want to find a way to make some money. Whatever your problem, and no matter how impossible it may seem to solve, know that there is always a solution 🙂
2. Get some help!
A lot of the time, our problems can be solved slightly, if not fully, but just saying ‘I need help.’ I personally battle to do this, but am learning to. As a fulltime mom, for instance, I found trying to juggle kids, dinner, bathtimes, bedtimes, dishes, laundry and cooking all too much. By four PM I was exhausted, and then had to think about starting our evening routine of cooking, bathtime, dinnertime and bedtime stories. I had been sick for three weeks and was just burntout and not getting better! So I wrote up a ‘household contributions chart’ and put in everyone’s name at least once a week, in a task next to mine. So every evening while I am bathing the kids, someone else is preparing dinner, or doing a load of laundry. What I need to add to the list in order to solve the overall ‘burntout mom’ problem is most probably some time off on weekends, and an earlier bedtime, but the start has been made, and the busy busy role of being fulltime mom has been eased that much by just yelling HEEELP 🙂 Who can help you in your situation?
3. Work at the solution until the problem has been solved entirely.
It would be a waste of everyone’s effort to help me, if I didn’t make sure I solved my circumstance problem (burntout fulltime mom) entirely – if I didnt make sure I got that extra sleep, or took time off on Saturdays to do a hobby, or worked harder at my commitment to having a devotion time in the mornings (my grounding and sanity preserver). Likewise, be sure to make a complete list of ways in which your problem can be solved to the extent you’d like it to be. Ask your spouse for support in letting you work that hour later each evening until your deadline is finished, with the promise of a weekend away once you’re done. Get a babysitter in and do date nights once a week if your marriage is needing some TLC. Set some mommy/daddy-child dates for each child for the upcoming month if you are battling to spend enough time with your kids each week.
I encourage you to be proactive this week in solving your frustrations, be they big or small!
Good luck! x
Above The Daily Grind 