Are you?

I know you savor most of the moments in motherhood! After all, you feel really blessed to have your little angles and awarded by countless joyful moments with your child!! Every mother feels that way and treasures those moments when your baby smiles for the first time or your toddler unexpectedly says something wise or funny!!

There is no question if you savor your motherhood or not. Because you absolutely do savor it.

The question is – do you savor your life, outside of motherhood?

Do you ever feel the need to have some time just for yourself to do something that interests you and doesn’t involve your children?

Do you ever feel the need to go and hang out with your friends?

Do you ever feel the need to grab a book and lose yourself in it for an uninterrupted hour?

Of course, you do!

Because everything in motherhood is not that interesting to do. And after a few months, the monotony of your everyday routine can make it all feel boring. As a mom, you face many challenges and it costs many things! And the main thing that motherhood demands is your time! Your children are so dependent on you that you can’t leave them even for the basic things like to brush your hair or a much-needed bathroom trip!! And that can lead you to frustration and annoyance and make you crave just some time for yourself alone!! I totally get you!!

That’s why I’m asking you if you ever try to get that time for yourself?

Even if you have guessed by now I still want to tell you –

Why savoring your life outside of motherhood is important

According to this article, today’s motherhood is a little more stressful than the older days. As a SAHM of modern days, we tend to face many more challenges than ever before. And according to this article studies shows that a majority of SAHM, 50% to be exact, reported stress in their previous days! We are being spread thinner than ever with unrealistic expectations of what motherhood should look like and feel like,

We are supposed to do it all ( thanks to social media where every other mom seems like doing it all with a happy face!) and feel guilty when we skip a few things in order to get other things done or when we feel frustrated while doing it ( we should be happy because we get to stay home with our children, shouldn’t we?!!)

The parenting standards and expectations have risen but there is no support to be found. We are expected to raise well-behaving children by explaining everything with love and tenderness ( which is a really good thing but doesn’t work all the time!!). We feel terrible if we ever scream at them or scold them to make them behave!! We fail there as a parent (really??)!!

Motherhood often makes us feel purposeless!! Because it highly engages any aspects of who we are. The job of a mother is not as honored or respected in society as any other conventional job! It’s not even considered as a job even when we do only that one thing (or all the same things everyday) for 24/7/365!! But we don’t serve any purpose there, do we? We are rarely appreciated for the work we do and the sacrifices we make for the sake of our children and our family!! That leaves us feeling totally purposeless!!

And we need to remember that we have limited energy!! The work in motherhood requires a lot of energy and patience and we eventually get burned out! How on earth we are supposed to do it all when there is a lack of sleep at night after night or when you don’t get to eat your meal at the proper time or when it’s a struggle to get 10 minutes to have a shower and change your clothes!!

All those everyday struggles eventually drain us! And we need to find something that can refuel us! We need to do something that can refresh us! And that’s exactly why a time out from motherhood to savor your life is important! A time out from the role of mom to do something that interests you most can make you feel completely refreshed! Basically savoring your life outside of motherhood can give you the energy to do it all and achieve everything you want!

So, let’s see how to make this happen –

How to savor your life, outside of motherhood?

I know you really wish to have that time for yourself but maybe you simply can’t make that time through your busy schedule as a mom. And typically we women tend to ignore that wish as we always focus on being available for everyone else all the time and taking care of everything else but ourselves! Sometimes we even associate that “me-time” to selfishness!! That’s really unnecessary!

How can you be selfish if you want just an hour for yourself after giving your 17-18 hours of the day to everyone else? Does it really sound selfish to you? No mamma, it’s your basic NEED!! Like everyone else needs a break from their conventional job and enjoy their weekend without any other responsibility, you also NEED that BREAK from your job of being a mom!

And you should look at that break as an opportunity to savor your life and gain various experiences that you can share with your children and set an example before them and help them develop more!

Don’t ever think like you’re being selfish to want that time to take care of yourself, it’s your right! You deserve at least that much!!

So, now if you are really ready to make that time for yourself then let’s see how you can savor your life and what you can do to make it happen.

#1. Think on a paper

Whenever you want to make something happen, the first thing you should do is – think it on paper!

When the thought is in only in your head, they don’t really help you to achieve those things but when poured on a paper, it kind of solidifies the concept and you start to take steps towards your goals!

So first of all, take a pen and paper and list down all the things you’d like to do! Imagine you have some time for yourself alone, then what would you like to do? What are the things that you’re most passionate about? What are your interests, hobbies? Maybe you like to read books or maybe you like to cook new recipes or maybe you like to crochet/embroidery or maybe you love to play some musical instrument or maybe you’d love to meet up with your friends or maybe you’d just prefer to have some solitude and enjoy your own company!

Anything that’d make you feel happy, list those things on a paper.

#2. Have a conversation about it

Now you need to have a conversation about it with your family/spouse/children and let them know that you NEEd this time for yourself and why you really need it!

Because let’s face it, your family never realizes that you too need some break from everyday responsibilities, and it’s not completely their fault! We never let them know that we also need some break. And you can’t expect them to read your mind. Until we speak about it they’ll always assume that we’re good and we don’t need anything else to be happy!

So just talk to them. Talk to your husband, he’ll surely understand. Talk about your need for some free time and how can you manage to have that time with some help from your family/spouse. Your husband can look after your children when you take a break, or you can form a system like on weekends you can have one day for yourself to have that break while your husband takes care of your children, or when he comes home from work in the evening he can manage kids for an hour to help you have that break (even if not every day, but maybe once or twice a week)!

So have a conversation about it, and figure out when you can have free time with the help of your family.

#3. Plan your days/weeks accordingly

Once you’ve talked about it to your family, now you can actually do the planning for your free time as per your discussion and the solutions you found.

Plan your days and weeks so that you can complete your other important tasks and enjoy your free time without any second thoughts. You can go through my post about planning if you need any directions about how to plan your days ahead.

Believe me, planning always makes things easy to achieve. When you have a plan, you’re 50% more likely to have your free time than without a plan! So always, always, always have a plan!

#4. Do it as you planned

I wish only planning could’ve done it for us. But unfortunately, until you take action according to your plan, your plan is just a wish!

You need to implement the plan you made to see the results. You need to work according to your plan to have that free time for yourself.

But don’t feel overwhelmed by the planning and all, if you’re doing it for the first time. Be flexible. If you couldn’t do something according to the plan ( it’s totally possible because life happens and you can’t control it ) then don’t fret over it. Do what you can do in such situations and try to complete as many tasks as you can as per your plan! And go for the free time as your reward!!

#5. Throw away the guilt

Just throw away the guilt, mamma!

Many women feel guilty to enjoy some time away from their family and kids. It makes them feel like they are avoiding their responsibilities when they wish to indulge themselves in something of their interest, and they immediately throw away that thought! If you think anything like this, then you need to throw away that thinking and guilt!

As I have discussed at the beginning of this post, this free time is your right. you deserve this time for yourself because you’re doing everything you can for everyone in your family and you’re giving your 200% for all those responsibilities! But eventually, you also feel drained, tired, even frustrated. And to come out of that frustration, to fill up your tank of energy and positivity, you NEED to spend some time on yourself doing what you love to do most and feel happy!

When you are happy you’ll be able to take care of your family with much more enthusiasm and energy. You’ll have increased patience for your kids and face anything with a smile on your face!

Try it out, mamma and savor your life outside of motherhood. It’ll definitely have a positive impact on your life!

I hope this post pursued you enough to have some time for yourself and savor your life outside of motherhood. I know you wish to do that too. So just take the steps toward actually having that time and savor your life mamma!

Have a happy time and take care of yourself :)!