Mom Productivity
Us Mommas have this strong belief that productivity is the goal.
At the end of the day we want to look around our home, we want to reflect back on our day and think, “Man, look at all I did today.”
We are seeking after that wonderful feeling. Even that feel good hormone, our friend, dopamine.
We want to feel good at the end of the day, OPPOSED to the real feelings that follow us around all day like overwhelm, anxiety and confusion.
But you know what you are telling yourself by seeking after feeling productive and thinking “Look at all I did today.” Your telling yourself if you aren’t productive that you’re not enough.
As a new mom THIS is what I was seeking everyday. I was trying to navigate through my purpose as a mom. I was trying to figure out how I could take my belief that my purpose throughout a day at home would be to “get things done.”
That’s what I did each and everyday after I was first married to when we had our first baby.
My objective was to clean something, cook something spectacular, make things look pretty and different.
I went to bed every night feeling good about myself and feeling that wonderful exhausted but productive feeling.
It wasn’t a problem then because I COULD be productive. I had the time and space to produce results.
What’s interesting about that is at the time I was tying my worth and my purpose to my abilities. NOT to who I was. I was creating this equation in my mind:
PRODUCTIVITY = WORTHY
That is its own problem, but it wasn’t a problem UNTIL….
DUN DUN DUN
I had a baby, therefore I literally could NOT be productive all day long.
So I started funneling that energy into unhealthy places and if/when I couldn’t be “productive”. I was therefore telling myself I am unproductive and according to the equation in my mind:
UNPRODUCTIVE = UNWORTHY
That’s what I was telling myself every single day.
Or I became VERY intense with my child trying to see results, see change in him. Like obsess over teaching him how to roll over, crawl, or take his first steps.
Yeah, nobody needs that madness around them.
So I was in this place of feeling unworthy, and lost.
I didn’t know how to structure my days. I didn’t know what to do throughout the day. I was overwhelmed because I was thinking I should get all these things done to feel better but literally could not do anything trying to care for a baby. I was in a swirly twirly mess.
Looking back now I can see it so easy.
The core issue was that I didn’t understand that I didn’t have to do a thing to feel good about myself.
I don’t need to see results to feel good about myself. Feeling good is available to me at any moment.
Nothing has to change, to feel better.
I could have taken a breath and settled into this space. But instead…. Game On.
I was trying to compete with the day. Fighting to produce something. Struggling to spin my wheels to make something look good. To clean something. To complete a load of laundry. To make a Pinterest worthy meal by the time my husband got home.
Totally frustrated, even having resentment at times toward my son because he “wouldn’t let me” get anything done.
This belief that I needed to be productive to feel good created a domino of other madness I had to sort through.
I was blaming others (aka a little baby) for why I was feeling bad.
(*Palm in face emoji insert here*)
I would complain to my sister, my mom friends, my husband how I couldn’t get anything done because of the baby.
But then I would get up in the morning and try to beat the day once again.
That was my hamster wheel experience. Living the same day over and over and over. And never feeling any better the next day.
BECAUSE……
My thoughts never changed.
Our results do NOT dictate how we feel. What we THINK creates our emotions.
Mommas, you do not need to do anything more to feel better. Nothing has to change for you to feel productive. We get to take ownership over our emotions and power ourselves back up. We determine how we feel. We create feelings of productivity in our mind. Oh, AND productivity does NOT equal worthiness.
